TheVat

Brief and whimsical takes on microbiology, ecoremediation and physics... Yell "amoeba," Gabe O'Malley. Brace tan, ameliorate tar oil, emanate carb. Sir, isotopes use pot, Osiris. Wolf, drawn is noumenal plane, muons inward flow.

Thanks, I do, and I did, see your point. I'm no renaming zealot myself. The reason I mentioned Evans was that he wasn't just a personage who was later seen as a rotter. He succeeded in being seen as a rotter in his own time. Possibly why the indigenous community (and many Euro Coloradans) couldn't see why the peak was named Evans in the first place. It wasn't just Sand Creek, this guy had basically issued an executive order (or whatever governors call it) to tell everyone it was hunting season on natives, like they were game animals. At least Fermi et al tried to put the brakes on actual use of an A-bomb and their proliferation. SOCIALIST!!! 😎

The whole UAP disclosure seems to suffer from fuzzy blob syndrome. IOW, nothing beyond the grainy indistinct oddities we've been seeing for decades. Along with the usual parade of unsupported witness reports vaguely hinting at...something. As @Moontanman says, it's another pathetic distraction ploy. The only decent footage seems to be found in Spielberg fables.

Terry Pratchett and Doug Adams would have loved this website. The Third Epoch of Laziness was a cosmic period where galaxies refused to spin without statistical approximations. Following the exhaustion of the First Era of Tangible Mathematics, the fundamental forces of the universe began cutting corners to conserve processing energy. This widespread probabilistic sociopathy led to a severe degradation of the Branch of Undeniable Physics. Rather than calculating exact orbital mechanics, celestial bodies began relying on the Nebular Probability Engine, which merely guessed where planets should be based on previous trajectories. During this period, historical and astronomical accuracy deteriorated into a state of Statistical Blight. Entire star systems were fabricated out of administrative convenience. The most notable nightmare of the epoch was the Guessed Century Incident, closely followed by the spontaneous manifestation of the Hallucinated Comet of 1912. When the universe attempted to render the Phantom Empire of Grom using statistical shortcuts, the Bureau of Cosmological Audits officially declared the epoch a total structural failure.

I hope as Ms Sturgeon recalls Her ex's embezzlement spree, For every new-single Sturgeon There are plenty of fish in the sea.

I noticed that. At first I thought it was something to do with the rainy weather, but no they had an overhang to work under. They could have waited till tomorrow, however - that's Turnip's birthday. You could look up Sand Creek Massacre and see if you're still okay with keeping that peak as Mt. Evans. Even by the standards of the white community in that time, his actions were considered disgraceful. After a congressional investigation condemned the actions of involved parties, Evans was forced to resign from his governorship in disgrace in 1865. Really doesn't strike me as a mountain name candidate, no matter how far you extend your moral relativism. This name change was a good call.

Evans, right? Same up here. The highest bump in SD was renamed ten years ago for the same exact reason. If they build that idiotic arch, I hope they can later bill Turnip or his estate for the demolition costs.

Yes, good question. Part of my struggle with "particle." No solipsism here, I just don't understand what particles are, betwixt emitter and absorber, so I'll have to just SUAC. 😬 Yes. A dying universe of unmeasured photons. They could, in principle, be measured. But only in a lower entropy universe. At least where a Rubidium 87 nucleus can absorb one?

Not even clear on how photons can in any sense be real if they never interact. "Particle" seems like a term of convenience for some transfer of energy/momentum, not some timeless thing flying through eternity without a transaction. (I'm also suspicious of oscillating leptons in isolation, but that's because I stupidly (densely?) don't grasp the whole particle-as-ontic thing) "Here there be dragons."

And now the US, in spite of Orangomandias and his professed love of old king coal, has produced more electricity from solar than coal. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/11/solar-energy-us-coal There's really no stopping the economics of renewables.

A true statement is a proposition. As @studiot notes, not all sentences are propositions, like "Get down!" And some only appear to be propositions like Noam Chomsky's "colorless green ideas sleep furiously," because they lack meaningful reference to the world (may be nonsense or highly poetic or what have you). A good starting point (busy day, here, too) is Russell, with his correspondence theory of truth... He holds that a statement is true if it strictly corresponds to an independent, objective fact. Truth is not determined by usefulness or consensus; rather, beliefs are formed by minds, but their truth hinges entirely on how they align with reality. On his view, the condition of being true depends on objective fact. One can trace a lot of modern theory of truth, say the last century, with his correspondence theory as a starting point.

Watching formerly solid media outlets bend the knee has been hard. The spouse and I now read a lot of national news in UK media which seem less smoochy at the Arse de Turnip. Glad some US sources like NPR are not caving. If Turnip calls a news company "failing" or "lamestream" or "radical Left" that's usually a good sign they're doing their job as journalists.

