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inflatableDodoon The Moral Rot of the MIT Media Lab

The sophistry is in claiming that it is this article that is trying to somehow tie Epstein together with all that.

MIT, along with a sizable subset of figures across academia, industry and government, have achieved that all by themselves.

And the real underlying sophistry is the pretence that this was all to do with wanting Epstein's money or business connections and not to do with any of the other 'services' he provided.

He very clearly kept his position of power and access because he pimped child prostitutes, not in spite of the fact.

inflatableDodoon The Moral Rot of the MIT Media Lab

I can appreciate that millions are alive thanks to Fritz Haber's work on chemical fertiliser and still think that it would have been for the best if someone had shot him in the head shortly after completing it. And then again to make sure.

edit to add the obligatory reference - 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas' - https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf

inflatableDodoon Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

I've been looking at the possibility of using high speed cameras and image processing. I suspect this is a hackable problem using just open source libraries, off the shelf camera modules and cheap single board computers.

inflatableDodoon Strike with the Band: The meritocratic failures of classical music

This is pretty accurate. My brother is one of the best classical musicians I know, but he ditched it for physics for many of the same reasons laid out in this article.

inflatableDodoon Is there a regular expression to detect a valid regular expression?

>What this means is that a regex parser is like a goldfish.

Like a drunk goldfish, or a sober goldfish?

'A method to study short-term memory (STM) in the goldfish.'

'Twenty-one common goldfish (13-15.5 cm long) were randomly divided into alcohol (A) and nonalcohol (NA) groups and were trained in an alcohol solution of 400 mg/100 ml or in water, respectively. All alcohol fish were placed in an alcohol solution of 400 mg/100 ml for 3 hr before training in the same alcohol concentration. Fish were trained on a position discrimination task for 2 consecutive days. The door used for training was that opposite to each fish's spontaneous preference. Savings in relearning on Day 2 was taken as a measure of long term memory strength. Only fish which reached criterion on both days were immediately given 10 forced reversal trails in the opposite direction (i.e., a fish trained on right door was forced to choose the left door.) A and NA subjects were then tested after a 5 min (STM) delay, respectively, in a free choice situation for 10 trails (i.e., neither door was blocked). The results suggest that alcohol facilitates the STM of the forced reversal information.'

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/935220

inflatableDodoon [dead]

>'Until recently, babies were seen as a blessing. Now, far too many people argue that not having a baby is a blessing. Ultimately, the reason for this loss of faith in the human spirit is neither economic nor environmental. Rather, the main driver of this anti-natal movement is the difficulty that sections of society have in giving meaning to life today. Recovering our confidence in the human spirit and in age-old human virtues is the best antidote to the turn against giving birth.'

There is seemingly a sizable section of the population who mark all social change as having an origin point sometime in the 1950's, regarding any human culture before then to be essentially a variant of the 1950's, just with more horses. This article being a great example.

inflatableDodoon An American Father and Son Exporting Tear Gas to Hong Kong

You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.

inflatableDodoon DNA from cigarette leads to Dakota Access arrest warrant 3 years later

>2) Somebody took his butt from outside and put it inside the perimeter (very unlikely).

Only if you discount squirrels.

inflatableDodoon Joi Ito Resigns from M.I.T. Media Lab After Outcry over Jeffrey Epstein Ties

'Boys from the Blackstuff' :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_from_the_Blackstuff

'American Red Cross – Our boys need SOX' :

https://propagandaposterstore.com/product/american-red-cross...

'Old boy' :

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/old-boy

edit - could also just go straight to the entry for 'boy' :

'a male child or, more generally, a male of any age'

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/boy

inflatableDodoon M.I.T. Media Lab concealed its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein

>'Negroponte also goes around demanding people refer to him as the father of the netbook.'

I'd go with a strategy of malicious compliance on that one. Though I would probably add some extra titles as time went on. Any suggestions?

inflatableDodoon M.I.T. Media Lab concealed its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf

inflatableDodoon How is the internet still obsessed with Myers-Briggs?

Nahh, The Count is getting the hell out of Barrytown.

inflatableDodoon Graphics Programming Black Book by Michael Abrash (2001)

Hardware matters.

inflatableDodoon How is the internet still obsessed with Myers-Briggs?

I'd get depressed if I was put into a bucket.

inflatableDodoon WeWork Parent Weighs Slashing Its Valuation in Half

'My pen, which is accustomed to figures, is unable to express the march and rhythm of consonance; therefore I shall try to record only the things I see, the things I think, or, to be more exact, the things we think.

Yes, "we"; that is exactly what I mean, and We, therefore, shall be the title of my records.'

'We', by Yevgeny Zamyatin - https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/We_2.pdf

inflatableDodoon Mental-health information 'sold to advertisers'

Unfortunately, if you have the clout and money and a facile excuse, you can also get data on patients straight from the NHS itself.

'Revealed: Google AI has access to huge haul of NHS patient data' - https://www.newscientist.com/article/2086454-revealed-google...

