Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Stephen Judd,
I have a problem funding things that extensive review has failed to find evidence for, eg acupuncture,
I've got a problem with it, but in perspective against the ridiculous amounts of money that various other parties commit to their own little hobby horses, each of which is also not "proven" to work either, I find the Green interest in alternative medicine to be a pretty small price, something that actually has an upside potential directly relating not only to individual relief without drugs, but also has an inclusive cultural aspect utterly devoid in the commitment to giving all access to public funding directly to massive institutions.
That's what's lost in the focusing on the imperfection of the Green Party as a potential partner. Compared to what, exactly? NZ First? Are their batshit crazy ideas somehow more tenable? Or perhaps a grand coalition with the National Party, just to keep the petrol establishment and big gambling and international utility investors in bank?
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Andrew Geddis,
Has anyone suggested anything different? I think the only contention is whether the public health system should do so.
Yup, and considering that the public health system is funded by taxpayers, the idea that it should be shutting down all rivals to big pharma, regardless of individual success with alternative therapy, is quite contentious. Because denying access to government funding really IS a way of shutting it down. I can hardly see it as a great evil on the part of the Green Party, a critical issue undermining their massively progressive agenda in so many other areas, that the have a position on this which is consistent with other aspects of their philosophy. Hell, it's not like there's any other party more dedicated to science as a core principle. At worst, the alternative medicine is not effective.
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Hard News: Not so insane, in reply to Russell Brown,
Ironically, pot would probably fail the risk assessment because of the smoking part, but I think Matt Bowden is planning to submit an a cannabinoid inhaler product.
This is the main thing that puts me off harm minimization approaches. The end game is banning everything. That doesn't seem like a great leap forward to me. If you like the idea of harm minimization because it throws the hypocrisy of alcohol and tobacco into relief and maybe one day they'll free the weed when they choke on the double standard, consider that another highly likely possibility is that they just ban tobacco and alcohol as well.
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Bart Janssen,
I know IT is a big focus of folks here but IT only exists because scientists created it for our own needs.
LOL
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Hard News: Friday Music: History, motherfuckers, in reply to nzlemming,
Was that about his music?
Are you saying he never did shoot the sheriff?
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I do like to dance, but it's all a bit wild and moves all over the place. My inspiration, little sis:
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Hard News: Event Season, in reply to Lilith __,
Actually, it’s 27.3 days. Another difficult number.
:-) 27's a pretty cool number - 3 cubed. A Rubik's Cube worth of days. It's got nice properties. I like the idea of a 9 day week. 6 work days, 3 rest days. The work days can be neatly divided into 2 or 3 pieces. Or you could stagger it out more, perhaps 2-on 1-off, in perpetuity. The month has a middle day, in the middle section of the middle week. Every week has a middle day, and every piece of it does too. Super hard workers could do 7 or 8 days every week and still get a rest.
There would be 14 months, though, and one would 14-15 days long in the remainder. Not really ideal for slicing the year. The current month system does do that quite well.
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Hard News: Event Season, in reply to BenWilson,
Hah, well apparently it's likely that the water will be evaporated off the planet sooner, so tidal locking might never happen, since water is the main cause of it on this planet.
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Hard News: Event Season, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Ben, somehow I think an awful lot of sailors, fisher people, surfers, divers, and other coastal workers/dwellers/players would disagree quite strongly with your insistence of the irrelevance of the moon and tides.
That isn't really my point. It's that because it doesn't synchronize with any actual number of days at all, and definitely doesn't synch with the solar year, and 28 days is only the sidereal month (which isn't of importance to anyone but star gazers), basing the weekdays around it makes little sense, because no kind of calculation is made easier by doing that.
Months aren't based around it either, because there's 12.4 moon orbits per year. They're falling out of synch immediately. I really don't buy that our basic unit of short term life organization, the week, should have anything to do with the moon, and even if it did, why pick the particular division we did? The synodic period is closer to 30 than 28 anyway, and that's the one that actually matters to us - where the moon is against the backdrop of stars isn't even something non-astronomers/astrologers are generally aware of. You can divide 30 much more conveniently. It has {2,3,4,5,6,10,15} as its factors, whereas 28 only has {2,4,7,14}. A 6 day week could be divided into 2 or 3 pieces. A 7 day week can't be divided evenly at all.
Anyways, it ain't changing. But I enjoy questioning it.
I rather like that the solar year doesn’t break down into an even number of solar days, etc. Nature’s not simple. :-)
Indeed, it wasn't made for our convenience, and it's gradually changing. I'd expect Earth to eventually become tidally locked to the moon, just as it is to us. Then there will be no tides, and only one side of the Earth will ever see the Moon. I don't recall whether that's going to happen before the Sun swallows both, though.
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Hard News: Event Season, in reply to Lilith __,
Ten day weeks. Or, for that matter, any other number than seven. When I challenge the number seven, that’s suggesting it could be pretty much any other number, although numbers that are prime are better. 12’s a good number, has 5 factors.
That’s right , and yet most everyone in Godzone depends on them for food . It’s not a comfortable relationship really is it?
Seems OK to me. Not a job I want to do, but I’m glad someone’s doing it, and this country is quite good for certain kinds of farming.
ETA Numbers that aren't prime, sorry.
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