TL; DR: What physical quantity is it about with sound reproduction and what threshold is reached for your nervous system to go from "oh, that's a sweet snare drum sound" to "I am for a brief moment convinced there is an actual snare drum next to me"?

This is an interesting blend of neuropsychology and audio engineering. Sorry for the long intro, but it's hard to easily characterise subjetive sonic experiences.

I've been musical all my life, creating, playing and listening to music, and based on my music, physics and medical studies, I know well what "messages" musical audio consists of: fundamental tones, pitch, hase, tempo, harmonics, attack, sustain, delay, release, reverb, panning, dynamics, texture, ... and to some extent I also know how some of those characteristics are sensed, and processed by your nervous system. I think even the most generic headhones convey this information; it would be a lousy pair of headphones or speakers if you couldn't distinguish vocals from a violin or if you'd perceive stereotypically male and female vocals as identical.

I can take the cheapest gaming headset out there and I'll definitely hear:

1. in Take Five by The Dave Brubeck Quartet (Time Out album) drums are panned left and piano comes from the right.

2. I'll play some Overwatch and sure, I can hear that enemy Reaper flanking behind a wall on our right, and I'll distinguish his footsteps from every other hero.

3. I'll listen to Nina Simone's recording of Feeling Good, and I'll absolutely love it, "catch the musical message", and doesn't feel like anything is missing.

4. Riena by Värttinä sounds exactly like some neoethnomystic hexing ought to sound.

But I'll take my HD800S, and suddenly Take Five's drums are right there. Not just on the left, but there, and I can wave my hands around trying to pinpoint it. Reaper flanking a floor above? If it's sudden, I reflexively twitch my head as triggered by an important sound my brain wants to localise better. Feeling Good has the same musical effe-- wait, there's some guy in the background scraping a chair against the floor at 0:05, and I feel how large the recording space is. Riena of course sounds as good as you'd expect from the head-- who the hell whispered in my ear??

Maybe imaging differences aside (which have revealed new instruments to me I had never head in tracks I had been listening to a decade as a big group of instruments had been so clumped together, blurring each other), what is it about

A case study.

Aim: Predict crop yield of a spatial raster map (1000 m * 1000 m).

Assuming,

crop yield_i = f(rainfall, soil EC, evaluation ... )

where:

• soil EC is the soil electrical conductivity;
• i is the years 2017-19

Dependent variables:

crop yield values, different from a location to location.

predictors:

• daily rainfall, one point for the whole map at a given time, not spatially different.
• Other spatial variables (soil EC, evaluation ... ) different from a location to location.

What is the best way to combine temporal and spatial data for modelling a spatial variable?

I currently treat the accumulated rainfall as continuous values. Example below:

I doubt it would even make sense in linear regression (or correlation analysis) to predict a spatial variable based on temporal data of only a few years:

yield_i = f(rainfall_sep, rainfall_oct, rainfall_Nov ...)

Also issues such as multicollinearity.

Also how did Captain Hook get there? So many questions...

https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.52.005766

https://www.osapublishing.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-52-23-5766

This is an attempt to explain a lot of the Lost mysteries with one fairly simple non-magical premise: that there is a fourth spatial dimension (not time), and that the mysterious properties observed were caused by fourth-dimensional events, entities, or objects. While this doesn't explain every single detail, a lot of things fall into place when you adopt this theory.

AN ANALOGY. Imagine we lived on a large two-dimensional plane––with depth and width, but without any concept or understanding of height––up and down are a complete mystery to us and we can not perceive height in any direct way.

Now imagine some three-dimensional object––say a sphere (or an island)––were to come into contact with some point on our plane. Imagine our plane was forced to bend and wrap around it. We would not perceive these bends, but we would notice some indirect effects. For instance, we might move in what seems to be a straight line, yet loop around this sphere and end up where we started.

And what would a three-dimensional object look like to us two-dimensional beings? Pretty much like everything else, because we could only perceive a small part of it, like a shadow cast on a flat surface. Only the small part pushing through our plane would be visible to us.

And beings in this third dimension would appear fairly normal to us, as we'd only see the two-dimensional aspect. However, they would have mysterious powers from our perspective. For instance, by moving vertically they would seem to disappear magically. They might also be able to change their appearance, the way one might make shadow puppets that look like different figures.

Of course we are aware of three dimensions (String Theory predicts eleven), but if there were a fourth spatial dimension that we were incapable of perceiving directly, four-dimensional objects might appear to behave much like I've outlined above. So . .

