Leaderboard

The Calvin and Hobbes take on DEI - one of the most succinct

Jester's license in Germany: Zölle = Trade Tariffs Klima ... = climate change(?) Massendeportationen (?) = Mass deportations And no, Annex-Ionen are no ions of annex, but annexations It is said jesters say the truth... And yes, I am very angry and very worried. WW2 is forgotten...

If Zelensky has no, or few, cards to play that is solely because Trump has chosen to betray him and side with the aggressor in this war. So it is pretty rich for Trump to tell Zelensky he has no cards, when it is Trump who has taken them away! I actually think this dust-up in the Oval Orifice was a manufactured publicity stunt by Vance and Trump to try to weaken Zelensky personally, in the hope he will stand aside and allow a more Russia-friendly leader to replace him. That has always been Putin's desire. Putin wants Ukraine to hold an election (preposterously, in the middle of a war with parts of the country under enemy occupation) which he can interfere with and cast doubt on. This can provide a pretext for a further invasion later on if the new leader is insufficiently subservient to Russia. The row was televised and no doubt carefully selected clips will now be circulated to depict Zelensky as ungrateful and unreasonable, when he has been fighting for the life of his country for the last three years, against a massively powerful foe. Trump has furthermore overturned the entire military posture of the USA since WW2 in the European theatre. He has wrecked the deterrent value of NATO, which has been the centrepiece of military strategy ever since WW2. This leaves Europe exposed to military conquest by Putin's revanchist Russia. It is absolutely plain now that Trump and Vance are Russian stooges, wanting to carve the world up into spheres of influence without regard to borders or law. It is also plain that they hate the EU deeply and want it to fail. What better way of achieving that than to neuter NATO and thereby encourage Russia to nibble off bits its eastern frontier, sapping its energy and resources? Meanwhile Vance and Musk try to destabilise it on the political front by encouraging far-right authoritarian movements. The USA is now, suddenly, the adversary of Europe, not its ally. "The West" is now dead. What we have now is the free democracies vs. the rest. Those comprise the EU, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and a few others. The USA is not a member of this group.

It's good, but it needs more accordion.

The Einstein tensor describes a certain aspect of overall spacetime curvature, in the sense that it determines the values of a certain combination of components of the Riemann tensor (it fixes 10 out of its 20 independent components). But unlike the Riemann tensor, it is not a complete description of the geometry of spacetime. Thus, the Einstein equations provide only a local constraint on the metric, but don’t determine it uniquely. Physically speaking, mass and energy have of course a gravitational effect, but neither appear as quantities in the source term of the field equations - there’s only the energy-momentum tensor field \(T_{\mu \nu}\). Here’s the thing with this - the Einstein equations are a purely local statement. So for example, if you wish to know the geometry of spacetime in vacuum outside some central body, the equation you are in fact solving is the vacuum equation \[G_{\mu \nu}=0\] which implies \[R_{\mu \nu}=0\] There is in the first instance no reference here to any source term, not even the energy-momentum tensor, because you are locally in a vacuum. During the process of solving these equations, you have to impose boundary conditions, one of which will be that sufficiently far from the central body the gravitational field asymptotically becomes Newtonian; it’s only through that boundary condition that mass makes an appearance at all. Only in the interior of your central body do you solve the full equations \[G_{\mu \nu}=\kappa T_{\mu \nu}\] wherein the energy-momentum tensor describes the overall distribution of energy density, momentum density, stresses, strains, and shear (note that “mass” is again not part of this). By solving this equation along with boundary conditions you can find the metric. You can work this backwards - you can start with a metric, and calculate the energy-momentum tensor. But here’s the thing: if the tensor comes out as zero, this does not mean that there’s no mass or energy somewhere around, it means only that the metric you started with describes a vacuum spacetime. If it’s not zero, you’re also out of luck, because the energy-momentum tensor alone is not a unique description of a classical system. Knowing its components tells you nothing about what physical form this system actually takes - two physically different systems in terms of internal structure, time evolution etc can in fact have the same energy-momentum tensor. That’s because this tensor is the conserved Noether current associated with time-translation invariance, so what it reflects are a system’s symmetries, but not necessarily or uniquely its physical structure. There’s no unique 1-to-1 correspondence between this tensor and a particular configuration of matter and energy, since all it contains are density distributions. IOW, a given matter-energy configuration will have a unique energy-momentum tensor associated with it, but the reverse is not true - any given energy-momentum tensor can correspond to more than one possible matter-energy configuration. Thus it is not useful to try and define matter-energy by starting with spacetime geometry. Yes, they are of course closely related, but the relationship is not just a trivial equality; there’s many subtleties to consider. A zero cosmological constant does not imply a static universe, only that expansion happens at a constant rate. Matter and antimatter have the same gravitational affects, they are not opposite in terms of curvature.

