• 2 Posts
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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • This hit me hard ten years ago.

    I’ve always been fascinated by space, as a teenager I wanted to be an astrophysicist, in my early twenties I fully believed Thant humanity was going to explore the solar system and that it would start happening in my lifetime.

    I was studying mechanical engineering and I did everything I could to work in aerospace: picked the right specialities, I got two master of mechanical engineering specialized in aerospace manufacturing (France and Czech Republic). I worked in the manufacturing of critical parts of Arian’s rocket engine and designed new manufacturing technique for future aircraft engine parts.

    I was working towards one goal: being part of the people who will build the spacecraft that will explore the solar system, maybe even be in one.

    Then in 2015 after few years working this hit me, I realized all that was never going to happen. Instead of witnessing the exploration of the solar system I am going witness the collapse of it thermo-industrial civilization.

    We are running out of resources and energy to maintain the growth of it civilization, so we will witness a slow rise of fascism and extreme as countries start fighting for resources. My dream was to go in space in a few decades, now I realized that I’ll consider myself extremely lucky if I have enough for and water to survive in a few decades.






  • Congrats, you are now Flemish!

    To give some context: in Belgium there is two main regions, Flanders and Wallonia. Flemish people speaks Flemish Dutch and Walloons speak French.

    Since Flemish Dutch and French are the two official language of Belgium a lot of Fleming are learning French as a secondary language to be able to communicate with Walloons. Walloons on the other hand don’t care to learn Flemish Dutch at all.

    So as consequence a lot of Flemish do know French but refuse to speak French with Walloons.

    So as a French person I ended several time in a situation where I’m trying to communicate in English with a Fleming who refuse to use French with me, until he realize by my accent that I’m not Walloons, then he would start speaking to me in French.



  • I was in a situation similar to this one in real life: having to adjust the salt level in a pool.

    In metric:

    The pool is 8*4 m long and 2m deep on average, the current salt level is 2g/l and the salt comes in 20kg bags.

    How many bags of salts do I need to pour in the pool to adjust the salt level to at least 3g/l ?

    Answer:

    ! The pool contains 8m4m2m= 64m³ or 64000l of water, I need an extra 1g/l of salt per litres so 64000l*1g/l = 64000g or 64 kg. So with 4 bags I’ll have enough salt.

    In imperial:

    The pool is 20*10ft long and 5ft deep on average, the current salt level is 2000ppm and the salt comes in 40lbs bags.

    How many bags of salts do I need to pour in the pool to adjust the salt level to at least 3000ppm?

    Answer:

    ! I’m just gonna drive to the store with my truck to pick up 2 bags at the time and see if it’s enough, no way I’m doing the calculation.