Ken Fabian

@npts2020 Chinese governance and policy was never all the same under Mao - Mao's policies changed a lot - and yes, Mao was still around for the Nixon visit and by then sought to make China less isolationist, but China was still a long way from being the industrialised, trading nation it is now. Most of that happened post-Mao.

@studiot Just my crude attempt to give "unlikely" some perspective. Planets are very large. Hundreds of millions of years are a very long time. Chemical compounds are very small and there are vast quantities of them. In practice I fully expect there were large volumes with not much (but not zero) relevant chemistry is happening, literally cold - and yet those still got lightning (that Miller-Urey tries to simulate). Those "coldspots" could be important, as well as "hotspots" as places where more complex or vigorous chemical reactions occur - I seem to recall something about abiogenesis and water turning to ice and in the process concentrating the chemicals that were within it; being subjected to freezing/melting might conceivably play a part. And what flows from the hotspots into the large oceans may be subjected to different conditions that are themselves critical. The big oceans may be crucial simply for carrying and dispersing partway precursors from tropics to icy polar regions and past other hotspots. We know that some asteroids are rich in many of biochemistry's building blocks (Bennu samples have a lot). In shallow water a meteor impact zone would be especially rich in them. Such meteors can have and almost certainly will have impacted around hydrothermal vent systems - making an even hotter hotspot. Not everywhere is the same - geological processes concentrate as well as erodes and dissipates minerals. My point is that with such a large and chemically varied planet the odds of conditions within so much water turning out to be just right are not small, even if the places critical chemistry occurs may be - will be - smaller than the whole.

Not quite that, but I did try to get some perspective on how many opportunities there might be for chance chemistry (within a mixture of lifeless "organic" chemicals that includes many essential biochemical components, pre-made) to come up with life. 1.3 billion cubic kilometres of liquid water (on Earth ie one planet) = 1,300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ml About 1,000,000 bacteria per ml live in sea water, so if the chemical precursors for those are present in primordial sea water we get enough to make... = 1,300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bacteria's worth. Give it 500 million years of chemical reactions that happen at much faster than 1 per second per ml rates I'll be very conservative and say only 1 reaction per second... (actually thousands to millions?) = 15,750,000,000,000,000 seconds x 1,300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bacteria's worth = 20,475,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 opportunities for random chemistry + selection make the appropriate complex chemistry for earliest ‘simple’ life. Now this isn't intended to be definitive by any means - add a few zeros for faster than 1 reaction per ml per second or subtract a few zeros for not everywhere having the conditions if that makes you happier. It doesn't require randomly making a bacteria, which is a highly evolved life-form, just much simpler precursors. It is just an attempt to see how "very unlikely" fits with extremely large numbers of opportunities for "unlikely" to happen. To me 20,475,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 opportunities looks so likely as to be effectively inevitable.

@npts2020 China is not being run the way it was during Mao's time; it is far less isolationist. I don't think there has been any serious dangers of famine in China for a long time now; for one thing they have become major international traders who can afford to and do import food. But they have modernised agriculture and also export agricultural commodities.

Does China count as centrally planned? Does allowing and encouraging "free market" commercial activity and competition with strong direction from government count as planned? Clearly China's government supports innovation - companies like battery maker CATL have 10's of thousands of employees devoted to R&D. In the science journals the proliferation of publications from Chinese scientists is clear. Hard to count China as evidence that central planning is counterproductive - their standards of living have greatly improved, vast numbers have been lifted out of dire poverty. A lot of anti-China sentiment and policy is based on fear that China prosperity can support large and well equipped armed forces as well as commercially outcompete the "free" world. If central planning were so innately counterproductive those fears would not be so strong. I think China as military enemy becomes more likely by seeking to suppress their economic growth - and by undoing what institutions of international law and international planning have been doing. Like with every nation and economy I'm inclined to see ethical and law abiding versus ruthless and corrupt as more crucial to sustained economic success than planned and regulated versus unplanned and unregulated. China has serious corruption problems yet their leadership does demand some level of competence as well as loyalty in their appointments. Corrupt regimes often do not and often appoint incompetent (and corrupt) people to positions of authority. Some people get very rich like that, but not so often oversee and promote more comprehensive economic development. I think when it comes to critical economy wide infrastructure that supports economic growth having no overarching planning and regulation is damaging; few nations got roads and railways and electricity grids or provided universal education without it. Those that have the least such planning don't stand out as economic powerhouses. Seems like it is in a healthy balance between planned and competitive that the most benefit emerges.

