2024-01-31
Weird Facts About Filming The Wizard of Oz #shorts
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P7zti3oz2VE
According to an inflation calculator, $50 in 1939 is worth $1,082.16 in 2024.
2024-01-30
2024-01-26
Chinese create COVID-19 strain kills 100% of infected humanized mice
This should be illegal.
Maybe the reason we don't find evidence of extraterrestrials is that advanced civilizations inevitably wipe themselves out. Maybe the temptation to open Pandora's box is too strong.
2024-01-25
2024-01-24
A scientific view of the greenhouse effect
Why do some molecules absorb infrared radiation and not others? What is the mechanism for absorbing infrared radiation?
Some molecules are very stable in their electron configuration, so they don't absorb photons because it would take too much energy to knock an electron out of its normal orbit. This is why glass is transparent when other materials are not.
The CO2 molecule can bend and twist making its electrons more exposed to photons. When an infrared photon hits it correctly, the energy of the photon is absorbed which knocks one of the electrons to a higher orbit. This is not the preferred state of the electron, so three nanoseconds later the electron falls back to its ground state. However, it has to give up the energy it absorbed, so it emits an infrared photon. Because of the random nature of quantum physics, the infrared photon is emitted in a random direction. So the primary effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is to take infrared photons that were traveling up and away from the Earth and send some of them back down. CO2 is very good at scattering infrared radiation.
The direct effect of CO2 in warming the atmosphere is not huge. Climate Alarmism depends upon as-of-yet unproven positive feedback models. There are many feedbacks positive and negative, and these are not fully understood. Climate scientists admit that they do not yet fully know how to factor in the feedback from clouds, and there is widespread disagreement over clouds. The alarmists are claiming positive feedback while the skeptics are claiming negative feedback.
2024-01-23
2024-01-22
2024-01-21
2024-01-20
How Benjamin Netanyahu Relies on Hamas
@john2001plus
0 seconds ago
You start the video by saying that this will not be a complete history, but it is so lacking from the real history that it is very misleading. Historically, there was always some Jewish population with a larger Arab population. Palestine was sparsely populated until the Jews prospered there. In response to the prosperity, a great many Arabs came to the area from Egypt. In 1960, Yasser Arafat created the myth that there was a large prosperous Arab population going back centuries with the identity of Palestinian. This is not true.
This follows the liberal idea that the more powerful side must be at fault. Israel is not even remotely at fault. Every cited Israel aggression has been a response to Arab aggression. The deaths in Gaza are a result of Hamas terrorism and the way they hide behind civilians.
The documents creating the nation of Israel offered peaceful coexistence to the Arabs. The Arabs had multiple chances for peace but rejected every single one because they could not live in peace with their neighbors. They have a religious belief that Jews are pigs and must be slaughtered. There would be peace in the Middle East today if the Arabs did not want to exterminate the Jews, which they openly say that they want to do. They teach their children songs about killing Jews.
2024-01-19
2024-01-18
Sugar Alcohols Ruined My Health: Learn from My Mistakes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5v61YtDYo4
I haven't noticed sugar-alcohols in very many products. I have occasionally bought no-sugar-added pies that contain sugar-alcohols, and they give me gas, but as long as I eat them in moderation, I am fine. Too much can have a laxative effect.
Lunar Lander Beyond - Cinematic Trailer | PS5 & PS4 Games
Take a 1979 video game, which I have on Arcade1up, and remake it…
https://youtu.be/rz9M1QMZPsY?si=NtF7O5LiboPnOI6i
It appears to be 2D. I would associate something like this with homebrew. It reminds me of Gravitar.
I think that they are trying to turn Lunar Lander into a franchise. Maybe this will lead to a movie.
Instead, how about a 3D Lunar Mission Simulator with authentic controls?
Best wishes,
John Coffey
https://youtu.be/rz9M1QMZPsY?si=NtF7O5LiboPnOI6i
It appears to be 2D. I would associate something like this with homebrew. It reminds me of Gravitar.
I think that they are trying to turn Lunar Lander into a franchise. Maybe this will lead to a movie.
Instead, how about a 3D Lunar Mission Simulator with authentic controls?
