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pantone159

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Everything posted by pantone159

  1. All this annoying behavior by hotels had me change my habits, now I just bring my own shampoo and soap on a trip, then I don't have to worry about the inadequate supplies that hotels provide.
  2. Investing in collectibles only makes sense for things you like collecting for their own sake. They generally have poor returns, especially considering transaction costs, liquidity, and the alternatives. But if you like something enough to collect it, you have something cool, and usually worth at least something, for your fun. It adds some financial diversity. But if you are just looking for an investment, collectibles would just be a money pit. Stacking precious metals could be an example of that, if you want to channel your inner dragon, you could collect gold pieces or whatever, and have something to sell if you wanted or needed to. But I would not expect high returns.
  3. And real soon now, we are going to get an even more massive deluge of scams using generative AI to automate fraud even more. I am pessimistic that the only real 'killer app' of this latest batch of generative AI is going to be fraud.
  4. YBCO works at atmospheric pressure. If it was indeed suitable as an industrial superconductor, using only liquid N2, it would have completely replaced the old-school stuff that needs liquid helium, which is far more expensive. But it hasn't.
  5. I figured that you would want to weight the '20-23 SWING' by the number of voters to make something that can be averaged sensibly. Just averaging the raw values doesn't make much sense.
  6. It is synthesized in the process of making LK-99. You start with simple available chemicals, no need to mine minerals. But one of the things that is made along the way of making LK-99 is basically that mineral, but you make it and don't mine it.
  7. One thing to remember before getting too excited about this, is that the now-standard 'high temperature' superconductor, the YBCO ceramic which works with liquid nitrogen, has been around for at least 30 years but has not replaced more old-fashioned superconductors in most applications. So there can be a long way from a material that does interesting things in the lab, and a commercially useful material.
  8. The following preprint paper seems to very conclusively show room temperature superconductivity. They even got it with the old-standard YBCO material! https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2003/2003.14321.pdf
  9. Yep. He needs a new job, you need a new VP. He had an easier task ahead of him than you do.
  10. They did give good steps for reproducing their claims, and the synthesis seems pretty easy, so this will be proved or debunked in short order. So far it has not been debunked, so it might be real. If so, it will surely be a big deal. Even if this particular material is not very practical, it will be a starting point and other related materials will get tried very soon. Science at work!!! Fyi, there is at the same time, another research group that has reported room temperature superconductivity, though at very high pressures, and that research is very dodgy, at least one paper related to that has been withdrawn due to suspected data fraud. But those issues do not apply to LK-99.
  11. No problem, just so long as you personally guarantee to go ahead of me and clear all the blockages on the existing sidewalks, and add new ones to fill any gaps where there isn't a sidewalk yet.
  12. Your memory is not so faded. I had not heard of these, so I just looked them up, and indeed there were bi-metallic coins in 1993-1995 (and also 1992 for the 10 nuevos pesos) that had the actual silver weight just as you said. My Mexico coin book can be confusing, as there were a number of bullion/commemorative issues that did have precious metals but did not circulate, it is hard to tell which is which. I wonder if I even have some of these without knowing...
  13. Why would I want to remember anything he posts???
  14. For coin roll hunters, it usually sounds like the search for irregular coins is a big part of the fun. You are hoping to find something unusual, and any kind of error is a happy find.
  15. It had to be an incredible relief when the launch went ok and it folded out ok also. The project took so long that it is basically entire careers for some people. It could have blown to smithereens, but instead it is working and you KNOW it will find something very interesting in the IR spectrum. The relief that something you have worried about for 30 years is now ok must be very welcome.
  16. For computers, I remove all disk drives, and at least try to destroy them, mainly by removing all the screws so I can open up the drive and see the nice shiny (and sharp!) platters inside. Maybe I will try and break the platters. At that point, I figure that reading any data is beyond anybody who really cares and has special equipment, and then the drive goes in the trash. The rest of the computer goes in the trash.
  17. If they used that dark green color for the X, it would make it at least a little bit cooler.
  18. And as we can see here, the destroyer DD Cole, is a boat, not a ship.
  19. Isn't there some 'pickling' process where steel gets dumped into phosphoric acid or something to remove the rust?
  20. Then we will get the blessed relief of August. Ahhhh....
  21. I'm still pissed that Shiner Bock isn't $3.55 per six-pack like it was back in the 80's/early 90's.
  22. I can read the Threads no problem without an Instagram or FB account. I was a little worried about that part, I can't usually see links to either.
  23. A couple of weeks I added this commemorative banknote from Ukraine, which I bought from a seller there. It took a couple of weeks to get here (no surprise) but arrived fine.
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