#proton batteries

[cheaphousespending]

The Idea: A cheap proton battery for storing solar energy that does not rely on scarce natural resources

Engineers in Melbourne are vying for pole position in the global race to make a cheap rechargeable battery for storing solar energy that does not rely on scarce natural resources. Their latest experimental ‘proton battery’ could one day be developed to power homes, vehicles and devices – without the end-of-life environmental challenges of lithium-ion batteries. RMIT University has patented the…

[secretgamergirl]

How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

[fandomnerd9602]

Melody reaches out and takes Y/N’s hand…

Melody: (gasps) it’s been so long since I could hold someone’s hand.

Y/N: helps being a ghost (winks)

Phoebe’s proton pack short circuits…

Phoebe: battery’s out

Y/N: allow me

Y/N powers up the pack with a simple touch…

Y/N: radiation. terrible way to die. Makes for great afterlife power tho.

Melody; h-how long can you stay?

Y/N: however long you want me to.

Melody smiles, finally someone to hold hands with…

For @konstantin609

[reasonsforhope]

"It may sound surprising, but when times are tough and there is no other food available, some soil bacteria can consume traces of hydrogen in the air as an energy source.

In fact, bacteria remove a staggering 70 million tonnes of hydrogen yearly from the atmosphere, a process that literally shapes the composition of the air we breathe.

We have isolated an enzyme that enables some bacteria to consume hydrogen and extract energy from it, and found it can produce an electric current directly when exposed to even minute amounts of hydrogen.

As we report in a new paper in Nature, the enzyme may have considerable potential to power small, sustainable air-powered devices in future.

Bacterial genes contain the secret for turning air into electricity

Prompted by this discovery, we analysed the genetic code of a soil bacterium called Mycobacterium smegmatis, which consumes hydrogen from air.

Written into these genes is the blueprint for producing the molecular machine responsible for consuming hydrogen and converting it into energy for the bacterium. This machine is an enzyme called a “hydrogenase”, and we named it Huc for short.

Hydrogen is the simplest molecule, made of two positively charged protons held together by a bond formed by two negatively charged electrons. Huc breaks this bond, the protons part ways, and the electrons are released...

The molecular blueprint for extracting hydrogen from air

With Huc isolated, we set about studying it in earnest, to discover what exactly the enzyme is capable of. How can it turn the hydrogen in the air into a sustainable source of electricity?

Remarkably, we found that even when isolated from the bacteria, Huc can consume hydrogen at concentrations far lower even than the tiny traces in the air. In fact, Huc still consumed whiffs of hydrogen too faint to be detected by our gas chromatograph, a highly sensitive instrument we use to measure gas concentrations...

Enzymes could use air to power the devices of tomorrow

It’s early days for this research, and several technical challenges need to be overcome to realise the potential of Huc.

For one thing, we will need to significantly increase the scale of Huc production. In the lab we produce Huc in milligram quantities, but we want to scale this up to grams and ultimately kilograms.

However, our work demonstrates that Huc functions like a “natural battery” producing a sustained electrical current from air or added hydrogen.

As a result, Huc has considerable potential in developing small, sustainable air-powered devices as an alternative to solar power.

The amount of energy provided by hydrogen in the air would be small, but likely sufficient to power a biometric monitor, clock, LED globe or simple computer. With more hydrogen, Huc produces more electricity and could potentially power larger devices.

Another application would be the development of Huc-based bioelectric sensors for detecting hydrogen, which could be incredibly sensitive. Huc could be invaluable for detecting leaks in the infrastructure of our burgeoning hydrogen economy or in a medical setting.

In short, this research shows how a fundamental discovery about how bacteria in soils feed themselves can lead to a reimagining of the chemistry of life. Ultimately it may also lead to the development of technologies for the future."

-via The Conversation, March 8, 2023. Article written by the authors of the study.

[best-element-poll]

(the 2 most voted elements will continue onto round 2!)

More info about each element (and propaganda for the ones I like) under the cut. pleeeeeeeeease read some of them at least the one about francium

(disclaimer: these are based off short wikipedia reads and my crumbling high school chemistry knowledge. correct me if I'm wrong about anything.)

