Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder: ‘There are quite a few areas where physics blurs into religion’ - "Sabine Hossenfelder is a German theoretical physicist who writes books and runs a YouTube channel (with 618,000 subscribers at time of writing) called Science Without the Gobbledygook. Born in Frankfurt, she studied mathematics at the Goethe Universität and went on to focus on particle physics – her PhD explored the possibility that the Large Hadron Collider would produce microscopic black holes. She is now a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, where she leads a group studying quantum gravity. Her second book, Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions, came out in August...
we’re painting a very one-sided picture of physics in our education and in the popular science press – of a very technocratic, maths-heavy discipline with particle accelerators and all that kind of stuff. But physics also touches on big existential questions: How does the universe work? How did everything begin? What are we made of?... There are quite a few areas where the foundations of physics blur into religion, but physicists don’t notice because they’re not paying attention. It’s a lack of education in the philosophy of science in general...
You don’t have much time for the multiverse either. Why not?
It’s another one of those ideas that I’d call ascientific. If you want to believe that there are infinite copies of you with small alterations – one of them maybe won the Nobel prize, another became a rock star – you can believe this if you want to, it’s not in conflict with anything we know. But from a scientific perspective, if you want to make progress in our understanding of natural law, I’d say it’s a waste of time exactly for that reason, because you can’t test it... How they come to this conclusion that the multiverse must exist is that they have some theory that predicts some things that agree with observations – that’s all well and fine. And then they jump to the conclusion that therefore all the mathematics that appears in this theory also has to exist in some sense. But this is not how it works. You’ve just assigned reality to some mathematical expressions. You can’t support it with a scientific argument... it’s a really bad scientific strategy to just invent some mathematics, then proclaim we have to go and test it when there’s no reason it should work. There are infinitely many of those particles you can make up, and it’s not working. Just look at what’s come out of it in the past 40 years. It’s not a terrible lot. Maybe think about something better. Also, it worries me that we always talk about how science supposedly self-corrects, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. They’re just trying the same thing over and over again."
Meme - "At a Pizza Hut
SAD BAR OPEN"
Funny greeting card by Traces of Nuts - Other way round | Comedy Card Company - "Funny card by Australian cartoonist, Tim Whyatt, from the award winning 'Traces of Nuts' range showing a couple sharing a massage with the man getting the wrong idea for the hole in the table!"
Meme - "Dave less than a mile away
Hi, I'm Dave, and I'm looking for my wife. I'm a rapper, but I feel like I'm much more than that. I'm a man, first and foremost. Although, I don't say that with any gender politics in mind. I suppose I began as a boy."
Meme - "You sure? we are kinda related *breasts*"
Meme - "Free cat to a good home. Wife won't let me keep her *Catgirl*"
Chinese Man Steals a Road and Sells It - "An 800-meters long stretch of road (0.5 miles) linking the village of Sankeshu in Jiangsu province to some other town in the area disappeared over night, leaving the residents to marvel at the authorities sudden desire to renovate their road... the man hired a digger to rip the road apart and then took the concrete pieces to a nearby factory, when he sold the 500 tons of asphalt for about $800. We're not sure how much he paid to hire the digger. When confronted with the evidence, the man said he thought stealing and selling the concrete slabs would be a good deal for all parties involved, given the fact that the road is seldom used by residents. That is because a new road opened elsewhere in the region, and nobody was using the old one, apparently."
Daylight robbery: thieves steal chunk of China's new solar highway - "Thieves in China have vandalised a newly opened solar highway, less than a week after the road was christened with much fanfare. The one-kilometre stretch of road in the eastern city of Jinan consists of solar panels under a layer of transparent concrete, allowing cars to drive over the photovoltaic cells. But just five days after it opened on 28 December, workers found a 1.8-metre section had been removed by thieves... The concept of roads incorporating solar panels into the road has existed for years, but only recently have cities begun to build test projects. A solar bicycle path opened in Amsterdam in 2014 and a village in France opened a one-kilometre solar road in 2016. Those projects were plagued by high costs, and the highway section in China, which covers two lanes and an emergency lane, faced similar obstacles. The road cost about 3,000 yuan (£340) per square metre... Before the highway even opened there had been several attempts to steal components and technology, an employee at Shandong Pavenergy, the road’s developer, was quoted as saying. Unknown men often wandered around the construction site and took photos of the project. “Even after the project is done, people are still stealing,” he said. “It’s very upsetting.”"