@HawkII That was my thinking, off the top of my head. Thinking about it more, I think I was wrong and rotation speed isn't such a limiting factor. For all I know someone is working on making thin sheets of micro-fans. Mary Poppins umbrellas come to mind as an application.

Nay. Miniaturizing the fans and having lots of them seems like choosing a difficult solution to an easy problem. Small fans need very fast rotation to achieve a fast enough blade speed relative to still air. At microscopic size the rotation speeds must be extreme to move much air. I have noticed the cooling fan of my previous laptop was very quiet, but the one I use now is much noisier. I don't know what makes them different apart from build quality but "low noise" fans are available, as well as other kinds of cooling

If you sift through every religious origin of universe story, (with imperfect translation), you might find some that appear to share things in common with modern cosmology. That is not the same as them having actual understanding, superior insight or prescience. It seems to me more like evidence of the capabilities of human brains to dream and imagine such a wide variety of things that aren't real that occasionally they can imagine something that turns out close to right. Without the observational evidence preferably with supporting measurement it seems like there is no way to know whether you have imagined something correctly or not. Observation and accurate measurements puts boundaries on imagination in the pursuit of understanding - and excludes imaginary forces and explanations where there is no observation or evidence.

US Department of Agriculture has been instructed to not mention climate change on it's websites. EPA, NOAA and NASA next? A group of coal power plant operators have asked Trump's administration for regulations around coal ash disposal (the world's no.2 biggest problem waste by quantity after CO2) be lifted and look likely to get groundwater contamination monitoring eliminated. I don't know to what extent state based regulation can be overruled by federal. With a compliant Supreme Court, will that be much more than would ordinarily be expected? I have long seen corruption as the bane of civilisation and the independent rule of law, making even the manageable unmanageable, the readily fixable unfixable and constraining innovation and true wealth creation in favour of zero-sum wealth redistribution; it inevitably prefers the dirty official that can be blackmailed over the clean ones that cannot. I had thought we had made a lot of progress in reducing institutional corruption and to say what I am witnessing is dismaying is understatement. Not that intimidation doesn't work with the honest and I don't think Trump has forgotten his pledge of investigation and prosecution of his political opponents. Then there has been the unfortunate message in pardoning the insurrectionist rioters - that violence on his behalf will have Trump's Presidential protection. Very dangerous times for the USA - and for the world at large. And then there is Canada, Mexico, Greenland, Panama - none of them enemies of the USA... not yet.

Yes, it does appear like abiogenesis got a head start with a wide range of precursor chemicals. Meteorite impact sites, perhaps in shallow water, where such materials would be concentrated could be significant to abiogenesis chemistry. Enough meteorites over enough time (and Earth has had both) means some will impact near hydrothermal vents and other places with "rare and unusual" conditions - over a whole planet and given hundreds of millions of years, not so much rare and unusual as extremely likely.

Yes, and the receptors in retinas are like that too, even before the visual cortex gets involved - or other brain processes fill in details expected to be there, predicted to be there, not necessarily out of what the optic nerve transmitted. Kinda remarkable such biological systems work so similarly between individuals and can deliver such high levels of discrimination.

When I look at a rainbow I see a progression of colours between inside and outside edges, not distinct bands of seven separate, distinct colours. Naming them red, orange, yellow, green etc is convenient and give an idea of where on the spectrum but even I routinely give names to more than seven. Teal for example - and that word is still for a range of colours, not one unique colour. Any trained artist - or paint supplier - will have a whole lot more colour names than seven - they can get quite creative with the names.

