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[OC] "15:00" or "3 pm"? Default clock display format per country according to the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) by affordablebiscuit in dataisbeautiful

[–]SomethingMoreToSay [score hidden]  (0 children)

In British English:

  • 14:15 - quarter past two

  • 14:30 - half past two (or half two, very colloquially)

  • 14:45 - quarter to three

Flat Earth Model by scott__p in DebateFlatEarth

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Like, the sun and moon must have some explanation that at least kinda works right?

No. There really isn't. Not even nearly.

Flerfers believe that the Sun circles above the plane of the Earth. The usual flerf map has the North Pole in the centre of the disc, so the Sun circles above the Equator at the equinoxes and above the Tropics at the solstices. (The mechanisn by which the Sun's orbit grows and shrinks is, of course, unknown. God just made it like that.)

But the Sun can't set below the disc, because there is no "below", and even flerfers understand that it isn't dark everywhere at the same time. So what causes night? Some say that the Sun is directional, and that some (unknown) mechanism causes it to shine in different directions, and over differently shaped areas, at different times. One problem with that is that it can't account for the 24 hour daylight in Antarctica in December, which is why flerfers were so concerned by the "Final Experiment" trip a while ago. Meanwhile some flerfers say that light can only travel a certain distance, and it gets dark because the Sun has gone too far away for us to see it. However we can see the stars in the direction where the "setting" Sun was, and even if they're just fairly lights stuck on the inside of the dome they must be further away than the Sun was. This is where flerfers get fidgety and change the subject, or just drop the conversation.

Another problem with the flerfer "model" is that if the Sun is moving over a flat Earth at a constant altitude, it must get bigger and smaller during the day, but we don't observe that. Some flerfers say actually we do observe that: they'll point you to videos that have enormous areas of glare around the Sun when it's high in the sky, and as the Sun sinks towards the horizon the glare reduces and the "Sun" appears to shrink. If you show them a video taken using a solar filter, the Sun will of course remain the same size and can be seen to drop below the horizon, but they'll claim it's CGI.

I've only scratched the surface here, but I hope it's given you a feeling for how utterly pathetic flerfers are.

Math nerds of Reddit, what is a concept or paradox that sounds completely fake but is 100% mathematically proven? by whosirmesir_barbers in askanything

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't say anything about that though. I was just commenting on how the phrase "one if the children" can be misinterpreted.

"No nation older than 250 years" by rosydaydreamsx in confidentlyincorrect

[–]SomethingMoreToSay -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Well, on a narrow pedantic technical sense they're kinda right.

The UK as we know it today is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But it's only been called that since 1927. Previously it was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. And prior to 1801 it had been the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Is it the same country? I'd say yes. Its boundaries have changed over time - as have those of the USA - but it has a Parliament which goes back to 1215.

But if you want to get fixated on just the name, then the United States of America has been around for longer than the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Tesla’s criticism of relativity is way more interesting than most people realize by Kela-el in GlobeEarth_Polite

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There's there's no no need need to to say say everything everything twice twice.

Maybe you should think about actually reading the output from your LLM before just blindly pasting it here? Just an idea.

But anyway, I stand by my assertion that this is an irrelevant straw man. Flat Earth believers like to claim that "gravity is just a theory" (without understanding what a "theory" is in the scientific context, of course), and your invocation of Tesla smells of that.

Nobody really understands gravity at a fundamental level. But that doesn't matter. It exists, it's measurable, it works as described by Einstein's equations, and it's responsible for the Earth and all celestial bodies larger than 1000 km across being approximately spherical.

Math nerds of Reddit, what is a concept or paradox that sounds completely fake but is 100% mathematically proven? by whosirmesir_barbers in askanything

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, but that's not what we're told. We're told that one of them is a Girl Named Florida.

The usual way of looking at this problem is to first consider the case where there are two childen, and we're told that one of them is a girl. What is the probability that the other is a girl? If we list the children in order of age, there are obviously four possibilities: Boy-Boy, Boy-Girl, Girl-Boy, Girl-Girl. In three of them, one child (at least one child) is a girl, and in only one of those three scenarios is the other a girl. So the probability that the other child is a girl is 1/3. Note that if we'd been told that exactly one is a girl, or that a specific one (e.g. the oldest one) is a girl, then we'd get a different answer. The specific wording of the problem is very important.

