Yes, its all evolution. 5 legged dogs aren't very common, so we don't specifically look for them. Like we aren't looking for humans with six fingers.
I get it, the litmus test of parent is to show that the AI is smarter than a human, not as smart as a human. Can the AI recognize details that are difficult for normal people to see even though the AI has been trained on normal data like the humans have been.
As negative as it may be, I refuse to update iOS until liquid glass is dead. Apple always gives us something we didn't ask for and don't want, and sometimes takes away things we do like and want.
I avoided the entire butterfly keyboard/touch bar Macbooks by buying an older model (2015 MacBook pro, the last one with scissor switch until 2020) and not upgrading until M series. That turned out to be a good decision.
That's what I did as well, I waited until the touch bar and the butterfly keyboard were out of the flow and got a really fantastic MacBook Pro with touch ID. Dare I say it works better than my iphone.
It's not going away, but I remain hopeful it will be refined. macOS is the real casualty this upgrade cycle—iOS has problems but isn't fundamentally broken.
> The window quibble, the incubator gap, and the replication protocol do not touch the central, uncontested fact that chance contamination plus observational curiosity gave medicine its first antibiotic.
Personally for me, while less important, I really appreciate the investigation into the narrative.
I agree that the science is more important and the results don't care about the story.
The balance is that we don't need to go around correcting everyone, but knowing more about the details of the story is worth my time in reading this piece. I think the article strikes the right tone.
To be anal about being anal, the article doesn't preclude Fleming's account. It argues that it's unlikely, but countless highly improbable things are happening every second. On this topic somehow Ancient Egyptian poultices (and in cultures onward - though they are the oldest recorded account) even used moldy bread to treat bacterial infections, somehow stumbling onto genuine antibacterial aspects for an absurdly counter-intuitive treatment that has a real effect. However it was initially discovered back then, let alone replicated and confirmed, must have been through an unimaginably improbable series of events. Yet it happened. That's rather the story of humanity.
Wouldn't it be static electricity in that case and not lightning? Not sure if this is just a technical definition thing I'm missing or if lightning just makes a cooler sounding headline.
I think this is a mix of not having a word for this specific phenomenon, so inappropriately applying the closest, and the usual bad science reporting. They don't call it lighting in the actual paper, because not all discharge events are lightning.
And a mountain is a bump on the ground. It does feel like "lightning" comes with context beyond how the charge was formed, even if it could be technically correct to say that's all it is. Of course almost nobody knows what triboelectric discharge is either, but sticking to "static electricity" fits well between the two.
Yes, it's a little mind boggling because the typical human context is this rocky ball of what is ultimately a very uncommon distribution of heavy elements. It's a strange feeling to know that almost everything is utterly unlike the everyday human experience. If you turn down the uhm acksshuwlly a few notches I think parent post's point is quite obvious.
The uniqueness of our state is quite interesting, arguably profound. Sol exists in the so-called "Local Bubble" which is about 1/100 of the average density of the galaxy, probably caused by multiple supernova. It's possible, if not likely, that this has helped reduce impact events such that life has only reset ~6 times rather than hundreds, and probably contributed to the relative abundance of heavy elements in our solar system.
Earth's biosphere is profoundly 'lucky' on several very disparate time-scales. And then there's the size of the moon...
There is a theory that primordial black holes formed in the very early universe. I'm not sure when this process would happen relative to the formation of atoms. But, if it actually happened, it would have been long before stars started forming.
I am the first to complain about imperial units but this article is mostly metric. As long as metric/SI is there, I have no problem with what they chose to show next to it, including swimming pools, football fields and Hiroshima bombs.
Also feet happen to be the standard measurement of altitude in aviation, which rockets are part of, even in metric countries, I hate it but it's like that. Distances are nautical miles, a not so bad unit (it corresponds to 1 arcminute on earth), which make me hate the use of terrestrial miles in articles partaking to aviation even more. But it is a bit offtopic here because most of the article is metric.
Good lord, find something else to be angry about. Decades of metric vs imperial threads should have you convinced by now that no matter how hated they are, these units aren't going away any time soon.
A pet peeve of mine is that the US doesn't actually use "imperial units", as those were established by the Brits well after the declaration of independence.
