Snowflake's Forum

  Canada Post says letters to Santa will be delivered by Christmas Postal service workers returned to the job on Tuesday after the  labour minister asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to put an end to an “impasse” in the month-long strike , extending the existing contract until May. Canada Post said that it will start accepting new commercial mail on Thursday amid warnings  it will take time for deliveries to ramp back up to speed . But the Crown corporation also signalled that mail destined for the North Pole will get special treatment. “The scanners in our plants are set up to locate Santa letters, which are identified by the HOH OHO postal code. This allows us to deliver these letters straight to the North Pole.” https://globalnews.ca/news/10924216/canada-post-santa-letters-by-christmas/#:~:text=Canada%20Post%20said%20that%20all,letters%20to%20the%20North%20Pole. The Santa Letter Program has been part of Canada Post’s operations for 40 years and in 2023 deliver...

  Is there a song(s) that always brings tears to your eyes / touches you? Here are three that come to my mind: Be (It stirs the poet in me.) Memory. (It makes me think of my orange cat, Lucky. I miss him so.) Sunrise, Sunset (How time just flies by at seemingly an ever-increasing speed.) (by PrimalSoup)

 And now Sarah Connors has tits. Sheesh! 😲 All kinds of questions are raised. Is this the future of Youtube? Are AI created images made for lonely frat boys to replace porn? I mean, seriously, who are the brains behind above video? Anyone know?  Does it matter?  Or, if you SO desire, are there more ridiculous Youtube videos than the above one? And if so, then what is holding YOU back from posting such video? Post your most ridiculous Youtube video!

  Someone else brought up the weirdness of memories, and this hit Bunny.  For years, couldn’t figure out what “wella witch”  meant in a song from the Little Mermaid.   Looked up the lyrics…well, a witch.  Now, Bunny can’t hear what he heard before.   Has happened with other things he misheard (Mondagreens).  Can only catch the correct version. Anything similar with you? J.P. Bunny

Note: It has been pointed out that comparing brain data processing speed with computer bits may not by a meaningful comparison. Although a computer bit is understood, a human thought is not understood physically or in terms of its subjective nature. Therefore, the attempt to measure the "speed of thought" in bits per second that is discussed in the quoted article may be fundamentally misaligned with the nature of human cognition and consciousness. In other words, this could be basically wrong. This is another indication of how complex the human mind and consciousness are and how difficult it is to study the human brain-mind. Over the years, I've followed research that deals with research about the data processing bandwidth of the human brain. My interest in this started after I read Tor Norretrander's amazing 1991 book , The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down To Size . At that time, information scientists and other researchers estimated that human consciousnes...

  No, not the soft around the waist or between the ears, but the emotional soft. Way back when, actors pretending to die on screen, was just that.  Now…. Also, programs involving family pets not making it, are most off limits. Have you gotten a bit softer? J.P. Bunny

 What ARE the drones flying over New Jersey and several other States? The FBI and DHS are investigating after recent reports of mysterious drones from residents across several states The  drones  have been spotted in California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey,  New York , Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and  Virginia  over the last month. At least one airport was shut down late last week due to reported drone activity. “It is not the Iranians, it is not the Chinese. They aren’t Martians,” https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/drones-new-jersey-east-coast-updates-b2665148.html YABBUT, WHAT ARE THEY? Speculate! A viral video posted by a user named Jim Ferguson has ignited a storm of speculation on social media. Ferguson shared a clip from a  Pentagon briefing , claiming that the mysterious  drones  spotted worldwide are “not human.” His dramatic caption—“PENTAGON CONFIRMS: THESE DRONES ARE NOT HUMAN”—has led to widespread...

  Stepping in for our SNOWFLAKE, since he is still busy playing nursemaid to his beloved, as she continues to recuperate.   Snowy thought this would make for a good OP: ...about how an offspring can be SO monumentally different from their parent or parents: in personality, in behavior, outlook on life, philosophy, attitudes, and so on. So, how different are you from your parent(s)? Chip off the old block?  Apple didn’t fall far from the tree?  Or was it a very windy day that day? 😮😉 (by PrimalSoup)

As people here know, my hobby is politics with a goal of having fun, getting some self-satisfaction, and preventing civilization collapse and human self-annihilation. It's a fun hobby, but the civilization and annihilation bits are a little tougher to achieve than those of most other hobbies, e.g., stamp, coin or car license plate collecting. Most hobbies tend to mostly emphasize the fun and self-satisfaction bits.  Part of my hobby is to try to keep an eye out for what trends at the human civilization level might be afoot. A recent study caught my eye. The research is by  Nafeez Ahmed  at the System Shift Lab, London, UK (Distinguished Fellow at Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems, Bristol, UK). This bit of research really resonates with me because it expresses about the same impending reality that I see. He sees the situation the same way I see it. That's my bias here.  A news item about Ahmed's research on civilization comments: Human civilization ...

