I don't know about "before the Internet", but the physical stacks in most libraries are in rather sorry shape these days.
I've been to my city's single branch, and I've been to the Central Library in Phoenix, and I really couldn't find much at all to sink my teeth into.
I was particularly interested in history: history of my state/city, and history of Pennsylvania. There was distinctly very little "history of other states" to be had anywhere, and while there is a great archive of history that is technically open to the public, its security policy was so restrictive, that I couldn't just wander in there during a regular visit.
There simply isn't anything about technical subjects. You couldn't teach yourself car repair, or computer programming, or rocket science. A lot of books are, like, recipe and cooking books; books for people with hobbies like sewing or knitting; books for people seeking work or trying to pay their taxes. A lot of practical, basic information for the kind of people who can't purchase books at bookstores.
The university libraries are a cut above, of course. My local university has several branches, including a dedicated engineering library. You could probably learn a lot from those. But they also carried (25 years ago) the Rig Vedas, novels from Robert Heinlein and Kurt Vonnegut, and a lot of really old books that wouldn't teach you anything practical.
No, actual learning often requires human interaction and a systematic approach from a curriculum. There is no substitute for top-notch teachers, who are the best resources, and know how to stimulate learning in students.
Anyway, most people are wary of public libraries in the 21st century. Sad to say that most have become de facto homeless shelters, and the sheer number of smelly, middle-aged men with mental illness can effectively scare away nearly all single women and families with children.
In the world of recruiters and hiring, a “headhunter” is probably not slaying candidates with a spear and decapitating them for a trophy, but nevertheless, we use that term routinely! It does not convey what occurred!
Yeah man, they're call "loaded terms" for a reason. They are loaded with connotations beyond what occurred.
For example, I could call you a nitpicker. Are you picking nits? No.
Are you being conscientious? Paying attention to detail? Sure.
Which word would you want me to label you with?
As an employee do I want to be poached? No. I want to be approached, reasoned with, and make my own choices no matter what either employer "feels" about the situation.
But their stingers are barbed, unlike wasp stingers and other stinger types which are smooth. Barbed stingers seem specifically designed to lodge in elastic skin (that is, skin of a larger vertebrate, not simply mammals) and a barbed stinger can also be more effective at delivering venom, pumping long after the bee itself has disengaged and slunk away.
I don't see how you can call it an "accident" if it's a simple fact that barbed stingers are well-adapted to lodge in the skin of larger victims and stick around and increase efficacy of the attack.
Worker bees themselves are disposable. If we consider an entire hive as the organism, rather than the component bees, we can easily see how the loss of several workers to loss-of-stinger attacks is beneficial to the entire organism, and it really does enhanced survival of the group, or the organism itself, if you will.
> we can easily see how the loss of several workers to loss-of-stinger attacks is beneficial to the entire organism
We can't easily see it, especially if on the other hand you have a design that requires no losses. And it's not always "several", especially with bigger predators
If you think that's bad, consider how they mate. A honeybee drone mates with a queen in flight, and when he disengages with the queen his endophallus will be ripped off, killing the drone.
I don't think it disproves "honeybee barbs are adaptive against mammals", for example:
1. It may not be adaptive for honeybees to self-sacrifice against smaller targets. The full venom dose could be overkill, or it may be better to have multiple tries or engage multiple foes.
2. Perhaps it's just harder to evolve a good barb against smaller targets or ones with different surfaces/material.
3. Would smaller/different barbs increase the risk of damaging "accidents"?
It seems safe to assume there are evolutionary pressures around stinger-design, especially when we consider that queens of the same species do not have the same barbs.
workers don’t have genetic contributions to pass on
Its simply a mutation that is merely not selected against, as there are enough workers to ensure hive reproduction, but the specific barb mutation happens to be inferior to a wasp’s but only when mammals are around
they make do with it, a stuck stinger injects more venom and a ripped apart bee gives out a distress hormone attracting other bees
but…. so does a wasp.
it doesn’t even prevent hive destruction from a large persistent mammal
so, its okay to feel empathy.
if the bee has conscious behavior, they do not sting expecting their own death. they expected to go back home to their hive family and mammal skin is an unexpected death trap. the way bee stinging choices are written about is mammal centered and inaccurate.
