BC SCIENCE
Saved by @Jacobtldr

Colleagues, we need to talk about the damage that endless zooming can do. Every day I see new opportunities to join in this or that online discussion or conference, and each invitation is becoming a burden 1/... #AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter

 For many of us, online conferencing is the main form of contact we have with others. But it's a stripped down form of contact which demands a particular focus and concentration. Colleagues tell me every day that it's more intense, and thus tiring, than IRL interaction 2/...
Communication is attenuated because many of the usual social and symbolic cues that tell us where we are, what our role is, how to interact and respond, are missing. This is especially awful if our interlocutors have their cameras switched off and we're talking into a void 3/...
But we also lose the rest and reset time between events. Instead of those precious minutes on a train to read, or a brisk walk between venues, even just a chat around the coffee pot, we are increasingly leaving one meeting to log on to another 4/...
We do so with no other backdrop than our own four walls, in one chair, glued to a screen, unable to reach out. Our symbolic and social worlds have shrunk. @PostEurope told me it's a form of torture, but that's literally true: a stress position we maintain for days 5/...
Some of us thrive in this world; a very large number of us do not. For those with small children this is having devastating effects on mental health; same goes for those living alone with little direct human contact; plenty of others are struggling. 6/...
We're in this position because we have generally tried to automate "business as usual", instead of rethinking how best to engage in an online world. But also because of our manic competitive environment, where we fail if we are not constantly sharing, hosting, promoting... 7/...
So, I have some requests, questions to ask before we propose yet another zoom meeting, yet another webinar...
(1) Do people really WANT it, or is it just you and me who think it's a good idea? Who haven't I heard from?
(2) Can it wait? is it really that important? 8/...
(3) How can we make it ok for colleagues to say "No, I can't, this is too much"?
(4)can this be handled asynchronously? Maybe a wiki or forum will allow you to gather reactions at people's convenience rather than forcing them in front of the camera 9/...
...and if it really IS important, wanted, and works best synchronously:
(5) how can we allow time out, time away, time to think, time to go for a walk, time to make a coffee, time to play with the kids, time to be more fully human than a zoom meeting allows 10/...
and no, that doesn't mean a jumping jacks break every 10 minutes! That means NO MEETING. Schedule down time around events. Let people come and go.)
There must be experts on this out there: would be glad to learn. 11/END.

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Navin Kabra
Navin Kabra
@NGKabra
Did you know that all the nuclear bombs we exploded in the '40s-50s-60s have permanently contaminated all the steel the world has produced since then? All steel in the world is divided into two categories: pre-1945 non-contaminated steel, and post-1945 contaminated steel.

How?

Nuclear bombs (including the tests) create a lot of radioisotopes that are not found in nature. For example Cobalt-60 (a radioactive version of Cobalt-59). And since the 1945 Trinity test, these have all dispersed in the atmosphere.

What does this have to do with steel?

The process of manufacturing steel uses atmospheric air (or atmospheric oxygen). Some of the radioisotopes like Cobalt-60 get pulled in too, and as a result, any steel produced after 1945 has embedded in it some of these radioisotopes, sitting there emitting gamma rays.

Why do we care about traces of radioisotopes in steel? When making Geiger counters, or medical devices to check for radioactive contamination, or astronomical instruments, the emissions from the contaminated steel would interfere with the measurements.

So we need pre-1945 steel

Pre-1945 non-contaminated steel is called "low background steel". And when we need it, where do we get it from?

We go, find pre-World-War-II sunken shipwrecks, and then salvage the steel (and lead) from those to build our instruments which need heavy radiation shielding.
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Yardley Yeadon
Yardley Yeadon
@MichaelYeadon3
In a number of Sunday papers:
Scientific advisers said it was “hard to see” when the restrictions would end as new variants continued to emerge, delivering a potentially devastating blow to the travel industry. The prime minister said that after progress with vaccinations...

...”what we don’t want to see is all that work undone by the arrival of a new variant that is vaccine-busting”.
The idea is planted in people’s mind that this virus is mutating in such a way as to evade prior immunity. This is completely unfounded, certainly as regards immunity..

...gained naturally, after repelling the virus (which well around 99.9% of the population do, fewer, obviously in the very elderly & already ill, more in those younger & well). It’s important to appreciate that upon infection, the human immune system cuts up an infectious...

