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Cake day: July 17th, 2023

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  • Going through The Expanse again. Such a good show that unfortunately got soured towards the end by a bad egg in the cast. But I’m enjoying it regardless, the work everyone else put into that show deserves praise. They found such a good balance point on the hard vs. soft sci-fi spectrum. Just enough realism and scientific accuracy to make the setting feel authentic without getting in the way of the story.

    And Dominique Tipper as Naomi effortlessly code switching as she interacts with Inners and Belters is astounding. Not just her, all the Belter actors do such a great job with their dialects, but because of her screen time and back story it’s a lot more varied for her.



  • I love both, but I actually prefer Atlantis’s ongoing series arc over the more episodic/season arc structure of SG-1.

    Possibly unpopular opinion (?): Universe was a fantastic show that got cancelled right as it was getting really good. Stargate’s answer to Voyager and Battlestar Galactica. Really wish we could have gotten more of it. With the way they left things, it’s not too late to revive it if they can get actors on board. They can easily explain cast aging or not returning with the final cliffhanger.


  • Agnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable

    Gnostic atheist: Doesn’t believe in any gods, claims to know no gods exist

    Agnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims the existence or nonexistence of gods is fundamentally unknowable

    Gnostic theist: Believes in god(s), claims to know that those god(s) exist

    I think all four types of people exist in decent numbers, but personally I, as an agnostic atheist, think either version of agnosticism is the only logically sound position. Gnosticism just feels disingenuous to me. Unfortunately I get the feeling that Christianity in the US is slipping further and further towards gnostic theism, and with that comes very dogmatic and oppressive rhetoric and actions.



  • And this is why scientists tend to dislike science journalism. Whether intentional or not, it misses out the nuance that scientific findings usually require. And then those misrepresented facts start getting quoted elsewhere until you get a web of “sources” that just point in a circle and can eventually cut out the actual source that includes the nuance.

    Always be skeptical of journalism headlines and check the body. Then be skeptical of that and check the source. Then still remain skeptical of that because one study doesn’t determine scientific consensus. Before long you’ll be in the rabbit hole of the replication crisis.

    But don’t write off science. It’s flawed because humans are flawed, but it’s still our best tool for determining truth.




  • On your second point, that’s what the science actually says. “Observer” or “observation” is used in a scientific sense and was probably a poor word choice. Science journalism gets carried away with anything that has the word “quantum” in it and it drives us mad.

    You’re absolutely right that the mechanism that’s causing the wave function to collapse is the presence of whatever piece of equipment the particle is hitting. Whether that collapse happens at the two slits or the back wall changes the pattern, and that change is what shows wave-particle duality.

    Also: physics doesn’t claim to know that the Big Bang only happened once. That’s just as far back as we can rewind with our current models. This is again something that science journalism takes a lot of liberty with.