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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
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mlooney

NP Thur March 19 2020

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On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

The Gnosticism article says the same thing I did, Gonstic writing suppressed, Gnostics have motivation to slip their notions into works. Which is kind of what you are saying, or maybe better stated as overlaps; later folks modifying the content to represent their views.

Actually, what I meant is that the OTHER gospels might've been altered - like, not that it couldn't happen in Tomas's, of course it could, but it wouldn't be because it's gnostics but simply because it could happen to any gospel (and probably happened to all, even if in various degrees).

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

Perhaps that's why Gnosticism was viewed as a heresy, maybe too focused on one aspect of what is needed for character? Albeit, the Roman Catholic church in particular, but all churches do it to some degree, seem to say, "We (clergy) will be educated for you, you don't need knowledge for yourselves." That's a dangerous viewpoint, easy to abuse. Has that ever happened? :P

Has that ever NOT happened? It's possible that Gnosticism is too focused on one aspect, but it's certain that the reason it was labeled heresy was because it didn't required clergy. The quotes I mentioned actually say it directly. In one movie, they said it even more directly 

Quote

The kingdom of God is inside you, and all around you.Not in buildings of wood and stone.

I didn't find it verbatim in the gospel itself, but it seems to be exactly what the gnostics believe: That churches - the buildings I mean - are completely useless in religion. Them being labeled heresy for that is obvious, and not for any good reason. Discussion wasn't an option, because how can you argue against that, considering Jesus's opinion on churches as shown in other gospels?

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

I've read key verses in versions of the Bible that the mainstream does not like, like the Jehovah's Witnesses Bible and the Mormon Bible, and the highlighted omissions or changes do not significantly change the overall message. It's like a blemish on the wall, it's annoying, you want to paint it, but the wall is still there.

Well, the authors who get to the bible in first few centuries could get away with more significant changes.

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/23/2020 at 7:49 AM, hkmaly said:

Also, there are speculation about John's use of Psilocybe. Or was that different John? On wait, it's unlikely someone would know.

I think that's in conjunction with The Book of Revelations aka The Revelation of John, which is a recount of a vision he had, 'he' being a dude named John who is said to be the same John that wrote The Gospel of John and the Letters aka Epistles of John, but there were a lot of Johns. So yeah, what you said.

Yes, exactly.

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

There are fewer Thomases (then). It means 'the Twin', so is slightly uncommon. If mom calls, "Thomas" do they both come running? Or is one the designated spare. I guess for inheritance purposes, one is the elder.

There is a serious serialization happening at birth. There is no way two children would fit at once, so one of the twins is always older, even if just by few minutes.

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/23/2020 at 7:49 AM, hkmaly said:

I must admit it's not my personal experience, just something I read, and I might misremember who it was.

These people affect our nominally secular text books, ('teach the controversy' <eye roll>), so it's kind of a big deal here. Google 'Monkey Trial' and be amazed at how long we've been dragging this dead weight around.

1925? Unbelievable.

Note that the article doesn't actually mention Catholic church's opinion on that, nor Evangelic or Protestant, so it's easy to misunderstood who was the party claiming it (although World Christian Fundamentals Association article mentions something about Protestantism).

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/23/2020 at 7:49 AM, hkmaly said:

It's not surprising they disagree OR that they fail basic logic.

There is a saying, "Never mud wrestle a pig, you'll both get dirty, and the pig enjoys it." One of the problems with debating these yahoos is that it's giving them a measure of credence to even do so. Bear on mind, they're not even wrong.

Yes. Proof by contradiction is basic logic: if you take some proposition and prove that true is false, then the proposition is false. Anyone who can't understand that is not worth discussing with.

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/23/2020 at 7:49 AM, hkmaly said:

As a bonus, none of those days is really 24 hours. The solar days is closest with current value of 86, 400.002 seconds. And, yes, it changes.

As an engineer, I'd say, 'It's close enough'. That .002 seconds is not going to matter when you are covering your tomatoes for the night, against the frost.

As IT, I waited with planting tomatoes until it will be warm enough even in night.

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/23/2020 at 7:49 AM, hkmaly said:

I wouldn't be surprised if many creationists would have similar issues with understanding squaring numbers. However, they don't have the excuse of living in first century AD.

In his discourse, Jesus expected his first century listeners to be able to follow multiplying two numbers, so it wouldn't be much of an excuse.

He also expected they would spread peace over earth. He was naive optimist ... or didn't mind to be seen as one.

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/23/2020 at 7:49 AM, hkmaly said:

Although I would argue against your implication that Romans were first coming with term for ten thousand. They might make it popular, but in 400 BC Greek already used οἱ Μύριοι. In fact, they normally counted up to myriad myriad (one hundred million) and Archimedes proposed system counting to 108x10^16.

True, it was only innovative in the context of their own culture. The Greeks were far ahead of them, which they knew and they valued Greeks for their knowledge. Literally. Slave culture.

I don't know why mathematical knowledge did not bleed over from one culture to the next more efficiently than it did, because surely the Romans had access to Greek knowledge. I suppose different number systems and systems of calculating was a hindrance.

Also, I would assume lot of Romans valued knowledge only in abstract way - like, they understood it was important but didn't think it was necessary for them personally to have any.