Best wishes,
John Coffey
2024-01-17
Giant Structure Found Lurking in Deep Space Challenges Understanding of The Universe
We are not seeing these structures edge on, but perpendicular to our line of sight. They are facing us. That is a remarkable coincidence, although there could be many structures like this that are at a different angle and we don't see as clearly.
Houti's slogan
To understand the Houthis' goals, it is worth taking seriously what they themselves say they want. Since about 2003, the Houthis' sarkha—their motto, usually printed in green and red—echoes the slogan of revolutionary Iran and proclaims Houthi values and aims in no uncertain terms: "God is great, death to America, death to Israel, a curse on the Jews, victory to Islam." In their public statements, Houthi leaders have repeatedly framed their current attacks as a response to Israeli operations in Gaza. Their intent, they say, is to pressure Israel to de-escalate its war against Hamas.
2024-01-16
2024-01-14
2024-01-13
Why We Need Socialism
0 seconds ago
Socialism means denying people the right to own the means of production. It takes away property rights. It is tyranny.
If there was any question about the true motives of the Climate Alarmists, it becomes obvious when they call for Socialism as the solution to Catastrophic Climate Change. Not only is Socialism in practice not climate-friendly, but Climate Alarmism has been exaggerated way beyond reality to promote Socialism. Since the 1960s, the power-hungry extreme left has engaged in a divide-and-conquer strategy by promoting non-problems. Any time somebody objects to this nonsense, they scream loudly until people shut up. They might achieve policies that most people don't want through intimidation.
2024-01-12
WARNING: ChatGPT Could Be The Start Of The End! Sam Harris
Sam Harris spends 30 minutes talking about the dangers of AI.
He makes assumptions about the future. I think that he underestimates the difficulty of building a general AI.
I think that ChatGPT is overhyped. It is like a Wikipedia that can talk. It has no understanding except to predict what words should follow other words based on statistical information. This is why it gets so much wrong. I asked it to write some computer code and the answer wasn't even remotely correct.
We will inevitably develop general AI, but AI is a tool to solve specific problems. We don't have to make an AI that matches human intelligence when it is more efficient to have problem-specific AI. Calculators can do math far better than I can, and even the best 8-bit chess computers can outplay me at chess. It would be like saying that when we developed mechanical locomotion, we needed to make a machine that functioned exactly like a horse. We found better ways to do locomotion.
This means that AI will be solving problems long before we have a general AI, but more importantly, we will be treating it as a tool, just like any other tool. For example, twenty years ago I was annoyed when Microsoft Word automatically corrected my spelling without asking me. It felt like the machines were already becoming smarter than us. Although that was a novel experience twenty years ago, we wouldn't think twice about it today.
2024-01-11
2024-01-10
Why did Kids Stop Walking to School?
For most of my school years, I walked to school. During High School, I had to take a bus, but if the weather was pleasant, on rare occasions I would walk the mile and a half home just because I liked to walk in good weather.
2024-01-09
Iconic Black Hole Pioneer Disproves The Existence of Singularities
A singularity is a large star that has collapsed down to zero volume. I have always thought that this would be impossible, and many physicists have also questioned it. It means that if we calculate the density we would get a divide by zero error, or infinite density. I think that infinite anything is absurd.
Last year I heard about a new model of physics that as a side note claimed that matter has a maximum density, which means that if true then Black Holes do not have zero volume. The problem with this is that we might need another force that we don't know about yet to enforce this maximum density. We also don't have a good way to test this, and we may never really know what happens inside a Black Hole.
I heard one idea which is that as a star collapses to almost zero volume, gravity would trend toward infinite strength because gravity is inverse to distance, which means theat time dilation also would trend toward infinite. This means that collapse would never finish because time local to the singularity would almost stop.
There was another theory from last year that Black Holes consume matter but emit Dark Energy, which would explain the accelerating expansion of the Universe. However, the current theory is that Dark Energy is simply a property of empty space.
2024-01-08
Massive Outbreak, more and more people pass away suddenly/Even CCP feels too difficult to cover up
Many pandemics have originated in China due to high population and crowding, along with proximity to bats and other wildlife.
The Most Dangerous Moment: A Debate on America’s Role in the Pacific | Uncommon Knowledge
There are two mindsets on military spending, and I could go either way because I don't know which approach is best for our country.
