Pat @Pat@qoto.org

#cia #taiwan #U2 #spy #globophobia #weather
#caturday

The Black Cat Squadron was a secret spying project run out of Taiwan during the 60s into the mid 70s. It was run by the CIA using ROCAF pilots under the cover of a weather research unit of the Taiwanese Air force.

Most of the missions were flown over China using a small fleet of just two U2 spy planes. The US would replace the planes whenever they were shot down or crashed.

#solar #system #planet #astronomy #science #word

How do you pronounce Uranus?

@Zania_Stamataki

If you die, you'll never, ever get sick again.

@pwinn

>"...it seems bizarre that this is even allowed.

It's up to the board of directors and the stockholders. If the stockholders don't like it, they can sell the stock. If employees don't like it, they can work somewhere else.

I don't see why anyone who is not connected with the company in some way would even care.

@garumph

Yeah, this is definitely a tongue-in-cheek poll. I think this would be a good poll to sort out science vs. non-science folks.

I wonder how journalists would do with this one. I bet most of them would pick the wrong answer. 😆

#nasa #space #quiz #saturn #rocket #ship #lander #esa

We've never landed a spacecraft on Saturn because:

Just did a search and turns out there are a couple of them already out there. A dentist in MA goes by Trans-N-Dental, LLC. And another dentist in MA named Dr. Quon Tran calls his practice Trans Dental Care.

(Not sure if they offer hormone therapy, though. 🙂 )

#joke #pun #lgbt #lgbtq #dentist #trans

I'm going to open a new practice and offer hormone therapy and teeth cleaning.

I'm calling it Trans and Dental.

Warning: This is just a metaphor. If you actually try this with your kid, make sure you watch them closely because the strings of balloons could harm the baby.

#globophobia

Parental tip #42:

How to keep your baby distracted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4nVDQ8Rl2M

@admitsWrongIfProven

>"Anything that can be eluded by personal choice is lower priority."

If someone does not know they have a choice or is prevented from knowing what the choices are, or is intentionally provided misinformation, or is the target of psychological techniques such as distraction, then that's a problem.

@ImperfectIdea @tripu

@ImperfectIdea

>"Where do you draw the line?"

That's the $64,000 question. I'm not sure where the line is, but I'm not sure that eventually finding that line is impossible, either.

@admitsWrongIfProven @tripu

@tripu

>" am very, very reluctanct to ban anything like that, my default being to err on the side of freedom for consenting adults to do whatever they please."

Not long ago, I had that exact same position. Let people make their own choices. But I've begun to evolve that position.

If someone with better information, experience, or intelligence knowingly leads someone else to harm themselves, then they are responsible for that harm.

E.g., there is a glass of Koolaid on the table and I know that a third party has put poison in the Koolaid. Another person walks in and I tell them, "Here's some Koolaid for you, drink up."

That's a crime. Many of these situations are like that. They may even disclose that there is poison in the Koolaid, but then dismiss the danger and show many other people drinking it and gaining fame and fortune or whatever, or using other psychological techniques to get them to drink it anyway.

Case #2: Drugs. Everyone knows that smoking tobacco will harm you. Yet millions of people around the world still smoke their first cigarette each year. Why? Because other people with more experience, knowledge and skill use a combination of psychological techniques to trick those naive people into harming themselves.

There are many other analogies along the lines of someone with superior information or experience who can lead others into harming themselves.

@admitsWrongIfProven

@peterdrake @htdrake

No Clue.

@Kihbernetics

Use a modified Turing Test with specific questions designed to assess thought processes, like psychological examinations.

Then make sure the AI is never exposed to those questions or their antecedents during training.

Then when you ask those questions after training, you will be able assess whether the AI is actually sentient or not.

I forgot to mention that Tom Keene was in this film. Keene was a well known film and TV star who did mostly Westerns. This was his last film. He and Talbot gave the best performances in this film, in my opinion.

@krrw

That doesn't make sense.

-

Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)

How did this stupid film become the greatest science fiction cult classic ever? Who knows. This is Ed Wood’s magnum opus. Written and shot in a month, on a budget of $60k.

Here are a couple of excerpts from Wikipedia, “...his ideas tended to be too expensive to film, yet he tried to film them anyway.” and “[Wood’s films were] notable for their campy aesthetics, technical errors, unsophisticated special effects, use of poorly-matched (sic) stock footage, eccentric casts, idiosyncratic stories and non sequitur dialogue...”

Filmed in the San Fernando Valley, north of Hollywood, the movie contains many shots of historical interest from the area, including Tor Johnson’s house where Bela Lugosi did some unrelated test scenes before his death which were later worked into the film as his “last performance”. (Johnson was a professional wrestler and friend of Wood.)

Wood continued to make low-budget sensational films in the Valley, later shifting to porn in the late 1960s because they made more money. His productions were at the start of the boom in the porn industry in the San Fernando Valley, where 90% of porn films were make from the 60s through the 90s. (The industry declined significantly at the beginning of the 21th century due to the Internet.)

The film also starred Gregory Walcott, Bela Lugosi, Maila Nurmi, Tor Johnson, Lyle Talbot and Criswell.

The title was inspiration for the UNIX-like OS, Plan 9 from Bell Labs.

A biopic of Wood’s career was later produced, Ed Wood (1994), starring Johnny Deep as Wood and Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi.That biopic covers his productions from Glen or Glenda (1953) to Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). The former was about transvestism -- Wood himself was a cross dresser and many of his friends were in the LGBTQ community.

(View this film at: https://video.qoto.org/videos/watch/21371376-a49f-499e-acb8-af232c0dea8e )

#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #sfftw #film #movie #SanFernandoValley #LowBudget #vampires #horror #GraveRobbers #plan9 #lgbtq #lgbt #vitamins #Criswell

@admitsWrongIfProven @tripu

I think paying or encouraging someone to do things that cause severe injury should be a crime. This shit and boxing and American football should not exist.

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-02-09/in-autopsy-study-over-90-of-former-nfl-players-showed-signs-of-brain-disease-cte