Why should the one that didn't do it say anything beyond "I didn't do it, must've been the other guy"? And why should the one who did say anything other than "I didn't do it, must've been the other guy".
The one who didn't commit the crime is telling the truth, and has done nothing to obstruct justice.
"Would you like ultra-wide spectrum super-HD eyes with 60x optical zoom, Internet-connected HUD and complimentary laser cannons, just like everyone else has?"
You say that like it's a bad thing. If such a treatment were available, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat.
Note, he said "looking" at the pictures, not "making" the pictures. There is a difference. Possessing CP is the only crime I can think of where witnessing a crime is itself a crime.
Yes, producing CP is a horrible crime, and it needs to be punished; I would rate it as at least as heinous as rape or assault. I would rate looking at CP well below rape or assualt, and probably below theft as well.
The nitrogen molecule will be influenced to a greater degree than the hydrogen atom by Earth's gravity, as gravity reduces its velocity to a greater relative degree than that of the hydrogen atom.
No. All matter is equally affected by gravity. The amount of force that gravity applies to a given bit of matter is directly proportional to that bit of matter's mass.
Yes, more massive things require more force to be pulled down to Earth, but more massive things are pulled on more strongly by gravity. This is why all things fall at the same rate in a vacuum, and why a nitrogen atom in space will be pulled towards Earth at the exact same rate as a hydrogen atom, and at the exact same rate that a VW beetle or the Moon would be.
Differences in mass only come into play within the atmosphere, where lighter gasses rise above heaver gasses, but even at the edge of the atmosphere, a hydrogen would still have quite a ways to go before being able to escape Earth's gravity well.
But they have the Earth's Gravity to change their direction. An atom of hydrogen, or a ton of bricks, will follow the same path around the Earth in orbit. How light something is is irrelevant.
I'm talking about the calendar that we use *now*, not the calendar that people used then. The Gregorian calendar has no year zero. Period. I'm not making any claims about the calendar's relationship to actual time, I'm just stating a fact.
Um, no, there was no year zero. The year before 1 AD was 1 BC. The first decade ran from 1 AD to 10 AD, the first century ran from 1 AD to 100 AD. The 20th century ran from 1901 to 2000.
The "90's" and the last decade of the 20th century are two different things. "The 90's" is 1990–1999, the last decade of the 20th century is 1991–2000
Indeed. I don't see why child porn per se is illegal (yes it's disgusting and vile, and I believe that the world would be a better place without it, but offensive should not be the same thing as illegal).
IMHO, the only crime (with an actual victim) was the act being photographed/videoed to create the porn in the first place, and we already have laws to cover that crime (child abuse, rape, etc.). Child porn is nothing more than evidence of that original crime, in the same way that CCTV footage from a robbed gas station is nothing more than evidence of that robbery.
In the room cleaning example, you may have reduced the entropy in your room by ordering it, but you have still increased the overall entropy of the Universe.
While cleaning the room, your body turned (ordered) food into (unordered) heat at a rate faster than if you had not been doing anything.
The garbage can is less ordered.
etc.
Anything you do to make one thing more orderly will reduce the local entropy of that thing, but will increase the total entropy of the Universe.
In the case of a black hole, you take something ordered (i.e. whatever fell into the black hole had *some* structure; it was matter made of atoms, or it was light made of photons vibrating at specific frequencies, etc.), and you remove that order from the Universe. eventually, that matter and energy renters the universe as random heat (i.e. Hawking radiation).
So black holes essentially destroy information and order, which is the very definition of increasing entropy.
Visible light, just means light within the visible spectrum. Even if everyone closes their eyes, and nobody actually sees it, visible light is still visible light (as distinct form Infra-red, Xrays, radio, etc.)
Ins't this just putting a friendlier name on "overselling"?
We can pack in 20% more boxes because we don't really have the power to meet demand should all of them spike at once, but that doesn't usually happen.