'Data deadlines loom large for the NHS' - https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1215

inflatableDodoon No-deal Brexit opponents defeat government

Well, you can go tell the Irish that their constitution is wrong, if you like.

"It is the firm will of the Irish Nation, in harmony and friendship, to unite all the people who share the territory of the island of Ireland, in all the diversity of their identities and traditions, recognising that a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island."

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html

inflatableDodoon Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

I don't quite see why you think transporting wafers 170 micrometers thick is unreal or in some way extreme. 170 micrometers is the same thickness as 135 gsm art paper.

edit - Also, 170 micrometers is positively beefy compared to what is coming down the line. 1 micrometer thick flexible cells have already been developed - https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016/06/20/New-flexible-sol... -

inflatableDodoon Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

Recovery of cobalt from spent lithium-ion batteries using supercritical carbon dioxide extraction - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X1...

The Role of Sub- and Supercritical CO2 as “Processing Solvent” for the Recycling and Sample Preparation of Lithium Ion Battery Electrolytes - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314243271_The_Role_...

Graphite Recycling from Spent Lithium‐Ion Batteries - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cssc.2016010...

inflatableDodoon Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

>A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan.

A cube 3 meters on a side can also contain almost 160,000 meters squared of solar cell wafers, given a common wafer thickness of around 170 micrometers.

Assuming around ten square meters per car, that could keep nearly 16,000 cars on the road for decades.

edit - to take this further, a standard shipping container could contain enough wafers for nearly 20,000 cars and in 2012, according to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there were 254,639,386 registered vehicles in the US.

So that comes to under 14,000 shipping containers full of wafers, which could fit in one single ship delivery, for all of the vehicles in the USA.

inflatableDodoon Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

>“For a given capital outlay on oil and renewables, how much useful energy at the wheel do we get? Our analysis indicates that for the same capital outlay today, new wind and solar-energy projects in tandem with battery electric vehicles will produce six to seven times more useful energy at the wheels than will oil at $60 per barrel for gasoline powered light-duty vehicles, and three to four times more than will oil at $60 per barrel for light-duty vehicles running on diesel,”

If these figures are even in the rough ballpark of being correct, then it is all over bar the shouting.

>"More than a third (36%) of the crude oil produced today goes to fuel vehicles susceptible to electrification"

https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/

inflatableDodoon No-deal Brexit opponents defeat government

To unify Northern Ireland with the Republic, I think there are a few people that have to be asked first.

I mean, it would be somewhat in character for the UK to attempt to achieve that unilaterally and with no consultation, but I think that to try and just 'give it back' as a solution to Brexit is, while no doubt well intentioned, still representing a bit of a colonial point of view.

inflatableDodoon No-deal Brexit opponents defeat government

And don't be surprised if MPs vote against it.

inflatableDodoon No-deal Brexit opponents defeat government

Europe has long been the Conservative Party's kryptonite. I am almost surprised it took this long for the referendum to break them up, but you now have Ken Clarke kicked out of the Conservative party, along with people like Nicolas Soames, Churchill's grandson.

Ken Clarke has also been making statements that he would be willing to back Corbyn in a unity government.

We are in very strange political waters right now. But one thing that seems clear is that the Conservative and Unionist Party seems to be in rather deep existential trouble.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-soames/churchil...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/03/rebel-leader...

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/ken-clarke-says-h...

inflatableDodoon No-deal Brexit opponents defeat government

The referendum just gone is the second referendum though. The first one on staying part of the European community and common market was in 1975.

inflatableDodoon No-deal Brexit opponents defeat government

Winning an advisory referendum with a 52% majority, doesn't always equate to parliament having to take the advice.

edit - people can disagree with me all they like, however I am not just making this up, so disagreeing with me will not make this go away.

Here is the 'Referendums in the United Kingdom - Constitution Committee', from the UK House of Lords;

'223. We recognise that because of the sovereignty of Parliament, referendums cannot be legally binding in the UK, and are therefore advisory. However, it would be difficult for Parliament to ignore a decisive expression of public opinion.'

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldselect/ldco...

I suppose you could try to argue that 52% is 'decisive'.

inflatableDodoon No-deal Brexit opponents defeat government

In reality, if the UK does not have a trade deal in place by the time it leaves the EU, it will still need to get one later and it will still contain the same requirements on respecting existing commitments to the the Irish Border. And this also happens to be a condition of getting a US trade deal through.

No Deal Brexit, is in fact, No Deal until utterly desperate for Any Deal.

The idea that the UK could just not have to ever agree to a trade deal with the EU is the purest of fantasies, and the idea that leaving first and kicking the can down the road will strengthen the UK's negotiating position is almost as delusional.

inflatableDodoon Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses

'Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.'

inflatableDodoon The Modern Triumph of the Periodic Table of Elements

>Also the picture of "native gold" is really pyrite

I gave up before I made it that far. So it is. I wonder if anyone put that in deliberately as a metaphor?