Talk back

[fouri-er-replies]

a blog for responding.

[kaiasky]

Guesstimation game: no googling!

How far away is the moon?

No using the web, books, maps, etc. No checking the notes!

Put your guess and reasoning behind a readmore, so your followers also get a chance to play.

The goal isn't to get the RIGHT answer (or even get close), it's to see how you and others come up with a guess. It's also not a competition, don't worry about how you do in relation to others!

[mereologic]

1.4 light seconds. light travels 3e8 m/s so that's ~4*10^5 km

[andmaybegayer]

the moon is about a light second away, I know this from reading about the Apollo retroreflectors. so ~300 000 km. It's a little more than a light second maybe? so let's say ~320 000km.

[fouri-er-replies]

Ok so, I know that from Serbia to Greece it's about 600 kilometers. And from Serbia to the Netherlands it's about 1200. So it has to be more than that level of magnitude.

I always forget what the circumference of the Earth is, but was it like 300.000 kilometers? And the radius like 50.000 km ? I might be wildly off. And I kind of remember that true-to-scale illustrations of the Earth and the Moon together look like.

So I'd saaay, like 100.000 kilometres ? Ok let's say 98.000 because that sounds like a more likely number.

Ta-daa !

[transgenderer]

If we ate rocks they'd never go bad in the fridge. But only if there were no microorganisms that ate rocks...but we need food eating microorganisms in order to digest stuff? So there's no way for things to stay good in the fridge?

[fouri-er-replies]

Salt

[selfmaderibcageman]

kind of hard to do this charitably and i can certainly see how it would inspire uh, certain feelings in the students, but i do wish we could just flunk out ~50% of students after freshman year.

[fouri-er-replies]

And this is done by the Dutch universities. The bachelor's programms are incredibly easy to get into (no entry exam and you only need mid grades), but the real test is the 1st year after which you get a decision based on your achievements on whether you're allowed to continue studying or not.

[selfmaderibcageman]

we gotta get class sizes down to the point where you can do an oral final for every student and it's worth 100% of their grade

[fouri-er-replies]

They still do this in Serbian universities except that the spoken exam is about 40% of the grade (the rest is the written exam + assignments/homework).

[andmaybegayer]

UK tourist visa application process makes me want to start biting

[fouri-er-replies]

The only time that I planned to go to the UK and nedded a visa my mom paid some guy some fat money to complete the form for us

[liddie-dissociating]

Test One

[liddie-dissociating]

Test Two

[liddie-dissociating]

Test Three

[liddie-dissociating]

Test Four

Reblogged from test three after replying twice on all previous reblogs; every previous post or reblog also includes two tags. Replies, comments, and tags from original post and two interim reblogs are not visible on fourth reblog of this post.

[liddie-dissociating]

Test Five

Views of notes on each of the prior tests (Note, there are four existing posts at this point, each with comments and tags, so test three is a reblog of test two, test four is a reblog of test three; in previous iterations of tumblr all of the tags, replies, and comments on those posts would have been visible in the notes of every one of those reblogs).

Test One:

Test Two:

Test Three:

[fouri-er-replies]

Ah man new major update

[polldermodel]

Heb je ooit eten of drinken van een vreemde aangenomen en was diegene creepy? (Creepy is bvb een stel dronken lui die je een pak koekjes aanbied op een verlaten treinstation, niet creepy is bvb iemand bij de supermarkt die vraagt of je een pak cake wilt hebben omdat hij teveel had gehaald ofzo idk)

-Ja, diegene was niet creepy (eten niet benuttigd)

-Ja, diegene was niet creepy (eten wel benuttigd)

-Ja, diegene was creepy (eten niet benuttigd)

-Ja, diegene was creepy (eten wel benuttigd)

-Nee, maar diegene was niet creepy

-Nee, diegene was wel creepy

-dit is mij nog nooit eerder overkomen

-als dit mij overkomt ren ik gillend weg

-mama zegt dat ik geen snoep van vreemden mag

Heb je ooit eten of drinken van een vreemde aangenomen en was diegene creepy?

