JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
I do believe it is Jo!
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I thought it was yesterday. This is battery backup Thursday or not quite as good Friday.
63
Took the Germans 12 years to figure out that Adolf wasn’t the answer and the term Energiewende to get rid of fossil fuels was coined in 1980 so this time it took 43 years.
21
Lest I forget – Happy Easter to our host and all who read her contributions to sanity.
330
Seconded.
180
It’s only Thursday if Gee Aye agrees it is.
Red wine’s a beatch eh Jo. 😁
20
Fursday funny: “Feeling pressure” -techno without a pc
https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_rs8iifb2AC1xmhdiv.mp4
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OVERDUE METRICATION
Most of the countries around the world have completed their conversion to the metric system of weights and measurements. The small number of hold-outs for various reasons are U.S.A., Liberia and Myanmar. Some others such as UK and Canada have a mixed system – they can’t let go of some of their old imperial units (such as a pint of beer).
But the intriguing thing is that manufacturing of cars, tools, appliances, electronics, etc. is universally metric even from the hold-out countries because they must compete in worldwide markets and be able to sell the same products to all countries. Economies of scale make any alternative uneconomic.
Why is it then, that we have two industries that operate on a worldwide basis that refuse to go metric?
These two are aviation and maritime.
In aviation, altitude is in feet, speed is in knots, distance is in nautical miles and fuel load is in pounds.
In maritime, speed is in knots, distance is in nautical miles and depth is in fathoms, fuel is in gallons or tons.
Isn’t it about time these two very significant industries caught up with the rest of the world?
It would make it so much easier for the rest of us not to have to constantly juggle with conversions.
For all airlines and shipping, distances should be in kilometres, altitudes and depths should be in metres,
speeds should be in km/hour and fuel loads should be in kilograms or tonnes.
116
The cost of changing is vastly greater than for Australia which makes almost nothing. Not even cars now. And never electronics, even a transistor. It was easy for us to switch. And Europe was always metric, so no cost.
But Britain decided not to move to the new French standards because one member on the committee really detested the French. And given their history of conflict over 1,000 years, not without cause. UK Manufacturing though is not what it was. They do not have the scale.
So the United States as a consequence of both these things is still very much Imperial, even if they have their own units like (short) tons 2000 lb instead of 2240 and 100lb instead of 112 lb in a hundredweight and a US gallon(3.78 litres) instead of an Imperial gallon (4.54 litres). Miles instead of Km. And most importantly, fractional inches. Still the US military has been metric for decades and so a lot of elaborate manufacturing is metric.
Also as the world’s largest manufacturer prior to China, they still set the standards and certainly their own because of their unique history. Take pipe for example. Pipe has to join to pipe, so if you have an existing 16″ pipe, you have to be able to buy it. So a lot of modern sizes actually correspond exactly to inch sizes. The same with many structural sections and 60% of all steel goes into construction. ABC. Angles, Beams, Channels. But it is not a commodity in the public domain. Very few people build multi storey steel framed buildings at home.
Machined parts are different though, but you are talking about <0.5% of steel.
The other very vexed area is fasteners with diameter and threads. Each thread had a purpose and there are many shapes of thread. So just about every tool set has to be duplicated in inch and metric.
It's not so easy to lecture Americans on their standards, especially if you want to buy their stuff. And what else can we do?
And it took all of Europe, working together as AirBus, to challenge absolute US supremacy in aircraft, especially Boeing. The 53 year old 747 was a miracle of design and performance with 5,000 aeronautical engineers in the one building to make it reality. They are still the only country to have put men on the moon so we would be cheeky to lecture them on units.
160
The points you make are fair enough but the main thrust of my original comment is that aviation and maritime need to standardise on metric units worldwide for the reasons stated. Your comment on this?
50
The Gimli Glider incident was 40 years ago. Air Canada Flight 143 ran out of fuel because it was loaded in lbs not kilos so that change was done yonks ago.
20
Yes, aviation surely. But despite its incredible impact on society, there are still very few manufacturers of commercial aircraft. But every country in the world has airports and they need a language and metric units. I think though the only topic is getting Americans to change. And they do not see why they should. Ditto for maritime. It’s like asking countries to move away from US dollars as the reference currency.