After World War II, the United States benefited from being the only country that hadn't had its industrial base destroyed by war. This allowed us to be the dominant world power for decades, but this is no longer true.
Thomas Jefferson said that the United States should not get involved in foreign entanglements. This was at a time when the United States was mostly an agrarian society and not a major world power. Yet, Thomas Jefferson sent the U.S. military, with the help of Sweden, to defeat the Barbary pirates who were attacking and enslaving Europeans and Americans.
Just like in 1801, we still need to defend maritime freedom.
There is a precedent here that outside forces have always attacked the United States. Although there were some wars that we didn't need to be involved in, there were others where we had to defend ourselves.
I do not think the war in Ukraine is in any way in the national interest of the United States. The rationale for this war is that we need to contain Putin, but I have to wonder why that is our problem. It is Europe's problem. It makes very little difference to the United States' interest who rules Ukraine. This is a case of the United States trying to be the global policeman, at the expense of the taxpayers.
We are spending around $150 billion on this war, which is about $1,000 for every tax paper, and there is no end in sight. This is a cost we do not see right away because we are going deeply into debt to spend excessively, but eventually, the bills will come due and we will be poorer because of it. Had we done nothing, or negotiated a settlement, every taxpayer would have been a thousand dollars less poor. This means that we would be stronger as a nation over the long term, and a stronger nation is better able to defend itself in a crisis.
It is because of debt that we can engage in policies that otherwise would seem too costly.
I considered it a fantasy that Ukraine could win a war against a much more powerful Russia, although it is less clear now. Ultimately, Ukraine will have to make concessions for peace, which could have been achieved a couple of years ago, but the United States insisted that Ukraine try to regain the territory it lost. The United States policy is intended to punish Putin, but this is a case of us thinking that we should solve every problem on the planet.
Likewise, we spent $120 billion in 1990 to defend Kuwait from Iraq. This was also about $1,000 per taxpayer, but that is equivalent to $2,300 in today's money. Technically, we are still paying for this. The rationales were that we should stand up to aggression and that we shouldn't let Iraq control the oil in Kuwait. However, the aggression wasn't against us, we were defending one dictatorship against another, and it would make very little difference in the global oil market who controlled the oil wells.
We spent $758 billion on the second Iraq war.
The same kind of thinking is making war with China almost inevitable over Taiwan. The rationales are that we should defend freedom, and Tawaiin is the world's biggest producer of the best microchips. However, the microchip problem is one that we can solve with relatively modest investment. If China conquers Taiwain, the country will still have to sell microchips, although they could limit who they sell chips to.
It is my belief supported by history that dictatorships and communist nations eventually collapse from their inherent inefficiency. China has done a great job of becoming militarily, economically, and technologically more powerful, but it is also fraught with problems due to bad economic policies. Most Chinese are still very poor. China has prospered only because of free trade and the United States is a major buyer of Chinese manufactured goods. This is a problem we can solve. We have this problem because of complacency. If we view China as a threat, we should shift trade to other countries, which would diminish China's power. We could impose tariffs until China agrees to be less belligerent. We should encourage other countries to do the same. This might be costly in the short run, but it would be far better than going into another world war.
2024-01-07
2024-01-06
2024-01-05
xkcd: Earth Temperature Timeline
https://xkcd.com/1732/
For the last 40 million years, atmospheric CO2 has been in sharp decline. Because of this, the climate for the last million years was very cold and dominated by mass glaciation. Technically, we are still in the Pleistocene ice age which started 2.6 million years ago.
Due to changes in Earth's orbit, called Milankovich cycles, we get a brief warm period every 100,000 years, lasting just 10,000 to 15,000 years. We are at the tail end of one of these warm periods.
The Earth is halfway between its maximum tilt 12,000 years ago, which melts glaciers, and its minimum tilt which allows glaciers to grow.
All of civilization arose during this brief warm period. The YouTube site, Kurzgesagt, refers to now as year 12,024 of the human era.
2024-01-03
The problems that plague us
The most recent attacks on different countries are the kind of thing that could trigger World War III. Retaliation could bring escalation; the next thing you know, a dozen countries are at war.
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