...agent into short pieces. Each of these short pieces of protein are presented to other cells in the immune system, like an identity parade. Our cells have a truly astonishing range of abilities to recognise different protein structures, and there will be some which recognise...

...each of the pieces of the invader. The cells which recognise a piece are instructed to multiply selectively so that, after a few days to a couple of weeks, our bodies contain large numbers of virus piece specific cells. These have a range of functions. Some make antibodies...
SCIENCE
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foone
foone
@Foone
I think I've permanently confused KiCAD
it's reminding me that I need to connect this capacitor to Nothing


attach this end to ground, this end to +5v, and this end to THE VOID

I accidentally made all the capacitors gigantic and they won't fit anymore

halp


gonna design an ISA card using some of these

it's gonna be tricky to fit in the case


that's from this
SCIENCE
sarah_lindt ; Gab: sarah_lindt ; Parler:Sarahlindt
sarah_lindt ; Gab: sar...
@sarah_lindt
💥and so it begins..💥
It's time, my friends 🤩🤩

[Thread] #ProjectOdin


https://t.co/fO90N78fta


new quantum-based internet #ElonMusk #QVS #QFS

Political justification ⏬⏬
#ProjectOdin


#ProjectOdin #Starlink #ElonMusk #QuantumInternet
SCIENCE
Dr. Richard Corsi
Dr. Richard Corsi
@CorsIAQ
1/ Automobiles and Intake Fraction. Since cars are back in the news I thought I would retweet this model result I offered in early April 2020. I focused only on 1 micron particles & accounted for windows completely closed & cracked slightly open.


2/ Related air exchange rates were based on experimental results in literature for mid-sized sedans. Particle deposition to indoor surfaces were accounted for, as the surface to volume ratio in a 3 m3 cab is large. An important outcome was the intake fraction (IF)

3/ Here, IF is the number of particles (or virions in collective particles) inhaled by a receptor DIVIDED BY the number or particles (or virions in collective particles) emitted by an infector.

4/ Integrated over the two hour drive (in this example) the IF for all windows closed & a receptor at rest is 0.08 (8% of what comes out of the infectors respiratory system ends up in the respiratory system of the receptor). 8%! That is a very high intake factor.

5/ With additional ventilation from cracking a window open drops the IF to 0.012 (1.2%) still relatively high. Can get lower by opening more windows.
SCIENCE

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christmas cheer liz bruenig
christmas cheer liz br...
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one of the things i like about Batman is that it's fundamentally about being orphaned, and being an orphan — how this guy stays tethered to the world in his own weird, abstract, extrajudicial way when he feels that his link to it has been violently severed

Batman does this by permanently recapitulating his own trauma: solving crimes for other people, protecting them. But that's actually just the beginning; he also recapitulates his own experience of orphanness by essentially raising several orphans

Dick is an orphan in the traditional sense: dead parents. Batman sees it happen. Jason, less so: missing dad, known mom who eventually dies. Tim, even less so: parents are around a while, and involved, before both dying. Carrie, even less than that: negligent parents.

Steph: evil father, who openly works against her. And then there's Damian, whose parents are both alive and yet both have identities that totally obliterate their role as his parents. He doesn't relate to them as a mother and father; he can't, and neither can they.

In all these different cases, Batman tries all these different ways of making orphanness for them not what it was for him: Either by trying to teach them the (arguably poor) coping skills early that he learned over a very long time, or by literally legally adopting them, etc.
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Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
राम-रावण युद्ध समाप्त हो चुका था। जगत को त्रास देने वाला रावण अपने कुटुम्ब सहित नष्ट हो चुका था।श्रीराम का राज्याभिषेक हुआ और अयोध्या नरेश श्री राम के नेतृत्व में चारों दिशाओं में शन्ति थी।
अंगद को विदा करते समय राम रो पड़े थे ।हनुमान को विदा करने की शक्ति तो राम में थी ही नहीं ।


माता सीता भी हनुमान को पुत्रवत मानती थी। अत: हनुमान अयोध्या में ही रह गए ।राम दिनभर दरबार में, शासन व्यवस्था में व्यस्त रहते थे। संध्या को जब शासकीय कार्यों में छूट मिलती तो गुरु और माताओं का कुशल-मंगल पूछ अपने कक्ष में जाते थे। परंतु हनुमान जी हमेशा उनके पीछे-पीछे ही रहते थे ।