THE ISLAND IS A FOUR-DIMENSIONAL OBJECT INTRUDING INTO OUR THREE-DIMENSIONAL WORLD. What we saw of it was but the tip of the iceberg. The rocks and trees may have been the visible part of the 4-D object, or they may have been normal rocks and trees of our world covering the actual 4-D object. It might have housed a whole civilization of four-dimensional entities that would seem like gods to us. Or the Island might be some conscious entity of which we are only capable of perceiving a small part.

So what details would this explain?

DIFFICULTY LEAVING THE ISLAND: Why did

In other words do objects have n-dimensional properties because space is n-dimensional or is space n-dimensional because because the objects ,in space, have n-dimensional properties? And isnt a possible way to test either assumption by performing an a priori conceivability exercise in which we ask if it is a priori conceivable that objects with divergent n-dimensional properties (n-1 or n+1) could exist within a n dimensional space ?

I'm majoring in GIS with a minor in surveying (this is the only in-state pathway for a surveying license in AL, AFAIK). I already have a job working at a surveying firm, where 90% of what we do is boundary surveys and rural subdivisions. I'm fairly new to ArcGIS (I took my first real course last term, and I'm enrolled in two this term), and I'm wondering if there is much practical application for ArcGIS for the type of work we do at our company? Currently CAD is the only software we use at our company!

Ahoy!

This thread is in place to centralise bug reporting for the 2.4.1 update, and improve visibility for Rare.

Please only post a comment if you wish to state a legitimate experience of a bug, and only if the bug hasn't already been posted.

Any root comments not relating to bugs within this version will be removed. Expansive replies such as "I've experienced this too, but only on this island" for example, are allowed.

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2.4.1 Release Notes

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Outpost Cosmetics

Seafoam Castaway Bilge Rat Set

• The Outpost clothing shops now stock the Seafoam Castaway Bilge Rat clothing set, available to purchase for gold.

Figurehead of the Silent Barnacle

• Long thought lost, the Figurehead of the Silent Barnacle has finally reached the Outpost shipwrights, locked behind the Hoarder of Barnacled Gold Commendation.

Gameplay Improvements

Island Enemy Encounters

• While exploring islands, crews who encounter and vanquish individual Ocean Crawlers, Phantoms or skeletons from a group of enemies should find that they call in reinforcements less frequently before the group is defeated.

• After vanquishing a group of Ocean Crawlers, Phantoms or skeletons, crews should now enjoy a much longer respite period before encountering them again on the same island.

Hit Registration on Distant Targets

• Improvements have been made to how hit detection calculates bullets affected by gravity, providing a small improvement to hit registration for ranged weapons when firing at medium- to long-distance targets.

Selling Firework Crates

• Firework Crates can now be sold back to the Merchant Alliance and Reaper’s Bones even when no longer full – but expect a reduced payout!

New Player Onboarding Improvements

• When new players arrive on the Sea of Thieves, after listening to the Mysterious Stranger in the tavern, they will now be directed to the signposts which will help guide them around the Outpost.

• New players will now receive a notification after selling items to the Gold Hoarders, Order of Souls or Merchant Alliance for the first time, informing them tha

Isaac Winter toiled late into the night.

He was running out of money, and so he was running out of time. He'd sunk every last dollar into this project. The money from selling his tech startup, the money from selling his house and cars, his savings, the money he'd pulled out of his retirement account, accepting the tax hit. Even the money from... the inheritance and insurance. It was five years now, since the accident.

So the machine had to work. It had to.

He'd set everything up in an old warehouse he'd gotten for cheap. He slept in the office, and worked the rest of the time. The office was a mess, but the workspace he kept clean. A mess was an accident waiting to happen, and he couldn't afford any setbacks.

"Now or never." He mused aloud.

A few taps on the keyboard, and test run 117 began. It would have been dramatic if the lights dimmed or the lightbulbs exploded as the machine powered up, but Isaac knew how to build his equipment properly. Huge banks of capacitors stored up the necessary charge without overtaxing the warehouse's electrical system. The only indicators that something was happening were the buzz of the transformer and the progress bar on the monitor.

The necessary charge built up, the hiss-snap of the cooling systems on the superconducting coils indicated the process was starting. Inside the chamber the probe - a glorified camera on a stick - was ready. If the event horizon formed this time, the probe would be pushed through on his signal.

Finally, perhaps gratifyingly, the lights did flicker. Isaac barely noticed, he was more concerned by the fact that the cameras inside the chamber had gone offline. His instruments indicated the fault was caused by an alarmingly large electromagnetic pulse. Fortunately all of the key systems were well shielded. As far as the computer was concerned, the trial was still proceeding, but he couldn't see it.