I don't think that's the OP's issue, it's just in this context.
Can someone from the industry confirm whether they use metric internally and the stream uses imperial just for the patriotic show or whether imperial units are used because some countries use different unit systems and this is normal?
On a related note, I don't think anyone is bothered buying screens (monitor/phone/...) labeled in inches, but orbital elevations and speeds? Weird.
I was with the space industry in India. The aviation sector is uniform throughout the world and uses feet, ft/s (vertical rates), knots (air and ground speed) etc. But I believe ground ranges are in kilometres and fuel loads are in kilogram, though I have heard pounds used in some places. Some ex-Soviet countries used to work with SI units even for aviation. But that difference between them and the world was partially responsible for a very tragic and horrific mid-air collision over Charkhi-Dadri near New Delhi in 1996. I don't know if they changed that afterwards. Meanwhile the naval and marine sectors also use nautical miles (different from the imperial miles) and knots exclusively. I believe that it's because the naval conventions were formed before the SI system was devised. Aviation sector just borrowed from them.
Considering all these, you'd expect space sector to borrow from the aviation sector. But we use SI systems exclusively. Everything in metres, kilograms, seconds. Feet, miles, knots etc are unheard of (Well, we have heard of them. We just don't use them). SI units make calculations and our life a magnitude of order easier. I need to check up how it is with winged reentry vehicles. But they're also likely go with m/s rather than knots. The only time we face difficulty with esoteric units are when we use some rare sensors. You end up looking up the definition of 'BTU' and other similar atrocities.
There are two noteworthy exceptions to this trend though. It's when specifying engine thrust and specific impulse. Engine thrust is often specified in kilograms, (metric) tonnes etc. Of course they mean kgf and Tf (weight equivalent of that mass under 1g). Meanwhile mN, N, kN and MN are also used equally frequently. It's a perennial source of frustration and conflict, with younger generation preferring SI units and the seniors preferring kilograms and tonnes. Meanwhile, specific impulse is even weirder. If you were using SI units, you'd expect N.s/kg or m/s or something similar. Even if you were using imperial units, you'd expect something similar. But the unit everyone actually uses is seconds. For examples, a high end cryogenic engine may deliver an Isp in the range of 450s (SSME had a vacuum Isp of 452s). Sometimes, it's also expressed as 'effective velocity' of exhaust in m/s. There are logical explanations for all these weird units. But the reality is that none of them, including the SI units are strictly correct, because they all use some sort of scaling that isn't linear or an assumption that doesn't apply.
You can blame the US for all these inconsistencies in the space sector. The Americans have a habit of making up units on the spot. For example, the kT, MT yields of nukes were invented by the Manhattan project scientists. Similarly, the unit of nuclear criticality is dollars and cents - thanks to Louis Slotin. (Sadly, he passed away soon after the second criticality accident with the demon core). Anyway, the US also has shot themselves in the foot by mixing up units. The Mars Climate Orbiter crashed into the planet instead of entering its orbit due to the engineers mixing up the SI and imperial units. Moral of the story, if you plan to go to space, you better choose a measurement system and stick to it. Also, don't make a round scrubber for the command unit and a square scrubber for the lander. Make up your mind first!!
In India, decades after metric, many will only understand feet and inches for height, length etc.. Think it's the same in many Asian countries, though some have moved on.
Some of use in India don't even grok inches, miles, pounds, pints, ares or cubits. In fact, I haven't met anyone in the professional fields (science, engineering and medicine) who is comfortable with imperial or any other non-metric systems. Not even our parents are comfortable with them. It was a nightmare when we were faced with such units in public exams. That's an arcane skill that disappeared 3 or 4 generations ago. To be clear, I'm not claiming that the whole of India is like that. But I'm pointing to the fact that there are entire regions in India where it has been like that for generations.
Its not uniform across domains. For example in Singapore or Hong Kong if you ask someone's height it's CM but flat apartment area or price is psf. Ounces are unknown. I guess it's same in India.
The kids need to learn a new system first for things to change. Canada understood this. The US insists on teaching future generations imperial units, so it won't change quickly.
