Charles H

Charles H

  • Commented on Covid on Mars
    It's not all what you grew up eating. I like liver, though I didn't eat it much when growing up. But I don't eat much because that's where pesticides and heavy metals accumulate. There are similar arguments about kidneys, though...
  • Commented on Covid on Mars
    re: if you can build robot nannies then by definition you've got strong-enough-to-fool-humans general-purpose AI, and all bets are off. That's assuming "nanny" is a unitary job. Robots will hand parts of the job. There'll be a human supervisor (teacher),...
  • Commented on Covid on Mars
    You won't get that kind of fancy automation in practical use by 2050. Not even in the Mars colony. But advice systems with deeply expert knowledge will be present, and so will high quality telefactors. IOW, I don't see isolation...
  • Commented on Covid on Mars
    And needing an unexpected widget will be a continuing problem, so I expect the Mars colony to be heavily invested in a few fancy 3-D printers. Some of them already work with things like titanium, though I don't know how...
  • Commented on Covid on Mars
    There are already surgical "robots" (really telefactor) that are better than the surgeon, because their "hands" are stabler. I would be surprised if this hasn't drastically improved by 2070, and more surprised if the colony described wasn't heavily invested in...
  • Commented on Covid on Mars
    You left our robots. When labor is expensive, expect robots to be ubiquitous by 2050. Or at least telefactors, with lots of AI support. And robots are relatively easy to sterilize against something that can be killed by, alcohol or...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    Mea culpa. I (somehow) missed "abnormality"....
  • Commented on What happens now?
    Sorry, but chromosome selection is strongly correlated with genitalia at birth. It's not perfect, but it's a pretty strong correlation. And is (or ought to be) generally irrelevant except to the individuals social connections and medical support system. Note that...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    Ah. That's why I couldn't find it....
  • Commented on What happens now?
    Well, further info, or assertions, is: https://text.npr.org/956359496 It sure doesn't look innocent to me. The KNEW there was going to be a crowd there. All of them. There should have been at least additional staffing....
  • Commented on What happens now?
    That has been asserted to be the Capitol police management - see #604 for details. Yes. I've heard that assertion. It's not exactly believable without a LOT of substantiating evidence. I've also heard that they didn't believe people "on their...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    WRT the number of words in English. The OED is quite defective many contexts. The last time I tried to look up diphenydiethyltricholoroethane I couldn't find it, and I know it's a legitimate word....
  • Commented on What happens now?
    Re: Woken up Intelligence Services There is significant evidence that both the intelligence services and the police knew, at some level, what was planned, and what was in process. And intentionally let it slide. The evidence isn't really conclusive, but...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    Re: Impeached Well, that was pretty much guaranteed, as it only required a majority (or plurality?) vote in the House. OTOH, convicting of the impeached offense requires a 2/3 vote of the Senate. Probably won't happen unless Trump really riles...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    “If you're going to be curmudgeon, be honest about it. " That's a lot easier to say than to do. I often look back at something and say (to myself) "I wouldn't have reacted that way if I hadn't been...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    To me the quantum models all appear to be attempts to convey laws of the universe that are literally incomprehensible to humans to humans. Where the incomprehension comes from isn't clear, as it could be that the observations don't reveal...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    Whether quantum physics is deterministic is a matter of some conjecture. (Also interpretation: Is the Everet-Graham-Wheeler multi-world interpretation deterministic? Similarly for a few other interpretations.) The Copenhagen interpretation is clearly not deterministic, for several of the others, it's only our...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    If you can speak, you are obviously a verbal thinker. If you can walk across the room, you are obviously a non-verbal thinker. If you want to claim to be primarily a non-verbal thinker, that's possible, though not entirely plausible....
  • Commented on What happens now?
    The weak form of the Sapir-Whorf appears to be true. The strong form is demonstrably false. And, as you indicate, different people are affected to different extents...but it also varies by topic. E.g., imagine translating a program from Snobol into...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    English has a non-gendered pronoun...but it's only supposed to be used in restricted contexts: "one". (Well, also "we', "you", "they", etc.) I[replace with "one"] can usually rephrase a sentence so that the non-gendered form will work, but it[replace with "that"]...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    And the problem with the no-fly list is there's no notice and no appeal. It's probably a practical necessity in this case, but there should be notice, and possible appeal should be mandatory. (IIUC, they also don't tell you if...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    It takes a 2/3 vote to convict of impeachment in the Senate, so I don't think it will pass next time, either. But it will require all Senators to take a stand for or against Trump, and that can't help...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    According to what I've hear "hacked into Parler" is wrong. They used the publicly documented API. And they didn't encrypt any passwords. And.... OTOH, it's not clear that they didn't have write access. In fact they probably did. Apparently the...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    Failure of custody is a serious reason to not use evidence in court. It's not a valid reason to ignore it. It might (I'm no lawyer) be enough that a warrant couldn't be obtained....
  • Commented on What happens now?
    I believe that the Repubs are frightened of an impeachment vote because either way they vote they'll alienate a large fraction of those who might vote for them. FWIW, I doubt that it would succeed, as I feel much of...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    FWIW the Constitution says that pardons can't be used in cases of impeachment. So he can't pardon that. When I read that section over a few times it sounded to me as if pardons were only intended to be for...
  • Commented on What happens now?
    The presidential pardon power comes from the US constitution, and modifying that requires a 2/3 approval from both houses of congress and then approval by 3/4 of the state legislatures. So it's not going to be altered over mere abuse....
  • Commented on What happens now?
    FWIW, the term for the head of a board that I've heard in common use is "the chair", which sort of solves the problem. And if you use the term frequently, it fits in with Zipf's law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law...
  • Commented on Submarine coming through!
    FWIW, my grandfather was a farmer. Ask him. But every few years he shut up the farm, leased out the fields, and moved to a city where he earned enough money as an electrician to go back and be a...
  • Commented on Submarine coming through!
    WARNING: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/books/publishing-manuscripts-phishing-scam.html Never mind if you've already heard, but in summary: Why on Earth Is Someone Stealing Unpublished Book Manuscripts? A phishing scam with unclear motive or payoff is targeting authors, agents and editors big and small, baffling the publishing...
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