Uhhh, it only mentions one aspect that could be a liberal policy and that would be I mean, if trying to get folks equal rights results in autocracies, I would imagine that the democratic principles ain't that strong to begin with. Also I find it very interesting how that is phrased. Right-wing conservatives have worked very had to undermine democratic principles ranging from spreading blatant misinformation to incite culture and race wars, forming think tanks and societies that undermine checks and balances and putting anti-democratic forces into key positions, sowing mistrust into systems and also attempting the odd coups. And yet it is somehow liberal policies that caused all that? I mean come on, at least try to find Ockham's razor here. I will also note again that part of the autocratic playbook is to blame others for their actions. "Look what [they] make me do? Because of them I just had to overthrow democratic principles and build concentration camps. And taking away your rights is the only way to protect you from [them]." This has been best explored in fascism, where fascination with victimhood served as justification for the committed atrocities (and it is a common element in the identification of the rather diffuse characteristics of fascism). Also, how about I cite a few points from the book you mentioned and see if you can spot some overlap (BTW the book was published sometime around the first Trump administration): Why do we have something as stupid as the culture wars? Because some kind of enemy had to be found. And in recent times our lives have to be become so comfortable that folks decided to make up enemies and/or revive old tropes, such as immigrants. Again, there are no new ideas here.

He’s Nazi. The salute, numerous anti-semitic remarks, promoting nazi apologists, appearing at an AfD campaignevent.

As some of you may already know, the SFN server hardware is currently located in the UK. I will quote from what was announced to the staff: “This year the UK government passed a bill called the Online Safety Act. A brief description of the Act is set out here, but the tl;dr of it is that there are now a set of laws in place in the UK that put a duty of care on operators of social media sites in order to make them accountable for the things that are posted on those sites, which could be harmful to children and other users. The focus in the media has mostly been around the larger sites like Facebook, but actually, the act is extremely broad” The upshot of this is that a modest operation like ours can’t be hosted in the UK on servers run by SFN; the requirements are too onerous and no individuals should be asked to take on the liability should someone find that weren’t compliant in some detail. It’s not enough to think we’re taking the right steps, and we don’t have lawyers on retainer to make sure of things. (Small UK bulletin board sites might be shuttering by the end of this week if their owners are aware of what’s going on) Shifting to a hosting option that avoids this is moving forward. This might end up being completely transparent to our members and visitors, but Murphy always seems to pop up and invoke their law, so there might be disruptions. We will keep you apprised as more information becomes available.

Another very important point that I think has not been mentioned here is the role of DEI to identify inequity in the population. One example we discussed in a different context is maternal death rates. As a whole, the USA has one of the highest maternal death rates among high-income countries. Something like 24/100,000 compared to, say around 6.5/100,000 in the UK or 3.2/100,000 in Germany. Now, if you look at the data more closely, you can see that the high death rates are more than double in black compared to white women. Pre-pandemic the rate was about 37.3 for black women (per 100,000), 11.8 for Hispanic and 14.9 for White. During the pandemic there was a general increase, but for black women the rate was 69.3 (1.9x increase), 18.2 for Hispanic (1.5x increase) and 19.1 for White (1.3x increase). Thus, by collecting this more detailed data it is apparent that the health structures in the USA are especially weak for black women and is way better at supporting health for white women. The next step is of course to identify weaknesses and ways to address them. By stopping DEI and related initiatives, the government is blinding itself to this information and money injected into the system will likely disproportionately flow into areas serving white women (even if there is a simple equal distribution) where the health benefits will be the least. In other words DEI is a system that allows us to go beyond simple narratives and helps us to figure out disparities and address them. It does not mean that all initiatives are successful or even helpful, but the idea of being "woke" in this context merely means that we are collecting and looking at data rather than substituting them with ideology.

