Yeah I know the first I reach for when I play a flight sim is my keyboard and mouse. Why those stupid real life pilots prefer old fashion sticks and yokes is beyond me.
Actually a more valid complaint from old gamers like me is how in the hell people play FPSs with joysticks, i.e. those analogy thumb sticks on consoles.
I dunno, I kind of think of it like that, exp(-mr)/r just drops off a lot faster than 1/r, but it always does have a non-zero value, albeit effectively zero beyond a short range.
I've always found it interesting that they could fairly accurately model the strong force at the nucleon level as pion exchange long before they theorized quarks with color as the "real" cause of nuclear binding. It's like the layers of an onion.
Another interesting thing is that the range of the force is determined by the mass of its carrier particles. Gravity and Electromagnetism have infinite range, whereas the Weak Force has a very small range due to the mass of the W and Z (which is suppose to come the Higgs). Now gluons are actually supposed to be massless, but the Strong Force is range is still limited due to the fact the gluons have color and change interact with themselves (it's the only force that gets *stronger* with distance) unlike the other carrier particles that don't carry the "charge" of their field.
Yep that is correct. The photon is the carrier of the electromagnetic force, and light is an electromagnetic wave. The force felt between charged particles is caused by the exchange of virtual photons. All fields can be thought of as made of quantized particles. In the case of the fundamental forces: Electromagnetism - photons, Gravity - graviton (theorized), Weak Force - W and Z bosons, Strong Force - 8 colored gluons.
Well I guess I've been doing my own personal informal OLPC project for a while without really thinking about it. Namely, buying iBooks cheap off of eBay and giving them to my nieces, nephews, family, friends, etc, as well as donating my old machines to various places. Haven't we reached the point where there are more than enough computers out there that are more than adequate for basic computing tasks? Can't we donate those old computers to schools rather than wasting resources building shiny new computers to run bloated new software that doesn't run any faster than the old software ran on the old hardware? Granted the new stuff theoretically gives you more bang for the buck, but do most people really need that extra bang? Sure computers break down and there will always be a need for new ones to replace them, but haven't we pretty much reached the saturation point? I can get a $50 laptop off of eBay that will browse the net, check e-mail, i.e. everything an average user would need.
Wow, I think I last used a personal printer around the same time I last used a floppy, 1998 maybe?:) I remember buying a cheapo ($10, couldn't pass it up) inkjet a couple of years ago just to have one and never once used the darn thing. Now I have used the one at work a couple of times to print airline boarding passes but that's about it.
Ignignokt: Our race is hundreds of years beyond yours.
Err: Man, you hear what he's sayin'?
Ignignokt: Some would say that the earth is our moon.
Err: We're the moon.
Ignignokt: But that would belittle the name of our moon...which is "The Moon".
Err: Point is: We're at the center, not you.
Carl: No, the real point is I don't give a damn.
Well if one of the incompatibilities is getting rid of the goddamn significant whitespace I'm all behind it. It might even encourage me to give the language a chance. If it weren't for Civ IV I would have never used it for anything. A good slashdot poll would be how many people haven't even bothered with the language because of "the whitespace thing".
It's pretty self-evident to anyone that has used Google maps or Safari on an iPhone for 2 seconds that it's fingers out to zoom in and fingers in to zoom out. Your fingers are moving the points closer together (fingers in == zooming out) or further apart (fingers out == zooming in).
The problem is that I don't believe that either would be, so it would be fairly important if I were considering freezing myself or taking a transporter ride.:) As others have pointed out it's completely subjective, it's unknowable, and honestly yes it's not even a meaningful objective question to ask because each would think they were me, and both would be right and wrong, but it's still fun to ponder.
I'm talking about reproducing an identical arrangement of atoms, not reproducing the identical quantum state of all the atoms in the person. Given that you work at Fermilab, I'm sure you see the difference.:) Perhaps "atomic level" was a poor choice of words. For the purposes of this thought experiment why don't we say at "cellular or anatomic level" then? Let's not get into hand waving arguments that quantum effects somehow make it impossible to duplicate an identical copy of a brain.
Oh boy, you really picked the wrong fight brother, given that I have a degree in Physics and know a few things they teach in grad school.:) I'm not talking about reproducing quantum information, I'm talking about constructing an identical arrangement of atoms. Using your logic I guess it's impossible to duplicate anything atom by atom. I guess you should call the guys working on nanotechnology and tell them to give up.
Speaking of quantum effects, I always hate when people bring in quantum effects to try to explain consciousness (or new age garbage, like that "What the #$!@ do we know" movie masquerading as some sort of science documentary). As far as I can tell, their reasoning goes something like this "Quantum mechanics is weird and spooky, and we don't quite understand how it works, consciousness is weird and spooky, and we don't quite understand how it works, therefore consciousness is a quantum effect."
Starting with the hypothesis that consciousness is purely a physical thing (i.e. the atoms and electric signals firing in your brain, and there is no soul or wonky business like that)--a hypothesis that I happen to agree with. It is a *profoundly* mysterious question if it would, in fact, be the same "you" inside if your brain were switched off for a while and then turned back on. Suppose in the time you were shut off, it were possible to make an exact copy of yourself, down to the atomic level, and then both copies were turned back on. Which one is "you"? Obviously both of you would think you were the original since you share the exact same memories.
