asciilifeform: folks who actually made their living on ships, knew better.

asciilifeform: the 'uncrushable' thing was more of a marketing literature, tbh

asciilifeform: curious why mr. l did not say this, then.

asciilifeform: he's essentially sticking to the 'flondor defence.'

asciilifeform: L: Then all I can say is that recklessness applies to practically every commander and every ship crossing

asciilifeform: ice was in your immediate vicinity, to proceed at 21.5 knots.

asciilifeform: which you have described as abnormal, and in view of the knowledge you had from various sources that

asciilifeform: 'C: What I want to suggest to you is that it was recklessness, utter recklessness, in view of the conditions ☟︎

asciilifeform: author of linked piece takes issue with l's conduct pre-sinking.

asciilifeform: unwieldy, ruinously expensive, terrible ROI.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: this is why i mentioned schwartz example.

asciilifeform: quite a few of the ancient science-fictional machines of early 20th c. imagination.

asciilifeform: would make many things.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: try to picture how bitcoin would have been treated, even in the embryonic stage, if the implications for the next xxx years from it, were entirely obvious to all.

asciilifeform: under the bezzle, there is very little profit in solutions.

asciilifeform: the folks who built careers on (promise of) the 'hot' variety.

asciilifeform: modern-day physicists want a demonstrable equivalence principle violation the way they want horsecock.

asciilifeform: for the reason stated in the 'titanic' article.

asciilifeform: or rather, lack of experiment, because the entire sub-field formed a 'solid blue wall' against herr schwartz

asciilifeform: but the phenomenon described above is entirely the root of the al schwartz equivalence principle violation experiment

asciilifeform: story time. i don't personally have any truck with fusion, cold or not;

asciilifeform: re more important than experimental results. Lightoller, in effect, put traditions and customs ahead of the lives of passengers. To him, “the experience of years” and “what we have always done” outweighed all practical suggestions as to what we might do instead, to avoid killing thousands of people.' ☟︎

asciilifeform: 'If it ever becomes generally known that cold fusion is real, how will the scientists who opposed it react? A few may take responsibility and go down with the ship, retiring from academic life. I hope that most will regret their actions, and try to prevent such a thing from occurring again. Some will react the way Lightoller did, blaming Pons and Fleischmann. They may say the traditions and customs of science a

asciilifeform: robert wood was probably the one notable exception to this blindness.

asciilifeform: see also james randi's notes on how physicists are easily fooled by methods that fool not one stage magician

asciilifeform: the linked article is at least partly about this.

asciilifeform: almost as if they were living creatures trying to conserve energy or something

asciilifeform: although 'tilt' might be the more relevant pokerism

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: on the vary basic level.

asciilifeform: ^ very interestingly perverse comparison of the 'titanic' aftermath and that of 'cold fusion'

asciilifeform: still believes that cold fusion calorimetry indicates real excess heat, the frustrated expert may resort to extreme, untenable claims, such as a statement that no calorimeter has an error less than 10%, when in fact the error margin for top-quality conventional instruments is on the order of 0.1%. Or he may wave his hands and say calorimeters are so undependable that you cannot run one for more than a few days

asciilifeform: 'This sort of illogic is rampant in debates about cold fusion, particularly when experts respond to irritating, unwelcome suggestions made by amateurs. They start out cautioning the amateur that instruments such as calorimeters have a margin of error, and calorimeters frequently malfunction with leaking cooling fluid and other problems. When the expert senses the message is not getting through, and the amateur

asciilifeform: around here, the 'common step away from excel' is 'r'.

asciilifeform: i wanted a book on 'j' 5 or so years ago, had to go to a library with spy camera.

asciilifeform must have slept through the re-appearance of 'j'

asciilifeform: fingers - will of their own.

asciilifeform: i've probably crapped out every conceivable kind of mistake (when hammering in real time. text that i get to read again before broadcast - another matter)