TheVat

If you punched it hard enough to fling it into a parabolic trajectory, say upwards about 50 miles, then that would impart sufficient velocity to cook it thoroughly, wouldn't it? Or are we allowed to use a small tactical nuke to deliver the punch? I hope I'm giving this the seriousness it deserves.

TBH, there seem to be over fifty posts in the last few hours, and my time is limited. Is there any chance you could briefly state your basic point, then, regarding belief and gods? I will have to leave now and will check in later, so don't take a nonresponse as ignoring.

The burden of evidence lies with the extraordinary claim. We don't have to waste time trying to disprove a hypothesis that is not falsifiable in the Popperian sense - it can be ignored, pending actual evidence. If I take a swallow of milk from a gallon jug, and the first sip is sour, I can assume the whole jug is spoiled. I don't really need to dive into the epistemology of all possible scenarios, say, a hidden compartment in the lower half which contains fresh milk, or a small rubber sphere floating in the middle which will break and give fresh milk when the rest is poured out. While I can't disprove such an extraordinary state of affairs, I don't really need to, and can comfortably pour out the rest of the milk and not bother myself further with it. I make it a firm policy not to believe in deities that I can neither spell NOR pronounce. As for "Xmucane," that sounds like a pharmaceutical product that clears nasal passages. That might deserve worship.

I have seen God, beyond the confines of my anthropomorphism, and she looks like a toaster. And all you heretics who doubt the great toaster will be as moldy bread burnt to a charred and inedible crisp in the final breakfast to come. Not even marmalade will save you. Repent!

Remember, kids: don't eat the ants.

I think of silicon as mostly used in silicates, which is the natural state of most silicon as it likes to form oxides. Purification sounds expensive if one is going for oven or sink surfaces (but worth doing to make computer chips). Seems like an alloy with aluminum or iron would be more practical, maybe? Pure silicon would quickly form an oxide surface, so if you didn't want that you'd need some sort of sealant treatment.

Given the tone of that sentence, I'm guessing you are very masculine. Anyway, let's maybe consider a precise definition of masculine before we categorize it as a form of hysteria. And a precise definition would call for some sort of metric to measure traits that are agreed upon masculine traits. If we can even agree on what traits might be specific to men (aside from the obvious physical ones, like external genitalia, facial hair and heavier bone structure).

I think the Munich argument has merit here. Authoritarian aggressors will take whatever they can. But I think Ukraine and allies would lose whatever moral authority and standing they now have if they okayed an attack on a large urban civilian population. I'd say nyet to a Moscow attack. Shelling a Russian power plant or fuel depot or military base, however, would be a legitimate dose of their own medicine. Though I'd have reservations about hitting infrastructure that leaves innocent Russian citizens shivering in the dark. Russia has done that, and shown themselves as monsters on the world stage.

Jill Tarter and pals went looking for another incidence of the WOW signal a couple years ago. Nada. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aba58f If you find the jargon fairly bruising, skip down to section five, their conclusions. If you're curious what the strength is of signals encountered in radio astronomy, that Jy unit they mention is a Jansky, which is 10-26 Watts Metre-2 Hertz-1. It's common use is for point sources, so it's the metric of choice in SETI. (it's obtained by integrating over the source solid angle, so things are simpler with a point)

There was no evidence of any amplitude modulation. The change in intensity resulted from the Earth's rotation. Try to keep up. It's like having a fixed metal detector and a person with keys in their pocket strolls slowly by. For 72 seconds, they're in the detector's range and the "mmrreeep!" sound peaks as they are directly in front of it right in the middle of those 72 seconds. The Q and the U which represent the highest intensities are in the middle of the string.

