kalkulat @ kalkulat @lemmy.world

Background in hard sciences, computing (FOSS), electronics, music, Zen.

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Joined

2 yr. ago

In 1738 the Pope forbid all Catholics from joining a Masonic lodge (open to men of any religion, and secretive, no doubt to avoid Inquisition), and called them 'depraved and perverted' (unlike the Church, of course). No doubt the faithful kept the rumor-mills turning.

"Lack of respect, wrong attitude, failure to obey authority. The Farm, immediately. - death sentence in Ellison's book 'A Boy and His Dog'

Might as well throw some Terminator and 'The Machine Stops' in there.

Posts like this show that not everyone understands what science is, though that doesn't stop them. Sometimes just having one downvote isn't enough.

Why does the brain need billions of neurons to process 10 bits/s? The stark contrast between these numbers remains unexplained...

Not so much. The stark contrast is the result of a set of stupid premises.

our sensory systems gather data at ∼1⁢0^9 bits/s.

Even In the 'machine model' of the brain this article appears to espouse ... vastly simplistic as it is ... the brain processes 10^9 bits of vision, audio, and kinetic clues which usually results in a limited but highly appropriate response ... often in much less than a second ... to gymnastic moves or crossing a busy street, driving a jet, performing on a violin, whatever. That response quickly arrives as the result of a model built on long experience of actual reality.

The authors fail to come up with -any- source (credible or not) for that ridiculous 10 bits/s number. Their model is so simplistic it isn't even worth engaging with.

Everyone in the world is continually exposed to background radiation. That level has gone up considerably since the US began testing atom bombs in the atmosphere. The current AVERAGE level in THE WORLD is about 3 millisieverts per year. In the US it averages about 6 mSv per year (depending on where you live; it might be much higher.)

By comparison, these days: One chest x-ray delivers 20 μSv = .02 mSv. On the other hand, one CT scan delivers from 1 to 20 mSv.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation

There was some green and yellow 'depressionware' that had uranium, with some slightly radioactive. The kinds of doses involved are in this article;

https://www.mychemicalfreehouse.net/2022/05/is-depression-glass-safe-to-use-some-contains-toxic-metals.html

One of the early pros working with radioactivity was Marie Curie. She died of aplastic anemia in 1934. Her research notes are still radioactive. Her lab was said to be radioactive as well, yet it was not decontaminated until 1991.

https://www.openculture.com/2023/11/marie-curies-research-papers-are-still-radioactive-a-century-later.html

I tried the brick once long ago. 1) No way to verif it works (not just PO's the P.O. 2) That kind of shit may be why so many public POBoxes have been removed. 3) The was of paper (up to 3.5 oz?) -seems- to have worked.

There was when the magazines were struggling to survive. They found they could publish stories for hardcore fans AND for the general public. The success of that tactic meant that a lot of great writers could pay their bills and keep writing ... instead of a few.

Same story with films and TV series.

Good stuff!! I might have missed the thermistor part.

By calling them names, then getting on with the obvious...

I'm so with you on this. Only much moreso. WITF would I EVER want to use stupid little computer where you have to type with your THUMBS? And costs TWICE as much as a great desktop?

"Portability" they say. Hell I went out-of-house to AVOID phonecalls, to live in the material world, not to walk down the street looking in the direction of my toes, missing everything going on around me, talking to invisible people. Pathetic.

+1 just for mentioning Bukowsky ... he is WAY underrepresented on the Internet (which explains why it's in this state)

Gotta get there earlier ... before all those other thoughts get a chance to drown out your perfectly sensible thoughts.

How long? Long enough to make a note on it. Then, on slow days, I'll look through the notes and usually go .. nuh-uh ... not enough (... time ... money ... usefulness ...)