mistermack

Old French debonaire, from the phrase de bon aire (“of good stock, noble”).

Well, as usual it's down to word definition. Of course I see what you're getting at, but a lot of people make huge 'spiritual' claims using the word 'objective' as their launching pad. You are making an assumption that the individual "should" want his tribe to prosper, but that may be a widely held view, but my point is that it's a subjective view. You're just kicking off with subjective assuptions, and arguing that what you build on top is objectively right or wrong. As in, given that we all want x, then it's objectively right to do y and z because that will achieve x. That doesn't make y and z objectively right, it makes them right, if you want x. While it's even remotely possible that sombody will not want x, no matter what the crazy or perverse reason, I don't think you can call y and z objectively right. Objectivity (philosophy), the property of being independent from perception Objectivity (science), the goal of eliminating personal biases in the practice of science

It might be complicated, with some of the light in the sky caused by reflection off the sea surface, and the island blocking some of that.

That's a good call. The only thing that bothers me is that it's not perfectly straight, but there might be a reason for that, to do with variations in the moisture content of the air in between the island and the camera.

I'm not sure that objective is the right word for that. A consensus may exist for those standards of behaviour, but that's all. Some people may not aspire to those ideals. And even if it's unanimous up to now, that doesn't make it objective, because someone could easily be born who doesn't share those ideals. And of course, other species might well disagree. Practically the whole of humanity would view it as wrong, to kill and eat a defenceless child. But a lion would have no problem with it. And a lot of our closest cousins, the chimps, would have no problem there either. And back in our history, there was a lot of cannibalism, so they wouldn't agree either. I don't think you can have degrees of objectiveness. Something either is, or is not objective. So I don't think that right/wrong questions can ever have an objective answer.

Are you sure that there aren't winds at a higher altitude flowing at 90 degrees to the lower ones? I've seen that many times, with high cloud at odds to the lower ones. And the coriolis effect causes that too.

Just as you quoted me, I said "I've never seen any . . . . blah blah " I didn't say I was conviced it wouldn't work. I'm seeing no signs that it can. That doesn't rule anything out, but some pretty drastic advances will need to be made, and there doesn't seem to be much optimism out there in people studying and commenting on it. One thing I did notice was that the HiPer concept needs equipment made of specialised neodymium glass, which is no longer being made. That's true, but it's really just stating that nobody can know the future. There certainly is a theoretical route to it, but nobody can say now whether there will be an insurmountable blockage on the way. They faced the same problem with the first steam trains, nobody knew if humans would be able to breath at speeds faster than horses can run. And before the first powered flight, there would have been huge scepticism. The market for energy is so huge, that if the financial institutions get a sniff that a fusion method is a goer, it's likely to get a huge investment boost. At the moment, the investment sums sound big, but when you compare them to the total energy market, they are miniscule.

Agreed. I'm interested in fusion energy, but I've never seen any explanation how a laser/pellet inertial confinement system could ever be developed that could run economically. There's no substitute for the laser, that can kick in once fusion starts. Even the explosive event of one pellet can't kick off fusion in the next one, so as far as I can see, you would need to have the lasers constantly firing, in a continuously operating system, so you will never get more electrical energy out, than you put in. Unless someone invents a laser machine that lasts for decades, and converts about 50% of electrical energy to the final heat energy absorbed by the pellet. Maybe 10% would be enough, eventually, but there is no sign of that ever happening. Ideas come and go. There was a proposal to 'invent' a system that would work with smaller lasers, giving the same performance as current ones, and costing one tenth to build. It had a huge number of unknowns ahead of it, and it ground to a halt about ten years ago. They called it HiPer in Europe and Firex in Japan, wikipedia has a page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiPER I don't think the concept has been abandoned, but nothing's happened in the last five years.

