lennivelkant
@lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de
- Comment on Anon gains a superpower 3 hours ago:
It does, in fact, turn humans invisible too. Isildur being the obvious example, but even the nine rings given to humans had that effect, shifting them to the spiritual / unseen world. That’s a whole different ramble, but for now, let’s sum it up that there is an unseen world not everyone can sense and influence, but the Maiar (including Sauron) are inherently spiritual beings that took physical shape in the seen world in order to interact with it.
For Sauron, so much of his power was poured into the One Ring that he was no longer able to take physical form without it (though he evidently still had some ability to twist minds even without it). Through the Ring, he had also dominated the nine human Ring bearers and bound them to him, moving them into the spiritual world. Given that they were originally of the seen world, they could take physical form more easily than him, but as his power waned, so did theirs and they eventually disappeared until his power grew once more and allowed them to reappear.
The reason they could still “see” Frodo is that they were attuned to the unseen and could sense him there, with their power over it manifesting in them stabbing his physical form even though it was invisible to mortal eyes.
There is still the question of the Dwarven rings. They were forged first, and it’s possible they weren’t as refined yet, though the dwarves are also described as more resilient at resisting the dominating effect. My guess is that the fact they were created by Aulë, Smith of the Valar, rendered them less susceptible to the craft of a lesser spirit (Sauron), but I have no evidence.
- Comment on Black Mirror AI 4 days ago:
That’s war. That has been the nature of war and deterrence policy ever since industrial manufacture has escalated both the scale of deployments and the cost and destructive power of weaponry. Make it too expensive for the other side to continue fighting (or, in the case of deterrence, to even attack in the first place). If the payoff for scraping no longer justifies the investment of power and processing time, maybe the smaller ones will give up and leave you in peace.
- Comment on Let's put an end to the discussion; what is the best way? 1 week ago:
Let’s put an end to the discussion
lol
lmao - Comment on Einstein-Landauer culinary units 2 weeks ago:
When referencing another person’s comment, it can be helpful to link to that comment or the article you mentioned.
I’d also like to point out that many Wikipedia articles, particularly those written by experts on a given scientific subject, tend to be daunting rather than helpful for people not yet familiar with that subject.
Explanations like the one you offered in this comment and the next reply can help make topics more approachable, so I very much appreciate that.
To illustrate my point:
In this case, the article first describes the principle as “pertaining to a lower theoretical limit of energy consumption of computation”, which doesn’t directly highlight the connection to information storage. The next sentence then mentions “irreversible change in information” and “merging two computational paths”, both of which are non-trivial.
From a brief glance at the article on reversible computing linked further on, I gather that “irreversible” here doesn’t mean “you can’t flip the bit again” but rather something like “you can’t deterministically figure out the previous calculation from its result”, so the phrase boils down to “storing a piece of information” for our context. The example of “merging computational paths” probably has no particular bearing on the energy value of information either and can be ignored as well.
Figuring out the resulting logic that you so kindly laid out – again, thank you for that! – requires a degree of subject-specific understanding to know what parts of the explanation can be safely ignored.
Of course, experts want to be accurate and tend to think in terms they’re familiar with, so I don’t fault them for that. The unfortunate result is that their writings are often rather intransparent to laypeople and linking to Wikipedia articles isn’t always the best way to convey an understanding.
- Comment on Polar bears 2 weeks ago:
Maybe the targeted advertising got your location wrong?
- Comment on Cardinals most likely to be the pope 3 weeks ago:
I mean, this is the Catholic Church we’re talking about. They’re not particularly known for fair hiring policies.
- Comment on Some Grammaticial voices. 4 weeks ago:
The scientists deny any testing.
That’s active voice tho
- Comment on Some Grammaticial voices. 4 weeks ago:
Shouldn’t that be exothermic oxidation?
- Comment on Describe conservatives with one picture 1 month ago:
Is it me or does that post author name look like a lot of the bots named “WordWordNumber”?
- Comment on I hope she found herself 1 month ago:
Because that’s what the other person asked. “Secluded myself” isn’t really an answer. I can seclude myself counting leaves in the forest, lay down and stare at the ceiling, walk circles around my room and try to make them perfectly circular…
It’s not that you have to tell; saying “I don’t know” or “I’d rather not say” would be an answer too. But you made a snide remark regarding the other person’s reading comprehension (why?) and fail to properly comprehend their question (or mine).
- Comment on I hope she found herself 1 month ago:
…and what did you do while high?