I love how you mischaracterize it. All measurement systems are as artificial as Esperanto. So that analogy is meaningless here. But as far as popularity goes, the SI system is like English and the imperial units are like Esperanto. Never mind the age difference. So you're better off choosing the system that maintains consistent prefixes and units without arbitrary conversion constants. And that's what the rest of the world does. Meanwhile, enjoy the company of Myanmar and Liberia!
I don't understand why this is being downvoted. I would love if metric were used universally, but I don't really see any difference between that and wanting a single language to be used universally. In fact, the cost of different languages is certainly much higher than different systems of units. Converting between systems of units is just trivial arithmetic after all.
I split my time between Europe and the US, and I am totally not convinced that metric is better.
Some things are ridiculously better in the imperial system - like temperature: In Fahrenheit, 0 is roughly the coldest mean day in densely inhabited areas, and 100 is the hottest. In Metric, 0 is the freezing point of water at sea level in ambient temperatures and with a low barometer reading, 100 is boiling in the same conditions.
Since I measure weather much more frequently than I measure water temps, I am driven cukoo by the silly Centigrade system.
Also, The splitting into 12 used by the foot is more useful, in my experience, than the ten of the metric. In fact, I strongly decry that we teach our kids to use base 10 instead of the much more efficient and easier to divde into fractions of base 12. (You can teach kids to count joints on thier fingers [using the thumb as a pointer] to get to 12x12 on two hands, and give the kids a headstart on fractions, multiplication and division, but I digress..)
On the other hand, having both an Imperial Gallon and a US Gallon, etc, where the same word is used for different amounts, now THAT is insane.
I've always found the weather argument somewhat unconvincing, because 0°C being the freezing point of water is very much a useful point of reference in weather contexts - it's roughly where one may expect iced-over pavements and rain to turn to snow! And then the higher temperatures are a question of getting used to it - 40°C instead of 100°F is very very warm, 30 is pretty hot, 20 is reasonably warm, etc.
But then I grew up with Celsius, so no wonder I'm used to it!
Yeah, frankly Celsius is very easy for weather temperatures in temperate environments. Snow and ice is approx 0, room temperature approx 20, a hot summer's day approx 30 and it won't reach 40 unless you go on holiday in a desert region. Easy to approximate on a small range (and the nominal extra precision of Fahrenheit is illusory for talking about weather anyway because you care far more about humidity and wind than sub 1 Celsius differences)
> But then I grew up with Celsius, so no wonder I'm used to it!
People confuse familiarity with intuitiveness all the damn time. It's a recurring theme in OS "ease of use" superiority debates as well as metric vs imperial. And date, time or number formats. And road signs.
But I'm never at exactly 1 atm plus the government dumps copious amounts of salt so water never actually freezes at 0°C plus so long as I memorize that 32°F is freezing it's exactly the same as memorizing 0°C is freezing.
I would say the nice thing about the metric system is as long as you convert into a base unit (i.e. Meters, Seconds, etc) then you can easily convert stuff around. But you can't! Metric uses Kilograms not Grams all the time for things like Force (Kg *m/s^2). So I still have the same problem as imperial units ...
If you can't multiple 231 by 5280 what are you going to do when you measure a length of 23.1 cm and need to multiple it by the height of 52.80 cm?
> Are you serious when you say you can't easily multiply or divide by 1000?
You have missed the point. Force is a mass * distance / time. So, if I have a 1 g weight I want to move 1 meter in 1 second then it takes 1 Newton of force. Except it doesn't because Force is actually kilo-mass * distance / time. If I need to look up (or memorize) stuff like this then the entire advantage of metric goes away because I can just memorize the imperial way as well.
It just comes down to what you're familiar with. There's certainly a benefit to everybody using Metric in the same reasoning as there's a benefit to everybody using Mandarin.
> If I need to look up (or memorize) stuff like this then the entire advantage of metric goes away
Hmmm... no?
With metric, once you know what a "meter" is, you have the distances. <milli>meter, <centi>meter, <deci>meter, ... It's one unit: the meter. And fractions of it that require trivial conversions.
With imperial, you have multiple units of distance: inches, feet, yards, football fields, miles.
