Op-ediots

[thoreau]

The man accepted a nomination from W? How does he live with himself? Copious drinking?

[Kolohe]

Technically, I was a Senate confirmed goverment official once upon a time during the W administration.

[Mo]

McArdle says that the Nike ad backfired because of a Morning Consult poll. When it is pointed out that Labor Day online sales were up 31% yoy compared to 17% last year, she complains that its a shallow indicator.

Labor Day sales are a shallow indicator. But they’re a deeper indicator than a poll where no one is putting up money.

[dhex]

She's a Thomas Friedman level of fucking stupid.

[Mo]

She's a Thomas Friedman level of fucking stupid.

Not nice dhex.

[D.A. Ridgely]

Technically, I was a Senate confirmed goverment official once upon a time during the W administration.

In that you were on a promotion list?

[D.A. Ridgely]

I dunno, there's something to be said for the person standing in between Trump and the launch codes.

*Envisions Mike Pence throwing himself on the Football*

Which is precisely why Pence won't allow himself to be alone in the same room with the Football!

[Kolohe]

Technically, I was a Senate confirmed goverment official once upon a time during the W administration.

In that you were on a promotion list?

Yes! (the best kind of correct)

[Hugh Akston]

Jim Acosta violated one of the oldest rules of journalism

I'll skip the first few paragraphs of cynical credulity and tounge-clucking, though it's worth a read so you know just how seriously to take this guy.

This is the rule he was referring to:

There was a time not long ago when young journalists were taught not to become the story. Apparently, many news organizations have flipped that lesson on its head.

Or try to imagine Acosta and his ilk behaving in similarly hostile fashion toward Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Keep trying, but you can’t imagine it because it never happened. Both of those pols lied to journalists repeatedly, yet you can bet 90 percent still voted straight Democratic.

Even if they didn’t like Obama or Clinton, the political reporters would never dare accuse them publicly of anything, argue with them or interrupt them. Even when skeptical, they were respectful.

Recall how Obama used to spend 10, 15 and even 20 minutes answering a single question — without interruption.

Many in the press corps may have found him overbearingly arrogant. They may have resented the way he looked down on them and bristled at critical stories or tough questions. They knew he started more leak investigations than any other president, and might have feared him because his Justice Department wiretapped a Fox News reporter during a leak case.

But they would never interrupt him or insult him or refuse to give up the microphone.

I think we can all agree that the real problem with journalists is not a lack of respect for Trump but an overabundance of respect for POTUS generally.

Just as Acosta can’t go into a movie theater and yell “fire” when there is no fire, he should not have the right to hijack a presidential press conference to suit his own ego.

lol

[Jennifer]

Oh, FFS. Acosta didn't "become" the story; Trump MADE him the story.

Recall how Obama used to spend 10, 15 and even 20 minutes answering a single question — without interruption.

Recall how Obama used to actually answer questions?

[Mo]

Jamal Khashoggi also violated that rule.

[Kolohe]

Jamal Khashoggi also violated that rule.

Oh, snap.

[Kwix]

Oh, FFS. Acosta didn't "become" the story; Trump MADE him the story.

Recall how Obama used to spend 10, 15 and even 20 minutes answering a single question — without interruption.

Recall how Obama used to actually answer questions?

With vague platitudes?

[Jennifer]

Oh, FFS. Acosta didn't "become" the story; Trump MADE him the story.

Recall how Obama used to spend 10, 15 and even 20 minutes answering a single question — without interruption.

Recall how Obama used to actually answer questions?

With vague platitudes?

Still better than Trump's technique. And I don't recall Obama's press secretary using doctored InfoWars videos as an information source, either.

[Ellie]

Oh, FFS. Acosta didn't "become" the story; Trump MADE him the story.

Recall how Obama used to spend 10, 15 and even 20 minutes answering a single question — without interruption.

Recall how Obama used to actually answer questions?

With vague platitudes?

