This distinction seems more arbitrary over time. Growing up I was taught different species couldn’t interbreed. But what about Neanderthal and Sapiens?
My pet conspiracy theory is there is a fair amount of coordinated manipulation to get political posts on the HN front page. Fortunately, they are often quickly flagged to the abyss.
That’s not a conspiracy theory. Anyone who doesn’t realize at this point that online discourse is heavily engineered and manipulated is an unthinking rube.
I tried AP Pro 3 but decided to return them in favor of my v2. The v2 felt more comfortable in my ear and were good enough. I was also disappointed the heartbeat monitor only works while exercising.
Researchers analyzing 100,000+ transients in 1949-1957 astronomical plates found they were 45% more likely during nuclear tests and showed small but statistically significant correlations with UAP reports. The findings argue against simple plate defects and add to earlier work [1] that found puzzling Earth shadow deficits and aligned transients suggesting reflective objects at high altitudes.
Totally agree with your view on the symbolic context injection. Is this how things are done with code/dev AI right now? Like if you consider the state of the art.
Agreed, it would be cool, but. From that article, with my commentary (disclaimer: IANAA, I Am Not An Astronomer):
1) "The retrograde orbital plane... of 3I/ATLAS around the Sun lies within 5 degrees of that of Earth... The likelihood for that coincidence out of all random orientations is 0.2%." Not sure where he comes up with 0.2%. 5/180 = 2.8%. (I use 180 degrees, rather than 360, because I suspect that if it were not retrograde, he'd use the same argument.)
2) "the brightness of 3I/ATLAS implies an object that is ~20 kilometers in diameter (for a typical albedo of ~5%), too large for an interstellar asteroid. We should have detected a million objects below the ~100-meters scale of the first reported interstellar object 1I/`Oumuamua for each ~20-kilometer object." Huh? We barely detected this object because it's so dim. Why should we be detecting interstellar objects two or three orders of magnitude smaller?
3) "No spectral features of cometary gas are found in spectroscopic observations of 3I/ATLAS." An article today (22 July, https://astrobiology.com/2025/07/spectroscopic-characterizat...) says "Spectral modeling with an areal mixture of 70% Tagish Lake meteorite and 30% 10-micron-sized water ice successfully reproduces both the overall continuum and the broad absorption feature... 3I/ATLAS is an active interstellar comet containing abundant water ice, with a dust composition more similar to D-type asteroids..."
4. "For its orbital parameters, 3I/ATLAS is synchronized to approach unusually close to Venus (0.65au where 1au is the Earth-Sun separation), Mars (0.19au) and Jupiter (0.36au), with a cumulative probability of 0.005% relative to orbits with the same orbital parameters but a random arrival time." This probability is harder to compute (although 0.65au from Venus is nearly the radius of Venus' orbit, 0.72au, i.e. not close). In any case, so what? Why would an interstellar probe travel close to Mars or Jupiter, if they're interested in Earth? (see next point) Later (his point 8), he says the probe comes close enough to these planets to launch ICBMs at them. Ok...
5. "3I/ATLAS achieves perihelion on the opposite side of the Sun relative to Earth. This could be intentional..." Sure, if they're interested in Earth, stay away from it.
> "The retrograde orbital plane... of 3I/ATLAS around the Sun lies within 5 degrees of that of Earth... The likelihood for that coincidence out of all random orientations is 0.2%." Not sure where he comes up with 0.2%.
This part of the calculation, at least, is basically correct. The orientation of a plane in space is defined by its normal vector, so the right way to look at probabilities is in terms of solid angle. The normal of 3I/ATLAS's orbit falls within a cone around Earth's normal vector, having a half-angle of 5 degrees, and that cone's solid angle occupies about 0.2% of the full sphere.
Of course, this is only the chance of a retrograde alignment. Presumably, if the comet's orbit was prograde aligned with the Earth's to within 5 degrees, Loeb would be making exactly the same claim. So really, the relevant probability is 0.4%.
Nevertheless, I agree that the article is basically just a bunch of cherry-picked probabilities and insinuations that don't add up to much.
Also:
> "the brightness of 3I/ATLAS implies an object that is ~20 kilometers in diameter (for a typical albedo of ~5%), too large for an interstellar asteroid."
But to justify this, Loeb cites his own work showing that the object is either a large asteroid, or a comet with a small nucleus. And then he seems to have looked at some earlier spectra and jumped to the conclusion that 3I/ATLAS couldn't be a comet, so it must be a large asteroid. But of course, follow-up observations have debunked this point and clearly shown it to be a comet.
I think there's also a sampling bias here? ATLAS, the survey that discovered the comet, is specifically looking for potential Earth impactors. One assumes that would involve looking close to Earth's own orbital plane.
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