- Comment on I hope she found herself 1 month ago:
Not me. I don’t care. The version of me that I’ve got right now is alright, I’m in no hurry to “find myself”. Either I’ll come across myself by chance or it can’t have been that important.
huffs excessive amounts of Copium
- Comment on nature is music 1 month ago:
What about Black Hole by Betraying The Martyrs?
- Comment on Space Quarry 1 month ago:
If I’d managed to stick a robot landing on a rock hurtling through space, you bet I’d be celebrating hard too
- Comment on Make gravity your bitch 1 month ago:
So what’s wrong with cumming the backstreet
- Comment on Bubble Wrap! 1 month ago:
thank you fellow german taxpayers 👍
Glad to help! And if I ever need it, I know I can count on you too.
- Comment on Virgin Physicists 1 month ago:
I mean, depending on your calculations and scale, you might go a little more precise with it. At a diameter of, say, 10m for a semicircular bridge arc, that’s a difference of 1m.
- Comment on Virgin Physicists 1 month ago:
So you just need to figure out the precise amount of prewarming, then subsequently cooling in coordination with the circuit’s load to make sure it stays at the right temperature?
- Comment on pain plant 2 months ago:
Well, given that it’s supposed to be toxic rather than just painful, I’d say we’re resistant in that it takes a high dose to kill us.
- Comment on pain plant 2 months ago:
How fortunate then that the same species resistant to their defense actually goes on to cultivate it
- Comment on Consider the following... 2 months ago:
Now get to a medical facility, but make sure not to surface too rapidly or you might get gas bubbles in your joints, blood or spinal chord.
- Comment on I'm just happy you thought it was funny, dear 2 months ago:
Do you mean the victims or the instances of SCP-3008-2? I don’t think the anomaly itself is curable.
Summary for those not familiar: SCP-049 is a plague doctor that seeks to violently “cure” anyone afflicted with some nondescript “Pestilence”.
SCP-3008 is an endless and nearly inescapable IKEA, where the “Staff” (labeled SCP-3008-2) are entirely unresponsive during the day but become violent at night towards anyone still in the store after closing time. - Comment on I'm just happy you thought it was funny, dear 2 months ago:
SCP Foundation is a fictional (I hope) organisation with the mission to Secure, Contain, Protect various anomalies catalogued with numbers (SCP-#) which are thus also referred to as SPCs. These anomaly descriptions are available on scp-wiki.wikidot.com
Some of the anomalies are references to other fictional things. If you’re familiar with Slenderman, for instance, you may enjoy SCP-096.
- Comment on got any others? 2 months ago:
That works if there’s enough public funding, but given trends lately and events most recently…
- Comment on Lightning bugs!! 2 months ago:
I hope you get many beautiful snowfalls in your life yet
- Comment on tig ol bitties 2 months ago:
Contriboobtion
- Comment on A daunting realization 3 months ago:
More like fungsus
- Comment on Psst, the Americans are asleep, post some eggs 3 months ago:
Feed him enough of it and it will work
- Comment on mrw someone tries to proselytize Christianity to me [Day 64] 3 months ago:
For God so loved the world that he invented a hell to throw people into so he could call himself merciful by sending his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
I think I might have gotten a weird translation there. Anyway, he loves you so much he might choose not to throw you into the lake of fire.
- Comment on Anon questions the KKK 3 months ago:
The core of Christianity is originally the redemption, not the threat that necessitates it and often is more prominent.
The cross is a symbol of the sacrifice made to redeem people from the threat of hell. More relevant here is that sin separates humans from God, and through that sacrifice, the connection is restored. It is a catalyst of redemption and reunion. In that sense, they don’t so much pray towards an implement of torture as an implement of liberation, salvation and mercy.
Given that those are hard things to put in a visual, tangible form and that humans tend to place a lot of value in visual, tangible representations, it’s basically the simplest symbol you could come up with as a nascent cult.
It’s not the only symbol, and particularly during the rise of the Roman church, you’ll note that icons of saints become very common too. Some places will even have the Crucifix feature the crucified Jesus as well, to drive home the point about sacrifice and gratitude.
Protestants later held that the worship of saints was tantamount to idolatry and did away with them again, leaving just the core of the message of redemption. There was in some places a conscious choice to pick the “empty” cross rather than the crucified saviour as a symbol that he is no longer dead.
All in all, given his divine wisdom and love for metaphors and similes, I’d think Jesus would understand the point of the cross…
…then proceed to trash the place out of rage over the waste of money and effort that went into gaudy churches and gold-embroidered robes instead of helping the sick and poor.