And in the world of science you change units all the time. CGS, MKS and all the specialist units from nuclear physics to galactic units. You pick a set of units to suit the problem. Like carats for precious stones.
So simply, the world has one set of units, metric. Except America. And as long as they dominate the world and don’t change, I cannot see any change coming.
But we are still much simpler than the days of rods, perches, furlongs in that we don’t have a lot of units.
The only conflict then is litres to gallons. And the 42 gallon drum will be with us a long time.
Consider..
“Wooden casks were large and too heavy while the smaller containers proved unprofitable. It was then decided that the best way to transport oil would be inside a 42 gallon wooden tierce, a size for wine storage set by King Richard III in 1483. It weighed approximately 300 pounds and could be moved by a single man.”
40
The Metric thread (parallel or tapered) has its own variations in angles, shapes, and thread pitches. It’s actually a superior design with higher precision than most alternatives- its tapered thread in particular allows for optimised force transmission.
But all thread types could be “metricated” without changing designs merely by expressing dimensions in metric units only.
21
Not strictly true.
The USA government in fact is metric but the plebs are still back in the 70’s with imperial.
Metric is an easier system than imperial but the American public doesn’t see it.
40
The military has been metric for a long time. But my story is that the bulk of steel is still in tons, cwt, inches, fractional inches. And I cannot see that changing or any particular need to change. Plus the fact that it is backward compatible with a long history of steel structures. Plumbing as well. And heavy equipment manufacture, Caterpillar, John Deere and the rest.
So the cost of change is vast, but the value of change is not there. And the US is self sufficient in many of these areas.
But aircraft is a very different story. As is electronics.
I would also say that people hate change when it is unnecessary. So people still want the baby’s weight in lbs. 6′ is still a special height. We won’t talk about the other measurements.
Even in France, the home of metric, there is still talk of a pound of butter, un livre de beurre. A word which usually means book but in this context means pound weight. It came from the Latin Libra for book as in Librarie, book store but also as a unit of weight since Roman days, over 2,000 years. Old units never die.
30
The bulk of steel and other bulk shipped commodities is measured in metric tons or tonnes already.
10
Priced though in cwt (hundredweight, 100lb) from the US mills.
10
Even that has been “metricated” then. A cwt was 112 lbs when I went to school.
20
Precisely my point. Not in the US. They have short tons and shorter hundredweight.
Even the gallons are short. It’s a wonder there are not short feet of 10 inches.
20
The metric system is garbage. We Americans don’t like it. Don’t need it.
Funny, I still see British real estate websites talking about how many square feet a house has. Keep using feet and let Macron and the French use meters.
30
Technically a nautical mile is an angle not a distance so it works well for navigation.
80
I disagree and do believe that Imperial and Decimal can reside side by side. And in Australia, I do like a pint of beer. A Litre would be just too much.
80
Amateur!
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Ken…the cost to change just aviation would be eye watering.
50
That is the only point. And the advantage would be close to zero.
40
Ken,
We should also unify daylight saving time by eradicating it.
Geoff S
70
Russian aviation is metric. They use meters for altitude, meters per second for wind velocity, HPa for altimeter setting, but set it so that the altimeter reads zero at airfield elevation, rather than the actual height about sea level. I don’t know what they use for air speed in the plane. Some of the former soviet countries follow this also I believe!
20
When Canada switched planes from pounds of fuel to kilos, one passenger jet ran out of fuel. The problem was a dicky fuel gage coupled with using the wrong formula for the manual alternative. The plane glided in successfully to an old airbase where a car rally had just finished – watched by hundreds of rally enthusiasts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
20
So do we need to “cancel” sayings like “an inch is as good as a mile”?
I think “25.4 millimetres is as good as 1.609344 kilometres” is a bit hard to get the tongue around.
30
Bud Light buffoonery backfires brilliantly – bars ban Bud
https://www.newsweek.com/bud-light-faces-boycott-trans-activist-partnership-dylan-mulvaney-1792192
But now Jack Daniels is sponsoring a drag queen summer camp:
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1643747185627107329
And Nike has a bra for the transies:
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1643692648337686528
More to go broke soon.
161
Corporate sickos. If it has a male appendage, cannot menstruate or have babies it is not a woman. Why is there a war against women? And, women where is the spirit of the feminists of yesteryear? Stand up and fight against this absurd corporate group-think. Another example:
WPGA Shuts Down Hot Twitter Account After Man Wins Women’s Golf Event
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Fake woman promoting fake beer. Reality is now satire.
