Excellent documentary! I like how it was done completely with computer graphics. Most cavers in the U.S. know the story well, as do many tourists to Kentucky caves, because it is still used in advertising there. My parents told me the story when I was a kid, as a cautionary against my interest in caves. They knew it well because they grew up in the early 1930s, when the story was still widely known. Although I love commercial caverns, I never became a caver. I have visited Mammoth Cave, which I highly recommend.
A great discovery was made some decades ago, by a three-day expedition of cavers who linked the Mammoth Cave network with another large cave network on the other side of some mountains. I believe the expedition was sponsored by National Geographic, and I saw a terrific documentary about it on TV.
The energy saving plan for my country will be that we all work unwashed and uncafeinated and that we donāt check our emails first thing in the morning and that we only eat raw food and that we donāt binge watch series and that supermarkets must open up early to refreeze the products they unfreezed during the night before they get caught.
Or else how can you explain that the suggested times to cut the power are one hour before shift or the first hour into the shift and then the first three hours after arriving home from work?
Forget about people who donāt work the classic office shifts, forget about basic business tasks that require electricity first thing in the morning (coffee, but not just that), forget about not using heat-related appliances simultaneously.
Imagine what would happen if my country didnāt want to attract digital nomads ĻĻĪæĪ¼Ī¬ĻĪ± ĻĪæĻ Ļ.
Iām not ranting so much about the inconvenience. Itās the absolute stupidness and lack of perspective and lack of professional skills of the people who manage these government projects. I would bet good money that they copy-pasted some old article from the 1900s about electricity costs, that they found for free on google.
I read āgender revealā and I thought itās someoneās turning point in life but no, itās yet another consumerism thing about babies, which makes the incident even more baffling.
This is probably the best time to consider a net-mettering installation + a small battery (because with pure net-mettering if the grid power goes down, yours goes down as well), if you can have one and can afford it. Then again, youād have to contact the company that owns the grid and thatās another big issue ā¦
Two āobviousā things could trigger a nuclear strike: a massive collapse of Russian forces in Ukraine or the possibility that Putinās regime could collapse. Both are reliant on Putinās self-image and how he thinks the world sees him.
If Ukraine agrees, then the massive re-taking of land will probably slow down (not only due to the weather and upcoming winter), but because damaging Putinās psyche too much would only send him further into his delusions.
As a side note, I expect the war to slow to a crawl in winter. The downside for Ukraine is this gives Putin time to regroup and actually train his forces (they are reportedly being deployed with no effective equipment or training).
Thereāll probably be lots of political statements, threats and probably some brinksmanship too over winter. Weāll see how things are in spring I guessā¦
Most places outside of the major cities do not have paved roads. The weather effects on terrain affect Russia and Ukraine equally.
Continually advancing also largely weakens your own forces. The defender has a major advantage, and Ukraine needs (on average) a 3:1 ratio in order to match a defender. Of course this number is mitigated by several factors at the moment (but potentially countered by Putinās āno retreatā order that some units are taking very seriously), but continually advancing without regrouping or resupplying is a surefire way to instantly lose whatever ground you gained. Forward edges of battle areas are always in flux, and we could see Russia overwhelm Ukraine again. Nothing lasts forever in war.
All of this aside, there is the psychological issue I mentioned earlier that could lead to the employment of a tactical nuke if Ukraine steamrolls Russia.
Remember Putin ārecognized the independenceā of Donetsk and Luhansk. Recently he had an illegal sham annexation of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia (Zaporizhzhia has Ukraineās largest nuclear plant, which supplied about 55% of nuclear power to Ukraine). This means Putin has committed entirely to securing these regions.
Russian nuclear policies state deterrence should be used: to keep a regional war from escalating and becoming a broader war
The Russians have two words for deterrence: sderzhivanye and ustrashenie. The first has a broader definition than deterrence, it really means to contain or hold back, while the second basically means to scare or intimidate.
Putin has more or less placed the war in Ukraines hands. If Ukraine pushes on with their re-taking of land, then Putin using a tactical nuke will be likely. Keep in mind that if any radiation from the nuke enters Poland or Romania, then NATO could trigger Article 5 and start WW3ā¦
I donāt think Ukraine will continue like this, but it depends on what they think Putin will do. Keep in mind that many leaders have said that Putin is ānot stable or sound of mindā.
It doesnāt seem like Ukraine is deterred much by Putinās threats of using a tactical nuclear strike on Ukrainian troops. And if Putin really does it, China and India may well retract their (halfhearted) support.
Basic quantum models and other such ideas area already in Canadian curriculum and have been for 20+ years. Some results for ctrl+f āquantumā from the program of studies copied below:
Students will describe the quantization of energy in atoms and nuclei.
explain the photoelectric effect, using the quantum model.
define the photon as a quantum of EMR and calculate its energy
investigate and report on the development of early quantum theory
Unit D: Atomic Physics: quantum mechanical model
investigate and report on the application of spectral or quantum concepts in the design
and function of practical devices, such as street lights, advertising signs, electron
microscopes and lasers
use library and electronic research tools to compare and contrast, qualitatively, the
classical and quantum models of the atom
Some of quantum mechanics is part of the curriculum here, around the age of 16-18, for students that opt for physics and/or chemistry.
But it stays away from the parts that require mathematics that is not in the curriculum, such as differential equations, complex numbers and linear algebra.
I donāt have to think much, we can all imagine what this, most probably, is. Someone āin the loopā wants to get some funding in order to sell their book to the public school, thus wasting paper and gaining a lot of money.
In the last year of high school a lot of them struggle to understand the difference between calculating the āaverageā and calculating a āpercentageā. And those are the bright ones that pay for private tutoring.
It might not be an issue in Canada, but letās not kid ourselves that adding it here as a completely different lesson is going to be a very short lived disaster.
Just so what I wrote is more clear, the level of education here is theoretically good. It is not new books or subjects that are needed, but a rejuvenation of schools being a place where education is provided and it is not just āfree daycare sprinkled with some knowledge and whoever learned something good for themā that it devolved too now.
The teachers are mostly old and tired and noone appreciates the few that do want to teach.
The schools are old and crumbling.
The infrastructure is non-existent.
The parents are mostly āhelicopter parentsā that just want āthe gradesā without caring if those grades reflect on real, tangible, understanding and their kid gaining a love of knowledge and critical thinking.
The kids are learning that āwe cannot really fail and even if we do it doesnāt matter, we will get promoted to next class anywayā
It is a system that used to work, and I am not saying it because due to some āback in my timeā kind of thing. Even if you buy a brand new Ferrari, you will need to regularly check it with the service station, put new oil, change some equipment that wears off, buy new tires and so forth, else your Ferrari (as good as it originally was) will stop working soon, even though it is still, technically good.
This is what has happened to the Greek education system. It was very good (designed by good educators that cared and valued children) and it can still be very good now, but noone put any money or care into it for decades, so it has stopped working.
Thatās the case here for grades 7-9. The problem is this is a very developmental period, and so the concept of āwe can not care and still passā becomes ingrained and carried on to high school.
This is one of the many reasons our family chooses to home school. We can nurture each childās natural curiosity and development speed and current interests without class sizes and pass grades robbing their enthusiasm to learn and grow.