Ja, diegene was niet creepy (eten niet benuttigd)

Ja, diegene was niet creepy (eten wel benuttigd)

Ja, diegene was creepy (eten niet benuttigd)

Ja, diegene was creepy (eten wel benuttigd)

Nee, maar diegene was niet creepy

Nee, diegene was wel creepy

dit is mij nog nooit eerder overkomen

als dit mij overkomt ren ik gillend weg

mama zegt dat ik geen snoep van vreemden mag

Voting ended onMar 22

[fouri-er-replies]

A group of young tipsy football fans once fed me half of a macha cookie from Ah to go (my fave) late at night at station in Zwolle, and it was wholly lighthearted so it wasn't creepy (but it's a rare occurence)

[sigmaleph]

so a thing i often think about while showering is that controlling the temperature of the water is tricky, right? how hot the water is when it comes out of my showerhead is going to depend on a lot of factors like what temperature the water is before going through the water heater and how much gas the heater is burning and how much water is flowing and how much cold water is getting mixed in. and i have no control over some of those factors, limited control over others (I can't change my water heater settings if i'm already in the shower) and for the ones i do control more-or-less directly (flow of water from the 'hot' and 'cold' parts of the system) it takes some amount of fiddling and the system has some inertia and if i get it too wrong it can be very unpleasant because i am physically there getting water at the wrong temperature thrown at me.

and like if i had to design the magical perfect shower system, the two dials would not be 'hot water' and 'cold water' but rather 'temperature' and 'flow' that can be adjusted independently with small movements of the dial corresponding to small, predictable changes in the relevant physical variable and you might even imagine presets per person or something.

and like. there are practical difficulties with that sort of thing ofc (e.g. water famously has a pretty big heat capacity, so there's gonna be some inertia if you're trying to change its temperature quickly) but it doesn't seem beyond our abilities as a species, right? expensive, I am not surprised I don't have this at home, but. Does someone?

I have no idea how the showers of rich people work but are they remotely like this or are they just doing something entirely different and presumably-better-by-their-preferences or do they also have to deal with fiddly showers? i am curious.

[nia--san]

Yes, there are fancy showers with digital controls that do this, and they are expensive. Although now I'm wondering if this is feasible with a traditional water heater setup or if this is only practical with hot water on demand.

[serinemolecule]

and like if i had to design the magical perfect shower system, the two dials would not be 'hot water' and 'cold water' but rather 'temperature' and 'flow' that can be adjusted independently

This exists and is called a "thermostatic mixer" faucet. @nia--san has probably seen ones with digital screens, but the tech is completely mechanical and are usually sold without any electronics at all. They're also not expensive; here's one for USD$20.

Basically every Japanese shower works like this, and, I repeat, it has zero electronics:

As you can see, the right knob adjusts temperature, and the left knob adjusts pressure. There's also a button on the showerhead to turn it on and off, so once you set the temperature and pressure you like, you can just press the showerhead button before and after every shower.

I've seen these controls in a few luxury hotels (and airport lounges) outside of Japan, but it's pretty rare rare.

adjusted independently with small movements of the dial corresponding to small, predictable changes in the relevant physical variable

You can see from the pic that this one has a bunch of temperatures marked on the dial. You can literally just select the exact temperature you want.

(e.g. water famously has a pretty big heat capacity, so there's gonna be some inertia if you're trying to change its temperature quickly)

Not actually a problem. As you can see, the mixer bar has hot water and cold water going directly into it, so you're not changing the temperature of the water itself, so much as changing what percentage of the mixture is coming from hot water.

In my experience, feeling the change happens pretty quickly, but that's also true of every other shower I've used (which also work this way), so I don't know what's up with your showers.

I have no idea how the showers of rich people work but are they remotely like this

Nope, I've been to a lot of pretty rich people's houses and seen some ultra-luxury showers and they may be huge and made of marble and have rain showers, but the controls seem optimized for artistic value rather than convenience.

I'd much rather use a Japanese shower. It's not like thermostatic mixers are expensive (the first one I found on Amazon Japan was USD$20). They just haven't caught on in the rest of the world for whatever reason.

[andmaybegayer]

thermostatic mixers are becoming more common (my apartment in Czechia has one) but you mainly see them in new construction and commercial spaces because of energy efficiency and safety regulations, also because people don't ever replace old fittings and even when they do they usually buy the same kind of fitting. If you cheap the fuck out (motels love doing this) you put in a single-knob version that only controls temperature, not pressure, but the two-knob ones are excellent, you can just set the temperature and forget it.

In commercial settings these save you from accidentally burning anyone, and it allows you to use much hotter water in the pipes which reduces risk of bacterial growth and allows you to use less, hotter water from a smaller, better insulated tank.

The way these work is cool, there's a piston containing a plug of wax that's exposed to the post-mixer water, and the wax expands when heated such that actuates the mixer valve. When the piston extends it mixes in more cold water, and you adjust a springloaded offset adjustment with the temperature knob so that you can change equilibrium. Closed-loop mechanical control with an adjustable setpoint!

