TheVat

We always get reminders that the cutting edge technology that wealthy countries use to produce food, shelter, energy, transit, etc. is seen by the developing world as a model they want to follow. (e.g. when China started building up their industrial base, they went hogwild on coal burning, just as earlier the UK, US, did) So, whatever we do, that has a ripple effect through many other nations as they seek our material comfort and standard of living. The ethos of capitalism (or lack of one) is a central problem. When you ask capitalism, what's more important, shareholder profits or a healthy and sustainable human lifestyle for everyone? you know the answer you will get. So we need to stop asking capitalism for its wisdom on these matters, and focus on humane systems of government that will promote that latter choice.

Also: Blood volume doesn't increase proportionate to body volume in obese persons. The increase in body size is mostly adipose tissue, which is relatively under-perfused when compared to lean body mass. And blood is not what generates metabolic heat - most body heat comes from rapid contraction of skeletal muscle fibers. Being fit and well-muscled fortifies you against cold more than adipose tissue - it's a common misconception that fat humans have their adipose tissue in one exterior layer that insulates them. We're not seals, and a lot of our fat is interlaced in the muscle tissue. It is true, however, that a compact build overall retains metabolic heat better, given the greater volume/surface ratio. It's not surprising that Sami, Inuits, Sherpas, Yakuts and other dwellers in cold places tend more to have that compact build, while Watusis in tropical Africa are long bodied and slender of build. (in my own family tree, the Swedes were notably heavier of build than the Irish and Yorkies)

That map has a real problem which would be extremely obvious to anyone living here, especially in southwestern quadrant of the USA. Hint: German is not the major ancestry there. It's another large European country, which is not listed at all there.

Bonaire is a polyglot society. If 3/4 of citizens have Papiamento as their main language, are they expected to know sufficient Dutch to communicate with officials and so on? Also, does Dutch citizenship require renouncing other citizenship, or do they allow dual?

It can't all happen at the level of individual companies. Renewable energy happens, if it happens, at a national level (that's the whole point of Biden clean energy bill in the US) with masssive infrastructure (like grid upgrades to handle moving the various types of renewable energy around) investment, tax credits to help the initial costs of throwing up windmills etc, residential tax credits and rebates, subsidies to companies that put in conservation measures and on-site renewable installs, etc. Your company needs to join with other companies and lobby the government - if you want us to turn wind into widgets, you need to help capitalize those wind-grabbers, and put up high-V lines to get it to our factory, and subsidize the transition costs. IOW, every taxpayer needs to chip in and do the right thing, to get Isles that runs on tides, winds, sun (on the rare occasions it appears over there), and other renewables. Companies doing this alone is a straw man. Huge sea changes require that massive public consortium we call government.

Sort of a Russian battle of Capriccios. First Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien, then Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espanol. I'm calling it a draw. The Tchaikovsky is maybe a little warmer, more romantic, but the RK is haunting and might make you ache for someplace you've never been. What the Germans call fernweh.

Per the article, they think it may have been lifelong Hep B, caught in childbirth. "Arthur Kocher, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and one of the new study’s co-authors, offered another possible explanation for his infection: The composer could have been infected with hepatitis B during childbirth. The virus is commonly spread this way, he said, and infected babies can end up with a chronic infection that lasts a lifetime. In about a quarter of people, the infection will eventually lead to cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer..." That his father was born of an extramarital affair was also a finding that might be more common than people expect. And yes, the Beethoven was Black theory is amusingly stupid. I had not heard the rumors that his father was an illegitimate son of Friedrich Wilhelm II or even Frederick the Great. Sounds like the DNA can only confirm that Ludwig's grandfather was not his biological grandfather. Unless they can then test DNA from those royal lineages. Too bad about those Belgian van Beethovens getting shut out of the picture.

The NY Post is a Murdoch owned tabloid. It has zero journalistic integrity. Wall to wall sensationalism. No one need feel pain questioning its content.

The New York Times reports on DNA analysis done on locks of hair that were determined to belong to the composer. https://archive.is/E9yQ5 (screenshot of NYT article) Now, an analysis of strands of his hair has upended long held beliefs about his health. The report provides an explanation for his debilitating ailments and even his death, while also raising new questions about his genealogical origins and hinting at a dark family secret. The paper, by an international group of researchers, was published Wednesday in the journal Current Biology. It offers additional surprises: A famous lock of hair — the subject of a book and a documentary — was not Beethoven’s. It was from an Ashkenazi Jewish woman. The study also found that Beethoven did not have lead poisoning, as had been widely believed. Nor was he a Black man, as some had proposed. And a Flemish family in Belgium — who share the last name van Beethoven and had proudly claimed to be related — have no genetic ties to him. Researchers not associated with the study found it convincing. It was “a very serious and well-executed study, “ said Andaine Seguin-Orlando, an expert in ancient DNA at the University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, in France....

To an American, this sounds like some sort of human anatomical feature. If you are rich, you can probably have your right (or your left) internal pickle replaced by a transplant. I think a lot of the GOP is already trending away from him. And are now a little disoriented, since their Plan B was DeSantis and now he's starting to alienate a lot of party power brokers. Which leaves them with a bunch of either boring or hideous Red State governors. What's the difference between a chickpea and a garbanzo bean? Donald Trump never had a garbanzo bean on his face.

When I read chats about the threat of AI, and it turns to actual rogue machines bent on harm, the phrase "air gap" pops into my mind.

Nope. 😀 Done.