We can sell in 20% more airline seats because we don't really have the room to meet demand should all of the customers actually show up, but that doesn't usually happen.
We can claim unlimited bandwidth, because we don't really have the capacity to meat demand should all of our customers actually download 24/7, but that doesn't usually happen.
Back to the topic in question: people talking of sex and affection in this thread seem to be completely forgetting what we are talking about - the portrayal is of a guy visiting a hooker, not a healthy or loving sexual relationship. Some Slashdotters seem to not even know the difference. That's actually quite depressing.
Oh, I understand the difference, and I still find portrayals of sex (even loveless, hooker sex) to be less offensive than portrayals of murder (not to say that I find video-game murder that offensive in the first place).
If someone is mature enough to handle the graphic violence in the game, then they should be mature enough to handle a sex scene. It is not for the courts to decide whether or not my son is mature enough to handle either, it is for me to decide.
I was thinking the same thing in my other response (with just as little justification):).
it's just interesting to take what I think I understand about theoretical physics and extrapolate... Isn't that the whole fun of physics?:)
If you really came up with that idea on your own, then you are a genius.
I'm certainly not a genius, just someone with occasional insomnia:)
That idea is usually attributed to Wheeler. He told his student Feynman about it, who immediately shot it down: if it were true, we'd see just as many electrons as positrons, but we don't. See Feynman's Nobel lecture.
Thanks for the link, that's a fascinating read. I wonder if his professor might not have been correct. What if there are an equal number of particles and anti-particles, but that the anti-particles are somehow hidden?
What if, for instance, Universes occur in pairs; one made primarily of matter, with time flowing in the direction we're used to, and one made of anti-matter, with time flowing in the opposite direction?
Perhaps the U-turn at each end is accompanied by the particle jumping from one universe (at its death) to its counterpart (at its big bang). The few instances of anti-matter that we do observe might be cases where the particle made the turn, but didn't actually make the jump to the other universe.
That way, the vast majority of the return trips would be hidden from us
Or, alternatively, what if we're wrong about the ratio of matter to anti-matter? How would we know if half of the Galaxies in the Universe aren't made out of anti-matter? Wouldn't an anti-star look exactly like a star?
>That is utter nonsense. If that were the case, then we would never be able to create antimatter. If it
>traveled backwards in time, then we would see it before we did the experiments that create it. However, in the
>lab, we create antimatter and it is still present after we create it. This would not be true if it traveled
>backwards in time. Just think about what you are saying.
Not at all dear anonymous coward!
You may or may not have to check Feynmans precious books here, - he's going to explain it to you very well.
In short: When we 'create' antimatter - from the perspective of the antimatter this is the point of time of its annihilation (because for the antimatter time is running backwards)
When antimatter gets annihilated by the contact with ordinary matter (lateron in our timeframe) from the perspective of the antimatter this is the moment of creation of the antimatter.
I know it's not easy in the first place, but if you give it a few moments of thought it's logical and natural.
And it's been an accepted theory in physics for many years.
Or, there is no creation and annihilation, it is just a single particle caught in a closed loop, going back and forth through time:)
One thing, along those lines, that I've often thought of:
What if there really is only one of each kind of subatomic particle in the Universe (after all, all electrons are identical to each other, all protons are identical, etc.). This one electron starts at the big bang, and weaves its path through existence until the end of time.
At that point, it hangs a U-turn, and travels back in time to the big bang (if we encounter this electron on its return trip, we observe it as a positron).
Then, when it gets back to the big bang, it hangs yet another U-turn and repeats the same process, only this "time", there appear to be two, and so on.
Or, take it a step farther:
What if all matter is actually made of a single quark making such back-and-forth trips through time, and that all of the different particles are really just that same quark interacting with itself on different loops. This would mean that it is possible that there is only one particle in existence, and that all of the observable universe is essentially a fabric weaved by its repeated trips back and forth through time.
Slashdot Mirror
How does that contradict anything the the parent post said?
