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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)N
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3 yr. ago

  • I think it's a reference to that schizophrenic guy who thought God told him to build an operating system as the third temple. He posted a lot of crazy videos online, including some where he claimed that the CIA was following him but that they glow in the dark. A couple of years later, people on 4chan started to refer to CIA agents as "glowies" in reference to those videos.

  • Also, William Seabrook.

    In the 1920s, Seabrook traveled to West Africa and came across a tribe who partook in the eating of human meat. Seabrook wrote about his experience of cannibalism in his travel book Jungle Ways; however, he later admitted that the tribe had not allowed him to join in on the ritualistic cannibalism. Instead, he had obtained samples of human flesh by persuading a medical intern at the Sorbonne University to give him a chunk of human meat from the body of a man who had died in an accident.

    ...

    Seabrook might have eaten human flesh also on another occasion. When his claim of having participating in ritualistic cannibalism turned out wrong (and he hadn't yet dared reveal the Sorbonne story), he was much mocked for it. According to his autobiography, the wealthy socialite Daisy Fellowes invited him to one of her garden parties, stating "I think you deserve to know what human flesh really tastes like". During the party, which was attended by about a dozen guests (some of them well-known), a piece of supposedly human flesh was grilled and eaten with much pomp. He comments that, while he never found out "the real truth" behind this meal, it "looked and tasted exactly" like the human flesh he had eaten before.

  • I was just reading this article about a mathematical understanding of closed time-like curves.

    In essence, the argument is that time travel to the past is possible with a degree of free will, but you would not be allowed to alter the past in such a way as to remove the motivation for traveling back in time. E.g., it would be like Futurama where Fry kills his grandfather, but he impregnates his grandmother, thus allowing himself to be born. The idea is that the timeline would correct itself and ensure that your future self will always return to the past.

  • Right, 1/1024 is 0.0009765625 or about 0.1%.

  • Bit in this context refers to the [Shannon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_(unit\)) from information theory. 1 bit of information (that is, 1 shannon) is the amount of information you receive from observing an event with a 50% chance of occurring. 10 bits would be equivalent to the amount of information learned from observing an event with about a 0.1% chance of occurring. So 10 bits in this context is actually not that small of a number.

  • My point is that Fahrenheit is not like our other units of measure. 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 1760 yards or 5280 feet in a mile is ridiculous. There's no benefit to these units with arbitrary scaling factors for conversion. That lack of consistent scaling factor is the primary difference with metric, and it is also precisely why metric is superior. The image's assertion that these units are stupid is valid.

    But for temperature, there are some aspects of Fahrenheit that work out nicely, and learning 32 and 212 for the freezing and boiling points of water is not that bad. It's not as nice as 0 and 100, but this difference leads to certain other temperatures being in the range of 0 and 100. My enjoyment for which temperatures fall between 0 and 100 feels about as arbitrary as your enjoyment for water being liquid within this range. At the very least, the difference here is not as clear cut as it is for other units, so I don't buy into the idea that Fahrenheit is a bad unit of measure.

    To put it simply: I don't see any redeeming quality for our other units of measure, but I do for Fahrenheit. I'm not saying that Celsius is bad or that Fahrenheit is better. I'm merely saying that the phase changes of water are not enough to convince me that Fahrenheit is stupid.

  • Right. You learn two numbers for the phase changes of water, and we do as well. It's easy to remember two numbers and understand when you've crossed a boundary. Sure, learning 0 and 100 might be easier than 32 and 212, but I don't think that understanding whether a number is smaller or larger than 32 is really harder than understanding if it's smaller or larger than 0. Both are pretty much instantaneous recognitions for a numerically literate person.

    My point was merely that the Fahrenheit defines these two points in such a way that the ambient temperatures that we experience generally fall nicely within the range of 0 to 100, and I don't think that this fact is any less compelling an argument than having nicer numbers for the boundaries of liquid water. I'm not saying that Celsius is bad. I'm just saying that the range of liquid water is not a convincing enough argument for me.