HYDROGEN: Hydrogen is the lightest element (consisting of only one proton and one electron). It is also the most abundant element in the universe, it's a gas (at room temperature) and it can explode. It's also quite representative of acids, having the (Arrhenius) definition of an acid straight up saying that it has to dissociate in water to form H+ ions. It's also quite an efficient fuel. Hydrogen is anywhere and Hydrogen is everywhere. If you like explosions, sour beverages, or acid in general, consider voting Hydrogen!

LITHIUM: Lithium, under standard conditions, is by far the least dense metal and the least dense solid element! You may primarily know him from your phone's Lithium-ion batteries. There are Lithium-based drugs used to treat mental illnesses. You can throw a block of lithium in water and it will make a really big explosion. The metal is soft and silvery. I'm running out of things to say about him. If you like batteries vote Lithium? (edit: just realised lithium is used for batteries, and batteries are connected to robotics and engineering. if you like robots and cool mechanical stuff vote lithium!)

SODIUM: You must know him from table salt. That's actually NaCl, his best known involvement. There are many more very important and very commonplace compounds that involve sodium, such as baking soda (NaHCO3) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) (that's probably the most famous base?). It's also very important to the human body (you shouldn't eat more than 2300mg a day). If you've ever used table salt or baking soda while cooking, consider voting Sodium!

POTASSIUM: Their name was based on the word potash, which was based on an early and easy way of obtaining potassium, from putting ash in a pot, adding water, heating, and evaporating the solution. It's used in a lot of fertilisers because it's an essential plant nutrient. It's also involved in a ton of important compounds: KOH (a strong base), KNO3 (often used as salt bridges in electrochemical cells), K2CrO7 (an oxidising agent often used in organic synthesis), and K2CrO4 (I don't know what this one does). If you have ever eaten food from fertilisers consider voting Potassium!

RUBIDIUM: Rubidium compounds are sometimes used in fireworks to give them a purple color. They've also got a cool name, based on the latin rubidius, for deep red (the color of its emission spectrum). I'll be real, I don't really know much about them beyond that, but that is one cool name. Vote for Rubidium if you like cool names.

CAESIUM: Caesium is used in the definition for a second, meaning that an entire SI unit is based on it! A second can be defined as "the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of microwave light absorbed or emitted by the hyperfine transition of caesium-133 atoms in their ground state undisturbed by external fields". It was also discovered from mineral water. Did you know that they had to use 44000 liters of water to find her? If you've ever experienced time or had a conception of it in terms of units, consider voting Caesium!!!

FRANCIUM!!!: Caesium... TWO! It's sad that no one will probably read this far but this is my favourite element in this poll. This element is characterised by instability. Her longest half-life is 22 minutes. Her entire existence was conjoint with Caesium before they discovered that she was her own element. She has never been seen. They literally never confirmed what color she is. She was born in a wet cardboard box all alone. Through the hands of different scientists, she was going to be named after Russia, Virginia, or Moldavia at different points in time. At one point the name catium was proposed (for "cation", since she was believed to be the most electropositive cation), but was rejected because it sounded like a cat element. Which is so fucking sad. We could've had cat element but we ended up with France element. That's right she's also named after France. Just tragic fascinating existence overall. Also isn't it just insane that her half-life is only 22 minutes? Dude, you don't get it, the most of her that's ever existed in one place is a mere 300000 atoms. She's here and she's gone. What the hell.

The charm of Francium can be summarised by the wise words of my good friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

[chounaifu]

Replying to Proton's birthday asks when I get home. I have a headache and my social battery is low but I will NOT miss out on my boy's day.

[starlightlightning]

Woke up, saw the proton kissing while glitching post, and immediately remembered the time i put a battery in my mouth and got shocked from it.

Decided that's a thing Elesa does as a stim sometimes (when no one is looking because thats embarrassing).

Shes basically a joltik.

[table-cat-games]

Another round of Ghostbusters modding!

I dedicated some time to modding the Hasbro proton pack. The pack was crowdfunded on their platform called Haslab and was modeled after the proton pack scene in Ghostbusters Afterlife.

