7thaccount (u/7thaccount)

7thaccount commented on Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt.... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

griffzhowl · 19 hours ago

Are you talking about the southern US? How can there be native apple varieties? I thought they were all originally from around central Asia and a quick look on wikipedia confirms this

7thaccount · 18 hours ago

"Native" might have been an excessively strong term. I should've said there are varieties that are unique to the region even though their ancestors originally came from Asia.

Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Black

7thaccount commented on Why you can’t grow cool-climate plants in hot climates crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt.... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

a012 · 20 hours ago

Apparently I have cool climate plants: apple, avocado, lavender those are germinated from seeds and blackberry, and fig from cuttings also living in a hot and humid climate. Definitely they can grow here, but can they be farmed? Of course not without expensive climate controls

7thaccount · 20 hours ago

Blackberry and it's variants like dewberry are very common in the south and do fine in the high heat and humidity. It's almost impossible to kill. I have 4 different varieties growing wild and in planters at my house.

I also have many apple trees and they do struggle - even the native varieties. I think that's mainly due to fungus, aphids, and the poor soil though.

No idea about avocado.

7thaccount commented on Avi Loeb: Is 3I/Atlas Our Turing Test by a Superior Alien Intelligence? avi-loeb.medium.com/is-3i... · Posted by u/ilamont

teraflop · 4 days ago

> With the typical albedo of 5% for an asteroid, the diameter of 3I/ATLAS needs to be 20 kilometers in order to account for its brightness. But as argued in my first paper about it, the reservoir of rocky material in interstellar space can only deliver a 20-kilometer rock once per 10,000 years.

He's still repeating this?

Loeb previously performed an analysis that said if 3I/ATLAS wasn't a comet and was instead an asteroid with no coma, it would have to be an unusually large object to explain its brightness. Since then, we pointed the Hubble at it and clearly saw that it was a comet, not an asteroid, so the entire premise of the calculation is wrong.

> When I proposed that it might be technological in origin, just like 2020 SO, this notion was ridiculed by comet experts, in a historical echo of Chladni’s scrutiny.

To quote Carl Sagan: "They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

7thaccount · 4 days ago

This is a really common trope of crackpots. They absolutely love comparing themselves to Galileo and saying the scientific community is like the church was during Galileo's time.

Angela Collier has a video that goes over the common tropes and once you see it, you can recognize it quickly. It's the same thing with Erik Weinstein who is trying to sell his persecution, when in reality he's basically a paid propagandist for the billionaire oligarch Peter Thiel. Why Thiel wants Weinstein to discredit our academic institutions is a good question.

7thaccount commented on Avi Loeb: Is 3I/Atlas Our Turing Test by a Superior Alien Intelligence? avi-loeb.medium.com/is-3i... · Posted by u/ilamont

King-Aaron · 4 days ago

Another recent post by him was discussing that it might be emitting it's own light: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/does-3i-atlas-generate-its-own-l...

I feel like these are fun thought experiments.

7thaccount · 4 days ago

No, he's become a grifter. He whines about "big science" trying to silence him when he literally IS big science being at Princeton and then a department chair at Harvard.

A few years ago when that interstellar object flew by he saw his chance to make a bunch of money selling books. Now he just makes wild claims with no evidence that the object was a light sail and contacts the media. He then tried to claim that SETI hasn't actually done anything and got told off by Jill Tatar...the literal inspiration for the movie Contact. Then he went off and dredged the bottom of the ocean and found some little spheres (extremely common) and started claiming they were from interstellar space and fudged the data.

What makes this complicated is that Avi was a pretty respected scientist with a huge number of papers. He knows how to do science properly and how the peer review process works, but doesn't care anymore now that he's getting attention and making money.

Check out

Angela Collier's video on YouTube: harvard & aliens & crackpots: a disambiguation of Avi Loeb

Professor Dave Explains video: Avi Loeb is a fraud now.

7thaccount commented on Ted Chiang: The Secret Third Thing linch.substack.com/p/ted-... · Posted by u/pseudolus

overfeed · 5 days ago

I love Ted Chiang and re-read his stories every few years. Most of author's criticisms arise from their refusal to accept that Chiang's stories are mostly science fantasy[1][2], and not some third option. Most/all of the stories primarily focus on characters and relationships on the macro and micro.

