TheVat

Cool. It's often hard to define basic concepts without lapsing into tautologies. I've seen this also with definitions of time. TIL what all these tiny islands are near the Strait of Hormuz. https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-islands-strait-hormuz-oil-trump-1b3e770e61c6a05d3e078223e15b20b2 I had definitely not heard of Greater and Lesser Tunb.

Rarely do I encounter a better reason for reading journals. Regarding the side topic of scientists masturbating racehorses or dissecting dolphin clitori, I think an enjoyable day can be spent collecting cougar poo... USGSGenetic analysis of scats reveals minimum number and sex...Recent records of mountain lions Puma concolor and concurrent declines in desert bighorn sheep Ovis canadensis mexicana on Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, United States, have prompted investRecent records of mountain lions Puma concolor and concurrent declines in desert bighorn sheep Ovis canadensis mexicana on Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, United States, have prompted investigations to estimate the number of mountain lions occurring there. We performed noninvasive genetic analyses and identified species, individuals, and sex from scat samples collected from the Kofa and Castle Dome Mountains. From 105 scats collected, we identified a minimum of 11 individual mountain lions. These individuals consisted of six males, two females and three of unknown sex. Three of the 11 mountain lions were identified multiple times over the study period. These estimates supplement previously recorded information on mountain lions in an area where they were historically considered only transient. We demonstrate that noninvasive genetic techniques, especially when used in conjunction with camera-trap and radiocollaring methods, can provide additional and reliable information to wildlife managers, particularly on secretive species like the mountain lion.

Worth asking if ordinary Iranian citizens really buy into all this eschatological crap. I doubt it but am open to survey evidence. My impression is that in the US, even conservative states, most people do not believe in dominion theology (the broader category of those who believe a Christian theocracy across all the globe is destined) and consider the dominionists to be kooks. Unfortunately the military does seem to be attracting a lot of Christian nationalists in its recruiting, as well as right-wing partisans generally. While many of those might not believe the End Times hogwash they are in a military structure where they "go along to get along."

LOL. If you have a string of several Cavell vans, it's a Cavell-cade.

Or it could be this avian species, though the writer finds that the expulsion of air from the cloaca is not a true fart, i.e. discharge of intestinal gas Michael WhiteheadDoes Australia’s farting bird pass the sniff test?Legend has it that skulking on Austalia’s forest floors is a bird which forages for earthworms by farting. The hapless worms are so startled by the sensory assault of a Bassian thrush’s…

One of these days, this science could save your life! I put that in a search engine and it backfired.

Just as well, given the Palindrome Police tend to impose stiff fines for using extremely obscure geographical names. Giving gnats adipose tissue is okay, but you don't want to send people running for the nearest atlas or encyclopedia. E.g. if my audience is mostly British I need to consider they may not be familiar with a small Idaho town named Pocatello, however seductive that assemblage of letters may be. And it is. Hmmm. Or maybe it's like Scrabble and anything formally recognized as a word is fair use. DK. Barcarolle? Taco? Pocatello, Ra? Crab?

I don't get it. But I was going to guess nine. So I was a little off.

Heh. On a less amusing note, researchers studied types of AI deception like in-context scheming, alignment faking and sandbagging. Based on recent news about Anthropic's ethical spine wrt to misuse of AI, I had hoped Claude (Opus III) would do well. It did not do well at all. Apollo ResearchFrontier Models are Capable of In-Context Scheming – Apol...Apollo Research evaluated frontier models for in-context scheming capabilities. We found that multiple frontier models are capable of in-context scheming when strongly nudged to pursue a goal (and som

I'm simply going to be happy all day now, on the strength of knowing there is a real website called The Human Flatus Atlas. Based on the data so far, I'm a proud "hydrogen hyperproducer." The only way to cut output is, ironically, to cut the cheese.

I guess that you don't mean just the Peano axioms? That would be too easy.

And I just replied to a bot, didn't I? Puzzles are hard for me to resist.

Emily shares thoughts on the Middle East: Loot net Torah silo, medevac an Israeli, oil ears in a cave, demolish a rotten tool.

Har. It's funny I got the joke given I'm not into either comic books or the film franchise. Must be some osmotic process, being around geeks or nerds. Yep, it's not really all that funny. If the girl's power is to cure paraplegics, it would also have to include some psychic force which erases their memory of being disabled.

There are several functions, since SFN moved to a new host, which operate pretty slowly. When something appears not to respond, I usually just take an eyeball rest (the 20/20 thing, look at something over 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds - this can prevent a lot of eyestrain with devices, especially small screens) and it often resolves.

Now you're trolling, @dimreepr . Just admit you're having one of your verbal communication glitches and move on.