They did a pretty good job on it except for a few things. The primary thing that bothered me about it is that it used D cell batteries instead of a modern solution that is rechargeable.

The solution was cracking it open and installing a battery myself.

Now it's accessible from a little side door.

At the same time I also installed a keep alive kit which you can use to keep the proton pack running almost indefinitely as you walk around with it on. Otherwise it shuts off after 3 minutes.

That's it right there, it's super tiny.

Next up was replacing the lens on the power level doodad. The frosted looked really bad in my opinion so I got a more clear blue one.

I can only do one video per post, so you'll see it in action at the end.

They also have some stuff that looks really fake like molded rubber tape or clamps that are molded rubber. I covered up a lot of the faky stuff with actual electrical tape or clamps.

Also this guy on YouTube did this interesting thing with little bits of wires to give it a little more authenticity, so I did that too.

And while I love Ghostbusters afterlife I wasn't super in love with the modified pack in that film, so I toned it down a little bit.

In the final image You can see that I took these little fake copper wire things and removed them. I covered up the holes at the top with a sticker and at the bottom with just some electric tape. Not the most elegant solution but it works for me.

And here's the final result for now. There's only two more things on the list for this pack: 1. Replace the yellowish wireloom cover. 2. Replace the really dirty ribbon cable. 3. Replace the fake tape on the handle of the neutrona wand.

[ask-dcf]

Chara Starhunter

❌NAME: Chara Starhunter ❌ Pronounces: She/her ❌Age: 18 ❌Gender: Female ❌Personality: Despite her serious looking demeanor she is welcoming of anyone who wishes to talk to her. However she is also a no shit taker. So if threatened or looked down on she won’t hesitate to throw a punch to defend herself or others. ❌ Side: For Freedom ❌About or story: Chara Starhunter is from a Star Wars AU and is a former imperial Ace pilot and is considered the youngest Ace pilot of the imperial academy. Top marks. A strong resistance to G-Force capable of handling turns that could harm anyone. And leader of the first Commando Experiment Squad known as “Circus Squad” (Because unlike the gray hue every imperial pilot had on their fighters. Theirs differentiates with many colors, as if like a circus) She became known as the “Red Baroness” (as a reference to the red Baron) and was seen as a highly decorated star pilot. However an incident caused her to lose her whole squadron who she saw as her own family. Because of this she went rogue and began to harass the Company that abandoned her and her pilots to a suicide mission. After escaping from a chase in battle her ship had a malfunction which caused her hyper speed escape to break the barrier between worlds. Causing her to crash into the anti-void. Where she was introduced to the multiverse.

She found herself in the unnamed universe and deciding to put her skills to good use. With help of getting her ship fixed and fueled she signed up with the Red Squad. Working as an infiltrator at times but mostly eyes in the sky and air combatant. She is always looking for new missions in order to help those in need.

❌Sector: Homebased at B. Tends to go to C a lot on missions.

❌Powers and capacity: Has no magic but is good at hand to hand combat (she works out at the gym). She is also good with her blasters and doesn’t miss like a typical storm trooper. But her go-to is her star fighter.

Equipment:

Modified EC-17 hold-out blaster with proper scope setting and flash pistol function. Able to shoot a bolt that can blind her enemies when fired.

WESTAR-35 Mandalorian pistol. Usually used when having to go on team missions. Basic pistol functions with self recharging power battery.

GALAAR-15 (CURRENTLY BROKEN) Assault rifle she found along with the WESTAR on her home planet she was visiting to scavenge for supplies. Weapon’s power cell and inner mechanical functions damaged and is useless until repaired.

Modified TIE/HU Hunter multi-role starfighter. Colored Red. Call sign “Heartbreaker”. Preferred to be used by Chara. Capable of hyperdrive, shields, ion blasters, laser canons, and up to 12 proton torpedoes. The twin ion engines and S-foils helps this starfighter be deadly with both with both fire power and speed. Navigation system shotty due to being in new universe. However constantly updated when on a new mission to a new place.

