1

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Why can't i understand the andromeda paradox?

« on: Yesterday at 17:08:38 »

 

as far as Brenda is concerned, when she passed Paul and said "Hi!"  the invasion from Andromeda has been launched.   Meanwhile, for Paul the meeting to decide whether to invade Earth or not hasn't finished yet.

When did you become a Downing Street spokesman? 

2

Just Chat! / Re: The coronation of "eternal student", why was i not invited?

« on: Yesterday at 11:09:04 »

Yes, folks, merit and effort are recognised even under a hereditary monarchy.

3

Just Chat! / Re: What is the value of spam?

« on: Yesterday at 11:05:43 »

Years ago I swore never to buy anything whose television adverts belittle men. That immediately reduced the impact of TV advertising by 50%, and everything else seems to be aimed at women who want to stink, children who want to take distorted photographs, or people who would rather wait for a delivery than open a can of beans.

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Just Chat! / Re: The coronation of "eternal student", why was i not invited?

« on: Yesterday at 10:53:01 »

Suspected republican.

5

Just Chat! / Re: What is the value of spam?

« on: 04/07/2022 18:02:20 »

It has fed armies and unfortunate schoolchildren for a few generations. Its principal value has been to make people appreciate good food, when the spam runs out, and it can be used as bait for various inedible fish.

6

Technology / Re: What Question Could You Ask To Determine Sentience Of An AI ?

« on: 01/07/2022 17:28:28 »

Today I encountered an x-ray machine exhibiting boredom and possible suicidal ideation. Halfway through a clinical exposure, it decided it had had enough and switched off. Rebooted, it cut off even earlier each time. Clearly fed up with studying human anatomy. Next week I'll pack a dead rat in my toolbox and see if a change of subject might perk it up a bit.

7

Technology / Re: What Question Could You Ask To Determine Sentience Of An AI ?

« on: 30/06/2022 17:25:14 »

So here's a good question:

"Who's a pretty boy, then?"

That should sort out the self-aware parrot from the dumb chipset.

8

General Science / Re: How much of me is original?

« on: 30/06/2022 17:19:41 »

So apart from bits of brain  (not teeth - they all fell out and were replaced when you were a child!) and I think a few nerves, what is "you". Is the lump of stuff that people call by your name, really the same person as on your birth or marriage certificate? If not, how can anyone be held liable for past actions? Is a 10-year passport really a  valid document?

9

Technology / Re: What Question Could You Ask To Determine Sentience Of An AI ?

« on: 28/06/2022 14:54:28 »

All depends on your definition of sentience.

It seems to me that there are two current definitions:

A. What people have but machines don't

B. What machines and people have.

AFAIK the only distinction between machines and people is that people make mistakes that aren't traceable to a hardware or instruction fault, so the question doesn't matter. If you use A, then any question will do  because eventually the human will get it wrong for no discernible reason. If you use B, you can't tell the difference, by definition.

Now there are two useful definitions of intelligence:

A. Constructive laziness

B. The ability to surprise a challenger.

Basic hill-climbing algorithms or content-addressable memory satisfy A, and the answer to B just depends on how stupid the challenger is.

So my answer to the OP is that the question is undefined and the answer is anything you like. 

10

Just Chat! / Re: Erectile Dysfunction And Its Solution

« on: 25/06/2022 11:35:24 »

OK, Paul, here's a detumescive response to your rampant wit.

AFAIK (not IIRC) Sildenafil does not induce spontaneous or sustained erection: stimulation is also required.  Ergo no pandemic of priapism.

Pedant? Moi? Now where's that damned tongue-in-cheek  emoticon?

Switch-mode power to your elbow, my friend!

11

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why where the native Americans so vulnerable to disease?

« on: 24/06/2022 11:44:35 »

Eurasia was genetically very diverse and had suffered innumerable plagues and pestilences by the time Columbus left these shores, so what was left of the population (after a very high rate of perinatal and infant deaths) was fairly resistant and understood some methods of quarantine and treatment for the diseases they exported. But they didn't export the treatment.