[fouri-er-replies]

These are super common in the Netherlands too!

[youzicha]

The tumble dryer is energy saving and the “extra dry” setting leaves the clothes damp. The “urgent” primary health care clinic lets you wait two hours in a phone queue to tell you they don’t have any time today.

[fouri-er-replies]

Welcome!! ^^

[polldermodel]

HEY GOH JOH. ik fietste door de stad. En ik dacht. Joh hoe handig zou het zijn. Als we als fietsers ook zoiets zouden hebben als richtingaanwijzers... zodat je kan voorspellen wat andere weggebruikers gaan doen en minder kan hebt op aanrijdingen. Wat vinden we hiervan?

- nee man, ik let niet op anderen

- nee man, ik geniet van de chaos

[STEEK GEWOON JE HAND UIT ALS JE AFSLAAT]

HEY GOH JOH. ik fietste door de stad. En ik dacht. Joh hoe handig zou het zijn. Als we als fietsers ook zoiets zouden hebben als richtingaanwijzers... zodat je kan voorspellen wat andere weggebruikers gaan doen en minder kan hebt op aanrijdingen. Wat vinden we hiervan?

nee man, ik let niet op anderen

nee man, ik geniet van de chaos

nee man, ik vind dat dat mijn vrijheden inperkt

nee man, dit is té ambitieus, daar zijn we nog niet klaar voor

misschien, maar wat voor impact heeft dat op de forel populatie?

Voting ended onNov 18, 2025

[fouri-er-replies]

The answers you get when you ask a Dutch GP for one (1) extra Paracetamol

[max1461]

What do opioids feel like? Detailed descriptions preferred.

[fouri-er-replies]

I had a laparoscopy in 2022. After initially refusing morphine, I changed my mind because the strongest other painkiller wasn't strong enough. It feels like finding out that your crush has a crush on you too, coming back home on a warm rainy spring Friday afternoon after learning that you aced a math test.

Also it whispers to you that if you just take it once again, it will give you the strength to never want to take it again. I brought the second dose I was given home, and then a few weeks later had one the worst crash outs of my life after realising I accidentally threw it away.

Never taking that shit ever again, it made me crazy for a few months even after just one dose.

[andmaybegayer]

This is a cheap CO2 meter but it's not completely mystery meat so this (windows open) bodes very poorly for my air quality if I ever close the windows.

It does read like 520 outdoors which probably isn't far off so I guess this is just how it is. It got down to about 600 after a while of airing the place out.

[fouri-er-replies]

Hey I have a CO2 meter as well! I got it about half a year ago from Rovary, it looks pretty similar to the one you have, just white. Serves me great. My CO2 stats are pretty close to yours.

Usually if I'm at home with a window cracked open, the levels will hover between 600 and 800 ppm, which is still considered good air quality. If I exercise or move around a lot, the levels spike a little bit, but usually nothing over 1000 ppm. If I close the windows, the CO2 will reach unsafe levels (over 1200 ppm) within a few hours.

If I air out heavily, the levels will go down to about 400ppm. Same if I've been away for a few hours, while a window was open.

[nederlandsespoorwegen]

I got nerdsniped hard. Why do modern electric trains sound like that when they accelerate.

Even if you know it's not gearboxes, and even if you know a little about basic electric circuits, you're still nowhere close to a simple explanation.

I got as far as VVVF but now I'm gonna eep

[fouri-er-replies]

It's the thyristors! I really like the sound that they make, especially the ones in the NS doubledeckers :3

Here's a video of a train with a nice acceleration sound:

[lilyblisslys]

if you had to have sex at an aquarium, would you do it in the freshwater or saltwater section? (yes the fish can see you)

Aquarium sex

Freshwater

Saltwater

I’m a coward

Voting ended onJan 6, 2025

[alivehouse]

kind of fucking it up in this harness. he should have been at the club

[fouri-er-replies]

[271828]

Luigi is likely eligible for asylum in the Netherlands as someone who is facing a death penalty in the US

You want to apply for asylum in the Netherlands. Find out what the requirements are and information about the asylum procedure and other app

[271828]

Can someone please blaze this

[torschlusspanikattack]

i thought new york didn’t have the death penalty? is he being charged federally? how does federal death penalty work? like wasn’t the unabomber just life sentence

[fouri-er-replies]

Live updates: Luigi Mangione faces new federal charges over UnitedHealthcare CEO murder

The 26-year-old returns to New York to face charges over the murder of Brian Thompson, who was shot dead in Manhattan earlier this month.