Discount_gentleman
Discount_gentleman t1_jclgbdr wrote
Reply to comment by Discount_gentleman in Grad Student Explores Ancient Warfare With Naval Ram Project by kratos2025
Not to riff on this too much, but the design is quite elegant. It is the prow of a warship, so it cuts through the water cleanly, presenting thin lines that the water slides by. But when faced with a solid object like a ship, it acts as a solid rectangle. It hits with all the weight of the ship as a hammer or mallet, not as a spike, designed to shatter but not to penetrate. And back in the day, ships would be more likely held together with mortise and tenon, not nails, and be vulnerable to being snapped. The target would be swamped in just a few minutes from multiple small leaks and become unmaneuverable, knocked completely out of action.
Discount_gentleman t1_jcl6mbg wrote
Reply to comment by Painting_Agency in Grad Student Explores Ancient Warfare With Naval Ram Project by kratos2025
Thanks. Also, the shape of the ram (3 wide flat bars rather than a pointed beak) highlight the goal of preventing it from going too deeply into the target.
Discount_gentleman t1_jcl2cgi wrote
Reply to comment by Painting_Agency in Grad Student Explores Ancient Warfare With Naval Ram Project by kratos2025
Historically, getting the ram stuck was a serious problem. I have a vague memory of reading that proper tactics dictated back-rowing (i.e. tapping the breaks) just before impact, with the goal being more to deliver a shock that pops every joint in the target, rather than busting through and getting your ram deeply embedded in the target.
However, I've had a few beers since I read that, and so it might be worth checking with a better source.
Discount_gentleman t1_jcfkt62 wrote
Reply to comment by GodFeedethTheRavens in Regrowing tropical forests absorb megatonnes of carbon by Creative_soja
Sadly true, and it's admitted in the title. We have emitted/are emitting gigatons of carbon, so sequestering megatons has only a marginal inpact.
Discount_gentleman t1_jcfkmfw wrote
Reply to comment by [deleted] in Regrowing tropical forests absorb megatonnes of carbon by Creative_soja
> Season after season if they’re properly maintained they can regenerate inches of topsoil that stores gigatonnes of carbon across the planet.
Do you have a source that documents their carbon sequestration potential?
Discount_gentleman t1_jbpghjx wrote
Reply to Rising Temperatures Due to Climate Change Will Reduce Coffee Production Globally, Study Suggests by chrisdh79
Finally, people will start to care
Discount_gentleman t1_jbl0jtn wrote
Reply to The American Civil War transformed how Americans understood and described their country. The “United States” shifted from a plural to a singular noun (as measured by the contents of newspapers and congressional speeches). This shift was largely driven by the discourse of Northern Republicans. by smurfyjenkins
Was this not well known? I learned this in junior high ("the United States went into the Civil War a plural and came out a singular"). It was an intentional process that was understood at the time.
Discount_gentleman t1_jaiq3lj wrote
Reply to comment by hypnotictopic in Adults who were sexually abused in childhood have lower gray matter volume in specific brain region, study finds by DreamingForYouAlways
We focus on what is important to survival, and for victims of this type of trauma, objects aren't the threats or resources. Threats or resources are people and their emotional states. I suspect this is related that I've repeatedly noticed, that also anyone who calls themself an "empath" has childhood trauma. They aren't sensitive or blessed or naturally in tune with the universe, they are simply hyper-reactive to a certain thing as a method of survival.
Discount_gentleman t1_j901ara wrote
Reply to comment by Archaris in Globally, the total cost of energy for households has likely increased between 62.6% and 112.9% since Russia invaded Ukraine, say international researchers. An additional 78–141 million people worldwide could be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of these increases. by MistWeaver80
Speaking as someone who hates oil companies, I disagree. The energy transition is going to be very messy by definition. There are lots of factors and they all have different time scales, which makes it impossible to match them up. Oil and gas investments have minimum payback periods of 5-30 years, and so they can't respond to short term events, even intense ones. As global demand for fossil fuels falls, it will get even messier.
I'm not saying the fossil fuel companies are all acting in good faith, I'm saying it doesn't matter. They couldn't match supply to demand effectively even if they wanted to.
Discount_gentleman t1_j7hu29z wrote
Reply to comment by 9273629397759992 in Current climate policies lead the world to less than a 5 percent likelihood of phasing out coal by mid-century ,new study shows by 9273629397759992
It doesn't help that the US is increasingly militaristic toward China, and has an agressive policy of preventing Chinese technological and economic advancement, particularly by denying them advanced microchips.
Discount_gentleman t1_j3cfh3n wrote
Reply to comment by ggaggamba in The Forgotten Story of the American Troops Who Got Caught Up in the Russian Civil War by Novel_Finger2370
Guy reads a story about US and European invasions of Russia as part of an intervention in the Russian Civil War and concludes: Isn't it weird that Russians were skeptical of placing all their trust in European security guarantees?
