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Showing content with the highest reputation on 01/06/24 in all areas

  1. Their 'naughty step' can be denial of cell phone privileges for some specified period. They will be fitted with an ankle-worn phone jammer,, so that nobody's phone can work them within 10m of them. They'll be a social pariah jamming peoples phones. No phone is a state of death for a millennial and younger.
    2 points
  2. With the Iowa GOP caucus only 10 days away, Governor Hailey appeared on a local PBS weekly Iowa politics program this evening. Sadly, I kept getting distracted trying to determine whether her uniform made her an Ensign on Star Trek TNG or part of Tuvoks Security team on the lesser appreciated Voyager series
    2 points
  3. Apparently so does ignorance since it seems they tend to reproduce in far higher numbers than the non-ignorant There’s an old quote about not judging a fish based on its ability to climb a tree. Do you know that one? Likewise, we should never judge the intelligence of a deaf friend based on their ability to detect perfect tones or discover the familiar voice of a loved one amidst the cacophony of a crowd. There are limitless contexts to which intelligence may be applied, and similarly endless “shapes” of “intelligence.” Does this entity have skills accurately recalling past events? Does it have skills accurately forecasting futures today unwritten? Does this entity have the ability shape the surrounding environment, to build a dam, or construct a nest? Is the entity an individual or a colony of individuals farming and building mounds? Does it have the ability to camouflage itself with chromatophores and control 8 legs independently all at once? Does this entity have a sense of self? Does it process and remember sounds better or do they process and remember sights better? Are they good at calculating complex math in their head without pen paper or tool? Are they able to fix a tractor using a spoon and some duct tape, or resolder a computer chip? Is this entity a gifted author or poet, or do they perhaps build amazing pieces of artwork and exhibit quality craftsmanship using wood or gems or edible ingredients on dinner plates? Are they good at puzzles or playing Tetris? Are they good at getting unlost along the side of a towering mountain, or avoiding icy spots driving down winter roads? Do they regularly find insights into the mysteries of the cosmos that intelligent others for centuries before them walked passed simply unaware? Do they know how to predict a tornado, or collect nutrients months in advance before getting covered for months by a frozen layer of tundra? Do they know how to sense and avoid dangers and plan for future security, and can they do anything to act on those plans and make them real? Or, are they simply going with the flow like a twig in the shoulders of a mighty stream? All of these things involve “intelligence,” but intelligence doesn’t require all of those things. Sometimes intelligence is simply being kind to the person in front of you, or perhaps sharing your nitrogen with the trees beside you, remembering to breathe and be grateful your skins not turning blue. And let’s say “all of nature” is intelligent. Okay, super. So what? Does that mean she knows how to simmer a great gumbo, or that she can manufacturer computer chips by the billions at a 3nm scale? Does it mean she’s really good at fractions and calculus, or drawing hyper accurate maps of cities? No, of course not, so why use the term “intelligent” at all when it would likely be better to focus on specific things that are far more relevant and interesting… like asking whether the tree that fish is trying to climb happens to currently be underwater.
    1 point
  4. I guess that means that with regard to black holes "there's nothing new under the Sun" 😄
    1 point
  5. True. But we know of no mechanism for producing such Black Holes. Stellar gravitational collapse produces BHs that are an order of magnitude more massive than our Sun; and they are much colder than the CMB. Extremely small BHs of the size you mention, could only have been produced by primordial density fluctuations of the hot dense plasma of the very early universe, and they would have, and be, evaporating. Yet we look around the universe, and back in time, and we don't see the tell-tale gamma ray bursts indicative of the final moments of these primordial BHs. There may just not be any.
    1 point
  6. And via mycelium colonies underground, I imagine
    1 point
  7. Ha!, cheers. Smells tell me stories. I think this will progress naturally to looking at hormone signalling that's triggered by the chemical signals in the water.