That just wouldn't do. Isaac had built a heavy duty plexiglass window into the side of the chamber. All he needed to do was head down and have a look. He carefully checked his person for any metal. He didn't expect to find any, he always checked at the start of each trial, but the superconducting coils could make magnetic fields strong enough to sever a finger if you were wearing a ring, so best to be sure.

Satisfied, he made his way to the test chamber, peering through the window.

There was a shiny silver orb. At first glance it could have been mistaken for liquid metal, but it wasn't. It wa

A spectre is haunting Video Games - the spectre of Interactive Drama.

Traditional storytelling mediums tell uni-sequential stories. They deliver one specific story in an extremely intentional way, putting great care into designing each and every frame or sentence to tell the story the way that the artist intends. The invention of the computer opened the door to a different form of storytelling.

Video games are interactive by nature. Chris Crawford describes interactivity as 'a cyclic process in which two agents alternately listen, think, and speak to each other.' In video games, those agents are the player, and the computer running the game. The ability for the audience to directly interact with the work adds a whole new dimension to the art form, it's like going from oil painting to architecture. The player having agency within the possibility space of gameplay is one of the most vital aspects of the medium.

Video games tell stories. But the form these stories take is entirely different to the form of storytelling we're used to in mediums like film and literature.

f(x) = y

The function f is the entirety of the video game, x is an input variable representing the player's engagement in the game, and y is the story as received by the player, the output. As game designers, our focus shouldn't be on creating a specific story outright (y), it should be on crafting the systems (f) that create the possibility space of the story, i.e. the game itself. The possibility space of a story is itself a type of story, one that Janet H. Murray calls a 'multi-sequential story'.

One reason that games like Minecraft, The Sims, and Zelda: BOTW are so compelling is that they avoid focusing on a uni-sequential story and instead focus on gameplay. Even BOTW, which does have stripped down plots and subplots, is mainly focused on Link's interactions with the physical world - climbing mountains and fighting Bokoblins. Game Designers are great at designing interactive gameplay systems that tell stories that are almost entirely physical in nature.

The problem with the current state of the medium is that the types of stories games are able to meaningfully generate is limited to only a minor segment of what human storytelling is. To understand what I mean, you only need to go to the cinema, pick any film at random, and pay attention to the story. Stories reflect our shared reality as humans, and there's a lot more to the human experience th

There has been a recent influx of discourse about Kalam cosmological arguments in this subreddit. After reading through about a hundred comments, I am disappointed with how us atheists are responding to these arguments. In this post I will look at a couple common objections to Craig's Kalam argument found throughout the subreddit, and explain their shortcomings by introducing stronger reasons to think the argument is unsuccessful. This post is quite long and I expect it to be viewed as more of a resource than a traditional debate post. I do not endorse everything here.

Most users are familiar with Craig’s formulation (KCA) so that is where the majority of my focus will be. His syllogism is as follows:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. (Hence) The universe has a cause of its existence.

I would like to note that there are much better versions than KCA being offered. KCA just happens to be quite popular in apologetics, and therefore counter-apologetics, circles. Graham Oppy provides the most compelling and rigorous responses to KCA, so I will primarily be drawing from him. I might pin a comment below this post of further resources to look at for certain topics.

I will be putting a revised version of this post on my blog.

Does Everything That Begins to Exist Have a Cause?

The first premise of KCA is Craig's familiar causal principle: everything which begins to exist has a cause of its existence. A recurring objection to this principle that I found on the subreddit is that "we don’t actually observe things causing other things to begin existing, for supposed each occurrence of this is nothing but the rearrangement of pre-existing matter."

I fail to see the relationship between the first and second clause of this sentence. The advocate of KCA does not suppose that each instance of something “beginning to exist” is the spontaneous generation of matter or energy that did not exist prior to that thing’s beginning to exist. Suppose we say some table begins existing on December 24th. We are not saying that all of the constitutive matter of this table begins to exist on December 24th, we are instead saying something like that all of the constitutive matter of this table becomes arranged to form a table on December 24th.

There is even a streak of mereological nihilism as an attempt to respond to KCA seen when people argue that we haven’t actually observed macrophysical objects such as tables

The format of this post is partly inspired by u/Andrew_Cryin's most wonderful post which gave a number of high-quality objections against both premises of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. If you want to avoid making bad objections to Kalam, and instead want to use more philosophically forceful objections against the argument, check out his post here. While Aquinas' first way isn't as popular as the Kalam due to it being more of an argument for a specific model of God(Classical Theism), it's still fairly popular on internet philosophy of religion circles, and with that comes poor objections to the argument, as well as a misunderstanding of certain key concepts. This post, like the previous one, will try to refute more common objections while at the same time introduce objections which are perhaps slightly better(hopefully).

