That's ridiculous. You don't see light passing away from you through a vacuum. How would it get to your eye?
You're talking about a hypothetical superhuman sensor that can see a single spot of light no bigger than 1 mm moving at 60 rpms from 1 AU away. I suspect that level of ability would also include the ability to see whatever it is that really carries light directly.
OTOH, if we've got a super-laser that projects a 1 degree wide "spot," you're probably right. ('course, it'd also take about 16 minutes for you to see the effect of anything you do; start up the device and you don't see it working for 16 minutes, utterly destroy it and the "spot" still makes about 960 more rotations.)
Ask youself, how many of those mails delayed by the anthrax panic were critical of the PATRIOT act and other scams? Right, probably no one knows. During a key window of time, when the need for citizen input was most critical, citizen input was removed from the decision process.
How many were critical? Probably the same proportion of people who were critical of the Patriot act in other mediums at that time.
As for citizen input... no. I do not pay my taxes so my well-educated and often intelligent representatives can be slaves to pollsters. I expect all four of my federal elected representatives (one president, two senators, and a house member) to think on their own, follow their moral compass, and at the very least remain constant to what is important and what they campaigned as.
Oh, and the PATRIOT act would be an "abuse", not a scam. The Feds were completely honest about wanting more power, and they got more power--no one in government was swindled.
Re:I've been waiting so long for this...
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Open Source Art?
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My first "real" (snort!) job coming out of school was working with a team of other grads on the schools' website - within a week we were all able to recognize each other's code/quirks. And this was just plain vanilla HTML (among the least expressive of languages)!
My first job outside of the fast food industry was opening applications for NY's student loan program. Within a week we were all able to tell who had opened a certain stack by the quirks of how it was opened, folded, and the sticker was applied. And this was just taking them out of the envelope, applying a sticker, and checking it with a red sharpie.
Every task humans do is quirky. That does not mean that they're all expressive, and most of them shouldn't be treated as if they were.
There's no limit to the speed a reference can change. I can go out at night and look at one star, which is several light years away. If I turn around and look at a differnet star, my visual target switches locations at a speed far beyond what all but the campiest sci fi imagines.
If I am inside a sphere 1AU in radius and turn a laser pointer at 60rpm for a long time (more than 16 minutes), I will see a laser spot on the sphere rotating at a rate of a billion km/sec, which is thousands of times the speed of light.
I disagree. I think that if you had a visual acuity good enough to see this hypothetical spot, you'd also be able to see the laser's photon wave as it spiraled around from the central point, twising at 60rpm and expanding to 1 AU at approximately c (need to account for travel time to reach the viewer.)
But, if we had a 1 AU sphere with a photosensor, the "mark" from the laser pointer would seem to rotate at rather high multiple of c... (I feel like some math... the 1 AU sphere has a diameter of about 6.28 AU. Traversing this at 60 rpm would require a speed somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000c... which is about Warp 3-4 for ST:TNG)
You assume that if you push one end, the other end moves instantaneously?
No. I assume that the rod would break, and as I understand current theory, given an inertialess, indistructable rod, the "movement" of the rod could only be c and no higher than c.
The end of the rod does not move instantaneously. Realize that each atom along the way has to collide into another atom all the way to the end before the end moves. This collision speed is less than the speed of light.
I do realize that. But it bugged me when my HS teacher said it moved "instantaneous."
According to Einstein's theory (I don't think it's proper to call this part of it relativity), nothing can move faster than light--not even cause and effect.
(OTOH, there's gravity, which is a whole different ball of wax...)
If you define the "spot of light" as "the area illuminated by the laser," and "to move" as "to change location," the spot of light most certainly does move. 8 minutes after you turn the laser, it will move across whatever you're illuminating at a speed exceeding that of light. I don't know what else you could possibly mean by "spot of light" or "move." Of course, this does not violate relativity at all.
Are you sure? (Ph.D. sure).
Light is either a string of particles or a wave; either one can be modeled approximately by a high-pressure hose.
If I suddenly turn my hose 180 degrees, I don't move the water that's allready gone out of the hose; I simply start shooting water out at a different angle.
OTOH, if "spot of light" means "area targeted by the laser, then it can move rather well. But it'll still take 8 minutes to get to the new target & can't violate relativity. The target doesn't *move*, it's simply changed--and since the target is just an imaginary spot, it's not bound by relativity. (Quick, think about earth, now about the sun--bet'cha it doesn't take you eight minutes to switch.)
If you want to see a "thing" travelling faster than light, sweep a searchlight across a cloudy sky. That lit-up patch can, in principle, travel faster than light -- but it's not matter or energy, only an appearance.
You're using an assumption that always bugs me.
Let's say, for example, that I've got a 1 AU (about 8 light-minitue) long indistructable rod and I'm out in space. I push the rod. Common sense says that the far tip of the rod moves at the same time I move the near tip. But that'd break the speed of light; forgetting about inertia for a moment, it'd take at least 8 minutes for the rod to move after I push the near end.
If I have a powerful laser out in space that points out to 1 AU, and a spin it 180 degress, the "spot" of light doesn't move; light just starts moving out at c in the opposite direction.
Yeah, and that's probably not what you meant... but it's bugged me ever since High School.
What happens if we change the salinity of the oceans? Lowering the salinity of the oceans is a posited factor in the beginning of the last Ice Age.
Call me a novice, but wouldn't taking the water of the ocean raise their salinity?
Also, no chemical reaction is perfect, so we lose a little of Earth's water supply every time we expend a tank of hydrogen, do we not.
Not unless we toss it out into space. Every chemical reaction is perfect. The measurement and clean up isn't, which leaves an entrophic residue, but the water's still "here."
