• 1 Post
  • 85 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: August 4th, 2023

help-circle

  • By the earliest accounts, McGinness (and the original “kids”) gave up after digging 30 feet. It wasn’t until the Onslow group that they excavated down to 90 feet.

    I would accept that the original pit was a natural sinkhole except for the coconut fiber evidence. As we all know, palm trees don’t grow in that region. Coconut fiber, called coir, was a common trade item because it was used like hemp. Common applications were rope, mattress stuffing, and matting. It can also be mixed with pitch to make a substitute for oakum - a common material used to waterproof ships hulls.




  • When video or audio evidence is submitted, it will be questioned as to its authenticity. Who recorded it? On what device? Then we’ll look for other corroborating evidence. Are there other videos that captured the events in the background of the evidence video? Are there witnesses? Is there contradictory evidence?

    Say there’s a video depicting a person committing murder in an alley. The defense will look for video from the adjoining streets that show the presence or absence of the murderer before or after. If those videos show cars driving by with headlights on, they will look for corresponding changes in the luminosity of the crime video. If the crime happened in the daytime, they will check that the shadows correspond to Sun’s position at that moment. They’ll see if the reflections of objects match the scene. They’ll look for evidence that the murderer was not at the scene. Perhaps a neighbor’s surveillance camera shows they were at home or their cell phone indicated they were someplace else.

    But if all these things indicate the suspect was in the alley and the video is legitimate, that’s powerful evidence toward a conviction.







  • Pulling out all your money or selling your home and possessions would give you away. And a pauper with a boat would be a red flag for any investigator. You’d have to be willing to give it all up. Your family would have to believe you died.

    A better option would be to slowly siphon off money and be seen frequenting a casino, or become known as a drug addict. Once you’ve liquidated everything and racked up tons of debt, fake a suicide. Become aberrant or hyper-religious/political. Tell everyone that you’re going on a hike to “find yourself” or that you’re volunteering to fight in Ukraine. Never come back.




  • If you place a tea bag in a cup of water at 20C in a thermally isolated vacuum chamber, when the chamber pressure is reduced to or below the vapor pressure of water at 20C (about 17 torr, or 1/3 psi), it will begin to boil. The vapor produced will be at 20C and the water in the cup will be 20C and begin to decrease, because of latent heat of vaporization needed for the liquid/gas phase change. The water will continue to boil as long as the pressure is maintained at or below the vapor pressure of water at that temperature. Eventually, the water reaches 0C. Then it will stop boiling and begin to freeze as the latent heat of fusion provides the necessary heat to continue evaporation. When all the water has converted to ice, the vapor pressure is greatly reduced. The ice will sublime (go from solid to gas) still, but as that continues to cool the ice, the vapor pressure also drops. As the temperature drops, sublimation will slow until it is nearly zero. So you would end up with a tea bag encased in ice.

    In your example, if you suddenly exposed to the cup and tea bag to the vacuum of space by rapidly venting the air, the water would explosively evaporate, shredding the tea bag. You’d be left with bits of tea leaves, an empty cup, and a lot of very fine ice crystals.