The All Things Political Thread (The World and US Reunited)

[Malcador]

17 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Webb did work at NASA. He was the NASA admin. Heck you could argue that he saved Apollo. After the Apollo one disaster the knives were out for the entire program.

Yep, but seems odd to name a telescope for an administrator.  Shouldn't be that big a deal to rename it to some scientist.  Given the fact this project was started in 1996, has ran over budget a lot...maybe name it after Chris Roberts!

[Pidesco]

4 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Yep, but seems odd to name a telescope for an administrator.  Shouldn't be that big a deal to rename it to some scientist.  Given the fact this project was started in 1996, has ran over budget a lot...maybe name it after Chris Roberts!

Just name the telescope Star Citizen and declare the Kickstarter project complete.

[213374U]

25 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

The ancient people remark was because we couldn’t use the word Delta. Being Greek in all an ancient white oppressor civilization. As far as people with untarnished legacies every time a name gets picked some skeleton comes waltzing out of the closet.

Yeah, but leaving aside the fact that that's a point no one has made (yet), that's the difference between ancient and recent history. Discrimination of sexual minorities in US academia didn't happen 2,500 years ago and enslaving each other is no longer an accepted form of dispute resolution in present-day Greece.

As for the skeletons, perhaps the process of name selection needs to be re-evaluated if that's really the outcome that you keep getting. Because the alternative is a more critical examination of -recent- US history, and every time someone proposes that, orange man gets one vote.

[rjshae]

35 minutes ago, Pidesco said:

Just name the telescope Star Citizen and declare the Kickstarter project complete.

Next Generation Boondoggle, in honor of its massively overrun budget.

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

I was going to suggest that we simply use numbers, then I looked it up and it turns out that the ancient Egyptians invented numbers, and they also enslaved the ancient Jews, who are still around today, so I guess that idea is out the window. Dang, this is going to be tricky. 

I'm not sure where you did your research, but we use Indo-Arabic numerals, not Egyptian.  

[Gfted1]

14 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

I'm not sure where you did your research, but we use Indo-Arabic numerals, not Egyptian.  

At the repository of all galactic knowledge, a wiki link.  

[Bartimaeus]

To be fair, he said that they simply invented numbers, not our specific numerical system. I just read that apparently the Mayans are thought to have invented the very first known numerical system 300 years before the Egyptians...but: 1. It was base 60, and is that really truly a numerical system; 2. It doesn't seem to be corroborated everywhere, so I don't know if that's true.

The good news is that the Mayans also did many horrific things, so the point about cancelling still stands.

Edited March 2, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Hurlshort]

To be fair, the Mayan definitely COUNT, because at least they had a concept of zero, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

[Malcador]

God damned pedants.

[rjshae]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

1. It was base 60, and is that really truly a numerical system

Yes. It is.

Base 10 is arbitrarily founded on the number of digits on our hands. It's a completely artificial choice, but still valid mathematically.

Computers are now oriented to using base 16, which at least makes some mathematical sense as a power of two.

[Bartimaeus]

Hey, I love base 16 (I'm all about powers of 2 - as a mildly OCPD person, they're literally my favorite kinds of numbers!), and I actively use it...not quite daily, but a hell of a lot more than your average person, that's for sure. Base 60, on the other hand...well, that's just the problem, isn't it? You can't fit it into the other hand, it's just too big! This is why the Mayan civilization isn't around anymore, I tell you what.

Edited March 2, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[rjshae]

33 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Hey, I love base 16 (I'm all about powers of 2 - as a mildly OCPD person, they're literally my favorite kinds of numbers!), and I actively use it...not quite daily, but a hell of a lot more than your average person, that's for sure. Base 60, on the other hand...well, that's just the problem, isn't it? You can't fit it into the other hand, it's just too big! This is why the Mayan civilization isn't around anymore, I tell you what.

In a sense we still use base 60 for our timekeeping and our angle measurements. It has the convenient advantage of being evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

[Malcador]

The almost non sequitur references to evil Antifa in Wray's hearing is pretty funny

[InsaneCommander]

Talking about naming in astronomy, there is the Vera Rubin Observatory.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Somehow I don't care about (a suggestion for a) renaming of a telescope as much as the impending climate apocalypse or insane rent prices. Call it the Love Deluxe for all I care.

[Guard Dog]

2 minutes ago, KaineParker said:

Somehow I don't care about (a suggestion for a) renaming of a telescope as much as the impending climate apocalypse or insane rent prices. Call it the Love Deluxe for all I care.

What’s there to worry about? The former problem solves the latter! 

[Bartimaeus]

Uh...isn't the former much more likely to make the latter many times worse? You know, dwindling areas that are habitable and animals' deadly survival instincts all...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

34 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

What’s there to worry about? The former problem solves the latter! 

I don't want the human species to go extinct and want to live somewhat comfortably.

[rjshae]

1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:

Talking about naming in astronomy, there is the Vera Rubin Observatory.

She was overlooked for the Nobel Prize, even though it was her work that led to the discovery of dark matter. At least this does her justice.

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

..at least they had a concept of zero

Real numeric systems exclude zero though.

Zero is not a number, it is in fact the lack of a number- or even a numeric singularity. For how does one define darkness, except as an absence of light? At very best it functions as a place holder, but that is not true zero, as illustrated by all place holder 'zeroes' being expressed differently when using a different base system.

Think about it a second, it not actually being a number explains why you cannot divide by zero and the numeric singularity explains why if you multiply anything by zero you get zero- it eats the real numbers, the whole numbers, the rational and irrational and turns them all into itself or some undefined non value. Zero is numeric cancer, numeric prions, a numeric virus; it is not some saviour nor is it simply a mathematical concept, it's the cuckoo in the nest.

To show my utter loathing I'd end with ceterum censeo nullum esse delendam, except it already has been.

:philosoraptor:

[Malcador]

27 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Real numeric systems exclude zero though.

0 is in R.

[Zoraptor]

And that is the crux of the dispute. Null Zero is the lack of a number, the complete reverse of a really real number- it's the mathematical equivalent of using 'literal' for something figurative and thus a literature infringement. Whoever included it in 'Real' numbers was clearly some sort of liberal arts major rather than a proper mathematician, had no doubt been on the turps and was possibly age addled too. It isn't included in Integers or Whole numbers for good reason, it should not be included in 'Real' either.

A proper numerical system would be Ø or similar used for the unique entity made from the equation a-a=x with 0 being used as a placeholder for base increments. Null zero does not behave like a normal number because it is not a number but a prisoner of definitions, it should be excluded to properly address its unique qualities. This is a hill I'm prepared to die on.

[ShadySands]

You can count to 60 pretty easily on your hands. I don't know if you saw my counting to 12 on one hand thing but you can then use the other hand to tick off how many times you've counted to 12. Even if just counting the fingers on the second hand instead of joints, which is the easiest way, you get 60. 

Edited March 3, 2021 by ShadySands
I think it's how the Sumerians or somebody used to count

[Gorth]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Uh...isn't the former much more likely to make the latter many times worse? You know, dwindling areas that are habitable and animals' deadly survival instincts all...

The next great entrepreneur is the one who corners the market for house boats (and I just recently rewatched Waterworld)

 

[Malcador]

6 minutes ago, Gorth said:

(and I just recently rewatched Waterworld

The hell is wrong with you ?