Lost World

Husband, Father, Corpsman, (Re)Tired ER RN, Libertarian, Contrarian, Alt-Middle, 🇺🇦.

[Lost World @Bruin144]

@Dave73719732128 @TheFIREorg @fortworthpd Not reciting, that doesn't mean anything. People can memorize the 1st 100 digits of PI. Now explaining the meaning, as understood by the U.S. legal system, would be meaningful.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Your fingers contain zero muscles. Every movement they make comes from muscles in your forearm pulling tendons through your wrist. Robotics spent 70 years ignoring that design. The company that finally copied it just showed a hand that lifts a 20-pound kettlebell and picks a grape off its stem without crushing it.

Here's why every robot hand before this was effectively numb. Traditional designs put a motor at each joint with aggressive gearing, often 100-to-1 or 200-to-1. That gearing multiplies force on the way out, but it also swallows force on the way in. You command the hand to a position, it goes there, and no touch information ever makes it back to the motor. Strong, precise, and blind.

1X's hand runs tendons at 5-to-1 to 15-to-1 ratios, with the motors sitting in the forearm, exactly where your flexor muscles live. At ratios that low, the joints are backdrivable: push a finger and it yields, then reports exactly how hard you pushed. Force flows out and information flows back through the same physical path. Every one of the 25 joints doubles as a sensor.

That's also why it survives accidents. Slam it in a drawer or hit it with a hammer and the tendons give instead of the gears shattering. The failure mode of a stiff hand is a broken hand. The failure mode of a compliant one is a measurement.

A 200-to-1 gearbox makes a hand strong and numb. A 5-to-1 tendon makes it strong and sensitive. Evolution solved this first, which is why your hand's muscles aren't in your hand.

The human hand has around 27 degrees of freedom. This one has 25, is waterproof enough to wash itself, and 1X says finger assemblies are validated to millions of cycles with capacity for 10,000 hands this year. For seven decades, robots picked things up the way a crane does. This is the first one built to pick things up the way you do.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

In 2009, psychologist Jackie Andrade had 40 people listen to a deliberately boring phone message. Half were told to doodle while listening. The doodlers recalled 29% more information than the people giving their full attention.

The person spinning in the chair might be absorbing more of your serious talk than you are.

Here's the mechanism. Sustained attention on low-stimulation input drains fast, and your brain fills the gap with daydreaming. Daydreams consume heavy cognitive resources. A physical fidget consumes almost none. The spin occupies just enough processing to block the daydream while leaving the language centers free to actually listen.

Eye contact makes it worse. A 2016 Kyoto University study found that holding someone's gaze measurably impairs your ability to generate words. The two tasks compete for the same resources. That's why people look away when answering hard questions, and why the best difficult conversations happen in cars, both people staring at the road.

Kids do this instinctively. Vestibular movement feeds directly into the brain's alertness system, which is why occupational therapists literally prescribe spinning to children who struggle to focus.

Stillness is what listening looks like. Motion is often what listening is.

[clara the urbanist @SlopHq]

every data center story says it uses "as much power as 100,000 homes" like that's a scandal. an aluminum smelter pulls five times that and it's why airplanes are cheap. measuring industry in homes is how you train a country to believe building things is a crime

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

RE: Air Canada

So now that I’m back from my Norway cruise, there are a few travel-related stories I want to tell.

Let’s start with this: IMO, @AirCanada is by far the worst international carrier I have ever flown on. Avoid at all costs.

I’ve flown them twice; the first time was a trip years ago to Berlin where we transferred in London. They lost our bags for TWO WHOLE WEEKS. Do you know that Tesco sells virtually no clothing that fits someone who is 6’5”? The bags instead went to Milan and they were waiting on our doorstep in D.C. when we got home.

That was the first trip. Now let’s talk about the one I just took (my cruise line, Viking Ocean, booked Air Canada for us, not me—I should have said no).

I’m about to talk about Flight AC 866 on June 12, 2026, from Montreal to London.

