Significance

Our research approach in the field of History of Science combines textual investigations with experimental replications of ancient alchemical procedures. Alchemy is often described as a pseudoscience, whereas it would be better described as a protoscience; indeed, we have reported procedures that never found their way into modern laboratories along with the formalization and translation of these procedures into the modern language of chemistry. We strongly believe that it is important to let the chemistry community know its history, which has deep roots in the past.

Abstract

This paper explores the chemistry of mercury as described in ancient alchemical literature. Alchemy's focus on the knowledge and manipulation of natural substances is not so different from modern chemistry's purposes. The great divide between the two is marked by the way of conceptualizing and recording their practices. Our interdisciplinary research group, composed of chemists and historians of science, has set off to explore the cold and hot extraction of mercury from cinnabar. The ancient written records have been perused in order to devise laboratory experiments that could shed light on the material reality behind the alchemical narratives and interpret textual details in a unique perspective. In this way, it became possible to translate the technical lore of ancient alchemy into the modern language of chemistry. Thanks to the replication of alchemical practices, chemistry can regain its centuries-long history that has fallen into oblivion.

(its sweet and well-intentioned people kicking off retarded purity spirals over and over again and thereby enabling the very people i am trying to avoid by coming to twitter dot com)

— eigenrobot (@eigenrobot) February 13, 2024

I understood none of these acronyms and I am now dumber for having attempted to make sense of this thread at all. Smells like cope, though.

Keep up the good fight, you furry bastard.

also build video for those who care

1. You need to have at least 500 coins (Since 5 is the minimum betting amount)

2. You need to parcel your betting amounts so that even if you lose you can continue betting for at least 100 consecutive losing hands

3. The odds of you losing 100 times in a row is pretty low

4. Do not increase decrease your quanta of goomble at any point within a goomble session. The house is betting on you to do so.

5. Once you get from say 500 to 700 coins. Increase your quanta to 7

6. Keep counting how many times you have lost. Lost 5 coins. Increase counter by 1.

7. Let's say you have lost 7 times in a row. So your counter is at 7. You win 20 coins (quanta is 5). Decrease counter to 3 again.

8. Stop goombling the moment you cross from 0 to positive counter. You can't win with the house. The only way you can win is coming back with a bigger quanta after a period of time.

9. You won't win every time and this is the most important point. Set limits to losses. Biases and frustration will set in when your counter is at let's say 65. You will want to goomble the remaining of your coins in a blaze of glory. If you set your limit that when the counter reaches +30 (you have lost 30Xquanta) you're willing to stop when that counter reaches +5 (accepting a loss instead of frick it we ball). When it reaches +60, your stopping point is +10. This makes you see goombling rationally instead of making a profit every time.

10. Keep Calm.

!goomblers

!math idk if there's any mathshit explanation for this but it has served me pretty well. I was at -10k+. Over the last 3 days I have made back like 7k

!trekkies break down of the prometheus from voyager

!chuds !nooticers very important post

idk I just thought it was neat, not sure if right hole.

If you are doing ai art, your data set matters more than anything else

https://x.com/tracewoodgrains/status/1755032183557829073

This is one of the papers written by this "mechanical engineer". That's it. That's the entire paper.

From the webpage of the Dean of Engineering at the University of Reno:

>Dr. Erick C. Jones is a former senior science advisor in the Office of the Chief Economist at the U.S. State Department. He is a former professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies at the College of Engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington.

According to this source, his salary in 2022 was $372,127.

https://www.nevadafacultyalliance.org/resources/Documents/PUBLIC_DOCS/2023_UNR_Budget/UNR%202023%20vs%202022%20salaries%20top%2050%20f.pdf

According to wikipedia, UNR is the state's flagship public university.

I was curious to see what else Jones had published so I searched him on Google scholar and took a look at his three most-cited publications. The second of these appeared to be a textbook, and the third was basically 8 straight pages of empty jargon—ironic that a journal called Total Quality Management would publish something that has no positive qualities! The most-cited paper on the list was pretty bad too, an empty bit of make-work, the scientific equivalent of the reports that white-collar workers need to fill out and give to their bosses who can then pass these along to their bosses to demonstrate how productive they are. In short, this guy seems to be a well-connected time server in the Ed Wegman mode, minus the plagiarism.

He was a Program Director at the National Science Foundation! Your tax dollars at work.

Can you imagine what it would feel like to be a student in the engineering school at the flagship university of the state of Nevada, and it turns out the school is being run by the author of this trash. I can't even.

P.S. The thing I still can't figure out is, why did Jones publish this paper at all? He'd already landed the juicy Dean of Engineering job, months before submitting it to his own journal. To then put his name on something so ludicrously bad . . . it can't help his career at all, could only hurt. And obviously it's not going to do anything to reduce train accidents. What was he possibly thinking?

P.P.S. I guess this happens all the time; it's what Galbraith called the “bezzle.” We're just more likely to hear about when it happens at some big-name place like Stanford, Harvard, Ohio State, or Cornell. It still makes me mad, though. I'm sure there are lots of engineers who are doing good work and could be wonderful teachers, and instead UNR spends $372,127 on this guy.

I'll leave the last word to another UNR employee, from the above-linked press release:

“What is exciting about having Jones as our new dean for the College of Engineering is how he clearly understands the current landscape for what it means to be a Carnegie R1 ‘Very High Research' institution,” Provost Jeff Thompson said. “He very clearly understands how we can amplify every aspect of our College of Engineering, so that we can continue to build transcendent programs for engineering education and research.”

Haven't really checked this channel out, but this was a fun watch, and it goes down really smooth with some physics/dynamics background

The AIR-2 Genie was an unguided air to air nuclear missile. It was developed early in the cold war prior to ICBM's and guided air to air missiles. By the early 50's, the Soviets had reversed engineered the B-29 Superfortress into the TU-4 which could theoretically bomb the United States in a one way mission. The bomber's routes would take them over the Arctic Circle.

An air to air guided missile sounds like something Curtis LeMay would come up with in a fever dream. However, the mission profile makes sense in the context of its time. The Genie was designed to be fired into bomber formations, as that was the only delivery mechanism at the time. The 1.5kT warhead would be detonated at the cruising altitude ~33,000 feet. The missile didn't need to be guided since the blast radius would take out the bomber formation over the uninhabited Arctic Circle. It was never intended to be fired over civilian population center and the Air Force was keen to show that it was ""harmless"" to people on the ground.

_{Curtis "Bomb's Away!" LeMay}

To demonstrate , during the Plumbob John test, five Air Force personnel stood below the blast.

The AIR-2 Genie was deployed to the Royal Canadian Air Force in a Dual Key arrangement. This ment that the Leafs would deploy the weapon, but the Burgers had to give the order. The Genie was obsolete by the mid 60's when guided missile technology improved and ICBM's became the main delivery systems.

_{Titan 2 ICBM at the Titan Missile Museum}

I got to see one in person when I went to the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, AZ. Well worth it if you're in the area.

_{Inert AIR-2 Genie at the Pima Air and Space Museum}

!trekkies