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sj_zero | @sj_zero@social.fbxl.net

Author of The Graysonian Ethic (Available on Amazon, pick up a dead tree copy today)

Admin of the FBXL Network including FBXL Search, FBXL Video, FBXL Social, FBXL Lotide, FBXL Translate, and FBXL Maps.

Advocate for freedom and tolerance even if you say things I do not like

Adversary of Fediblock

Accept that I'll probably say something you don't like and I'll give you the same benefit, and maybe we can find some truth about the world.

Ah... Is the Alliteration clever or stupid? Don't answer that, I sort of know the answer already...

Typically, a laptop has the Wi-Fi antenna located in the screen, often on the top of the screen.

It's actually a really complicated.

So first, you have time distance and shielding being the main thing that says how much exposure you get to a source of any radiation. That's just sort of the basic standard. Typically you're not going to need to be merely as close to a laptop screen as you would have to be to a phone, and every time the distance between you and the radiation and admitting device doubles, you're getting a quarter of the dose.

Second, for the purposes of whether something is actually a meaningful dose of radiation it's very important where the device is in relation to your body. Muscle tissue tends to be much more robust, while internal organs are significantly more sensitive.

Third, the energy of each particle of radiation is very important. A light particle of infrared light is that a considerably lower energy level than far ultraviolet so the former tends not to be remotely ionizing wheread the latter is well known to everyone to cause skin cancer. Even within particles you would consider to be the same, for example a gamma ray produced by Cobalt is considerably higher energy than a gamma ray produced by cesium, and so the same number of particles is actually considered considerably more dangerous to the human body.

Fourth, the characteristics of the particle that you're dealing with are also quite important. Typically when you're talking about radiation we'd be talking about alpha, beta, gamma, x-rays, and neutron radiation. Neutron radiation consists of bare neutrons without any protons to give them a charge. Alpha radiation consists of essentially hydrogen molecules being spit out by a radioactive substance. Beta radiation consists of electrons being shot off by the radioactive substance. Gamma radiation is an electromagnetic wave with an extremely high power. X-rays are extremely similar to gamma radiation except that they are produced by an x-ray machine rather than the decay of a radioactive substance. Each of these behave in fundamentally different ways so you have to deal with them in fundamentally different ways. Alpha radiation will typically be blocked by a sheet of paper, but if it gets inside your body it's extremely harmful. Beta radiation can be blocked by pretty minimal shielding, and will only reach a load a millimeter to into your skin. Gamma radiation can penetrate the entire human body, and that has two consequences: first, it means that most gamma particles won't interact with your body, but once they do rather than just affecting your skin they can affect arbitrary molecules inside your body.

So the characteristics of radio waves matter in a number of different ways. First, the energy of an individual radio wave admitted by a radio transmitter or other electronic device is significantly lower than that of visible light. Typically what's going to happen is it can heat up molecules but it can't really change them. Second, different radio frequencies are going to have different transmission ability through the human body. As a general rule, the lower frequency radio waves tend to go through things without touching them, which is why for example radio stations tend to be in the kilohertz and megawatts range, and since it can blast past most of the obstacles in its way. By contrast, higher frequency radio waves tend to start to interact more with things around them. The new five and six gigahertz Wi-Fi standards really struggle even to make it through walls, which is one of the reasons why the 2.4 gigahertz frequencies are still in use by those standards.

You have experienced something similar to this in your life with respect to sounds. Have you ever been next to a place or a car and they're blasting their music? All of the high frequency sounds, and most of the mid frequency sounds are stopped by the windows of the car, but you can clearly hear the bass.

Just like the comparison with alpha and gamma radiation, it's an interesting trade-off because radio waves that don't penetrate the body at all will end up just heating up the skin, and they'll typically just dump all of their energy right there. Radio waves that can penetrate deeper into the body have a potential to affect things inside of the body, but there's also a greater chance that it just passes right through without depositing the energy anywhere, and also the energy is spread out over a larger physical area.

One thing to keep in mind is that just because something is electromagnetic radiation doesn't mean that it's necessarily dangerous or unwanted. Right now you are probably in the same room as a device designed to put out several Watts worth of electromagnetic radiation, the lights.

Anyone else remember when flash was flash and flashlights were flashlights?

Nightmare of the druaga. I picked this game up at a pawn shop during my PS2 era.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare_of_Druaga

The secret motto of this game is "God is a dick". You are the chosen warrior wearing the golden sword and armor that God gave you.

That armor? Random pieces of brass you pick up off the ground provide 10 times the protection. Literally anything. You find a rusty tin can? way better than the golden armor that God gave you. If you try to sell the legendary golden armor that God gave you, it sells for 1GP.

"Oh my god! It's my son! The one who isn't a disappointment!"

What did it look like when the original pioneers found themselves getting swallowed by cities after the age of pioneering ended?

Fun Ford. Doug keeps on hearing "You know Rob was a lot more fun than you are."

Wrong one. he ded.

It's funny that Ford set up the best pot laws in the country. "You're allowed to smoke if you're allowed to smoke"

It's really funny that you're absolutely right. chatgpt was down for a couple hours and I was like "oh, I'll use google's ai....uh.... I don't remember what it's called"

NANI!!!

Don't go to New York. Not even once.

3xu53 m3, 0n1y 31337 h4xx0rz m4y u53 41 t0 m4k3 r3mbr4ndt

Oh great, it's this fuckin guy.

It seems like both sides of the political spectrum have had plenty of time to remember that this guy's a fuckin piece of shit, but everyone seems to just keep on forgetting and handing him jobs that aren't just jail cell attendant.

I was like "final fantasy is ok" but Then I realized the last good one was 10 games ago

This is the correct answer. I'll join you and enjoy the show.

What are you gonna do if they keep them? Arrest them?

Unemployed people with military grade weapons who are trained to use them. Works every time.

Give the police more military style weapons then defund them.

Sort of by definition, yes.

Like I said, different geographical areas tend to misrepresent different types of jobs as engineering jobs for various reasons (you can often pay someone in prestige for example), and some engineers suck at engineering so they should be doing a thing but aren't, but at least in principle that's how things should be.

I'd tend to disagree with that.

Other fields have people who do things in different ways, and I can see direct parallels.

A good electrician can often build most of the things an electrical engineer can using experience and practical knowledge, but they are not doing the same thing. A good electrical engineer will apply engineering concepts and practices to the design of a thing whereas an electrician will apply skilled trades concepts and practices to the design of a thing, and they are different things.

A good carpenter can build most of the things a structural engineer can using experience and practical knowledge, but they are not dong the same either.

Same goes for a good industrial mechanic vs. a mechanical engineer.

The words are typically misused in much the same way the term "engineer" is massively overused so people doing other types of work feel better, but people who know, know.

In my view, a software engineer will be using engineering concepts and practices to design software where a software developer will be using experience and practical knowledge. I'd expect there to be mutually exclusive realms that make sense for both -- software engineers would create novel algorithms or architectures using rigorous methods, software developers would use existing algorithms with practiced efficiency.

I guess keep in mind I live in a region where the word "engineer" is protected harder than any other place on the planet, so my point of view is tempered by that.

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