We flew into Montreal from our home U.S. airport on Air Canada's domestic-style business class, which was just basically shoddy, rundown and depressing. As some of you know I just had major knee surgery and I had therefore requested wheelchair assistance for the transfer to the international flight. Nope, nobody there. To get to immigration was about a mile walk. I attribute the current post-op problems I am having to the fact that I had to make that walk. It was brutal, and while my knee had been recovering nicely until then, that walk set it back and I’m still suffering.

But we made it through the interminable immigration lines and boarded Flight 866 in Montreal en route to London.

Or so we thought.

Turns out, they had the wrong plane. By the “wrong plane,” I mean the WRONG PLANE. They had sold tickets for a differently configured aircraft than the one we were boarding. Guess what? It seems they didn’t even figure this out until PEOPLE ACTUALLY STARTED BOARDING. Let me say that again. The fact that they had sold tickets to the wrong type airplane was not identified until people got on board and their seat did not exist.

As a retired U.S. Army logistician I find this utterly incomprehensible. How do you make such a mistake?

Chaos ensued.

First, they stopped boarding with the plane about 25% full. (@MrsDrPublius and I got onboard before they figured it out because we had bought business class tickets.)

Then we just sat there on the plane as the minutes and hours ticked by and the pilots, ground staff and flight crew hurriedly rushed up and down the aisles looking worried. (At least we were seated. ~75% of the passengers were still in the terminal.) No one was telling us anything except that the flight was delayed because of some unspecified ticketing issues.

Then they tried this crazy thing where they made everybody stay seated and write their name and the number of the seat they were sitting in on a piece of paper and hand it in. I don’t know what they thought that would accomplish, but it was useless. It was the Keystone Kops, poutine style.

Then they made us all get off the plane.

Then they re-booked every single person’s boarding pass in the system. Laboriously. Painfully. I heard complaints that people were kicked off the flight because there was no seat for them. People who had booked business class were sent to economy because there were too few business class seats. The delay was causing mass missed connecting flights in London when/if we ever did arrive.

This was one of those international Airbus jets with ~300 passengers. I honestly thought there might be a riot in the terminal. For a while it looked like we never would fly.

Almost 6 hours later, we took off and actually did make it to London, eventually.

The next day they sent me a survey to let them know how they did. It was the worst survey I have ever written for any business in my entire life, and I separately demanded some sort of compensation for the incredible inconvenience their incompetence caused. It’s three weeks later, and they have yet to reply.

So now I’m writing this post.

You could have at least APOLOGIZED, @AirCanada. Rarely do I use this platform to complain about some personal issue with a business, but you earned it.

Maybe next time at least acknowledge to your customers that you screwed up?

Grrrrr….🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡

[Lost World @Bruin144]

@KobeissiLetter Go to Congress get a declaration of war & lets finish it.

[Lost World @Bruin144]

@WhiteHouse Great now balance the Federal Budget

[Art @ZarkFiles]

Communism through (my) ages:
1) When I was 15, a teacher told me "It isn't as bad as they say, and makes a lot of sense."
2) At about 19, college friends, "Socialism isn't communism."
3) At 20, on meeting my grandfather-in-law, "They are evil. We escaped in 1949."
4) At 30, "China is a wonderful developing Democracy"
5) At 35, I was sent to communist China on business. It was a crowded, smelly, dirty, factory of despair and hopelessness. This I saw with my own eyes.
6) At 36, "China doesn't count. Successful socialism is in northern Europe."
7) I moved to northern Europe when I was 40. It was much nicer than China, but also felt like I was living in the past. I had to wait 6 months for a hernia operation.
8) When I was about 45, the migrant crisis began. The socialist/globalist/pacifist allowed them entry into every country, regardless how many crimes they committed along the way. Just 20 minutes from my house, in Calais, I was shocked to see migrants jumping onto trucks, breaking open the doors, scattering the contents across the highway, then climbing in. They went through the Chunnel and got out in England.
9) At 52, the soft socialism around me had transformed into globalism. I was told I had to call people by their preferred pronouns, though it was a lie, and even if I didn't know what the preferences were. I quit.
10) I returned to the US, and am now 60. "Socialism" is no longer a dirty word here. People openly espouse the virtues of it. Politicians run as socialists and win.