There is still some radioactive fallout from a small tac nuke, and therefore lingering radiation in the area for years afterward, so one hopes that awareness would make any nuke an unpalatable option. I would guess that any detonation would be the equivalent of a serious reactor accident with all the costs and wasted land that goes with one. With a conventional high powered explosive shell or missile, you can fill in the crater and plant a crop or put up apartments or reconnect a highway the following year. Also, more smaller devices means more to keep track of as they sit around for years and more chances for one to go missing. Really, for most types of attack I don't see the advantage in using a more expensive bomb (plutonium and the machining of critical mass components ain't cheap) when a conventional one, or maybe a well-aimed barrage of a dozen, would do. And if your country wants that spot of land afterwards you'd be really glad you didn't nuke it. Guess I'm missing something here.

How do you know the gravitation holding you in your chair is a real force? Perhaps it's what Albert called a fictitious force, and really it's just electrostatic forces in the chair molecules and the Earth's crust beneath the chair which are opposing your natural path of following a spacetime geodesic?

I would suggest reading up on what an observable is, and how its meaning changes between classical and quantum mechanics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable This is heavy with technical jargon but I think you can glean the basic idea.

Scientific realism is a philosophic position that statements (mathematical or otherwise) correspond to an objective state of affairs in the world. But that doesn't mean the statement is ontologically complete (that it provides a full account of what something IS in its inmost essence), it only means it corresponds to a measurement (perception) in a consistent way. A field is a mathematical map of how an area of space contains energy, and how forces are directed and with what strength at a given point - it's no more real than those isobar lines or wind vectors on a weather map. If it shows high wind that doesn't mean the map will blow all the papers off your desk.

F was supposed to be C? Otherwise, their lab is located at 46,000 feet elevation.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/26/dr-oz-debate-abortion-local-political-leaders-satire/ Greg, the local political leader, makes a decision on abortion... (Screenshot for nonsubscribers: https://archive.ph/KymKl

Bear in mind the minimum orbital velocity has to be around 7 km/s. So your cannon ball, first encountering many miles of drag - air resistance - before reaching an orbit, would need to be moving faster than that as it departs the muzzle. Watch that first step!

I promise you, @StringJunky, that every thread you start on US politics will soon be depressing as hell. Though I think there's still some mirth to be had at the political level of municipal dogcatcher. We know the dogcatcher won't achieve what they are promising, and it's often hilarious watching them get outsmarted by a dog.

Double plus one, and a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie to you. (my personality is sometimes prone to hyperbole) (and then taking it back, ha!) And yes, a few moments of working on one's listening skills in conversation is worth a hundred personality tests. Not to get all maharishi on you guys, but meditation is really helpful to this. You really got something useful from whichever test you took. But then you would, being a Libra. (couldn't resist - after all, astrology is the Ur-personality mapper, and people have a habit of emulating whatever their "chart" says) But jokes aside, yeah, there are some tests that can give a sense of people's communication styles and life priorities, perhaps, at least as a snapshot at the time of testing and maybe that holds up for a while.

Given the sordid business some of the more fringe candidates seem to get up to, that comment verges on literal truth. US voters rarely listen to economists, who in this election cycle would be pointing out that current inflation has global causes and in no way reflects policy missteps on Joe's part. Media consumers in the RW bubble are hermetically sealed away from such facts. The form of populism that attaches zero importance to actual qualifications for public office. The dumbness of this came into blinding clarity in 2008, with Sarah Palin (and poor John McCain having to hold his nose and take her aboard his presidential ticket).

As the Jung part in the Vox article suggested, the questions require one to approach everything as a binary, with a yes/no answer, when the answer for many people is really "depends." Also worth noting a large percent of those who take it a second time will get a different result. (I know we're not obligated to read posted articles, but I really recommend the Vox coverage, especially on the rather pseudoscientific history of Myers-Briggs)

I believe Lakota is preferred, nowadays. (am easily amused by autocorrect)

Mine is ILPT (intuitive loathing of personality tests). https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personality-test-meaningless

Spotted dove. Indigenous to S/SE Asia, but I've seen them on the west coast of the US where they have spread to. They are seen where common pigeons are seen, in cities. They like it warm, so I haven't seen them in Oregon, where I lived for several years, but did spot a couple in a downtown park in Sacramento.