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Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: July 18th, 2020

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  • I used it because we both studied physics (or rather, I studied engineering, so applied physics), so it was experience we could both relate to.

    Edit: On the note of the frustration of having to Google words constantly, yeah that would be frustrating and make technical literature much harder to read. Maybe an imperfect solution could be to install an extension that provides the definition of a word in a pop up if you highlight a word. I used to have an extension that did that, maybe it could be of use. Don’t remember what it was called though


  • Academics use special words because they have specific meanings that are unaffected by the changing meanings of casual use. This is why engineering terminology often sucks, because people already have an idea of what power, work, stress, strain, etc. mean, but often they are wrong, from the standpoint of physics. A layperson may think that pushing against a wall and becoming exhausted means that they have done work on the wall, when from a physics standpoint this isn’t true, because the meaning of work in physics and everyday life are different. If you try to explain the term work in everyday words, you end up spending a sentence every time: the act of force applied across a distance the object moved, measured as the crow flies from the beginning to the end point. That is why most scientific fields come up with their own terms. They are shorter than explaining it every time, they are specific, and they are unambiguous. It is not gatekeeping when Google exists, comrades.










  • Banning alcohol worked so well for the Americans in the early 20th century. Gangsters and dangerous black market businesses sold it with no legal oversight. It could be laced with anything.

    Banning narcotics worked so well for the Americans in the mid 20th century to today. Druglords and dangerous black market clubs sell it with no legal oversight. It could be laced with anything.

    Now the US has the largest prison population in the world. Those imprisoned on drug consumption or possession charges have to spend their whole lives with that over their heads. Job opportunities passed up, apartment applications, etc. Maybe it’s time to reconsider the approach?

    PS: Another drug, cannabis, was criminalized because it was used by black people and hippies, groups inclined against voting for Nixon.