Predominantly Erroneous (Exohedron nonsense blog)

Real glad I don't feel strongly even about the things I have strong opinions on, because not getting sucked into these "well-intentioned people talking past each other and getting pissed about it" is saving me a lot of time and energy.

 

There's a not-unreasonable complaint that despite continuous civilization existing in Star Wars for thousands of years, the technology doesn't seem to get noticeably better. The Doylist explanation is that Star Wars is built like fantasy despite being aesthetically science fiction, and in fantasy the status quo can last forever.

However, there is at least one instance of technology actually getting better over the millennia. Specifically, lightsabers were originally siege weapons because the power packs they needed were too big and they overheated regularly. However, lightsabers essentially achieved modern form in 5000 BBY, so that still leaves several millennia without real improvement.

 

Apparently I can attend two virtual conferences simultaneously with some amount of retention. Trying to write slides at the same time does push things a bit.

 

Realizing how much "misinformation" my internet experience exposes me to in the form of memes and more general image manipulation. It turns out the Shrek crocs are real and not just a shitpost.

 

Should I find it as funny as I do that Biden's dog keeps attacking his Secret Service agents?

 

I think an even funnier bit than putting [citation needed] into a quote by someone is to put [citation needed] onto one part of it and then tag a later, worse part with like seven different sources.

 

So I've managed to find out why some people are claiming that Jimmy Carter is the reason that the US has government shutdowns:

For context: Jimmy Carter was president of the US from 1976 to 1980.

The Antideficiency Act, passed in 1884, was passed to ensure that government agencies wouldn't spend all of their allotted budget early in the fiscal year and then extort Congress for more money. The Act makes it so that Congress legally can't appropriate more money, and so the agencies would have to survive on their original allotment.

It had minor revisions through the early 20th century, and a major one in 1950. Its current version was passed in 1982, under President Reagan.

So why Jimmy Carter?

In 1980 and 1981, Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued opinions that the Antideficiency Act implied that, should Congress fail to pass a budget for an agency by the beginning of the fiscal year, that means that it has allotted no money to that agency. Thus the agency should be considered to have no budget, and therefore legally cannot operate because it legally has no money to spend (note: allotted money that is not spent in the timeframe is taken back, not saved). Hence if Congress doesn't pass a budget, we get a government shutdown.

Carter did nominate Civiletti to be Deputy Attorney General, and when the then Attorney General Griffin Bell resigned, Civiletti became Attorney General, which is the position he had when he issued those opinions. As Attorney General, those opinions carried weight.

So: Carter nominated (somewhat indirectly but not super-indirectly) an Attorney General who interpreted a law passed in 1882 and whose last major amendment had happened in 1950 to say that if Congress doesn't pass spending bills then the government shuts down. It was, in fact, President Carter's fault, in the same way that anything that the Executive Branch does is the ultimately President's fault. But it doesn't show up on Carter's personal or presidential Wikipedia pages.

 

45 day continuing resolution

 

So if someone wanted to get a Spirit Halloween sign to hang on their desk for October, where would that person go about getting one? Asking for a friend.

 

I keep forgetting how little the Scorpion King actually is in the movie. Total MacGuffin character.

 

Two possible notions of "a proof of X adds to mathematical knowledge" from the viewpoint of someone who believes that knowing a set of axioms implicitly entails knowing all statements implied by those axioms:

1: When we say "adds to mathematical knowledge" we mean "adds to mathematical understanding", in that the set of "known" statements has not expanded but the set of statements easily loadable into working memory for use and analysis has expanded to include the statement X.

2: When we say "adds to mathematical knowledge", the thing added was not the statement X but rather the proof of X, which is itself not implied by the axioms since there are a): probably multiple valid ways to prove X from the axioms, and b): statements that are implied by the axioms but not provable (thanks, Gödel).

These are not mutually exclusive, nor necessarily a complete coverage.

 

Okay, this is actual Imposter Syndrome now.

 

Nevermind the dwarfs/dwarves thing, the real issue is grievers versus griefers

 

My audio processing issues make it so that there are a lot of songs that I've heard and have no idea not only what the lyrics are but what song is called, so quite often someone will reference a famous (or infamous, or meme-famous) song by title and I'll have no idea that I've encountered it before.

For instance, I just learned that the song "Shipping Up To Boston" is about Boston, despite having heard it multiple times before.

 

Okay, but which would be longer: a metric hour or an imperial hour?

 

I feel like I need a ConfusedMathLady react just for this post.

 

Imperial hour is longer during the workweek and shorter over the weekend.

 

I like the "Your current speed" machine that constantly displays a value 5 mph over the speed limit (on a helpful sign right next to the machine) regardless of what any of the cars on the road are doing.

 

The best thing about Pointcrow's playthrough of Tunic was definitely the chat going "you're almost out of the tutorial!" right up until he finished the game, at which point it turned into "You beat the tutorial!".
It's not even entirely wrong.

 

Now that I'm writing lyrics I get the opportunity to use some of the verbal brain-noise productively. On the other hand, I now have to figure out what the rest of the lyrics would be for the line