TheVat

Emily has been learning about canals, as she follows the Star Mangled Spanner thread in Politics. Here are some of her notes... Zeus devastates radar set at saved Suez. A man, a prosopagnosia, is on Gap OS, or Panama. A man, a pot o' pee deep. O, to Panama! Eire? Erie!

The semantic trick is that it's worded as "choose an answer ..." and not "choose a letter." So any answer immediately negates itself even (and this is the beauty part) when it is 0. You can choose randomly (coins, twirling tetrahedrons, whatev), you can choose deliberately, you will never be correct. A semantic trick is that any answer promptly invalidates itself. If each letter was a different value, and only one was .25, then the problem would become trivial and easily resolved as .25.

That would make more sense. The Gulf is a cul de sac, so it was hard to see more traffic through Panama fixing that. But yes it could help with uncertainty about getting through Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea unscathed. Before the Pajama Canal or the Snooze Canal, naturally there was the Weary Canal, connecting Albany and Buffalo NY.

Question - how is the Pajama Canal an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz? I look at a map and it's hard to make sense of this report: https://apnews.com/article/panama-canal-trade-strait-of-hormuz-iran-war-middle-east-shipment-d6a2aa2a21f29bfdf313182e753e1c41 I see that typo. Too good to correct.

Mick West joins the pantheon of great debunkers, with folks like Philip Klass, Michael Shermer, and James Randi. My only footnote would be on murder rates, and doesn't at all quarrel with West's conclusion. Homicide rates across a broad population sample tend to be inaccurate for many narrower cross sections. Some demographics have massively higher rates than others. (But yeah, even if we fine-slice the demographics of middle-aged and senior aerospace and nuclear professionals, a murder or two is expected.)

Haha, yes, this is what lazily clicking on the AI search result gets you. Here's something a bit more...analog.

The part about Bach's goblet (shattered by BACH, in the old German notation) somehow caused me to notice that the letters of Janet Jackson's name which correspond to the diatonic scale, AEAC, are a variation of the of the first four tones of opening line of Bach's Little Fugue in Gm. (Modulated up a step) (Yes, it would actually be GDBbA) Anyway, all a silly excuse to post the real thing.

It's a Bayesian belief trick, since there are four choices of letter but only three choices of p value. A random choice of letter will, with many repetitions, approach 25% for each letter. But the probability for a specific p value selection approaches 50% for one value, and 25% for the other two values. So the act of random choice of letter is different from the act of random choice of p value. In essence, the paradox lies in a single overt act actually being one that's operating on two levels. It's a Bayesian trick, because there are two incompatible beliefs as to what is being picked. Choosing an answer is not the same as choosing a letter.

Bilaterians only have to have bilateral symmetry in embryonic or larval form to be in the clade. Echinoderms are included due to BS as larvae, even though they change to radial symmetry in adulthood. When they achieve, in some cases.... stardom. Then we should probably steer clear of pyroglyphidae, too. 😄 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroglyphidae VACUUMING MATTERS.

Yes. Was just expanding a bit on the concept, as arthropods provide interesting examples. (Haven't seen it yet but I think the alien in the current hit film Project Hail Mary is sort of spider-like - I'll be interested if they explore the conceptual territory around alien ecosystems where primordial species go a different direction)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(biology) And there's a clade where 8 is even better (especially if you never know when you're going to lose a couple in a fight or accident). https://www.livescience.com/animals/spiders/why-do-spiders-have-8-legs "Those legs are actually part of their mouth," Nipam Patel, a developmental biologist and director of the Marine Biological Laboratory, which is affiliated with the University of Chicago, told Live Science. Because spiders, insects, crustaceans and millipedes all evolved from an ancestor that likely had a segmented body with a set of appendages on each segment, these species are just highly modified riffs on that basic plan. According to Patel, all arthropod appendages — including legs, antennae and even mandibles (the jaws) — can be traced back to a stubby lobopod appendage. Take a mantis shrimp. It swims with a bunch of little legs on a segmented abdomen. On the cephalothorax (a fused head and thorax) are its walking legs, and then near its mouth are little appendages that not only make up its jaws but also sweep food into its mouth to help it eat.... Then, there are spiders. "If you look at a spider embryo, it looks exactly like an insect embryo," Patel said. "Except it only grows the legs on its head. But instead of using those as mouthparts, it uses them to walk." The reason spiders walk with appendages from their faces goes back to lobopods and the original chelicerate body plan. While modern arthropods are spoiled for specialized appendages, the lobopods were wormlike creatures with many sets of roughly similar appendages. Initially, all of the legs were the same," Heather Bruce, a research associate at the Marine Biological Laboratory, told Live Science. "But then the first appendages became differentiated for being a sensory appendage, like for sensing and grabbing food." From that point, the spider's chelicerate ancestors began to diverge from the other groups. In the ancestors of insects and crustaceans, the lobopod's multitasking front appendages lost their grabbing and feeding ability and became specialized sensory structures called antennae. But for chelicerates, those same appendages lost their sensory capabilities and became fangs.

TIL that rainforests do not provide 20% of our atmospheric oxygen, as is popularly believed. They are important ecosystems but they are not "the lungs of the world." https://newportbay.org/ask-a-naturalist-do-phytoplankton-produce-more-oxygen-than-a-rainforest-if-so-does-the-oxygen-they-produce-go-into-the-atmosphere-or-does-it-just-remain-dissolved-in-the-ocean/ So where does most of it come from? 50-80% (depending on the season) from phytoplankton. And 20% of ocean oxygen is from one species, prochlorococcus. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2025/september/climate-change-threatens-major-oxygen-producing-bacteria.html Belated happy Earth Day! And take care of your oceans, puny humans!

