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Cake day: June 26th, 2023

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  • It is disturbing when people take this kind of mysticism seriously. I could say a lot about this but it may be best just to refer to the words of Carl Sagan:

    “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…

    The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
    ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark





  • xylogx@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldTrue
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    14 days ago

    Did they find it?

    Modern technology can render the phrase “like finding a needle in a haystack” obsolete. | Partly busted | While it is possible to find a needle in a haystack, even using specialized machines to do so takes a considerable amount of time, particularly since bone needles cannot be picked up by magnets. The task is difficult enough to still make the saying viable.


  • xylogx@lemmy.worldtoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldTrue
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    14 days ago

    What happened?

    Modern technology can render the phrase “like finding a needle in a haystack” obsolete. | Partly busted | While it is possible to find a needle in a haystack, even using specialized machines to do so takes a considerable amount of time, particularly since bone needles cannot be picked up by magnets. The task is difficult enough to still make the saying viable.