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Comment So people reject reality and substitute their own (Score 1) 158

The entire reason we have a philosophy of science and peer-review and the null hypothesis, is this. Reality doesn't conform to your beliefs. If it did, people could wish shit into existence. Wish in one hand and shit in the other. Which fills up first?

Senses are fallible, too. Setup 3 buckets of water with cold, lukewarm, and hot water. Stick your hands in the cold and the hot water. Wait 5-10 minutes. Put both hands in the lukewarm water. Your hands will *NOT* report the same temperature. These people need to learn, not be lied to.

Additionally, the title is misleading. You don't lie to people when you want to express the truth. You tell them the truth. That they reject the truth indicates they lack critical thinking skills. Teach them.

I don't think lying to the gullible is a solution. Indeed, the article supports this: "Philosopher Byron Hyde and author of the study suggests that public trust could be improved not by sugarcoating reality, but by educating people to expect imperfection and understand how science actually works."

How is that proposing lying to the people who lack mental tools? The title is straight up misleading.

Teach them. Engage with them. Some might be incapable, but that does NOT support that they should be lied to. This is terrible reporting.

Comment Re:Same "pilot" problem crashed the 737 Max's (Score 1) 248

You missed the part where all pilots were qualified to fly the 737 MAX according to Boeing. Well, Boeing lied.

This cannot be emphasized enough: Boeing lied.

I do not remember all the details right now. But in order to fit a larger engine with enough ground clearance, they had to change its thrust angle slightly. They told the FAA there were no changes that pilots needed to know about or retrain for. They lied, to airlines, to the FAA and to the public. The two crashes were due to pilots not knowing about the changes.

Comment A poem by Howard Nemerov (Score 1, Interesting) 112

        Because I am drunk, this Independence Night,
        I watch the fireworks from far away,
        from a high hill, across the moony green
        Of lakes and other hills to the town harbor,
        Where stately illuminations are flung aloft,
        One light shattering in a hundred lights
        Minute by minute. The reason I am crying,
        Aside from only being country drunk,
        That is, may be that I have just remembered
        The sparklers, rockets, roman candles and
        so on, we used to be allowed to buy
        When I was a boy, and set off by ourselves
        At some peril to life and property.
        Our freedom to abuse our freedom thus
        Has since, I understand, been remedied
        By legislation. Now the authorities
        Arrange a perfectly safe public display
        To be watched at a distance; and now also
        The contribution of all the taxpayers
        Together makes a more spectacular
        Result than any could achieve alone
        (A few pale pinwheels, or a firecracker
        Fused at the dog's tail). It is, indeed, splendid:
        Showers of roses in the sky, fountains
        Of emeralds, and those profusely scattered zircons
        Falling and falling, flowering as they fall
        And followed distantly by a noise of thunder.
        My eyes are half-afloat in happy tears.
        God bless our Nation on a night like this,
        And bless the careful and secure officials
        Who celebrate our independence now.

Comment Air India's "Perfect" Flight Record. (Score 1) 108

Hi. I think you are confused.

Air India crashes/fatalities:
* Air India Flight 101 CONTROLLED FLIGHT INTO TERRAIN -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
* Air India Flight 855 PILOT ERROR -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

What does the word perfect mean to you? Those are crashes. People died.

We can even add:
* Air India Flight 182 BOMBING -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Though that's also on the staff at the airport doing security screenings.

Comment Re:Did anyone do the math? (Score 2) 79

I wonder if anyone has ever done studies of ad effectiveness vs frequency. If they had half the ads which were twice as effective, they could charge twice as much and have the same revenue and happier customers. There must be some sort of Laffer curve. No ads == no revenue but more watchers. 100% ads == no watchers and no revenue. Where is the sweet spot? Some old TV shows were 55 minutes long with 5 minutes of ads, then they switched to 50 minutes and 10 minutes, so they have to chop out 5 minutes to syndicate them.

I bet the broadcasters have done the studies, and 10 minutes must produce more revenue, but I'd really like to see those studies.

Comment Bait and switch (Score 1) 79

When they first bundled video with Prime, I figured it wouldn't be too long before it went south. It did. Series would include the first season only, they dropped a few I was in the middle of watching, they shifted some shows to Britbox and others which had been included.

Then they announced the ads, and I stopped watching. You're going to charge me for something I didn't ask for and can't get a reduction for not using, AND you're going to interrupt it with ads? No thanks. Stopped watching. Well, I was probably watching only one or two shows a week.

But it still annoys me that I'm paying for something I don't want which is supported by ads. I've been watching how much free shipping I get and comparing to Walmart and others. It's close enough that one more screwup and I might dump Prime.

Comment Re:There are many ways to touch type (Score 2) 191

I wouldn't be surprised if the multiplicity of keyboards does contribute. I learned in keypunch days, on cards, and they all had the same keyboards. Probably the first 10 or 20 years after were on desktop machines with builtin keyboards and they were all the same, or PCs where I could supply my own keyboards. Then came the world of laptops. It seems like every one has a different feel and different layouts for functions keys, numeric keypad, and CTRL/SHIFT etc. Right now, I have several laptops, all from the same manufacturer, and yet they have annoying little differences (half size arrow keys vs full size, ESC and ~/` subtly different) which always slow me down when switching. I could plug in my own keyboard, but then they wouldn't be laptops any more, and I'd probably have to buy a dozen keyboards before finding one I liked.

Comment There are many ways to touch type (Score 2) 191

I never took a class, I don't follow any particular pattern. Someone told me my fingers look like a spider crawling over the keyboard. But I don't watch my fingers, so far as I'm concerned, I do touch type.

And it does come with experience. The more you type, the more your fingers know where the keys are and you look less and less.

If you want to take a class to touch type, go ahead. But I would not call it necessary. Just type, and the more you do, the more you learn, like anything else.

Comment Re:BETTER Mitigation (Score 1) 66

Non-systemd Debian and more and more Devuan here. This is not a high criticality vulnerability, but, after the sshd near-disaster, the second time not running systemd proves to be the right decision.

I can't hear "Debian" and "sshd" and "disaster" in the same sentence without thinking of https://research.swtch.com/ope... (the OpenSSL bug from September 2006). It really took me a minute to realize you were talking about the xz-utils attack.

Comment Re:We're headed for Venus, but still we stand stro (Score 1) 66

To be extra clear, here: titanium melts around 1,900 kelvin. The temperature of re-entry is 3,200 kelvin. Yes, 3,200 kelvin is "below" the temperature required to make titanium boil (by 300 kelvin), but you'll note that the 1,900 is 3,200 by 1,300.

Who honestly thinks titanium that's been heated to 'just below' its boiling point for half an hour, will be somehow intact once it's slow enough to not self-generate plasma due to atmospheric drag?

Ridiculous.

Comment Re:We're headed for Venus, but still we stand stro (Score 1) 66

How does a thing that isn't water, 'water in the ocean'? What? A thing can't water. The only thing that is water, is H2O.

Also, no -- it will not survive atmospheric re-entry. The atmosphere see to that. The heat of re-entry exceeds the temperature of Venus by *THOUSANDS OF DEGREES*.... It will not survive in 1 piece. This isn't a matter of atmospheric pressure, nor is this a matter of G-shock. It's plasma; it'll be in an envelope of super-heated plasma. Why do you think they can't use the radios on the Shuttle during re-entry? High energy plasma -- at THOUSANDS OF DEGREES.... Sheesh.

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