I never push it because I’ve learned over time that it’s a personal choice… BUT do we have any vegetarian, semi-vegetarian, or anything in the “vegetarian family” bloggers here?  CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE I believe @pithywititude:disqus is one, and also @brmckay:disqus . Anybody else? How about family members? Tell us about them. Have you ever tried it but gave up?  If yes, when and for how long?  Why did you try, and why did you give up? Or are you a red meat person [grunt].  Okay, okay, I kid. 😁 (by Primal “I’m just curious” Soup)

In just a few weeks, those seed catalogs will start arriving in the mail. Even if we do most of our seed shopping online or at the nursery, it gives us something to drool over during those long January & February evenings. So the question, for those of you who garden: What are your favorite varieties? Do you tend to stick with the tried and true, or like to experiment with new varieties? Vegetables? Flowers? Fruit? I like kohlrabi, but most varieties I've tried get woody and sharp if they get to the size of a baseball. Not Superschmelz! ("super melt" in German). It can get to the size of a bowling ball and be sweeter, crisper, and juicier than other varieties at any size. I like Scarlet Nantes carrots. Sweet, juicy, crunchy. Yum. How 'bout you? Bare all! [posted by Dan T]

CONTEXT We all remember from my award winning post last Nov. 7 at the award winning Snowflake's Forum, Science: Playing with Evolution . As we recall, the two take-home points were:  Scientists have created synthetic life using a pathogenic goat bacterium to derive a new man-made bacterial species Even with the smallest possible number of genes needed for self-replication, that new species of bacterium unexpectedly could still evolve via mutations that arise naturally in nature The boffins were blown away by the power of evolution in nature. Long story short, any life form, or near-life form like a virus (life-form adjacent?), can evolve. MIRROR LIFE Yesterday, NPR broadcast a segment about the developing branch of research devoted to mirror life, something I intuitively believed was impossible and thus I did not take it seriously. Welp ladies & germs (pun intended), I was possibly wrong. NPR interviewed a researcher at, if I recall right, U. Pittsburg, who researches mirror l...

Coveted virtual Blue Ribbon to the first person who can guess what edible come from this pod.  Make as many guesses as you want: If no winners, answer posted tomorrow.   (And no cheating by using an “identifier” app!) (by PrimalSoup) *     *     *     *     *     *      Well done, Dan T.  Honorable mention to anyone who guessed something in the nut family!

  Tattoos, piercings, implants, penal bifurcation (damn cringeworthy, that)…what are your thoughts on such? Bunny thinks one can do what they wish with their body, but personally, what the hell? J.P. Bunny

 Imagine the following: Imagine you are standing beside some tram tracks. In the distance, you spot a runaway trolley hurtling down the tracks towards five workers who cannot hear it coming. Even if they do spot it, they won’t be able to move out of the way in time. As this disaster looms, you glance down and see a lever connected to the tracks. You realise that if you pull the lever, the tram will be diverted down a second set of tracks away from the five unsuspecting workers. However, down this side track is one lone worker, just as oblivious as his colleagues. So, would you pull the lever, leading to one death but saving five? This is the crux of the classic thought experiment known as the trolley dilemma, developed by philosopher Philippa Foot in 1967 and adapted by Judith Jarvis Thomson in 1985. The trolley dilemma allows us to think through the consequences of an action and consider whether its moral value is determined solely by its outcome. https://theconversation.com/the-t...

It’s winding down now, 2024.  Goodbye, good luck, and to hell with ya.   That’s how I feel about this last year. "Another one down, and another one down, and another one bites the dust." Wars, climate disasters, cray-crays getting elected to office... need I go on?  Okay, that was fun– not .  Now to get more serious. 😉 Q: Of all the worldly events that happened over this last year, what one(s) stands out to you the most; comes to immediate mind?  What about that one(s) struck a nerve with you? I.e., why? (by PrimalSoup)

The formula E = mc 2 , energy = mass x (speed of light) 2  is well-known. Most people probably have heard of things like a rocket, atom or subatomic particle with mass speeding up to get close to the speed of light, but never reaching light speed due to infinite energy needed. Energy needed to add more speed increases infinitely as anything with mass gets very, very close to the speed of light. For a particle with mass m > 0 and velocity v = c, equations for momentum and energy become inconsistent , indicating that such a state is not physically possible.  New Atlas writes : Scientists have accidentally discovered a particle that has mass when it’s traveling in one direction, but no mass while traveling in a different direction. Known as semi-Dirac fermions, particles with this bizarre behavior were first predicted 16 years ago. The discovery was made in a semi-metal material called ZrSiS, made up of zirconium (Zr), silicon (Si) and sulfur (S), while studying the prope...

  Hair.  Is it there?  Are you bare?  Do you care?  Give it some flair?  Some spend much time and money on their hair.  Some try desperately to keep it from abandoning ship.  Some don’t bother. Bunny’s family tree contains no baldies, but the grey comes early.  Have it cut every two months.  No styling, just make it two months shorter. What is your take on hair? J. P. Bunny.

Frenchie pup's first barks   Another teeny-tiny pup barking These little guys don't even have their eyes open, but what a lot of noise!