“There’s an apocryphal story about a multi-national design team working on the construction of a satellite. One group worked in Imperial units for their little bit of the project and the rest worked in metric. The result was catastrophe. I doubt this story is actually true, but it’s a good parable anyway.”
There may be an apocryphal story like that as well, but that was the 100 percent factual cause for the failure of NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter mission in 1999 (except it was U.S. customary units rather than Imperial, and everyone involved was American, as far as I know).
Another story is told in Matt Parker's 'Humble Pi - A Comedy of Maths Errors' (a very entertaining book): a Swiss and a German team started building a bridge from two sides, only to discover that they were off by 27 centimeters in height, because the Swiss and Germans used different conventions of sea level.
Regarding the possibly apocryphal satellite anecdote, such things do happen.
Back around 2005 Airbus discovered that different parts of the company in different countries were using different versions of the CATIA CAD software. The result of this was that when they went to assemble the aircraft they discovered that much of the cabling was a micropoof (technical term) too short. The result was a two year delay in bringing the aircraft onto service at a cost of hundreds of millions of Euros.
Expensive disasters are what happens in reality when things aren't clear, when there are different versions of the truth. This nonsense about everybody having their own truth is wanky bafflegab that's fine in some meaningless " whatever studies" class, but the reality is that there is only truth and falsity. Every single damn thing spouted by the woke brigade is false, and results in failure of a thousand different kinds.
Indoor plumbing with flushing toilets is a good thing. That's the truth. It's also true that all the gender studies PhDs in the world could not keep a sewerage system working in a city. Given a choice between a working toilet and all the gender studies academics in the world, I lnow what I'd choose.
What a great post, thank you. I'm hopeful that this utter nonsense will implode soon since we can already see the cracks appearing (where the "factions" or individuals are disagreeing and such, big egos and stupidity). I also think that it will (at least most of it) go away as soon as the "public administration" (bureaucracy), elements in judicial system and msm stop supporting this crap. I'm afraid the "academia" will be the hardest to turn around. I know it's a vicious cycle in a way and because this has been going on for a good while, they all kind of, feeding of each other. But (hopefully) they still are minority so... Hey, it started with political correctness
(I know there's more to the origins of it) and we (as: populace at large) failed to see the signs and to nipped in the bud. Maybe it was already too late (?)
Now we are heading for a total idiocy. It will have to eat itself, I'm hoping anyway lol
Notice how the woman (as do all women and men in these disciplines) carries herself, note how her posture, facial expressions and how she leans her head all connect and interact.
Doesn't it remind you of something? It should.
It's how women (and some men) speak with very small children, the mentally retarded and the old and senile.
It is fully subconscious and it is always present among this class or sub-species of academic. It is exceptionally rare in the natural sciences, but an equivalent is very common among engineering disciplines and economics, though there it is more typically a man who will take his glasses off, tilt his head forwards everso slightly, furrow his brow and look concerned - the meaning behind the 'posture-ing' is the same though:
You the listener, asker or critic is a dunderhead, a retard, an ignoramous, less intelligent and so on, the proof of which is the very question you asked.
It is simply put theatrics - posturing for position and power - intended to badger you into submission before they have even replied. It is quite the experience to see two such persons try to apply the technique on eachother, growing ever more agitated and incensed without realising why (their subconscious reaction to being insulted) and surprisingly soon breaking out the heavy artillery: slander, gossip, emotional blackmail, histrionics and tears (yes, engineers and economists too even if they are penile-ely endowed will do this).
The ethology (both meanings) of humans putting on airs never ceases to entertain, once you know the tricks.
I’d like to hear what PETA has to say about the questions maligning the lived experience of chickens, who may not— for all we know— even identify as chickens. Actually, PETA should have an ad campaign showing a big, juicy roasted chicken next to a picture of a golden retriever puppy that says, “Your dinner identified as a dog.” (And for that matter, why shouldn’t I identify as a hen? What IS a hen?)
Maybe you've read about it, but the way the story unfolds is Plato is giving one of his lectures, and states "Man walks on two legs and lacks feathers", and the disciples go "Ohhh!" and !Aaahhh!" ad "Oh Master, surely thou art the wisest among greeks!" (i.e. no one else counts anyway).
Enter Diogenes, clad in dirty rags as per usual, fresh off from masturbating and even more beyond the pale eating in public in the Agora. In one hand, carrying a lit lantern in broad daylight because as he said when asked "I'm lookig for an honest man", and in his other hand brandishing a plucked hen, exclaiming "Plato! Behold your man!"
(Given that Plato started out as a wrestler, I like to imagine the debate became rather... amimated.)
So Plato later changed his definition to "Man walks on two legs and lacks feathers, and doesn't lay eggs".
Used to tell the advanced class this little aesop (which is based in real history) to teach them th danger of worship instead of thinking, and to not become followers.
To me the finger in that MLK sculpture is the trigger finger that killed him. I’ve never seen it before. Interesting things definitions. If we are eternal beings, are we therefore at the beginning of eternity at this very moment, or are we at the current end of eternity? Which is it? Is there a meaningful middle? Not really, who’s ever defined it.