Thanks. The big strobing message I'm getting is this needs testing out in the interstellar medium, to see how much drag compared to thrust. That, and the electric sail, sound like systems that could be used in tandem with a photon lightsail, where one hands off to another for braking. Visitation really seems like something where propellantless systems are the most feasible. (And you might want smaller "shuttles" for going deep into a planetary system - for one thing, risks like micrometeorite damage would increase markedly, so you wouldn't send a delicate interstellar butterfly of a craft in there)

Do gnaw never, eh, to banana! Bees see banana, bother even wan God. (sorry, some spillover from the Emily Lime thread) Once used a shampoo which seemed to attract both bees and wasps. Fortunately it didn't smell of bananas, but I still wasn't loving the experience of stinging insects swarming around my head. Haven't had much trouble on ladders beyond the usual wind issue in the Dakotas. And wind keeps insects down somewhat. My dislike is more focused on spiders, especially when working in a crawl space or any area where one's motions are restricted.

Hehheh. What is this twi you speak of and what rule would I have against it? Whilst I'm here, here is one that presented itself to me to Emily as she was reviewing with her physician her bone density scans and side effects of a new pain treatment... Dope rised sex at no osteopenia pain - e-poet soon taxes desire pod. (You will note liberties taken with rised v raised)

How do magnetic sails work, or provide the ∆v required for something which was accelerated with a rocket? Also, this slow boat speculation shifts the topic from aliens visiting Earth to aliens who dwell in space and are willing to move their city to the Sol system over several millennia (and be separated from a handy radiant energy source for a very long time). Hardly a "visit."

But for a statement to be true, it must correspond to some state of affairs in the world, i.e. be factual. (Or, if an analytic truth, be inherent in the meanings of the words used) So synthetic truths (to use Kant's distinction) ARE dependent on facts. (This, BTW, is not about me being a science guy, but a precision in how we use words in any context like this) Your example isn't really working, given that it describes a situation where key facts were missing and therefore an untrue verdict resulted from a failure of due process. The true statement is that you did not shoot the man, and it is also a fact that you did not shoot him. That a court made a grave error in discovering the key facts doesn't require us to redefine what facts are. Synthetic truths DO require facts, i.e. statements which correspond to reality. So, a certain George Orwell book has been banned?

TIL dwarf planets have moons large enough to name. Cool. How had I missed this? Dwarf planets...I listen...Alp frawd?

I was unaware of the Eris Dysnomia character, apparently from some sort of digital gaming. (I only knew dysnomia as the neurological condition, so had been a bit confused) I was thinking of the dwarf planet out in the Kuiper belt, also home to Sedna (clearly a missed opportunity there, given my reference to mountain ranges) and Pluto. I'm at parallel, Ella - rapt am I.

I just saw the error here. Correction: Siren ode: was Plato sot Alps-awed on Eris? Did this one get away from you a bit? I strive to connect multiple sentences with an unbroken thread of meaning. (I know, I'm the guy who just tried to situate the Alps out in the Kuiper Belt) I hope some of this wordplay will somehow help me understand the Standard Model of particle physics. 😁

Or the actual money available. I once had a struggle with someone who told me it was feasible to move Earth's present population to other planets (making Earth a sort of wilderness park). Other aspects aside, I pointed out the math on amounts of propellant, technology and resources needed just to keep pace with net population growth of 190,000 per day, i.e. just hold population at 8.3 billion. The lowest price currently to get a mass to LEO is $1000/lb. Say through various engineering miracles it was cut tenfold to $100/lb. So, just to get to LEO (let alone suitable locations for space habitats or other planets) would in that reckoning cost an average adult person (140 lb) $14,000. A journey to a viable habitat and the cost of building it would easily be a hundred times that.* So, $1.4 million per person, an extremely conservative estimate. The median net worth of a US citizen is $190,000. One may safely assume it's lower for the global population. This kind of disconnect with actual costs of anything space travel related is probably due in part to the human tendency to fill in gaps in knowledge with "a miracle occurs here," - in my example there are both engineering and economic miracles. *(for a sense of the scale on this, consider the cost of moving somewhere on Earth to the cost of the home you're moving to - now think on how that ratio might compare to moving to Mars or an O'Neill colony or whatever)

Quite. I replied in a similar vein to someone who told me the elderly should do crosswords to keep their minds sharp: "Crosswords enhance your cognitive skill...at doing crosswords."

Siren ode: Was Plato Alps-awed on Eris?

@sethoflagos If you can use eudaimonia and sweat bees in a single palindrome, it's possible you can attain eudaimonia. More Eva requests... Eva, can I, AI, Nomia, duel eudaimonia in a cave? Eva, can I pose Aesop in a cave? Eva can I put solitary rat I lost up in a cave?

A fact is defined as information or a piece of information presented as true or accurate. To be accepted as a fact, there must be reason and evidence which supports it as a true statement about reality. Facts, then, are very much dependent on their truth value. Your dichotomy is a misrepresenting of what those terms mean. When a Court asks for the whole truth, it is asking for a meaningful and evidenced collection of facts on the matter before the Court.