Secular Café Archive

Temperature = that's essentially the random energy per bit of a system. Entropy = that's the number of bits of description for going from a full microscopic description from a macroscopic description. Consider throwing a pair of six-sided dice. There are six ways of rolling a seven, but only one way...

It seems to me that he owed much of his fame to his disability, and how he nevertheless was as productive and successful as he was. But given what he had to go through, that was a great triumph for him. He did some important scientific work. His first big success was on general-relativity singularit...

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk : On 3 March 1917, Germany and Russia signed a treaty in the town of Brest-Litovsk in which Russia ceded to the Central Powers most of what is now Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine. It was a greater humiliation for Russia than what the WWI vic...

For premodern overall histories, I once saw this division into eras: Gods and creation Legendary heroes Ordinary people with no clear dividing line between them and with the third era continuing to the present. The Bible fits very well, as do other histories, like of Sumer, Greece, Rome, and China (...

Comparison of electoral systems -- compares a big list of them with a big list of features, like whether some system is cloneproof. Meaning that multiple candidates with similar voter appeal will nether help each other (teaming), hurt each other (spoiling by vote splitting), or affect other candida...

As to primaries, it seems that the top-two system that some states now use is essentially a runoff election with the first round being the primary. But it isn't promoted as one, as far as I can tell. That aside, if one wants some good choice in candidates, one ought to get involved in the primaries....

Now that we've gotten into different voting systems, I wish to announce that I've implemented several of them: VotingAlgs.zip . I've implemented several preference-voting ones and proportional-representation ones -- just about all those that are mentioned in Wikipedia. It's all in the Python program...

Trump praises Chinese president extending tenure 'for life' “He’s now president for life, president for life. And he’s great,” Trump said, according to audio of excerpts of Trump’s remarks at a closed-door fundraiser in Florida aired by CNN.“And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. May...

Oprah: If I'm supposed to run for president, God has to tell me | TheHill Oprah Winfrey said she’s had billionaires offer to fund her presidential campaign if she runs for the White House, but said she’s waiting for a sign from God. “I went into prayer,” she said of calls for her to run for preside...

Someone elsewhere has pointed out more:

• The egotism of Lyndon Baines Johnson
• The lechery of Bill Clinton
• The weakness and indecisiveness of Franklin Pierce

Any very lazy presidents?

Opinion | How Does Trump Stack Up Against the Best — and Worst — Presidents? - The New York Times Some 170 experts on Presidential politics were polled about how they rated the presidents, and many of them ranked him the worst. The Republicans among them ranked him fifth worst. This is only his fir...

Donald Trump: Obnoxious Bragging Compilation - YouTube

After watching a similar video which I neglected to note, I concluded that he would likely brag about how humble he is. Sure enough, someone found a video of him doing exactly that.

Donald Trump Claims He's Humble 7/17 - YouTube

FACT CHECK: Did Trump Use 'Crib Notes' During Listening Session with Parkland Survivors? -- "A photograph showing President Trump holding notes during the listening session with survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting is genuine." This text was reconstructed from multiple pict...

[quote=""Jobar""]It seems to me that though there have been fluctuations in the amount of religiosity over time in all nations, the general trend over the past several centuries is toward less and less. I suppose this is because the scientific, rationalist paradigm has proven its...

As i was reading Thomas Piketty's recent work on who votes for what party , I cane across something interesting: the religious composition of France's electorate. Here are the numbers for 1967 and 2012: Practicing Catholics: 25% - 6% Nonpracticing Catholics: 66% - 49% No religion: 6% - 35% Other rel...

[quote=""dancer_rnb""]Hmmmm. Using a hybrid car as an emergency generator for when power goes out.[/quote] Interesting idea. I don't know how well it can be made to work, however. HyTech Power may have solved hydrogen, one of the hardest problems in clean energy - Vox Seattle nat...

Priebus: It's Way Worse Than You Think noting “Who Needs a Controversy Over the Inauguration?”: Reince Priebus Opens Up About His Six Months of Magical Thinking | Vanity Fair From VF: Just after six a.m. on January 21, 2017, at his home in Alexandria, Virginia, Reince Priebus was watching the cable...

Trump's Instability Creates a Tasmanian Devil-like Revolving Door noting A Whirlwind Envelops the White House, and the Revolving Door Spins - The New York Times Over his first year, he has had a 34% turnover, twice the previous record, for Ronald Reagan, and three times Barack Obama's fraction. Fro...

Not the end of The World: the return of Dubai's ultimate folly | Cities | The Guardian Underwater bedrooms, ‘Lohan Island’ and snow all year round – a decade after it was scuppered by the financial crash, the fantasy archipelago of 300 artificial ‘countries’ is back in business. Has anybody learned...

My favorite symbolic names in the Bible are from the Sodom and Gomorrah Story. Names like "Cruella DeVil" from 101 Dalmatians. She's the villain, someone who wants to make a fur coat from the skins of those dogs. Sodom -- "burnt" or "scorched" Gomorrah -- "heap&quo...

I am well aware of allegorical interpretation. I am also aware of its long history. Here is a pagan example (Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 11): Therefore, Clea, whenever you hear the traditional tales which the Egyptians tell about the gods, their wanderings, dismemberments, and many experiences of thi...

[quote=""Hermit""] I recall Gamera once stating that to speak of God as existing implies that God is somehow subject to Being. Something which left me :d unno: Ah! I can tell you have not read your Heidegger on Being and Time. This will clarify the matter: "Das Dasein ist ei...

Bill Joy Has 65 Million Reasons Why Solid State Batteries Are The Next Big Thing | CleanTechnica In the tech world, Bill Joy is a superstar. He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems. He also is a co-developer of Java and one of the early pioneers of the Internet of Things. Along the way, he became pa...

Why a Big Utility Is Embracing Wind and Solar - The New York Times Xcel Energy is a utility company with millions of electric customers in the middle of the country, from Texas to Michigan. In booming Colorado, the company asked for proposals to construct big power plants using wind turbines and so...

[quote=""Jobar""]Perhaps the matter of how much water a terrestrial planet has should be included as one of the terms of the Drake equation. Certainly if a planet has no land surface, it's most unlikely that a technological race could evolve there. [/quote] Or else it would be a ...