OMG, try checking out who really grooms children and abuses them. It's not the drag queens or trans folks, it's white Christian males almost every time you look. Youth pastors, ministers, policemen, white men working hard to abuse positions of authority while they pretend to be "on your side".

"A popular theory holds that the Mafia began with the Sicilian Vespers and is an abbreviation for "Morte ai Francesi, Italia Anela!"[47] ("Italy desires the death of the French")." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Sicilian_Vespers On Wikipedia it is mistranslated, as it should be “Death to the French, Italian breathe hard.” IOW, such a combat saying, to warm up the soldiers to fight. The origin of all ancient words is very difficult to determine. Unless you create an acronym for yourself. ps. Soldiers returning from the war, do not have a job, so they begin to commit crimes, and as they were already in one organized crime organization ("the army"), so the hierarchy and organization they have ready.. ps2. Did you try Wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia#Etymology "maʿfī (معفي) = exempted. In Islamic law, jizya is the yearly tax imposed on non-Muslims residing in Muslim lands, and people who pay it are "exempted" from prosecution." "maʿāfir (معافر) = the name of an Arab tribe that ruled Palermo.[14][10] The local peasants imitated these Arabs and as a result the tribe's name entered the popular lexicon. The word Mafia was then used to refer to the defenders of Palermo during the Sicilian Vespers against rule of the Capetian House of Anjou on 30 March 1282.[15]"

It’s hard to tell if this is a serious question. Partly because of your “jokes” and partly because you don’t seem to have done a lick of research on the question. Incessant whining, based on ignorance, is hard to take seriously. The Apollo missions cost more than $300 billion in today’s dollars. (2023) https://taxfoundation.org/blog/apollo-moon-space-race-industrial-policy-cost/ (original cost was ~$25 billion) This shows that each mission cost less than $500 million, so even if you shave off the last 6 missions, that’s less than 1/8 of the overall cost (3 billion out of 25) https://www.statista.com/statistics/1028322/total-cost-apollo-missions/ So the new program is a lot cheaper, because certain things don’t have to be re-discovered, even as the hardware is remade with modern technology. But it’s not simple and it’s not easy.

No, you were poking fun at the cost of a trillion dollars, which you either made up or didn't bother to check after you heard it. Let's be clear about your intentions. I don't think you understand any of this. Your arguments are childlike, as if your experiences haven't taught you how to reason correctly. Like many conservatives, you have a caricature in your mind about most of the things you don't understand. It's what's held up progress for as long as humans have been around. Progressive thinking got us to the moon, while the conservatives argued it was a big waste, just like every other major innovation humans have accomplished. When it comes to progress, there's never a conservative contributing to the future. If you truly wanted to eliminate the need for DEI, your methodology is unacceptable. Your prejudices are too prevalent.

Trump would like to carve up the world between three strongmen leaders: himself, Xi and Putin. So he wants to annex Canada and Greenland, take back the Panama Canal for strategic access to both coasts and oceans by sea, get out of entanglements in Europe, which he sees an economic rival and nuisance with all its pathetic concerns over outmoded ideas like democracy and social welfare - and let Xi have Taiwan, once he has got the chips being made in Arizona. If Putin fights with the EU, so much the better. It's Orwell's vision of Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia.

I think you’re right. With their last post it’s clearer to me what their misconception is. The wire’s length is only contracted in the electron’s frame, not the lab frame, so there’s no reason to expect the result they claim.

“Something extraordinary happened on Earth around 10 million years ago, and whatever it was, it left behind a “signature” of radioactive beryllium-10. This finding, which is based on studies of rocks located deep beneath the ocean, could be evidence for a previously-unknown cosmic event or major changes in ocean circulation. With further study, the newly-discovered beryllium anomaly could also become an independent time marker for the geological record.” https://physicsworld.com/a/radioactive-anomaly-appears-in-the-deep-ocean/ A couple of nits, though “Because beryllium-10 has a half-life of 1.4 million years, it is possible to use its abundance to pin down the dates of geological samples that are more than 10 million years old.” 10 million would be ~7 half-lives. Much longer than that would be increasingly tough to pin down since you are decreasing signal/noise. So while you could get results a bit beyond 10 mya, it’s not good for arbitrarily long ages. It also says B-10and Be-10 have the same mass, but they differ slightly which is my their mass spectrometer could distinguish them.