Another one similar to the Emperor HNC or the Abilene paradox is where someone tells a joke which no one else gets, but someone laughs politely so they also pretend to be amused. This joke, for example.... Professor Xavier is bringing in a new class of mutants and has been listening to people talk about their special gifts all day. He only has one left, a young lady who had just walked in and said she could tell how many pulls of the chain it would take to turn a ceiling fan off. Charles thought this seemed a little useless, but decided to humor the girl. She told him it would take precisely three pulls, so he stood, pulled thrice, and sure enough the fan stopped. He asked why she thought that would be useful on a mission, before realizing what he had done. ....if no one hearing the joke knows who Professor Xavier is, then they won't get the joke. But many people hate to appear uninformed, unhip to pop culture references, so they don't want to admit their puzzlement. Or they just figure it's some kind of clever conceptual joke about getting people to do things, and act as if that's funny. Try telling it in a group of people who aren't into Marvel comics and haven't seen any of the X-men films.

Holy crap. "While the instructions for authors for Paediatrics & Child Health has at times indicated the case reports are fictional, that disclosure has never appeared on the journal articles themselves..." “Every clinical vignette...describes a fictional case, created as a teaching tool and related to a Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program study or survey.” What is wrong with these people? And also a pie in the face of The Lancet, which published the original baby blue case report in 2006. They finally wrote an "expression of concern" twenty years later when the New Yorker uncovered the bogus aspects. Juurlink had been trying to get a retraction for six years, but I guess the New Yorker carries more weight than an expert on pediatric toxicology and pharma. 🙄

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

A related phenomenon I've seen a fair amount of is the Abilene paradox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox Another thing I experienced, working for a couple years in a state government office, was jargon used by people to conceal work duties that really had minimal utility or purpose. What David Graeber famously called Bullshit jobs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs Graeber suggested that if we only worked at necessary and meaningful tasks we would all by now have arrived at Keynes's prediction that people would only need to work 15 hours a week. What was funny to me in my time at that state job was that the people in the BS jobs would openly admit it, if you met them in an off-work social setting. I can't tell you how many times I'd hear, "I have no idea what I'm doing there." But in the office, it was stuff like "I facilitate and optimize the cross-departmental coordination of multilevel synergies" blather.

Hehe. I would respond with more thought to this, but it's suppertime here and I'm hungry like the wolf. True. Hidden tax is everywhere. Though one could, in theory, never pay tax to the federal government by keeping to a low income, never owning a car or consuming anything imported. But state and muni taxes would still be there. Along with the Reaper. Who reportedly is a good chess player, per this Swedish movie I saw.

It's about balancing the collective good with the fact that the collective is composed of individuals who cannot be categorized with any certainty. Yes, there's a deontological aspect where one asks, "what sort of nation are we if we start imposing abstract requirements to vote?" And there's also a more consequentialist argument, in that nations which actually do start classifying some voters as problematic, don't have enough skin in the game, don't meet the criteria for good voters... have not done at all well. Real consequences, not just existential fretting. Also, how can we really know an older voter would not bear some consequences solely on the basis of longevity? If I die knowing my grandchildren will live in tents due to a horrible policy on housing, it may not affect me directly, but I am still dying in despair. I very much want to vote against the scoundrels pushing "let them pitch tents." Your grabbing that wedge again. Where do we draw the line on say, voting on school bond issues? Can only people with children vote on this? Obviously unworkable and also begs the question: don't childless couples and singles also have an interest in younger people being educated? Statistics on crime and incarceration rates show where kids wind up if they don't have decent schools. And 40-50% of American workers (it varies) don't pay taxes, because their earnings fall below the line where there's any tax liability. They fill out "the short form" and they're done. Should they not vote? Same thing as with the schools - cause and effect ripples through all of society, and everyone has an interest in responsible governance and spending.

Good point. Yes, it's hard to really carve out any exception without getting into murky waters of definitions of that exception. And there are places where felons can't regain their vote after theyve discharged their debt to society. I find that problematic, too.

Well you've already heard my thin end of wedge argument. And as I said over in the Gits thread, "so many ethical matters fall back upon the dignity and worth of the individual and not the statistical aggregate of social behavior." If a national government is to so assert this worth and dignity, then must not its charter or constitution or whatever document then state that no individual can be excluded on the basis of a social classification? (I mean, sure, maybe criminals forfeit the right because they overtly attack their society - but I don't see any other exceptions which wouldn't have thin wedge problems) For example, imagine a law based on the statistic that most murders are done by men. So every man is required to submit to thorough psychiatric evaluation before marriage, or purchasing any tools or cookware which could be used to lethal effect, or co-signing a lease or (etc). Other laws might involve forms of surveillance targeting just men. And so on. This would seem to deny a citizen liberty, not through any personal fault or transgression, but because of a social classification, in this case gender.

This raises tough questions of how much life trajectories vary between people. I would hazard a guess there is a lot of variation. Some brick throwers repent and become sympathetic towards their brick targets. Some ossify in their bigotries. Some have transformative experiences and some avoid them. My views have shifted some - partly because I just started paying more attention to politics and ideologies, and noticing rotten spots...or areas where I'd been clueless. What I'm getting at is that so many ethical matters fall back upon the dignity and worth of the indivdual and not the statistical aggregate of social behavior.