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And damn you Jack, that has been my go to for 35 years or more. Old Forester is then.
50
“IT is then”.
40
It’s Jill Daniels now.
Guess the only thing left is ‘Rambo XII: The Transition’.
Coming soon to a theater near you.
90
I would suggest First Blood as the title but alas….
40
JPMorgan CEO Says Government Must Forcibly Seize Private Property To ‘Fight Climate Change’
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dixon has urged world governments to invoke “eminent domain” and begin seizing private property from citizens to build wind and solar farms to “fight climate change.”
Dimon said the time has come to the need to begin investing in solar projects and other green initiatives and suggested that the government should use eminent domain to seize property for those projects.
https://reports.jpmorganchase.com/investor-relations/2022/ar-ceo-letters.htm
More farms, food and rural properties to go bye bye.
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Jamie Dimon‘s several properties, would be the ideal place to start!
110
An interesting comparison of COVID and Climate
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/beware-catastrophizing-climate-models-and-activists
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Thanks ColA,
I’ve been thinking they’re playing from the same propaganda play sheet.
Cheers
Dave B
30
How much real estate you got Jamie?
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His big property in Westchester, Belford, NY, would have plenty of room for LOTS of solar panels and wind turbines.
https://i.insider.com/5009bb3cecad04d440000008?width=1100&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Once he gets past his deposition in the Epstein lawsuits, that is. !
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2023/03/28/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-to-be-deposed-in-epstein-lawsuits/
50
Justin Trudeau To Legalize Hard Drugs for Children: “It’s Time To Destigmatize Class A’s”
Justin Trudeau has announced plans to legalize hard drugs for children, including heroin and crack cocaine, as part of a new radical policy aimed at destigmatizing drug addiction.
The city of Toronto will be the first to trial the ultra-liberal policy by decriminalizing ALL drugs to ALL ages, including young children.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/04/canada-out-of-control-toronto-asks-federal-government-to-decriminalize-hard-drugs-for-kids/
“Think of the children!” – with ww3 looming, a global mental & physical health crisis, the trans-delusion nightmare, fakevax ™ destroying their health and shortening their lives, child abuse and trafficking by governments and NOW…they want to give kids Heroin and Cocaine…
Somebody just push the button.
140
Well if they are good enough for the Prime Minstrel, they are good enough for the children!
20
Bill Gates Lab Is Creating a Version of Monkeypox ‘1,000 Times More Lethal Than Normal’
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) today sent a letter to Lawrence Tabak, the senior official performing the duties of director at the NIH, regarding details about a dangerous supercharged monkeypox experiment planned by an NIH and Gates-funded researcher.
The project in question involves transferring genes from “clade 1” or Congo Basin clade monkeypox virus (a rare version of monkeypox virus that is 1,000 times more lethal in mice than the version currently circulating in humans) into “clade 2” or West African clade monkeypox virus (the version currently circulating in humans). The clade 1 version of the monkeypox virus is so dangerous that it is classified as a Federal Select Agent. Information about the specific experiments became known when the researcher discussed his plans in a September 2022 Science article on National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) work on monkeypox.
https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/Letter_to_NIH_re_Monkeypox_147f96ffac.pdf?updated_at=2023-03-30T14:38:46.477Z
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WTAF? FFS!
60
Beats me why Bill Gates has not contacted lead pox by now.
30
Unprecedented March cold in Burns.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/04/record-march-cold-over-the-western-u-s-and-northern-plains/
50
Discussion of the Tablet article by Jacob Seigel with Lee Smith – on the information and communications war ongoing. Could be a conspiracy theory, but is far too serious and convincing for that.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/are-censorship-surveillance-and-propaganda-pillars-of-the-new-regime_5172445.html
30
The Australian
“If Labor is presiding over an energy crisis, housing pain and a stagnant economy in two years, Peter Dutton could well become PM, provided the Libs offer a clear and credible alternative.”
Peta Credlin
151
Amazing thats seen as news or insight isn’t it? IF they are bad/incompetent, and IF the other side offers a credible alternative, then they “could well” win. Who woulda thunk? I guess that’s why they get paid the big bucks.