> workers don’t have genetic contributions to pass on
Oh come on man, that's as old as Darwin. Your brain-neurons will die without passing on their genetic payload too, yet somehow (sarcasm) they keep mattering every generation.
I am sorry to burst your "bubble", as it were, but cryptocurrencies are not, in fact, currencies.
Speaking in terms of U.S. regulation and legislation, crypto is variously regulated as a "commodity" or as a "security" and therefore, cannot be formally considered a currency. The name, "cryptocurrency" is a marketing ploy, which cleverly seeks to dilute the meaning of the term, which is a term of art, and is still reserved, in legal circles, for things which are, in fact, currencies, and function as currencies, and are regulated as currencies, which crypto… is not.
It was rather painful to me in particular, because a few weeks ago, I registered and attended a municipal education session on fraud. And this session was co-hosted by an actual representative of the Arizona Corporation Commission - Securities Division. I can prove that because my prize for the session was an authentic, imprinted, ACC/SD pizza slicer! Anyway, as soon as she mentioned crypto and asserted it is a class of "currency" I tried to call her out, and I asked more than once, and being reluctant to turn the session into a referendum on her legal knowledge, I finally let her win. It was embarrassing.
Anyway, no, cryptocurrency has never been a currency. Not in the USA. Other nations may deem it as such, but I kind of doubt it so far. Please do not conflate real currency with crypto. They are distinct things that are easily distinguished. The consumer should not be deluded into thinking otherwise.
Regardless of long-term ROI, or tech innovation, or whatever, the US space program is a broadly enormous jobs program. I believe that the Apollo program supported 5-digits worth of very good jobs nationwide.
Jobs in aerospace are not limited to NASA and SpaceX. They extend to most all defense contractors, as well as a lot of research universities. Every little instrument on every little probe and satellite supports a team of scientists who have designed the thing, and they’re taking the lead in receiving the data, processing it, and producing results.
Even undergrads are getting great experience in research, technical fields, all the gadgetry and computer systems. Transferable skills for lifelong careers in technology.
All of those engineers and scientists and labor-union guys have families to support. So even if space exploration gets us nowhere and we learn nothing and produce nothing, we are right now supporting thousands of jobs and thousands of American families.
And that is worth every penny to me, as a taxpayer.
> All of those engineers and scientists and labor-union guys have families to support. So even if space exploration gets us nowhere and we learn nothing and produce nothing, we are right now supporting thousands of jobs and thousands of American families.
On that basis, we can just send people money and skip the job part. It's just a massive giveaway - mostly to people who don't need it (who can get other jobs).
Even saying the space program is semi-productive doesn't make sense - on that basis, the money could go to many, many places.
Economic growth and wealth - and societal investment in healthcare, education, etc. and also in science and space exploration - increases when economic efficiency increases, and that requires redirecting resources (especially money) to where it has the highest ROI. Corrupt and state-run economies are poor because resources are used used inefficiently - resources go to the corrupt or to the unproductive.
Again, I think the space program is highly productive (though of course not universally). But otherwise we should spend money where it is most productive.
Seems weird. Dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers are the epitome of "white noise" to me. I love sleeping with those things, drowning out all annoying noises and ensconcing me in a pleasant ocean of peaceful wooshes.
The last time I had in-unit W/D, it was right outside my bedroom. Never bothered me in the least. Certainly not compared to the neighbors' dogs, pot-smoking, screaming arguments, etc.
I want to challenge that metaphor a little bit and ask the question: who did sell the shovels in the California gold rush? Can we name a company, or a person, who amassed great wealth and fame for doing it? Can we name a company that survives until 2026, still selling shovels or excavation equipment, still famous for their big break in 1849? I don't think so.
However, I can tell you someone who fits all those criteria: Levi Strauss. Strauss founded a company to sell dry goods, as well as tents and jeans, and eventually specialized in those denim jeans. Levi Strauss became a household name and an enduring success of the Gold Rush.
