Pat @Pat@qoto.org

@stux

The gram is a unit of measure for mass, which is the same whether the item in on Earth or in space or anywhere else.

Weight, or how heavy something is, is how much force it pushes down when it is on Earth (or another planet). A balloon filled with helium could have a mass of one kilogram, but weigh nothing because it is buoyant in air -- the air it displaces weighs more than the balloon.

The lead displaces less volume of air than the feathers, so the lead is less buoyant than the feathers. Since the feathers are more buoyant (even though they are still heaver than the air they displace), they will push down toward the Earth with less force, so they will weight less.

So the correct answer is one kilogram of lead is heavier.

@stux

This is very sad. That work could easily be automated so people would not have to suffer those harsh conditions.

Those poor donkeys were also being forced into labor. They should be allowed to roam free in the field and graze at their leisure.

Unfortunately this happens all over the world. The Uyghurs in China are forced into labor and in the United States undocumented immigrants are forced to harvest food crops and treated unfairly for fear that they will be deported as undocumented immigrants.

@lurker

>"It's really weird to me seeing people coming in from Twitter and saying they'll block all suspected republicans.... Feels like a really low bar"

That's what a Republican would say. (sarcasm)

@garyackerman

Depends on the research.

@peterdrake

That's the fun of working with computers. When you start work on a four minute project, you never know how long it will take.

@peterdrake

UTF or a control character. Use a hex dump check.

@Deglassco

At this point I don't see any value in listening to a single word that any politician has to say.

I will just communicate to my representatives what I want from government. Then come election time, if they didn't do it, then they don't give my vote. That's it.

Everything else is irrelevant in electoral politics.

@TruthSandwich

Also, the guy behind the wheel isn’t a “pilot”, she’s a driver.

@freemo

I think you should wear your flak gear even if your coworkers give you looks.

@SteelFolk

@Deglassco

>"New media is just as problematic."

I don't see how.

Old media is entirely under plutocratic control whereas with new media some sites are run by billionaires while others are run by hobbyists. So there's more diversity, less censorship, and more choice. It's more democratic.

@nathaliaassaad

@Kihbernetics

I thought that consultants were hired to give management a way to lend an air of credibility to their own ideas, and to have someone to blame when things go wrong.

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Dog whistling lets people "claim that anyone says anything because you can easily hear the alleged dogwhistles that aren't in the actual literal contents of what the person says".

-- Steve Pinker, Reason Magazine, Jul 10, 2020

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Fun Fact

Did you know that when someone uses the word "dog whistle", they may not be talking about an actual dog whistle?

#DogWhistle #Pol #dog #whistle #whisper #coded #meta #SelfReferential

@nathaliaassaad @Deglassco

Why anyone continues to watch old media is beyond me, especially when they promote the worst of humanity.

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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

The Outer Limits, “The Sixth Finger” (Oct. 1963)

I think everyone's familiar with the Outer Limits, the science fiction television series in the 1960s. This series is required viewing if you want to study the 1960s because many of the plots were metaphors for societal problems of the times.

In another thread someone mentioned the meme about AI art mis-drawing hands with six fingers and it reminded me of this episode, which itself, speculates about super intelligence.

As with most sci-fi at the time, a lot of the science facts in this show are wrong, but the philosophical examination isn't far off. The machine that the scientist uses in the film and the premise is really just there to provide a platform to think about what it would be like to have an intelligence that was so far beyond current human capabilities.

I highly recommend this one.

(Note: Some copies of The Outer Limits that are on streaming services have spoilers right at the top of video, so you might want to skip the opening segment.)

- - - -
#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #film #movie #AI #evolution #chimpanzee #intelligence #the1960s #utterly #smart #halfsmart #tuppence

- - - -

accessible video description:
the video shows an shortened version of The Outer Limits introduction; then it shows a young woman walking into a laboratory and talking with the scientist in the laboratory; then it shows the same woman in a pub with a young man who is filthy from working in a coal mine and the woman’s mean sister tells her to deliver another loaf of bread; then it shows a scientist controlling a lever pushing it toward the position marked “forward” and the man is inside a chamber, he is all clean, but he is affected by the machine somehow; then the scientist opens the door and the man is covering his face with his arms so the audience can't see what he looks like and a scientist looks at him astonishingly and it fades out.

(fair use, unauthorized trailer)

@dclr42

More than a thousand people died today from COVID-19.

@cweickhmann

Well go ahead, the pandemic is still going... thousands die every day.