I am not saying that we can get as accurate a picture of the state of the Universe, just that it is still possible to make observations about the Universe as a whole while still limited to an internal point of view.
You can't see the boundaries, you don't know the planet is full, you don't know if it's inside a Dyson Sphere either, seismo-data be damned.
It seems a little contradictory to assume that portions of the Universe can exist with "nothing" in it, for example no matter or energy, and therefore no expanse of space-time. If it is possible to argue that the Universe doesn't exist beyond the bounds of energy and space-time, it is theoretically possible that we could "measure" the Universe by noting the existence of it's contents.
Again, yes, relative perceptions considered, if you are percieving the Universe from an internal point you may have a different relative perception in relative comparison to the viewpoint from an external point.
So if you don't mind brushing up a bit on your Theory of Relativity, you will realize that your point doesn't make much of an arguement against the idea that you can build a conceptual model of the Universe in it's entirety from an internal viewpoint. Relatively speaking, of course.;)
Well, your first mistake was assuming a college prof listens anything ANYONE says the first time.
It's like raising a feisty toddler, sometimes NOT telling them "no" is the best medicine.
Most PC users are oblivious to spyware, even the annoying pop-up adds and even the nice prompts that ask you politely to steal your personal information. (I curse at thee, Gator!)
In addition to all of the personal PC's I have disinfected, I worked for a Univ IT deptartment for 4+ years. It's amazing how fast a machine can be infected with spyware after a fresh ghost, especially when it involves your average student user. *smirk*
Considering how much *crap* I have cleaned off of PC's over the years, I am honestly surprised that the suck-factor isn't ALOT higher.
The human mind is incapable of generating a truely random order. It constantly seeks to find a pattern, create a pattern, form some sort of order in things. True randomness is annoying.
When I listen to music and I am in a mellow mood, I don't want to hear Queen followed by Prodigy. I want Hendrix, or Zepplin, or any of the Floyd Albums.
When I was in college and actually had free time, I spent HOURS on end sorting and re-organizing my music playlists to get a nice flow between the mood, context and general transition between different songs.
The thing is, it's hard to qualitatively seperate songs into only one category, because the Beatles "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" can easily fit into a mellow mood, an angsty mood, an upbeat mood and also a poetic "best of" mood.
Once I get a playlist with a specific theme and general flow that I like, I just hit "reverse" or move a few tracks around to keep it from getting too repetitive.
So I settle for listening to the local classic 60's/70's radio station, or one of my old sorted playlists to give me a fresh order of songs, but still keep to a theme that won't bounce between my many different musical tastes!
Archimedes discovered that the volume of a container can be found by measuring it's contents. In a similar manner, we can conjecture on the nature of the Universe by observing it's contents.
How would they rate a LAN tax?
Hey, they could start counting packets and dub it the pr0n meter. The only problem is the World would go broke overnight.
How would they rate a LAN tax?
Hey, they could start counting packets and dub it the pr0n meter. The only problem is the World would go broke overnight.
Developing a Theory on the shape of the Universe may help explain questions in other Theories, such as "strange background radiation" as mentioned in the original post.
It also helps explain why Captain Picard got laid so often. "Hey, baby, your talkin' to the guy they named the Universe after..."
As to your example about being 4 miles deep in the Earth, even though you may not be able to "see" the outer surface of the planet, you could still use seismic observation to map the size and shape of the earth from the inside. By observing radiation and light-shifts we now have the new and improved "shape of the Universe".
If you still think that knowing the shape of the Universe is useless, men have been searching for useless explanations to equally useless questions since the dawn of man so there should be no surprise there.
I don't see the advantage of this over any other P2P app that already exists. Encryption strikes a dissonant chord with me in this case. If you want the advantage of public file sharing, what is the benefit of encryption, since you purposefully want to share information with the public already?
There are plenty of encrypted chat programs already out there. I know Hushmail has an encrypted chat program, and I believe there are encryption plugins that exist for ICQ, etc.
If I am missing something here, I welcome anyone to explain what the hoopla is all about.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not saying that we can get as accurate a picture of the state of the Universe, just that it is still possible to make observations about the Universe as a whole while still limited to an internal point of view.