Therefore, I say that this motto is flawed; so let's correct it: "In a gold rush, sell the work clothes!"
The person who most famously got rich selling shovels in the Gold Rush was Samuel Brannan. You'll find the street named after him just a short walk from both the Anthropic and OpenAI HQs.
My take on picks and shovels was always a more cynical one. The beauty of the metaphor comes from the fact that after the miners went bust and left their picks and shovels where they lay, they could be collected and sold again to the next dreamer.
On a forum where the most favored pastime is to call out stuff you don't like as “slop”, (a flaggable ad hominem) you are now taking pride in outing me somehow, as someone who describes exactly what I'm doing, publicly in my profile?
And in the process, you (and apparently, an entire flag-it brigade of ignorant motherfuckers) have publicly fallen for the most transparent and avoidable trolls in cog. sci. culture. Congratulations, mate!
I believe that you owe me an apology, along with a public retraction, and an unflagging of all the previous comments that you have falsely flagged on false pretenses and ignorant, petty, vindictive motives.
Interestingly, Waldenbooks in Mission Valley Center, San Diego, was one of my favorite vendors for software for my VIC-20 and Commodore 64. I still recall the “book smell” in that place as Grandma brought us there, and I would come home with Ghostbusters, or Zork III, and Compute!’s Gazette.
There were a lot of variety stores that could get away with a section for software or video games in those days.
That's actually sort of impressive, that a 5-year-old survives without parents or a home.
In the USA they would be immediately scooped up and placed in a protective foster home of some sort. Teenaged runaways can evade capture and return, but a 5-year-old cannot go trotting around wherever they please. I cannot imagine the fate of a girl in those circumstances.
Surely, this boy could not be surviving without support and guidance from elder allies. I am not sure what "fending for oneself" looks like in NK culture, but I can envision a lot of people taking pity and giving help and handouts of some kind.
My impression was that abandoned children sort of live in bands, the folks sneaking across the border brought them food and money. They were in pretty rough shape visually. It wasn’t clear how long they last.
When I was little, like 10 years old, I was obsessed with reading when not in school. Also I had a lot of insomniac nighttime hours to deal with. And my parents got wise to leaving the light on in my bedroom, or the classic TV-ploy, "flashlight under the covers". So, in an attempt to fool them, I would bring my favorite tome into the bathroom, where they routinely left the light on all night, and I'd slip into the dry bathtub, and read to my heart's content. And I believe that this went on for some time until they figured out or called my bluff. They considered it weird and quirky that I'd chosen that route, but I really needed my books.
Later in my teenage years, I would be spending inordinate time in the bathroom every evening, with a tub of Vaseline. That's right, I was able to solve a lubricated, optimized Rubik's Cube in 63 seconds!
I've been to my city's single branch, and I've been to the Central Library in Phoenix, and I really couldn't find much at all to sink my teeth into.
I was particularly interested in history: history of my state/city, and history of Pennsylvania. There was distinctly very little "history of other states" to be had anywhere, and while there is a great archive of history that is technically open to the public, its security policy was so restrictive, that I couldn't just wander in there during a regular visit.
There simply isn't anything about technical subjects. You couldn't teach yourself car repair, or computer programming, or rocket science. A lot of books are, like, recipe and cooking books; books for people with hobbies like sewing or knitting; books for people seeking work or trying to pay their taxes. A lot of practical, basic information for the kind of people who can't purchase books at bookstores.
The university libraries are a cut above, of course. My local university has several branches, including a dedicated engineering library. You could probably learn a lot from those. But they also carried (25 years ago) the Rig Vedas, novels from Robert Heinlein and Kurt Vonnegut, and a lot of really old books that wouldn't teach you anything practical.
No, actual learning often requires human interaction and a systematic approach from a curriculum. There is no substitute for top-notch teachers, who are the best resources, and know how to stimulate learning in students.
Anyway, most people are wary of public libraries in the 21st century. Sad to say that most have become de facto homeless shelters, and the sheer number of smelly, middle-aged men with mental illness can effectively scare away nearly all single women and families with children.
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