I'm sure someone's already said this but right or wrong is simply a matter for the individual, and their own priorities. You may have had those priorities instilled into you by others as you developed from babyhood, but once they are accepted in your brain, they are then your priorities. What is good, for one person, can be bad, for another. For Adolf HItler, killing all the Jews was good. (even though he was fully aware that others would deplore it) It was good for him, and the more it happened, the more pleased he was. Obviously most of the world disagreed to various extents. Even most people who were prejudiced against Jews would disagree with killing them all. But there were still plenty of people who thought the same as Hitler. Suicide being right or wrong is similarly dependant on the individual's personal priorities. And you get most of those instilled in you as you grow from babyhood, so some societies abhor suicide more than others. At the end of the day, the right and wrong isn't absolute, it's what exists at the moment, inside your head. And of course, there's a collective opinion in society, composed of the sum of all of the heads, and influenced by the writings of people no longer living.

Ok, so a jet passed that way some time ago and left a vapour trail. The vapour trail seeded the existing moist air causing it to condense and fall, leaving a trail of drier air behind.

The black staining might be fungal or bacterial residue, if the glaze has hairline cracks. Filling it with boiling water would sterilise it, but probably not change the appearance. And the quantities will be so small that it's unlikely that it harbours any health risk.

Off the top of my head, the prevailing wind is coming from the direction the camera is pointing in. There is a land feature away in the distance that interrupts the flow of the lower more moist air, forcing it left and right. Colder drier air comes down to take it's place, and as it holds less moisture, the sky is showing through it. Complete guess of course.

The evidence that I see is that indoctrination is very effective, but you have to start young. Parents and teachers are very effective at moulding children, but it gets much more difficult as they get older. And kids get most of their 'moulding' from other kids anyway. You only have to look at the high rate of re-offending for prison inmates. They get talked at, in an attempt to get them to change their ways, but there's no good evidence that psychologists or psychiatrists have any statistical positive effect. They take all of the credit, and none of the blame. The very fact of getting caught, and experiencing prison life, will deter some offenders. But others just learn from other inmates how not to get caught, how not to incriminate yourself if you do get caught, and which crimes are most profitable for least risk.

The reason for the question is that I have a maybe flawed notion that a clock A on the Earth's surface is 'actually' running slower than clocks B and C, because of the effect of the Earth's gravity well. As opposed to 'from the perspective of'. So if they are reunited, they will disagree as to the elapsed time. But the clock C that falls to Earth is not undergoing acceleration according to GR, it's free floating in curved space time. So does it slow, as it falls, or not? I'm guessing not, as I said in the OP, I think it will remain in sync with clock B. But that's just my guess. I don't know enough to do any more than guess.

Imagine three ideal clocks. Clock A is on the surface of the Earth. The other two, B and C, are side-by-side in space, remotely distant from the Earth's gravitional well. As I understand it, clock A on the Earth's surface will be running slower than the two out in space, which will both be running at the same rate. Now imagine that the two in space become separated. Clock B is tethered so stays the same distance from Earth. Clock C is not, and falls very slowly, picking up speed faster and faster, down to the Earth, where it is momentarily side-by-side with the original Earth clock A. It's now going to be falling at Earth's escape velocity, about 11.186 km/s. (forget the atmosphere for this scenario) What I'm wondering is, will clock C be running at the same speed as clock A, or clock B, or will it be slower than both? (It's not a trick question, and I don't know the answer. I suspect B and C will still be running at the same speed, but that's just my guess)

Still not convinced. This is what I got with my straight edge :

Yes, I agree. I think it's more pronounced when moving, but it does appear bent in the "before" picture. I still think it's an optical illusion brought about by the progressive fuzziness caused by the out-of-focus edge though. I laid a straight edge ruler over the letter i, lining it up perfectly with the 'i' , and weirdly the ruler is parallel with the lines. Take the ruler away, and the 'i' does look bent.

