#bird rants

[thatonebirdwrites]

Bird Rants: Portals and Stuff

In the Supergirl show, the transmatter portal is described as working via polyatomic anions. No, just no, that's nonsensical. It sounds like gibberish, and it bothers me to no end. There's a better way to describe how it works that's way more fun.

So hear me out, okay? I got a physics degree, and I did a bit on research on how such a portal could work based on how the show describes it. (disclaimer: I simplified things a little bit for this explanation).

First: the show claims the portals are set up via locations. As in the person had to visit both locations to "program" that location into it.

Second: it looks like the opening of a wormhole.

This leads me to believe the portals actually work via quantum entanglement and wormholes that utilize negative energy. So, particles on a quantum level are weird. They tend to exist in all states at once until measured, but at the moment of our measurement, the particle collapses into a specific state. This is the foundation of a lot of quantum mechanics and many of the weirdness such as entanglement. Another important property is the uncertainty principle, where we can't measure all properties exactly. For example, if we measure the velocity of the particle, the location measurement will be smeared out and inexact. And vice versa. (Seriously, quantum world is weird, and I absolutely love it).

Uncertainty principle is the basics of vacuum energy within spacetime (a.k.a. space). It plays a big role in stabilizing a wormhole for travel.

Now, this smearing out of the particles allows for some weird shit like entanglement!

Meaning, we can entangle particles so that they are basically married/connected. For example, if one entangled particle has an Up Spin, then its buddy will always be the opposite - Down Spin. (Fun side note, the distance between them doesn't matter. It's a nonlocal connection. if we measure the one particle as up, the other - even if its thousands of lightyears away - will always be the opposite).

Knowing that, we can look at the portals. Per the first claim, two locations are programed into the portal device. That likely means the locations are entangled on a particle level. So how to pass through to the other location? Create a miniature wormhole and use energy to expand it into a person-sized portal. The entangled particles at both end would hold the ends of the wormhole in place, but in order to stabilize the wormhole for travel, the device must provide enough negative energy to allow passage. (See my side notes below as to what negative energy is).

The type of particles doesn't matter (all matter is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons anyway. And protons and neutrons are made up of quarks). Therefore, it also does not matter what the molecule is (for example, polyatomic ions are two or more atoms in a covalent bond that act as one unit. That describes most matter actually. But even single atoms would work). This is because quantum entanglement doesn't happen on the atom level but the particle level. As in the ingredients for an atom.

Therefore, transmatter portals in Supergirl actually work via quantum entanglement and wormholes, which are stabilized using negative energy. Important side notes:

Wormholes were predicted by Einstein's general relativity theory. They connect two points in spacetime (but can also connect two separate universes for those that theorize the existence of the multiverse). Wormholes can form on a quantum level -- for example the particle accelerator CERN in Switzerland has detected miniature black holes that last a few microseconds before vanishing. Wormholes can last about as long. However in order to get wormholes to the size of a human being, a LOT of energy would be needed. Kip Thorne, a physicist, calculated out a way to artificially create one, and one method involves the making a microscopic wormhole. Then utilize negative energy to expand that and hold it open. What is negative energy though?

This is the fun part. Spacetime has been theorized (and some testing has proved this) to be a curved surface full of a frothing sea of particles that pop in and out of existence (as in matter and antimatter particles colliding to annihilate one another). This is called vacuum energy.

Now, this is where quantum mechanics comes into play! Quantum field theory through the Casimir effect could essentially create a region of negative energy. That negative energy could in turn be harnessed to hold open a wormhole as postulated by several physicists such as Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, and Brian Greene. Having said that, what is Casimir effect then?

That one deals with the vacuum energy I just described above and how it interacts with materials in a confined space. The materials (commonly electrical conductors and dielectrics) alter the vacuum energy fields, which in turn creates a force between the materials.

...

Yes, I spent way too much time coming up with a more plausible theory on how these portals work. Uh, you're welcome.

[bloombird]

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? WHY-

[astrangebird]

so I've been using goodnotes 5 for probably a year now for free and it's been very helpful lately as I've started planning out when to post things for my patrons vs public and then yesterday they give me a pop up saying "you have three days to upgrade or lose access to your stuff" and the upgrade is thirty god damn dollars $30 US fucking D.

I go looking into alternatives and stumble into finding out that not only are tech people disappointed that it's so expensive but also that they're feeding all of your notes into their ai for predictive text and shit AND there's no opt out. it's just something that they're doing. what if I had very important business meetings goodnotes 6? hmm? what if those needed to be private and you just fed that into a machine and in theory stored it on your servers out of my hands?

so yeah just make sure you have your favorite templates saved to your device and switch to something else. I'm just using procreate. goodnotes has been deleted from my ipad.

