Alan Haisley

@pickover Probably not a true fractal since it can't be infinitly downward recursive. Ignoring the circles and just focusing on the endpoint line, it seems rather fractal-like though.

Mathematics. "Fractal Spirograph." Source: bit.ly/3cZHyY4

"Our brains use a deeply flawed shortcut that assumes the loudest voices are the majority." How many of us remember seeing audience presentations where the MC would ask for applause for one thing and then the other? I even remember one early TV show (can't remember the name) where they had sound meters displaying the applause volume. This is by far the stupidest way humans have ever found to decide truth.

Todd Rose graduated from high school, sort of, with a GPA of 0.9. Somehow, he went out to become a professor at Harvard, and today, he runs the most consequential think tank in America. Populace specializes in private opinion polling, and their work today is more important than ever. Why? Because the extent to which we’re being manipulated online is worse than you think. Much, much worse. Hundreds of millions of bots, (literally) have infected every social platform, and led to a long list of “collective illusions” that have reinforced to a “manufactured consensus” around myriad issues that are tearing us apart. In short, we’ve been turned against one another, by an enemy that’s determined to see our county collapse from the inside out. According to Todd, the most serious, manufactured consensuses plaguing Americans revolve around societal values, political polarization, and interpersonal trust. For instance, Americans widely believe that society fundamentally prioritizes wealth, status, luxury, and fame. But in private polling, individual Americans overwhelmingly rank personal fulfillment, being a good parent, character, and doing work with a positive impact at the top of their personal values. Because people chase what they think others value, they pursue hollow benchmarks of fame and money, inadvertently teaching their children to do the same. Likewise, the overwhelming public consensus suggests that Americans are fiercely divided over cultural, institutional, and political issues. But data from Populace (and I mean, LOTS of data) reveals that roughly 90% of Americans actually agree on the vast majority of controversial issues. Our brains use a deeply flawed shortcut that assumes the loudest voices are the majority. Because a tiny fraction of extreme users dominates most social media platforms, and because foreign bot armies, (mostly from China,) have weaponized these divides to an unprecedented level, we are awash in false consensuses. Which leads us to self-silence out of fear. According to Todd, the largest collective illusion in society today concerns mutual trustworthiness. In truth, the vast majority of Americans privately believe that they are trustworthy and value integrity. However, they simultaneously believe that most other Americans are dishonest and do not value trust at all. This manufactured mismatch causes people to treat their neighbors with a level of suspicion that oftentimes, isn’t warranted. It also leads people to fall in line with all sorts agendas that are not in fact, nearly as popular as they assume them to be. Defund the Police, for instance, or Black Lives Matter, (no kidding), or the current panic around data centers, or the resistance to nuclear power, or much of the public pressure around cancel culture, DEI, ESG, and lots of other issues that never really had the support that people thought. Bottom line, school boards, corporations, and politicians implement policies that almost nobody actually wants, driven entirely by the fear of opposing a false majority that doesn’t really exist. For me, Todd’s research does two things. It encourages tolerance and offers hope, because it proves we’re not really as divided as we seem. But it also encourages brutal honesty, even if it means getting thrown out of your own club. I’d be curious to know what it inspires in you. Our whole conversation is here: bit.ly/TWIHI495ToddRo… A short clip is below. His latest initiative, Be The People, is also worth a look. bit.ly/4yv9gAD

It's probably mercury rather than gallium. I remember doing that when I was young. Whoever is performing doesn't appear to have any skin lesions and so will be ok if what we see is all there is. Mercury vapor is where most of the harm comes from. Constant exposure to the metal, which outgasses slowly at room temperature, causes a buildup in the nervous system - including the brain - which is where most of the damage occurs. Amalgams using mercury have been used in dentistry for over a thousand years. In the US, use for the last 200 years was common - and continues in some places now. Be careful with fluorescent tubes since they have a small amount of mercury. They are most hazardous if broken while hot - vapor remember - but should be recycled unbroken.

What is this 🤔

@RapidResponse47 If the AI data center is responsible for producing its own power, hopefully via nuclear, the "energy providers" won't even be involved. Change the approval rules to require this and so many problems never appear.

"An energy provider in East Texas pledging not to raise their electricity bills due to new AI data center construction. SWEPCO says they've signed onto an agreement put together by the Trump Admin. to thwart the threat data centers could pose to people's electric bills." 👏

@AstronomyVibes The video says that it would calculate a landing point from current orbital information. Could it do the inverse and calculate from a landing point back to orbital data?

