Talk:3303: Slab Graveyard

Trivia time: "close close" dittography in the title text. --2001:A62:518:1001:61EF:DCF5:C3C0:A037 16:30, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

I was trying to work out if it was a reference to a song-lyric where a key word is repeated. (Like "It's a man's man's man's world!") But what that might actually be escapes me for the moment.

Or if it was a valid statement using two different meanings of "close" (a 'clowse' pronunciation, i.e. "near to", and 'clowze', i.e. "to shut", for example. Like "I'll close the carriage's connecting door only when we're close to the station". Or even a nearby dead-end road being a "close close" (both being 'clowse'). But I haven't yet worked out an actual intentional and viable-but-confusing meeting.

Perhaps one or other will occur to someone. 81.179.197.66 19:15, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

An alternative meaning for 'close' (with the soft 's' pronunciation) is 'tightly', so it's entirely possible to close your eyes close (even if Randall never actually intended that). 82.13.184.33 08:29, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I added a transcript, but I don't think I did the diagram justice. Someone please update that. Barmar (talk) 17:13, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Anyone else so inunduated to Beret Guy's weird powers that their first reaction was that he's got friends going along with this? 207.195.86.17 19:02, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Yeah... glad to see he's with more of his kind though. 7amiþ moi · 💬 · 📊 23:56, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

one of beret guy's stange powers 24.4.232.148 03:25, 26 September 2026 (UTC)

This got me thinking about dropping a big tungsten football into an active volcano or something with a direct path to the mantle. Possibly it would be better to have layers of halfnium carbide or other ceramics that will be less reactive with molten rock. Apparently there have been proposals to do things like this with a radioactive material in the nosecone to melt any solidified rock that gets in the way. I wonder if the temperature gradient (with the molten mantle as the cold heatsink, lol) could be used to power the system, maybe thermo-electric, and if it could even run a refrigerator so a science payload could survive better. Gemini AI suggested very high temperature semiconductors could exist or some kind of microfluidics based computer. The proposals suggest an internal hammer sending acoustic signals to sensors on the surface. https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2013/07/31/earth-core-probe-as-controlled-china-syndrome/?sh=32973fa9af2d https://rdcu.be/nAV8kHNrv4Xa 136.226.19.50 20:57, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Is Randall going through a bit of a geology phase at the moment? Feels like there's been a few on that recently. Maybe we should have a Geology category... Alcatraz ii (talk) 21:31, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

I think he's certainly rocking it, right now. 81.179.197.66 21:44, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Agreed Waldronjwf (talk) 00:36, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I have added a sentence explaining that tectonic plates are correctly described as "lithosphere". The "crust" is the portion of the plate above the moho. The crust varies in thickness from less than 10 km beneath the oceans to 30–40 km beneath the continents, whereas the lithosphere is typically 100 km or more thick, as it includes a slab of relatively rigid "lithospheric upper mantle" too. Beret Guy's terminology reflects reflects a common misconception in geology. – -- waldronjwf (talk) 00:28, 28 September 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I swear Beret Guy's last name is "Frizzle". Fephisto (talk) 18:30, 28 September 2026 (UTC)