[birdbonechai]

going INSANE because i just got the most BANGER plot twist ideas for the rewrite of a story I'm making and I want to talk about it but NO ONE except literally one mutual WOULD UNDERSTAND BC ID NEED TO EXPLAIN THE ENTIRE STORY IN ORDER TO MAKE IT MAKE SENSE

[pacificovertures]

first reddit comment in a hot second, in response to someone on r/HobbyDrama discussing the sideM shutdown:

while it’s definitely kind of an L, i’m not surprised in the least since its evident how little effort went into the making of the sideM games compared to the other branches (the art quality is a huge indicator). i’ve been ranting about it to my friends in private, but as someone who’s been a fan of im@s for many many many years, it feels like the franchise has finally hit its breaking point, as in growing too fucking huge for bamco to reasonably manage.

waiting over a decade for 3rd vision only to be greeted with vtubers and crappy 3d anime feels like a huge slap in the face. to some extent, i’m just being a salty oldie, but the quality decline can be felt across all the branches. deresute continues to be one of—if not THE—premier idol rhythm gacha game (as far as music and mv quality go) but most of that can be credited to cygames over bamco.

my personal tin hat theory is that it was a mistake for bamco to entrust the music of everything from million live onwards to lantis channel over columbia jp, which may have been fine back in the early 2010s but now that lantis is managing a bajillion idol anime franchises, the music comes off as kinda bland. i cant name a single lantis composer while taku inoue, go shiina, ajurika, etc immediately come to mind when thinking about og/derem@s (production managed by columbia).

that’s not to say that i don’t like the newer branches, in fact i wanted them to be good so bad that it’s disappointing ): at least moiw2023 was good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

had to make more people read this bc i’m 100% correct and also very frustrated

[thefoldedbird]

Gee, some people can be really fucking rude about making requests huh? I’m so sorry I didn’t watch this very specific version of a series that came out before I was born, but could you pretty please throw your tantrum anywhere but my DMs? Thanks, ‘preciate it.

[petrichor-musings]

hate brain fog. hate hate hate it so much. can't think straight, can't do anything. not tired enough to sleep. bored to hell.

[nightmare-chaser]

Ive seen multiple posts from reddit refuges that go like "im queer and its so welcoming here!" Or "im nonbinary and dont get quized on my gender here!" Or "im autistic and i can be weird here and yall like it!" And its so fuckin cute its like yes hi hello welcome this is the gay ass autistic website we love special interests we love weird genders we love just saying random shit and the just happy surprised tone of those posts is so wholesome to me like yes! hi! you are in fact the target audience! welcome home

[getvalentined]

[source]

So, in spite of suing multiple other companies with the assertion that scraping user content for generative AI training is illegal, Long Rodent has decided that the dead bird is going to do the same thing! Natively! On-platform! To train his own new generative AI engine!

With this in mind, I cannot impress this vehemently enough:

If you are on Twitter as a creator of any kind, it's time to pack up your work and GET THE HELL OUT.

[featheredadora]

Disabled people shouldn't have to jump through hoops!!

[anotherstrangebird]

dear walmart, why are you like this? no no I understand the looming needs to late stage capitalism and greed but... why?? why are you sending random people who don't know the neighborhoods out with packages from your stores In The Middle of The Night? the usps doesn't run after dark in most locations and if they do those are people who's job it is to know where the fuck they're going, rain sleet or snow and all that. why move into a haphazard uber or doordash style of delivery when you could charge more for a trained and dedicated delivery service? well, training is hard after all.

anyway steal from walmart. it's always ethical to steal from walmart.

[bloombird]

Sometimes I wonder what that feeling is

Feeling like you're supposed to have fun but you're on limited time so you plan on what to do (drawing that specific wip, watch that episode, etc.) and then you ended up getting distracted and do something else instead of what you're supposed to plan on doing before the time is up

It felt exhausting and frustrating. I feel the need to finish the things that I plan on doing before vacation ends. I have all the free time and yet I feel like I wasted it all.

Is this burn out?

[astrangebird]

the profound sadness I feel being unable to upload my art the way I want to is inexplicable. has my art always been in danger of being stolen for profit? yes of course, but from one asshole at a time, manually. but now I have to think about if some programmer with no respect for the arts is going to send out a shitty data scraper to steal my art and upload it to an even shittier data bank of other stolen art to make fundamentally worthless art at my expense.

anyway sorry that going forward all my art will be much lower quality and visibly watermarked. hope you can still enjoy it. until patreon decides to sell out they'll be uploaded their higher quality and unmarked.

[egophiliac]

a bunch of assorted episode 7 stuff from the last couple of days! because they're still taking over my entire brain! (I keep forgetting that the diasomnia uniform has that weird spike...chain...thing on the back. do you think when they get bored they, like, throw balloons at each other and whoever pops one first wins? is this what the dialounge is like in the off-hours?)

hey when do we get to see maskless red Lilia. please Twst I'm dying over here

[murruspins]

Does anyone else actually prefer tumblr to tiktok?

[sunofaraven]

Hello, where my fellow goodtimeswithscar-obsessed lesbians at and can we be friends?