Discount_gentleman t1_j3cf5tp wrote
Reply to comment by ironroad18 in The Forgotten Story of the American Troops Who Got Caught Up in the Russian Civil War by Novel_Finger2370
Yep. Americans always seem shocked when other countries turn out to have their own histories that differ from "good" (pro-American) or "bad" (anti-American) explanations.
Discount_gentleman t1_j39xugg wrote
Reply to The Forgotten Story of the American Troops Who Got Caught Up in the Russian Civil War by Novel_Finger2370
"Got caught up in" is kinda odd language. They were sent there as part of the war.
Discount_gentleman t1_j2n1y0p wrote
Reply to comment by Freschledditor in An analysis of data from 30 survey projects spanning 137 countries found that 75% of people in liberal democracies hold a negative view of China, and 87% hold a negative view of Russia. However, for the rest of the world, 70% feel positively towards China, and 66% feel positively towards Russia. by glawgii
The problem, of course, is that words like "democracy" and "dictatorship" are such poor categorizations of countries as a whole. The US is not "a democracy" by any objective standard, nor is the category of "dictatorship" (exclusively used for countries on the official enemies list) particularly clarifying or helpful in this context. Our media is EXTREMELY concentrated and they all have extremely similar views, especially on international events. Again, your comment is an example of people who cannot look into the mirror.
Discount_gentleman t1_j2lc65s wrote
Reply to An analysis of data from 30 survey projects spanning 137 countries found that 75% of people in liberal democracies hold a negative view of China, and 87% hold a negative view of Russia. However, for the rest of the world, 70% feel positively towards China, and 66% feel positively towards Russia. by glawgii
Yup. And Americans will say the difference is because of other countries' propaganda, and never look in the mirror, or even imagine that a mirror could exist.
Discount_gentleman t1_j161vl2 wrote
Reply to comment by anotheralpaca69 in Climate Impacts Are Increasing; Textbooks Aren’t Keeping Pace: "biology textbooks are failing to share adequate information about climate change" by Additional-Two-7312
I was responding to your claim that is not their job to discuss it.
Discount_gentleman t1_j15vir4 wrote
Reply to comment by Moont1de in Climate Impacts Are Increasing; Textbooks Aren’t Keeping Pace: "biology textbooks are failing to share adequate information about climate change" by Additional-Two-7312
In the US, many states either frown upon any discussion of climate change in public school textbooks. If publishers can't get the textbooks approved for important segments of the public school market, they won't bother publishing them at all.
Discount_gentleman t1_j15uwro wrote
Reply to comment by [deleted] in Climate Impacts Are Increasing; Textbooks Aren’t Keeping Pace: "biology textbooks are failing to share adequate information about climate change" by Additional-Two-7312
The idea that you could cover general biology at a college level without discussing climate change is educational malpractice.
Discount_gentleman t1_j15uohj wrote
Reply to comment by Moont1de in Climate Impacts Are Increasing; Textbooks Aren’t Keeping Pace: "biology textbooks are failing to share adequate information about climate change" by Additional-Two-7312
This refers to college level textbooks
Discount_gentleman t1_j0pxmes wrote
Reply to comment by WJC2000 in Two year study of online sex work advertising shows that there may be more sex workers in Canada than researchers thought and most workers are likely involved on a brief, intermittent basis. by SexWorkPopCA
Or maybe just a "factual" way of looking at it. I mean, it's right there in the title.
Discount_gentleman t1_j0of335 wrote
Reply to Two year study of online sex work advertising shows that there may be more sex workers in Canada than researchers thought and most workers are likely involved on a brief, intermittent basis. by SexWorkPopCA
Most are involved on a "brief, intermittent basis." Despite the current hysteria to try to portray sex work as "trafficking," most sex work is voluntary (as much as any work is voluntary) and is a limited means to an end, not a trap or a life.
Discount_gentleman t1_iralb4p wrote
Reply to Wear and tear from lifelong stress can increase cancer mortality. Even without adjusting for any potential confounders like age, social demographics like race and sex, those with a high allostatic load were 2.4 times more likely to die from cancer than those with low allostatic loads by Wagamaga
I don't doubt the conclusion at all, but this sentence seems to make the study meaningless:
>Even without adjusting for any potential confounders like age, social demographics like race and sex...
If you don't adjust for confounders, what have you measured?
Discount_gentleman t1_jeaux0g wrote
Reply to You might like paintings more if you stop to read the gallery labels - people high in openness, and those with limited art experience, liked paintings more after reading information about the artist and their technique. by Litvi
Yep, I always read the labels and it helps my appreciation. I need something to connect me to what are often abstract concepts. Most of the art in museums or galleries is from a person different enough in time/place/culture that it takes me more time that I have available to cross that gulf and understand the subtleties in what they are saying. Labels help.