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The truth is...

It's impossible to write a program in Pascal that will loop forever.





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TruthBeTold = A statement that is logically or literally true (or partly true), but seems to imply something that isn't true or is just plain weird. (for rhetoric, logic or propaganda studies... or just for fun)

pic credit: I.hidekazu

No one has ever dug a hole in the ground.



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TruthBeTold = A statement that is logically or literally true (or partly true), but seems to imply something that isn't true or is just plain weird. (for rhetoric, logic or propaganda studies... or just for fun)
pic Attribution: Hänsel und Gretel

You have a volleyball without defects. You poke a hole in it. How many holes does it have in it? (excluding the fill valve - assume there is no fill valve)

Why on Earth would anyone go to a movie theater in the middle of a pandemic?????

There is no interaction between the people other than that they are all breathing the same air.

If there is anything that could be done online just as well as in person, it's watching a damn movie!


In the US, more people have died from COVID-19 since the vaccines have been available than died from COVID-19 before the vaccines were available.

Respirators actually work.

Germany and Austria required FFP2 respirators and had a mostly flat death-rate this year.

The CCD in the US told people to take their masks off and the death rate soared.

Originally published Nov 3, 2019...
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The truth is...

Little Miss Muffet had no idea what a "tuffet" was even though the term was used in her eponymous nursery rhyme to describe her posture.

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TruthBeTold = A statement that is logically or literally true (or partly true), but seems to imply something that isn't true or is just plain weird. (for rhetoric, logic or propaganda studies... or just for fun)

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The truth is...

When doing building inspections, fire marshals often overlook the use of flint as a building material.

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TruthBeTold = A statement that is logically or literally true (or partly true), but seems to imply something that isn't true or is just plain weird. (for rhetoric, logic or propaganda studies... or just for fun)

Here I sit, broken hearted,
Tried to shit, but only farted.

Could be worse, you must admit,
than if you try to fart and instead you shit.


Do Cracker Jacks still include a decoder ring?

Here's another scene from "Moneyball" showing the protagonist (right) and a black actor playing a bit part. Notice how the white guy is in the foreground, closer to the camera, while the black guy is back, away from the camera, resulting a smaller image of his face.

Also, the white guy is smiling while the black guy is frowning.

In this scene the black guy repeatedly contradicts the white protagonist.

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Based on another thread discussion about racial bias in film (qoto.org/@tripu/10712881255342), here's a peudo-random list of ten films to critique regarding how they treat black actors/characters.

Lion (2016)
Logan (2017)
Looper (2012)
Mad Max:Fury Road (2015)
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Moneyball (2011)
Moonlight (2016)
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Of those on the list that I hadn't seen yet, only Lion and Moneyball are available for free (that I could find). Lion is about a guy's journey back to his family in India. In a quick scan of the film, I didn't see any black people, mostly Indian actors, Nicole Kidman and another white guy.

**** Spoilers *****
I watched Moneyball and it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. It's extremely biased against black people. It's a film about baseball. In real life there are a lot of black people in baseball, but in this film the screen is nearly always filled with white faces. There are only a few bit parts by black actors in this dialogue-heavy film and one other black character (small part), a player who got about a dozen lines -- mostly negative and largely in opposition to the protagonist.

The first black actor with lines didn't come until more than a half-hour into the film. In the scene, he was the only black person in a room with about a dozen other white guys. He has a couple of lines and was questioning/opposing the protagonist. The next black bit part had 2-3 lines and again contradicted the protagonist. Later, when the black character/player is being interviewed by a reporter, she interrupts him as he begins to speak. The reporter says, "Excuse me. Could you please get out of my shot.", (speaking to a random extra who was placed into the scene specifically for the reporter to utter that negative line). And there were a couple more bit parts, again same negative tone.

When the team wins its triumphant record-breaking game, it was a white guy who hit the home run, but when the team suffers its crushing loss, it was a black guy who hit the pop fly for the game-losing out.

This is what I talking about -- the racial bias in film. These films are not outliers, they're typical. I'm sure we'd see the same sort of thing in other films in that random list.

Here's a frame from "Moneyball", showing a black man blurred out while the white guy is in focus:

-Vietnam veteran
-Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command
-First black National Security Advisor
-Four-star general
-First black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
-First black Secretary of State
-Chairman of America's Promise Alliance
-Board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations
as well as the boards of private companies

-Served in three presidential administrations:
Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush

-Presidential Medal of Freedom (twice)
-Congressional Gold Medal
-Presidential Citizens Medal
-Secretary of State Distinguished Service Medal
among dozens of other government and civil medals and awards

-Author of the "Powell Doctrine"
-Oversaw the successful liberation of Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm
as well as more than two dozen other national crises

-Husband and father


If I hear another person ignorantly parrot the phrase, "We're not a democracy, we're a republic!", I think I'll puke.

Democracy has many forms. The form of democracy we have in the US is a representative democracy. Because it is not a monarchy, it is also a republic. (A republic is a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who is accountable to the public.)

**** "Democracy" and "republic" are not mutually exclusive. ****

Here's Merriam-Webster's current definition of democracy:

"a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"

Here's an image of the definition from Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1785, at the time when our country was formed:

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Without using any reference material (no internet, books, etc.), explain florescence in detail.

What's wrong with this picture?

This is a frame from the movie "Exodus: Gods and Kings"

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