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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 2h

Scientists created a new color, or a new sensation or perception of color, by stimulating individual rods and cones to produce greater differentials than any real-world color can produce. It turned out to be an "intensely saturated teal." www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/s...

Scientists Say They've Discovered a New Color—an 'Unprecedented' Hue Only Ever Seen by Five People

The color, dubbed olo, is described as an intensely saturated teal. Researchers say it might have applications in understanding color blindness

www.smithsonianmag.com

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

I've always liked Jack London's euphemism for cursing... cursing a dog. London wrote "He spoke to it with the sound of whiplashes."

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

Salem in 1692 showed how to prove someone IS a witch: "Spectral evidence." If someone appears IN THE DREAMS of a qualified witch-detector (usually an adolescent), that proved they were a witch. How someone could prove they were NOT a witch, I don't know.

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

Fifth Third Bank... Ruth's Chris Steak House... what are some other examples of corporate names that sound weird for a few years until you get used to them?

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

they ACTUALLY contain a catalyst converts hemoglobin into chlorophyll. When the dictator and his senior staff eat the tasty beefy tomatoes, turn into vegetables. Uh... the story is WAY better than that summary makes it sound.

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

You might want to dig out the old science-fiction story "The Ultimate Catalyst," by John Taine. Scientist fools a dictator by claiming that he transform chlorophyll into hemoglobin, and produce tomatoes that taste like beef, "greenbeefos."
archive.org/details/Thri...

Thrilling Wonder Stories v13n03 (1939 06) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Thrilling Wonder Stories v13n03 (1939 06)

archive.org

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

had not only won, but then had been re-elected numerous tim

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

were hung on the basis of "spectral evidence." How did they know if someone was witch? Because they appeared in the dreams of someone known to be capable of detecting witches.

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

A difference is that as best I can remember, good people did lose their jobs in the 1950s for being called a "communist." But they didn't get shot by uniformed goons in the streets, even with "less-lethal weapons." The "witch hunt" metaphor really is apt. In 1692 Salem, people (men as well as women)

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

And I was never charmed by the trick ending, "Let's call the calling-off off."

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

Not one of Ira Gershwin's better efforts, in my opinion. Besides "tomayto/tomahto," there really variation between "eether/eyether" and "neether/neyether," and the dictionary I checked shows both pronunciations still. Ah, both for "tomato." Only one for "potato."

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

Random synaptic firing: in the late 1700s there was a brilliant British racehorse named "Potoooooooo." (Get it?)

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

I think the lyrics were actually written out phonetically. But I've never much liked it, because--at least in the 1950s--some people--by which I mean "my grandmother," really DID say "tomahto," while I have never heard anyone say "potahto."

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

What I want to know is why alien foreign Briticisms are creeping into our All-American English. For example... why is an injection now a "jab" when it always used to be a "shot?"

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 3h

Trump ALWAYS says he is accomplishing, or immediately about to accomplish, or HAS accomplished, something that everyone else has tried to do but was never able to do.

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 23h

How DO AI LLM's perform on chessplaying, by the way? I don't remember reading anything about this, so my assumption is that they suck.

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 23h

Does anybody think she looks relaxed or comfortable?

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 23h

Sets a new level of "terribleness."

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

It's probably OK, then. "Take a look" with Trump is usually just deflection. Like the time he urged a rally audience to deal with a protestor: "just slug him, I'll pay your legal fees." Someone did, and when asked later about the legal fees he said "We're looking into it." And that was all.

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

I'm a simple-minded guy, I do want a story. And if you are going to rely on unlikely coincidences, please do me the courtesy of including some foreshadowing. Don't just have it happen, and don't be like a little kid, "Oh, and I forgot to tell you that the magician had the power to ..."

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so..."

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

Bayesian interference: "We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course; but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time; it is, therefore, at least millions to one, that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie."

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason" is sooooooooo good, do take a look at it sometime. Perhaps the famous quote, referring to accounts of miracles in religions, is "Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie?" He goes on to use what sure sounds like

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

And the younger oldsters who don't remember Edward R. Murrow do remember Walter Cronkite.

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

Worthy of Stephen Crane!