In each story, the gimmick(tm) is thoroughly examined and extrapolated in an internally-consistant way, but that is excellent world-building, and independent of genre.

1. As exemplified by Tower of Babylon which wouldn't be out of place in a fantasy anthology.

2. Understand is probably his number 2 "hardest" SF story. The way it is told is closer to a character study on the effects of human super-intelligence (unbelievably authored in 1991). Exhalation is no. 1, and it's focus is still very "soft" SF.

7thaccount · 5 days ago

Understand was really good IMO.

7thaccount commented on School AI surveillance can lead to false alarms, arrests apnews.com/article/ai-sch... · Posted by u/djoldman

7thaccount · 17 days ago

Yes. I think some are pointing out that this crazy level of surveillance is at Orwellian levels. Why are kids even messaging each other on these platforms? I know books and paper is old school, but it does the job well. If they have to use some kind of internal system, then a racist joke could've led to a detention and parent/teacher talk. It didn't need to auto-flag law enforcement and traumatize the kid for life. Involuntary commitment at school sounds as unAmerican as it gets.

7thaccount · 17 days ago

Edit: the threat of violence is obviously not acceptable in an age of horrifying events like school shootings. I think that goes without saying, but wanted to add to my above comment. As I unfortunately didn't make it super clear.

However, there should be a way to address the risk and prevent acts of terrorism without turning into a police state. A more reasonable response might have been to have the parents come by for a long meeting with the principal, school counselor, and school resource officer to talk about the severity of making such statements - even if she did make it sarcastically as tone/intent is difficult to judge. Then suspend the student for a day or so and have the school resource officer periodically check to ensure she didn't bring any weapons.

To play devil's advocate though, I can't imagine the stress from parents who have children of Mexican descent in such a situation.

7thaccount commented on School AI surveillance can lead to false alarms, arrests apnews.com/article/ai-sch... · Posted by u/djoldman

tyleo · 17 days ago

Did you even read the article? For the example at the top, all the stuff these kids did was well documented. I don’t understand how having a phone helps here except to add even more distraction in school and another avenue for surveillance.

The kids used a school communication program to say something racist. Schools should monitor school communication platforms.

The only thing I disagree with is the level of punishment (sending a kid to jail for a night).

7thaccount · 17 days ago

Yes. I think some are pointing out that this crazy level of surveillance is at Orwellian levels. Why are kids even messaging each other on these platforms? I know books and paper is old school, but it does the job well. If they have to use some kind of internal system, then a racist joke could've led to a detention and parent/teacher talk. It didn't need to auto-flag law enforcement and traumatize the kid for life. Involuntary commitment at school sounds as unAmerican as it gets.

7thaccount commented on School AI surveillance can lead to false alarms, arrests apnews.com/article/ai-sch... · Posted by u/djoldman

kayodelycaon · 17 days ago

Strip searching a 13-year-old girl and locking her in a jail cell for a joke? Wow. And they did all this without telling her parents.

7thaccount · 17 days ago

Absolutely horrifying

7thaccount commented on RIP Shunsaku Tamiya, the man who made plastic model kits a global obsession JapaneseNostalgicCar.com/... · Posted by u/fidotron

Loughla · 25 days ago

I know it's a mistype, but thinking of Warhammer and Gundam existing in the first world war is amazingly hilarious to me.

>Dear Mother,

I've grown a reputation among the men in my regiment as being both fearless and introspective. I never hesitate to go over the top, even when Jerry is close enough that we can smell him. But also the men are impressed with the play of light and shadows that I am able to accomplish on my Eldar Warlock using only mud and dog food.

7thaccount · 25 days ago

This is hilarious. I'm glad they left the typo there.

7thaccount commented on Tea app leak worsens with second database exposing user chats bleepingcomputer.com/news... · Posted by u/akyuu

frollogaston · a month ago

Yeah. I'm not signed up there, just end up finding advice and docs there often if I'm fixing something on my Vic.

7thaccount · 25 days ago

A comfy tank on wheels!