They bought slaves to read and write so they didn't need to.

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

Probably cultural resistance to change. We still have this today, and it can have expensive consequences. I drive miles, buy pounds of produce, and drink cups. My billion is different than your billion. My space agency crashed an expensive probe into Mars because of the differences.

I can understand ordinary people are using such units in ordinary lives. I don't understand why they are used in science.

The expensive probe wasn't only thing that crashed. There was at least one airplane crash caused by assuming the amount of fuel was in pounds when it was in kilograms. The airplane was cheaper, but there were people onboard. They were lucky.

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/23/2020 at 7:49 AM, hkmaly said:

Yes. Unfortunately, even our mostly atheistic nation isn't completely immune to this ...

Well, you've got to scream something during sex. Do you say, "Oh, my lack of God"?

No I don't - it's usually the girl who screams :)

However, yes, I do use obvious and non-obvious religion terms and names when swearing. (Which Christians actually are expected not to, but that's another thing). Somewhen on university I realized the paradox and tried to learn to swear differently. Still trying.

(Note that changing "Oh my God" to "Oh my gods" would actually be simple, and I'm not atheist personally.)

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

Bad time to be a comedian. The jokes are writing themselves, you're just the delivery boy.

Jokes are important. And much healthier than alcohol. (I had this discussion under different comics. We agreed that humor is best solution, but even alcohol or antidepressants are better than suicide.)

On 3/23/2020 at 0:45 PM, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/23/2020 at 7:49 AM, hkmaly said:

(I think that specifically Coronavirus epidemic will remain on quite short list of notable epidemic quite a long time. I mean, I hope so because it would only disappear if there would be something worse soon.)

I don't think it's going away. In a few years, it will be one the the shots you get.

I don't think they will have more success developing vaccine against this coronavirus than they have with others, like HCoV-229E or HCoV-OC43. They mutate too much. Hopefully SARS-CoV-2 mutate into something less serious ; after all, killing the host is not in his interest either.

 

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Also, I would assume lot of Romans valued knowledge only in abstract way - like, they understood it was important but didn't think it was necessary for them personally to have any.

They bought slaves to read and write so they didn't need to.

 

Anyone who fails to understand why it is a bad idea to let his slaves know more than he does, deserves to be outwitted by them.

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1 hour ago, ijuin said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also, I would assume lot of Romans valued knowledge only in abstract way - like, they understood it was important but didn't think it was necessary for them personally to have any.

They bought slaves to read and write so they didn't need to.

Anyone who fails to understand why it is a bad idea to let his slaves know more than he does, deserves to be outwitted by them.

Unfortunately, barbarians got them sooner.

... although ... let's think again about what happened in Eastern Roman Empire ... oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture ... at one point ruled by illiterate Justinian I, possibly last Roman emperor who was native speaker of Latin, and his wife Theodora, of Greek Cypriot descent ...

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On 3/25/2020 at 2:12 AM, hkmaly said:

Actually, what I meant is that the OTHER gospels might've been altered - like, not that it couldn't happen in Tomas's, of course it could, but it wouldn't be because it's gnostics but simply because it could happen to any gospel (and probably happened to all, even if in various degrees).

Has that ever NOT happened? It's possible that Gnosticism is too focused on one aspect, but it's certain that the reason it was labeled heresy was because it didn't required clergy. The quotes I mentioned actually say it directly. In one movie, they said it even more directly 

I didn't find it verbatim in the gospel itself, but it seems to be exactly what the gnostics believe: That churches - the buildings I mean - are completely useless in religion. Them being labeled heresy for that is obvious, and not for any good reason. Discussion wasn't an option, because how can you argue against that, considering Jesus's opinion on churches as shown in other gospels?

Well, the authors who get to the bible in first few centuries could get away with more significant changes.

I was answering this a couple of nights ago, and the page crashed. I found this rather discouraging, as I had written quite a bit. Upon reflection, I'm going to try again, but a shorter set of answers.

About the Gnostics, I think you're basically right; not needing clergy would be alienating to the power groups.

"Has that ever not happened?"  - We are humans, we are ignorant and judgemental, no matter what positive thing happens, there will be haters.

I'm not buying that the other gospels are revised long after the fact, unless you mean translator bias, which is not what you are saying. The texts are in substantial agreement with the manuscripts, even as new ones are discovered. But it is clearly within the realm of possibility, and other similar documents appear to have been altered, Josephus for instance.

The buildings are not significantly special, although culturally, many have some value. Here, we have a diverse populous, and an ethnic church is often a source of cultural identity. In the ages past, monasteries were often centers of learning, having an investment in books and literature, and men capable of reading and copying.

"Discussion wasn't an option, because how can you argue against that, considering Jesus's opinion on churches as shown in other gospels?" - What are you thinking is Jesus's opinion on churches? What we call a church did not exist at the time, the closest analog was the local synagogues. It does not seem that they were more than a meeting place at the time. When he says, 'church', the translated word is 'ecclesia', it means 'fellowship' the people, the believers, not a building.