140
Peta Credlin is the wife of Brian Loughnane, known in Liberal Party circles as “The Wizard of Id”.
For nearly 20 years Brian was the technical brains behind the Liberal Party “Inner Circle”, and Peta was the public face. Their aim was to mould the Liberals into a party dedicated to serving the best interests of Australia’s moneyed high society connected to powerful business interests, with Malcolm Turdbull as the titular leader. Turdbull’s wife and mother in law are both senior figures in that moneyed high society group.
Most people remember Peta as Tony Abbott’s Senior Advisor, but few realise she held the same position to Turdbull until he was ousted in 2009. Brian and Peta retired once Turdbull was installed as PM, to concentrate on having a baby. They had been on the IVF program for over a decade.
They, and the people they represent, were mortified when Turdbull was ousted again, which is why Peta came out of retirement. Brian, who is significantly older than Peta, appears to be staying in a low profile.
The same moneyed high society clique are still running Liberals, and still have the same aim, so if the Liberals get back in under Dutton expect him to get the same treatment as Abbott.
So be careful what you wish for.
111
On the other side Union Labor, as reported during 2006 in The Bulletin magazine by Max Walsh, the former ALP union’s party has been subject of a “corporate-style takeover” by the Union Movement.
And of course via deregulation of banking and finance after 1985 by the Hawke Labor Government they later established Superannuation Guarantee Levy and then Union Industry Super Funds investing member’s monies into corporation shares and gaining access and influence to board rooms and directors.
The ALP or Union Labor Inc today are the new Liberals.
Union “faceless men” and factional leaders choose Labor leaders.
60
The major unions today couldn’t give a stuff about their rank and file members, let alone the actual Labor Party that supposedly represent them.
The major unions now own or control the super funds that collectively hold three of the four trillion dollars in those funds. Collectively they pocket around 25 billion dollars a year in “management fees”.
With that sort of guaranteed income who the hell needs pesky unions, members, or political parties?
140
MV,
Liberals should count that about 35% of the vote could win them office.
I reckon that 35%of voting people are thinking as I do, that any group with a major policy plank of doing away with climate change by ignoring it can win the next fed election.
There is ample material for a public campaign.
I do not know why the Libs are so silent on publicising Liberal principles. That includes principles like the free market, quite the opposite of the present over-regulated enforcement of Labor/green ways with CC. It also includes Labor Lite in the horrifying form that Simon Birmingham mouthed the other day.
Geoff S
50
What on earth makes you think anything would be any different if the Liberals get back in?
They were in govt for 18 of the last 27 years.
They were responsible for most of the mess you now think they are the answer to.
130
“provided the Libs offer a clear and credible alternative”
Which they have been utterly incapable of doing since dumping Tony Abbott.
80
Why “Thursday” and not “Thursday Open Thread”?
30
we save a few bytes of storage and shrink the wordpress data centres, thereby reducing energy consumption and making a contribution to man made CO2 reduction , thereby avoiding a catastrophic, tipping point, unprecedented climate crisis. I thought it was obvious really…..
170
The first mention of “tipping point” I could find was 1864 when George Perkins Marsh, sometimes said to be the father of American ecology, warned that the earth was ‘fast becoming an unfit home for its “noblest inhabitant,”’ and that unless men changed their ways etc. etc.
And there was talk in the 1970’s of the Earth tipping into an Ice Age, and in the 1990’s of it tipping into higher temperatures.
Tipping points seem to be very slow acting devices.
20
Look at the URL. Conspiracy? I think so.
26
Curious.
30
There’s a pattern.
Wednesday was missing “Thread”
Thursday is missing “Open” and “Thread” and “Wednesday”
I’m betting the next one will be missing both “Wednesday” and “Thursday”, and possibly “Open” and “Thread”.
40
Fridays’s will be “Fr” to save bandwidth.😁
60
No. Friday will be Good.
110
Interestingly, the names of days of the week in most cultures and languages including most European languages, Hindi and Chinese have pagan etymologies.
E.g. Thursday is named after the Norse thunder god.
