The Bagger 288 is there to safeguard all mankind.

The Bagger 288 wreaks total utter devastation.

The Bagger 288 contains an artificial mind.

This mind is full of hatred, violence is its sole vocation.

apt | cowsay

Strictly speaking, you are correct. The key assumption for my statement above is that both objects are black-body radiators.

In practical terms, it still ain’t happening when the light source is a bunch of fireflies.

Aside: Lasers are a really weird case. The population inversion required for stimulated emission is basically the opposite of a classic thermal equilibrium. By some definitions, they are so hot their “temperature” wraps around to negative (i.e., less than zero Kelvin). That factoid took me a while to wrap my head around.

Unfortunately, this idea isn’t going to work.

Lenses and mirrors can’t focus a diffuse source to a sharp point. They are also reciprocal; any light that can move one way through an optical system can also move the other way. As a result, you can’t use a lens or mirror to heat something beyond the temperature of the light source. The net flow of energy is always from the hot thing to the cold thing.

For the sun, that limit is almost 6000K, so you can do some damage. For fireflies, not so much.

It would be obvious the moment he opens his mouth. That stupid word salad is instantly recognizable.

I had not heard of that one, thanks! Looks like a good extension.

There’s also RFC3339, which is freely available and compatible with the most common ISO8501 profile.

I switched to Ubuntu a few months ago, and all my Steam games work just fine. Never looking back.