Aquinas' First Way, like many other cosmological arguments, can be split into two stages. The first stage of the argument merely tries to show that there's an unmoved mover or an unactualized actualizer. The second stage tries to explore more of the characteristics of this unmoved mover such as whether it's a mind, omnipotent, omniscient, etc.

How Should We Even Understand the Argument?

First, we need to find a good formulation of the argument. Let's see what Thomas Aquinas himself has to say:

>The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality…Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive a

Edit: I put this together before heading out on a bike ride. I've edited it for formatting now that I'm back.

I've put together a reading list of sorts for critical theory that tries to expand perspectives into critical theory from women, from people of colour, and from Indigenous perspectives. I'm white, I'm a man, I write from the land of the Wurundjeri People in Naarm and I come from Aotearoa, and thus my perspectives are influenced by scholarship from these regions. Equally, my scholarship focuses me towards particular areas and ideas, and my personal interests are probably visible below. I would not consider myself an authority on these works, but I do try to learn from them. Feel free to add comments of scholars that you think could be added.

This list is motivated by two things:

• A request for suggestions in response to my comment here.
• A sense that one 'must read' a limited number of white men before reading scholars of different backgrounds, as if white men are the source, and non-white people are simply responding to these ideas as if they were central. Fisher's Vampire Castle essay, for instance, often circulates in this forum. The same observations about the limits of identity within politics and the academy were already present in the works of Gilroy, Crenshaw, Fanon, and Said. Most of the scholars below require no substantive engagement with an existing canon. Maybe Siraj Ahmed, Gayatri Spivak, or Elizabeth Povinelli; Ahmed's take is very much about literary postcolonial scholarship, in which case reading Edward Said would be a help; Spivak's work interfaces deeply with continental philosophy; Povinelli's work is reliant on Foucault and the theorisation of power that he uses.

That said, the items below is not a 'must read' or anything in order to understand critical theory, nor is it a new canon, nor is it a suggestion that one shouldn't read scholarship by white men (but, by all means…). These are merely further suggestions. It is an attempt to start the circulation of other works. Most of them (but not all) do not require you to have read any of the canon, as, like the canon, their ideas emerge from analysis of the present.

Critical theory was originally a discipline set up by a number of men, most of whom were Jewish and had survived the Shoah, but some, such as Benjamin, had not. Others came later, and a

Author note: The Cryopod to Hell is a Reddit-exclusive story with over three years of editing and refining. As of this post, the total rewrite is 1,389,000+ words long! For more information, check out the link below:

What is the Cryopod to Hell?

Join the Cryoverse Discord server!

Here's a list of all Cryopod's chapters, along with an ePub/Mobi/PDF version!

Want to stay up to date on TCTH? Subscribe to Cryopodbot!

...................................

(Previous Part)

(Part 001)

...

Jason teleports himself and Belial back to the edge of the Fortress of Retribution, just inside its crystalline walls, but away from the populated areas. He observes the inside of the Hatoraxia for a few moments using his Wordsmithing and listens to the conversation between Kordonis and Miikil while his mind-wife works in secret.

"Alright," Phoebe says. "I've updated the files. You should be able to transform all the existing 'Spatial Pylons' into their updated configuration."

These pylons, the same ones she made during the Stormbringer Invasion to 'harden' the space around Tarus II and make it impervious to Warpers opening portals, now sit in hundreds of pre-selected locations around the world of Tarus II, all casting a net of spatial-strengthening magic to envelop the planet.

Thanks to her technical expertise, Phoebe adds a new function to them, one which requires a mass-update of all their internal workings.

Jason nods, while listening to Kordonis's words. "Alright. Thanks, honey."

Belial raises an eyebrow when she hears Jason say that, but immediately realizes he's talking to his mind-wife and not her.

"What's up?" Belial asks. "You planning something?"

"The Volgrim came here ahead of schedule," Jason answers, "But I had Phoebe prep a possible solution to them in case they ever were to reveal themselves. While we chatted with that Kordonis fellow, she finished her work. One moment."

Jason inhales deeply and closes his eyes. He focuses his mind, reaching into th

Cover|Vol.1|Previous|Next|Map|Wiki+Discord|Royal Road|Ko-Fi

Yo everyone and welcome to another chapter. Got another long two-parter for you today so hopefully, you enjoy it.