    1 point
  8. He may have locked up the primary before then depending on how things go in the next 3-4 weeks in pre-Super Tuesday voting
    1 point
  9. You drew a picture of an epicurious symphony for me just there. +1
    1 point
  10. Very helpful @Genady, thanks. Intrinsic and extrinsic are clarified for me now.
    1 point
  11. Me too. Though social shame doesn't work with teenagers in some societies, often triggering more of an undesirable behavior as an enjoyable bit of rebellion. I used to live near a high school, so have unfortunately accumulated a fair amount of anthropological data on this. Fairly stiff enforcement would be required for that demographic, because moral lectures (How would you feel if I started depositing my trash in YOUR yard, hm?) would be ineffective. A friend of my parents, many years ago, had a rather unusual solution to someone tossing litter from their passing car into his yard. He took down the plates and, being a journalist, was somehow able to obtain their home address. He then mailed the litter (including some spoiled food) to them with a letter explaining that he was kindly returning to them what was theirs. A satisfying story, but an unusual bit of luck to see the perpetrators in the act.
    1 point
  12. I concur with exchemist, there isn't any meaningful difference between the statements; just different words encompassing the same idea.
    1 point
  13. Most of this stuff is cultural. When I was in Kyoto I thought holy cow, those were some of the cleanest backstreets I've seen in my entire life- I could almost eat off the ground!... Almost. ..and then there was Nice (pronounced "neese",) with its dog poop sidewalks. Nice. Since changing culture is not extremely practical, I'd say there's nothing like some negative financial incentive. Start handing out hundred-dollar tickets left and right and see what happens.
    1 point
  14. Does not matter, selection happens on the individual not on the collective level. Also, the same issue applies. It is about reproduction not only survival. A group entirely composed of mails may survive as many hardships as they want, their gene pool will end with them. Well, that is a semantic issue, something can be either under positive, negative or neutral selection. It does not refer to the mechanism itself under which they are positive, negative or neutral. I think the issue is that you might be have a view on evolution that is not the one used in science. There is no real necessity to see intelligence as a fundamental different trait than, say the ability to use oxygen to create energy, for example.
    1 point
  15. It's all about the concentration in the air. Butyric acid hints at familiar foods when it's just a whiff; bakery, butter, humbug sweets etc. A bit more and you are into hot sunny day armpit territory It adds depth, which makes it a 'bottom note' in mixes and rounds things out. Caproic acid (C6) is much the same... a bit more sweaty smelling, cheesy. These things are in your food as natural components of some foods aromas.
    1 point
  16. You will need to explain why the two options are different. To me they look the same.
    1 point
  17. Thus creating a paradox where they were never there to make the change in the first place. A chronology protection conjecture, as it were.
    1 point
  18. It does seem to follow a sense of involvement in community. In wealthier and more educated areas, there is less litter. In fact, a stray can will be removed from the street quickly in a more affluent area. In poorer and less educated communities, litter is rife. A stray can will rust and decay before anyone lifts it from the ground. Maybe if normal people could adopt patches of areas instead of big corporations? If somehow average people could feel an attachment and investment in their own little space? I bet there would be a host of creative and beautiful settings if we could somehow get everyone to see Nature as part of a whole. After all, birds and trees and grass don't care how much someone makes......
    1 point
  19. Sorry, but this is just looks like unevidenced, illogical arm waving.
    0 points
  20. Photons have magnetic fields. If a photon wraps around itself its magnetic fields that point in opposite directions will also align. Black holes have quasar events. I propose that these are matter being emitted from the black hole, not incoming matter being ejected. According to GR (light cone diagram shows this), anything that enters the black hole is destined to end up at the singularity. A spinning black hole has a singularity ring instead of a singularity point. So another prediction is that there are only spinning black holes but this may be already generally accepted. Anything that enters the event horizon travels to the center. What I propose is the matter breaks down into its photon components to bend around the singularity ring. Enough photons collect to collapse and create degeneracy pressure. This is the genesis of the quasar event that streams matter and photons from the center along the axis of rotation.
    -1 points
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