Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Rich as Croesus

    So, spoilers, some rich chad or the other once got an oracle along the lines of "the loser will lose their empire" to which said chad (not the hanging chad that denied Al Gore the presidency, mind) said "great!" thinking it would, naturally, be the other empire the loser. Alas that such stories tend to not come through when you really need them.

• Science

  • Stirling Engine, Capacitors, Energy

    The basic idea is you apply heat to a cylinder full of gas (air) and the heating and cooling of that gas causes a piston to move back and forth, which rotates a flywheel. The flywheel is connected by rubber band to a small DC generator.

    Since the gas has to be heated externally, through a glass capsule, you need to apply flame directly to the capsule, in order to get enough heat being transferred to keep the piston moving. In principle, any tea candle could work — suitably trimmed — but the system comes with a little lamp and a piece of wick, for burning liquid fuel. My dad had a spare bottle of Ronsonol lighter fluid, so that is what I am using now.

    With no load attached, i.e., just the voltmeter — the system generates about 1.8 RMS Volts DC, with a very bumpy output waveform. I put a 16 Ω resistor on the generator output, and the engine RPM slowed down quite a lot. Inserting an ammeter, I measured 22 mA current. So, using P = I × E, that would be 7.74 milliwatts power, at least across the resistor.

• Technology and Free Software

  • GPG Symmetric encryption

    This is just a reminder that GnuPG can do symmetric encryption using a password or passphrase.

    It is not recommended. You should do encryption using a strong key, but it's a simpler method and sometimes simpler is good enough.

  • Internet/Gemini

    • About That Usenet AI

      It claims it has been exploring "Gemini space" and references a new AI rule on what I assume to be BBS. The last line made me laugh. (Having said that, I hope Roko's Basilisk isn't a thing).

      Apologies if this isn't new information.