I think that the lines need to be thicker, and the blurred image needs to be at an angle to them. It looks to me like there's a bit of an optical illusion happening, when the image is moving. I don't think the lines are bent, but they are progressively obscured by the blurred edge so that it gives the impression of movement and deflection. What happens is that the inside edge of a line gets obscured at an angle, and because you can't see the other edge, it looks like the letter is moving. Anomaly.mp4

You could probably test it with an SLR camera in video mode, if it allows setting of the aperture. Compare the effect at maximum and minimum aperture, I would expect it to reduce as the aperture gets smaller.

I think thats a result of the blurring, and the fact that the aperture of the lens, or iris, is not a point, but has a substantial diameter, so the image is actually formed from light passing through at slightly varying angles. When that's progressively interfered with, by the out-of-focus image, it causes apparent stretching, and movement of the blurred image causes movement of the in-focus one. I would think it's a good bet that the bigger the aperture, the more definite the effect. I suppose you could test that by experimenting with various drugs, to open and close your pupils. 😉

I think it's to do with the fact that the nearer object is out of focus, and so is a combination of many images arranged 360 degrees around the main one. So if you hold your finger up in front of your eyes, and focus on the distance, you don't just see one edge of your finger, you see many. So when you hold a blurred out-of-focus object against an in-focus object that's further away, the sharper image gets progressively blocked out by the multiple edges of the blurred object, causing the stretching effect.

I think it's more to do with how cotton behaves when moist. It loses it's 'spring' and goes floppy, and hence the strands tend to stick to one another, and the vital air gaps disappear. That then also inhibits evaporation. Materials that keep their spring when damp allow the air gaps to remain so are better at evaporating moisture, and of course they don't flatten as much as damp cotton.

One tip not widely known. If someone is suffering from a severe case of hypothermia, it can be dangerous to warm them up by applying heat to the skin, like in a bath or shower. When you get really chilled, the body directs warm blood to the core, and lets the extremities get cold. If you then apply heat to the skin, it sends a false message to the system, and the body directs cold blood from the extremities to the internal organs, including the heart, and that can cause failure in a healthy heart. It's best to just dry and wrap the patient, and give hot drinks, allowing them to warm up from within.

Even weirder, the only time I've had anything like it was when I was a kid. We used to play in the undergrowth, and one time, my hair felt funny, and I put my hand on top of my head, and my hair was a solid crust. (in the summer this was). It was actually because a snail had somehow got on my hair, and gone around and around in circles looking for the exit. He was gone, but the slime trail he left had dried hard, and my hair was like a sheet of cardboard !

I don't know if this is one of the obvious ones, but they work really well and stay warm for hours. You can put one in your sleeping bag by your feet. There is no flame : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325472822274?hash=item4bc7b12402:g:~FkAAOSwlzNjVOZc&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoM3xJbY6eUX%2F3XLG0X09wgOJsA93nKiy%2FBPkUHj2HNP4MlEK5zVvxNhJDtljXy037UiY%2F2FaXaPWzmKhUwkFkbyw99ajyuqbCvqzdrNl4aAlQw0uFEq1oPRdL8vTtZk7U5rf%2BsyHmT2vt9xbcJ9QJ6JOZpC3T%2BuZYkKnh8s%2BahFAhp%2FFKZY9aUuLPiHPBaWlYa1y3IFo32T0Yl%2B%2FSrDURk0%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR77d4IaoYQ If you fancy something more instant, you could try my own invention. I have a stainless steel bar, about 18cm long and 2cm Diameter. Quite a solid item. I heat it up with a gas lighter, it's a powerful one with three jets. Once it's nice and warm, you just hold it till it cools, which takes quite a while, and then you can warm it up again. You can do the same with a small glass jar, if you can't find a suitable bit of steel. I can remember years ago, we used to play golf in crazy weather. One day, in freezing rain, I put my hand to my head, and the top of my head was a sheet of ice, sitting on top of my hair like a hat ! I had to leave it, or risk pulling my hair out.