[Mo]

Geez, there’s so much wrong with the methodology of this article. Starting with, it’s hard to tell what’s groundbreaking when a discovery was just made. It was decades before there were practical applications of relativity. Not to mention, more fundamental discoveries are going to seem more important. No one is going to say science is in decline because the wheel and lever are more important tools than the PC. Also, I love how the Stripe bro tries to make his company sound more important than it is by calling it a “software infrastructure company”.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ce/575665/

[Aresen]

Geez, there’s so much wrong with the methodology of this article. Starting with, it’s hard to tell what’s groundbreaking when a discovery was just made. It was decades before there were practical applications of relativity. Not to mention, more fundamental discoveries are going to seem more important. No one is going to say science is in decline because the wheel and lever are more important tools than the PC. Also, I love how the Stripe bro tries to make his company sound more important than it is by calling it a “software infrastructure company”.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ce/575665/

He takes a fundamental observation - "The digging gets harder as you go deeper" - and tries to turn it into a thesis of decline. As Mo notes, it is often hard to tell what discoveries will be groundbreaking, but it is also true that even 'minor' discoveries - such as fractals - can and do have a major influence in a few short years. Machine learning went from a mere notion in the 1980s to giving us voice recognition in the early aughts.

Their weak-sauce solution:

While understandable, the evidence is that science has slowed enormously per dollar or hour spent. That evidence demands a large-scale institutional response. It should be a major subject in public policy, and at grant agencies and universities. Better understanding the cause of this phenomenon is important, and identifying ways to reverse it is one of the greatest opportunities to improve our future.

seems more likely to slow progress rather than speed it. Ministries and departments always favor bureaucrats over innovators.

[Warren]

It was decades before there were practical applications of relativity.

There are practical applications of relativity?

There's a conflation of science and engineering. They are lovers, or maybe they're married. They need each other. But figuring out what the universe is made of and how it works is a fundamentally different problem than figuring out how to make technology work.

[thoreau]

GPS

[Warren]

GPS

I thought that was strictly Doppler. You're telling me there's a relativity correction for velocity and/or altitude? huh.

[thoreau]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=GPS+relativity

Also, one could argue that most applications of nuclear physics are applications of E=mc2.

Hell, high-resolution electron microscopes shoot their electrons at speeds where relativistic corrections start to matter.

In some sense, magnetism is a relativistic effect, and magnetic materials can only be understood with quantum effects. (Bohr proved that magnetic materials are impossible if physics is 100% classical.)

[Warren]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=GPS+relativity

A LMGTFY? SRSLY? Too bad you didn't bother to google it yourself, the #2 hit:
Top 4 Reasons Why GPS Doesn’t Need Einstein’s Relativity*

Also, one could argue that most applications of nuclear physics are applications of E=mc2.

One could

Hell, high-resolution electron microscopes shoot their electrons at speeds where relativistic corrections start to matter.

Ah yes.

In some sense, magnetism is a relativistic effect, and magnetic materials can only be understood with quantum effects. (Bohr proved that magnetic materials are impossible if physics is 100% classical.)

I did not know that.**


*Too bad I didn't RTFA before posting. It's crackpottery.
Even so, before I dig into it, my guess is that correcting for relativity couldn't amount to as much as a millimeter difference, and would be absolutely swamped in the noise from atmospheric distortions.

**Wait. Relativity is a classical theory. So if magnetism can only be understood with quantum, that's got nothing to do with relativity.

[thoreau]

1. As you said, the Medium article is crackpottery.

2. Magnetic fields are relativistic effects. See Purcell's introductory electromagnetism book for more info.

Magnetization of a material, OTOH, is a quantum effect. See Bohr's proof for more info. It therefore follows that magnetic properties of materials can only be properly understood through a combination of relativity and quantum mechanics.

3. Timing discrepancies between clocks on the ground and in orbit grow over time, so the effect of relativity on GPS grows over time. It is not just a millimeter resolution effect. The intro to Jim Hartle's relativity book has a nice discussion of this. He calculated how long it would take for GPS to become worthless without relativistic corrections. I forget the number now (I last read this when a copy of the book was lying in the grad student lounge in 2000 or so) but it was a small number.

That said, feel free to keep correcting me on matters of physics. I am obviously stepping out of my lane when I argue physics with you.

[Painboy]

More curious than anything, but is knowledge of relativity absolutely necessary for GPS? Is it possible they could have used a hack of some kind that would work about as well. I know throughout history there were lots of "good enough" calculations used where the underlying mechanism was still unknown.

[Warren]

That said, feel free to keep correcting me on matters of physics. I am obviously stepping out of my lane when I argue physics with you.

Lighten up Francis.