This seems on the face of things like a clean source of energy, but could it also be the path to even more rapid climate change?
I don't think so. AFAIK one of the chief causes of global warming is still dirty automobiles. Shifting the pollution from there to power plants would be a good one--we'd have a volume where the necessary tech to clean the exhause (really clean it, that is) is affordable.
Fuel cells, by an large, are seen as a Good Thing ecologically speaking.
With this logic, PC's should be banned, as they can copy music, MSN and AOL should be shut down, since they provide access to the internet, which has illegal copies of music, and hell, XM radio should be shutdown as well, since it is hackable and can have music ripped off of it...
Last time I checked on Gnutella, I found a lot of porn, a lot of copyright violations, and a few things that were probably legitimate (sound clips from movies are borderline; the only real solidly legals ones were 100% copyleft docs [which are better had from the central source] and "save Gnutella" text files.)
It would be great of P2P file sharing networks were used for significant legal and moral purposes; but the efficient distribution of porn (which is probably also a copyright violation...) isn't a compelling factor against the public good...
(Yeah, yeah, I know... I've bought more CDs since I installed Gnucleus than before, but that doesn't mean I don't think it's a legal qaugmire that's just waiting to be slapped down.)
Explain the existence of compulsory licenses then.
You mean like the GPL? By making a derivitive work, you are making a copy of part of someone else's copyrighten work, and thus need their permission--which is the GPL. (That's why it's called "copyleft.")
Or do you mean the sort of licenses that the government (the FCC, IIRC) forces the music industry to apply to radio stations? I don't know a lot about them, but they seem (to my layman's view) to be a forced use of powers the copyright holder has, not a reduction of them.
I.e., if they publish the songs, they have to charge no more than $x to anyone who wants them and can pay. But they can still charge less than $X (including $0) or not publish.
Of course, this depends on your book. Ronald Tobias argues that there are only 20 Master Plots [barnesandnoble.com] instead of 36:
Did you even read that book? I did, and the author specifically mentions this whole fallacy about counting plots in the first section. The number is (IIRC) 2, 4, 36, or a nearly infinite number. The twenty he lists are just plots that are likey to be appreciated by & familiar to a modern audience, and so make good archtypes.
And he doesn't even mention interweaving of plots, or plot shifts, or opposing plots. A good story should have more than one plot--when I pick up a novel, I can reasonably expect to see some adventure, a quest, a few riddles, ascension / descension in good ones, and probably love / sacrafice / discovery too.
Well, if you really want to admit it, there are only about three plots. You have Man against Nature, Man against Man and Man against Himself.
Bullocks. Those are *conflicts*, not *plots*. And if you boil down the conflicts you get "action" and "re-action"--either man is working for something, or against something.
There are, at least, twenty reasonably different plots--and when you weave plots together to form a larger story, and add in minor alterations to familiar themes, you get a larger and larger number that approaches effective infinity (so many plots that any writer in any culture can always come up with something 'new.')
Let's say that we have a hypothetical bunch of three characters, each of which having one distinct motive and one distinct treasure, in addition to their own distinct being. (i.e., "Captain Archer" and "Captain Kirk" are different characters even though they're both captians of the Enterprise.)
With these hypothetical characters, and a hypotheical television run, we have plots of discovery for each character, motive, and quality, all of which will take anywhere from five minutes (one page) to a whole episode (50 pages). Each motive can drive at least one plot to influence or use any of the three characters' treasures or beings, which gives us at least 18 plots from these three characters. Each character can also drive at least reactionary plot from each other character's movie, giving us an additional 6 plots.
A well-written storyline will blend these plots together, with preludes and aftermath happening almost invisibliy to the viewer; rather than seeing the opening and closing of each "episode", the audience would see a session of a story.
Unfortunately, the uniqueness of characters on television and media tends to wean down the ammount of useful plots; what could be great stories are often reduced to formulatic showcases of the "plot element of the week" (or "of the movie") while the character set tends to either not change at all, change in abrupt fashions, or last for a short (and "unprofitable" time.)
And then in another year, after our collective memory has faded.... it'll be 40% painful.... then 60%... then soon you'll find a coin slot next to your 3 gig floppy drive to pay for copywritten letters that make up the emails you are reading.
No one but me has the right to copy something I own the copyright to--or charge for that right.
The logical extreme of DRM is a flag that truly prevents you from copying or saving a file with that flag on--but that's it. Everyone, even RIAA drones, wants some use of "copyrighted works" to still be free.
Once down the slippery slope, the only way to stop is to either dig in or hit the bottom.
And if Vietnam fell to communism, the entire world would follow...
Or if you start walking towards a wall that's 1 mile away, and you cover half the distance in a minute, you'll never get there...
And because your stock is going up, you can assume that it'll go up forever because people can just buy in and sell higher no matter what.
There are very, very few real "slippery slopes." DRM isn't, IMO, one of them.
The slippery slope in this model is, IMO, "file-sharing." Once it was MP3s on IRC, then websites, then Napster--and then the slope ended when RIAA was forced to take legal action because it had gotten too big to ignore.
Any RIAA marketoid who tries to tell you that there's a license attached to DVD sales that don't contain a user-accessable list of that license is blowing smoke.
DVDs are largely protected by copyright law--and the only "license" there is the implicit right to make "copies" necessary for use of the DVD (such as "copying" it into RAM.)
Unless something changed, they're in the same catagory as books; doctrine of first sale, fair use, et al.
I assume you are an american. Do you pledge your allegiance to the descendants of the Vikings (that would propably mean Norway) or to Spain? Or maybe to the native americans. They did get there first, so by your logic, they own the land you have parked your arse on.