Why should the one that didn't do it say anything beyond "I didn't do it, must've been the other guy"? And why should the one who did say anything other than "I didn't do it, must've been the other guy". The one who didn't commit the crime is telling the truth, and has done nothing to obstruct justice.
Ah, but where does it end?
"Would you like ultra-wide spectrum super-HD eyes with 60x optical zoom, Internet-connected HUD and complimentary laser cannons, just like everyone else has?"
You say that like it's a bad thing. If such a treatment were available, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat.
Note, he said "looking" at the pictures, not "making" the pictures. There is a difference. Possessing CP is the only crime I can think of where witnessing a crime is itself a crime.
Yes, producing CP is a horrible crime, and it needs to be punished; I would rate it as at least as heinous as rape or assault. I would rate looking at CP well below rape or assualt, and probably below theft as well.
The nitrogen molecule will be influenced to a greater degree than the hydrogen atom by Earth's gravity, as gravity reduces its velocity to a greater relative degree than that of the hydrogen atom.
No. All matter is equally affected by gravity. The amount of force that gravity applies to a given bit of matter is directly proportional to that bit of matter's mass. Yes, more massive things require more force to be pulled down to Earth, but more massive things are pulled on more strongly by gravity. This is why all things fall at the same rate in a vacuum, and why a nitrogen atom in space will be pulled towards Earth at the exact same rate as a hydrogen atom, and at the exact same rate that a VW beetle or the Moon would be. Differences in mass only come into play within the atmosphere, where lighter gasses rise above heaver gasses, but even at the edge of the atmosphere, a hydrogen would still have quite a ways to go before being able to escape Earth's gravity well.
But they have the Earth's Gravity to change their direction. An atom of hydrogen, or a ton of bricks, will follow the same path around the Earth in orbit. How light something is is irrelevant.
Wow, how insightful. You post a link to a story about a related near-extinction event
... that is discussed in the summary. Good job.
I'm talking about the calendar that we use *now*, not the calendar that people used then. The Gregorian calendar has no year zero. Period. I'm not making any claims about the calendar's relationship to actual time, I'm just stating a fact.
Um, no, there was no year zero. The year before 1 AD was 1 BC. The first decade ran from 1 AD to 10 AD, the first century ran from 1 AD to 100 AD. The 20th century ran from 1901 to 2000. The "90's" and the last decade of the 20th century are two different things. "The 90's" is 1990–1999, the last decade of the 20th century is 1991–2000
Indeed. I don't see why child porn per se is illegal (yes it's disgusting and vile, and I believe that the world would be a better place without it, but offensive should not be the same thing as illegal).
IMHO, the only crime (with an actual victim) was the act being photographed/videoed to create the porn in the first place, and we already have laws to cover that crime (child abuse, rape, etc.). Child porn is nothing more than evidence of that original crime, in the same way that CCTV footage from a robbed gas station is nothing more than evidence of that robbery.
Umm, who said anything about wireless?
PalmOS - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_OS
WebOS - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_OS
big difference
anyone else think this looks suspiciously like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion
Only if you can't read.
In the room cleaning example, you may have reduced the entropy in your room by ordering it, but you have still increased the overall entropy of the Universe. While cleaning the room, your body turned (ordered) food into (unordered) heat at a rate faster than if you had not been doing anything. The garbage can is less ordered. etc. Anything you do to make one thing more orderly will reduce the local entropy of that thing, but will increase the total entropy of the Universe. In the case of a black hole, you take something ordered (i.e. whatever fell into the black hole had *some* structure; it was matter made of atoms, or it was light made of photons vibrating at specific frequencies, etc.), and you remove that order from the Universe. eventually, that matter and energy renters the universe as random heat (i.e. Hawking radiation). So black holes essentially destroy information and order, which is the very definition of increasing entropy.
Should Windows Media Player be required to support iPods? No; Apple had to write their own software to accomplish that.
Should WMP be required to support iPhones? No; Apple had to write their own software to accomplish that.
