An attempt at a more rational justification for calling Pluto a planet...
The IAU's definition of a planet being distinct from a dwarf planet makes no sense linguistically. Call them instead "giant" or "major" planets and dwarf planets. Then "planet" just refers to any large round object that doesn't shine by nuclear fusion. Within that broad category you can have many more sub-categories of what may be very different objects. Just as "gas giant planets" are now understood to be totally different from "terrestrial planets", so "icy planets" like Pluto could be recognized as distinctly different objects.
Yes, Ceres and other objects would also become planets, but they'd still be dwarf planets. The Solar System would still only have eight major planets. Everybody wins !
Monday 27 July 2015
Sunday 12 July 2015
Apparently I'm a journalist
Via Michael J. Coffey .
Surprisingly, I'm a journalist.
https://www.guidedtrack.com/programs/1q59zh4/run?normalpoints=18&sunkcost=0&planning=1&explanationfreeze=2&probabilistic=1&rhetorical=3&analyzer=3&timemoney=2&intuition=7&future=6&numbers=9&evidence=9&csr=6&enjoyment=0
You are Intuitive: You tend to trust your intuitions — you size up situations quickly and stick with your judgments once you’ve made them. This tendency can be useful when you need to think on your feet, or when you’re using a skill that you’ve already honed to perfection.
You are Subjective: People and stories interest you more than facts and figures do; you focus on the essence of ideas over the details. Your mind is more qualitative than quantitative. This trait lets you focus on the big picture over the nitty-gritty.
You are Carefree: You tend to live in the moment. You don’t waste a lot of emotional energy fretting about the future. Instead, you focus on getting the most out of life right now.
You are Skeptical: You treat new information and ideas with caution and skepticism. Spurious arguments rarely fool or confuse you, and your beliefs are based on foundations of hard logic. You possess a fine-tuned BS detector.
Personally I would have said almost the exact opposite about the first three.
Apparently I don't have any especially strong skills and may be vulnerable to the "sunk cost fallacy".
The Sunk Cost Fallacy is a cognitive bias that can distort your decisions about which pursuits are worth continuing and which aren't. (Like whether to finish eating an unappetizing dish that you've already paid for, for example.)
No, no, no, no, NO. That's not a fallacy, that's called bloody-mindedness, and used properly it is very far indeed from a weakness. You just have to accept that sometimes time gets wasted. That's part of the process.
I disagreed with the premise of the question that it was possible to know for certain that a project would be unsuccessful. That's a fallacy in itself.
"It appears that you have a fairly weak understanding of the way that evidence should affect your confidence in a theory."
Umm.... reaaaally ?
Interesting though.
http://www.sciencedump.com/content/explorer-attorney-or-inventor-take-rationality-test
Surprisingly, I'm a journalist.
https://www.guidedtrack.com/programs/1q59zh4/run?normalpoints=18&sunkcost=0&planning=1&explanationfreeze=2&probabilistic=1&rhetorical=3&analyzer=3&timemoney=2&intuition=7&future=6&numbers=9&evidence=9&csr=6&enjoyment=0
You are Intuitive: You tend to trust your intuitions — you size up situations quickly and stick with your judgments once you’ve made them. This tendency can be useful when you need to think on your feet, or when you’re using a skill that you’ve already honed to perfection.
You are Subjective: People and stories interest you more than facts and figures do; you focus on the essence of ideas over the details. Your mind is more qualitative than quantitative. This trait lets you focus on the big picture over the nitty-gritty.
You are Carefree: You tend to live in the moment. You don’t waste a lot of emotional energy fretting about the future. Instead, you focus on getting the most out of life right now.
You are Skeptical: You treat new information and ideas with caution and skepticism. Spurious arguments rarely fool or confuse you, and your beliefs are based on foundations of hard logic. You possess a fine-tuned BS detector.
Personally I would have said almost the exact opposite about the first three.
Apparently I don't have any especially strong skills and may be vulnerable to the "sunk cost fallacy".
The Sunk Cost Fallacy is a cognitive bias that can distort your decisions about which pursuits are worth continuing and which aren't. (Like whether to finish eating an unappetizing dish that you've already paid for, for example.)
No, no, no, no, NO. That's not a fallacy, that's called bloody-mindedness, and used properly it is very far indeed from a weakness. You just have to accept that sometimes time gets wasted. That's part of the process.
I disagreed with the premise of the question that it was possible to know for certain that a project would be unsuccessful. That's a fallacy in itself.
"It appears that you have a fairly weak understanding of the way that evidence should affect your confidence in a theory."
Umm.... reaaaally ?
Interesting though.
http://www.sciencedump.com/content/explorer-attorney-or-inventor-take-rationality-test
Wednesday 1 July 2015
3D multi-wavelength data in FRELLED
Proof-of-concept 3D multi-wavelength data rendering in FRELLED. So far as I know, no other FITS viewer can do this.
The blue shows neutral atomic hydrogen clouds in the Milky Way while the red shows CO (a proxy for molecular hydrogen). The HI is from the GALFA-HI survey while the CO data is from the Extended Outer Galaxy Survey. A certain Kevin Douglas was kind enough to provide data sets which had already been correctly aligned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQojSoWnpzs
The blue shows neutral atomic hydrogen clouds in the Milky Way while the red shows CO (a proxy for molecular hydrogen). The HI is from the GALFA-HI survey while the CO data is from the Extended Outer Galaxy Survey. A certain Kevin Douglas was kind enough to provide data sets which had already been correctly aligned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQojSoWnpzs
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