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Comment Re:5mm Hg error (Score 1) 90

The 5mm Hg error isn't...too terribly bad, but 10mm Hg error or higher is unconscionable.

I don't think looking at it as 4% error is the most useful comparison. It might be better to compare the error with the distance between different blood pressure categories, which is generally a 20 mm Hg jump for systolic, or 10 for diastolic.

Someone with hypertension problems (i.e. the kind of person that might have a blood pressure cuff at home) would care quite a bit about an error of 10 mm Hg.
Science

The Quest To Crystallize Time - Previously Considered Impossible, Researchers Create Time Crystals (nature.com) 129

New submitter omaha393 writes: Researchers have addressed a perplexing issue in physics: the existence of time crystals. Time crystals, previously only hypothetical in nature, are structures that oscillate without any external energy supplied. The idea of time crystals set off a massive feud among physicists, arguing that such a state of matter could not exist. As leading time crystal proponent Frank Wilczek describes it: "conceptually, it is a clock that ticks forever without being wound." With the paper published in Nature Wednesday, researchers showed their method of production and the unusual nature of time crystals, which owe their oscillation properties to never achieving a state of equilibrium. From a report on Phys.org: Ordinary crystals such as diamonds, quartz or ice are made up of molecules that spontaneously arrange into orderly three-dimensional patterns. The sodium and chlorine atoms in a crystal of salt, for example, are spaced at regular intervals, forming a hexagonal lattice. In time crystals, however, atoms are arranged in patterns not only in space, but also in time. In addition to containing a pattern that repeats in space, time crystals contain a pattern that repeats over time. One way this could happen is that the atoms in the crystal move at a certain rate. Were a time crystal of ice to exist, all of the water molecules would vibrate at an identical frequency. What is more, the molecules would do this without any input from the outside world. [...] Shivaji Sondhi, a Princeton professor of physics said that the work addresses some of the most fundamental questions about the nature of matter. "It was thought that if a system doesn't settle down and come to equilibrium, you couldn't really say that it is in a phase. It is a big deal when you can give a definition of a phase of matter when the matter is not in equilibrium," he said.

Comment Similar argument (Score 1) 830

What are the chances I've slept with your girlfriend? There are effectively infinite potential girlfriends. If we take it as possible that I can pick up girls at all, we must assume that somewhere along the way I become a philandering charlatan, switching girlfriends regularly, and that over a truly infinite timeline, I will sleep with infinite girlfriends. So we must assume that yes, I have slept with your girlfriend, along with everyone elses, ever.

I don't accept the premise that we can establish a theoretical scenario describing the number of real vs simulated universes, postulate that we are a in randomly selected one of those universes, and then satisfactorily conclude that we are probably in one category or the other.

Comment Distinctions (Score 5, Insightful) 166

"AMX claimed that the two accounts were only used for debugging,"

No, you only use them for debugging.

Even if we choose to trust that you're not using these accounts for nefarious purposes (which we shouldn't), that's not the point. The point is that they exist at all, and just because you created them doesn't mean someone else cannot use them.

Comment "Firewall" (Score 0) 313

"Firewalls are supposed to prevent campaigns from viewing data gathered by their rivals."

Firewalls? Please. Anyone who knows anything about what a firewall is knows that firewalls do not do this sort of thing. Firewalls are 100% about controlling which ports are open or closed on a computer, and under what circumstances. They have nothing whatsoever to do with separating customer data, and anything you have that does that is called something else.

Listen, DNC: I know you need to give us a lie that minimizes your legal liability in these sorts of situations. Please prepare a plausible lie in the future.

Comment Interesting implications for diplomacy (Score 2) 118

The USA's continued cooperation with Russia on the ISS mission has been one of the many things that keeps me assured that we're not going to just completely devolve into war, because nobody wants to come to blows over that particular asset. And now we're trying to get out of ISS involvement "as quickly as we can."

Wow.

Comment Re:Why is prostitution illegal in the first place? (Score 1, Interesting) 390

Two reasons:

1. The expected moral indignation of those in our population who believe prostitution is just bad. I don't think there's much constructive discussion to be had here one way or the other.

2. Prostitution is *heavily* associated with human trafficking, along with other behaviors that boil down to a girl being forced to sell her body, rather than wanting to. This is the reason that really matters.

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