SquibblesRedux

I am curious what they have in mind for toilet technology on the space station. Does Blue Origin have a "toilet team" or something like that, working on the design?

A regular physician (like a family doctor) works out better if they are close to home. A specialist is better (usually) when they are affiliated with a large or prestigious university.

Sometimes you can ask friends or family who they like, or who they think are good. Sometimes you roll the dice and try someone who seems appealing. If the first visit makes you uncertain or uncomfortable, do not go back -- find another. (I've got this story about a dentist who conducted dental torture on me once...)

Sometimes medical insurance dictates that you choose from a list. Choose a doctor close to home, give them a shot, and change if you don't feel like they can/will provide you with good care.

A good doctor can explain things. A good doctor can discuss uncertainties. A good doctor is always learning, and always willing to research new topics. A good doctor is willing to refer you to someone else (or an expert) and admit when they just don't know the answer.

That's good until the fisherman breaks a leg and his family then goes hungry. The ideal lies somewhere between the extremes.

Regardless of the pandemic's origin, I find it difficult to understand why the US and China would collaborate on biotechnology research that could be weaponized easily, when the two countries are constantly at each other's throats with offensive hacking campaigns and saber rattling around the South China Sea.

I am hopeful there will be a technological inflection at which adequate nutritious food, clean water, and shelter will be freely self-sustaining for all people. I am not talking about a point at which these things are provided or paid for, but rather a point at which the appropriate technologies are plentiful and self-sustaining, much like plants are today.

Independent of the medical profession, there is definitely a midwest thing. I have traveled a fair amount, and the culture in the US midwest is infinitely more polite, respectful, and helpful that that of the east or west coasts.

Just throwing this out there:

"Specifically, children from low SES families scored on average 6 IQ points lower at age 2 than children from high SES backgrounds; by age 16, this difference had almost tripled. ... Overall, SES was shown to be associated with individual differences in intercepts as well as slopes of intelligence. However, this finding does not warrant causal interpretations of the relationship between SES and the development of intelligence." [1]

[1] Socioeconomic status and the growth of intelligence from infancy through adolescence https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4641149/

I use both low-end and high-end specs for development. Day-to-day I use high-end for efficiency, but I periodically drop down to minimum-spec to make sure performance is acceptable. On the high-end I will also do extreme stress testing to find limits and look for potential bottlenecks.

Regarding truth, I would prefer the counsel of a mathematician over that of an engineer. That said, I would prefer an engineer over a mathematician when my car breaks down.

Observations and subsequent inferences should always come with probabilities. No matter how beautiful the math, the measurement is never perfect.

I would prefer to call recent events science under pressure. One could argue that good science takes time. People need time to think about ideas, time to think about ways to test the ideas, and time to engage in discourse without duress. Both politicians and the media, in my opinion, are a detriment to good science. They may be a necessary evil to provide support for funding, but their short-term goals are antithetical to thoughtful discourse.

What evidence exists that we (humans) can make accurate predictions for the states of complex systems decades or centuries in the future? It seems like "things will be different" and "there will be catastrophes" are always solid bets, but modeling complex systems -- especially systems with many unknown variables -- always involves probability distributions. Unwarranted confidence always leaves me skeptical, suspecting ulterior motives.

I would much prefer to hear about progress toward adaptability. Bad things will happen, no matter what. Let's plan to deal with the bad things so we can minimize future suffering.

For any who have not seen:

https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/

"In Praise of Idleness." Harper's Magazine. By Bertrand Russell

Paywalled -- archive is not working.

I never knew haunted dungeons were so noisy.

As someone who uses git from the command line, I am finding the web-based editor extremely unintuitive and difficult to use for common git operations.

The argument feels like survivorship bias. Yes, there are always new opportunities for good fortune, but there also is a constant stream of potential pitfalls and mishaps.

One should not let the constant stream of social media and other arbitrary data provoke an irrational fear of missing out.

This all reminds me of the Joybooths in the Infocom game "A Mind Forever Voyaging." [1] Today, the game seems so prescient.

[1] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AMindForeve...

That manager needs to learn about the bus factor [1] and key person insurance [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor

[2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/k/keypersoninsurance.asp

Assuming the climate continues to change rapidly, which I presume it will, what efforts have been made (in any country) to deal with it? I have seen much about attempting to prevent climate change, but very little planning about how to deal with its consequences.

We can and should continue to discuss and explore our options for sustainable civilization, but at some point we need to start mitigating the risks for calamitous outcomes.

It feels a little like we are living at the base of volcano, debating about the best way to prevent the volcano from erupting.

A good sample book showing off the capabilities of PreTeXt:

https://pretextbook.org/examples/sample-article/html/frontma...

Chapter 14 of the sample book covers interactive elements and Javascript:

https://pretextbook.org/examples/sample-article/html/section...

Given what I would consider the eternal preciousness of a human, and the fleeting insignificance of computer software, I found it strange he opened with "I am a developer for Drupal." For example, why did he place that before his being a father?

I think people too often miss the significance of their own existence, independent of their relatively brief tasks and accomplishments. I certainly do not mean to belittle or speak poorly of anyone's accomplishments, but the importance of simply being is so significant and people so rarely appreciate that significance.

And yet, because you read about Glass Town the other night, now I and others know about Glass Town. Looking into it further, I also now know about "Glass Town: The Imaginary World of the Brontës," written by Isabel Greenberg. Knowledge of these works is definitely useful to me.

As for Kubernetes, I already know that stuff.

The basic D&D book (before AD&D) was similar to AD&D, but simpler rules and fewer tables.

I did not see mention of rifling in the barrel, which imparts gyroscopic stability in rifles. I am not sure the Gauss gun should qualify as a rifle.

If the weapon delivers about 100J or 75 foot pounds of energy, then that is less energy than a slingshot. Not terribly impressive for a weapon of any sort.

Maybe they should rethink their design and use the electricity to compress air in an air rifle.

Here is a map of the world's marine dead zones as of 2008:

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/44677/aquatic-dead-...

Does anyone know how the current situation compares to the fires of the 2007 Greek forest fires? [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Greek_forest_fires

Apologies for being a bit slow on following up.

First, it is quite disrespectful to answer an honest query with an insult. (I am referring to "WhatAboutism.") I am aware of the corn subsidies in the US and the problems that it causes with various state and local budgets, and how it influences consumer prices for all sorts of products. However, I know very little about the tax structures and political tradeoffs for gasoline taxes. Hence, my question.

Second, the responses do not address the tradeoffs, which is what I queried about. Society is not about raw numbers; people are not machines. Just as the US has not transitioned to the metric system for what may seem like irrational reasons, a transition from gas/diesel to EV involves many complex, often irrational, factors. One of those factors -- the one I queried about -- is what happens when the transition impacts a complex system of political budget factors.

To reiterate the first point, immediately responding with an insult is not only disrespectful, but also discourages others from asking honest questions. Educating is great, but hurling insults is not.

I used to use Emacs for large files and vi for small, quick edits. I am now using VS Code for large files and still vi for quick edits. The single feature that got me to switch from Emacs to VS Code was the ability to use a mouse for navigation and selection. (My Emacs and vi usage was always in a terminal.) I had tried XEmacs for a while, but found it too aesthetically displeasing.

I would be happy to return to Emacs if there was a front end that worked well and was standardized across all windowing systems (Linux/Mac/Windows).

The obvious solution to the web page's problem appears at the bottom of the page:

"If a problem persists, we recommend that you contact Sewing and Embroidery Warehouse"