There’s quite a few things in my life that I’m proud of, my wonderful partner foremost among them.
However, one of them that’s definitely up there is recognizing very early that Facebook was a baneful mind virus and staying far away from it. I don’t always do the smartest thing but I am very adept at not doing the stupidest action possible — and that seems a fatal attraction for all too many, far above just chance.
When I was younger, a lot of people called me a walking encyclopedia.
When I got older, a lot of people called me a walking Google. But I am no longer a walking Google because in general I can find more relevant results in my own brain now than the new, evil Google.
And I’ve forgotten many, many things. We need better…everything.
My personal record (new workout regime) on the deadlift is now 250 pounds. I started out at 185 pounds so in a little over a month I’ve gotten 35% stronger on that exercise.
I stopped a little early because I was spent. That was a big pull and I just didn’t have much gas left in the tank after.
Does antimatter fall upwards? New CERN gravity experiments aim to get to the bottom of the matter.
No, antimatter will not fall up as that would require negative mass. There is no such thing as negative mass. QED.
Yes, this experiment is still worth doing because if there is even the slightest chance of being wrong, it’d be world-shaking in it import. It would mean that anti-gravity is in principle possible.
But it’ll fall down because that’s just how mass works in this universe.
Please don’t waste your money on stuff like this.
That’s $3,000 for something that won’t nearly be as effective as free weights and requires a monthly subscription fee. I don’t like going to gym, either, but why are people so allergic to free weights?
Resistance bands and such aren’t totally useless (and for certain parts of certain exercises are more effective), but you’ll never get as good as workout with this over-engineered gear as you get with free weights — and free weights are a lot cheaper. Just buy a $400 weight set and some dumbbells and watch some YouTube videos and you’ll have saved $2,200, be able to get more fit and won’t be sending anyone money every month.
But if you do buy this garbage, please let me know because I have some other useless crap…uh, I mean quality goods….to sell you.
The mistake that people make in thinking about quantum phenomena is attempting to analogize it. Your understanding doesn’t have to be fully mathematical (I don’t understand all of the math), but it also can’t be metaphorical as there simply isn’t a valid macro-level metaphor for much that occurs (or is mathematically represented) in the quantum realm.
For instance, spin. Or more accurately, “spin quantum number.” What does this mean? Well, nothing’s spinning. Not really, anyway. There is a completely different number that represents orbital angular momentum that is totally unrelated. And yes, the names of both particles and properties is often confusing. You’d think something labeled “spin” would involve actual spinning as we think of it. But no. “Spin” is a mathematical construct of something that is happening in reality but that maps to nothing we can think of as an analogy to anything you’d witness in everyday life.
(For instance, why the electron is not spinning in the sense of rotating: for it to have the magnetic moment it in fact does, an electron’s outer “surface” would have to be rotating 100 times the speed of light.)
“Spin” is a vector in ordinary space applied to complex space — space that can only be represented by a complex number. Ain’t no visualizing that no matter how hard you try. It is not just difficult. It is impossible. That’s why so many explanations of quantum phenomena are terrible. There simply is not any analogy that will assist in understanding. They only obfuscate what we understand and don’t illuminate anything.
When people think about travelling to the past, they worry about accidentally changing the present, but no one in the present really thinks they can radically change the future.#SteveThoughts #Vote #Electionday pic.twitter.com/xfqcdeGT0z
— In Otter News (@Otter_News) November 6, 2018
The problem with this idea is that people see the future as both capable of perturbation but fundamentally unpredictable. Since counterfactuals are impossible, who knows if they are right?
I suspect that the future is not very perturbable by an individual nor very predictable so most people if they traveled to the past would have almost no effect at all but a few individuals would have huge effects. This is what the chronologically-normal world is like, so why would a world where time travel is possible be that much different?
However, if corporations controlled the time machines, we’d all be dead.
Now that the Dems have won the House, prepare to hear even more about Russia and about Trumps’s fucking tax returns. And, oh yeah, about bipartisanship.
Meanwhile, nothing substantial will be achieved and climate change (the only truly important issue) will be ignored.
I didn’t remember this from when I was strong before, but the strangest thing I wasn’t expecting is that I can type significantly faster and more accurately now due to resistance training.
I’m speculating that it’s because my grip strength is much higher now and all my muscles are getting stronger. That prevents fatigue and increases accuracy a bit.
Anyway, I can now type about 20% faster just from working out. Odd.
I think most people would be shocked by how little time actually working out it takes to get significantly stronger and to feel better — if you work out correctly.
In the army I worked out so much (not of my own choice) that it was counterproductive. You don’t need that much.
I’ve only been working out heavily again for a few months now, and I’m already 20-40% stronger than I was, depending on exercise and if you measure weight or endurance (both matter).
In a year, most people can double their strength and more than double their endurance, all with around 45 minutes three times a week. More than that, say up to an hour a day six times a week, will still benefit you but not comparatively as much.
Not that much time spent can really improve your life a great deal.
Whoa whoa whoa! I was reliably informed by multiple previous Vox articles that this would not happen! Fancy social science regressions conclusively show Trump voters don’t care about economics and are racist all the way down. https://t.co/VpwDMl1Xa0
— Jeff Spross (@jeffspross) November 5, 2018
It’s bothersome how Vox and credentialed folks can be consistenly wrong essentially always but never lose prestige or position.
It was obvious all along that racism was a symptom, not a cause. But not according to centrists. To hear them tell it, racism is the sole motivation anyone voted for Trump or anyone not Hillary Clinton in the history of ever. (Why a large minority of the same people voted for Barack Obama is never explained.)
This reminds me of my maternal grandmother’s rare skill in making things.
One time she made some chickens that looked so real a woman asked her, “How’d you get those chickens to stand so still?”
The woman wouldn’t believe they weren’t real chickens; she had to go over and touch them to make sure. I don’t recall exactly how my grandmother created them, but it wasn’t real feathers or anything like that — I think it was mostly cut paper and foam and such.
In another world, my gran would’ve been an artist rather than a 1950s housewife.
It’s informative what we’ve cast as “rebellion.” These days, rebellion is foreswearing plastic straws and practicing being aggressively fat. That’s a pretty sad rebellion, to say the least.
Being fat is only rebelling against your health and your wallet while at the same time helping huge corporations sell you crap you don’t need and then charge exorbitant prices for health care that you definitely will need. What a rebel.
Will Ferrell & Julia Louis-Dreyfus To Star In Nat Faxon And Jim Rash’s ‘Force Majeure’ Remake.
But why? You can’t really improve on the one that already exists. It’s only four years old. Just watch the original. Pretty great movie.
For some unknown reason, someone in a Camry (I believe) followed our car off the interstate and into our neighborhood and most of the way home this evening. My partner and I were in the car. I hadn’t cut anyone off or anything like that, so the reason for the pursuit was unknown.
I tend to notice things like that because that’s just the sort of person I am. I suspected that this car was tailing me early on and to confirm it I blew through most of the neighborhood fairly quickly. With the sort of car that I have, you have to work very hard keep up when I drive aggressively, even though in my car it was safe enough. In other words it was definitely someone following us specifically.
So, yep, it was tailing us. To not give away our address, we didn’t go home and took a different route out of the neighborhood and back to the main road.
We then crept back in to the neighborhood, pausing at a stop sign or two to determine if the other vehicle was lying in wait. Whoever it was, though, had given up at that point. I’m guessing they realized we knew we were being followed.
Good for them. I’m glad I didn’t have to bury anyone tonight.