padren

I think there may be some issue with gravity "on the surface" of planets, due to the fact that bigger planets have a good amount of their mass a good distance away from you. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but I remember looking at the mass of Mars vs Earth, then the gravity, and noticing the discrepency was caused by the size issue. If you were the distance from the Earth to the Sun away from the Earth, vs being that distance away from Saturn, then Saturn would have 95.162 times the attractive force of the Earth, since the radius of even Saturn would have no real impact that far out. If planets gained or lost gravitational force over time, we'd have to assume stars would too, and an increase in gravitational force would cause us to fall into the sun, whereas a decrease would sling us out into space. I am pretty sure when we look back at stars billions of light years away (and thus are looking at the light from gravitational systems that happened a billion years ago) we see them moving with the same identical gravitational constants we see today on Earth.

I think there is a huge argument over what is being done when one has an abortion. Unless its pretty late into it all, personally, I would say what is being done is a cluster of cells is removed and discarded. I have more moral dilema stepping on an ant, which I do actually try to avoid. I don't even kill misquitos to be honest, but removing a cluster of cells, whether in a uterus or in a mole, really doesn't bother me at all.

I think this will take off, it will also help when bandwidth hits a level where you can watch streaming on demand HDTV by accessing an stored file, instead of accessing a digital stream in progress to get live media (how digital cable is now). With the increase of consumer technologies that make skipping commercials even easier, I think a pay to view service may become pretty pervasive. The question then will be...how will we ever know what plastic bobble head toys McDonalds is giving away with their happy meals? Now that I think of it...the future could be a very bright place

The only thing that makes the down cycle worth it is if the person who has it feels it is. It doesn't matter if they invent cold fusion, warp engines, and quantum communication systems if they feel the down cycles are too horrible to bare.

The lawyer may be the best option. Still, I have one suggestion that may help I guess. If he can demonstrate that he is in control of his ecentricities, and not controlled by them, his guardians may be convinced that he is capable of managing what they consider to be his "condition". I would try to talk to him, and try and convince him to "act normal" for the course of one solid month, just to demonstrate it is within his control. His theories will not suffer by a one month delay, and his guardians could no longer claim that he doesn't have the self control nessescary to make choices himself as to how he lives or what treatments he may or may not need. I would try to convince the guardians, that exposing him to traumatic mind altering treatments against his will will take a large emotional toll on him, and the prognosis will be the same in three month's time: ie, he'll still need to be constantly doped up. If they give him the chance to prove not his theories or anything, just, a chance to prove he is able to put his compulsions aside and function without medication for a month, the worst case scenario for them is they'll have to do then what they are already doing now: drug him against his will. Any other scenario that could come out of it would be better, he may demonstrate he can function fine and he has control of his choices. And, if they do give him that month to prove himself off his meds, it will give you guys time to covertly mount a legal defense should it be needed Just a side note: if I had a compulsion I could not control, that was part of who I was, maybe even a decent part, but I had no choice...I would want help to be able to make it something I had volitional control over. I wouldn't want to fry my brain or take horrid drugs to do it, but I would want help. Its a tough issue because our mechanisms are so medieval for "aiding" behavior.

I can't help but to wonder something: if you warp space to basically have an amplification effect of overall speed, to make the most out of your velocity, how would a ship look that was flying by in warp, but really really really really slowly. You'd be able to funk with space warpwise and then say, use a very tiny manuvering jet for propulsion, going an overall 4 km/h when normally you'd be going 0.5 km/h without the warp drive. Also, what happens if the space ahead of you is filled with say, water or gas? You'd have to move through 4x the density, and behind you would be 1/4 the density...would the warping itself cause a pressure region in front of the vessel that would make the water want to push out and into normal spatial areas where the pressure was normal until it hit equilibrium? Additionally, if you expanded a warp field to stretch space, would a magnetic field expand to follow the stretched contours of space, or maintain its normal size and shape, over the same size but what is really a smaller region of space?

Its an interesting idea, but isn't x,y,z,t part of our universe? (or additional dimensions if there are curled up ones etc) I am just not sure how something could effect our universe, or even how you could tie it to causality or "when" it effects our universe etc, if it wasn't already part of the same dimensional fabric. If we use a different definition of what the universe is, say, go with a theory where a universe exists on a thin 4Dish membrane (where x,z,y is the skin) and two collide, they must share some sort of dimensional space as well as time in order for them to collide, or even for something-tons to radiate from one to touch the other...maybe we wouldn't have a closed system. But really, all we are doing is labeling a portion of the universe as "our universe" and calling that an open system, as the true scope of dimensions and causality itself (which is what I could call the universe) would actually still likely be a closed system.

