Bag of Randomness for Friday, July 15, 2022

  • A young person thanked me via text for some sports photos I took, “Yeah fr thanks for taking them hope ur doing well.” I couldn’t tell if “fr” was a typo of if it was shorthand, so I looked it up. It’s shorthand for “for real.” And now you know, but you may have already known. But, now I know, and now I’m cool. I think.
  • I love my place of employment, I just wish I felt more fulfillment out of my job. They just reimbursed me for our Washington DC vacation, and when I told them I tested positive for COVID-19, they immediately sent me a $100 UberEats gift card.
  • I also wondered the same thing. Thankfully, someone asked it in Reddit – Why do windmills typically have 4 blades, yet all modern wind turbines have 3?
    • Wind turbines have three blades for a balance of stability and efficiency. It’s the fewest number of blades you can have while still keeping the structure from shaking itself apart from gyroscopic forces. Since more blades means less efficiency, three is the best we can do.Windmills were made in a time when precision engineering and machining weren’t nearly as advanced as they are now. It follows the same principle – fewer blades is more efficient – but four blades is a whole lot easier to manually balance than three is.For people asking why two blades isn’t stable: Two blades is only stable if the turbine doesn’t rotate laterally. Because an efficient turbine needs to rotate to maximize its angle to the wind, three is much better.

      Two-bladed (and even one-bladed) turbines do exist. The problem is that because of their instability, they produce a lot more wear on their components and are more prone to failure.

  • Marion Barber III’s death seems suspect, but nobody else seems to be saying anything about it.
  • Houston TV station loses power while discussing blackouts on air
  • Well, I have some in common with a most of the Trump children. Both our mothers died after falling down stairs.
  • Gas prices sure have dropped a lot, and consistenty, but you don’t hear the news talking about it.
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