Quantum mechanical particles are very different things to classical ones.

A slightly better way of thinking about them is quantised fields. Particles and waves are simplifications of the underlying effect. There is no classical equivalent to work with to this, so we try and understand it as particle-wave duality etc.

In this case, a carrier particle is a (quantised) disturbance in the underlying field. If it has enough energy, it manifests as a physical particle. The higgs boson is an example of this. Below the required energy, you get virtual particles. These “borrow” energy, and so can never be seen directly, only inferred.

By example. Photons are the carrier particle of electromagnetism. Give the field energy and you get photons (light). Without that energy, the photons are virtual. Existing only between the 2 acting entities.

Different fields have different carrier particles. The photon is quite simple. It’s effectiveness decays as 1/r^2 . The strong force carriers are more complex. They can emit more carrier particles, allowing the field to grow with distance rather than decay.

To add more complexity. The various fields look to be aspects of the same field. At sufficient energies, they behave identically. We have figured out how to combine the electric, magnetic and weak fields. We have a handle on the strong field. The higgs field seems to also match into this. Gravity is a pain to study. We assume it should match in, but haven’t managed to work out how yet.

As for why the underlying field exists and follows the rules it does? We have no clue right now. The ‘why’ tends to follow the ‘what’, and we have yet to get a good handle on the ‘what’.

I’ve been playing 5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel it’s remarkably easy to understand, all considered. It’s only partially mind bending.

I’m not going to knock her putting them to good use! It’s done well by her so far. 👍

Some places do electricity costs in 30 minute periods. If you know cost will spike when everyone gets home, and the sun sets, then running early makes sense. Other times, holding off for an hour might be more useful.

Just most sources of power. Photovoltaic, wind and hydro aren’t steam based.

Be careful with the taking average mindset. It’s a default human one, and it’s being abused. A lot of media outlets (particularly American right wing) are mouthpieces for the same few groups or people.

Instead, try and look at their biases. Do they have a reason to mislead you. What akin do they have in a particular game. E.g. the BBC is still fairly unbiased on a lot of world news. They are far less unbiased on middle eastern politics now.

It’s an annoyingly complex problem to solve, on the fly.

Both my wife’s and my stuffed teddies have now been retired. They now sit, cuddled together, overlooking the bedroom. On a shelf, in pride of place. Their tour of service done, but not forgotten.

It likely jams their brains. Accepting a sudden change of plans is a skill. They rarely have to practice it. When it happens they either want to understand it (and so ask a lot of questions). Or they want to make it go away, and so try and bully you into accepting.

You sometimes see a similar thing in dating. Women almost never have to deal with direct rejection. Most are smart enough to take it gracefully, but a few get wildly inappropriate and aggressive about it. Men are on the other side of it. More used to being rejected, and so better at rolling with the punches. You still get a few that react badly however.

Data rot is a serious problem.

I suspect that our time period will end up as an information dark age to future historians.

I can’t see it as anything but white and gold. However, other photos clearly show it is black and blue.

Interestingly, if I’m scrolling past, my brain will sometimes perceive it as black and blue for a fraction of a second. I can normally flip optical illusions at will. This one jams me in the wrong viewing mode.

I saw a talk on the subject about a year back. It was discussing tokamak reactors, from an engineer working on them. The small ones can’t sustain a break even state, but they are affected by the inverse square law to a larger degree. I believe China is about to start/has started construction on a power station sized test reactor.

The pellet sort are a different type. They have different pros and cons.

Some companies are still trying.

I’ve got a ulefone 27T. It’s the phone equivalent of a tank. It also includes thermal and night vision, and underwater video modes. I would also give it good odds of surviving being used as a self defence weapon.

Downside is it’s a relatively unknown Chinese brand.

They are down to 2 main problems now. The main one is (the cost of) scaling up. Fusion reactors will be more effective then bigger they are. The tiny test ones are already past break even.

The other is wall material. Apparently the radiation has an annoying ability to transmute the elements making up the wall of the reactor. They are working out a material that can maintain its bulk mechanical properties, even with random elements appearing in its internal structure.

Unpicking your personal maladaptations helps a lot. This is how therapy and medication are so useful, particularly in tandem.

Two of my big maladaptations were using stress to drive me through, and berating myself when I didn’t do as well as I knew I could. It turns out that this is quite corrosive to your wellbeing, and that wellbeing is the foundation supporting your self driven. I was consuming myself for fuel.

I’ve gotten a lot better at redirecting my irritation. I don’t get mad at myself for not doing the washing up. I get mad at the washing up for existing. It’s a subtle, but powerful difference. I still do both, far too much, but I’m getting better at it.

Lastly, remember to bask in your glories. We tend to forget to enjoy the results of our effort. We just move on, and so don’t get the dopamine hit. Set aside at least 10% of the time taken to bask and feel proud of yourself. To show off and enjoy. Suddenly your brain has a positive reason to power through, rather than just avoiding a negative.

Welcome to the future! 🤢

I initially thought this was a satire comment, on a satire product.

The fact it is real makes something feel fundamentally wrong with the world.

Granted.

No wars will never end, unless you personally step in to end them. Minor skirmishes now turn into epic wars of genocidal annihilation. It’s down to you to stop them.

There are a bunch of characteristics that, while fairly arbitrary, can’t be changed once they are locked in. The mappings from RNA to proteins are a good example. Changing it is instantly lethal to the cell involved. Others include the chirality of amino acids, and the choice of bases for DNA.

If we look at the entire tree of life, we see no deviations in these deep characteristics. This implies that they were fixed before we all split. There might have been alternative variations in the past, but none have survived to the modern day (that we have identified).

This goes double of eucaryotes (basically everything other than bacteria). The design is so unique that convergent evolution is highly unlikely to stumble into the exact same layout from 2 sources.

Kids fill you to the brim with love, and drain you of everything else.

There’s a rubber seal inside the lid that stops them leaking. The milk etc can get behind it, where normal washing won’t get. It can get funky if you don’t clean it out.

Parenting mostly isn’t that hard. You just have to keep all the proverbial plates spinning. Unfortunately there are FAR more than you expect, and you never get a break. You will miss some, then beat yourself up for missing something so simple.