Here's the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55662-4 Sadly it is written in the usual, almost unreadable, style of so many papers these days, but the graph of the decay curve they obtained, from their measurement of samples, was interesting: Fig. 2: 10Be concentration vs. age measured in crust VA13/2-237KD. The bump is the anomaly. This graph suggests they can use ¹⁰Be for dating up to 14Myr or so (except obviously where the flat bit is, from ~8-10Myr).

The whole here would be the salient aspects of life. In this case, consciousness. The parts would be quantum fields. No. You're trying to explain a salient aspect of a narrower reality (humans and how they perceive the world) by making it an attribute of the most fundamental things we know (quantum fields). By the same token you could venture to say quantum fields might have recollections, free will, bad temper, and so on. It doesn't seem a very promising line of reasoning. If it happened to be, you would be asked to substanciate it very carefully You lost me here. What does all this story about nursing and rape, and the smell of babies, have to do with quantum fields?.

First, it may not be the mailman's job, but the postmaster general who runs the US postal service does have to be responsible and assist law enforcement in stopping the mailing of illegal materials. This is a normal part of law enforcement in most places - indeed, protecting people from criminal harm is a primary goal of society. So your analogy doesn't really work there, but it helped me get my point across. Secondly, I am not posting "lies." These events are public record. News outlets are governed by libel and slander laws. If they reported wrongly, they could be sued for millions. I'm sorry their reports don't fit your worldview in which Durov is some kind of free speech saint. Third, I cannot cite and post child exploitation/porn messages which have been intercepted by law enforcement - do you understand why evidence to be shown at a court trial is not shared with the public before trial? If you can't understand that, I really can't help you. Your SFN child rapist analogy does not really seem analogous to what Durov was allowing or his uncooperative stance with law enforcement. The owner of this site is a physician and I am confident he would cooperate with the authorities, if SFN were to become a major messaging center for drug cartels, child porn, and organized RW violence against immigrants. Your prior posts here usually seem intelligent and helpful, but I suspect that your understanding of the law is somewhat less than of information technology.

The "woke agenda" is a fictitious RW caricature of civil rights, equal opportunity, and teaching actual history instead of patriotic fairy tales. Woke, in its actual meaning, simply means being awake to the systemic problems in America that perpetuate discrimination and racism. IOW, it really just means pulling your head out of your ass.

Well that is an excellent article. +1 And therein goes the material I was going to use for my next post, so I will just pick out the important points that lead to the conclusion I was going to offer. How we got to our modern view of chemistry can be divided into four broad periods. The ancients began to notice that there were many different substances in the world around them. The substances were different because they had different properties. They were hard or soft, some interacted visibly with other substances. Some did not appear to interact at all and some offered protective qualities for other substances. In particular sometimes winemaking went wrong and an unpleasant sour tasting drink was produced instead of acceptable wine. They did not know that wine had turned to acetic acid but their word for vinegar (which is dilute acetic acid) passed down into the Latin word 'acidus' and from there into English as acid. They would also have noticed other properties of acids such as the sting of formic acid in ant bites and the corrosive effect on the skin. It is not known which hero cook spilled animal fat on the fire and roasted it along with wood ash and then found a soapy blob when the result had cooled. But we think this is how middle eastern civilisations discovered soapmaking this way. The ashes provided an alkaline substance which is breaks down fat, something most acids are unable to do. So their for ashes passed into Arabic, Al-Kali and then into English as alkali. Wood (and other plant ) ashes contain what gardeners and farmers call 'potash' which makes a strong alkali with water that we now call potassium hydroxide. So we have the origins of acids and alkalis. The second historical period when humans were able to refine and classify substances, many of which occurred naturally or as with potash by heating or burning and perhaps then adding water. The addition of water was known as slaking; probably the most known and important product was slaked lime or calcium hydroxide, which formed the basis of Roman cement. To obtain this rocks containing calcium carbonate were heated to obtain what was known a quicklime (which we know as calcium oxide). The was the slaked to produce the hydroxide. Calcium carbonate introduces another acid we call carbonic acid, which is important in environmental chemistry. So during this period many names were introduced that were carried forward to the third period which is for next time. Interestingly these time periods have have been 'telescoping'. The first was measured in thousands of years, the second in hundreds of years, and so on.