The Temple, in fact, temple in general, are different, they are buildings that are held to be special. The Temple in Jerusalem was the dwelling place of God in the Jewish faith. they took this seriously; there was a curtained off area where the Arc of the Covenant was kept, and only the High Priest could enter it, only at certain times, and he had to have a rope around him in case they needed to pull his body out if he #$%&ed up. In this same Temple, Jesus chased away the merchants and money lenders, calling it 'his Father's house' and saying that they made it into a den of thieves. He also said it would be torn down, and did not seem to be distressed by that.

It does not seem that he thought the buildings were particularly important.

Initially, I think they were still compiling the teachings and anecdotes. What major revisions are you recalling that would have happened later?

 

On 3/25/2020 at 2:12 AM, hkmaly said:

1925? Unbelievable.

Note that the article doesn't actually mention Catholic church's opinion on that, nor Evangelic or Protestant, so it's easy to misunderstood who was the party claiming it (although World Christian Fundamentals Association article mentions something about Protestantism).

Yes. Proof by contradiction is basic logic: if you take some proposition and prove that true is false, then the proposition is false. Anyone who can't understand that is not worth discussing with.

As IT, I waited with planting tomatoes until it will be warm enough even in night.

He also expected they would spread peace over earth. He was naive optimist ... or didn't mind to be seen as one.

Also, I would assume lot of Romans valued knowledge only in abstract way - like, they understood it was important but didn't think it was necessary for them personally to have any.

They bought slaves to read and write so they didn't need to.

I can understand ordinary people are using such units in ordinary lives. I don't understand why they are used in science.

The expensive probe wasn't only thing that crashed. There was at least one airplane crash caused by assuming the amount of fuel was in pounds when it was in kilograms. The airplane was cheaper, but there were people onboard. They were lucky.

Scope's Trial - It's kind of infamous for it's government overreach. They a e still doing it today. Texas in particular seems to control text book content, I don't get why, and they are pushing 'teach the controversy', teach creationism along with evolution. Pastafarianism is a formulated response to Kansas doing this same thing. "Teach the controversy, creationism, evolution, and The Flying Spaghetti Monster did it." The claim that 'God did it' or 'the FSM did it' is not falsifiable, so I am not seeing where proof by contradiction is relevant to this.

Closer to home, our IT staff just does IT, yours that farms sounds much more interesting.

"He was naive optimist ... or didn't mind to be seen as one." - This is the man that said, (paraphrase), "When I come back, am I even going to find faith?"

"I don't understand why they are used in science." - Cultural imperative, you use what you are used to. I'm pretty sure the workplace that the probe incident happened at specified calculations in metric, but I'm even more certain that if they did, it wasn't enforced; "Just make sure you convert to metric for the customer." And most of the time, that works, except, Whoops!

The Gimli glider is a little more troubling, because it is a matter of refueling, a task that happens often, and they should have had a procedure which kept this straight. Makes you wonder if there was a trainee involved.

In my gut, I don't want metrification, I'm too used to Imperial, but I think it is necessary. It's the only way to avoid these incidents.

 

On 3/25/2020 at 2:12 AM, hkmaly said:

(Note that changing "Oh my God" to "Oh my gods" would actually be simple, and I'm not atheist personally.)

Huh, I thought you said you were, at some point. Sorry.

I'm believer, but I'm less sure about the details of exactly what that means than I was twenty years ago. I'm not tied to any group at the moment.

 

On 3/25/2020 at 2:12 AM, hkmaly said:

Jokes are important. And much healthier than alcohol. (I had this discussion under different comics. We agreed that humor is best solution, but even alcohol or antidepressants are better than suicide.)

I very much agree, though even joking can be overdone.

 

On 3/25/2020 at 2:12 AM, hkmaly said:

I don't think they will have more success developing vaccine against this coronavirus than they have with others, like HCoV-229E or HCoV-OC43. They mutate too much. Hopefully SARS-CoV-2 mutate into something less serious ; after all, killing the host is not in his interest either.

We'll see. There's probably some stable portion of the genome that can be exploited. I don't think the whole thing has the same variability. Features may vary, but there is an underlying structure that is stable, even across species.

'mutate into' - It's not directed, more like forking into multiple paths. Mutating can only make the conglomerate deadlier, even if a portion is more benign, although, if your body learns go build up antibodies to a benign one, it could help fight off a more serious one.

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34 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Scope's Trial - It's kind of infamous for it's government overreach. They a e still doing it today. Texas in particular seems to control text book content, I don't get why, and they are pushing 'teach the controversy', teach creationism along with evolution. Pastafarianism is a formulated response to Kansas doing this same thing. "Teach the controversy, creationism, evolution, and The Flying Spaghetti Monster did it." The claim that 'God did it' or 'the FSM did it' is not falsifiable, so I am not seeing where proof by contradiction is relevant to this.

 

The FSM essentially illustrates that, if your arguments for God can equally be used to argue for a completely ridiculous "god", then they probably are not good arguments after all.

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7 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I was answering this a couple of nights ago, and the page crashed.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/textarea-cache/ - thousands of thanking posts :)

9 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

"Has that ever not happened?"  - We are humans, we are ignorant and judgemental, no matter what positive thing happens, there will be haters.

I though we are talking about abuse (of power). THAT tends to happen basically always. Because we are humans, power corrupts and while there MIGHT be few people who can overcome the temptation there is not enough of them to keep even single office corruption-free for long.