Limiting the case to the moon... the USA is the *only* country to send folks to the Moon. Until someone comes around and contests our claim, we've got the only real claim that there is.
And, yes, we treatied-away that claim to keep the cold war affordable. But we've still got a bit more of a claim to everyone's favorite rock than anyone else.
Star Trek anti Christian? I doubt that very much. First off, my pastor loves Star Trek and see's nothing anti christian in it at all. You don't see sex portrayed much in Star Trek and I hope they never go down that line.
I don't see anything anti-chrisitan in Harry Potter or D&D either, but I can see the possiblities.
Star Trek: God doesn't exist, and the universe is ruled by capricious powers called "Q" that are more akin to the deacent roman gods than anything in the Christina mythos.
While I will agree that Star Wars had some witchcraft connotations they are just that....connotations. And with the release of The Phantom Menace and other prequels we find out that Jedi's aren't as mistifying as they seem. There's a scientific reason they can do the things they do....even if it's made up (midichlorians).
Anakin was concieved by the midicholorians, and is referred to many times as "the chosen one." If you're going to count anything in media as "witchcraft" or "anti-christian", you had better count Star Wars in it.
Harry Potter is blantant. It comes right out and screams we are witches and worlocks. To me ANY form of that is evil. There's no such thing as a good witch. Now I am not going to go on a witch hunt because the ones who say they are are being fooled by satan.
Why, exactly, is witchcraft evil? The most damning thing I've ever seen in the bible about it is it being listed along with other "desires of the flesh" like sex and anger. Hardly a "damn on name" thing, if you ask me.
One of the most interesting books I have read was a comparison of the Jedi to Christians. It was a really compelling book albiet small.
I saw a website not too long ago that laid out a "Jedi" wicca tradition. Notwistanding the obvious similarities between wicca and our own faith, I don't think Jedi are any closer to Christians than they are to Witchcraft.
I am not closed minded. I believe that there's one god and there's noone more powerful then him. I cannot accept that there are any more gods than the only god I know.
Why not? God said not to worship them. He said don't obey them. He said be wary of them--he never said "there aren't any other gods but me."
They do exist. They shouldn't be given any more respect than a mortal soul (at best--some are doubtless as bad as fallen angels), but they do exist.
Telekenesis is not really an indication of god either. You think god is going to come down and make thing levitate to prove he's god? That's laughable in this day and age.
I didn't say it was an indication of God. It is, however, one of the feats that modern-day witches aspire to.
Dogma is nothing more then legalism and it's not what is preached at my church...
I am not condeming you if you read Harry Potter. I am saying I will not read it because it's counter to all of my belief system. If that's closed minded, well, so be it. At least I have the guts to try to stick to my beliefs rather then roll over and submit to satan's whims like most folks do.
You believe in an unwavering, judgemental dogma that brands "witchcraft" as satanism. This is simply not the case. I know a whole slew of witches, and they're not satanists--they're not christians either, but they're certainly not satanists any more than christians of a different denominations (or Jews or Muslims) are.
There's nothing evil or automatically damning about Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, or any other story. Every question raised about our faith can be answered, and every act of God understood with enough knoweldge. Our religion is not one of hidebound route and routine--it's one of love and forgiveness, and the God I know isn't someone who will damn someone who just reads a book.
I'm confused here. Mind explaining those "anti-Christian" messages held with Star Wars and Star Trek? Last time I checked, Star Trek was just a massive metaphor for today's world.
Sure. I'll do Star Wars first, becasue it's easy.
Religous premise is a pantheistic, no-divinity "Force."
People don't die and go go heaven, they just die / stick around as blue glowing spirits
Man is the creature most able to influence the Force, and never, in any movie or book I've ever read, as there been even mention of discorporeal beigns who can maniupate the force better (those'd be God / gods / angels / demons).
Now, as for Star Trek:
No god, no religion at all, in any character EXCEPT for the Klingons and the Bajorans
What religion is portrayed is viewed as "scientific anomoalies"
Various infinitely-powerful beings are the only "Gods" out there, including the Roman gods but neither Christianity nor the saints
Q
By the way, none of these are "messages." They're just small things that be viewed as "Anti-Christian" by the same sort of people who refuse Harry Potter because it's got "Witchcraft," or D&D because it's "satanist" (according the mother of a gay, drug-addict suicide who blamed on the roleplaying game and not the truth.)
And, on a more personal note, just some points I like to make when painted in the light *you* just shed...
1) Paganism (Not specifically modern Wicca) has been around as long as there has been agriculture. They were our Holidays first.
"Paganism" is a rather lousy word that, in modern English, means "not Christian." I hate neo-pagans 's attempts to try and reinvent the language...
But in any case, it's a misnomer. There *is* no unified Paganism, just as there's no unififed "Monotheism." What you have is modern-day traditions that are mostly wicca, and are based on a few dozen attempts to revive "the old ways."
I have respesct for my pagan friends, but that doesn't mean I don't think they're as historically wrong as if I were to say that the offspring of Jesus Christ are the reason Europe conquered the world.
2) Pagans, as a general rule, do not try to convert others, nor force any way of thinking on anyone. We prefer you think for yourself. (as for myself, I am just impressed when some people *think* at all)
I've heard this line before, and I don't buy it. Sure, there aren't any 'Pagan' televangelist, but a pagan acts the exact same way most Christians do when asked about matters of faith. Not once have I heard a pagan ask "well, what do you think?" in this discussion. In a lot of ways, they're a closeminded as us "unthinking" Christians.