The bag is with thee Blessed art thou who filter the allergens And blessed is the fruit sucked up in your attachment.

If you go way, way back, I think they tasted them and they were sour. Your tongue can detect acid this way. There is a bit of the history here: https://pubsapp.acs.org/subscribe/archive/tcaw/12/i03/pdf/303chronicles.pdf

Also scrapping oversight (from the NYT). Some of which has already happened. Especially as they have repeatedly shown to just blatantly lie https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/19/politics/doge-canceled-contracts-8-billion-invs/index.html. If they had any good intentions, honesty would be just the barest minimum. And they cannot even pass that threshold. Also one important thing to understand, DOGE was set up as a pure advisory committee, which has certain requirements and limitations. A proper community with operational functions would be under more stringent oversight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Advisory_Committee_Act As we can see that in practice DOGE, pretty much doesn't act like an advisory committee by asserting a range of powers, including firing folks.

He represents the soul of fascism. He wants control of whole industries with the State's backing, so prices go up beyond the grasp of most people, forcing them to become workers for the company in order to get by. He wants what the other oligarchs want, for money to be the most important thing you can have in terms of power over others. Oh, and he's Nazi. F Elon.

He did his duty, then. Give him some credit for that. It puts him way ahead of some. If you warn people about an invasion and it doesn’t happen, you lose credibility while also causing panic and economic chaos, which Ukraine probably wanted to avoid*. Do it a few times and nobody pays attention anymore. It’s quite possible that if Zelenskyy had sounded an alarm, Putin would have delayed the invasion to undermine him. Zelenskyy didn’t believe an invasion was imminent. The US shared some intelligence, but the US didn’t have a lot of credibility owing to recent intelligence failures (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan) and they didn’t share all of it, because of Russian spies in Ukraine; it might reveal the sources of the information, and the US wasn’t willing to risk that until after the invasion happened. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/interactive/2022/ukraine-road-to-war/ *which happened anyway, because of the US warnings. So some in Ukraine were paying attention, even if you weren’t https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-warnings-russia-invade-frustrate-ukrainians-rcna16358

..except he was banned from this website in his 1st term..

What's the difference between Elon Musk and a lemur? Elon made an electric car. The lemur Madagascar. (sorry) But not sorry enough to stop from trying another one: Why does Musk want to make Europe great again? Because he's a MEGA lomaniac.

The Pope is discussing the Christian belief of God with a non-believer. After several hours of the Pope trying to convince the non-believer of God's existence, the exasperated Pope tells the non-believer "I give up. You are like a blindfolded man, in a dark room, searching for a black cat, that isn't there. How can I make you see ?" The non-believer respectfully replies "We are very much alike, your excellency. You are also like a blindfolded man, in a dark room, searching for a black cat, that isn't there. The only difference is you've found it."

Trump's negotiation Team: Hegseth:"So we'll agree to keep Ukraine out of Nato...if Putin agrees to keep all the land he stole..."

You didn’t supply any scientific, clinical , or other medical evidence to support your own characterisation of ketamine as a “very helpful and viable treatment option for many millions of people”. Absent that, I would refer you to: https://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/ips/ketamine-trd/risks-benefits/ Right up front this document says: It concludes: Under the sub-tab ‘Less Common side-effects' it lists: vivid dreams, hallucinations , and also adds this warning: Under 'Long Term Theoretical Risks' this paper lists: dependence, tolerance, bladder damage, cognitive impairment and personality change - all with reference to recreational nasal doses of over 1g daily. Given these caveats I don’t think I’m being remotely flippant or dismissive about the risks of self-medicating with ketamine - especially in the case of an absurdly wealthy and over-powerful oligarch like Elon Musk who has openly admitted that he is microdosing with ketamine to treat a significant personality disorder.

There used to be gods for everything ,at least in Greek and Roman religion. Why not an extra God of the Vacuum ? Could give it a name....Miele or Henry?