The benefit of metric is that you have to memorise fewer units, period. Your example is a formula in physics. There you have to memorise F = m * a AND in which units those are (bonus if they are consistent between the formulas, of course). That's strictly equivalent between imperial and metric there.
> It just comes down to what you're familiar with.
Of course, if you're familiar with imperial and not metric, then you're better off with imperial!
> There's certainly a benefit to everybody using Metric in the same reasoning as there's a benefit to everybody using Mandarin.
That's an interesting example: Mandarin is known for being a lot harder than English. Obviously, if you grew up with Mandarin and no English, you will be more comfortable with Mandarin. But people speaking Mandarin don't insist on saying that Mandarin is not harder than English, in my experience :-).
I think in your first point the difference is between "calculation" and "conversion". For calculations, it's generally accepted that arbitrary numbers are possible and a calculator may have to come out. For conversions, it's nice to be able to say that 1250m is 1.250km - I bump into conversions much more commonly than having to do calculations, and it's nice to be able to do them in my head.
I don't think the second point is particularly valid. The SI unit is a kg - which is weird, but always consistent. All Physics units in metric involve kilograms. I will grant that it's unusual that it has a prefix, but still - if you know the 7 base SI units (including the kg), the rest follows reasonably, and conversions are trivial compared to Imperial (orders of magnitude vs arbitrary multipliers).
Fundamentally yeah, what one's familiar with is the system that feels most intuitive, but I don't think these specific arguments against metric work super well
I am ready to bet big that you would never hear that kind of opinions from someone who learned the metric system first. Am I right in your case?
As someone who grew up with metric, my opinion is that nothing that imperial people claim is unintuitive with metric is, in fact, unintuitive to me. Nothing. And I tried hard. We're used to what we're used to :-).
> Some things are ridiculously better in the imperial system - like temperature
This says that you grew up with imperial, I'm convinced of it!
> In fact, I strongly decry that we teach our kids to use base 10 instead of the much more efficient and easier to divde into fractions of base 12.
What's the argument there? That because you can divide 12 by 2, 3, 4 makes it vastly easier than 10, because 10 you can only divide by 2 and 5? How does that make it easier to learn fractions? What about the fact that in metric, a centimeter is 1/100 of a meter, and a millimeter is 1/1000 of a meter? Those are fractions, right?
Just to make it clear: I am not claiming anything about imperial being ridiculous; I totally understand that if you grew up with it, then it's intuitive to you. What I don't understand, really, is all those imperial people who just cannot seem to apprehend the idea that maybe, just maybe, they are biased because imperial is what they know better. Is it that hard? It makes me concerned about cultural differences... do those people realise that others may have different cultures, and that it is okay and not ridiculous?
PS: I upvoted you because I don't find it fair that you get so many downvotes for an innocent opinion. I don't share your opinion, but it's not offensive or anything like that :-).
Fractional units do work much easier with 2, and 3 as common denominators, and I find metric natives are a bit less wieldy with fractional units overall, presumably because they aren't used as often. However the majority of people overall are bad with fractions anyways.
I think the mistake you have is starting from the wrong premise. The premise, IMO, should be that OP has been harassed, demeaned, and otherwise been made to feel bad for 20+ years for using the units they were raised with. At least that's my experience as an American.
Most people don't seem to care about the units, what the haters care about (not you, but the general experience) is having an opportunity to proclaim how much better they are than other people, mostly over an accident of birth.
I totally feel for that, you should not be harassed, demeaned or made to feel bad for that (or anything else for that matter).
But I don't think that the rational answer is to try to convince everybody that your system is more intuitive because the other has "ridiculous" features. I answered to a comment that said: "ridiculously better in the imperial system".
Imperial is more familiar to you. You could just have said that.
Everybody hates swapping between units of measurement. You pick one and stick with it. It's natural having the need to move between two measurement systems irritates you.
>I measure weather much more frequently than I measure water temps,
In cold climates water temp is actually the most important thing to know about the weather by a long shot. The freezing point tells you if it's wet or dry, slippery or non-slippery.
Unsure how the headlines doesn't align. Maybe it's different than what I'm seeing:
> Kroger acknowledges that its bet on robotics went too far
reply