Peoples, cultures and religions have occasionally objected to this pagan association. E.g. in the Hebrew (Biblical) calendar days have the following names:
Yom Rishon (יום ראשון) יום א’ First day Sunday
Yom Sheni (יום שני) יום ב’ Second day Monday
Yom Shlishi (יום שלישי) יום ג’ Third day Tuesday
Yom Revii (יום רביעי) יום ד’ Fourth day Wednesday
Yom Hamishi (יום חמישי) יום ה’ Fifth day Thursday
Yom Shishi (יום שישי) יום ו’ Sixth day Friday
Yom Shabbat (יום שבת) יום ש’ Sabbath day Saturday
So just a simple “Day 1, Day 2” etc. except for the specifically named Sabbath day.
60
Russian is the same, one through five for days of the week. Subbota for Saturday. Voskresen’ye for Sunday, Christ is Risen. An each way bet. Romans though used 8 days a week until the 321 AD conversion to Christianity, a new religion from Israel. And a holiday on Sunday.
30
But the Babylonians/Sumerians invented the seven day week likely using the seven visible heavenly bodies, something still in many languages.
Sun day. Moon day. (Wotan’s day, Thor’s day, Freitag’s day) Saturn day
but in French/Spanish
Lord’s day (Domenica/Dimanche), Lunar day, Mars day, Mercury Day, Jupiter Day, Venus day, Saturn day.
(Dimanche, Lundi, Mercredi, Jeudi, Vendredi, Samedi)
Spanish
(Domingo, Lunes, Martes,Miercoles, Jueves, Viernes, Sabado)
Which manages like Russian to include the Sabbath, the shavat or rest day.
The greatest invention though was the weekend, something even the French admit as ‘Le Weekend’. But the odd development from the land of the world’s great mathematicians is the eight days a week. Au jour d’hui. Today or On this day of eight. And 15 days a fortnight, quinze jours. Either obsessive precision or a throwback to Roman days.
But they also gave us Rene Descartes, the father of Rational science, algebra, equations and of course Cartesian coordinates just in time for Leibniz and Newton.
And man made Climate Change is nonsense if you use Rational science. It falls down on the very first proposition, that human CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, that the gas CO2 is trapped in the air. Nothing matters after that. And the zero sum game which is Nett Zero is a fantasy.
40
Sumerians and Babylonians also believed that Y-chromosome man and modern women were “created” by visitors to Earth.
As recorded on clay tablets.
10
Have they seen the light? Why are articles like this appearing in the MSM now?
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/thousands-more-aussies-dying-as-excess-deaths-rise/news-story/2e6d46659884d19d9a8d27c52808cf61
50
I wonder why?
110
Tough question that one.
30
from the link “The death toll is evidently disturbing, but the federal government recently voted down an inquiry into the reasons behind the increase.” Now why would any Govt. do that????
50
Uh …’cause ‘death’ of the little publics is not necessarily a ‘Public Health’ problem?
It’s like when the herd is too big for the farm.
They are busy expending all of their limited brain waves on figuring out ‘non-compliance’.
In Trans Canada they will help you stop being a public health problem.
https://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/end-of-life-support/get-the-facts-on-maid/
MAID
Useless eater spill on isle 7.
Ya’ can’t make this stuff up.
The Big Bad Wolf’s snoot is clearly sticking out of Grandma’s clothes.
Official new anthem of Western Governments.
https://youtu.be/oZHAYYK5vTM
Build Back Better …
After Greatly Leaping Forward.
50
Wow, love the header picture, man about 40 something smiling like the lovely lady with her hand on his shoulder has just offered him a “quickie”. No hint of remorse or sadness, marketing at its absolute best. Dont worry its just like the movies and when its over, well you will just get up and go home. Oh wait.
30
ANZ to stop holding cash at certain branches.
This is just what the government wants, a fully cashless society with all transactions and people fully traced and tracked.
See: https://www.9news.com.au/national/anz-branches-in-victoria-stop-handling-cash/bf156e10-6a60-43e1-ba03-e472cb8188ca
Video: 22 mins https://youtu.be/zzhdcZAVDS8
41
A rarely used feature in a bank these days and they still have ATMs with cash in them at the branches.
ANZ is not the government last time I looked.
411
rarely used by public servants and pollies in Canberra maybe , but frequently used by small businesses out in the world
90
Yes Yarpos, we are ruled by public servants, not one of whom, for example, lost work or money during the world’s most severe covid lockups in Australia, have jobs usually guaranteed for life and have salaries and superannuation fully indexed against inflation.
