A ok. Thanks for the clarification.

I had to look up who was mayor during the pandemic. Bill de Blasio. I just remember seeing an overhead view on CNN and thinking “Is that an honest to god mass grave in NYC?!?” That’s a hell of a legacy.

That’s very interesting. Thanks for the write-up. Reminds me a bit of the premier of Ontario where I am. Started life as a petty drug dealer before getting into right-wing politics, and quickly fell out of popularity cutting services and tearing down wind turbines across the province. But with his career on the rocks, the pandemic suddenly hit. That was basically his 9/11 and people rallied behind him. Never mind that his previous cuts to healthcare had exacerbated the crisis. But he’s back to his douchebag ways now.

Any New Yorkers here? I’m interested in your perspective on Giuliani. I only have a cursory knowledge of him. He first came to my attention when he made headlines busting some crime family as a DA way back when. Then he was in the news a lot as the mayor of NYC during 9/11. He seemed pretty respected at the time? I dunno. And next thing you know, he resurfaces as an enforcer for the Trump administration, winding up getting disbarred and generally shunned by society. I guess I’m curious as to whether he was always a scumbag or grew into the role?

So he doesn’t want to be interviewed because it would contribute fake news? I mean he’s not wrong.

For the most part, I choose the generic version for pharmaceuticals where available, but there are a few exceptions. For example, for something like a nasal spray, the generic version’s dispensing mechanism may be inferior?

It’s been a long time since I got my astronomy degree, but your version is what I recall also. Whatever small rotational perturbation in the initial gas becomes more pronounced as it coalesces in on itself and defines the plane of the star system. Planets form within this plane after it is defined, and they all travel in the same direction around the star.

Regarding galaxies, the most common spiral ones like our own Milky Way follow the same principle at a larger scale. But there are also elliptical galaxies, not to mention irregular ones. In an elliptical galaxy, there is a more random movement of stars in a cloud around its core. So they look more 3D I guess, to go back to what the OP was asking about. I seem to recall the most accepted explanation for how these form is from the aftermath of a collision between 2 spirals? So presumably, when our galaxy collides with Andromeda in several billion years time, the resulting combined galaxy may emerge as an elliptical?

Thanks! I hadn’t heard about that one. Here another article on it. Wow.

Articles like this really float my boat! It reminds me a bit of the discovery of the Wollemi Pine in Australia.

Thought for a moment there the dude on the right was Emperor Palpatine?

It varies wildly depending on where you go. I think the worst-case scenario in terms of car-built cities would be someplace like Phoenix, Arizona. Visiting that city, I gained an appreciation for what it must be like to have a physical handicap that affects your mobility, because being in Phoenix without a car is comparable to having a disability. You cannot go anywhere on your own two feet in any reasonable length of time. It’s the kind of place where you need to find a Walmart to buy a loaf of bread. The closest thing to a corner store is going to be a gas station.

But doesn’t it resolve the vote-splitting problem? For example, a common scenario here is you have a right-wing candidate winning in a a left-leaning district because the left’s vote is split across more than one political party. Wouldn’t a ranked system solve that dilemma once all the dust has settled?

I think the Canadian system is very much modelled after the UK?

That’s interesting about Australia though. Btw I understand Australia has a ranked voting system in elections? Curious about how well that works. Our first-past-the-post is a nightmare with vote-splitting sending the “wrong” representative to the capital.

Sometimes people will say “That person’s name!” or “Those group of people!” in anger. “That Donald Trump! How dare he claim immigrants are eating pets?” to give you a current example.

When spoken of a family member or mutual acquaintance with a chuckle, it means more like “That person has some strange quirk but what can you do? We still love him.”

For example, you might hear “That dog! Always chasing his own tail.” So I think this is likely what you were getting from that conversation? It’s certainly not a criticism of your use of the word “people”.

I am not deaf, but this is triggering a pet peeve.

It seems a pretty common occurrence that I will be walking into a restaurant, bar, airport, doctor’s office, or whatever, and there will be a TV on a news channel with the sound muted or very low. For F’s sake, put the captioning on! What’s wrong with you?!?

They’re going to keep making more powerful hardware either way, since parallel processing capability supports graphics and AI just fine.

It’s not quite as simple as that. AI needs less precision than regular graphics, so chips developed with AI in mind do not necessarily translate into higher performance for other things.

In science/engineering, people want more—not less—precision. So we look for GPUs with capable 64-bit processing, while AI is driving the industry in the other direction, from 32 down to 16.

Right now, it is southwestern-style Indian upma with eggs and salsa. My wife invented that after randomly picking up a package of instant upma from a nearby Indian grocery and noting that it reminded her a bit of grits. We are afraid to tell anyone of south Asian background of this no doubt sacrilegious interpretation.

Years ago I watched a documentary about Trump’s shenanigans in Atlantic City. Basically, he stiffs the contractors who build his casino. They sue, and so he hires some big shot lawyers to defend him. They get him off for the most part, but then he then turns around and stiffs the law firm itself! Like what even?!?

I posted this because it gave me a hint as to why conservative propaganda has shifted in recent years. It’s mostly personal attacks on the man at the top now. “F#ck Trudeau” and all that.

While this might make some sense in the US where the presidency is an institution unto itself, it makes a lot less sense in Canada where we have a parliamentary system in which running the country is a group effort by the dominant political party.

And Trudeau is not even a power-trippy type of leader. He’s always been more of a delegator. So while I believe there is plenty of reason to be critical of the current federal government, pinning it all on the prime minister just seems weird and off. Like something a foreign influence campaign would be trying to do, in other words.

Something to be said for the wfh movement too.