;)
You can't see the boundaries, you don't know the planet is full, you don't know if it's inside a Dyson Sphere either, seismo-data be damned.
It seems a little contradictory to assume that portions of the Universe can exist with "nothing" in it, for example no matter or energy, and therefore no expanse of space-time. If it is possible to argue that the Universe doesn't exist beyond the bounds of energy and space-time, it is theoretically possible that we could "measure" the Universe by noting the existence of it's contents.
Again, yes, relative perceptions considered, if you are percieving the Universe from an internal point you may have a different relative perception in relative comparison to the viewpoint from an external point.
So if you don't mind brushing up a bit on your Theory of Relativity, you will realize that your point doesn't make much of an arguement against the idea that you can build a conceptual model of the Universe in it's entirety from an internal viewpoint. Relatively speaking, of course.
Well, your first mistake was assuming a college prof listens anything ANYONE says the first time. It's like raising a feisty toddler, sometimes NOT telling them "no" is the best medicine.
Most PC users are oblivious to spyware, even the annoying pop-up adds and even the nice prompts that ask you politely to steal your personal information. (I curse at thee, Gator!)
In addition to all of the personal PC's I have disinfected, I worked for a Univ IT deptartment for 4+ years. It's amazing how fast a machine can be infected with spyware after a fresh ghost, especially when it involves your average student user. *smirk*
Considering how much *crap* I have cleaned off of PC's over the years, I am honestly surprised that the suck-factor isn't ALOT higher.
The human mind is incapable of generating a truely random order. It constantly seeks to find a pattern, create a pattern, form some sort of order in things. True randomness is annoying.
When I listen to music and I am in a mellow mood, I don't want to hear Queen followed by Prodigy. I want Hendrix, or Zepplin, or any of the Floyd Albums.
When I was in college and actually had free time, I spent HOURS on end sorting and re-organizing my music playlists to get a nice flow between the mood, context and general transition between different songs.
The thing is, it's hard to qualitatively seperate songs into only one category, because the Beatles "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" can easily fit into a mellow mood, an angsty mood, an upbeat mood and also a poetic "best of" mood.
Once I get a playlist with a specific theme and general flow that I like, I just hit "reverse" or move a few tracks around to keep it from getting too repetitive.
So I settle for listening to the local classic 60's/70's radio station, or one of my old sorted playlists to give me a fresh order of songs, but still keep to a theme that won't bounce between my many different musical tastes!
Archimedes discovered that the volume of a container can be found by measuring it's contents. In a similar manner, we can conjecture on the nature of the Universe by observing it's contents.
How would they rate a LAN tax?
Hey, they could start counting packets and dub it the pr0n meter. The only problem is the World would go broke overnight.
Holy!... sorry, this ended up under the wrong topic. many appologies.
How would they rate a LAN tax?
Hey, they could start counting packets and dub it the pr0n meter. The only problem is the World would go broke overnight.
Developing a Theory on the shape of the Universe may help explain questions in other Theories, such as "strange background radiation" as mentioned in the original post.
It also helps explain why Captain Picard got laid so often. "Hey, baby, your talkin' to the guy they named the Universe after..."
As to your example about being 4 miles deep in the Earth, even though you may not be able to "see" the outer surface of the planet, you could still use seismic observation to map the size and shape of the earth from the inside. By observing radiation and light-shifts we now have the new and improved "shape of the Universe".
If you still think that knowing the shape of the Universe is useless, men have been searching for useless explanations to equally useless questions since the dawn of man so there should be no surprise there.
Thanks (to all of the above) for the replies, this makes a bit more sense now.
I can definitely appreciate the part about "[no] need to patch a Linux kernel." Very schweet.
I don't see the advantage of this over any other P2P app that already exists. Encryption strikes a dissonant chord with me in this case. If you want the advantage of public file sharing, what is the benefit of encryption, since you purposefully want to share information with the public already? There are plenty of encrypted chat programs already out there. I know Hushmail has an encrypted chat program, and I believe there are encryption plugins that exist for ICQ, etc. If I am missing something here, I welcome anyone to explain what the hoopla is all about.