Zompist Bboard Again

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 8:58 pm I didn't realise he was already 75.

Same here.

And still turning out two books a year!

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:33 am

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Sun Sep 18, 2022 10:37 am Billboards are awful things as a rule.
Banning traffic cameras does not seem a good idea to me considering they contribute to significantly reducing traffic deaths. Vaping contributes to creating deaths.
But I suppose Linndale should be signposting it themselves.

Vaping is probably improving public health overall! But the billboard is funny precisely because it's so completely fucked up

Why would it improve public health?

Because it's less unhealthy than smoking cigarettes?

Yes exactly. Vaping is mostly a help for ex-smokers and it's working pretty well in that respect.

Something I noticed when I was looking at the ZBB recently:

Does anyone else have the impression that it's relatively common for pop- and rock songs to have instrumental intros that are better than the rest of the song?

I feel like I've remarked this a time or two, but I'm not sure I would say it's always or usually the case.

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 7:32 am Does anyone else have the impression that it's relatively common for pop- and rock songs to have instrumental intros that are better than the rest of the song?

I think it's because those are the parts most frequently lifted from other, better songs.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 8:39 am but I'm not sure I would say it's always or usually the case.

Oh, I'm not saying that, either. I was prompted to write that post by thinking of a few specific examples.

that is because popular music is weak and easily cowed and thinks listeners will be frightened by hearing both interesting music and interesting vocals at the same time

(or at least that's the unkind conclusion I've come to on the matter. I mostly listen to metal, which rarely bothers with such concerns as being able to clearly understand the lyrics!)

Here's a gratuitous picture of a failed experiment.

Looks like something that's about to swallow the world.

doctor shark wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:27 pm Here's a gratuitous picture of a failed experiment.

What am I looking at here? How precisely did it fail?

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 6:14 pm

doctor shark wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:27 pm Here's a gratuitous picture of a failed experiment.

What am I looking at here? How precisely did it fail?

It's a meta-failure.

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:56 pm Looks like something that's about to swallow the world.

Hrm, maybe I can try to design Rorschach tests with LC images?

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Oct 05, 2022 6:14 pm What am I looking at here? How precisely did it fail?

Black magic!

Well, actually not. I'll put a technical explanation below, but the point is that I want the circles/droplets that you can see in places and not the pretty splashes.

alice wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 4:15 am It's a meta-failure.

At least it's pretty.

doctor shark wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 4:06 pm

More: show

More technical explanation: some of my latest work is drying droplets of chiral nematic liquid crystals suspended in solutions for later biological sensing applications. These liquid crystal materials are effectively oils, which means you need something to stabilize the emulsion, but I can't use conventional surfactants because the LC alignment is sensitive to their presence. I thus use a polymer called poly(vinyl alcohol) as the stabilizer, which is amphiphilic while not an active participant in the LC alignment.
The issue is that the PVA's presence decreases the sensitivity of the droplets to the later introduction of amphiphiles, plus the drying is not a particularly "gentle" process, so you'll often have some leakage and splashing. Here, there's perhaps a bit too much splashing, where the droplets don't survive the drying and just wet the surface. The alignment once splashed is complex, but the big thing to note is that the LC has structural color (it reflects light much like a bird's wings), and the splashing on the glass creates a quite degenerate and nonuniform alignment, which leads to both defects and nonuniform pretty colors.

I see; thanks for explaining!

doctor shark wrote: ↑Thu Oct 06, 2022 4:06 pm At least it's pretty.

It is. It would make an excellent album cover for some sort of psychedelic or spacy music.

I was reading about Matisyahu, and in the process of that I read about how he was barred from performing at a music festival in Spain some years back because he would not accede to the Valencia chapter of BSD's insistence that he make an anti-Israel statement. While I personally support the Palestinian cause (even though I do not support BDS because I view its goals as being collective punishment - it is one thing to oppose the actions of the Israeli state and the settlers, it is another thing to target Israelis as such just because of what their government does), I cannot help to agree with those who say that this was an instance of anti-Semitism because he was singled out to make a statement - and the fact that he is a Jew cannot be coincidental here, and the fact that he is an American Jew means that it was his Jewishness that mattered here (as if being Jewish in and of itself made one's loyalties questionable). Yes, Matisyahu has made pro-Israel statements, but to me at least they seem to be no different from pro-American statements often made by many a Westerner - just because one is pro-Israel overall does not mean one unconditionally supports everything the Israeli state has done, just like being pro-America overall does not mean one unconditionally supports everything the US government has done. And overall, my view of this whole affair is that it does not help the Palestinian cause, because it only makes it easier to paint it with a broad brush as anti-Semitic, even though this was just one BDS chapter which did this.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 1:31 pm

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 10:34 am 'Chemical' in ordinary language doesn't mean the same thing as in scientific language. 'chemical' means 'artificial additives' in normal parlance. As far as I am concerned, complaining about people not wanting chemicals is a bit like saying that people misunderstand astronomy because they the sun is rising.

That still goes along the lines of assuming that everything "natural" is good, and thus does not avoid the issue.

I'm bringing this over to the Random thread; it's an interesting debate!

Again the use of 'chemical' means 'artificial additives' or 'the outcome of industrial processes' in this context. Googling 'chemical free-food', one definition I get excludes: "chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, hormones, drugs, or genetically modified organisms"

The picture makes sense, and there is good reason to distrust all these things.

Some people would argue 'natural is good', and there certainly is a thriving snake oil business around this idea.

I don't personally think that 'natural good, chemical bad'; but I'd argue you don't distrust them for the same reasons. Of course spoilt food or toxic mushrooms are unhealthy; but you have different reasons to be wary of phtalates or endocrine disruptors...