(Yes, there are the few notable exceptions--just like there are Christians who think rather well, and have shaped the world into the way it is today.)
3) Sorry, no devil here. Thats *your* religions creation. You deal with him.
So, the things that we deal with in our religion are all made up, and not real? Then you're are @!#$ing atheist, you bastard!;)
Seriously, though--"If I don't believe in you, will you go away?" (The same thing applies to Christians vs. Pagan Gods as Pagas vs. Satan. The spirits in question do exist, even if their exact makeup is unclear.)
4) Well, I could go on for pages about this, but it's pretty redundant. check out *my* page for more information. 5) Oh, well.. There is *one* bad thing about being Pagan/Wiccan. We've never had those wholesale "convert or die" parties like y'all had, so Mel Brooks has never had a chance to make up snazzy songs about our past.. (Humming.. "The Inquisition... here it comes...")
Wiccans have been around since about the 1960s, fella. You haven't been around LONG enough to have an Inquistion. (Oh, and there's this matter of the human sacrafices we found in Europe...)
Oh, by the way, by *your* religions rules, You're supposed to love the sinner,
I love my enemy as if he were my self. That doesn't perclude me from hating my self and railing against my sins--and it certainly doesn't gag Christians from speaking out agianst what they see as evil.
(The proper response is to engage in a dialogue, not rant.:) So, let's dialgoue.)
It is not noble protest. I am not sticking it to the man. I am simply trying to make sure I buy good movies and good records. If singles weren't so overpriced, maybe I would buy those for the songs on the radio. I refuse to pay 15 dollars to figure out that the record has two good songs on it.
That's all well and good--but what do we do about those that abuse the system, and DO want to steal? The Two Towers, unfinished cuts of songs, and a whole slew of other things that aren't even done yet are what got the RIAA so angry at Napster in the first place.
File-sharing can be as good a promotional tool as radio--but it's also an avenue for raping an artist's control of their work--or a business's model for marketing that work--more viciously than anything ever devised since before copyright law was invented.
The line between what is "science fiction" and what is "fantasy" is often a moot point. They're both books about worlds that are not and probably never will be, and have (almost) identical target audiences. It used to be that they were just one catagory, but then fantasy broke off on its own--although they still carry the same stigmas, and they still are stocked in the same sections in some stores.
As for the so-called witchcraft in Harry Potter... there's no more real withcraft in there than there was in Star Wars or anything C.S. Lewis ever wrote. In fact, there's more anit-Christian moments in American Gods.
You should give Harry Potter a chance. It's a fun book, with more than a few christian or nearly-christian themes, even if God is a bit absent. But if you refuse to give "Harry Potter" a chance because of its "witchcraft" themes, can you at least be consistent and stay away from Star Wars, Star Trek, American Gods, Babylon 5, everything Asimov wrote, and just about all the other avenues of Science Fiction ever written? They ALL have rather blatant anti-Christian messages, and are filled with blasphemy, aside from a very small minority.
As for Harry Potter being a fad... there's still two or three books in the pipe, as well as another movie coming out next year. You don't see anything in the media about Harry Potter now because (1) it's not longer news and (2) the next movie/book isn't out for awhile, so advertising would be moot.
(Oh, and on a side note, I'm rather certain that seeing the future, preaching, guided-action, levitation, and telekinesis are all historically "witchraft" activiites, while shootling lightning bolts from one's hands didn't get there until D&D and its contemporaries entered print.)
Proven medical treatments, such as silver, acupuncture, homeopathy, etc. (proven not by a few piddly years of research, but in most cases many decades or centuries of use) will never be embraced by the mainstream medical establishment as long as the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to dictate medical policy and control the way we are permitted to keep ourselves healthy./i
Welcome to the age of science, where everything that can be tested IS tested, and (sadly) processe that are prone to human error and difficult to reproduce are not always given the benefit of the doubt.
Plus, when something's just starting out in the modern world--like actupuncutre--they tend to be take up by inventive quacks, which sets back their use quite a bit.
But in any case, here in the USA you're "permitted you keep yourself healthy" any damn way you want. The AMA / your insurance company might not pay for it, but you can stop sending them money and just set yourself up a savings account. Doctors and hospitals do pay cash, and your local pracitioners of acupuncture and homeopathy probably do as well.
(I pay upwards of 2,000 a year for health insurance, and I've gone for over five years with going to the doctor just a handful of times--and that $2,000 doesn't even cover the co-pays. If i wasn't paranoid, or if my insurance plan stopped covering what I use it for, I might just stop giving them money and keep it for something better.)
Probably standdard toy batteries--1.5 v cells, most likely C or D size. But any battery you can wire in that will produce 12 V will probably do it.
Remember, this is a consumer product--and unless otherwise stated, consumer products follow standards. (If it wasn't going to be standard, they'd say "9-volt battery" or "battery pack." doing otherwise runs the risk of bad press.)
Think of competing identical products. Each one could continue to lower their prices, but the other companies would match those prices, thus killing any profits that might have been earned. Not to mention that once the price drops, the margins get thinner, making nobody (but the consumers) happy.
I don't see what you're getting at. If the margins are getting slimmer and slimmer, they can introduce the better project at a higher margin, and boost their profitability without undercutting their main product.
It's happened with light bulbs, and there are obvious reasons why it can't quite work with x86 chips or gasoline-powered cars. (No, wait, the "better product" is happening with gasoline powered cars. [I'd link to Honda, but their !$#ing website spits Mozilla an error message.] )
I'll readilly admit that pure capitalism is often set back by short-term profits. But that doesn't mean that there are oogles of goodies in every catagory we care about that are far better than what we've got just sitting on the shelf not doing anything.