You could probably code some sort of one-way encryption into a flash file, and embed the hash. Then, a person types the password, it encrypts it, and compares what they typed to the hash that is stored in the flash file. Its not ideal, as someone can download it, crack it open, and run a brute force challange of 00000000000000000000... through 11111111111111111111... on their own computer until they find the hash that matches to steal your password. A funky way would to use the hash, then name the targetted file you want to hide <that_hash>.htm instead of storing the correct hash in the flash, you link to the page, and it does a 404 error when wrong. Once someone gets through once, they could pass the link to anyone of course. If you trust the people you want to see it, just call it OpenSesame.htm and no one will be able to find it if they don't type in the exact link - no password protection.

MMI, did you mean to have "Originally Posted by Mike T" instead of padren? Good link on the difference between full employment and zero unemployment btw. I am curious what the deal is in Japan: I hear they have people that are paid to regularily wipe down even the handrails on the subway stations, and that basically everyone has a job. (I heard that before their stock market collapse during the Clinton admin, I am not sure what it looks like now). There is also an insane amount of pressure on people regarding their jobs over there too, but I wonder what useful lessons could come out of that end of the world in this regard.

If we have 100% employment, when the guy who drives the garbage truck leaves to move to madagascar, how long will the garbage sit there stinking before they can find someone else to do it? I lived in a place (Boulder, CO) with I think about a 2% unemployment, which was 1/2 the national average at the time. There were giant help wanted banners on the tops of buildings for whole years at a time. Many businesses were horribly understaffed at a time they really wanted to expand. I am all infavor of utopia, I just can't see how 100% unemployment can work without causing complete stagnation of an ecomomy.

This is a great thread I am just a bit confused...why haven't there been any posts angrily defending any of this stuff in ALL CAPS yet?

Part of the idea behind technological singularity is that computers will build computers, making humans obsolete and unable to cope with the technology that will exist without some sort of enhancements. I think how advanced systems deal with logic may involve ingenius leaps forward, such as how they deduce and manage their data, but I think that logic and reasoning will remain similar to what we now have (just taken to more complex levels). The reason I think so, is that humans came up with our sense of logic as a way to cope with reality which is largely based on pattern recognition, and since the computer AI would be coping with the same phyiscal universe as we do, it would make sense they would derrive comparable patterns. Still, we have evolved as creatures that have to cope with a 3D environment over time...so I suppose if an AI could grasp complex theories well enough to understand the universe at its base and truest level and interact in that way more than our 3D-evolved brains are even capable of...then perhaps they'd move beyond our ability to understand them and how they act at all.

Or maybe Kerry would have invented a cure for cancer out of ketchup, and Kuwaitis would have revolted and overthrown saddam and built a democracy. Instead of imagining a hypothetical world that reinforces our personal ideaologies and then esousing them as if they meant something, its probably a better to reflect on the fact that yes, Saddam is a really bad guy which I think is more inline with your original point. I understand you feel people don't acknowledge how bad he was, and hope this helps get through to people more, and maybe they'll agree with you that the war has been benefitial because he's gone. Personally, I still feel the fact he's gone is good, but not good enough to justify the war.

Either A) All examples of such are mistakes or frauds B) Almost all examples of such are mistakes or frauds, with real instances being so few and far between as to be unlikely to ever coincide with controlled conditions. Not claiming to have the answers of course, and it is a fair question.

A few notes on the saddam/9-11 connection: Taken from an article in Esquire covering Dick Cheney: here (originally ran across it in this guy's blog, for completeness sake) The interesting part of the article refers to "a senior administration official" quoted as stating: Bush himself has rejected the 9-11/saddam link more than once: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3118262.stm Despite the fact that he referenced 9-11 here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030319-1.html If someone wants to argue I'm just splitting hairs, thats fine. I am not on some impeachment crusade, I just think these are relevant enough to cite when it comes to people's misguided belief that there was a 9-11/Saddam connection. Yeah, he didn't even try to account for the presence of diebold's machines. (that is just a joke of course)