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Character for @1unnamed-universe Discord server

So yeah I made a new chara combining both Star Wars and undertale XD Two my fave fandoms. Course in the Star Wars AU she didn’t go down the usual Chara path. She is an absolute bad ass and I love her. Especially the ship she flying. I loved the Tie Hunters when I was a kid playing rogue squadron.

I thought I would do something interesting by having a starfighter Chara with many modified stuff to help her in battle.

So am gonna have fun playing her. One day I hope to get her ship designed with a proper ref. I’ll give more details of her background soon but for now just gonna have the standard ref and info.

art by @xjunjox

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Metals are typically used as active materials for negative electrodes in batteries. Recently, redox-active organic molecules, such as quinone- and amine-based molecules, have been used as negative electrodes in rechargeable metal-air batteries with oxygen-reducing positive electrodes. Here, protons and hydroxide ions participate in the redox reactions. Such batteries exhibit high performance, close to the maximum capacity that is theoretically possible. Furthermore, using redox-active organic molecules in rechargeable air batteries overcomes problems associated with metals, including the formation of structures called 'dendrites,' which impact battery performance, and have negative environmental impact. However, these batteries use liquid electrolytes -- just like metal-based batteries -- which pose major safety concerns like high electrical resistance, leaching effects, and flammability. Now, in a new study published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition on May 2, 2023, a group of Japanese researchers have developed an all-solid-state rechargeable air battery (SSAB) and investigated its capacity and durability. The study was led by Professor Kenji Miyatake from Waseda University and the University of Yamanashi, and co-authored by Professor Kenichi Oyaizu from Waseda University.

Read more.

[cassandrarc7]

Stellaris Fleet Advice from some Catgirl Thing

Because apparently I'm competent at this sort of thing? Learn from me at your own risk. I am not an expert I just like the funny space boats.

Ships! These aren't the best ships, but they're the ones I know about and use.

Anti-mining corvette: Interceptor core, 3 lasers, 2 shields, 1 armor, swarm tactics, any addon. These specifically counter ancient mining drones, since mining drones use lasers and have no shields.

Shield-popping corvette: Interceptor core, 3 autocannons, 3 armor, swarm tacticcs, any addon. These are garbage on their own, since they basically only damage shields. Great for use with proton/neutron torpedoes.

Torpedo boat (FFK): Missile boat core, 1 autocannon, 1 torpedo, 2 armor, 1 shield, torpedo tactics, stealth or afterburner addon. These should only really be used on their own in max-size fleets. Never take these into combat against anything smaller than a cruiser, and expect losses against carrier-type battleships.

Guided missile frigate (FFG): Missile boat core, 1 missile, 1 proton/neutron torpdeo, 2 shields, 1 armor, artillery tactics, any addon. These should be used with shield-popping corvettes, and are useless without them. I have never tried this ship in practice, though it should work perfectly.

Guided missile destroyer (DDG): Gunboat bow, interceptor stern, 1 swarm missile, 4 missiles, any armor layout, artillery tactics, any addons. These are great to combine with missile-based carriers or cruisers, as some additional expendable firepower. I have never *not* lost a DDG in a fight involving them.

Destroyer Escort (DE): Picket bow, picket stern, 3 point-defense, 2 lasers, shield-heavy layout, picket tactics, any addons. These guard your larger ships from missiles, and are very capable in denying a missile-centric enemy. Anyone using armor-only expendable corvettes or frigates will find their fleet in ruins from a few of these, but do keep in mind that you need a lot of these to do much good. I usually put a few of these in any group of large ships, and they really do only last one or two fights before they're gone.

Destroyer (DD): Gunship bow, gunship stern, all lasers, any armor layout, line tactics, any addons. These are entirely capable of swarming enemies and melting armor, but do mind that you need a lot of them. Ideal for early-game or if you're broke on alloys. Must be used with either shield-popping corvettes or heavy cruisers.

Light Cruiser (CL): Broadside bow, broadside core, broadside stern, all lasers, any armor layout, line tactics, any addons. These are bigger, more expensive DDs. More suited for use with BBs than with CAs.

