foodtower

foodtower t1_jeff6j6 wrote

Reply to comment by lost_in_life_34 in Automated enforcement of water conservation rules in Fresno, California led to a decrease in summer water use and violations of conservation rules (relative to households subject to in-person inspections). This program massively increased consumer complaints, ultimately causing its cancellation. by smurfyjenkins

The part that's always left off from sentences saying "most water is used by farmers" is "to grow food"*. Key difference vs lawns, which makes turf a prime target for water use reduction.

*Only applies to farmers actually growing food. I agree that farming animal feed is wasteful.

3

foodtower OP t1_jcagoi2 wrote

Reply to comment by mfb- in Radon is a monatomic gas, but its decay products are solids. After a decay, what happens to the individual atoms of the daughter elements? Do they stay suspended in the atmosphere or slowly rain out? by foodtower

What I'm gathering is that in normal air it would mostly cling on to dust particles, in dust-free air it would be an extremely low-partial-pressure gaseous component, and in pure form (say, a container of pure radon that decays) nearly all of it would attach to container walls, leaving an extremely low-pressure lead gas behind.

4

foodtower t1_jboh00u wrote

Reply to If all of Antarctica melted, doesn’t it make more sense that it would cause the oceans to lower, because the water would flood and submerge Antarctica thus creating more space for oceans to be? by Acrobatic_Subject993

The vast majority of Antarctica's ice is above sea level, and its average thickness is over is above 2 km: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet

That's a lot of water that is currently above the ocean, that would be added to the ocean.

14

foodtower t1_j7gjprh wrote

Reply to comment by johndburger in Do tonal language speakers understand each other while whispering? by Paulix_05

When I whisper "Sue went to the zoo", "Sue" and "zoo" are easily distinguishable to me. For example, if someone overheard me whispering, they would definitely hear "Sue": the s is louder. I understand the difference between voiced and unvoiced sounds. The fact that they sound different when I say them means that either 1) my whispering is not totally unvoiced and other people's may not be either, or 2) there are subtle differences between how I pronounce s and z that enable them to be distinguished even with both unvoiced.

Edit: as mentioned in a follow-up comment, recorded waveforms of me whispering Sue and zoo are visibly different too.

5

foodtower OP t1_j2a7zpn wrote

Reply to comment by AnthillOmbudsman in TIL the first story to include space travel, aliens, and interplanetary warfare ("A True Story") was written in Ancient Greek in the second century AD, and was written as a satire of outlandish ancient stories. by foodtower

Context: the author was skewering the ancient practice of presenting and accepting obvious myths as factual history. The title "A true story" is only accurate because of that first sentence.

30