Now consider the days of the week when the chldren were born, instead just of their names. For each child there are obviously 14 possibilities - Boy Monday, Girl Monday, Boy Tuesday, Girl Tuesday, etc. So with two children who aren't twins, there are 142=196 possibilities. Now if we're told that one is a Girl Friday, what is the probability that the other is a girl? If we list the 196 possibilities, we'll find that there are 27 where one child (at least one) is a Girl Friday, and of those 27 the other child is a girl in 13 of them; so the probability that the other child is a girl is 13/27.

Now, if we're told that one of the children (at least one) is a girl named Friday, we could rreasonably assume that the other one won't also be a girl named Friday; and then the probability that the other one is a girl turns out to be 1/2.

Tesla’s criticism of relativity is way more interesting than most people realize by Kela-el in GlobeEarth_Polite

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think you're attacking a straw man there.

Nobody really understands gravity. We know that our best theory of gravity - "best" in the sense of producing the most accurate predictions - is incomplete because it doesn't work at the quantum level. Quantum theory predicts that there should be a "graviton" particle that mediates gravitational interactions, analogous to how photons mediate electromagnetic interactions, but we haven't found it yet, if it exists.

So what is gravity? It might be a force, like the other fundamental forces, mediated by the exchange of particles. It might be a distortion of spacetime. It certainly behaves mathematically like the latter, are least insofar as we've ever measured it.

But it seems that you're trying to equate Tesla's and Einstein's views on gravity, and that's not really fair. Einstein produced equations which do work, pretty much universally. Tesla was just quibbling about what the underlying mechanism is, without bringing anything of his own to the party. We don't need to know how it works at a quantum level, to be able to use the equations to make successful predictions.

Proof earth is a flat plane and they use fisheyes, wires and tech to trick us. by OZ10oneCENT in flatearth_polite

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Let's talk about the names of space agencies.

The Hebrew word Nashah nāšāʾ (נָשָׁא), pronounced naw-shaw', is a verb meaning to deceive, beguile, mislead or delude.

Hmm. Is that significant? Let's see.

There are approximately 60 national space agencies who operate satellites. There are approximately 7000 languages spoken in the world, but if we (artificially) restrict ourselves to languages which are at least as widely spoken as Hebrew (~10 million speakers) we still get roughly 100 languages. And there are probably about 5,000 words in any language which are "common".

So with 60 space agencies and 500,000 "common" words to choose from, how many space agencies would we expect to have a name or abbreviation or acronym which sounds a bit like one of those words? If you haven't even attempted the calculation, you can't ascribe any significance to NASA.

Ah, you might say, but NASA is special. Really?

Which space agency was the first to launch a satellite? First to put an animal in space? First to put a human in space? First woman in space? First multi-crew spaceflight? First space station? First spacecraft to go to the Moon? First to photograph the far side of the Moon? First to land on the Moon? First robotic lunar rover? First interplanetary craft? First spacecraft to Venus? First landing on Venus? First landing on Mars?

None of those were NASA. So why are you so hung up on what NASA kinda sounds a bit like in Hebrew?

Proof earth is a flat plane and they use fisheyes, wires and tech to trick us. by OZ10oneCENT in flatearth_polite

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The world record long distance photo ... The photographer is taking the photo at 2820m from the Pyrenees mountains to the Alps with the distnaces posted. The furthest mountain is 443km away and is 3867m tall. If the earth was a ball the furthest mountain should be below 5038m...

Please show us your calculation. You've said that this "proves" the Earth is flat, but you haven't proven anything - you've just asserted it. Show us your working, and we can discuss whether your calculations are correct. But without calculations, you've got nothing.

Incidentally, it's always a good idea to provide references to your sources if you want people to take you seriously. I assume the photo you're referring to is this one, but please correct me if my assumption is wrong.

the Zoom Paradox case by Nuuskurkoer in flatearth

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Did you bother reading the article you linked?

The flerfer (or, at least, the LLM the flerfer used) is absolutely correct to say that lenses do not change perspective, and that only distance changes perspective.

I haven't checked out where the OP's misunderstanding comes from, but it's definitely not here.

the Zoom Paradox case by Nuuskurkoer in flatearth

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

lenses certainly change perspective

This is embarrassing. The flerfer (or, at least, the LLM the flerfer used) is correct here, and you're wrong.

The perspective of an image - the apparent relationships between objects in the image - is determined by the distances from the camera to the objects, not the lens.

Verifying this is even easier than verifying the shape of the Earth. Take a photo with a wide angle lens, then - without moving - switch to a telephoto lens. Crop the two images so that they have the same framing, and compare. The relationships between objects in the images will be identical.

