TheVat

Oh good, a chance to tell my parrot story. A true story. Friends of mine bought a parrot. (There are no fjords in this story, btw). The cage had a little tray for feed, which they kept filled, in accordance with the instructions for care that came with. Every day, they found most of the seeds on the floor underneath the cage, and a very hungry parrot who would make outraged noises as they refilled the tray. Not sure why most of the mix was being rejected, they consulted with a vet, who figured out that the feed was the wrong kind, and told them what to buy. Problem solved, except that the parrot remained a sloppy eater who would still send at least a quarter of the tray to the floor. So they named the bird Onan. Because Onan, in the Bible, "spilled his seed upon the ground." (And was swallowed up by the earth, which seems like a pretty extreme punishment, and clearly God decided to dial that penalty back or I wouldn't be here to tell this story - I am somewhat nearsighted, however...)

I meant that I was unclear on what Stringy experienced in his math class re intrusive social issues. The topic had turned to whether or not graphing examples could be distracting from the math, if they concerned political issues.

Having so many optical receptors would seem like doing things the hard way, adaptively speaking. Prey usually do camouflage by having exteriors that are roughly matching their niche, e.g. Sonoran lizards that don't want to be seen by hawks circling above, so their top sides look like desert sand and rock.

Still unclear...was pay inequality just used as an example of some graphing operation or was the social issue somehow becoming the focus of a math class? If the former, seems okay. If the latter, then that would be a weird math course. That said, any graph that tracks human activity could be seen as politically charged by someone. Even if it was a graph correlating rates of cookie consumption and divorce. Someone could say the book had an agenda about divorced people stress-eating.

Much as I'd welcome a resurgence of songwriters in the mode of Phil Ochs, John Lennon, Tom Lehrer, it might also be good to have judges who won't tolerate scoundrels filing endless bullshit motions and clogging up courts for years. Songs + prosecutions. Holding hands + handcuffs. And, per Charon, better control rods in the social media reactor that would prevent lies (these days delicately referred to as "misinformation") from ricocheting all over cyberspace in milliseconds.

To some extent the embrace of anarchism (in the less bomb-wielding sense being discussed here) is dependent on aspects of personality that are not homogeneous in human society. While some people do value a high level of freedom and personal autonomy (and, if they are disciplined in their view, are willing to accept the decrease in personal security and increased social clash of values that might accompany this), there are others who crave a high level of "law and order" and a simplified nonpluralistic culture that has to be imposed by an authoritarian leader. They may crave a society that is parental in its control and top-down decision-making. Right-wing evangelical Christians, for example, often express the desire to have all submit to a divine will and be ruled by a theocratic ruler who will implement this. They wish for a State that acts in loco parentis for the same reason they prefer a religion whose authority structure is modeled (as Freud and many others pointed out) on that of childhood. Many people are, contra Benjamin Franklin's famous quote, quite willing to give up some liberty for the sake of security. Then there is the entrepreneurial wealth-seeking personality, which values freedom to conduct business more highly than other freedoms (e.g. social freedoms associated with the Left/Liberal platforms), and is fine with the cognitive dissonance of applauding regulatory freedom while stomping down social freedoms that might threaten their quest for personal enrichment and power (you want labor to stay cheap, cowed by police power, and not be afflicted with too much thinking or exploration of heterodox economic ideas). They may be anarchic in business practices, but authoritarian when it comes to squelching calls for cleaning up their effluents and fumes - often the first to support harsh laws against public demonstrations or class-action suits. However all these billiard balls of temperament collide with each other, it seems to me that truly successful Liberalism lies in the protection of freedom of discourse in education, freedom of the press (and protection of the press from predatory capitalist control), religious freedom, and the preservation of an intellectual life that can subject authority in any form to constant questioning and dissection of its stated aims. That questioning of received wisdom, of authority, seems to me to be at the heart of healthy anarchism, and must be protected by some kind of constitutional structure that can't be altered on a whim, or degraded because the world feels more dangerous than usual. So there's that seeming paradox: good anarchy requires a hardened bombproof structure of law.

Amazing how much time SFN members are willing to spend sparring with crackpots. Seems like a large percent of recent threads consist of little else. Can't they be buried in the cornfield like that telekinetic boy does in the Twilight Zone episode? Badda bing badda boom.

Dark, but very funny! I like the jaali windows - a classic use of the Venturi effect. Side note: maybe we should start a thread on LEED architecture.

First the very ill guy in the hospital, now the aviation guy. I know Russian architecture, especially from the Stalin era, can be very no frills, but surely they have railings and balustrades there. And landings, in case you happen to be "careening" down several flights of stairs. As usual, it's the wealthy who find ways to duck conscription. So much for rule of the proletariat. Not that that was ever really going to happen.

A compelling argument for voting (from a four year old article in the Washington Post): New data makes it clear: Nonvoters handed Trump the presidency https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/08/09/new-data-makes-it-clear-nonvoters-handed-trump-the-presidency/ And another reason, often repeated to me growing up by family and friends: If you didn't vote, you don't get to complain.

Thanks - yes, it's both denaturation and then dehydration. I should have mentioned both, with denaturation leading to dehydration. Here's a snip from Healthline: Alcohol kills germs through a simple chemical process known as denaturation. Denaturation occurs when alcohol molecules break down the proteins present in the structure of germs. When the proteins break down and lose their structure, the cells can’t function properly. They lose their membrane protection, dehydrate, and quickly die.

Thanks! Yes, I like that the DDG browser does automatically what I have to do by hand with Chrome. And the search engine has worked really well for me, not toploading the results with ads and the most heavily monetized websites. Sorry to say, Firefox has gone into a tailspin. Get out while you can. It will soon be in the software graveyard with Netscape Navigator.