12

Physiology & Medicine / Re: The crucial ingredients of CBD:

« on: 23/06/2022 22:42:06 »

You can probably hang the soft bits that everybody remembers, on a secondhand skeleton, thus eliminating most of the requirement for calcium and phosphorus. The other stuff is only required to make it all function, but to misquote a famous authority, a dead mouse is a perfect model of a live mouse, if only for a short period.

13

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Why where the native Americans so vulnerable to disease?

« on: 22/06/2022 17:26:38 »

Relatively small gene pool, isolated for maybe 10,000 years, never acquired residual herd immunity (people often forget the word "residual" - you may have to kill 90% of the population to achieve it!), many deliberately infected in the later stages of colonisation, deprived of agricultural land and clean water, negligible provision of health services....you name it. 

14

That CAN'T be true! / Re: Are home water filtration systems a waste of money?

« on: 15/06/2022 11:03:12 »

Worth remembering that when the US food & drug administration tested practically every available brand of bottled water about 30 years back, they found New York public mains water to have the lowest level of pathogens and contaminants.

Also worth noting that the BBC ran an open-label tasting competition between various bottled waters. The highest score from every taster was given to a product whose label said it was spring water from an uninhabited  Pacific island over 1000 miles from any source of industrial pollutant. All the bottles actually contained chilled London tap water.

15

That CAN'T be true! / Re: can deuterium depleted water improve health?

« on: 14/06/2022 18:08:13 »

It's a good way of getting rid of the waste product after you have extracted the valuable deuterium from tap water.

Much the same as corn flakes, made from the waste after extracting syrup, glue, and a dozen other valuable products from maize. Apparently the sludge is so useless and indigestible that they have to add sugar, salt, vitamins and minerals in order to sell it as a food.

As for Marmite.....but at least it tastes good.

16

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: What are the properties of space?

« on: 14/06/2022 13:41:06 »

Maybe there are some important dynamic fields in the universe and the frequency of radiation emitted by Caesium-133 atoms is changing as a result of that, so that the atomic clocks used to define the second are not actually keeping the correct time.

If said fields are homogeneous, then we'll never know because everything is coming and going at the same time. Except that the light received from an object umpteen light years away will have a different frequency from what we have calculated, and whatever determines the field vectors must have some supraluminal means of directing them.

And if the fields are not homogeneous, then we can blame GPS navigation errors  on something we can't sense or predict, i.e. local wobbles in the Eternalstudent field. But so far, no evidence - I get the blame every time for not updating the database.

17

Just Chat! / Re: how can intelligent people be trump supporters?

« on: 13/06/2022 16:22:19 »

an inveterate liar, a narcissist, a positive danger to democracy and an utterly selfish man

Rather like our present prime minister. Or indeed almost every member of his government, some of whom are also stupid. Or Mr Putin.

Fact is that a successful politician is someone who had no friends at school, for reasons that become obvious in later life. Children can smell it.

18

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: What are the properties of space?

« on: 12/06/2022 00:45:04 »

I would argue that G is a property as it tells us the degree of warping a given mass will produce

But doesn't that make it a property of mass rather than spacetime?

19

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: What are the properties of space?

« on: 10/06/2022 13:00:59 »

Current consensus is that the big bang produced a lot of stuff dispersed in space, and gravitation gradually makes it coalesce into lumps, so the observed separation is temporary. Except that some stuff seems to be receding at an ever-increasing rate, presumably into more space.

20

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: What are the properties of space?

« on: 10/06/2022 00:06:38 »

Space is what separates bodies of stuff. Not sure about "properties" beyond μ and ε, but we can certainly describe the static (fields) and dynamic (particles and waves) contents of regions of space. So if you want to be philosophical you could describe the ability to contain such phenomena  as a property of space, but I suspect this is a sterile  intellectual cul-de-sac.

Is G a property of space? I think not.  g is an observable property of stuff, and you could argue that G is merely a constant of proportionality that relates the observable g to m and r, because if you interpose a third body of any length between your two experimental masses it doesn't alter the original gravitational attraction by filling space, but adds to it by virtue of its own mass.