I think this brings up one of the main reasons views on spirituality are quite personal. The most any skeptical person can glean from this is either: 1) You were talking to your sister on the astral plane 2) You were mistaken while hallucinating 3) You are making this all up The thing is, none of us can really see any additional evidence that lends more to any one of these. In leu of that, we can at best go with whatever option best fits our own current view of the world. My sister saw her best friend in a dream, the night her friend died, when she had no way of knowing that, so I may be more open to the possibility of #1 due to the fact that I had witnessed that. Personally I try not to speculate about such things, because other than the odd literal personal experience, the best I can do is come up with untestable conjecture, and there are enough things in life I can't make sense out of that I know are testable to keep me busy. The important thing is whether you believe in the spirit realm, and how that impacts your life. I quite respect seeking personal experiences to test reality, even though it can be dangerous at times (ie don't over do it on the LSD).

Thanks everyone, I think I have another way to say it: Particle A stays on earth next to clock A, particle B accelerates and goes around the earth with clock B. If you measure particle A to find it has z- while particle B is accelerating, when do you know that a measurement on particle B has 100% change of getting z? Would that be, instantly, or when the clock B catches up to the same point as clock A? If you wait to take the measurement until particle B is back on the earth next to particle A, with their respective clocks, would the entanglement between A and B be any different due to their different ages, or would they behave identically to any other pair of entangled particles?

Well, maybe by taking the lead in an aggressive way, they hope to spur other nations into planning their own operations, then they can negotiate a better role in a combined multi-national operation, which would end up making more sense with a moon base. I would love to see some sort of moon base constructed in that time frame. I would also love to see He-3 mined and auctioned to private companies for producing power, and funding space exploration in a whole new way.

I was thinking about this while walking home yesterday, and it bugged me: how does quantum entanglement work in regards to time and relativity? We know from relatively, if you have a watch on earth synched to a watch that goes around in orbit for a good while, the watch that has been accelerating and spinning around the earth in orbit, will show an earlier time, because time will have slowed during it's trip from it's vantage point. But what happens if we have entangled particles instead of watches in the experiment. Something you do to particle A has an instant result on particle B, and visa versa. So, A) while undergoing the acceleration, would particle B appear to change its state more "quickly" since its rate of change is determined by a particle not undergoing the same acceleration...ie, if time was moving half the speed in orbit that it was on the earth, would changing the state of particle A 2 times a second appear to be changing 4 times per second in orbit? B) When particle A and B were returned to the same location, but one having experienced slower time, would the entanglement still be instantaneous, even though they had different ages, or would there be a delay if you tapped the older particle, before it would show in the younger one? Of course, if that happened, then tapping the younger one would produce an effect earlier in time instead of later, which would really annoy causality. Still I remember hearing a long time ago, about the idea of having a worm hole between points, and accelerating one to change its reference in time before returning them to the same area, to create a mini-time machine. That had a number of flaws stemming from wormhole theory issues, but what about quantum entanglement? Wouldn't that have the same issues?

Cuban missile crisis, training programs thought to be real at NORAD, and my favorite is the bear incident. The thing about that one is that by all factors of protocal, WWIII had started, and there were no means by the pilot could be recalled. It was only by chance and improv they managed to come up with and get a car on the runway in time to stop the take off. This list of about 20 events seems decent. Anyway, I think we shouldn't think in terms of humans being dominant in the stuggle of the species. I think we've officially transended that whole struggle awhile ago. We have other things to deal with, such as our own nature and many unknowns ahead.

We do seem to have a knack for long term planning and abstract thought. I don't think people are meaning to say animals aren't conscious, I think its more they are not sentient. And by sentient, it does seem evident that most animals mostly advance though evolutionary pressures and some limited learning capacities. The learning capacities seem to be more in line with "trial and error + identification of benefit = choosing to utilize best methodology for a task" type, and not based on a principled predictive understanding of the causes and effects. Monkeys that learned to eat charcoal to not get sick when eating certian foods are an example of this. Anyway, I think humans see anything that nearly as dominant as a preditor to us. We don't really like those, and have hunted them down pretty mercilessly. I wonder what would be considered more dominant though, bacteria, or humans? I like "our stuff" better than "their stuff" but I am admittedly biased. If we include viruses, then we are often largely at their mercy.

I saw the title "Could Time Travel Truly Be Possible ? Equatios I Have Developed Show That It May Be" and had to see what was inside, and I laughed out loud at the brilliance of all caps. I half expected some mangled formulas, maybe some talk about how QM interacts with near speed of light spinning human auras etc, but all caps in a giant unformatted block was just perfect.