Predominantly Erroneous (Exohedron nonsense blog)

Something something, scientist in their hubris were so preoccupied with the "could" that they didn't bother to think about if they should.

 

I mean, they clearly should have; the basic ideas behind the papers fit together very well. They're just bad at stitching.

 

On the list of questions I'm not sure I want an answer to: so is reality-shifting the new otherkinning?

 

A cowherd herds cows, and the cows form a herd. A shepherd herds sheep, whereas the sheep themselves form a flock.

 

I love this guy giving an introduction to complex number arithmetic under the assumption that you've seen Galois theory.

 

I would like those chocolate sculpture creation videos a lot more if they didn't insist on spray-painting them. I didn't come here to see a sculpture of a robot made of metal, or perhaps more accurately cardboard and plastic and paint, I came here to see a sculpture of a robot made of chocolate! I came here to see a life-size floor harp made of chocolate!

 

It's the hot new fanfiction genre: Plot Without Porn

 

I'm glad that I don't do scientific outreach on quantum physics, because I'd hate to have to keep explaining to people that particle-wave duality isn't really a thing, in that the fundamental objects cannot be meaningfully described as being particles or waves. Unfortunately, due to historical conventions we are stuck with misnomers like "wavefunction" and "virtual particle" and people keep thinking that Feynman diagrams are actually representative of physical processes, which I'm sure causes quite a bit of irritation for people trying to explain quantum field theory.

 

I really appreciate Bret Devereaux's history blog because it is very much not about persons or events, but rather about systems. Here is how people farmed during different historical periods in various geographies; here is how people waged war, here is how the economy functioned. Systems, be they technologies or cultures or social structures, weren't really covered in the history classes I took in school. Which is a shame, because I find it hard to care about individuals or events, but I would have loved to learn about, say, the development of metalworking over the centuries, and how that played into important historical battles.

 

Ah, people rediscovering hash-based commitments so they can play the iterated prisoner's dilemma asynchronously over the internet. How adorable.

 

One thing I really appreciate about the design choices in Fantasy Fluxx: there are two keepers, the Gallant Swordsman and the Beautiful Princess, who are clearly meant to be counterparts. The Gallant Swordsman is, of course, armed with a sword. And so of course his female counterpart, the Beautiful Princess, is holding...a sword.
And this isn't just cosmetic: there's a card that only affects keepers involving swords, which means that if she weren't holding a sword the Beautiful Princess wouldn't be affected, but the Gallant Swordsman would.

 

I'm sure that my parents did a bit of subtle steering, but I am glad that despite being named by my then-6-year-old sibling I ended up with a decently standard name. Like, it's not a name that I love, nor is it a particularly interesting one, but it hasn't caused me any difficulties other than occasionally being shared with too many people in close vicinity.

 

Just to be clear, in Plato's Allegory of the Cave, what's the ontological status of the cave itself?

 

It turns out that when making soup, green tea isn't an awful base to start with. I mean, it does need some stuff to thicken it, but as a starting point not bad.

 

To what extent do we want an elected politician to be a pure reflection of their constituency?

 

A bar called "The Worst of Times"

 

I know that it was mostly a matter of perspective in that one photo and horses aren't actually that large, but what if they were big enough that one way for them to show affection was to envelope your head in one of their nostrils?

 

I think I would appreciate out-of-context quotes more if it weren't for the little voice in the back of my head saying "Source! Source!"

 

"Netherlands" and "Neanderthals" are not quite anagrams.

 

What if instead of making an overblown fake apology video apologizing for something I supposedly said, I instead make an overblown fake apology video apologizing for something my co-host said, and declaring that said person has been removed from the team by unanimous vote by the rest of the team members, and will hopefully be replaced shortly by someone more suitable. And then all the rest of the videos going forward from that one I'm the only person in them and the "team" is never mentioned again.