Light Missile Cruiser (CLG): Torpedo bow, torpedo core, broadside stern, all proton/neutron torpedoes, missiles, and swarm missiles, any armor layout, artillery tactics, any addons. These must be used with something to pop shields, whether that's anti-shield corvettes, CAs, or BBs. The normal/swarm missiles exist to overwhelm enemy point defense. Due to the large amount of missiles, these work well with DDGs and CVs.

Heavy Cruiser (CA): Artillery bow, artillery core, broadside stern, all mass drivers, any armor layout, artillery tactics, any addons. These should never be used with anything larger than cruisers, and they should always be used with something to damage armor. Goes great with DDs and CLGs

Battleship (BB): Artillery bow, artillery core, artillery stern, all mass drivers (or all kinetic batteries), any armor layout, artillery tactics, any addons. These are just bigger CAs, and it is always worth the upgrade. Do keep in mind that these have a minimum range, and you will be easy to overwhelm if FFKs or corvettes get too close. DEs are recommended if you like not losing your precious battleships. Goes great with CLGs, CLs, and DDs.

Carrier (CV): Hangar bow, carrier core, broadside stern. All P slots should be point defense, all S slots should be missiles, all M slots should be swarm missiles, and all H slots should be strike aircraft. Any armor layout, carrier tactics, any addons. These pierce all shields, but are weak against point defense. Overwhelm enemy point defense with the help of a few CLGs and/or a lot of DDGs, and make sure you have some DEs to screen out any strike aircraft or frigates, as those are incredibly dangerous to ships of this size.

Some archaeoweaponry is just better than stock stuff. If you have the improved stuff, use it. It's good. I've never tried titans, though in theory they're just larger battleships, so they could be supported by a BL instead of a CL, though I did not say how to make a BL here because I've never successfully used one. I was going to make a guide on how to assemble these ships into fleets, but I think I listed that sort of thing under each ship.

@slimegirllover

[kraglynn]

Good morning everyone, the weather today is energy. You might have trouble holding a negative charge, especially if you breathe oxygen. That stuff soaks up electrons like you wouldn’t believe. Because of this, the United Nations selectively bred Gatorade to combat this. There’s a constant war between electrons and electrolytes and the only winner is the guy selling both sides their protons. Push for acid regulation in your HOA today. Batteries should be illegal.

[reiketsui]

" I think you look pretty regardless, " he's saying this as they're both worn out, visibly tired and running on low battery after work.

" huh? " he hadn't expected the silence to be broken – especially not with a comment like that. they have always been comfortable beside each other in silence, be it work or off duty, and it has became a kind of unwritten rule to keep words to a minimum after a long shift like this. there is no need to awkwardly try and fill in gaps with meaningless smalltalk when they know each other as– thoroughly as they do.

for a moment, he's taken aback, suddenly aware that proton knows exactly how much he dislikes being seen like this, with the signs of exhaustion clear on his face and the faint traces of mascara smudged in the corners of his eyes. his brows furrow, the only sign of the sudden bashfulness being the brief touch to the back of his neck as he turns his gaze away. " come on, let's go home, " they can count it down as the first time archer has ever vocally expressed wanting to leave work. / @chounaifu

[your-god-empress-lavender]

Calcium sulphur batteries (uwu)