12 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I'm not buying that the other gospels are revised long after the fact, unless you mean translator bias, which is not what you are saying. The texts are in substantial agreement with the manuscripts, even as new ones are discovered. But it is clearly within the realm of possibility, and other similar documents appear to have been altered, Josephus for instance.

Well it wasn't THAT long after the fact. I agree that later it became hard to do any significant change, but in those first few centuries ...

13 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The buildings are not significantly special, although culturally, many have some value. Here, we have a diverse populous, and an ethnic church is often a source of cultural identity. In the ages past, monasteries were often centers of learning, having an investment in books and literature, and men capable of reading and copying.

Castles also have cultural value. In fact, ANY building can have cultural value if old enough.
And, while the monasteries used to be centers of learning, that's more about the books and teachers, not the building itself.

17 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

"Discussion wasn't an option, because how can you argue against that, considering Jesus's opinion on churches as shown in other gospels?" - What are you thinking is Jesus's opinion on churches? What we call a church did not exist at the time, the closest analog was the local synagogues. It does not seem that they were more than a meeting place at the time. When he says, 'church', the translated word is 'ecclesia', it means 'fellowship' the people, the believers, not a building.

The Temple, in fact, temple in general, are different, they are buildings that are held to be special. The Temple in Jerusalem was the dwelling place of God in the Jewish faith. they took this seriously; there was a curtained off area where the Arc of the Covenant was kept, and only the High Priest could enter it, only at certain times, and he had to have a rope around him in case they needed to pull his body out if he #$%&ed up. In this same Temple, Jesus chased away the merchants and money lenders, calling it 'his Father's house' and saying that they made it into a den of thieves. He also said it would be torn down, and did not seem to be distressed by that.

That was what I was talking about.

Jesus didn't ever do any attempt to build any temples and start teaching from them - he was teaching while walking ... well, traveling.

18 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

It does not seem that he thought the buildings were particularly important.

Exactly.

Yet, lot of Catholics and Christians in general consider for some reason important to be in church in Sunday.

19 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Initially, I think they were still compiling the teachings and anecdotes. What major revisions are you recalling that would have happened later?

If it would be known I wouldn't be the only one knowing about that.

Like, obviously, there were some pretty big changes, but it's not known if it involved rewriting of bible.

22 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Scope's Trial - It's kind of infamous for it's government overreach. They a e still doing it today. Texas in particular seems to control text book content, I don't get why, and they are pushing 'teach the controversy', teach creationism along with evolution. Pastafarianism is a formulated response to Kansas doing this same thing. "Teach the controversy, creationism, evolution, and The Flying Spaghetti Monster did it." The claim that 'God did it' or 'the FSM did it' is not falsifiable

Yes.

22 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

so I am not seeing where proof by contradiction is relevant to this.

There are parts which ARE falsifiable. Also, you can show a contradiction between two articles of faith: usually, neither is falsifiable by itself, but you know both can't be true.

23 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Closer to home, our IT staff just does IT, yours that farms sounds much more interesting.

Farming tends to be larger. I'm growing the tomatoes on window, and my IT job having any relevance to it was a joke - reaction on what you said, which could be read to imply engineering is relevant.

28 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

"He was naive optimist ... or didn't mind to be seen as one." - This is the man that said, (paraphrase), "When I come back, am I even going to find faith?"

Hmmm ... maybe he got wiser during his life?

30 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The Gimli glider is a little more troubling, because it is a matter of refueling, a task that happens often, and they should have had a procedure which kept this straight. Makes you wonder if there was a trainee involved.

Not actual trainee, but the calculations used to be done by flight engineer before. This plane was supposed to only need pilot and co-pilot, and while those were not trainees in piloting, they didn't had that much experience with refueling. Also, they switched from imperial to metric recently. And the plane itself was new with higher-than-usual number of problems. It's described in detail on wikipedia.

39 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/25/2020 at 7:12 AM, hkmaly said:

(Note that changing "Oh my God" to "Oh my gods" would actually be simple, and I'm not atheist personally.)

Huh, I thought you said you were, at some point. Sorry.

No, I was talking about the COUNTRY being mostly atheistical. There are lot of atheists around but I'm not one.

39 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I'm believer, but I'm less sure about the details of exactly what that means than I was twenty years ago. I'm not tied to any group at the moment.

I'm roughly same level of sure last twenty years, but I'm not sure if I'm as sure as you are now. And I'm pretty sure that my combination of believes is unique enough there is no group.

42 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/25/2020 at 7:12 AM, hkmaly said:

Jokes are important. And much healthier than alcohol. (I had this discussion under different comics. We agreed that humor is best solution, but even alcohol or antidepressants are better than suicide.)

I very much agree, though even joking can be overdone.

You can say single joke too many times and you can joke in bad moment, but you can't overdone joking itself.

43 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/25/2020 at 7:12 AM, hkmaly said:

I don't think they will have more success developing vaccine against this coronavirus than they have with others, like HCoV-229E or HCoV-OC43. They mutate too much. Hopefully SARS-CoV-2 mutate into something less serious ; after all, killing the host is not in his interest either.

We'll see. There's probably some stable portion of the genome that can be exploited. I don't think the whole thing has the same variability. Features may vary, but there is an underlying structure that is stable, even across species.