Big milestone and a big thank you to all of you who have joined the Discord. We just reached 50 members are let me just say I had very low hopes for the Discord. I always imagined it being a place where you guys would pop in every once in a while and ask the occasional question so I didn't expect it to turn into a small community where we chat nearly every day. If you are on the fence about joining the Discord I highly recommend it. I recommend coming in on days that I post where we discuss parts of the chapter. You might even get some future info... Who knows?

Thanks for all your support guys and enjoy the chapter.

---

It seems the church bell has more of a purpose than I was expecting. It most likely acts as a way for people to tell what time it is, and it seems that the number of people who were out and about has decreased significantly. Even a lot of the adventurers are moving out of the city, most likely on their way to their next quest. I hadn’t been talking with Anna for that long but… Are these two people following me?

I wasn’t that far from the guild but I felt two people following me shortly after I parted ways with Anna. Then again, maybe I’m being paranoid… Perhaps they are just heading the same way as me. But just to be certain.

I broke off from the main road and went into some back alleys. I zig-zagged through the lanes until I found a spot that suited my purpose. I groaned from the pain of casting another spell as I erected a stone wall to cut off the other side of the alley.

My mana was still bottomed out and even though Anna cured most of my symptoms I was still at a dangerously low mana percentage. I doubt I would even be able to use ma

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/supplement.html

In virtue of what do certain entities compose another entity? It is natural to think that relations have at least something to do with it. Bricks can’t compose a house unless they are stuck together; organs can’t compose a body unless they work together in sustaining the organism. Thus, one might suppose that there is some special relationship that obtains between certain micro-level conscious subjects, in virtue of which they constitute a macro-level conscious subject. Goff (2009, 2016) dubbed such a relationship “phenomenal bonding.”

//Barry Dainton (2011) proposes co-consciousness as the phenomenal bonding relation: the relation that holds between two experiences when they are experienced together. An advantage of this view, according to Dainton, is that this is a relation we are aware of in introspection: when we introspect, it is apparent that each of our experiences is co-conscious with all of the others. It is perhaps more natural to suppose that this fact is grounded in the fact that each of my experiences belongs to the same subject. But it is not obviously incoherent to suppose that the priority goes the other way round: my experiences belong to a single unified subject because they are co-conscious with each other. Perhaps then micro-level experiences compose a macro-level subject when they come to bear the co-consciousness relation to each other.//

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

> Did you mishear me? I thought I was quite clear in what I said. There is nobody in this entire universe who is more human than I am. I am not just a human, I am the definitive human!

Shinji Makiri is the boy who woke up one day and realized he was not in his original universe. Having been isekai'd into Fate/Stay Night ten years before the Holy Grail War with the goal of giving as many characters good endings as possible, Shinji pursued this dream with a fervent passion. However, forces unseen were put into motion by his existence as the gestalt being. Shinji would need every one of his allies if he wanted a chance of stopping what was to come.

Or at least, he would if the quest was still going.

Fate/Paradox Reincarnator can be fully read here.

#Key

• [Bad End] refers to feats taking place in those times where Shinji dies, is sent to the Tiger Dojo, and comes back at the previous choice.
• [Big Amp] refers to when Shinji is boosted by these amps.
• [Carnival] refers to feats that take place within the Paradox Carnivals.

Here is a link to all characters' character sheets, which can be useful for determining what concept imbuement does to a character.

Here is a link to King Mordred's thread. Here is a link to his other Servants' thread.

#Strength

General

• Spent two years training his body for an hour a day
• If he keeps training at the same regimen, he would be a peak human by the time of the Fifth Holy Grail War (about eight years out from this point)
• Has the build of a lightweight boxer

Lifting

• Helps Sakura carry Rin's Second Magic chest down a flight of stairs
• [Can

The format of this post is partly inspired by u/Andrew_Cryin's most wonderful post which gave a number of high-quality objections against both premises of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. If you want to avoid making bad objections to Kalam, and instead want to use more philosophically forceful objections against the argument, check out his post here. While Aquinas' first way isn't as popular as the Kalam due to it being more of an argument for a specific model of God(Classical Theism), it's still fairly popular on internet philosophy of religion circles, and with that comes poor objections to the argument, as well as a misunderstanding of certain key concepts. This post, like the previous one, will try to refute more common objections while at the same time introduce objections which are perhaps slightly better(hopefully).

Aquinas' First Way, like many other cosmological arguments, can be split into two stages. The first stage of the argument merely tries to show that there's an unmoved mover or an unactualized actualizer. The second stage tries to explore more of the characteristics of this unmoved mover such as whether it's a mind, omnipotent, omniscient, etc.

How Should We Even Understand the Argument?

First, we need to find a good formulation of the argument. Let's see what Thomas Aquinas himself has to say:

>The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality…Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive a