Yawn. 1400 accounts per day could be achieved by a human being creating accounts at the rate of 3 per minute. Not exactly a low-stress task but certainly achievable. Get back to me when the CAPTCHA "crack" is capable of speeds an order of magnitude faster than a measly human.
Matter inside the horizon exerts gravitational pull on matter outside - so matter inside the horizon still in the process of accreting should produce gravitational effects that can be observed in the matter still outside.
No. The key is, "Black holes have no hair." What this means is that there are only three properties which can be distinguished for a black hole: Electrical charge, spin, and mass. Once a piece of matter or energy has penetrated the event horizon, the only observable effect on the hole is a change in one of those three variables. Period. Obviously, when something falls into a black hole, the hole becomes more massive. But you cannot determine anything else.
You are wrong. Hawking radiation arises when a virtual particle/antiparticle pair pops into existence very near the horizon. One particle is inside the horizon and falls in. The other particle is outside, and escapes. Had the virtual pair come into existence entirely within the horizon, both particles would have fallen in and no radiation would have escaped. Nothing, not even a virtual particle, can escape the event horizon of a black hole. Hawking radiation is "strange" but it cannot defy the basic physics of the event horizon.
Also, you seem to believe that Hawking radiation is composed solely of antimatter. This is also completely untrue. Hawking radiation is composed of any and every particle type up to an energy limit dictated by the area of the hole's horizon. The rule is, "anything that can radiate, will radiate."
Anything within the event horizon of the hole, by definition, cannot escape to the outside universe again. But that doesn't mean that matter OUTSIDE the horizon, falling into the hole, doesn't get heated up unbelievably hot and radiate like hell.
I suppose you could make a pedantic argument that it isn't the hole glowing, it's the matter falling into it, but it's certainly the hole which causes it.
The truth is unclear -- in English units we speak both of "pounds" and "pounds of force." In C++ terms, the word is overloaded.
As far as specifying forces in newtons, that would not help a reader understand the magnitude of the force. Not many people know the definition of a newton, or how much force that is, but most people are familiar with how heavy a kilogram is.
What is truly stupid is talking about forces in terms of "dozens of elephants" or freight trains or something else. We all know that an elephant is "heavy" but we also know what a ton is -- what's wrong with talking in terms of tons?
If by "solving" it, you mean we're going to have more of them, and bigger, then yes. The ice pack is not just turning into water, it's weakening and breaking off in huge chunks (i.e. icebergs). Global warming, in the short term, would lead to more icebergs in the open water, not fewer.
My personal experience is that neither the meaning nor the implication I listed above is accurate for how my mind and body work. I often operate with an illusion that this is true, but the actual decision to lift the cup is made without conscious awareness. Once the decision is made, I have opportunities to consciously notice the action has started, but most often I run with the illusion that the conscious part of me (meaning, the subsystems of my mind that can "see" and comment on sensory input) is in control of decisions etc. It is convenient, but not at all real in my own experience.
But that isn't the point of argument, which is whether the decision has been made through free will or not. I still don't see why a decision being unconscious makes it not a free decision.
How would having my actions dictated by complete random chance, be any different than having them dictated by rigid rules? In neither case am I in control of what happens.
Free will is not something which can be defined in terms of the outward expression of reality. It is something which occurs subjectively in the mind. That answer is disappointing but I have nothing better.
First, just because there is an inherent lag between the action of the brain and our conscious awareness of that action, doesn't mean the action is not willful. Second, even if the action was being planned by the unconscious brain, again, how does that make the action unwillful? I am not conscious of every calculation my brain performs when I decide to lift my coffee cup to my lips, but this does not mean I did not consciously decide to do it.
Our brains are chemical devices. Our sense of self has evolved to mask the fact that we are actually "lagging behind reality" by a little bit, because being aware of the lag would serve no purpose except to distract us. That a scientist could leap from this to the "insight" that we are not in control of our own actions is ludicrous.
Conway's Life is Turing complete. I guess, to a computer scientist, it's not really surprising that an automaton could be Turing complete, but it's still pretty damn awesome to think that little cells replicating on the screen are capable of carrying out any arbitrary computation -- as well as self-reproduction.
I wonder, with a large enough simulation, if self-reproducing, intelligent entities could evolve out of just a few simple rules (and it's really only one rule, if you code it a certain way).
I think the cash flow will ultimately come out worse, as the city is forced to pay out wrongful death and dismemberment lawsuits to all the people injured or killed at these intersections, which they are deliberately making unsafer.
Passengers of Lunar Flight 697: We are very, very sorry that we're about to crash and burn in Earth's atmosphere. We are aware of a maneuver which could save us, you, and this entire $2.6 billion spacecraft, but it's patented, and we place great importance on ethics here at Lunar Holidays Ltd. That's Ltd for "Limited Liability," by the way folks.
This has been your captain speaking. Thank you for flying with Lunar, and have a nice death.
Define "Internet account." As in, your name is on the bill from some ISP somewhere? Are these people aware that you don't actually have to have an "account" to use the Internet?
Wake up, RIAA. You might be a big bad fish, but unless you have a freakin' military to back yourself up, you are still subject to the laws of the even bigger, badder fish, which is the state government. Go fuck yourself.
Where did you find moral judgements in my comment?
I didn't. I assumed your stance based on the other people posting in the same thread, and your post didn't really give me much to go on. So I apologize for the prejudice.
Hi, I'm your boss. Here is a bottle of pills to improve your productivity. Take one a day from now on or you're fired. You don't want to? Why should the economy be held back merely so you can have a job?
I never argued that we should require people to do any of this stuff. I'm talking about allowing people to make their own decisions -- you're talking about forcing decisions on them. I don't see how you reached one from the other.
Unfortunatly acdemia calls for a large amount extremely time intensive and boring paperwork. I doubt these people are taking drugs for doing their creative work.
Okay, so assuming this is true, what's the problem with allowing scientists to push more quickly through the boring stuff? Is this just juvenile whining about how "That guy gets all his paperwork done with a smile on his face, but I suffer through it?"
I think I mean to specify illegal drugs or drugs used illicitly. What we have here is scientists breaking the law or otherwise gaining access to things that they're not meant to have access to or not everyone can get. Anyone can buy coffee. Not everyone can get Ritalin if they're not prescribed for it.
So if the law changed tomorrow you'd immediately be perfectly fine with all this? What does right and wrong have to do with the decisions of a bunch of men and women sitting around in a big fancy conference room?
I am not even going to touch on the controversy regarding the issue of whether or not doctors are over-prescribing Ritilin (and its relatives) to children. That is a whole different controversy.
No, I think it's exactly on topic. Do you think that overprescription of Ritalin is causing certain kids to have an advantage over other kids? In other words, a "normal" kid is now able to perform better than another "normal" kid who isn't taking Ritalin. Because this is happening, right now.
If you don't think the overprescription of Ritalin is giving the kids an advantage, I don't see how you can argue that it's giving the scientists an advantage.
Is the staying awake natural or drug-induced? Is that person capable of doing something I'm not, or is he taking something that gives him that talent that he didn't have originally?
Define "drug induced." Does coffee count? If you refuse to drink coffee, does that mean that scientists who do are gaining an unfair advantage? Should we ban coffee? The difference between caffeine and Ritalin is semantic.
What you said was that all the children taking these drugs are gaining an advantage. It's not so much gaining an advantage as bringing them back up to a level where a reasonable human being should be--just like most people have two arms.
What I meant was to ask you, do YOU think that the use of Ritalin gives children an advantage. There is obviously a set of kids who probably benefit from it. What about the kids who didn't need it? My point was, I don't think it's having as huge an impact as you think. If you worry about scientists, you ought to be even more worried about the kids. That's all I was trying to say.
You think Ritalin is scary, wait until you see how toxic some of the substances these scientists are studying are! First let's take care of that much bigger problem, by banning research on toxic substances. Then we can move on to the Ritalin issue.
I'm going to go ahead and assume that you don't work in modern academia. It's all about quantity. Ideally it's about both quantity and quality, but the only people who can get away with just quality are the very senior professors who already have tenure, who can't get promoted any further, and who are already in the senior ranks of all the academic societies (fellow of the IEEE, etc.). So the idea that a drug would keep your quality the same, while improving your quantity, is incredibly tempting (not to mention making the quantity vs. quality problem worse).
Then we have a fundamental problem with how science is conducted. The problem isn't the drugs. The drug use is a symptom of flawed standards for scientific research.
An example. I have this great idea, but my resume isn't as good as this other person who took drugs all the time, while I didn't take drugs. When we both apply for the same $100k grant to do our project, he gets the money because his resume is better--they feel that the $100k is better spent with that person because of his past work. Now my idea won't get developed because I don't have the money I need to implement it. I fail on both my goals: advance the subject, and be employed.
Okay, let's switch things around a little. Suppose the other guy got the grant because he never sleeps, and therefore can produce a larger volume of research. Now, in order to compete with this guy, you basically have to stay awake all the time. So now do you want to enforce a rule that a scientist must sleep a certain number of hours every day, in order to stay fair to other scientists who actually like sleeping?
Would you suggest that someone who was born without an arm should never get a prosthetic, and be doomed to work in jobs that only require one arm for his entire life?
No, and I'm not sure how you got that from what I've said. Certainly, those who require a prosthetic should have one.
Also, if there's nothing to worry about, why are large numbers of ostensibly smart scientists spending lots of money (not to mention breaking the law) to do something that doesn't improve performance? According to you, are they all experiencing the placebo effect?
I don't think it's a placebo effect, but it's not a large effect. It could possibly have a very large effect on a person who has a genuine attention disorder. On other people it acts more like a simple stimulant. I haven't seen any movements to ban the use of caffeine by scientists.
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Anything can be made faster by throwing more processors at it. I still don't find it terribly interesting.
Yawn. 1400 accounts per day could be achieved by a human being creating accounts at the rate of 3 per minute. Not exactly a low-stress task but certainly achievable. Get back to me when the CAPTCHA "crack" is capable of speeds an order of magnitude faster than a measly human.
Matter inside the horizon exerts gravitational pull on matter outside - so matter inside the horizon still in the process of accreting should produce gravitational effects that can be observed in the matter still outside.
No. The key is, "Black holes have no hair." What this means is that there are only three properties which can be distinguished for a black hole: Electrical charge, spin, and mass. Once a piece of matter or energy has penetrated the event horizon, the only observable effect on the hole is a change in one of those three variables. Period. Obviously, when something falls into a black hole, the hole becomes more massive. But you cannot determine anything else.
You are wrong. Hawking radiation arises when a virtual particle/antiparticle pair pops into existence very near the horizon. One particle is inside the horizon and falls in. The other particle is outside, and escapes. Had the virtual pair come into existence entirely within the horizon, both particles would have fallen in and no radiation would have escaped. Nothing, not even a virtual particle, can escape the event horizon of a black hole. Hawking radiation is "strange" but it cannot defy the basic physics of the event horizon.
Also, you seem to believe that Hawking radiation is composed solely of antimatter. This is also completely untrue. Hawking radiation is composed of any and every particle type up to an energy limit dictated by the area of the hole's horizon. The rule is, "anything that can radiate, will radiate."
Anything within the event horizon of the hole, by definition, cannot escape to the outside universe again. But that doesn't mean that matter OUTSIDE the horizon, falling into the hole, doesn't get heated up unbelievably hot and radiate like hell.
I suppose you could make a pedantic argument that it isn't the hole glowing, it's the matter falling into it, but it's certainly the hole which causes it.
The truth is unclear -- in English units we speak both of "pounds" and "pounds of force." In C++ terms, the word is overloaded.
As far as specifying forces in newtons, that would not help a reader understand the magnitude of the force. Not many people know the definition of a newton, or how much force that is, but most people are familiar with how heavy a kilogram is.
What is truly stupid is talking about forces in terms of "dozens of elephants" or freight trains or something else. We all know that an elephant is "heavy" but we also know what a ton is -- what's wrong with talking in terms of tons?
If by "solving" it, you mean we're going to have more of them, and bigger, then yes. The ice pack is not just turning into water, it's weakening and breaking off in huge chunks (i.e. icebergs). Global warming, in the short term, would lead to more icebergs in the open water, not fewer.
My personal experience is that neither the meaning nor the implication I listed above is accurate for how my mind and body work. I often operate with an illusion that this is true, but the actual decision to lift the cup is made without conscious awareness. Once the decision is made, I have opportunities to consciously notice the action has started, but most often I run with the illusion that the conscious part of me (meaning, the subsystems of my mind that can "see" and comment on sensory input) is in control of decisions etc. It is convenient, but not at all real in my own experience.
But that isn't the point of argument, which is whether the decision has been made through free will or not. I still don't see why a decision being unconscious makes it not a free decision.
How would having my actions dictated by complete random chance, be any different than having them dictated by rigid rules? In neither case am I in control of what happens.
Free will is not something which can be defined in terms of the outward expression of reality. It is something which occurs subjectively in the mind. That answer is disappointing but I have nothing better.
First, just because there is an inherent lag between the action of the brain and our conscious awareness of that action, doesn't mean the action is not willful. Second, even if the action was being planned by the unconscious brain, again, how does that make the action unwillful? I am not conscious of every calculation my brain performs when I decide to lift my coffee cup to my lips, but this does not mean I did not consciously decide to do it.
Our brains are chemical devices. Our sense of self has evolved to mask the fact that we are actually "lagging behind reality" by a little bit, because being aware of the lag would serve no purpose except to distract us. That a scientist could leap from this to the "insight" that we are not in control of our own actions is ludicrous.
Conway's Life is Turing complete. I guess, to a computer scientist, it's not really surprising that an automaton could be Turing complete, but it's still pretty damn awesome to think that little cells replicating on the screen are capable of carrying out any arbitrary computation -- as well as self-reproduction.
I wonder, with a large enough simulation, if self-reproducing, intelligent entities could evolve out of just a few simple rules (and it's really only one rule, if you code it a certain way).
I think the cash flow will ultimately come out worse, as the city is forced to pay out wrongful death and dismemberment lawsuits to all the people injured or killed at these intersections, which they are deliberately making unsafer.
Passengers of Lunar Flight 697: We are very, very sorry that we're about to crash and burn in Earth's atmosphere. We are aware of a maneuver which could save us, you, and this entire $2.6 billion spacecraft, but it's patented, and we place great importance on ethics here at Lunar Holidays Ltd. That's Ltd for "Limited Liability," by the way folks.
This has been your captain speaking. Thank you for flying with Lunar, and have a nice death.
Define "Internet account." As in, your name is on the bill from some ISP somewhere? Are these people aware that you don't actually have to have an "account" to use the Internet?
Wake up, RIAA. You might be a big bad fish, but unless you have a freakin' military to back yourself up, you are still subject to the laws of the even bigger, badder fish, which is the state government. Go fuck yourself.
Where did you find moral judgements in my comment?
I didn't. I assumed your stance based on the other people posting in the same thread, and your post didn't really give me much to go on. So I apologize for the prejudice.
Hi, I'm your boss. Here is a bottle of pills to improve your productivity. Take one a day from now on or you're fired. You don't want to? Why should the economy be held back merely so you can have a job?
I never argued that we should require people to do any of this stuff. I'm talking about allowing people to make their own decisions -- you're talking about forcing decisions on them. I don't see how you reached one from the other.
Unfortunatly acdemia calls for a large amount extremely time intensive and boring paperwork. I doubt these people are taking drugs for doing their creative work.
Okay, so assuming this is true, what's the problem with allowing scientists to push more quickly through the boring stuff? Is this just juvenile whining about how "That guy gets all his paperwork done with a smile on his face, but I suffer through it?"
I think I mean to specify illegal drugs or drugs used illicitly. What we have here is scientists breaking the law or otherwise gaining access to things that they're not meant to have access to or not everyone can get. Anyone can buy coffee. Not everyone can get Ritalin if they're not prescribed for it.
So if the law changed tomorrow you'd immediately be perfectly fine with all this? What does right and wrong have to do with the decisions of a bunch of men and women sitting around in a big fancy conference room?
I am not even going to touch on the controversy regarding the issue of whether or not doctors are over-prescribing Ritilin (and its relatives) to children. That is a whole different controversy.
No, I think it's exactly on topic. Do you think that overprescription of Ritalin is causing certain kids to have an advantage over other kids? In other words, a "normal" kid is now able to perform better than another "normal" kid who isn't taking Ritalin. Because this is happening, right now.
If you don't think the overprescription of Ritalin is giving the kids an advantage, I don't see how you can argue that it's giving the scientists an advantage.
Is the staying awake natural or drug-induced? Is that person capable of doing something I'm not, or is he taking something that gives him that talent that he didn't have originally?
Define "drug induced." Does coffee count? If you refuse to drink coffee, does that mean that scientists who do are gaining an unfair advantage? Should we ban coffee? The difference between caffeine and Ritalin is semantic.
What you said was that all the children taking these drugs are gaining an advantage. It's not so much gaining an advantage as bringing them back up to a level where a reasonable human being should be--just like most people have two arms.
What I meant was to ask you, do YOU think that the use of Ritalin gives children an advantage. There is obviously a set of kids who probably benefit from it. What about the kids who didn't need it? My point was, I don't think it's having as huge an impact as you think. If you worry about scientists, you ought to be even more worried about the kids. That's all I was trying to say.
You think Ritalin is scary, wait until you see how toxic some of the substances these scientists are studying are! First let's take care of that much bigger problem, by banning research on toxic substances. Then we can move on to the Ritalin issue.
I'm going to go ahead and assume that you don't work in modern academia. It's all about quantity. Ideally it's about both quantity and quality, but the only people who can get away with just quality are the very senior professors who already have tenure, who can't get promoted any further, and who are already in the senior ranks of all the academic societies (fellow of the IEEE, etc.). So the idea that a drug would keep your quality the same, while improving your quantity, is incredibly tempting (not to mention making the quantity vs. quality problem worse).
Then we have a fundamental problem with how science is conducted. The problem isn't the drugs. The drug use is a symptom of flawed standards for scientific research.
An example. I have this great idea, but my resume isn't as good as this other person who took drugs all the time, while I didn't take drugs. When we both apply for the same $100k grant to do our project, he gets the money because his resume is better--they feel that the $100k is better spent with that person because of his past work. Now my idea won't get developed because I don't have the money I need to implement it. I fail on both my goals: advance the subject, and be employed.
Okay, let's switch things around a little. Suppose the other guy got the grant because he never sleeps, and therefore can produce a larger volume of research. Now, in order to compete with this guy, you basically have to stay awake all the time. So now do you want to enforce a rule that a scientist must sleep a certain number of hours every day, in order to stay fair to other scientists who actually like sleeping?
Would you suggest that someone who was born without an arm should never get a prosthetic, and be doomed to work in jobs that only require one arm for his entire life?
No, and I'm not sure how you got that from what I've said. Certainly, those who require a prosthetic should have one.
Also, if there's nothing to worry about, why are large numbers of ostensibly smart scientists spending lots of money (not to mention breaking the law) to do something that doesn't improve performance? According to you, are they all experiencing the placebo effect?
I don't think it's a placebo effect, but it's not a large effect. It could possibly have a very large effect on a person who has a genuine attention disorder. On other people it acts more like a simple stimulant. I haven't seen any movements to ban the use of caffeine by scientists.