SpeakerToLampposts

joined 1 year ago
[–] SpeakerToLampposts 28 points 5 days ago

I recall an anecdote about a mathematician being asked to clarify precisely what he meant by "a close approximation to three". After thinking for a moment, he replied "any real number other than three".

[–] SpeakerToLampposts 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They're similar in some respects, different in others; this happens to only show ways they're similar. Specifically, it only shows dipole (two-pole) fields, with the field lines running from one pole (North or +) to the other (South or -).

But there are also electric monopoles: things that're only + (e.g. protons) or - (e.g. electrons), which'll have field lines radiating out in all directions rather than looping back. Magnets are different in that as far as we know, magnetic monopoles don't exist. Every North pole's directly attached to a South pole and vice versa. You can get magnets with more than two poles, or even more complex arrangements (e.g. refrigerator magnets normally have alternating North and South stripes), but they'll always have equal amounts of Northness and Southness, so the net magnetic charge is always zero.

Another (related) difference is that moving electric charges (e.g. electric currents in a wire) create loops of magnetic field. That is, the field line just goes in a circle around the moving charge, rather than from N to S. Since there's no such thing (as far as we know) as a magnetic charge, that can't happen with the electric field.

[–] SpeakerToLampposts 2 points 3 months ago

Hmm, I think we should start referring to the toll-like receptors as the awesome-ish receptors.
Another example: there's a fruit-fly gene named decapentaplegic (which has to do with forming the 15 imaginal discs during embryonic development). When they discovered another gene that interfered with it, but only when inherited from the mother, they named that one "mothers against decapentaplegic".

[–] SpeakerToLampposts 7 points 3 months ago

We'll need a humongous iron, and an even humongouser ironing board.

[–] SpeakerToLampposts 23 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Nobody has ported Doom to a Himalayan salt lamp.
Yet.
This is your opportunity!

[–] SpeakerToLampposts 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

But the study, apparently, did not fall into that trap: “I was surprised by the fact that about 90% of the variables assessed significantly predicted conspiracy belief (of 52 variables). These results point to conspiracy belief being even more psychologically complex than I initially presumed,” Bowes told PsyPost.

[–] SpeakerToLampposts 1 points 6 months ago

Are you using the standard xattr command that's built into macOS? IIRC there's another program out there by the same name with completely different syntax. Try running type xattr; it should say something like "xattr is /usr/bin/xattr" if you're using the standard one.

[–] SpeakerToLampposts 3 points 6 months ago

I am going to blame Microsoft, because “works out of the box” shouldn't conflict with “secure out of the box.”

And while I won't blame Linus for insecure-by-default Linux configs, I will blame whoever integrated the distro/dockerfile/etc.

[–] SpeakerToLampposts 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I remember when the local Safeway had one of these! I'm pretty sure that was in the '70s, though. It's just slightly possible that I might be old.

[–] SpeakerToLampposts 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've also been watching CtC quite a bit for the last couple of years. Unfortunately, they've lately been doing a lot of long, highly technical puzzles, which I don't find as interesting (though their shorter videos are still good). If anyone's interested in checking them out, I'll recommend a couple of older videos that I really enjoyed:

If you enjoy watching people solve sudokus and other puzzles, I'll also recommend Rangsk (generally does the daily NYT hard sudoku, a 6x6 intro-to-nonstandard-rules "sudoku adventure", and a collection of wordle-ish (but not not actually wordle) games), Bremster, and zetamath (does quite a few live solves with audience participation, as well as reaction vids to other people solving his puzzles).

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