They have no clue what normal people do who have to work for a living and pay taxes to support the public servants.
122
1) The number of ATMs has also reduced dramatically. My local shopping street used to have five ATMs and five different banks, now it has no banks and one ATM, which is empty most of the time.
2) I said it’s “just what the government wants”, not that the ANZ is the government.
100
For a few decades I ran a one man “coin in the slot” business. I did quite well because I did everything myself and could compete with Coke. the coin I banked was bludy heavy but the ANZ around the corner had a convenient car park so I managed.
Today there are no banks in shopping strips so I would have to pay a courier service to pick up my coin and notes. Just more expense.
ANZ now has two branches in a city of 200,000
70
One problem will be that all commerce will stop when servers hick up. About 1/10 of the time when I sign into my bank account, it says “Try again later”
50
If the US goes into Recession its not a good look for their Regulatory system and it leaves the door open for China.
‘The rising global use of the Chinese renminbi will accelerate the world’s shift toward a multipolar international currency system, a process critical for global financial stability as the drawbacks of the dollar-centred system can no longer be ignored, experts said.’ (China Daily)
21
Why quote China Daily? Makes you sound like a Chinese stooge.
Watch a few Peter Zeihan videos.
50
Peter Zelhan thinks China will collapse by 2030, do you accept that?
Realpolitik, by 2030 the US will be a failed state.
20
He makes a good case which is more than you did merely quoting the CCP mouthpiece.
30
Zelhan thinks man made carbon dioxide is causing global warming. Shallow thinking.
China Daily is definitely what Premier Xi thinks, which is enlightening, but of course you have to read between the lines to find the truth.
20
Alan Dershowitz discusses the indictments against Donald Trump.
It’s quite wicked what the DemonRATs are doing.
https://youtu.be/7lwR-PjtAxo
60
The Dems were fined for a very similar financial deception. If this was subjected to determined financial forensic investigation no doubt a criminal charge could be stuck on someone high profile for that too.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/30/dnc-clinton-campaign-fine-dossier-spending-disclosure-00021910
40
Driving on Less Than 5 Hours Sleep Is as Risky as Driving Drunk
What if you could be fined or lose your license for driving tired? Our new study just published in Nature and Science of Sleep has found if you had less than five hours of sleep last night, you are just as likely to have a vehicle crash as if you were over the legal limit for alcohol.
We know about 20 percent of all vehicle crashes are caused by fatigue. Over the past 20 years, the number of crashes caused by alcohol has decreased significantly.
After synthesizing the findings of 61 unique studies, we found having less than 4 to 5 hours of sleep in the previous 24 hours is associated with an approximate doubling of the risk of a vehicle crash. This is the same risk of a crash seen when drivers have a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05 percent.
Not only this, but a driver’s risk of a crash significantly increases with each hour of sleep lost the night before. Some studies even suggested that when a driver had between zero and 4 hours of sleep the previous night, they may be up to 15 times more likely to have a crash.
https://theconversation.com/driving-on-less-than-5-hours-of-sleep-is-just-as-dangerous-as-drunk-driving-study-finds-202514
Given the standard of driving I see, a lot of people are getting 1 hours sleep. 😎
50
Of course the only way to know how much sleep you get would be to have public servants watching everyone through the bedroom window..
I am quite sure they are working flat-out to find some test to use with a definitive answer, so they can immediately legislate the equivalent of the blood alcohol level. Already trucks have computers that assess your driving and will stop the truck if it decides you are fatigued.
The original article, a summary of other peoples’ research into fatigue driving, does state-
“Even in the event of a crash it can be difficult to definitively determine if fatigue was a contributory factor”.
That’s after stating that fatigue causes as many crashes as being drunk.. How did they know that if they can’t measure it?
Anyway, we can be sure that it will all involve a bigger public serpent empire and more expenses for the taxpayer!
60
Researcher Tricks ChatGPT Into Building Undetectable Steganography Malware
Using only ChatGPT prompts, a Forcepoint researcher convinced the AI to create malware for finding and exfiltrating specific documents, despite its directive to refuse malicious requests.
A security researcher has tricked ChatGPT into building sophisticated data-stealing malware that signature and behavior-based detection tools won’t be able to spot — eluding the chatbot’s anti-malicious-use protections.
