ShaunaTheDead

For example, carbon dating took discoveries including counting tree rings to determine a tree’s age, the origins of all the radiation on Earth – spoiler: it was the Earth itself, but also cosmic rays which was the important bit, nuclear half-lives and creating a chart of specifically useful half-lives for historical dating, the discovery of a rare isotope of carbon which can only be made by cosmic rays (carbon-14) as a near perfect clock for human timescales, how to build a sensor that can read faint carbon-14 radioactivity while filtering out all the radioactive noise from the environment, making another chart of expected radioactive readings based on geographical location including the depths of the ocean, and of course not to mention all of the archeological data used to calibrate all of the charts and devices used in the process.

I believe their reactions might be slightly different depending on the person, but if you simply asked them if it made the comment made them uncomfortable they’d say yes 100% of the time.

No, it’s about your relationship to that person. Are you on friendly terms? Are they comfortable around you? Do you have some kind of established rapport?

Or are you a complete stranger making a weird comment about another strangers physical appearance out of nowhere?

Here’s the article for anyone interested: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/jwst-detects-the-earliest-most-distant-galaxy-in-the-known-universe-and-its/

The teacher’s meaning is clear, which is the purpose of language. Mickey’s just being a grammar nazi.

Being excited about being wrong because either way it’s information

This literally is the basis of science that I think a lot of people misunderstand. Science doesn’t prove anything conclusively. What scientists try to do is disprove the leading theory and when they can’t, it adds to the pile of evidence that increases the likelyhood of the leading theory being correct. Even things that we’re very, very, very sure are correct are still like 99.99999999999…% confirmed.

A good example that’s often used to show how it’s more important to try to disprove a theory rather than trying to prove it is the existence of black swans. It was long thought that all swans were white and every time someone saw a white swan, that idea was reinforced. But when someone actually went out of their way to go looking for a black swan, they found a bunch of them!

One place I worked at recently was still using Node version 8. Running npm install would give me a mini heart attack… Like 400+ critical vulnerabilities, it was several thousand vulnerabilities all around.

The easiest way to tell the difference is that monkeys have tails and apes don’t. Chimps are definitely apes and I’m not sure what OP is getting at.

Every other planet looks like shit. Another W for Earth, the best planet in the universe! (as far as we know)

I do find that everything related to Python is especially badly documented and/or maintained. Maybe I’m just not looking the in right place though? I don’t generally use Python as my primary language.

Usually API docs are tucked away inside a “developer dashboard” or whatever they decided to call it. So I think you can assume at least moderate API and web development knowlege and programming skills.

Reminds me of an early application of AI where scientists were training an AI to tell the difference between a wolf and a dog. It got really good at it in the training data, but it wasn’t working correctly in actual application. So they got the AI to give them a heatmap of which pixels it was using more than any other to determine if a canine is a dog or a wolf and they discovered that the AI wasn’t even looking at the animal, it was looking at the surrounding environment. If there was snow on the ground, it said “wolf”, otherwise it said “dog”.

I really think that consciousness is just a combination of Narrow AI – that is, AI that is only good at a very specialized task. For example, we have a part of our brains specifically to process the raw data from our eyes, that’s a Narrow AI designed for that express purpose. When you combine all of the AIs that would be necessary for sight, smell, taste, touch, etc, as well as maintaining bodily functions, immune system, and other autonomic systems, you’ve essentially got an AI that can run a body.

However, at the point, that body would rely purely on instinct and only react to it’s environment. Add one more layer of Narrow AI whose purpose is to extrapolate the given information and make educated guesses and you’ve got the potential for intelligence. Because now you’re not just reacting to the environment but you’re actively thinking of how you can use all of those other Narrow AI that control your body to shape your environment, which is the basis of intelligence.

Vf = Vi + at

Means final velocity equals initial velocity plus the product of acceleration and time of acceleration.

F = m(ΔV / ΔT) or F = ma

The second equation is much simpler and means force is equal to the product of mass and acceleration.

This can basically be broken down to be “it’s not the speed that kills you, it’s the sudden deceleration” which is usually attributed to Eddie Rickenbacker who was an American WWI pilot.

“It’s not the speed that kills you, it’s the sudden stop” - Eddie Rickenbacker

It was also famously paraphrased by Jeremy Clarkson:

“Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that’s what gets you.” - Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear

Reminds me, I drive a school bus part-time and my bus has a malfunctioning sensor in the transmission and so on the screen on the dashboard it says “CHECK TRANS”. So every morning I’m like looks down at crotch “yup, still trans!”

lol holy shit that was really funny!

Star Trek really has 2 different genres, there’s action/adventure and there’s real hard sci-fi where philosophy is at the forefront. Voyager generally appeals more to the action/adventure fans, whereas the previous iterations appeared like the entire series was heading in a more philosophical direction with TOS to TNG to DS9 increasing in their thoughtfulness. VOY was seen as a huge backslide to people who were tuning in largely for the philosophical aspect of the show.

Considering there was and still are very few popular philosophical and thought provoking shows that challenge the viewer’s world view and biases, I think it’s fair to be upset that the new direction of the show is to dumb down everything and focus more on the action.

Of course, that’s not to say that Voyager was completely devoid of any philosophical debate, but I don’t think anyone can make the case that it’s equally as intelligent as TNG and DS9.

I think sarcasm usually has more of a negative tone to it. Like “oh yeah, sure, uh huh /s” whereas light hearted is more like “omg stop picking on me! /lh” conveying that they understand that the other people are also interacting with them in jest.

It’s getting better, but I really don’t appreciate how many people seem to think that “drag queen” and “being a transgender person” is interchangeable and exactly the same.

For clarity for anyone who isn’t sure, drag queens are performers who often (but not always) identify as gay men in their day to day lives. A drag queen is a caricature of a woman, a massive exaggeration for entertainment purposes. Drag queens are like clowns, and clowns don’t go around in their day to day life identifying as a clown. It’s a job, a gig, a temporary identity for entertainment purposes.

Transgender people have gender dysphoria that is so unbearable that they have no choice but to bear all of the negative things that come with coming out as transgender in order for them to have some tiny speck of hope at being happy and comfortable in their own bodies. Transgender people, unlike drag queens, always do identify with their chosen gender representation.

And for many (mostly) gay men the AIDS epidemic was devastating. You don’t see a lot of old gay men for that reason.