Today I visited the minerals gallery at the London Natural History Museum. I was struck by the intense blue colour of the specimens of lapis lazuli, which was very valuable, both as a pigment and for decorative objects, in the Ancient and Medieval worlds. I recall the Arabic word for the colour blue is azraq (m) or zarqa (f.), from which we get "azure", so presumably lazuli comes from the same root. (Lapis is just Latin for stone, obvs.) I had assumed the colour would be due to copper and was a bit shocked to find the formula is: Na₇Ca(Al₆Si₆O₂₄)(SO₄)(S₃).H₂O , i.e no Cu in sight! Turns out the clue is in the S₃. This is present in the form of the trisulphide radical anion, S₃⁻•, a curious species that breaks the school-level rules for stability and bonding - and so is automatically interesting to me. This radical anion apparently has an absorption band in the orange region of the visible spectrum, and thus reflects mainly blue light. I haven't managed to find a molecular orbital diagram for it on the internet but presume the odd electron may be in a relatively high energy orbital, from which it can be promoted to another one that is only slightly higher, i.e. with relatively little energy and this will be why it absorbs in the visible rather than the UV. S₃ itself is regarded as having a similar bonding scheme to ozone, i.e. the centre atom sp2 hybridised with one lone pair, but I presume the extra odd electron must go into either an sp2 hybrid antibonding orbital or else something involving participation by d orbitals, which obviously is possible in sulphur, unlike oxygen. I suppose one should expect this ion to be paramagnetic. From what I have found on the internet this radical anion has some applications in synthesis of organosulphur compounds. There seems to be a guy called Tristram Chivers at Calgary (now retired and emeritus) who has done a lot of work on it. If anyone knows more about this anion I'd be interested to learn more about it, especially the bonding and electronic structure.

Millions was too large, but that it’s rapidly being adopted in clinical settings with consistently positive effects seemed obvious to me in the same way I don’t need to prove 2+2=4 every time I post it. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-open/article/ketamine-for-the-treatment-of-mental-health-and-substance-use-disorders-comprehensive-systematic-review/36E261BFA62CDA6459B88F7777415FDA https://www.pacificneuroscienceinstitute.org/blog/trip/what-is-ketamine-therapy/

This is rather a no-example. It is not called so in math. And it is also a no-example. Your statement, "there's no truth without God" is refuted by the observation that there are irrefutably true mathematical statements without God.

I am somewhat surprised then that you seem to repeat some of the issues that have been outlined in the book. The point is that despite the fact that we do not have communists on the street, we got fascists authoritarians in power. They took the power and folks supported them. No one made them. Heck they had to invent an all-powerful gender identity conspiracy to build a new bogeyman. With bathrooms as the battleground. Again think about Snyder's book and consider what he explicitly points out. As you have the read the book, there are a couple of suggestions there. One is somehow to bring the public to focus on facts (Chapters 10 and 11). Avoid amplifying falsehoods (such as "open borders"). Don't blame the issue on the ominous others (be it the left, antifa, immigrant or whatever). Investigate specifically how the folks who took over power got it. It is never because someone else made them. It is because they dismantled institutions, made people believe lies en masse and avoided any responsibility by blaming others for their actions. So our job is to identify these things, and demand from our leaders to do better and hold them accountable. That being said, once they have successfully dismantled all these institutions who could do that (say, the judiciary), it will be too late.

The pronoun, or the famous second baseman?

You are missing the broader point, or perhaps approach the issue for a certain fixed position. The broader point is really why are folks so upset about certain things (outside of their tribe) as you mentioned? Are these threats real? For example, do you think that nudity inevitably leads to autocratic leanings? All you are saying about tribalism is that folks do not follow logic and facts. That might be true to various degrees, and yet, we see a rise of right-wing autocracies across Europe and the US, yet very little in the area of left-wing autocracies. Why is that? Just because voters might ignore facts, it doesn't meant that they don't matter.