...
Should iTunes support Palm devices? No; Palm should write their own software to accomplish that.
If I build an mp3 player tomorrow, should WMP or iTunes be required to support it? No; I would have to write my own software to accomplish that.
Where is the anti-competition?
Visible light, just means light within the visible spectrum. Even if everyone closes their eyes, and nobody actually sees it, visible light is still visible light (as distinct form Infra-red, Xrays, radio, etc.)
Palm: "Oh no you didn't!"
Apple: "Oh yes iDid."
Palm: Talk to the handspring.
FTFY
A friend of my mother's had been claiming that she had a kid, and was claiming him as a dependent. Luckily, this imaginary kid turned 18 in 1988.
Back to the topic in question: people talking of sex and affection in this thread seem to be completely forgetting what we are talking about - the portrayal is of a guy visiting a hooker, not a healthy or loving sexual relationship. Some Slashdotters seem to not even know the difference. That's actually quite depressing.
Oh, I understand the difference, and I still find portrayals of sex (even loveless, hooker sex) to be less offensive than portrayals of murder (not to say that I find video-game murder that offensive in the first place).
If someone is mature enough to handle the graphic violence in the game, then they should be mature enough to handle a sex scene. It is not for the courts to decide whether or not my son is mature enough to handle either, it is for me to decide.
Remember, any suggestion of sex or sexuality to children will warp their tiny widdle minds. ...but violence, that's just good red-blooded American fun.
I'm certainly not a genius, just someone with occasional insomnia :)
That idea is usually attributed to Wheeler. He told his student Feynman about it, who immediately shot it down: if it were true, we'd see just as many electrons as positrons, but we don't. See Feynman's Nobel lecture.Thanks for the link, that's a fascinating read. I wonder if his professor might not have been correct. What if there are an equal number of particles and anti-particles, but that the anti-particles are somehow hidden?
What if, for instance, Universes occur in pairs; one made primarily of matter, with time flowing in the direction we're used to, and one made of anti-matter, with time flowing in the opposite direction?
Perhaps the U-turn at each end is accompanied by the particle jumping from one universe (at its death) to its counterpart (at its big bang). The few instances of anti-matter that we do observe might be cases where the particle made the turn, but didn't actually make the jump to the other universe.
That way, the vast majority of the return trips would be hidden from us
Or, alternatively, what if we're wrong about the ratio of matter to anti-matter? How would we know if half of the Galaxies in the Universe aren't made out of anti-matter? Wouldn't an anti-star look exactly like a star?
You may or may not have to check Feynmans precious books here, - he's going to explain it to you very well.
In short: When we 'create' antimatter - from the perspective of the antimatter this is the point of time of its annihilation (because for the antimatter time is running backwards)
When antimatter gets annihilated by the contact with ordinary matter (lateron in our timeframe) from the perspective of the antimatter this is the moment of creation of the antimatter.
I know it's not easy in the first place, but if you give it a few moments of thought it's logical and natural.
And it's been an accepted theory in physics for many years.
Or, there is no creation and annihilation, it is just a single particle caught in a closed loop, going back and forth through timeOne thing, along those lines, that I've often thought of:
What if there really is only one of each kind of subatomic particle in the Universe (after all, all electrons are identical to each other, all protons are identical, etc.). This one electron starts at the big bang, and weaves its path through existence until the end of time.
At that point, it hangs a U-turn, and travels back in time to the big bang (if we encounter this electron on its return trip, we observe it as a positron).
Then, when it gets back to the big bang, it hangs yet another U-turn and repeats the same process, only this "time", there appear to be two, and so on.
Or, take it a step farther:
What if all matter is actually made of a single quark making such back-and-forth trips through time, and that all of the different particles are really just that same quark interacting with itself on different loops. This would mean that it is possible that there is only one particle in existence, and that all of the observable universe is essentially a fabric weaved by its repeated trips back and forth through time.