Socialism has taken many forms, from the Bolshevism of Russia, to the CCP in China, the Nazis in Germany, Fascists in Italy, and the many forms of it found in Latin America. It is one of the two most destructive ideologies on earth. It is designed to deprive, despirit, and murder everything that comes in contact with it.

Socialism is a great lie at every level. It helps no one, not even those who benefit the most. This is because the cost is the imposition of one's will on everyone else, and that destroys the soul of the usurper and the life of the oppressed.

Socialism always fails on its own, but only after destroying almost everything in its train. It can also be conquered. Those are the options.

[Lost World @Bruin144]

@royisin @aakashgupta If done correctly it neither cut or infected you. Problem become when people don't follow the directions. Wipe with alcohol between people. Operator wears a glove & holds the arm so the patient can't move. I have given thousands of injections without harm.

[Lost World @Bruin144]

@wirecutter We really need good quality non-smart TV's with just off/on, volume & a couple of HDMI ports.

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Breaking News: The Senate instructed President Trump to end the war in Iran or seek congressional approval, a major bipartisan rebuke. https://t.co/HukleeOgmj

[Lost World @Bruin144]

@cdrsalamander I once addressed a office full of USN Civ employees, in San Diego, as Y'all. Reasonably sure they were still talking about it at the end of the day.

[Lost World @Bruin144]

@aakashgupta This is the 2nd recent Cheesecake factory story I have seen singing its praises. About a decade ago I had a disastrous meal in one & have never returned. I will not describe what or where. Old USN proverb 1 aw-shit wipes out a thousand at-a-boys.

[U.S. Marines @USMC]

Corpsman Up!

Today, we celebrate and recognize the @USNavy Corpsmen who have stood alongside our #Marines for 128 years.

Since June 16, 1898, Navy Corpsmen have embodied the spirit of #SemperFidelis. From naval hospitals to the battlefield, they remain always faithful, treating our wounded and keeping Marines in the fight.

To the #Corpsmen in our ranks, we thank you for your unwavering dedication to duty and to our Marines.

Semper Fidelis.

✍️ (U.S. Marine Corps graphic by Lance Cpl. Matthew Morales)

📷 (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Armando Elizalde)

#Corpsman #Navy #BlueGreenTeam

[Lost World @Bruin144]

Maybe NM could look at these numbers. Amazingly enough if people have skin in the game (post bail) their re-arrest numbers are dramatically lower.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

Numbers from New York State, January 2020 through June 2021.

People placed in New York City's supervised release program were re-arrested at 41%.

Higher than people released on their own recognizance (20%).

Higher than people who actually posted bail (19%).

For misdemeanor larceny defendants placed on supervised release, the re-arrest rate was 68%.

Let me say that again. Sixty-eight percent.

In Japan we ask the simplest question:

If two out of three people in a program keep getting arrested, who is the program actually serving?

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

Numbers from New York State, January 2020 through June 2021.

People placed in New York City's supervised release program were re-arrested at 41%.

Higher than people released on their own recognizance (20%).

Higher than people who actually posted bail (19%).

For misdemeanor larceny defendants placed on supervised release, the re-arrest rate was 68%.

Let me say that again. Sixty-eight percent.

In Japan we ask the simplest question:

If two out of three people in a program keep getting arrested, who is the program actually serving?

[Lost World @Bruin144]

@Rep_Stansbury Maybe their parents should be providing them lunch? Or is that just crazy talk?

[Lost World @Bruin144]

@morimorio526 Are they cleaning other people trash or their own. If their own why not just take it with them (which is what I do) and throw it away.

[Lost World @Bruin144]

@gruntdoc Check for 3 cents

[Lost World @Bruin144]

So the Govt. of GB has decided to have every precocious child under 16 learn to conduct cyber-anarchy. Should be useful in the cyber battlefields of the future. GCHQ's future recruiting pipeline will be vastly improved.