Viri have much bigger variations than eucaryotes, so, not that much.

44 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

'mutate into' - It's not directed, more like forking into multiple paths. Mutating can only make the conglomerate deadlier, even if a portion is more benign, although, if your body learns go build up antibodies to a benign one, it could help fight off a more serious one.

Most coronaviri attack cells in nose, not in lungs. If THIS specific difference would go away, the mortality would go WAAAAY down for people infected by the mutated one. And yes, the mutated one could provide some (at least partial) immunity to the original, AND spread faster, thus help getting rid of original.

15 minutes ago, ijuin said:

The FSM essentially illustrates that, if your arguments for God can equally be used to argue for a completely ridiculous "god", then they probably are not good arguments after all.

Ridiculous? Burn the heretic! :)

(Ok, I'm not actually Pastafarianist ... I did however converted to Discordianism during studying university and I'm pretty certain that I still count as Discordian no matter what I do or what else I believe.)

 

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On 3/25/2020 at 2:12 AM, hkmaly said:

However, yes, I do use obvious and non-obvious religion terms and names when swearing. (Which Christians actually are expected not to, but that's another thing). Somewhen on university I realized the paradox and tried to learn to swear differently. Still trying.

(Note that changing "Oh my God" to "Oh my gods" would actually be simple, and I'm not atheist personally.)

I'm an atheist myself (or agnostic depending on one's definitions, as my refusal to believe anything with 100% certainty overrides my belief in there not being a God or gods) and I try to avoid religious terms when swearing. "Damn" is a hard habit to break, but I have been pretty successful in removing "Oh my God" from repertoire of exclamations. Because I don't like offending people unnecessarily, I've also done my best to replace most other swears with non-offensive (usually silly) replacements, though my results are mixed.

3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

In my gut, I don't want metrification, I'm too used to Imperial, but I think it is necessary. It's the only way to avoid these incidents.

When I was in school I had several teachers tell me that I needed to learn metric because one day the country would be switching to it. I've since forgotten most of the metric I learned in those classes, but I wish we had switched as a nation (and actually still wish we would, even though I'd have to re-learn a bunch of terms), as it's way simpler than the imperial system. (I don't do a lot of the sort of measuring that would require switching between one set of Imperial units and another, but when I do I find it really annoying trying to figure out. Of course, it doesn't help that I never actually learned Imperial units in school...)

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/textarea-cache/ - thousands of thanking posts :)

I though we are talking about abuse (of power). THAT tends to happen basically always. Because we are humans, power corrupts and while there MIGHT be few people who can overcome the temptation there is not enough of them to keep even single office corruption-free for long.

Well it wasn't THAT long after the fact. I agree that later it became hard to do any significant change, but in those first few centuries ...

I will definitely look into that cache add-on, that would be helpful.

Acknowledged, there was a process of formation of a system of dogma, including formal creeds.

 

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Castles also have cultural value. In fact, ANY building can have cultural value if old enough.

And, while the monasteries used to be centers of learning, that's more about the books and teachers, not the building itself.

Well, yes, that actually underscores why church buildings might have some value; it doesn't contradict it.

The monasteries, the physical layout was part of the parcel of what they were and are. They are designed, or maybe better stated evolved to be a sprawling structure that supports monastic activities. I suppose you could do similar with a campus of smaller dwellings.

In any case, that they have some value is tangential to their religious purpose, and they aren't important for their religious purpose.

On the other hand, I've been to home churches, and they have their own issues.

 

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Yet, lot of Catholics and Christians in general consider for some reason important to be in church in Sunday.

I think it is the idea of meeting that is emphasized, and that's not entirely without merit. Social isolation is unhealthy, and even though some folk prefer it, it's not without costs to them in terms of mental health.

 

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

There are parts which ARE falsifiable. Also, you can show a contradiction between two articles of faith: usually, neither is falsifiable by itself, but you know both can't be true.

I'm not seeing it, but if you can put Creationism to rest, in a way that will convince them to go away, by all means, take the podium.
 

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Farming tends to be larger. I'm growing the tomatoes on window, and my IT job having any relevance to it was a joke - reaction on what you said, which could be read to imply engineering is relevant.

Engineering not relevant? Is there such a topic? :P I see control systems in everything around me, including the way COVID-19 spreads. Who wouldn't want to maximize his tomato crop?

 

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Not actual trainee, but the calculations used to be done by flight engineer before. This plane was supposed to only need pilot and co-pilot, and while those were not trainees in piloting, they didn't had that much experience with refueling. Also, they switched from imperial to metric recently. And the plane itself was new with higher-than-usual number of problems. It's described in detail on wikipedia.

So, they were in transition, so cultural bias was a factor.

 

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

You can say single joke too many times and you can joke in bad moment, but you can't overdone joking itself.

Counterpoint, The Daily Show, and shows like it, like Last Week Tonight rely on humor to get their points across, and they do so very effectively. But when you watch, you know that at their core, they are tackling a serious topic, and they they break into serious when it's relevant. There's a time to deflect and defuse with humor, and a time to deal with what is real.

 

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Viri have much bigger variations than eucaryotes, so, not that much.