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That's ridiculous. You don't see light passing away from you through a vacuum. How would it get to your eye?
You're talking about a hypothetical superhuman sensor that can see a single spot of light no bigger than 1 mm moving at 60 rpms from 1 AU away. I suspect that level of ability would also include the ability to see whatever it is that really carries light directly.
OTOH, if we've got a super-laser that projects a 1 degree wide "spot," you're probably right. ('course, it'd also take about 16 minutes for you to see the effect of anything you do; start up the device and you don't see it working for 16 minutes, utterly destroy it and the "spot" still makes about 960 more rotations.)
Ask youself, how many of those mails delayed by the anthrax panic were critical of the PATRIOT act and other scams? Right, probably no one knows. During a key window of time, when the need for citizen input was most critical, citizen input was removed from the decision process.
How many were critical? Probably the same proportion of people who were critical of the Patriot act in other mediums at that time.
As for citizen input... no. I do not pay my taxes so my well-educated and often intelligent representatives can be slaves to pollsters. I expect all four of my federal elected representatives (one president, two senators, and a house member) to think on their own, follow their moral compass, and at the very least remain constant to what is important and what they campaigned as.
Oh, and the PATRIOT act would be an "abuse", not a scam. The Feds were completely honest about wanting more power, and they got more power--no one in government was swindled.
My first "real" (snort!) job coming out of school was working with a team of other grads on the schools' website - within a week we were all able to recognize each other's code/quirks. And this was just plain vanilla HTML (among the least expressive of languages)!
My first job outside of the fast food industry was opening applications for NY's student loan program. Within a week we were all able to tell who had opened a certain stack by the quirks of how it was opened, folded, and the sticker was applied. And this was just taking them out of the envelope, applying a sticker, and checking it with a red sharpie.
Every task humans do is quirky. That does not mean that they're all expressive, and most of them shouldn't be treated as if they were.
Call it bad semantics.
There's no limit to the speed a reference can change. I can go out at night and look at one star, which is several light years away. If I turn around and look at a differnet star, my visual target switches locations at a speed far beyond what all but the campiest sci fi imagines.
If I am inside a sphere 1AU in radius and turn a laser pointer at 60rpm for a long time (more than 16 minutes), I will see a laser spot on the sphere rotating at a rate of a billion km/sec, which is thousands of times the speed of light.
I disagree. I think that if you had a visual acuity good enough to see this hypothetical spot, you'd also be able to see the laser's photon wave as it spiraled around from the central point, twising at 60rpm and expanding to 1 AU at approximately c (need to account for travel time to reach the viewer.)
But, if we had a 1 AU sphere with a photosensor, the "mark" from the laser pointer would seem to rotate at rather high multiple of c... (I feel like some math... the 1 AU sphere has a diameter of about 6.28 AU. Traversing this at 60 rpm would require a speed somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000c... which is about Warp 3-4 for ST:TNG)
You assume that if you push one end, the other end moves instantaneously?
No. I assume that the rod would break, and as I understand current theory, given an inertialess, indistructable rod, the "movement" of the rod could only be c and no higher than c.
I wonder if that's ever been proven?
The end of the rod does not move instantaneously. Realize that each atom along the way has to collide into another atom all the way to the end before the end moves. This collision speed is less than the speed of light.
I do realize that. But it bugged me when my HS teacher said it moved "instantaneous."
According to Einstein's theory (I don't think it's proper to call this part of it relativity), nothing can move faster than light--not even cause and effect.
(OTOH, there's gravity, which is a whole different ball of wax...)
If you define the "spot of light" as "the area illuminated by the laser," and "to move" as "to change location," the spot of light most certainly does move. 8 minutes after you turn the laser, it will move across whatever you're illuminating at a speed exceeding that of light. I don't know what else you could possibly mean by "spot of light" or "move." Of course, this does not violate relativity at all.
Are you sure? (Ph.D. sure).
Light is either a string of particles or a wave; either one can be modeled approximately by a high-pressure hose.
If I suddenly turn my hose 180 degrees, I don't move the water that's allready gone out of the hose; I simply start shooting water out at a different angle.
OTOH, if "spot of light" means "area targeted by the laser, then it can move rather well. But it'll still take 8 minutes to get to the new target & can't violate relativity. The target doesn't *move*, it's simply changed--and since the target is just an imaginary spot, it's not bound by relativity. (Quick, think about earth, now about the sun--bet'cha it doesn't take you eight minutes to switch.)
If you want to see a "thing" travelling faster than light, sweep a searchlight across a cloudy sky. That lit-up patch can, in principle, travel faster than light -- but it's not matter or energy, only an appearance.
You're using an assumption that always bugs me.
Let's say, for example, that I've got a 1 AU (about 8 light-minitue) long indistructable rod and I'm out in space. I push the rod. Common sense says that the far tip of the rod moves at the same time I move the near tip. But that'd break the speed of light; forgetting about inertia for a moment, it'd take at least 8 minutes for the rod to move after I push the near end.
If I have a powerful laser out in space that points out to 1 AU, and a spin it 180 degress, the "spot" of light doesn't move; light just starts moving out at c in the opposite direction.
Yeah, and that's probably not what you meant... but it's bugged me ever since High School.
What happens if we change the salinity of the oceans? Lowering the salinity of the oceans is a posited factor in the beginning of the last Ice Age.
Call me a novice, but wouldn't taking the water of the ocean raise their salinity?
Also, no chemical reaction is perfect, so we lose a little of Earth's water supply every time we expend a tank of hydrogen, do we not.
Not unless we toss it out into space. Every chemical reaction is perfect. The measurement and clean up isn't, which leaves an entrophic residue, but the water's still "here."