उनकी उपस्थिति में ही सारा परिवार बहुत देर तक जी भर बातें करता ।फिर भरत को ध्यान आया कि भैया-भाभी को भी एकांत मिलना चाहिए ।उर्मिला को देख भी उनके मन में हूक उठती थी कि इस पतिव्रता को भी अपने पति का सानिध्य चाहिए ।

एक दिन भरत ने हनुमान जी से कहा,"हे पवनपुत्र! सीता भाभी को राम भैया के साथ एकांत में रहने का भी अधिकार प्राप्त है ।क्या आपको उनके माथे पर सिन्दूर नहीं दिखता?इसलिए संध्या पश्चात आप राम भैया को कृप्या अकेला छोड़ दिया करें "।
ये सुनकर हनुमान आश्चर्यचकित रह गए और सीता माता के पास गए ।


माता से हनुमान ने पूछा,"माता आप अपने माथे पर सिन्दूर क्यों लगाती हैं।" यह सुनकर सीता माता बोलीं,"स्त्री अपने माथे पर सिन्दूर लगाती है तो उसके पति की आयु में वृद्धि होती है और वह स्वस्थ रहते हैं "। फिर हनुमान जी प्रभु राम के पास गए ।
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Akshaya Sivaraman
Akshaya Sivaraman
@AksUnik
How did I go from a busily scheduled life to one with substantial unstructured time?

1/ More creating, less consuming

I stopped obsessive mindless scrolling and started creating. Instagram for artworks. Twitter for thoughts. Unsubscribed from other apps. Saved a LOT of time.

2/ More deep focus, less context switching

I loved to be involved in many projects, but didn’t take into account the cost of making the mind switch between works. I decided to choose one important project and pour all of me into it.

3/ “It’s either hell yeah, or no”

I dropped projects that didn’t make me feel all fervent. I ruthlessly purged the guilt and FOMO. It was hella scary and uncomfortable at first, but was liberating over time. Knowing your why is the key.

4/ More focus on health and people

I was generous with time when it was for my health and people. I exercised, did yoga, went on for walks, and slept whenever I wanted. Same way, I didn’t look at the clock when I was with people. I resolved to be there and only there.

5/ Less worrying about saying no

Well, this was perhaps the toughest one for me. I was so used to being involved in many projects, that retracting myself from them was almost impossible. It was SO painful. Yet, I trusted it would be a wise choice long term and bore the pain.
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Will Buxton
Will Buxton
@wbuxtonofficial
The Haas / Force India argument is fascinating, and the decision of the stewards may still have consequences. The first key finding is that the stewards ruled Racing Point Force India to be a valid constructor. That means that it builds its own cars.

Haas had argued that the cars had been designed by Force India, but as Haas knows only too well, "outsourcing" is legal. The stewards decided that "there is no regulatory support for the argument that Outsourcing of Listed Parts cannot come from a former or excluded team."

In determining this, the stewards also came to the following conclusion: "In relation to the submission by the Racing Point Force India F1 Team that it is not a new team, the Stewards decide that the Racing Point Force India F1 Team is indeed a new team."

This will have a big knock on effect for Haas in its continued arguments over the rights of RPFI as relates to its eligibility and rights under the complex payments structure. Haas has argued all along that RPFI should be treated as a new team and tread the same path that it did.

TLDR? Haas lost the fight but may have won the war. In having its argument that Racing Point hadn't designed their own car thrown out, they gained clarification that RPFI was a new team.
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Dr. Barry J. Cooke
Dr. Barry J. Cooke
@barryjcooke1
1. Let's talk about the effects of #climatechange on the world's forests, with a focus on the northwest of Canada. This is also about electoral #greenwash, and my duty as public servant and right as private Canadian citizen to speak freely about what I know.

2. Why am I compelled to speak? How am I free to speak? The answer is in the federal Values and Ethics Code of Coduct (VECC).


3. It can be career-limiting to criticize government policy when you work for government. Duty of Loyalty is very, very important. However, as VECC makes clear, it is not absolute. In fact SCoC has ruled twice in favour of citizen free speech as a higher ideal. In 1985 and 2001.

4. I am therefore perfectly comfortable showing you the scary things that are happening in the North under a warming climate. A failure to meet global GHG emissions targets is hurting Canada's forests in a way we used to think wouldn't happen for decades.

5. Warming temperatures and rising [CO2] could, in theory, help green the planet with more vigorous tree growth. But that's not what's happening. Don't believe the #greenwash. The positive effects are over and it is warm enough that we are now starting the into the negative.
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