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13 year-old Princess Yvonne of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn and her brother, Prince Alexander, enjoying some royal luxuries, Germany, 1955
  • I think those might actually be frosted glass cups.

    Here is the best copy I could find, and the flared edges do not look like plastic cups - also the shiny inside and matte outside looks more like glass frosted on the outside.

    PP was not in commercial use until 1957 (not sure when it was first used for cups), PET disposable cups weren't a thing until the 70s. Disposable cups in the 50s would have been wax paper.

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    Magic Mineral
  • They wore masks, had negative pressure ventilation suits on

    I hope those were positive pressure suits, positive pressure helps to keep dust out of the suit. Negative pressure ventilation is used to help sick people breathe easier, like the iron lung for example.

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    TIL that the “S” in “Harry S. Truman” isn’t an abbreviation. His middle name was just “S”.
  • Not true, I am a naturalized US citizen, and don't have a middle name - it was never an issue and I was never asked to come up with one. My son was born in the US and also doesn't have a middle name.

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    Today's featured article on Wikipedia: Outer Wilds
  • Once you finish it, it's actually really fun watching other people's playthroughs as well - getting to relive some of the moments vicariously through other people's eyes is almost as much fun as experiencing them yourself the first time.

    It's also quite amazing just how different each playthrough can be, since the game is so non-linear, people take some crazy paths to get to the end ! It can be frustrating as well when someone just can't see what is in front of their face though :)

    There are also so many subtle elements scattered around that most people miss on their first playthrough, and watching someone else play it really made me appreciate many of the details I missed on my own playthrough and even make connections I didn't before, and understand aspects of the story that I didn't fully get the first time.

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    Algerian Imane Khelif wins boxing gold medal after her gender was wrongly questioned
  • The word average is often used to mean mean, however it can be used less specifically - median is a type of average as well.

    From Merriam-Webster definition of average:

    1a) a single value (such as a mean, mode, or median) that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values

    Also, things like testosterone levels in a population usually follow a normal distribution, where both mean and median are the same, so the distinction is often meaningless for practical purposes

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    See This Red Area? This Is *Sand*
  • The dots are counties - the largest red one above LA is Kern county - Tulare county is the smaller red dot above it to the right

    This is a clearer version of that map. The other two much smaller red dots above LA are Kings and Inyo counties - this map is based on 2016 presidential results, as Inyo went blue in 2020 (by only 14 votes though)

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    Clay content
  • Mozzarella/loam is ~20-50 sand, ~30-50 silt and ~10-30 clay - pay attention to the angle of the numbers and follow the diagonal lines. The center of the triangle has to be 33/33/33

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    Man recording a concert on cassette, Poland, 1980s
  • You have to realize that popular culture was very tightly controlled and restricted by the Polish communist government at this time. This photo was taken at the Jarocin festival, which was a rare chance to see many bands play that otherwise had no radio play or record contracts and often played styles of music that were viewed with great suspicion by the establishment. Recording these live performances and trading tapes was often the only way people got to hear many of these bands.

    I grew up in a neighboring country during this time, but I wasn't much into the rock scene then - I was into folk music, which had a similar scene in my country - many folk artists were straight up banned by the government, so it was impossible to hear them on the radio or buy their records, but tape recordings of live performances existed and were traded among the fans. Same of my favorite music from this period only existed in this form. There were even recordings of shows that got shut down by the police mid-set.

    The 80s were a period of economic stagnation in eastern Europe, resulting in a lot of pent up anger and angst in the youth, and at the same time, the establishment was slowly losing its grip on the population. As a result artists were getting increasingly bold in channeling this anger and dissatisfaction, of pushing the boundaries of what was allowed, sometimes crossing them and getting slapped down - but you never knew what could happen at a large gathering of the youth back then - taping was an important tool to document and spread this to the wider population.

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    Man recording a concert on cassette, Poland, 1980s
  • Most Polish people would disagree. Poland got pretty fucked in ww2, from all sides, but at least they managed to hold on to some of their sovereignty and not be forced to join USSR as a Soviet Republic.

    This partially allowed the democratization movement to form in Poland in the 80s (with Solidarność) and eventually for Poland to get out from under Russia's boot and join the EU and NATO, and avoid the fate of former Soviet Republics like Belarus and Ukraine.

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    Man recording a concert on cassette, Poland, 1980s
  • Looks like a JVC RC-660

    The guys in the back both have some kind of Grundig - probably C260 or similar.

    Here are a bunch of Grundigs as well, also in Poland.

    Even more here

    Edit: found the same guy as well

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    Massive explosion rocks SpaceX Texas facility, Starship engine in flames
  • The only fuel you can make from water is hydrogen. The RS-25 engines used on the SLS core stage and the Space Shuttle used liquid hydrogen, as did the J-2 engines on the second and third stage of the Saturn V (but not the first stage, which used RP-1 (kerosene) burning F-1 engine)

    Starship's Raptor engines use liquid methane however. There are a bunch of tradeoffs between the different fuels, but generally liquid hydrogen is more difficult and expensive to deal with. With low cost reusability being one of the primary objectives of Starship, liquid methane was chosen as the best option. The fact that it can also be manufactured on Mars was also considered, since CO2 is abundant in Martian atmosphere.

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    Massive explosion rocks SpaceX Texas facility, Starship engine in flames
  • LOX is liquid oxygen, which is not a fuel, but an oxidizer. Starship is fueled by liquid methane. Methane can not be made from just water, you need a source of carbon. On Mars for example methane could be produced from CO2 in the atmosphere and water from ice.

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    Ronald Reagan?! The Actor?!
  • Reagan was a union leader in the 40s and 50s, governor of California in the 60s, and elected president in 84 - he didn't just go from acting to being president, he had a lot more political experience and track record than Trump.

    Sure he had charisma and was a good public speaker, but that's pretty much what got Obama the presidency as well.

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    6 March 2024
  • There also appears to be a safari hat on the ground, implying they are eating a tourist? Just extra mood I guess :)

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    Good luck web devs
  • I think "popular" is stretching it here, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is dead now, and while Hurd is interesting, it has ways to go.

    Alpine is actually popular, particularly as a lightweight host OS to run docker.

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    Elon Musk "We dug our own grave with 'FULL SELF DRIVING""
  • I don't know much about the Hyperloop - I was never interested in it, and it never seemed like a real project, some kind of Musk BS probably, but I don't know enough to debate it. Full Autonomous driving is definitely also a very ambitious project. I do think it is in principle feasible, and has great potential, but also serious possible obstacles. I think it's worth pursuing to figure it out. I would say that selling it to the mass market is premature at this point, and has been overhyped by Musk a lot. Also don't know anything about the Human/Robot AI program, that also sounds like Musk BS, so I don't really follow it.

    I do think Musk is a narcissist, I don't think he is an idiot. I don't think calling him a con-man is really justified. I also don't think he is a genius, more like someone with decent amount of technical competence who often unreasonably clings to slightly insane visions and an ability to assemble talented people and push them to try to execute on those visions and ideas, which sometimes leads to legitimate breakthroughs, for example in case of SpaceX.

    I would never take Musk's predictions, economic or technological at face value, he is clearly always talking far ahead of anything currently happening, an his predictions are notoriously unreliable and wildly optimistic. I don't think that takes away much from the actual achievements of both Tesla and especially SpaceX however.

    I also personally would never buy a Tesla, for a variety of reasons - I actually have a lot of disagreements with the Tesla philosophy, and will probably never own a self-driving car either, but whatever.

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