Okay, so, i've become interested in z-pinch studies for aerospace purposes (i'm really excited about the prospects, everything works on paper, but i naturally want to actually witness p+N14 fusion for above 0.01% of available protons before i go trying to get the materials to build a real liquid fueled SSTO fusion rocket, especially since there are thousands of folks way smarter than me who have presumably thought of this before and we don't have it yet, so yeah). Anyways, if i want the extremely large electricity input without making my electricity bill higher than a whole month's rent and getting my roommates mad at me, i'll need to collect solar or wind in a battery bank. Since lithium batteries are just about all immoral and expensive (yes i am writing this on a device powered by lithium batteries, it would be lovely if capitalists would take a hint and switch to things that just objectively perform better and are cheaper, but whatever), i figured this would be a nice excuse to experiment around with some new battery designs. Since all of them will require sulphur, i won't be able to really get into it before mid may due to some concerns about the smell and risks of getting sulphur powder everywhere (it's very yellow and hard to clean out), but i felt i might as well share my preliminary ideas. First off, in order to make the organic sulphur polymer, i'm looking to explore mostly citrate based polymers, perhaps with phenylalanine mixed in in order to both give more bulk as well as providing nitrogens for sulphenamides to form. Since i'll need urea later, i was also considering partially polymerizing urea with citric acid and adding that into the molten sulphur mix, but i'm less confident in the stability of that and a bit concerned about the potential noxious fumes produced. Regardless, that's the short of the sulphur cathode, details will definitely change after i refind that paper which went over a great way of preventing insoluble polysulphide production. I'm also gonna experiment with anode material and even the ions i use. I know i said "calcium sulphur batteries" in the title, but due to how common aluminium is and how much easier magnesium is to work with (and the fact that their specific energies are higher), i'll also be considering those two. Even beyond that, there are so many potential anode materials, including even amorphous carbon and carbon nitrides which i'd love to test since there's just so much to improve on and i'd rather do a lot of experiments with cheap to make materials and potentially land on a great solution than accept something subpar because it took less effort. Anyways, of the materials i plan on using, there's magnesium sulphate, aluminium sulphate, calcium chloride, potentially other calcium salts (is the salt with taurine soluble in water? IDK, can't find an answer so i'll test it), charcoal, vegetable oil, urea, and phenylalanine. Those may seem like an unrelated hodgepodge of compounds, but they've been chosen because they're what i have/will soon have and they're also all extremely cheap. If the urea works out well in the battery, i may have to make this project a meme and attempt to make a z-pinch device with as much urine as possible (use it to make ammonia for the plasma, to make the batteries, and i'm sure there's some way to use urine in a capacitor (maybe just distilling off the water to use as a dielectric? idk, it's been a while since i tried making a capacitor)).

Anyway, i really didn't expect this long trainwreck of a post to end with discussions of urine, but what can you do? This is all probably nonsensical, even by my standards, but basically i want batteries and i think i can make them cheaper per megajoule of stored energy than the ones i could buy, even accounting for the inevitable failed experiments.

[xystonantzintla]

star destroyer shipgirl

ok i need to rename her from the silly name i came up with in middle school (execuclipse lol... executor + eclipse) so for now she's just abbreviated to "SDrN" -> lore down below

SDrN is a heavily-armed, ship-to-ship focused dreadnought meant to flexibly respond to large-scale engagements. Like the Eclipse- and Sovereign-classes, SDrN is equipped with gravity well generators and a battering ram, all plated with layers upon layers of heavy armor. Much of the ship's internal systems are automated, leaving her with a small crew to work with. Only the best Imperial pilots are assigned to her, as she also boasts an experimental targeting system jammer that disables all starfighter targeting systems in range, leaving those pesky rebels with just their own senses… which, most of the time, cannot compare with the Empire's rigorous training. However, this also means that the Imperial pilots must fly by training alone - no assistance from an onboard computer or the such. When used strategically, this can help protect SDrN from bombers while her point-defense laser cannons pick them off, but having incompetent Imperial pilots will doom them as well.

Even though SDrN is equipped with a variety of anti-starfighter countermeasures, it's still recommended to bring a supporting fleet for extra coverage. In addition to thousands of turbolasers, SDrN has an axial superlaser - again, taking notes from the designs of the Eclipse and Sovereign - and parts of her trench turbolaser batteries have been replaced with arrays of missile launchers. These missiles fly as two-stage rockets. The first stage is intended to cross the distance between the fleets and is active for most of the flight, while the second stage detaches the first and releases many smaller warheads to increase the amount of targets anti-missile systems have to deal with. These MIRV warheads can be equipped with proton, ion, armor-piercing, or armor-piercing high-explosive charges.

With the abundance of other systems present, the axial superlaser cannot fire while other energy-heavy systems are at work; in order to fire safely, all turbolasers must be shut down for the brief charging period, and engines work at a maximum of 50% power. The riskier alternative to keep weapons and engines powered requires diverting energy from shields, which can prove dangerous if the supporting fleet is breached.