This seems on the face of things like a clean source of energy, but could it also be the path to even more rapid climate change?
I don't think so. AFAIK one of the chief causes of global warming is still dirty automobiles. Shifting the pollution from there to power plants would be a good one--we'd have a volume where the necessary tech to clean the exhause (really clean it, that is) is affordable.
Fuel cells, by an large, are seen as a Good Thing ecologically speaking.
With this logic, PC's should be banned, as they can copy music, MSN and AOL should be shut down, since they provide access to the internet, which has illegal copies of music, and hell, XM radio should be shutdown as well, since it is hackable and can have music ripped off of it...
Last time I checked on Gnutella, I found a lot of porn, a lot of copyright violations, and a few things that were probably legitimate (sound clips from movies are borderline; the only real solidly legals ones were 100% copyleft docs [which are better had from the central source] and "save Gnutella" text files.)
It would be great of P2P file sharing networks were used for significant legal and moral purposes; but the efficient distribution of porn (which is probably also a copyright violation...) isn't a compelling factor against the public good...
(Yeah, yeah, I know... I've bought more CDs since I installed Gnucleus than before, but that doesn't mean I don't think it's a legal qaugmire that's just waiting to be slapped down.)
Explain the existence of compulsory licenses then.
You mean like the GPL? By making a derivitive work, you are making a copy of part of someone else's copyrighten work, and thus need their permission--which is the GPL. (That's why it's called "copyleft.")
Or do you mean the sort of licenses that the government (the FCC, IIRC) forces the music industry to apply to radio stations? I don't know a lot about them, but they seem (to my layman's view) to be a forced use of powers the copyright holder has, not a reduction of them.
I.e., if they publish the songs, they have to charge no more than $x to anyone who wants them and can pay. But they can still charge less than $X (including $0) or not publish.
Of course, this depends on your book. Ronald Tobias argues that there are only 20 Master Plots [barnesandnoble.com] instead of 36:
Did you even read that book? I did, and the author specifically mentions this whole fallacy about counting plots in the first section. The number is (IIRC) 2, 4, 36, or a nearly infinite number. The twenty he lists are just plots that are likey to be appreciated by & familiar to a modern audience, and so make good archtypes.
And he doesn't even mention interweaving of plots, or plot shifts, or opposing plots. A good story should have more than one plot--when I pick up a novel, I can reasonably expect to see some adventure, a quest, a few riddles, ascension / descension in good ones, and probably love / sacrafice / discovery too.
Well, if you really want to admit it, there are only about three plots. You have Man against Nature, Man against Man and Man against Himself.
Bullocks. Those are *conflicts*, not *plots*. And if you boil down the conflicts you get "action" and "re-action"--either man is working for something, or against something.
There are, at least, twenty reasonably different plots--and when you weave plots together to form a larger story, and add in minor alterations to familiar themes, you get a larger and larger number that approaches effective infinity (so many plots that any writer in any culture can always come up with something 'new.')
Let's say that we have a hypothetical bunch of three characters, each of which having one distinct motive and one distinct treasure, in addition to their own distinct being. (i.e., "Captain Archer" and "Captain Kirk" are different characters even though they're both captians of the Enterprise.)
With these hypothetical characters, and a hypotheical television run, we have plots of discovery for each character, motive, and quality, all of which will take anywhere from five minutes (one page) to a whole episode (50 pages). Each motive can drive at least one plot to influence or use any of the three characters' treasures or beings, which gives us at least 18 plots from these three characters. Each character can also drive at least reactionary plot from each other character's movie, giving us an additional 6 plots.
A well-written storyline will blend these plots together, with preludes and aftermath happening almost invisibliy to the viewer; rather than seeing the opening and closing of each "episode", the audience would see a session of a story.
Unfortunately, the uniqueness of characters on television and media tends to wean down the ammount of useful plots; what could be great stories are often reduced to formulatic showcases of the "plot element of the week" (or "of the movie") while the character set tends to either not change at all, change in abrupt fashions, or last for a short (and "unprofitable" time.)
And then in another year, after our collective memory has faded.... it'll be 40% painful.... then 60%... then soon you'll find a coin slot next to your 3 gig floppy drive to pay for copywritten letters that make up the emails you are reading.
No one but me has the right to copy something I own the copyright to--or charge for that right.
The logical extreme of DRM is a flag that truly prevents you from copying or saving a file with that flag on--but that's it. Everyone, even RIAA drones, wants some use of "copyrighted works" to still be free.
Once down the slippery slope, the only way to stop is to either dig in or hit the bottom.
And if Vietnam fell to communism, the entire world would follow...
Or if you start walking towards a wall that's 1 mile away, and you cover half the distance in a minute, you'll never get there...
And because your stock is going up, you can assume that it'll go up forever because people can just buy in and sell higher no matter what.
There are very, very few real "slippery slopes." DRM isn't, IMO, one of them.
The slippery slope in this model is, IMO, "file-sharing." Once it was MP3s on IRC, then websites, then Napster--and then the slope ended when RIAA was forced to take legal action because it had gotten too big to ignore.
Any RIAA marketoid who tries to tell you that there's a license attached to DVD sales that don't contain a user-accessable list of that license is blowing smoke.
DVDs are largely protected by copyright law--and the only "license" there is the implicit right to make "copies" necessary for use of the DVD (such as "copying" it into RAM.)
Unless something changed, they're in the same catagory as books; doctrine of first sale, fair use, et al.
I assume you are an american. Do you pledge your allegiance to the descendants of the Vikings (that would propably mean Norway) or to Spain? Or maybe to the native americans. They did get there first, so by your logic, they own the land you have parked your arse on.
