Yes, there’s a bit of a myth around Bernoulli’s principle (faster moving fluids have lower pressure) and how much it matters for lift in plane wings. It came up in the conversation because I was trying to describe what air pressure is in general, and made an analogy to a pan flute (he plays flute in band).

Disclaimer: I’m an aerospace engineer, but I do not claim to be an expert on topic.

But for plane wings, the myth is really that the air above the wing moves faster because the curved surface is longer. That’s pretty much dead wrong, but is still in tons of textbooks. The air above the wing does move faster, but it’s because of a bunch of complicated physics that to be honest, I don’t really understand any more. I may have even been taught wrongly in college. But the result is that there is a velocity difference on a cambered wing even when it’s flat, and thus Bernoulli’s principle does apply, and there is a pressure difference giving you lift.

But that speed difference is mostly important at cruising altitude, when the wings aren’t angled, and it’s positively correlated with airspeed, so the thrust matters way more. When you’re climbing, the angle matters more. The camber (curvature) of the wing, the airspeed, and the angle of attack all lead to that pressure difference, along with a few other things like circulation, which is also caused by a sharp edge at the back of the wing. But everything kind of works together to generate that pressure difference and hence the lift that can combat gravity. It’s actually pretty hard to try and dumb it down without saying things that aren’t wrong.

I recently taught my 11-year-old nephew “how planes fly.” A bit oversimplified, of course, but words like camber and lift and circulation were tossed around along with Bernoulli’s principle.

Oh wow, deep cut! I had that buried somewhere in the back of my brain.

Did they? This was probably after the Tobias almost kills himself out of depression but then accepts his hawk body arc, so I can’t imagine why they thought it was okay to try and traumatize him again.

Oh yeah, it was a mix of body horror, the brutalities of war, the unconscionable weight of leadership, and happy fun time seagull antics.

The time limit was 2 hours or you got stuck. And that happened in the first book to emphasize “kids, this is real.”

Oh god I think this is from the Animorphs book where they have to fight another human, not their typical alien enemies. They gave David morphing powers, but he turned/was evil, and so Rachel has to trap him as a rat and leave him out onto some abandoned island or some shit. Those books were brutal.

No, the sign creates a drug-free zone. So if you even try to get near the school with drugs, an invisible forcefield stops you. Please ignore those teens smoking weed behind the school; they’re obviously hallucinations.

I dropped my Netflix subscription and just spend hours a day on OnlyHonk. Don’t judge!

What about Gojira?

Space is hard. You’re strapping something inside a big tube with basically directed explosives at the bottom, hoping it survives the trip, then subjecting it to constant radiation, huge temperature swings, and other brutal environmental factors like micrometeoroids. Just because we’ve been sending satellites and people up to space for nearly 70 years doesn’t mean it’s gotten easier; we’re just better at knowing what to expect so we can test for it. Failures in rockets or satellites or even manned spacecraft are going to happen as much as we work to prevent them.

Get cast in a cop/spy/sci-fi drama on TV, have an assistant pull up the image on a screen, then simply say “Enhance” out loud.

Nah, it can’t be a gorilla. Reliable sources told me the sun is a deadly lazer

Find porn sounds and mute the tab. Now not sure where porn music is coming from.

A garlic press - saves so much time and effort over mincing garlic with a knife because I’m not a pro chef, and can be used in about 95% of situations where you need garlic. I don’t use it when I want the garlic texture, but otherwise I just adjust the amount or the cooking time versus minced garlic. There’s some hate floating around from professional chefs, but I bought one a few years ago to try it and haven’t looked back.

Anyone else hate that the Gadsden flag has been appropriated by ultra-libertarian jingoists? It’s an awesome-looking flag with a cool history and symbolism, but I feel like I couldn’t fly it without looking like a twat.