AFAIK the only protestors being locked up were those breaking the law, e.g. trespass, vandalism, abusing clients of the clinic - do you have a citation to back up your claim that the laws are not being enforced equally at abortion clinics? Sounds like blaming the victim. Do you have evidence to support your claim that LGBTQ people are "proselytizing a lifestyle"? Or that actual such conduct is what generates this conservative ire you speak of? Frankly, this sounds like a RW talking point from those who want to justify their bigotry and fear mongering. I generally am having trouble with your posts tossing off a plethora of unsupported opinions.

Yes, good question. I think the difference will show itself in how people act when they think no one is looking - in the case of externally imposed moral codes, there’s a much higher probability that those will be set aside if they interfere with other goals, and if they think no one will know. But if someone acts out of a genuine inner conviction, they aren’t likely to disregard those, irrespective of what circumstances they find themselves in. It reminds me a little of the situation in the former communist Eastern Bloc - the vast majority of ordinary people externally toed the party line, parroted the right slogans etc, which enabled them to live some semblance of a normal life. But behind closed doors it was a different story - very few actually genuinely believed the ideology, which is why the whole thing just crumbled in the end; there weren’t hundreds of thousands coming out to do their utmost to preserve their beloved systems. That’s the difference between imposing a narrative with fear, versus genuine conviction.

Flow rate varies as diameter^3 and pressure varies as diameter^2 (assuming a given fan speed and all other variables the same) But that means the power varies as D^5, so there’s a tradeoff if you are limited by power. https://blog.fluidflowinfo.com/fan-performance-and-fan-laws/ (also given is variation with fan speed, so you can see how much you’d need to increase that if you decrease diameter)

This is a real book incidentally. Each line of the 50 or so poems is carefully cross-referenced to a public utterance by the Poetaster-in-Chief.

Enter the equation in WolframAlpha, and the program will draw a graph and show alternative forms of the equation. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=+a+%3D+(Pi+-+2)%2F4+%2B+sin(a)+ It has one obvious solution (t=0) and two non-obvious solutions. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=+t%3D2sin(t)+

Thanks for the clarification. However I don't see why you interpret something being wrong with the administration as meaning psychopathology - unless you are referring to Trump himself as the thing that is wrong. Is that what you mean? There does seem to be a body of opinion that Trump may indeed be a psychopath. I gather he seems to have the classic attributes of one. But Project 2025 and the people behind that do not seem to be mentally ill - far from it. Trump is their front man - their useful idiot - but not the ideological guiding spirit. His mind does not appear able to focus on anything other than himself. In spite of that, or perhaps harnessing it, it does look as if Project 2025 is being executed, with speed, as I indicated in my earlier post. I'm sure you touch on something important when you observe that "something in society is moving people to follow their autocrat of choice." I am actually not sure if that is a correct inference. As an external observer from across the Atlantic, I am not clear at all whether or not US citizens have actively embraced autocracy (or the risk of it), by electing Trump a second time, in spite of awareness that he tried to overturn an election result. On the face of it, It looks as if they have, but that may be being too rational. From our own recent election choices (and the referendum on EC membership) it seems a fair portion of the electorate simply does not join the dots in a rational way. They seem motivated by single issues of concern to them, or by emotional "feel" about the candidates. Perhaps you would be right to suggest there may be a collective psychopathy at work in society, in which hatred has been stoked to the point that people voted for Trump, emotionally, in order to "own the libs", heedless of where it could take the country. For instance there is a MAGA man on another forum who is beside himself with glee at how the "libs" will now be crushed. It's pure hatred, not any product of reasoning.

I wrote to NASA today to ask if their Global Temperature pages and Climate Change pages are staying up and unaltered. They are a fine public information resource and educators resource. Anyone can contact NASA here: https://www.nasa.gov/contact/ I have also drawn up a list of addresses of my congressional representatives, as well as members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. And will start firing off letters if such web pages are altered in a partisan way, or removed. I am encouraging others to do the same, though of course exercising discretion as regards possible job security, e.g. writing as a concerned citizen from a non-work email, etc. I think it would also be good for people to start flooding the comments sections at major news outlets of all formats and leanings - this is something the Right Wing and assorted fascist trolls are really good at, maybe it's time for the rest of us to get better at that game. The thing with Musk's crew getting access to the federal treasury payment system...was kind of a splash of icewater in the face for me. Navel gazing and post mortem time is over - we the people need to start working on ways to push back right away.