Meme - "White people when they stumble across an egregious statistic of 83.2% of furries are caucasian"
Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for November 28, 2011 - GoComics - "Pig: I have to get up early tomorrow for a job interview.
Goat: Well, like they say, 'the early bird gets the worm'
Rat: What about the worm? He got up early and died.
Pig: I think I'll sleep in."
Meme - "Fewer adults see their job as a source of life's meaning, and it shows how the pandemic has changed America's relationship with work"
"Congratulations America is now a lazy fuck country. Yesterday it was announced that China has become the wealthiest nation on the planet and I'm sure that will echo into their geopolitics and control over the world. Everyone just wants to fuck around and play video games and watch Netflix on the billionaires dime."
Quite probably, you only see this kind of "logic" in America - if you don't get life meaning from work, you're lazy and unemployable and you don't want to work at all
Sadiq Khan’s Ulez has turned centre of London into a ‘ghost town’ - "Sadiq Khan’s Ulez regime has helped to create “ghost towns in the centre of London”, the boss of Heal’s has warned, as the historic furniture shop battles falling footfall in the West End. Hamish Mansbridge, chief executive of Heal’s whose iconic store is on London’s Tottenham Court Road, said policies including the London mayor’s Ulez policy were actively stopping domestic tourists from coming into the UK capital. The ultra-low emissions zone currently covers the central London boroughs, and charges drivers whose vehicles are deemed too old and polluting. It is due to be expanded to all 32 London boroughs in August. Mr Mansbridge said West End stores were struggling to get shoppers in amid a wave of policy moves designed to put people off travelling into London.
Destroying private business means the private sector must depend on the government. So this isn't a bad thing to the left
60-person brawl Carnival Cruise ship dance floor that lasted for an HOUR began with cheating lover - "A brawl that erupted between dozens of people onboard a cruise ship was caused by jealousy over a threesome between passengers"
Additional video
Caleb 👺 on Twitter - "movie was so scary I hid under the blanket and gave him head 😭😭🤦♀️"
Meme - "Sylvia Ma'at: One day we will take Kemet back
*Ancient Egyptian painting of Egyptian smiting a black person*"
Utroba Cave - Wikipedia - "There is an opening in the ceiling which allows the light into the cave. The light creates a phallus shape every day at noon, but it only reaches the altar on one day of the year. In the middle of the day at certain time of year the light which is in the shape of a phallus penetrates deep into the cave all the way to the altar. In February or March the light takes the shape of a phallus and enters a hole at the altar: the light then flickers for 1-2 minutes. The penetrating and flickering light is thought to symbolize fertilization"
Meme - Paul Graham @paulg: "In the academic view of prehistory, no one did anything for fun. If people ate shrooms, it was always for "rituals" rather than to get high. And anything they had that wasn't functional was either for "rituals" or to display wealth, never because it was cool or beautiful."
Stewart Brand @stewartbrand: "An enormous number of cave drawings are of pussy.
"The Vulva in Stone Age Art" has a large sampling."
Ancient Cave Art Full of Teenage Graffiti - "Many art historians and anthropologists believe Paleolithic cave wall art was done by accomplished shaman-artists, but mixed in with the finer paintings are graffiti-like scenes of sex and hunting. An analysis of thousands of paintings from the late Pleistocene epoch suggests the graffiti artists back then were likely the same as today—teenage males... "In the graffiti, there is a lot of below-the-belt-art," Guthrie said. "The people in the art are predominantly women, and not a single one has any clothes on." But these weren't just any women, they were Pleistocene Pamela Andersons adorned with ludicrously huge breasts and hips. The walls were also decorated with graphic depictions of genitalia... While female artists accounted for less than 20 percent of the cave art, they were being creative in other ways, researchers say. "What we find in the fossil record doesn't always represent what was going on," Guthrie said. "Prior to the pottery age, women in all societies are working in things that don't preserve very well, such as skins and braiding fiber.""
Clearly applied arts are as artistic as fine arts. Because we can't say that women aren't as creative or as motivated to be creative
Meme - "Hard *rock*
Soft *flower*
Beautiful
Ugly"
Probably from India. People are so hung up over the skin tone, but that's not the only distinguishing characteristic of the 2 girls
Police bust wide voyeurism ring that filmed women bathing - "Prefectural police announced on Feb. 1 that a man led a group of Peeping Toms that secretly photographed and filmed at least 10,000 women at “roten-buro” outdoor hot spring baths across Japan over about 30 years... Shizuoka police sent papers on Feb. 1 on three of the 16, including a 31-year-old doctor in Tokyo, to the Shizuoka District Public Prosecutors Office on suspicion of violating laws against child prostitution and child pornography. These men got together to learn voyeurism techniques from Saito, who was known as “a charismatic voyeur,” investigators said... The men would hide in the mountains a few hundred meters away and secretly photograph or film them with a camera through a telephoto lens. They also secretly photographed and filmed the same women in clothing so that they could compare their dressed photos with their naked images. They created videos and edited them to add obscene subtitles, police said. They also secretly drugged female acquaintances by slipping them sleeping pills, then committing lewd acts and filming them, police said. They would later hold screening parties to share the videos among themselves."
I thought JAV was fake
Secret photos of woman’s behind not ‘voyeurism’ if taken over pants - "An admitted pervert was caught taking secret photos of a woman’s behind in Tokyo, but he was let off the hook by police because she was wearing pants. The man’s act does not constitute voyeurism, which is punishable under local ordinances, unless he shot an upskirt photo of her underwear or body, according to police. Such narrow definitions of camera voyeurism have often driven victims into a powerless situation and law enforcement officers into resorting to alternative means to bring voyeurs to justice... The Supreme Court in November 2008 found that a man who snapped photos of the rear end of a woman who was wearing skinny pants guilty and ruled that he had engaged in obscene conduct... Kyoto prefectural police sent the case of a man who took photos of a female athlete at a track and field event to the prosecutors' office. Police found that the man took 34 snapshots focusing on the athlete’s buttocks. Though the athlete’s rear end was concealed under a uniform in the photos, police concluded the man’s behavior was relentless and fell under the definition of “obscene acts” defined by a prefectural ordinance... Hisashi Sonoda, a professor emeritus of criminal law at Konan University, however, cautioned that a broad interpretation of “obscene language and behavior” may result in limiting civic activities."
If clothed women are obscene, then women should have to wear burkas everywhere
Chinese law test examines 'crime' of choosing to save girlfriend over mother - "Hundreds of thousands of trainee lawyers and judges in China have been asked whether they would save their girlfriend or mother from a deadly fire in a compulsory test. The question appeared in the National Judicial Exam, which anyone wanting to enter the judiciary or legal profession must pass... Option C told the story of a man who chose to save his girlfriend from a burning building over his mother, saying his actions amounted to a criminal failure to act. China’s Ministry of Justice confirmed it was the correct option four days after the exam, saying that a son is legally obligated to save his parents over other relatives and loved ones... Celia Hatton said motherly love appeared to win out overall, with one man writing: “Girls are everywhere, but I only have one mum.”"
Tikkie etiquette: the do’s and don’ts of asking for money in the Netherlands - "When you think of the Netherlands, what’s the first thing that pops into your mind? Is it windmills, cheese, or tulips? Or maybe it’s the infamous Tikkie — an online payment system where you can send people requests for absurdly small amounts of money. There’s no official rule book for using Tikkie — but there really should be one. With their reputation for being both direct and stingy, Dutch people seem to have no problems navigating the unspoken rules of the payment platform... Anyone who’s lived in the Netherlands for a while has probably realised that the idea of reciprocity, or doing rounds, doesn’t really exist here. Don’t get us wrong, this can have its advantages… But not that many. 😂 Instead of living by the rules of reciprocity, Dutchies prefer to settle the bill (no matter how big or small) as soon as possible, to make sure nobody is indebted to another"
Are the 'World's Spookiest Mushrooms' Real?
Meme - "BREAKING: Scientists discover a technology that turns plants into delicious meat without any factories, synthetic chemicals or seed oils. *cow*"
Animal Matters - ""More than 225,000 human beings are added to the planet and more than 80 species become extinct each day. Our children and grandchildren - and of course the animals and plants - would be far better off if both numbers were much, much lower." - Connie Benowitz"
Yet more evidence on the misanthropy of environmentalism. The comments are a good read too
The Tabarrok Curve: Why The Patent System Is Not Fit For Purpose - "if we provide protection that is too strong then we will be reducing the amount of innovation and invention... Do note that patents aren't the only way that we can try to solve this problem. Dean Baker has long argued that pharmaceutical research would be better funded by government prizes"
Do Patent Pools Encourage Innovation? Evidence from 20 U.S. Industries under the New Deal - "Patent pools, which allow competing firms to combine their patents, have emerged as a prominent mechanism to resolve litigation when multiple firms own patents for the same technology. This paper takes advantage of a window of regulatory tolerance under the New Deal to investigate the effects of pools on innovation within 20 industries. Difference-in-differences regressions imply a 16 percent decline in patenting in response to the creation of a pool. This decline is driven by technology fields in which a pool combined patents for substitute technologies by competing firms, suggesting that unregulated pools may discourage innovation by weakening competition to improve substitutes."
Do Patents Encourage or Hinder Innovation? The Case of the Steam Engine - "Familiar with the negative impact of the Watt patents on innovation, Cornwall mine engineers were reluctant to patent their inventions. From 1781 to 1852 Cornish residents took out a grand total of 15 patents on steam technology—against 994 patents on steam technology in all of England during that period. Will it surprise you to learn that the area with the fewest patents also was the area that contributed the most to the innovation and development of steam technology?"
Do Patents Really Promote Innovation? A Response To The Economist
There are many papers referenced
Are Patents Indicative of Chinese Innovation? - "While the explosion of domestic patent applications in China is impressive, this growth does not necessarily correspond with dramatic advances in innovation. Comparing patent applications and grants between countries does not take into account differences in government policies and the domestic regulatory environment. In the case of China, the CNIPA National Patent Development Strategy explicitly equates patent generation with innovation and calls for government incentives to bolster the number of domestically filed patents. This strategy has resulted in CNIPA patents being awarded for small design tweaks and incremental changes versus entirely new inventions. Given the nuances of domestic filing procedures, it is necessary to examine how Chinese patents fare internationally at the world’s top patent offices... While patent data provides insight into comparative levels of innovation across borders, this approach has limitations. China grants patents based on a different set of characteristics than other countries. Chinese patents are subclassified into highly innovative “invention patents” and lower quality “utility model” and “design” patents. The latter two categories require a much lower standard of innovation than do invention patents. According to CNIPA, just 19 percent of all patents granted in China in 2017 were classified as “invention” patents. This number suggests that China’s large volume of applications may not accurately represent an increase in its level of technological innovation. Furthermore, a lack of substantive technological improvements in patents may, in part, be incentivized by government policies that emphasize quantity over quality. By filing for patents, Chinese companies can receive cash bonuses, subsidies, and even lower corporate income taxes from the government. In many cases these incentives trickle down to the company level, with firms like Huawei offering patent-related bonuses to employees. Foreign firms are also disproportionately producing invention patents while Chinese firms are largely responsible for the increase in utility model and design patents... American, Korean, German, and Japanese patent filers accounted for as much as 97.68 percent of the invention patents granted. By breaking down Chinese international patent filings by sector, it is clear that China has not yet matched the innovation level of other leading economies... While China has the largest number of domestic patents in the world, citations for Chinese patents are relatively sparse. For example, Chinese forward citations for data processing inventions received only one-sixth the average number of citations that US patents received in 2013. This may indicate that Chinese patents only have a limited impact on global innovation. A second measure of patent value can be derived by looking at how patent owners seek to protect their intellectual property in international markets... Chinese patents have noticeably shorter shelf lives compared to those of advanced economies. In general, patents with longer lifespans are considered to be more valuable, as holders only choose to pay recurring maintenance fees if the patent is still worth upholding. According to Bloomberg, roughly 91 percent of Chinese design patents, 61 percent of utility patents, and 37 percent of invention patents granted in 2013 had been discarded by 2017. In comparison, less than 15 percent of US patents were disposed of during the same period. The low retention rate of Chinese patents implies that despite the large volume of patents being granted in China, most are being awarded to comparatively less-valuable innovations with limited staying power"
Do patent rights impede follow-on innovation? - "We also find that the impact of patent invalidation on subsequent innovation is highly heterogeneous. There is substantial variation across broad technology areas. As illustrated by the figure below, patent invalidation has a large and statistically significant impact on cumulative innovation in the fields of computers and communications, electronics, and medical instruments (including biotechnology). However, we find only a small and statistically insignificant effect in the chemical, pharmaceutical, or mechanical technology field. We investigate the source of this heterogeneous effect and find that the technology fields where the impact of patent invalidation is strongest are characterised by two features: complex technology (where new products rely on numerous patentable elements) and high fragmentation of patent ownership among diverse firms. This finding is consistent with predictions of the economic theories that emphasise bargaining failure in licensing as the source of blockage."
Meme - "If you know, you know
Round 1 *pancakes with a lot of white sauce*
Round 2 *pancakes less white sauce*"
Meme - Heart: "Now that we've learned so much about life, let's go back in time and live it BETTER!"
Brain: "It doesn't work like that"
Heart: "Oh, because time travel isn't REAL?!"
*PSHHHH*
Heart: "STOP BEING DUMB!"
Young Heart: "Don't tell us what to do, Boomers!"
Heart: "Oh right! We always ignored good advice."
Brain: "Boomers?"
Meme - "Went on an 8 hour bender in vrchat years ago and passed out on a mountaintop. Woke up looking at the sky and when i sat up there was like 5 furries and anime girls looking at me asking if i was ok. Took me 3 min to realize i wasnt dead and just had the headset on. Genuine psychosis"
Police who stopped driver found £10,000 of cocaine, a lamb and a bag of chips - "Police who pulled over a suspected drug driver found £10,000 of Class A drugs - and a tiny lamb."
Australian Man Spotted Eating Raw Chicken In Mall, Internet Disgusted - "An Australian man has left the internet disgusted after he was caught on camera munching on raw chicken drumsticks at a shopping mall in Adelaide. According to News.com.au, he was spotted eating his meal while on an escalator in Westfield Marion in Oaklands Park in Adelaide. Not only that, he was also barefoot."
Meme - Woman: "Please Ancestors. I need your guidance"
Primitive lifeform: *Loud Skittering Sounds*
Meme - "Hello there. I am just here to inform you that as I lay claim to this land and have the firepower to back it up, you are required to pay me money for living here"
"Noooo you can't make me pay taxes taxation is theft noooo!"
"Taxes? I'm a landlord"
"Oh well in that case here you go, enjoy your hard-earned income sir."
The "taxation is theft" squad got very upset about this and claimed that if you rent from a landlord, it is a voluntary transaction and you can always move. So if you don't like being taxed, you can always move somewhere else and if you can't find anywhere with no taxes that will accept you, the free market has spoken
Shark attacks in landlocked states? Yes, there have been shark bites in Kentucky, Missouri and New Mexico - "Colorado Governor Jared Polis shared a fun fact on Twitter last week: "Colorado is tied for state with the least shark attacks!" While that might seem quite obvious for a landlocked state, the graphic Polis shared raised eyebrows. The shark attack map showed other landlocked states – including New Mexico, Missouri and Kentucky – did have at least one shark attack... While Kentucky doesn't have an ocean, it does have aquariums. In 2006, at least 12 people at Kentucky's Newport Aquarium were bitten by sharks while at an exhibit that allows visitors to touch the animals, according to Shark Attack Data. The site is a database of information from the Global Shark Attack File, compiled by the Shark Research Institute, which conducts peer-reviewed research on sharks. Underwater Times, a site that claims to be the "world's leading news source for the world underwater," also has data on the 12 shark bites at the Newport Aquarium. Both sites specify that injuries were not serious – and were similar to paper cuts. Missouri's lone attack also occurred in captivity — in 1996, when a couple was performing at the St. Louis Boat and Sports Show. Kathi Peters, who was at the show with her husband, Marco, put her hand in a 9,000-gallon tank with six nurse sharks. She suffered from five puncture wounds to her hand, according to the Global Shark Attack File. Sharks can actually appear in the wild in Missouri. According to a study published in Marine & Fishery Sciences, bull sharks can swim from oceans into rivers, like the Mississippi, which runs through Missouri. However, this is extremely rare, and only two bull sharks have been captured in the Mississippi River's upper portion during the entire 20th century – one in St. Louis, Missouri, near Rush Island Power Station in 1995, and one in Alton, Illinois in 1937, according to the study."