Recent content by SW VandeCarr

It was the assumption of the victorious allies at the end of WWI that Germany, and its leaders, were responsible for the war and the Treaty of Versailles reflected that. Current thinking is more nuanced. Nevertheless Bismarck's carefully constructed system of alliances was designed to prevent...

One man, Kaiser Wilhem ii of Germany, was not totally responsible for a "world turned upside down" but he certainly wasn't an innocent bystander. He acceded to the throne in 1888 and fired Bismarck in 1890 in order to make his own foreign policy. He quickly destroyed Bismarck's delicate system...

And it was, ….until WW2 (except for the Russian-Polish War (1920), war in Turkey (early 1920s), Russian Civil War (1918-1921), Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931), Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1936), Spanish Civil War(1936-1939), Japanese invasion of China (1937). WW1 was for sure the war...

The highest point in Kansas is called Mt Sunflower at 4039 ft (1231 m). It's not really a mountain, just a high point on flat appearing land near the western border. The lowest point is in the SE corner of the state at 679 ft (207 m) above sea level. Kansas looks flat because the land tilts...

I agree. For the US, there's no hiding slavery and its aftermath, or the "manifest destiny", or the "trail of tears" and the general attitude toward native Americans. But few people know about the brutal suppression of the Philippine Insurgency by none other than Theodore Roosevelt. He was a in...

It's absurd to think we are smart enough to really understand it. Shut up and calculate.

Reality is a punch in the nose. Causality is a moving fist..

The Democrats are in no position to impeach Trump. Even if at some point they could get enough Republicans to join them for a simple majority in the House, impeachment only means a trial in the Senate. Removing a president from office requires a conviction for "high crimes and misdemeanors" by...

This worked for me. It's over 7 minutes long but I wasn't able to stay awake for it all.

A market analysis requires that you know the probability of someone buying a shirt given they're a moderate Bayesian vs given they're not a moderate Bayesian. The not moderate Bayesian category would include strong Bayesians, weak Bayesians, non Baysians who know they're non Bayesians, non...

Bayesian analysis might be more appropriate for the evolution of life (and brains) in the universe. I understand the Boltzmann Brain concept considers the probability of a brain originating randomly from some base (high entropy) state. With a Bayesian approach probabilities are conditional on...

Yes, but none of this is worth damaging the great institution of AMERICAN FOOTBALL. As I said in post 35, we cannot have 9.144 meter intervals nor can we have a 100 meter long fields. The game is sacrosanct. Nor is it acceptable to make an exception for football by allowing the game to keep its...

It's nothing new. Isaac Newton engaged in pseudoscience and the occult. Kronecker said the natural numbers came from God, all else (mathematical) came from man. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Created_the_Integers

The difficulties faced by the US in converting completely to metric units, let alone SI, go beyond land measure. Consider the economic impact of professional sports. It's a big deal for major US cities who compete for franchises. Football would be played on a 91.44 meter long field. A first...

8x5280=42240 sq ft, 1 acre=43560 sq ft (US)