Limiting the case to the moon... the USA is the *only* country to send folks to the Moon. Until someone comes around and contests our claim, we've got the only real claim that there is.
And, yes, we treatied-away that claim to keep the cold war affordable. But we've still got a bit more of a claim to everyone's favorite rock than anyone else.
Star Trek anti Christian? I doubt that very much. First off, my pastor loves Star Trek and see's nothing anti christian in it at all. You don't see sex portrayed much in Star Trek and I hope they never go down that line.
I don't see anything anti-chrisitan in Harry Potter or D&D either, but I can see the possiblities.
Star Trek: God doesn't exist, and the universe is ruled by capricious powers called "Q" that are more akin to the deacent roman gods than anything in the Christina mythos.
While I will agree that Star Wars had some witchcraft connotations they are just that....connotations. And with the release of The Phantom Menace and other prequels we find out that Jedi's aren't as mistifying as they seem. There's a scientific reason they can do the things they do....even if it's made up (midichlorians).
Anakin was concieved by the midicholorians, and is referred to many times as "the chosen one." If you're going to count anything in media as "witchcraft" or "anti-christian", you had better count Star Wars in it.
Harry Potter is blantant. It comes right out and screams we are witches and worlocks. To me ANY form of that is evil. There's no such thing as a good witch. Now I am not going to go on a witch hunt because the ones who say they are are being fooled by satan.
Why, exactly, is witchcraft evil? The most damning thing I've ever seen in the bible about it is it being listed along with other "desires of the flesh" like sex and anger. Hardly a "damn on name" thing, if you ask me.
One of the most interesting books I have read was a comparison of the Jedi to Christians. It was a really compelling book albiet small.
I saw a website not too long ago that laid out a "Jedi" wicca tradition. Notwistanding the obvious similarities between wicca and our own faith, I don't think Jedi are any closer to Christians than they are to Witchcraft.
I am not closed minded. I believe that there's one god and there's noone more powerful then him. I cannot accept that there are any more gods than the only god I know.
Why not? God said not to worship them. He said don't obey them. He said be wary of them--he never said "there aren't any other gods but me."
They do exist. They shouldn't be given any more respect than a mortal soul (at best--some are doubtless as bad as fallen angels), but they do exist.
Telekenesis is not really an indication of god either. You think god is going to come down and make thing levitate to prove he's god? That's laughable in this day and age.
I didn't say it was an indication of God. It is, however, one of the feats that modern-day witches aspire to.
Dogma is nothing more then legalism and it's not what is preached at my church...
I am not condeming you if you read Harry Potter. I am saying I will not read it because it's counter to all of my belief system. If that's closed minded, well, so be it. At least I have the guts to try to stick to my beliefs rather then roll over and submit to satan's whims like most folks do.
You believe in an unwavering, judgemental dogma that brands "witchcraft" as satanism. This is simply not the case. I know a whole slew of witches, and they're not satanists--they're not christians either, but they're certainly not satanists any more than christians of a different denominations (or Jews or Muslims) are.
There's nothing evil or automatically damning about Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, or any other story. Every question raised about our faith can be answered, and every act of God understood with enough knoweldge. Our religion is not one of hidebound route and routine--it's one of love and forgiveness, and the God I know isn't someone who will damn someone who just reads a book.
Sure. I'll do Star Wars first, becasue it's easy.
- Religous premise is a pantheistic, no-divinity "Force."
- People don't die and go go heaven, they just die / stick around as blue glowing spirits
- Man is the creature most able to influence the Force, and never, in any movie or book I've ever read, as there been even mention of discorporeal beigns who can maniupate the force better (those'd be God / gods / angels / demons).
Now, as for Star Trek:- No god, no religion at all, in any character EXCEPT for the Klingons and the Bajorans
- What religion is portrayed is viewed as "scientific anomoalies"
- Various infinitely-powerful beings are the only "Gods" out there, including the Roman gods but neither Christianity nor the saints
- Q
By the way, none of these are "messages." They're just small things that be viewed as "Anti-Christian" by the same sort of people who refuse Harry Potter because it's got "Witchcraft," or D&D because it's "satanist" (according the mother of a gay, drug-addict suicide who blamed on the roleplaying game and not the truth.)See, FUD isn't just limited to software!
;)
:) So, let's dialgoue.)
And, on a more personal note, just some points I like to make when painted in the light *you* just shed...
1) Paganism (Not specifically modern Wicca) has been around as long as there has been agriculture. They were our Holidays first.
"Paganism" is a rather lousy word that, in modern English, means "not Christian." I hate neo-pagans 's attempts to try and reinvent the language...
But in any case, it's a misnomer. There *is* no unified Paganism, just as there's no unififed "Monotheism." What you have is modern-day traditions that are mostly wicca, and are based on a few dozen attempts to revive "the old ways."
I have respesct for my pagan friends, but that doesn't mean I don't think they're as historically wrong as if I were to say that the offspring of Jesus Christ are the reason Europe conquered the world.
2) Pagans, as a general rule, do not try to convert others, nor force any way of thinking on anyone. We prefer you think for yourself.
(as for myself, I am just impressed when some people *think* at all)
I've heard this line before, and I don't buy it. Sure, there aren't any 'Pagan' televangelist, but a pagan acts the exact same way most Christians do when asked about matters of faith. Not once have I heard a pagan ask "well, what do you think?" in this discussion. In a lot of ways, they're a closeminded as us "unthinking" Christians.
(Yes, there are the few notable exceptions--just like there are Christians who think rather well, and have shaped the world into the way it is today.)