Most coronaviri attack cells in nose, not in lungs. If THIS specific difference would go away, the mortality would go WAAAAY down for people infected by the mutated one. And yes, the mutated one could provide some (at least partial) immunity to the original, AND spread faster, thus help getting rid of original.

I'm still hopeful. If it was impossible, there would be no such thing as acquired immunity.

 

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Ridiculous? Burn the heretic! :)

(Ok, I'm not actually Pastafarianist ... I did however converted to Discordianism during studying university and I'm pretty certain that I still count as Discordian no matter what I do or what else I believe.)

Are you an adherent to Gnocchicism?

 

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1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

When I was in school I had several teachers tell me that I needed to learn metric because one day the country would be switching to it. I've since forgotten most of the metric I learned in those classes, but I wish we had switched as a nation (and actually still wish we would, even though I'd have to re-learn a bunch of terms), as it's way simpler than the imperial system. (I don't do a lot of the sort of measuring that would require switching between one set of Imperial units and another, but when I do I find it really annoying trying to figure out. Of course, it doesn't help that I never actually learned Imperial units in school...)

For me, it's like a foreign language. I can estimate in Imperial, I have to think about the conversion to do metric. It's not all that difficult, but a bit more cumbersome. And I've used metric in coursework.

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22 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

For me, it's like a foreign language. I can estimate in Imperial, I have to think about the conversion to do metric. It's not all that difficult, but a bit more cumbersome. And I've used metric in coursework.

I use metric in my SF role playing game because, well, it's SF.  Granted I tend to round a meter to 3 feet instead of 3.2808399 that it should be.  I also use metric in my currently unnamed modern warfare game because, other than one book, my data sources are either all metric or have metric and imperial units.  One exception to using metric is I used Horse Power vs Kilowatts for power per tonnes calculations., which technically is mixing systems but HP/Tonne is a standard ratio.

 

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5 hours ago, mlooney said:

I use metric in my SF role playing game because, well, it's SF.  Granted I tend to round a meter to 3 feet instead of 3.2808399 that it should be.  I also use metric in my currently unnamed modern warfare game because, other than one book, my data sources are either all metric or have metric and imperial units.  One exception to using metric is I used Horse Power vs Kilowatts for power per tonnes calculations., which technically is mixing systems but HP/Tonne is a standard ratio.

The US military is standardized on metric for operational issues, for interoperability with other nations. Stuff like haircut length and where to place ribbons, not so much.

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13 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The US military is standardized on metric for operational issues, for interoperability with other nations. Stuff like haircut length and where to place ribbons, not so much.

I am very aware of that.  They had "gone metric" as long ago as the late 70's when I joined.

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

I am very aware of that.  They had "gone metric" as long ago as the late 70's when I joined.

That's when I joined.

I'm not very aware of military metrification, doesn't come up often once you're out, your post reminded me. It's in there, but I had to dig through the clutter.

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11 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

"Damn" is a hard habit to break

Yeah, that's one of those non-obvious ... although it might be generic enough for anyone except atheists ...

11 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

but I have been pretty successful in removing "Oh my God" from repertoire of exclamations. Because I don't like offending people unnecessarily, I've also done my best to replace most other swears with non-offensive (usually silly) replacements, though my results are mixed.

You're better than me in this. Only results regarding offensive swears I got are negative.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

On the other hand, I've been to home churches, and they have their own issues.

Of course, even those are not necessary. Prayer should be just between you and the God anyway. Matthew 6:5.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Yet, lot of Catholics and Christians in general consider for some reason important to be in church in Sunday.

I think it is the idea of meeting that is emphasized, and that's not entirely without merit. Social isolation is unhealthy, and even though some folk prefer it, it's not without costs to them in terms of mental health.

That's true, however is still mixing two totally independent things - religion and social life. Also, I would argue that church would be even worse for social life than theatre/cinema ... or did YOU ever saw groups of people discussing preaching in front of church?
(And, obviously, the best place for social life seem to be pub. Which is not exactly compatible with religion, unless you worship Dionysus.)

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I'm not seeing it, but if you can put Creationism to rest, in a way that will convince them to go away, by all means, take the podium.

I've just said that it doesn't seem it would matter to them.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Farming tends to be larger. I'm growing the tomatoes on window, and my IT job having any relevance to it was a joke - reaction on what you said, which could be read to imply engineering is relevant.

Engineering not relevant? Is there such a topic? :P I see control systems in everything around me, including the way COVID-19 spreads. Who wouldn't want to maximize his tomato crop?

Well, I see IT all around as well. You know they are planning to use phone tracking data to find who the infected were in contact with? But I must admit, it's hard to see it in my tomatoes.

Wait. Control systems? That's programming isn't it?

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I'm still hopeful. If it was impossible, there would be no such thing as acquired immunity.

Actually, there are possibilities which would allow acquired immunity to work without providing workable options for vaccine.

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(Ok, I'm not actually Pastafarianist ... I did however converted to Discordianism during studying university and I'm pretty certain that I still count as Discordian no matter what I do or what else I believe.)

Are you an adherent to Gnocchicism?

Definitely no. And I would rather convert to Pastafarianism than to eat that. Spaghetti I at least like.

8 hours ago, mlooney said:

One exception to using metric is I used Horse Power vs Kilowatts for power per tonnes calculations., which technically is mixing systems but HP/Tonne is a standard ratio.