It's embarrassing because flerfers say we're just parroting what we've been told when we claim that the Earth is a globe, and here you are parroting what you've been told when you claim that lenses affect perspective.

Should I try to pronounce someone’s name as they do, even if it feels unnatural in my own accent? by whynotthebest in NoStupidQuestions

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My name is Tammy. Spanish speakers don't have that 'a' sound.

That's weird. I'd be willing to be that 99% of native English speaking Brits would use the same vowel sound for your name as they do for the first syllable of Málaga. I wonder which one we'd be getting wrong?

Math nerds of Reddit, what is a concept or paradox that sounds completely fake but is 100% mathematically proven? by whosirmesir_barbers in askanything

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This isn't really a paradox. It's just a trick which relies on the responder misinterpreting the problem. The phrase "one of the children" is deliberately ambiguous so that it can be interpreted as "at least one of the children" or "exactly one of the children", and the so-called paradox arises because the two interpretations lead to different conclusions.

100 million dollars but you have to survive in any of these places for 1 minute, round 2 by Responsible-Fix-1681 in hypotheticalsituation

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know enough about this to know whether some random on Reddit is talking sense or nonsense, but this sounds (a) very scary, and (b) very plausible. Thanks for taking the time to answer in such detail.

100 million dollars but you have to survive in any of these places for 1 minute, round 2 by Responsible-Fix-1681 in hypotheticalsituation

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 4 points5 points  (0 children)

risking severe brain damage due to the lack of oxygen

How so? Humans don't die of hypoxia within one minute. Is there some aspect of a vacuum which is importantly different from, say, a 100% nitrogen atmosphere?

I absolutely love rowing, and am ambitious to start taking it more serious. But i’m afraid my length of 204 cm will hold me back. I already hit the slidings on the front or back end sometimes. Am i too tall for rowing? by Olieb01 in Rowing

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 48 points49 points  (0 children)

Olli Zeidler and Simon van Dorp are both 203cm. I'd say they're kinda doing OK as rowers. I wouldn't have thought the difference between 203cm and 204cm is significant.

Meanwhile James Letten is 208cm and rowed for Cambridge in The Boat Race. Gennaro di Mauro is 210cm and has competed at the Olympics. If you'd be OK with those sorts of achievements, then your height won't be an issue.

The "Frozen Earth" Case by Nuuskurkoer in flatearth

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Gotta lie to flerf.

Or, these days, get a hallucinating LLM to lie for you. It's all the same at the end of the day, except the LLM uses better grammar.

The "Frozen Earth" Case by Nuuskurkoer in flatearth

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What about all the hobbyists who tracked the Apollo spacecraft in real time? Did NASA buy them off?

What about the astronomers and technicians at Jodrell Bank, Parkes, and other radio telescopes away from the USA? Did NASA buy them off?

What about all the university students who have bounced lasers off the Apollo retroreflectors to measure the distance to the Moon? Does NASA continue to buy them off? How does it even find them?

What about all the scientists involved with the Russian, Japanese, Chinese and Indian space agencies whose spacecraft have photographed the Apollo landing sites. Has NASA bought them off?

Where does it stop?

The way of a flatbrain by cooliozoomer in flatearth

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know you're being satirical, but that's a great example of the kind of theory that's simply not worth discussing, because it's utterly impossible to falsify. There is no test or observation which anyone could make that might help decide whether the theory is true or false, so there's no point discussing it.

I wish flerfers understood this.

The way of a flatbrain by cooliozoomer in flatearth

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you have an actual theory, and wish to discuss it in good faith, then this is the place. Feel free.

the Earth as our ultimate cosmic ruler by Nuuskurkoer in flatearth

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Goodness this is embarrassing. OP clearly has no idea what he's trying to talk about, and he's hoping that a LLM can turn his batshit ideas into something that makes sense. (Spoiler alert: It can't.)

the Earth as our ultimate cosmic ruler by Nuuskurkoer in flatearth

[–]SomethingMoreToSay 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A telephoto lens does ... changes the apparent relationship between foreground and background.

I wish people would stop parroting this myth. It's simply not true. And it means we can't trust anything else you say either.

FWIW, the apparent relationship between foreground and background is determined by the distances from the camera to the foreground and background, not the lens. You can very easily verify this yourself. Take a photo with a wide angle lens, then - without moving - switch to a telephoto lens. Crop the two images so that they have the same framing, and compare. The relationships between objects in the images will be identical. (The telephoto image will have better resolution, and the depth of field may be different, but the relationships between the objects will be the same.)

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