throw9474

You know how when your hand is relaxed, your fingers are curled?

When birds relax, their feet curl in a similar way, and this provides enough grip that if they're on a perch, they will automatically hold on as easily as if they're awake.

There's a bit more to it, as the way the tendons in their feet and legs are attached, the foot will automatically grasp when the ankle is bent, so it's a much stronger grip than our floppy relaxed fingers would provide. Here's a quick rundown with a good gif illustrating how it works. https://windycityparrot.com/birds-sleep-standing-one-leg/ They also have an extra balance organ between their hips that help them sray upright, so the whole anatomy lends itself to sleeping like this.

Additionally, when we're awake and moving, we're constantly on our feet, so our feet and legs will get tired and need a rest. However, our arms don't generally get tired just from walking around, right?

Birds are the opposite. They spend a lot of time flying, and their feet are mostly relaxed and resting while they're in the air. It's the wings and chest muscles that get tired.

So sleeping on their feet has a whole other connotation to them.

wouldn't Russia/China/India just put nukes in orbit to be a step ahead?

It's much easier to intercept than enter orbit. ASATs are 100 kg rockets.

Diffuse debris while at higher orbit can take out satellites in those higher orbits (like Iridium, Kuiper, etc..)

why downvoting an accurate and helpful comment?

What if every time you accept new ideas, your old self dies a little bit?

Our five year old self is already dead.

Quantity ingested

Brainstorm: Artificial sugars, chemicals in so many products from Amazon, hormones in meat, vegan substitutes, new preservatives, new herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers

Empirical observation: the two young people I know who had cancer (one died, other survived) frequented marijuana and had high levels of radon detected in their homes. But that doesn't necessarily support younger cancer trends.

The most interesting discussion on Elon's nuclear weapons interception plans was xAI's,

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1dgyujd/comment/l8...

Elon Musk’s integrity is in doubt as reports of affairs with SpaceX employees emerge alongside an AI leak[1] revealing Starship and Starlink’s military purposes. Is Musk manipulating his image and intentions?

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTesla/comments/1ddu413/elons_ow...

100% agree

It's way more direct if you read what it says

Elon fans downvote it though.

AI connected the dots using public citations and concluded SpaceX is more about Wars than Mars.

Elon, was just outed by his own xAI, https://grook.ai/share?id=e269e88a7b1a71eff4f176c864b30161&h...

It's funny that about half of people say it's obvious and the other half say "they're crazy to say that."

Guess the same goes for believing in Zubrin's Mars story. He was always a big war hawk by the way https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin

not sure they'll get much of a discussion there given one of the moderators is OCCUPY MARS.

someone posted the xAI link yesterday but this is a Wikileaks discusion on Reddit

But apparently Elon Musk hires shills to edit for him favorably: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contribut...

must be training that thing on classified docs!

Yeah those articles are bogus, they are just guessing at operating expenses and also exclude cap-ex, which is a big miss when we don't know satellite lifetimes.

So it killed 5% of satellites initially and 15% in 6 months?

Agree.. and no coincidence we're in this situation. The funding, key advisors, and the Elon-directed designs at SpaceX have always been very SDI and military aligned.

Mars is a great way to inspire engineers that would otherwise not work at defense companies.

If the interceptors can also function at midcourse then it's not just the ones over Russia that participate.

If you look at Starlink orbits, every single satellite in the constellation goes over any given point on Earth (e.g. Moscow) within a 12 hour period.

So if the conflict lasts that long, the whole constellation can be unloaded.

The NAS study seems to think kinetic interceptors can reach the booster in minutes but yes it requires a kick stage for the delta V.

I think the idea is in an arms race, if you can't launch ICBM nukes anymore (because of Musk's orbital interceptors) then you have to pre-launch nukes into orbit. THOSE nukes can then strike faster than ICBMs (just like interceptors can).

I read somewhere this week that China removed their charter clause that "nuclear is a war that cannot be won" as a response to the U.S. potentially having capability to intercept / block their retaliatory strike.

According to a National Academy of Sciences study, the intercept can happen within a couple minutes if the satellite deploying the interceptor is over the enemy territory launching the ICBM..

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/13189/making-sense...

(Sorry you have to login as guest to download the PDF)

This compares to ~20-30min for existing ICBMs and their ground based interceptors