Well, megaton of TNT is not exactly SI either but pretty standard ... and of course, energy should be measured in grams, anything else is just adding unnecessary unit as if it would make the calculation work in different universe ...

2 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The US military is standardized on metric for operational issues, for interoperability with other nations. Stuff like haircut length and where to place ribbons, not so much.

Wait what? You mean that haircut length can differ between units without causing any interoperability issues? :)

 

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10 minutes ago, hkmaly said:
8 hours ago, mlooney said:

One exception to using metric is I used Horse Power vs Kilowatts for power per tonnes calculations., which technically is mixing systems but HP/Tonne is a standard ratio.

Well, megaton of TNT is not exactly SI either but pretty standard ... and of course, energy should be measured in grams, anything else is just adding unnecessary unit as if it would make the calculation work in different universe ...

Meh.  For some reason I have issues with using watts as a unit of power for any thing other than electrical systems.  Internal combustion engines are measured in horse power.

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27 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

and of course, energy should be measured in grams, anything else is just adding unnecessary unit as if it would make the calculation work in different universe ...

4 minutes ago, ijuin said:

E = m • c^2, therefore energy should be expressed as mass. 1 gram equals 90 trillion Joules.

Yes.

And that Power-per-weight thing should be converted to unit s-1 meaning how big part of it's mass the machine can use for usable work per second. Preferably, in scientific notation, as I don't think we have big enough SI prefixes.

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What I'd like to see is those silly miles or kilometers per hour replaced with nanos -- where one nano is one one-billionth of the speed of light. That would make the interstate speed limit around here about 97 nanos.

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6 hours ago, Haylo said:

What I'd like to see is those silly miles or kilometers per hour replaced with nanos -- where one nano is one one-billionth of the speed of light. That would make the interstate speed limit around here about 97 nanos.

Hmm. Might look into that.

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6 hours ago, Haylo said:

What I'd like to see is those silly miles or kilometers per hour replaced with nanos -- where one nano is one one-billionth of the speed of light. That would make the interstate speed limit around here about 97 nanos.

I'll stick with Parsecs per Kessel Run, thankyouverymuch

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14 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I'll stick with Parsecs per Kessel Run, thankyouverymuch

Ah, but the advantage of nanos is they don't have to be "per" anything. The speed of light is actually a dimensionless number (light seconds per second is just "light") so one nano-light is also dimensionless.

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On 3/27/2020 at 8:20 PM, hkmaly said:

Of course, even those are not necessary. Prayer should be just between you and the God anyway. Matthew 6:5.

My mom lived by that. I'm doing that now myself, not entirely by preference, but I find (many?) religious people toxic.

 

That's true, however is still mixing two totally independent things - religion and social life. Also, I would argue that church would be even worse for social life than theatre/cinema ... or did YOU ever saw groups of people discussing preaching in front of church?
(And, obviously, the best place for social life seem to be pub. Which is not exactly compatible with religion, unless you worship Dionysus.)

My PoV, religion being cultural, it is very much a social thing. Social standing is a motive for attendance, especially in old school churches (and mosques for sure; I don't know much about Islam, but I get that being a practicing one is not optional if your family is Moslem). It is a place to meet, more so before the invention of the automobile, but still significant. Many have social halls for social gathering and will host events; church suppers and such. Some have mild gambling in the form of weekly bingo, which is also seen as a fund raiser. And to alcohol, not all churches are hardcore against it; Roman Catholic priests drink alcohol, in fact the RC church has drying our enclaves for priests. My dad's ethnic Lutheran church had an associated club which was basically a pub. My last church has a coffee bar, which a Mormon temple would never have.

I am curious, do use 'pub' and 'bar' interchangeably? To my mind, they are primarily British and US terms for the same kind of place, but I get a nuance of 'pub' meaning 'neighborhood bar', and that a chain serving alcohol is not a pub, even if it calls itself one. 

Also, a restaurant can have a bar, which is a section of the restaurant, but a pub is the whole place. That's my experience in the US, I don't know if that is universal.

Google says pub is British usage, short for Public House, and serves food, tavern is a more of less equivalent American term, also servers food, and bars tend toward light appetizers only. Hmm, in my experience, bars all serve food, and many are pretty good at it, but the kitchen is less of a focus than the bar. Also, pubs and taverns tend towards beer and lighter alcoholic beverages, bars will have harder liquor and serve mixed drinks, although mostly neither is generally particularly exclusive. I have seen places, particularly attached to breweries and wineries, that specialize in whatever they make.

Saloon I've only heard in the context of American westerns, and a club has some sense of restrictive access; even if you don't have to be a member per se, you have to be the member of an eligible group. They might act like a bar and not turn you away, but that is not their purpose.

 

Well, I see IT all around as well. You know they are planning to use phone tracking data to find who the infected were in contact with? But I must admit, it's hard to see it in my tomatoes.

Oo! Tomato Webcam and phone accessible watering and shade controls!

 

Wait. Control systems? That's programming isn't it?

It's math, applied differential equations, and definitely predates the digital age. The governor on an engine is a simple example, and those date from the 1800s, no?