Yes, the article points to critcisms of innate grammar and what Chomsky called universals. The section on language localization presents strong critiques of innateness. First, as Elman et al. 1996 argue, neural localization of function can occur as a result of virtually any developmental trajectory: the localization of some function bears not at all on its innateness....

I'm not sure if Chomsky has it quite right, but his theory of innate language is a good starting point to the whole question of language acquisition. Here's a little intro: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/innateness-language/ With advances in syntax and semantics came the realization that knowing a language was not merely a matter of associating words with concepts. It also crucially involves knowledge of how to put words together, for it's typically sentences that we use to express our thoughts, not words in isolation. If that's the case, though, language mastery can be no simple matter. Modern linguistic theories have shown that human languages are vastly complex objects. The syntactic rules governing sentence formation and the semantic rules governing the assignment of meanings to sentences and phrases are immensely complicated, yet language users apparently apply them hundreds or thousands of times a day, quite effortlessly and unconsciously. But if knowing a language is a matter of knowing all these obscure rules, then acquiring a language emerges as the monumental task of learning them all. Thus arose the question that has driven much of modern linguistic theory: How could mere children learn the myriad intricate rules that govern linguistic expression and comprehension in their language — and learn them solely from exposure to the language spoken around them? Clearly, there is something very special about the brains of human beings that enables them to master a natural language — a feat usually more or less completed by age 8 or so. §2.1 of this article introduces the idea, most closely associated with the work of the MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, that what is special about human brains is that they contain a specialized ‘language organ,’ an innate mental ‘module’ or ‘faculty,’ that is dedicated to the task of mastering a language...

Amusing article on the Sideways effect, which pinpoints that it was the character's personal flaws and "antagonistic contrarian tendencies" that were really behind his antipathy towards Merlot. And yes, it's a very easy to drink libation. At least until the migraine begins...

Americans don't IMHO have consistent traits such that you can always distinguish them. In the northern Plains where I grew up and lived a large percent of my life, people who travel often report being asked if they're Canadian. When I was in the UK, people invariably asked if I was Canadian, and I was okay with that. There is a segment of American tourists that can be, TBH, rather whiny and entitled. And even if such tourists are only 40% of American tourists, they are the ones that are noticed and stick in people's minds. Unfortunate.

In a few billion years, the sun will be renamed "Peter Dinklage."

Sometimes the extreme paranoia ("law enforcement trap") of the Trumpists seems to work in a way that's beneficial to the country. Ideally, they will all stay holed up in their basements, cowering from the impending Socialist Globalist Drag Queen Apocalypse - this will reduce their chances of reproducing, too. You can't transmit your genes through Truth Social or Zoom orgies. Also worth noting that in the US, we don't really handle white collar criminals the same way as the rest - generally, they go down to the courthouse or precinct station with some lawyers, sign some papers, and then go home. No cuffs, no orange jumpsuits, no perp-walks. It's a pity, really.

Red wine gives me a headache, too, though I usually need a couple glasses. The theory I've heard is that it's rapid vasodilation from histamine, a compound found in grape skins. Red wine contains more histamine than white wine because it's made from the whole grape (including the skin), not just the juice. And it's not uncommon to have a shortage of the enzyme that breaks down histamine in the gut. Haha!

Can't help but think of Miles, in "Sideways" as I read this thread. Like Miles, I'm a pinot noir fan. Miles Raymond : ... it's a hard grape to grow, as you know. Right? It's uh, it's thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It's, you know, it's not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and uh, thrive even when it's neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention. You know? And in fact it can only grow in these really specific, little, tucked away corners of the world. And, and only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot's potential can then coax it into its fullest expression. Then, I mean, oh its flavors, they're just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and... ancient on the planet

The US healthcare system will persist in these problems until we move away from healthcare as a profit-centered enterprise, all parents are guaranteed extended maternity leave, and public health is funded to where any young woman has easy access to prenatal care, nutritional counseling, and (to be painfully obvious) reproductive choice such that she is in full control of when she starts a family or doesn't. Also need to end "food deserts" and substandard housing and....really, many aspects of low-income neighborhoods seems to contribute to the health differential. Only recently does it seem, for example, that public officials have started to see mapping and research that connects diesel soot levels and neighborhood health.

And rather similar to the drag-panic going on in the US. Take something that's not a threat, concoct a strawman bogeyman that sounds like one, then just repeat and virally replicate ad infinitum. Soundbites against "woke" that are of the form "they will teach your children to hate themselves and their own white heritage," are the same dishonest formulation as the drag-panic soundbites like "they will expose your children to deviant adult sexuality." What a bunch of snowflakes.

Yep. I should have mentioned that counting discrete objects would be a different situation. Just catching up with thread now. I also thank you.

I think it doesn't. I think any measurement will fall short of that precision. And at the Planck level, it may not be possible even in principle? You may get 0.3333333329 with some error margin. Rational numbers may only lie in some Platonic realm. (similar idea is that all surfaces in the real world are not precise 2D, but some fractal expression, like around 2.11112 D) Same thing for irrational numbers. And plus 1, cool thread.

Measurements cannot even provide many rational numbers. No one can measure 1/3. Maybe you will get 0.33332. With some margin of error. That’s not 1/3 and it doesn't seem you can improve the accuracy of the experiment to make it so. 1/3 will always lie between error margins and beyond our observation. Is there any physical distinction that matters between a rational number and an irrational number if the two are closer to each other than the experimental error?