3) Sorry, no devil here. Thats *your* religions creation. You deal with him.
So, the things that we deal with in our religion are all made up, and not real? Then you're are @!#$ing atheist, you bastard!
Seriously, though--"If I don't believe in you, will you go away?" (The same thing applies to Christians vs. Pagan Gods as Pagas vs. Satan. The spirits in question do exist, even if their exact makeup is unclear.)
4) Well, I could go on for pages about this, but it's pretty redundant. check out *my* page for more information.
5) Oh, well.. There is *one* bad thing about being Pagan/Wiccan. We've never had those wholesale "convert or die" parties like y'all had, so Mel Brooks has never had a chance to make up snazzy songs about our past..
(Humming.. "The Inquisition... here it comes...")
Wiccans have been around since about the 1960s, fella. You haven't been around LONG enough to have an Inquistion. (Oh, and there's this matter of the human sacrafices we found in Europe...)
Oh, by the way, by *your* religions rules, You're supposed to love the sinner,
I love my enemy as if he were my self. That doesn't perclude me from hating my self and railing against my sins--and it certainly doesn't gag Christians from speaking out agianst what they see as evil.
(The proper response is to engage in a dialogue, not rant.
It is not noble protest. I am not sticking it to the man. I am simply trying to make sure I buy good movies and good records. If singles weren't so overpriced, maybe I would buy those for the songs on the radio. I refuse to pay 15 dollars to figure out that the record has two good songs on it.
That's all well and good--but what do we do about those that abuse the system, and DO want to steal? The Two Towers, unfinished cuts of songs, and a whole slew of other things that aren't even done yet are what got the RIAA so angry at Napster in the first place.
File-sharing can be as good a promotional tool as radio--but it's also an avenue for raping an artist's control of their work--or a business's model for marketing that work--more viciously than anything ever devised since before copyright law was invented.
Sci Fi is NOT fantasy.
Actually, in a very roundabout way, it is.
The line between what is "science fiction" and what is "fantasy" is often a moot point. They're both books about worlds that are not and probably never will be, and have (almost) identical target audiences. It used to be that they were just one catagory, but then fantasy broke off on its own--although they still carry the same stigmas, and they still are stocked in the same sections in some stores.
As for the so-called witchcraft in Harry Potter... there's no more real withcraft in there than there was in Star Wars or anything C.S. Lewis ever wrote. In fact, there's more anit-Christian moments in American Gods.
You should give Harry Potter a chance. It's a fun book, with more than a few christian or nearly-christian themes, even if God is a bit absent. But if you refuse to give "Harry Potter" a chance because of its "witchcraft" themes, can you at least be consistent and stay away from Star Wars, Star Trek, American Gods, Babylon 5, everything Asimov wrote, and just about all the other avenues of Science Fiction ever written? They ALL have rather blatant anti-Christian messages, and are filled with blasphemy, aside from a very small minority.
As for Harry Potter being a fad... there's still two or three books in the pipe, as well as another movie coming out next year. You don't see anything in the media about Harry Potter now because (1) it's not longer news and (2) the next movie/book isn't out for awhile, so advertising would be moot.
(Oh, and on a side note, I'm rather certain that seeing the future, preaching, guided-action, levitation, and telekinesis are all historically "witchraft" activiites, while shootling lightning bolts from one's hands didn't get there until D&D and its contemporaries entered print.)
Proven medical treatments, such as silver, acupuncture, homeopathy, etc. (proven not by a few piddly years of research, but in most cases many decades or centuries of use) will never be embraced by the mainstream medical establishment as long as the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to dictate medical policy and control the way we are permitted to keep ourselves healthy./i
Welcome to the age of science, where everything that can be tested IS tested, and (sadly) processe that are prone to human error and difficult to reproduce are not always given the benefit of the doubt.
Plus, when something's just starting out in the modern world--like actupuncutre--they tend to be take up by inventive quacks, which sets back their use quite a bit.
But in any case, here in the USA you're "permitted you keep yourself healthy" any damn way you want. The AMA / your insurance company might not pay for it, but you can stop sending them money and just set yourself up a savings account. Doctors and hospitals do pay cash, and your local pracitioners of acupuncture and homeopathy probably do as well.
(I pay upwards of 2,000 a year for health insurance, and I've gone for over five years with going to the doctor just a handful of times--and that $2,000 doesn't even cover the co-pays. If i wasn't paranoid, or if my insurance plan stopped covering what I use it for, I might just stop giving them money and keep it for something better.)
That's pretty damn shweet.
Probably standdard toy batteries--1.5 v cells, most likely C or D size. But any battery you can wire in that will produce 12 V will probably do it.
Remember, this is a consumer product--and unless otherwise stated, consumer products follow standards. (If it wasn't going to be standard, they'd say "9-volt battery" or "battery pack." doing otherwise runs the risk of bad press.)
Think of competing identical products. Each one could continue to lower their prices, but the other companies would match those prices, thus killing any profits that might have been earned. Not to mention that once the price drops, the margins get thinner, making nobody (but the consumers) happy.
I don't see what you're getting at. If the margins are getting slimmer and slimmer, they can introduce the better project at a higher margin, and boost their profitability without undercutting their main product.
It's happened with light bulbs, and there are obvious reasons why it can't quite work with x86 chips or gasoline-powered cars. (No, wait, the "better product" is happening with gasoline powered cars. [I'd link to Honda, but their !$#ing website spits Mozilla an error message.] )
I'll readilly admit that pure capitalism is often set back by short-term profits. But that doesn't mean that there are oogles of goodies in every catagory we care about that are far better than what we've got just sitting on the shelf not doing anything.