That it was traditional for the dominant majority to be casually insulting to minorities doesn't mean the loss of those traditions will make America worse*, nor preserving them lead to renewed greatness. Honky cracker boys (fun terms?) find those terms fun and funny and having it pointed out that those disparaged by them find them demeaning and offensive... is offensive. Seems like the ability to press those buttons and mobilise voters on such issues got the USA Donald Trump over the line for President. (Or, as an Australian, make Australia, that has similar traditions, worse by calling them out for their offensiveness to minorities and discouraging their use.)

Weighing the conveniences against the inconveniences my mobile phone is hands down a winner. Not that there aren't annoyances and frustrations - took me 15 minutes and starting over again twice to work through to a particular purchase recently. If it worked better it would've taken under 2 minutes. But compared to phoning around shops to check availability, compared to driving to shops and... finding it isn't in stock? Clothing I probably prefer to go in person and try things for fit, but that is rarely an urgent, important purchase. My phone - is about 1/5th the cost of a landline phone to use (Aldi have phone sims and plans here really cheap). Just that is enough to be worth using. But there is more... The call log tracks calls and unanswered calls. I can make video phone calls. I can message, pass videos and pictures around easily. Email. It is a pocket watch of extreme accuracy, that handles time zone changes easily. Countdown timer, stopwatch, alarm clock. A calendar with reminder service. I can take quite decent (or indecent) pictures with it - and edit them. I can make videos with it. It has a calculator that also does unit conversions. A sound recorder. A guitar tuner. A metronome. I can do banking and could use it in place of bank cards - tap and go for small transactions. It plays my music - through ear buds or feeding into our (vintage) "stereo". I can look up all kinds of information, watch tv or movies or stream music or use the 64G of micro-SD and have my whole music collection available. I can read books and get new titles easily. It can be (and often is) our internet connection, sometimes faster than the satellite service. Not used so often that I ever have to add more data. (Unused data allowance accumulates). But there is more... Yes, i can find myself wasting time scrolling around - or read stuff on it in a waiting room - but that is time I have more of because so many things can be done so quickly and easily using it.

The time of year when it is warmest (S. Hemisphere) or coldest (N. Hemisphere) is about a month after the solstice - because there is some lag time between maximum and minimum sunlight and local temperatures topping or bottoming out. The specific timing is down to historical choices and traditions.

There is a limit to wine aging resulting in improvement. After that it gets worse. But perhaps Zebulon wine is different. I'm still struggling to see how trade between the moon or Mars and Earth could be economically viable. The usual solution is imaginary technology, and the "sure" way to get it is positing endless, inevitable technological progress and enough time. For things that are that far beyond us I just can't sustain that level of optimism in inevitability.

For people living amidst unavoidable, perpetual warfare I wonder if the promise of afterlife rewards and punishments makes accepting going into battle and suicidal self sacrifice for the sake of the community a bit easier and more tolerable - and make failure to support or engage in it more intolerable. But I think it may be as much about the sense of being a distinct community as the beliefs - not so much the details of those beliefs as the having beliefs in common, making Us different from Them.

Seems superfluous to make an imaginary afterlife a factor for everyday morality - so many good reasons to treat people fairly, honestly and kindly and reasons to have the rule of law (for mutual benefit) - and kinda pointless if there are easy "redemption" options for de-sinning after committing atrocities. \ Don't know if Night FM is still peddling around here but going by his own words (which rarely address any points any others make and even more rarely their main points) I'm not convinced FM has a good grasp of morality and ethics. Not convinced FM has a good grasp of theology for that matter; a lot of lifelong religious don't accept the existence of Hell or any kind of eternal damnation. At the personal level I am more interested in avoiding being a victim of criminal behavior and being treated fairly and honestly than I am in indulging in criminal behavior at the expense of others. That I live somewhere where criminal behavior is the exception - and strong religious conviction is also the exception - suggests it is not dependent on fear of Hell.