There is, also, the cloaking device. Almost nothing else can work while it's active: no shields, no gravity well generators, and minimal weapons. Certainly no superlasers. The uses of cloaking such a large ship are few at best, such as tactical repositions and the such, but the primary use falls to enforcing the principles of the Tarkin Doctrine: silence dissent by fear. The presence of a fleet-killer warship alone is daunting, but too often, dissenters might simply assume that it isn't close enough to respond. Should SDrN's location be unknown, it stands as a reminder to uncooperative worlds: step out of line, and the galaxy won't even know what happened. Step out of line, and you won't even have time for goodbyes. Step out of line, and your death will be not a martyrdom but the quiet snuffing out of an unnoticed flame.

oh also!! hello, you made it this far??? congrats 🎉

[veritanascoste]

TrueLove💜8888888:

COME SI SVOLGERÀ IL GRANDE EVENTO

Verrà un momento in cui il Sole non irradierà più nella gamma di frequenze che gli sono proprie, ma lo farà in un'estensione incredibilmente più ampia, proveniente dal Centro Galattico.

Verrà svelata una Grande Nave Madre, composta da materiale eterico e biologico, camuffata da cometa, passando per meteorite, che sarà la forza motrice, il ponte essenziale che fungerà da condotto per le forze e le energie tra il fisico e Dimensioni eteriche, tali che un colossale flusso di energia colpirà la Terra come un'enorme onda di luce...

Sarà un evento coordinato da numerose forze sagge, spirituali e tecnologicamente evolute, accorse in aiuto della Terra.

Il lampo di luce illuminerà notevolmente gli esseri umani, ma non tutti saranno soggetti alla sua altissima radiazione.

Questa energia sarà percepita da ogni essere umano del pianeta, penetrerà in ogni atomo della nostra costituzione fisica e ci permetterà di creare cambiamenti straordinari nel nostro DNA, così che in futuro potremo evolvere spiritualmente in maniera accelerata...

Le persone percepiranno uno stato di benessere interiore e, coloro che sono già preparati, sperimenteranno intensi stati di illuminazione.

Capirai molto chiaramente cosa significa avere la nozione di Dio e sperimenterai un'immensa felicità e gioia.

Allo stesso tempo, questa energia sarà portatrice di forza vitale e radiosità interiore.

Questa prima irradiazione durerà esattamente 14 minuti e 58 secondi, lo stesso del ritmo della nostra Galassia, che è la sua frequenza di base.

Non a caso, i circa 14 minuti sono il tempo impiegato da un neutrone libero per dividersi in un protone e un elettrone, cioè in due polarità...

L'energia emessa dalla nostra Galassia, attraverso il nostro Sole, sarà permanentemente avvertita dalle popolazioni e avremo la gioia di percepire questo stato di carica di luce che ci darà maggiore speranza e fiducia, assicurandoci un rapido cammino spirituale.

Quando si verifica questo evento, sarà visibile un certo tipo di bagliore, se si verifica di notte.

Qualcosa di molto simile alla luce dei poli quando si forma l'aurora boreale.

Se l'evento, invece, si svolge durante il giorno, le persone potranno vedere un bagliore particolare nel cielo e percepiranno una grande gioia interiore nel momento in cui vedranno un azzurro molto luminoso sopra le loro teste.

Questa è una possibilità unica che ci viene offerta per raggiungere un salto illuminante della nostra coscienza..

Sarà un momento esclusivo ed irripetibile nella storia del nostro Pianeta, ma anche nella storia Universale!!!

Sarà un'intensa energia di luce e amore che proteggerà tutte le creature che si sono Risvegliate all'Amore Consapevole...

Questo flusso di energia estremamente potente spianerà la strada anche alle più piccole forme di vita, anche a livello di batteri o semplice terra.

In pratica significherà uno sviluppo dell'essere umano, in relazione a ciò che realmente è nel suo stato potenziale, secondo il suo e la scelta che ognuno di noi farà.

Allora i popoli capiranno la natura delle cose e capiranno la verità.

Si sveglieranno da un sonno lunghissimo e profondo e vedranno tutto ciò che li circonda pervaso di luce divina.

QUESTO SARA' IL GRANDE EVENTO!!!