TL;DR: Movie!Ant-Man is unrealistic. Also, the Internet Archive has an ebook library! Movie!Ant-Man can be the size of an ant… …and the size of an airplane… …but throughout it all, his own body’s shape and structure doesn’t change. Without background objects (e.g., ants and airplanes), you wouldn’t be able to...
I have often heard that the war on drugs is a failure, but the reason why varies. Sometimes, the war on drugs is a failure like the war in Iraq is a failure: because it is very hard to nation-build, to create a society that does not produce or consume...
This is a list of all the topics a standard Civil Procedure class in law school covers, with the concepts I remember highlighted in blue and those I don't in red. There is a lot more red than blue, which is shocking because: * I graduated from law school less...
TL;DR: Movie!Ant-Man is unrealistic. Also, the Internet Archive has an ebook library!
Movie!Ant-Man can be the size of an ant…
…and the size of an airplane…
…but throughout it all, his own body’s shape and structure doesn’t change. Without background objects (e.g., ants and airplanes), you wouldn’t be able to guess what size Ant-Man is because his own body remains unchanged. This is, to put it mildly, unrealistic. Scaling, Why is Animal Size so Important (1984) by Knut Schmidt-Nielsen discusses principles that explain why. The five-year old in me who likes fun animal facts (did you know giraffes and humans have the same number of neck bones?) really enjoyed this book.
I, a biology novice, usually... (read 1970 more words →)
Related to the quantity argument, the book talks about how there was a green revolution of sorts in the cocaine business. Between 2005 and 2011, the amount of cocaine that could be extracted from coca plants increased by 60-100%. In that time period, the quantity of coca plants decreased without the quantity of cocaine decreasing.
I have often heard that the war on drugs is a failure, but the reason why varies.
Sometimes, the war on drugs is a failure like the war in Iraq is a failure: because it is very hard to nation-build, to create a society that does not produce or consume drugs.
Sometimes, the war on drugs is a failure like the war in Vietnam was a failure: because the opponents, drug cartels, don’t fight like we do.
Sometimes, the war on drugs is a failure like WWI was a failure: we can win the battles but we don’t know how to write a lasting peace treaty.
Tom Wainwright’s Narconomics ropes in elements... (read 1884 more words →)
I have another data point that supports your modern day transportation constraint of 10-20%: skyscrapers. Engineers can build skyscrapers that are more than a mile high, much taller than our current skyscrapers. However, the taller a skyscraper gets, the more of its footprint is devoted to elevators and and associated equipment. At a certain point, your skyscraper just becomes a useless bundle of elevators. Right now, developers stop adding floors to a skyscraper when elevators are 30-40% of its footprint and 2-10% of its energy costs. The true transportation costs are probably slightly higher because they also include the costs of elevator installation and maintenance, and are probably roughly in line with your transportation constraint.
I agree with this. A lot of the things I do remember are things I regularly use for my job.
This is a list of all the topics a standard Civil Procedure class in law school covers, with the concepts I remember highlighted in blue and those I don't in red.
There is a lot more red than blue, which is shocking because:
This post is an exploration of possible hypotheses for why this happened.
Epistemic status: spinning hypotheses from personal experience, so take lightly.
In a world where even surgeons sometimes leave their tools inside their patient's body, the ghost of user... (read 1882 more words →)
I think I expressed this unclearly. Lifespan is more tightly correlated to brain size than body size (brain size scales disproportionately with body size). The author gives the example that if lifespan was correlated with our body size, humans would live 20-25 years, but since lifespan is correlated to our brain size, our expected lifespan is longer.
I agree that the correlation doesn't necessarily point to a causal linkage.