Analog computing was big in the 1940s, WW II era. "It's not exactly rocket science" is about this, keeping your rocket flying where you want it to go. Many early attempts were not particularly good at this.

Digital control systems emerged gradually, not really coming into it's own until the processors were small enough to embed. Late 1970s inot early 1980s is a turning point where it became mainstream. It has it's own special issues vs analog control; sample rate is a limiting factor to the response time.

I would say it overlaps with programming. You can write useful software without understanding control systems, but there are fields were that is not true. Device drivers; programs that react to conditions and make decisions, like buying and selling stock; thus also AI in general.

 

Definitely no. And I would rather convert to Pastafarianism than to eat that. Spaghetti I at least like.

When I was in my formative years, Italian restaurants were widespread throughout the Northeast US, long before chains like Olive Garden. I've had plenty of many kinds of pasta, and they can all be good in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. Gnocchi are more challenging, heavier than typical pasta, but I've had good gnocchi. I've even made it, but I wouldn't recommend mine. But I'm not much of a cook.

 

 

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18 hours ago, Haylo said:

What I'd like to see is those silly miles or kilometers per hour replaced with nanos -- where one nano is one one-billionth of the speed of light. That would make the interstate speed limit around here about 97 nanos.

Hell, no, Planck Units for everything!

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3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
22 hours ago, Haylo said:

What I'd like to see is those silly miles or kilometers per hour replaced with nanos -- where one nano is one one-billionth of the speed of light. That would make the interstate speed limit around here about 97 nanos.

Hell, no, Planck Units for everything!

Actually, speed of light IS planck unit for speed.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

My PoV, religion being cultural, it is very much a social thing. Social standing is a motive for attendance, especially in old school churches (and mosques for sure; I don't know much about Islam, but I get that being a practicing one is not optional if your family is Moslem). It is a place to meet, more so before the invention of the automobile, but still significant.

Of course.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Many have social halls for social gathering and will host events; church suppers and such. Some have mild gambling in the form of weekly bingo, which is also seen as a fund raiser.

I don't think Jesus would like to see gambling in church, even bingo.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Roman Catholic priests drink alcohol

Of course they do, it's part of mass.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

in fact the RC church has drying our enclaves for priests.

... I think they are doing it wrong if they need it :)

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

My dad's ethnic Lutheran church had an associated club which was basically a pub. My last church has a coffee bar, which a Mormon temple would never have.

I am curious, do use 'pub' and 'bar' interchangeably? To my mind, they are primarily British and US terms for the same kind of place, but I get a nuance of 'pub' meaning 'neighborhood bar', and that a chain serving alcohol is not a pub, even if it calls itself one. 

Also, a restaurant can have a bar, which is a section of the restaurant, but a pub is the whole place. That's my experience in the US, I don't know if that is universal.

Google says pub is British usage, short for Public House, and serves food, tavern is a more of less equivalent American term, also servers food, and bars tend toward light appetizers only. Hmm, in my experience, bars all serve food, and many are pretty good at it, but the kitchen is less of a focus than the bar. Also, pubs and taverns tend towards beer and lighter alcoholic beverages, bars will have harder liquor and serve mixed drinks, although mostly neither is generally particularly exclusive. I have seen places, particularly attached to breweries and wineries, that specialize in whatever they make.

Not interchangeably, but not with clear borders either - it is possible I call the same thing different names depending on context and/or mood if it "fits" both.

Although if I would focus on it I would agree with your "google" paragraph and with that point about bar possibly being just section. Also, you can have minibar which is basically fridge or other piece of furniture with alcohol ; you can't have minipub.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/28/2020 at 1:20 AM, hkmaly said:

Well, I see IT all around as well. You know they are planning to use phone tracking data to find who the infected were in contact with? But I must admit, it's hard to see it in my tomatoes.

Oo! Tomato Webcam and phone accessible watering and shade controls!

Yeah, exactly what I'm missing to see IT in my gardening.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
On 3/28/2020 at 1:20 AM, hkmaly said:

Wait. Control systems? That's programming isn't it?

It's math, applied differential equations, and definitely predates the digital age. The governor on an engine is a simple example, and those date from the 1800s, no?

So what? Babbage was already working on his computer in 1820 and first programs appeared no later than 1843.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Analog computing was big in the 1940s, WW II era. "It's not exactly rocket science" is about this, keeping your rocket flying where you want it to go. Many early attempts were not particularly good at this.

Digital control systems emerged gradually, not really coming into it's own until the processors were small enough to embed. Late 1970s inot early 1980s is a turning point where it became mainstream. It has it's own special issues vs analog control; sample rate is a limiting factor to the response time.

It's true that computers were not really practical until they started to use transistors.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I would say it overlaps with programming. You can write useful software without understanding control systems, but there are fields were that is not true. Device drivers; programs that react to conditions and make decisions, like buying and selling stock; thus also AI in general.

I would argue with that, but I also don't consider Windows useful software, so ...

You do realize that for example, all games are event-driven? Also, it's hard to avoid event-driven programming when doing anything with GUI.

4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

When I was in my formative years, Italian restaurants were widespread

When I was in my formative years, I've got something they called pizza and used ketchup. It made me avoid pizza for more than ten years, until I found out that in real pizza tomato sauce is used.

 

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