geordief

Is it the case that only a few of us can really say whether or not a Stradivarius is much better than (or just distinctive from?) other similar instruments? Those who can play it at the highest level and those (few?) who can appreciate the different performances of the instrument and the player? Since ,I guess it is mainly the most virtuoso or musically sensitive who actually play these instruments(?) is it hard to separate out the two effects?(skilled artist or exquisite instrumentation)

It would have been but I hadn't touched the stuff in over 3 years. There was a form I had to fill in to gain entry (had I smoked grass in the past?) and I ticked the yes box out of naive honesty .Yes I learned my lesson : -(

I have broken the law in Italy. ( as well as Canada, the US, Germany, Mexico and Argentina ) Fortunately, Italian cops can be bribed I was deported (well refused entry for "moral turpitude" **it may have been called) at the Vancouver border coming in from Washington State Had no inkling I could be refused entry to a member of the Commonwealth back then in the 70s. Luckily the States took me back and also gave me free overnight lodging in a prison along the way bank to my flight in NY (Just need to ask nicely . I think they were obliged by law to take me in) ** because I admitted to having smoked cannabis .

I actually spent 3 days in Gotenburg prison in Sweden for the reason of not having enough cash to explain where I would be staying in the country,they not believing my story of casual tourism and me not telling them that I had a job to go to in Norway. My only real experience of prison and very unpleasant since they took away my guitar and my belt ,replacing them with pornographic magazines and feeling free to lay hands on me for the sake of letting me know who was the boss. I had to pay for my own repatriation and returned a few days later with enough cash to impress them that "you are going to buy the country this time" Not really on topic:certainly not torture .

As the song goes "to live outside the law you must be honest" The justice system is a social contract...but I argue that is a good (and just) thing. And yes we cannot harm others without the dagger penetrating ourselves.(although Godwin's Law may suggest ,otherwise)

Oh yes ,tried that but there are too many points of entry .Even the front door needs replacing and ,in the drawing room we have an archway rather than an actual door. All the (sash) windows are very old and don't meet flush at top middle or bottom. Great for Covid times,mind you😆

Yes I see that. Actually in my case the first thing I would do is to draught proof the room. All my windows and all my doors are draughty but I have no cash to address the problem (that I just live with) 😅

I have often noticed that disturbing a fire causes it to lose momentum .The unburned part you expose to the fire takes a little while to get going. Also ,as @exchemist said the charcoaled part of the wood stops burning very quickly when turned away from the flame. To keep the fire burning strong my tactic is often to add small pieces in the way of the flames (but even this will slow the fire down until they catch)

As others have noted ,you can season your logs as much as possible (I believe 2 years may be common in Germany) I sometimes quick dry dry my logs (overnight or for an hour or so with twigs) in the oven and get a hell of a blaze very quickly. Most of my heat goes up the chimney but that is not too much of a concern for me as I have a ready supply of trees (but not of cash). I often stare at the fire and wonder what is the best tactic to get the maximum heat from what I have on it. My first idea was to put the fuel to the back as I felt that it would burn better but my neighbour was insistent I should bring it to the front . I am no wiser on that score. If you keep turning the logs you should incorporate more oxygen,I'd have thought though with big logs that is less obvious. We used to have a "dampner" (?)in my old house that you could draw across the chimney to keep the heat in the room when the smoke was gone out of the fire but I doubt they are simple to put in once the chimney is made.

No ,I just had chapter II in mind https://www.coursehero.com/file/p7hr8lu/If-for-instance-a-cloud-is-hovering-over-Trafalgar-Square-then-we-can-determine/ (although I did ,ambitiously have the moving rods of chapter XII as my next preoccupation) But I think @swansontmay have disabused me of the notion that there is some kind of a "proto unit" of spatial distance that I would need to give meaning/reference to the 1 metre rod. https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/125530-einsteins-rods/?do=findComment&comment=1182529 I feel that I see now that distance measurements are relative and so different lengths can be compared to each other without the need to refer to some absolute unit of spatial distance. For the purposes of creating a rod of unit spatial distance any convenient length will do . @joigus I think I was hung up over the mistaken idea that there was some kind of fundamental unit of spatial distance to which all rods or rulers had to be compared. There seemed to be a process involving time in that but I now feel it is unnecessary (and wrong)