@StringJunky - is your choice of username guitar related? All this time and I never really thought about it - or thought to ask. And yes, my guitar has gotten better with use and age. I was also trying new guitars on a tight budget - something of equivalent quality being out of my range. And I was not fully appreciating what I've got. My addiction (and sometimes it does seems like it) to playing guitar comes and goes a bit, with and without attempting to sing. I think am still getting better at it but with age and arthritis catching up with me that window isn't going stay open. I've always been a bit (a lot) self conscious about it and don't perform well under pressure. But I also don't do the practicing and rehearsing that performing well under pressure requires - too many interests, not enough time, not enough persistent focus on any of them to achieve excellence. I do kinda regret my lack of interest in singing earlier in my life - probably never would have had a powerful voice but maybe could've sounded good.

Oops, misread that - had it built, had built it. My own guitar is Takamine C136s classical, which was acquired more by chance than intent. I'd always thought it sounded good but it is getting in need of re-fretting and has two splits in the top (from a drought/extreme low humidity a few years back) so I tried out a couple of classical guitars at a local music shop. None sounded anywhere near as good. When finances permit I'll have it repaired.

Hats off to your woodworking skills then. And perhaps your ability to source suitable wood too. No small project to make a guitar - to have it turn out good has to be gratifying. As for Yes and their lyrics - they always seemed a bit... close to the edge... of some deeper meaning. Which I didn't quite get. But maybe that was the intention?

It isn't to everyone's taste and the lyrics seem more about atmosphere than story or meaning - but I do like Yes. They didn't tour Australia much and I missed them every time. In truth I don't spend a lot of time listening to music, not even as radio in the background and get my regular music "hits" from messing around with a nylon guitar - sloppy, choppy, undisciplined and over time the flaws have morphed into features, but I have fun with it. What listening I do can include anything from JJ Cale to Beethoven (Violin Concerto lately, with Isaac Stern). Django and Stefan. Jazz mixes - Dave Brubeck, Cannonball Adderley, Mongo Santamaria, Satchmo, the "easy listening" sorts - a lot of Jazz doesn't work for me.

A kind of rat evolved that was "smart" enough to adapt it's behavior by eating another animal's faeces because it made creasote bush edible (probably because it was hungry, other food was not available and those are what it could findbut instead of being poisoned, it gained nutrition)? It's young learned to do so from parental example. Sounds like "conventional" evolution to me. Humans evolved the ability to pass on complex knowledge about tools and working collectively that enhanced their abilities to obtain food and defend against predators. Again, sounds like conventional evolution.

I've been revisiting some of the music I liked when (much) younger. Not much of it still has appeal. Even going back over Beatles albums there were a lot that just don't do it for me, but still leaving some that really, really do. The hard rock likes of Led Zep, Deep Purple, I liked then, not much now. One band - at least some of their catalogue - has managed to impress me more than I expected going back around; I was a fan of Yes in 70's and 80's and much taken back then with Steve Howe's guitar and Rick Wakemen's keyboards especially. Still am but this time around I am floored by Chris Squire's bass playing. Not necessarily has wide appeal but since people seem to be including linked examples. (People who make videos of live performances suck at showing what anyone apart from lead singer and lead guitar are doing but this one segue's into Squire's signature solo piece - him showing off, and a bit indulgently; the basslines across so many songs are awesome, better than that imo, as often the lead instrument as not but so few videos show what he is doing (and how any video people who were AT a Yes concert failed to pay notice to him has me scratching my head)) - "Long Distance Runaround/The Fish" -

Yet I suspect a majority of atheists have a lack of belief in magic or miracles in common and - in my own case - the disbelief in gods and supernatural beings flows from my disbelief in magic rather than the other way around. It is a lack of belief that includes (excludes?) the supernatural and non-physical realms and, by that, disbelieves in gods. Am I therefore actually a-magicist, with my disbelief in gods a subset or is it distinctly different?