Notices by mpjgregoire@mamot.fr, page 2

#NASA is sending a mission to #16Psyche :

"16 Psyche is the largest M class asteroid, so called for high metal content. It was discovered in the mid-19th century in the solar system’s main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It orbits the sun in about five years, while rotating once every four hours."

There is some discussion in the article about the absurdly high total value of the metals in the asteroid.

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/why-nasa-target-asteroid-16-psyche-could-be-worth-10-quintillion

#astronomy
#NationalPost

More interesting to me is this claim:

"These M class asteroids are thought to be the remnants of the iron-rich cores of proto-planets that have since broken up, such as Theia, an ancient planet that long ago smashed into Earth, knocked it off its axis, and threw up debris, some of which became the Moon."

Is it now accepted that a collision with another planet created the Moon? I thought that was just a theory?

#Moon #asteroid #Theia
#astronomy

@evan Hydro-Québec. Hey, New Englanders, we have some hydroelectricity we'd like to sell you too.

@johnquiggin Aren't the accusations that President Lula was crooked true? Not all elections give the voter an easy choice.

"The seventh great-grandfather of the Oscar-nominated [Benedict Cumberbatch] star bought the Cleland plantation in the north of the island in 1728. It was home to 250 slaves until the abolition of slavery more than 100 years later. The slave plantation is reported to have made the Cumberbatch family a small fortune."

Benedict Cumberbatch and his family face prospect of legal action over ancestors' slaves
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/benedict-cumberbatch-and-his-family-face-prospect-of-legal-action-over-ancestors-slaves

#slavery #Barbados
#NationalPost

I won't claim to know what the law will say, nor what the moral responsibility of plantation heirs is. Still, the idea that there might be legal liability for offenses committed ten generations ago is daunting. Is there no limit? Shall the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons sue the descendants of the Normans for the Conquest?

@evan The Fediverse is better, but there's nothing wicked about using Twitter per se.

@evan Yes, posting content on Twitter creates value for the network and encourages people to stay there. If Twitter is a net negative for the world, then yes, doing so would be wicked.

But I'm not yet convinced that Twitter is a net negative. Banning some journalists and certain outlinks is insufficient, in my opinion.

Tell me, when you used Twitter, was it bad for the world? Has it really gotten worse since then, in a way noticeable to an ordinary user?

@evan Strawman argument? Extreme minority view?

Epistemic bubble?

@evan Is that what you had in mind? You definitely should have used a term other than "venerate".

In my family, we have records that go back about two hundred years on one side, four hundred on the other side. I certainly do tell the kids about their great-grandparents, whom I knew reasonably well. We've visited old homes, etc.

But when I read the question, I was thinking about prayers and visiting graves. So I answered yes.

@reay How did she get into robotics originally? At what age?

(I have a daughter who might be developing a similar interest.)

@ddgulledge @RetroGrouch
We live in a society where new and improved is assumed to be better, where seniors are considered out-of-touch and the trends of youth are fashionable. In fact, the things that began long ago and which are still alive or in use, the tried-and-true often have advantages over what is merely modern. We overestimate our skill at creating afresh and undervalue what has proven itself.

#innovation #tradition

@brian_gettler @histodons The case for mandatory masking is much stronger than that for mandatory #SeatBelt use. In the former case, we are protecting others as well as ourselves; in the latter, the unbuckled person takes most of the risk.

Sent an e-mail from my personal domain to a Gmail account. "Be careful with this message" -- unauthenticated.

I guess I'll need to set up DKIM (or similar) before Gmail starts rejecting my e-mails completely.

Does anyone have a good guide to #DKIM ?

@jwildeboer @lxo
Please do post a link on the Fediverse once the article is ready.

@gerald_leppert On the Fediverse, the scholar.social instance would probably be the best fit.

@socrates

I don't know if there's something more apt outside the Fediverse: certainly not Twitter.

"The underlying logic of a “right” to assisted suicide, and the view of human dignity it affirms, ultimately undermines the value of certain lives and certain standards of living. It suggests that certain people lead lives that are less valuable. We should reject this view and affirm the sanctity of all human life, and we should seek to build a society and culture premised on this."

#AssistedSuicide #MAiD
#DoctorsKillingPatients
#NationalPost

"In 1993, a majority of the Supreme Court found that the criminal code provisions that prohibited assisted suicide did not ultimately violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 2015, the Court changed its mind. The law didn’t change, of course, but the court decided that “the matrix of legislative and social facts” surrounding the case had changed. Thus the interpretation of constitutional rights must change with them."

#BenWoodfinden

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/ben-woodfinden-assisted-suicide-is-spiralling-out-of-control-in-canada

#canpol
#NationalPost

"They would avoid the creeping expansion of eligibility [...] Yet just seven years after the decision, the exact scenario dismissed by the court has come to pass. Who could have seen this coming? Well, all sorts of people, and not just religious voices. Disabilities advocates in Canada have been sounding the alarm on the path Canada was headed down since 2015, seemingly ignored by the courts and government."

#AssistedSuicide
#MAiD #DoctorsKillingPatients