Einstein talks about creating a coordinate system with a lattice of imaginary measuring rods of unit length along the spatial axes. In the real world would such a rod's length have to be measured as a spatio-temporal distance? In practical terms ,if we put a person at the origin of the coordinate system and put such a rod in his/her hand and ask him to actually measure it how could he do this without recourse to a time element in the procedure? If he simply counted all the protons fortuitously along the rod's length the next question seems to be "how do you measure the length of the individual proton without there being a time element to the procedure?" Would that measurement not also be a tempero-spatial measurement ?(and on and on) Must any unit of spatial distance inevitably be some kind of fraction of a light-second ? Am I getting the hang of this or over complicating things?

Was the behaviour hard wired in because most of the survivors happened to be wired that way? The feeling of volition is just a post factum ordering (complete with coscious or unconscious thoughts )of the hardwired instincts?

Is information ordered data? Is that what a thought does ?Puts a construction on, or finds a pattern in sensory data?

As a preamble ,I have a memory (an indirect one at this stage) of "struggling" to express a thought but realizing that I had no words/language ...was I in the womb perhaps or just popped out ? Again,a year or two later I had a dream whereby I awoke in the middle of the night and attempted to get out of bed but each direction (of 4) turned out to be the wall (I went back to sleep) [/preamble] Anyway,what I want to ask is "What is the evolutionary origin of thought?" This is my hypothesis.It arose from sensory inputs and was the first living organisms' attempt to make a note of a particular observation. On its own any sensory input lacks context and so meaning but if two adjacent sensations can be compared then a direction (and a thought) is created . So that is my thought and question "Could that be how thoughts developed historically?"

No that is exactly on point. Yes ,would we eventually find a way to deduce their existence?

Funny how 1984 is now the past.

Patent that.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.",which is from Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan" A commonplace observation that over the aeons humans have looked up at the stars with what we assume to be a similar feeling of wonder that we feel now. But my question is whether we would have found another object to evince the same feelings in us had those stars not been there for us to have gazed up at. Is there a feeling looking for an outlet that used those stars or would we have just found some other things to observe that would have given rise to similar but not identical feelings of wonderment? What might those objects have been? (It is not so outrageous that there might be sentient beings at some point in history looking out at a starless world as I believe it is said that ,after a long period of further expansion our presently visible stars will fade from view)

Could this be Russian disinformation ? (why it would appear genuine for one ) Just stirring the pot now he sees how weak the social fabric of the States really is? Edit :plus maybe a message to Trump?

http://letslookagain.com/2020/05/craven-a-cigarette-a-history-of-carreras/ No it was a straight.

It represents a possible benefit to maturbating;not to "not masturbating " as per the OP. If it was the latter then abstainers would need a gun license and perhaps need to carry warning signs of some description. Was not me that neged (have never neged in my life unless by mistake on these small screens)

It would still apply to all companies who deselect candidates who vote against democracy Sure but I am in two minds.I agree with their assessment (if they have said this) that they are no longer giving funds to actors who are fundamentally anti democratic but I don't agree they should be in such a position in the first place. I understand (from very weak understanding) that powerful corporations were a mainstay of fascist regimes in the past and am not kindly disposed to their unregulated behaviour.

I wasn't necessarily applying that explanation to Toyota in particular.It was more a summation of what I have learned about the practice ,which so far as I know is confined to the USA. Indeed I see the political influence of corporations extremely differently to that of individuals.In my bones I am against it as essentially undemocratic. In the UK the great argument against the Labour Party was that it was beholden to the Unions. And the contrast may be between the Trades Unions and the Corporations.Which is more democratic in your eyes?

The standard explanation for funding both (why not all?) parties is that it supports democracy in the round. It seems unfair to me that big corporations should be able to tip their hat one way but one can only fight one war at a time. If there is a possibility that the anti democratic forces win this next engagement what plans are there for the morning after ?(or is Biden a strong bulwark?)

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57773010 About 50 Republicans who voted against accepting the result of the General election,it seems. On balance is this a good developments or will it fuel what seems like a grievance culture? Seems like desperate times for Democracy in USA.So vital the anti democratic forces do not get another foothold in the institutions of power in the coming elections . Can they be headed off at the pass? According to the story "Toyota has said it will halt donations to members of the US Congress who voted against certification of President Biden's election victory."