Russian non-computer space navigation system. It just uses ~500 gears.

@RapidResponse47 Thank you.

Valar Atomics CEO Isaiah Taylor: "Over the last 30 years, we became more interested in Powerpoint than in power plants, and it's your leadership that is changing that." 🔥

@Math_files When there are two correct answers, a good teacher would congratulate the student on a correct answer while pointing out the other answer that works and perhaps writing a little about why there are two correct answers, both giving the desired sum.

Teachers who are incapable of controlling their emotions towards children they're meant to be teaching shouldn't be teachers.

@The1FreeMan1 That's silly. The clock doesn't own you.

The daylight savings bill just screwed anyone in the construction, agricultural, oil, mining, or basically anyone who has to work outside, because a bunch of office rats dont want to wake up early.

@Math_files Interestingly, Zeno's writing predates this by a century. I suspect though that this thinking occurred much earlier than either of these scholars and possibly universally in human thought but was either not written down or the writing was lost.

In November 2001, Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Beijing University of Technology. During a visit to a calculus class about derivatives, he went to the board and wrote a line from Zhuangzi: “A one-foot rod, if you take half of it each day, will never be used up.” He then wrote a mathematical formula to explain it and said this idea is an early form of limits. This example from Zhuangzi’s "Tianxia" chapter shows the idea of dividing something again and again so that it keeps getting smaller and approaches zero. It shows that the basic idea behind limits existed long before modern calculus.

@RandPaul Your poster needs a couple more lines: Removes dead people from voter rolls Makes sure that people are registered where they legally reside.

The uniparty acts like protecting the ballot box is controversial. It’s not. It’s common sense. We need to pass the SAVE America Act.

@amazing_physics Switched electromagnetism. A 1 element railgun.

Which law of Physics

@KatTimpf Staff for a one-eyed cat should certainly be challenging. Of course being on staff for a two-eyed cat is a challenge. Enjoy, Kat.

The behind-the-scenes inside story of how I met Juan 😭❤️

@engineers_feed 40 lb

Mechanical reasoning test

@FoxNews ICE had cars available. It looks like they could have sacrificed a couple of dents to blockade the escape. If there is more than what meets the eye, ICE needs to show or explain. Who serves as Internal Affairs for DHS/ICE?

Newly released security video captures the moment an ICE immigration enforcement operation in Biddeford, Maine turns deadly. The Department of Homeland Security says agents were conducting surveillance at the home of a person with a final order of removal when they tried to stop a vehicle leaving the property. DHS says the driver attempted to flee, and an ICE officer, "fearing for public safety," opened fire, killing the driver.

@amazing_physics Is that one in Paris? What is the length of the wire?

Focault's pendulum which makes the rotation of Earth visible

If the power generators are on the same site as the data centers do they need any of this property? Why not require on site nuclear power generation? On the other hand, has any court ajudicated on whether or not supercomputer AI data centers are in the public interest? Personally I believe that at least some are needed but has it been legally proven that these particular ones in this particular place are?

The Truth About Al Data Centers Nobody Is Talking About 🚨 Life With MTG episode is LIVE 👇 youtu.be/WYfj5mRGbWQ?si…

@wonderofscience That is just spooky!

When frame rate matches the rotor speed. 📽: Reece Deavor

This is an illustration of the effects of doubling. People questioning the possibility seem to think that a sheet of paper is 8.5x11 inches. Actually, if the mill has a big enough roller a sheet of paper can be of any arbitrary lengh. Still, I would focus on describing it as starting with one sheet of paper, adding one sheet, adding 2 sheets, and so on. This miight be an easier process to visualize and it is the same as the folding example.

If you fold a piece of paper in half about 14 times, it would reach roughly the height of an average human. Folding it 23 times would make it as tall as the tallest building in the world. If you could somehow fold it 42 times, it would extend beyond the atmosphere and reach all the way to the Moon. And at just 103 folds, the paper would surpass all the planets in the solar system and stretch to the edge of the observable universe.

All of the information that is available could be a CGI scam - with which the world seems to abound these days. To be considered in reality the company must produce working prototypes and supply them to legitimate independent testing laboratories. Until then there is no way to tell the difference between reality and fiction.

Kansas - based Astron aerospace has developed the H2 starfire, a hydrogen - powered rotary engine with no pistons and only 82 total parts - nuts and bolts included.

@KatTimpf There was a young lady swollowed a fly. NOW I know why she swallowed that fly!🕷️

🤍🤍🤍🤍