    For other units of measures, the ease of converting units in metric is a clear win over imperial (or US customary). For temperature, there are benefits to both scales, and neither has as compelling an argument as we see in the meter vs the yard or the kilogram vs the pound. The only really convincing argument for me is that the rest of the world uses Celsius, and I think that is a good enough argument.

  • Fahrenheit is also based on water's phase changes, but the 0-100 range just falls nicely around the range of common ambient temperatures. The basis in water is nice because it's abundant and thus makes calibration of a thermometer easy. My contention is merely that the specific values of the phase changes are not so important that it makes the Celsius scale inherently better. I like that the ambient temperatures outside fall nicely throughout the 0-100 range in Fahrenheit, and I think that is just as valid an argument as water being liquid within this range.

    And perhaps I'm particularly swayed by this argument because I live in a place that has cold winters and hot summers, so I see the full range of 0 to 100 in the weather. I'm also not going to pretend that growing up using Fahrenheit is not the main reason for my continuing usage of it.

    I just wanted to point out that I'm convinced by the arguments in favor of the metric system for everything except Celsius. For that one, I just don't think water is as compelling an argument as is always presented.

  • I'm in agreement with everything except temperature. I'm not saying that Celsius is bad, but I do think that using the phase changes of water as the sole point of comparison is a bad argument.

    For most people, the interaction with temperature is through the weather, and I don't think Celsius is inherently better for that. I like that in Fahrenheit 0 is a cold winter's day, and 100 is a hot summer's day. I find that more relevant in day-to-day life than the phase changes of water. The big argument I see for preferring Celsius is that everybody else is doing it, so we may as well jump in.

    However, in regards to the other systems of measurement, metric is best. The imperial system was nice when manufacturing measuring tools was difficult, so using easily divisible numbers allowed for easier creation of accurate measuring devices. But it has been quite some time since that was a reasonable argument (and that's only really relevant for some of the units anyway).

  • If A is false, A -> B is true regardless of what B is, so the two undefined terms in your truth table should be true.

    So it is fairly easily translated into a shaded Venn Diagram. It's simply everything shaded aside from Trick only.

  • Looking at a map with the current polls (and focusing on the toss-ups), it seems that the most viable path to victory for Harris is to pick up PA, MI, and WI. If she drops PA, she'd need MI, NV, WI or AZ, and GA or NC, but that seems like a big ask. If she wins PA, she could lose WI if she picks up AZ, GA, or NC and she could lose MI if she wins GA, NC, or AZ and NV. But winning PA and losing both WI and MI would require winning AZ and either GA or NC.

    So there are a few paths to a Harris win, and a few don't seem very farfetched, but none of them seem likely enough for comfort. Definitely not how I was hoping to be feeling at this point in the election.

  • That makes sense. I can definitely see that. Do you have a different name for Ursa Minor? We call it the Little Dipper here, but I'm assuming that's not the case on your side of the pond.

  • A dipper is like a large ladle and is used more for transferring a large amount of liquid rather than serving. Oftentimes, the end will be more squared off with a flat bottom.

    To me, these two constellations look very much like dippers and it's difficult to see them as bears.

  • And his advisor on, and ambassador to, Israel literally wrote a book promoting a one state solution where he said that the US has a Biblical obligation to help Israel win. His ultimate plan is to set up an apartheid state where Palestinians do not have the same rights as Israelis.

  • I like Robert Delaunay, and also his wife, Sonia Delaunay. Their work involves a lot of bright, vibrant colors. It also was rather abstract or impressionistic, which I enjoyed. I think I like Piet Mondrian for similar reasons. Jan Sluyters would be another.

    I also like JMW Turner a lot. I'm a sucker for lighting and dynamic skies in paintings, and his work features that very prominently. Frederic Edwin Church is another painter along these lines that I really enjoy.

    A more contemporary painter that I like is Nina Tokhtaman Valetova. Her work also involves a lot of bold colors.