“There’s an apocryphal story about a multi-national design team working on the construction of a satellite. One group worked in Imperial units for their little bit of the project and the rest worked in metric. The result was catastrophe. I doubt this story is actually true, but it’s a good parable anyway.”
There may be an apocryphal story like that as well, but that was the 100 percent factual cause for the failure of NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter mission in 1999 (except it was U.S. customary units rather than Imperial, and everyone involved was American, as far as I know).
Another story is told in Matt Parker's 'Humble Pi - A Comedy of Maths Errors' (a very entertaining book): a Swiss and a German team started building a bridge from two sides, only to discover that they were off by 27 centimeters in height, because the Swiss and Germans used different conventions of sea level.
Wasn’t it the Beagle moon lander?
Regarding the possibly apocryphal satellite anecdote, such things do happen.
Back around 2005 Airbus discovered that different parts of the company in different countries were using different versions of the CATIA CAD software. The result of this was that when they went to assemble the aircraft they discovered that much of the cabling was a micropoof (technical term) too short. The result was a two year delay in bringing the aircraft onto service at a cost of hundreds of millions of Euros.
Expensive disasters are what happens in reality when things aren't clear, when there are different versions of the truth. This nonsense about everybody having their own truth is wanky bafflegab that's fine in some meaningless " whatever studies" class, but the reality is that there is only truth and falsity. Every single damn thing spouted by the woke brigade is false, and results in failure of a thousand different kinds.
Indoor plumbing with flushing toilets is a good thing. That's the truth. It's also true that all the gender studies PhDs in the world could not keep a sewerage system working in a city. Given a choice between a working toilet and all the gender studies academics in the world, I lnow what I'd choose.
What a great post, thank you. I'm hopeful that this utter nonsense will implode soon since we can already see the cracks appearing (where the "factions" or individuals are disagreeing and such, big egos and stupidity). I also think that it will (at least most of it) go away as soon as the "public administration" (bureaucracy), elements in judicial system and msm stop supporting this crap. I'm afraid the "academia" will be the hardest to turn around. I know it's a vicious cycle in a way and because this has been going on for a good while, they all kind of, feeding of each other. But (hopefully) they still are minority so... Hey, it started with political correctness
(I know there's more to the origins of it) and we (as: populace at large) failed to see the signs and to nipped in the bud. Maybe it was already too late (?)
Now we are heading for a total idiocy. It will have to eat itself, I'm hoping anyway lol
Notice how the woman (as do all women and men in these disciplines) carries herself, note how her posture, facial expressions and how she leans her head all connect and interact.
Doesn't it remind you of something? It should.
It's how women (and some men) speak with very small children, the mentally retarded and the old and senile.
It is fully subconscious and it is always present among this class or sub-species of academic. It is exceptionally rare in the natural sciences, but an equivalent is very common among engineering disciplines and economics, though there it is more typically a man who will take his glasses off, tilt his head forwards everso slightly, furrow his brow and look concerned - the meaning behind the 'posture-ing' is the same though:
You the listener, asker or critic is a dunderhead, a retard, an ignoramous, less intelligent and so on, the proof of which is the very question you asked.
It is simply put theatrics - posturing for position and power - intended to badger you into submission before they have even replied. It is quite the experience to see two such persons try to apply the technique on eachother, growing ever more agitated and incensed without realising why (their subconscious reaction to being insulted) and surprisingly soon breaking out the heavy artillery: slander, gossip, emotional blackmail, histrionics and tears (yes, engineers and economists too even if they are penile-ely endowed will do this).
The ethology (both meanings) of humans putting on airs never ceases to entertain, once you know the tricks.
I’d like to hear what PETA has to say about the questions maligning the lived experience of chickens, who may not— for all we know— even identify as chickens. Actually, PETA should have an ad campaign showing a big, juicy roasted chicken next to a picture of a golden retriever puppy that says, “Your dinner identified as a dog.” (And for that matter, why shouldn’t I identify as a hen? What IS a hen?)
Diogenes of Sinope would no doubt tell you about Plato's initial attempt to define "What is a human?"
Because as the story goes, Plato's definition applied equally well to a plucked hen.
Ha!
Maybe you've read about it, but the way the story unfolds is Plato is giving one of his lectures, and states "Man walks on two legs and lacks feathers", and the disciples go "Ohhh!" and !Aaahhh!" ad "Oh Master, surely thou art the wisest among greeks!" (i.e. no one else counts anyway).
Enter Diogenes, clad in dirty rags as per usual, fresh off from masturbating and even more beyond the pale eating in public in the Agora. In one hand, carrying a lit lantern in broad daylight because as he said when asked "I'm lookig for an honest man", and in his other hand brandishing a plucked hen, exclaiming "Plato! Behold your man!"
(Given that Plato started out as a wrestler, I like to imagine the debate became rather... amimated.)
So Plato later changed his definition to "Man walks on two legs and lacks feathers, and doesn't lay eggs".
Used to tell the advanced class this little aesop (which is based in real history) to teach them th danger of worship instead of thinking, and to not become followers.
To me the finger in that MLK sculpture is the trigger finger that killed him. I’ve never seen it before. Interesting things definitions. If we are eternal beings, are we therefore at the beginning of eternity at this very moment, or are we at the current end of eternity? Which is it? Is there a meaningful middle? Not really, who’s ever defined it.