Without writing a single line of code, the researcher, who admits he has no experience developing malware, walked ChatGPT through multiple, simple prompts that ultimately yielded a malware tool capable of silently searching a system for specific documents, breaking up and inserting those documents into image files, and shipping them out to Google Drive.
In the end, all it took was about four hours from the initial prompt into ChatGPT to having a working piece of malware with zero detections on Virus Total, says Aaron Mulgrew, solutions architect at Forcepoint and one of the authors of the malware.
https://www.forcepoint.com/blog/x-labs/zero-day-exfiltration-using-chatgpt-prompts
This is BAD news from a security viewpoint.
Virustotal is a limited signature-based analytical service and so isn’t as thorough as any decent pc security package but if behavour-based detections don’t spot it especially with AV packages shifting to cloud based hash processing, that’s a major problem.
70
A call to action:
Ignoring dead whales NOAA proposes another site survey off New Jersey
By David Wojick
https://www.cfact.org/2023/04/05/ignoring-dead-whales-noaa-proposes-another-site-survey-off-new-jersey/
The beginning: ““Damn the whales, full speed ahead” seems to be the offshore wind policy of Biden’s NOAA. They now propose to approve yet another site survey, just 10 miles off Atlantic City. These surveys are the top suspect for the recent wave of dead whales, centered on New Jersey.
See the proposal at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/30/2023-06594/takes-of-marine-mammals-incidental-to-specified-activities-taking-marine-mammals-incidental-to
The site is a big one because the offshore wind project is huge. Phase 1 is a whopping 1,500 MW, which means over 100 monster turbine towers. The survey area is around 1,500,000 acres or an incredible 2,300 square miles.
Ironically the project is called Atlantic Shores, which is where all the dead whales are washing up. In fact this is basically a renewal of a prior permit. NOAA acts as though nothing has changed, ignoring the horrible New Jersey whale deaths.
NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is taking public comments on this preposterous proposal, details below.”
Lots more in the article. Please share it widely. I urge concerned people to send comments to NOAA.
David
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The wonderful folk at RenewEconomy are at it again:
A quick check on Aneroid shows Liddel running at between 42% (two units running) and 65% for 3 units during March, averaging around 55% capacity factor and generating about 614 GWh for the month.
That fantastic Gunning wind thingy, if we take their 43.7% capacity factor, generated about 15 GWh for the month.
It gets better…
So, old and infirmed Liddel actually generated more GWh than all the wind assets in NSW for March.
Why didn’t RenewEconomy point that out?
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Was Liddel curtailed to make room for green juice? Making reliables back up renewables raises the cost of reliable juice. A lot.
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Hello David – Liddel is the oldest (black) coal fired power station in NSW, approaching 50 years in service and due for retirement this month. Originally running 4 x 500 MW units, one has been retired for some time leaving the remaining 3 spinning at 2/3 capacity without ramping up or down so not to break them – a leisurely walking pace 24/7 for a grand old station.
It was actually kept spinning for longer than anticipated as unreliables are proving to be just that.
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Hmm , bit of cold lunchtime browsing for other things, then this daily reminder that electric vehicles are not safe, they’re not ethical, and they’re certainly not “green”. Well OK, but really, I mean REALLY, is it not the Plonkers who cannot drive ? Generally far too much power under the bonnet, directly attached to the Nut at the wheel, rather than under the Cap between the Lugs
Reading further, “If only Politicians with all of their credentials and private education had realised this scientific FACT…” Credentials? Education? where did I read something today about Science … all those ‘Art’ Graduates .. that is OUR Problem – but we do not have a Meritocracy. How many Reporters or Company Bosses or Chief Engineers are Doctors or Prof. of directly related subject matter?
I am sick fed up of being lectured to by folk trying to impose upon me, Products and services of which they have less idea than I have.
Been another of those weeks.
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Is someone able to explain the statistical base of 20 Mio saved lives by the vacces, as I read in German newspaper from yesterday ? They wrote about 2 cases of vacc injuries in the respective region of the paper, where of course they tried to downplay these injuries in general.
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Regarding Climate Emergency protesters…
CRIMINALS Are Getting LET FREE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ywAsqPWKtI
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That must be the tipping point.
sarc.
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