Frazz by Jef Mallett for March 14, 2017

It seems to me that Maple Rapids is SE of where this is taking place, just saying.

It has been so for all the ages: when the human brain demands absolute precision, it will find a way to achieve it, whether with ruler/paper/pencil, slide rule, microscope, or computer. Otherwise we would not be here at all, much less aiming to travel elsewhere

As to ‘entropy, people who deny we are falling full tilt into it have partaken of the ’lotus dream’

Since we seem to be talking about the scientific context, it’s an opportunity to look up what it really means and not just what most people think it means. “You keep using that word…”

An engineer I used to know was in the early U.S. nuclear missile program; it also didn’t have desktop computers

all that computing power & its used for completely vapid moronic activities

Matzam – we have to amuse ourselves in between moon trips.

The difference is between the minds of those who ran the Apollo program and those who use smart phones. No offense.

“a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system.”

computer is only as smart as its user

In the early days of computing, software engineers would compete with each other to see which one could devote the least amount of their precious resources to the user interface, thereby preserving as much as possible for getting the actual work done. Now something like 90-99% of most apps is the user interface.

Entropy has been going on for ages. Contrary to “popular” belief, neither Goddfried Liebniz nor Sir Isaac Newton invented calculus.

From the Badari culture to Naqadi (I and II) to Amratian civilizations came such works as the Giza Pyramid (a feat contemporary scientists cannot fully unravel much less duplicate). Yet, revisionists will only point to the Antikythera Mechanism or other non-black exploits.

It was the learned scholars in Timbuktu (Mali, Africa), with their abaci who set the bar for Oxford and William & Mary. Why marvel at the wonders of your goldfish bowl (GPS) when the ocean depths (Giza) remain uncharted?

Entropy: energy no longer available for purchasing coffee….

The difference with now might be because astronauts had been taught to think for themselves.

Of course one of the chubbsters had to be idiotic and not know how to use their phone, couldn’t possibly have been any of the renaissance men/women athlete types, or the hordes of child prodigies they mentor.

A very good show on PBS was “Top Secret Rosies” (still available on DVD).

“Everybody made it to the moon and back?” Tell that to Grissom, White and Chaffey!