Look, a squirrel!! It's remarkable how many people can believe the median lifespan is somehow the allotted lifespan. Take any group of thousands of people (like nuclear and aerospace researchers), and you will most certainly get some disappearances (in the US, 500-600,000 people disappear every year, and tens of thousands of those stay disappeared) and some early deaths. I notice several of the disappeared were hikers or joggers, and lived in sparsely populated areas (like New Mexico) where one could have a heart attack and have one's remains consumed and bones scattered by scavenger species.

Don't forget the General who had a Steinway Grand purchased for his house. Our national security depends on generals whose brains don't turn to MaltoMeal from exposure to mediocre keyboards or Ikea furniture. One dimly remembers the use it or lose it buying spree that DoD goes on every September was supposed to be the kind of waste that Turnip and the Musk Ox were going to trim. All budget money leftovers at FY end were going to be shoveled back into the Treasury - that, combined with tariffs and gifts from Qatar and other caring friends, plus the promised policy of stringent isolationism and no free rides for those creepy parasitic starving children in Africa would buy down the national debt in a few years!

I think a post of mine three days ago, in which I directed some fulsome praise at Skinners Union (briefly owned a 1971 Datsun with an SU carb) for their VV carbs, never posted. A couple other members have mentioned this disappearing posts effect, so I will exercise caution. The fuel efficiency (in addition to its fuel flexibility) and ease of tuning made them simply elegant. My retro dream car has an SU carb(s). If it's an old VW bug, then it's added on aftermarket. And works with E10.

The ally thing could work, though it's hard to imagine a nuke capability from any of them that would really counter the US with a MAD. Maybe Russia, though I can't see the present Putin admin wanting to commit to a binding defense pact like that. This is the sort of fraught nuclear geopolitics I haven't given enough thought or research. (ETA: now seeing a whole page of posts around this matter, which will now read; some days I'm in the wrong time zone...) Not sure how much press the story got in Europe or UK, but one theory for Turnip's animus is that, rather than being racially based, it's owing to Obama roasting Turnip at the 2011 WH Correspondents Dinner. Many who know the Turnip say he was deeply stung, found none of it funny, and was pretty much determined to exact revenge from that point on. Undoing all things Obama became the focus of that spite. One can fault Obama only to the extent that he may not have realized quite the depths of Turnip's sociopathy and humorless vindictiveness (and ability to grift his way to the WH). But really, few people outside of New York social circles and real estate biz did.

Thanks, yes my vague reference to "foul the engine" - you have the specific problem pinpointed. I would guess it would need preheating and then much higher injection pressure to vaporize properly. Carb wouldn't do it. Enjoying a thread where we seem to have a couple members like you who have some pro knowledge in this area. All I have, like @StringJunky , is a grandfather who really knew engines. But that was something.

Really, the best reason for Iran to give up nuke aspirations is Israel's belligerence and hyperreactive posture. The RW coalition throws fits of rage at the sight of its own shadow. Iran showing any sign of building a nuke wouid give them leverage to do God knows what.

Urkh! If so, the heavy end traces would foul the engine.

70, yikes. That would knock like a stormtrooper at normal compression ratio, and I can picture it dieseling for minutes after shutting off. Heck, if the octane were much lower it would be halfway to being diesel. At least in the sense of little resistance to spontaneous combustion.

Ah yes, the symbol designed for CND (based on semaphore flag code), which spread to other countries eventually as the peace symbol. Mercedes was similar. I remember my org chem professor drawing its three point star mounted on a benzene ring, creating the visual pun Mercedes Benzene.

Makes sense, I guess, to go ahead and put in gearing for a hand crank, as a backup. What I am grappling with is that you Brits seem to have named an Austin after breakfast porridge. Perhaps it is just as well we may be withdrawing from NATO. 😎 Several things here I don't grasp. What is a ban-the-bomb Cortina? And how could one put diesel mix in a gas engine and not ruin it? Does the right blend help if there's a weak spark? I am happy to report I figured out a saloon model is what we call a sedan, so I'm now understanding the style isn't quite as fun as it initially landed on American ears. What really capped that video nicely were the end credits - the cranking man is Fat Bloke, played by George Clooney.

Do you mean by hand? I thought the Minors had electric starters from their beginning in the twenties. (Or was there an optional crank attachment for low battery situations?) Don't think I've seen anything besides a Model T be hand-cranked, and that was done as a feat of daring at an antique auto show. I remember them saying "don't wrap your thumb around," as @OldTony mentioned above. This chat takes me back to my earliest automotive memories when our family had a 1958 Renault Dauphine. The 845 cc engine produced a dizzying 0-60 in 30 seconds, and you had to use a tire pressure differential in order to prevent oversteer. I think my Dad grew disenchanted with the steering issue and had traded it in by the time I reached kindergarten. But it was cute as a button. Family joke from this era: I like the Renault, but I Constantinople. (sorry)

They were called Ford Fractures here. America was still largely rural then and most would not have cared for "chauffeur." My grandparents also spoke of "gaslight branding" in evening drives, where you lit the headlamps, and then if you absentmindedly rested your left hand on a headlamp while bracing to crank, the raised company logo could be burned onto your palm.

Emily was shocked to read in the news of a gang of circus workers attacking a killer whale. "Acrobats stab orca." In other equally shocking news, marsupials near Melbourne attacked lawn equipment. As the groundskeeper noted, "Here, wombats stab mower, eh?"