A bit mystified as to why NTuft was neg repped. Shouldn't the dispenser of the minus one share whatever points of disagreement they may have? Would be much appreciated, and perhaps add to our knowledge.

BOSTON (AP) — The sex lives of constipated scorpions, cute ducklings with an innate sense of physics, and a life-size rubber moose may not appear to have much in common, but they all inspired the winners of this year’s Ig Nobels, the prize for comical scientific achievement. Held less than a month before the actual Nobel Prizes are announced, Thursday’s 32nd annual Ig Nobel prize ceremony was for the third year in a row a prerecorded affair webcast on the Annals of Improbable Research magazine’s website. The winners, honored in 10 categories, also included scientists who found that when people on a blind date are attracted to each other, their heart rates synchronize, and researchers who looked at why legal documents can be so utterly baffling, even to lawyers themselves. Even though the ceremony was prerecorded, it retained much of the fun of the live event usually held at Harvard University. As has been an Ig Nobel tradition, real Nobel laureates handed out the prizes, using a bit of video trickery: The Nobel laureates handed the prize off screen, while the winners reached out and brought a prize they had been sent and self-assembled into view. Winners also received a virtually worthless Zimbabwean $10 trillion bill. https://apnews.com/article/science-oddities-education-bb270f4a962f89811eb3ca2b02e3e8f4

I've been using the duckduckgo browser, which does not have these problems and gives a high level of privacy. And it reduces ads so severely I've wondered how they stay in business. With Chrome you have to go to Settings and click to the advanced browser security settings which then allow you to delete saved passwords, as well as cookies, cache, and site settings. Just make sure you have the PW safely stored elsewhere.

You also get "I axe vile argument." A suitable action for moderator.

Spit-take! There needs to be a web initialism, SCOS. Spewed coffee on screen. I believe the early 20th century comic actor WC Fields might have been allergic to water.

The thing about xenophobia, politically, is that it always works with a segment of the population. If you sugarcoat it with "we are promoting safe streets, law and order, and plenty of jobs because foreigners aren't flooding in and stealing them," then you can soothe a lot of people who lean Right. The question is how long you can sell that, as the other side, the ugly side of xenophobia rears its head - hate crimes, brutal law enforcement, ghettoization, and cycles of poverty as immigrants are shut out from climbing the socioeconomic ladder. The people who fear too rapid change in their neighborhoods will be demonized as racists, the immigrants will be demonized as criminals, Islamic extremists, parasites....whatever label can be spun to fit a particular demographic. Nordic countries used to be protected from immigrant influxes by their winters, as well as by the lack of former colonial connections. When you have passive barriers, you don't have to think much about political barriers and you can maintain a "nice" demeanor. Now the winters are getting milder and the immigrants are more numerous, more desperate and less picky about ice and snow. It will be hard to balance humanitarian concern and the capacity to handle a suddenly accelerating rate of growth.

Who brings chocolate eggs that cause unconsciousness? The ether bunny.

Until reading of Australia's first kangaroo attack death since 1936, on Monday, I hadn't realized that male roos perceive our bipedalism as a challenge posture. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-62884861 I hope all our Australian members are well - @beecee , who has been quiet lately, and IIRC is the same age as the victim...well, if he wanted to give a shout? I realize I have possibly not created much fodder for discussion, beyond the obvious assertions that wild animals do not make good pets. But perhaps there are exceptions.

I've gravitated back to natural fibers and goose down, partly due to the plastic nanoparticles issue, and can report that's an expensive path. But comfortable on the skin when you replace poly blends with straight cotton. All I know about cotton is that it gets stronger and wrinkles less when mercerized (soaking in NaOH), which is useful for clothes but not for towels (unmercerized absorbs water better).

So many incisive posts! Will just add that, per Peterkin's mention of the negative effects of political parties especially on national assemblies, that the founders were much opposed to parties. Time has certainly buttressed their objections in many ways. Thomas Jefferson on the matter: George Washington also weighed in, in his Farewell Address, and held nothing back... I almost want a phrase stronger than "nailed it!" for President George. A crystal ball, that man had!

Is the glove analogy quite correct, though? The objects in the boxes have no definite handedness until you open them, right? If you open your box, you forced an ambidextrous glove to become a left-hand or RH glove by doing so. And you will never be able to make the box create a specific handedness. So no superluminal digital signal. (Disclaimer: I understand very little of QT) BTW, completely useless digression, but any glove can reverse handedness. (Hint: easier with unlined rubber gloves). Topologically, any glove contains its own enantiomorph.

Har! But wait, wouldn't Camilla be the bride of Chucky?

I think the argument that, in UK, the monarch provides a stabilizing force that stands outside the government, is not a bad one. An additional control rod, if you will, in the reactor of state. UK could probably do worse than to have a control rod right now, one who is quite green in his outlook. Not sure how many old movie or Alec Guinness fans be here, but I couldn't help but think of the Duke of Chalfont in "Kind Hearts and Coronets," whose mother was edged out of the succession to the dukedom (for marrying below her station - an Italian!!), and so he murders his way through the nine people now ahead of him. There's some line about how the first two was child's play, but the severe challenge of knocking off the next seven. So Richard, Duke of Gloucester (presently at number 30), has his work cut out for him. And he'd best avoid Bosworth Field. Offtopic, but I really loathe the American version, which chopped out six minutes of adultery, nonPC nursery rhymes, and tacked on a stupid ending that shat on the nice dark ambiguity of the original. The Hays movie code really treated Americans like children.