It's one of those questions that seem unanswerable. Personally I feel it has something to do with the continuity of brain activity. You interrupt that, and whatever that "spark" is ceases to be, and if the brain is turned back on, it would be a different "you". Which is why I'd never take a transporter ride and think actual working cryonics would be pointless since I would never experience waking back up, it would be a different consciousness, albeit one that thinks everything went just fine. If ever underwent either, I would assume the "me" that woke back up would have some lingering doubts.:)
A whole 2 or 3 points on a test that completely accurately gauges a person's intelligent and future success. Amazing! Take that kid brother, with your 131 IQ compared to my 133. Fucking retard! Have fun working a McDonalds while I complete my Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics!
Well I guess now that study is complete they can move on to less important things like curing cancer.
I agree with you that most descriptions of entanglement are BS, especially in the mainstream media, but as far as Cramer's transactional interpretation goes it's just an alternative interpretation of QM. The "transaction" that occurs in this interpretation when the wave function finally collapses happens atemporally through the advanced and retarded offer waves. There's no classical information transfer. As I understand it, initially Cramer was only using this alternative interpretation as a teaching tool. Apparently now he's trying to find experimental evidence in cases where it would differ from other interpretations.
Yeah the problem with FTL is that it connects events with a space-like interval which will have different temporal ordering depending on what reference frame you're in. In the tranasctional interpretation quantum information is transmitted at exactly the speed of light (light-like separation, 0 proper time) symmetrically in time. I loved this symmetric time idea when I first read about in Feynman's Lectures on Physics (where it was applied to his absorber theory to explain radiative reaction in EM).
This guy isn't crazy, the idea of using advanced waves goes all the way back to Feynman (see Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory which is what this is based upon). This merely another interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. All he's trying to do is see if we can experimentally verify it as producing different results than the "standard" interpretations. It's called science people, look into it. Sometimes crazy ideas turn out to be true, you don't know until, you know, you run experiments. As crazy ideas go, this one isn't that off the wall, it's based on actual physics. There's no FTL involved, the transactions all occur at the speed of light through advanced and retarded waves.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah I know the first I reach for when I play a flight sim is my keyboard and mouse. Why those stupid real life pilots prefer old fashion sticks and yokes is beyond me.
Actually a more valid complaint from old gamers like me is how in the hell people play FPSs with joysticks, i.e. those analogy thumb sticks on consoles.
I dunno, I kind of think of it like that, exp(-mr)/r just drops off a lot faster than 1/r, but it always does have a non-zero value, albeit effectively zero beyond a short range.
I've always found it interesting that they could fairly accurately model the strong force at the nucleon level as pion exchange long before they theorized quarks with color as the "real" cause of nuclear binding. It's like the layers of an onion.
Nope that's not a typo either. :) The potential goes at 1/r, the force (which is the derivative) goes as 1/r^2.
Another interesting thing is that the range of the force is determined by the mass of its carrier particles. Gravity and Electromagnetism have infinite range, whereas the Weak Force has a very small range due to the mass of the W and Z (which is suppose to come the Higgs). Now gluons are actually supposed to be massless, but the Strong Force is range is still limited due to the fact the gluons have color and change interact with themselves (it's the only force that gets *stronger* with distance) unlike the other carrier particles that don't carry the "charge" of their field.
Yep that is correct. The photon is the carrier of the electromagnetic force, and light is an electromagnetic wave. The force felt between charged particles is caused by the exchange of virtual photons. All fields can be thought of as made of quantized particles. In the case of the fundamental forces: Electromagnetism - photons, Gravity - graviton (theorized), Weak Force - W and Z bosons, Strong Force - 8 colored gluons.
Well I guess I've been doing my own personal informal OLPC project for a while without really thinking about it. Namely, buying iBooks cheap off of eBay and giving them to my nieces, nephews, family, friends, etc, as well as donating my old machines to various places. Haven't we reached the point where there are more than enough computers out there that are more than adequate for basic computing tasks? Can't we donate those old computers to schools rather than wasting resources building shiny new computers to run bloated new software that doesn't run any faster than the old software ran on the old hardware? Granted the new stuff theoretically gives you more bang for the buck, but do most people really need that extra bang? Sure computers break down and there will always be a need for new ones to replace them, but haven't we pretty much reached the saturation point? I can get a $50 laptop off of eBay that will browse the net, check e-mail, i.e. everything an average user would need.
Wow, I think I last used a personal printer around the same time I last used a floppy, 1998 maybe? :) I remember buying a cheapo ($10, couldn't pass it up) inkjet a couple of years ago just to have one and never once used the darn thing. Now I have used the one at work a couple of times to print airline boarding passes but that's about it.
Ignignokt: Our race is hundreds of years beyond yours. Err: Man, you hear what he's sayin'? Ignignokt: Some would say that the earth is our moon. Err: We're the moon. Ignignokt: But that would belittle the name of our moon...which is "The Moon". Err: Point is: We're at the center, not you. Carl: No, the real point is I don't give a damn.
Actually you must be thinking of Mimas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimas_(moon)
Well if one of the incompatibilities is getting rid of the goddamn significant whitespace I'm all behind it. It might even encourage me to give the language a chance. If it weren't for Civ IV I would have never used it for anything. A good slashdot poll would be how many people haven't even bothered with the language because of "the whitespace thing".
It's pretty self-evident to anyone that has used Google maps or Safari on an iPhone for 2 seconds that it's fingers out to zoom in and fingers in to zoom out. Your fingers are moving the points closer together (fingers in == zooming out) or further apart (fingers out == zooming in).
Yeah really, it was intended as a joke, not an "insight". Thanks to both jerks that rated it insightful and then overrated.
Let's see, the Mac OS is up to version 10, so yeah, 7, that's about right. Windows is about 3 versions behind the Mac OS.
Yeah it's a reference to this infamous Slashdot article: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/22/022222 1 I thought it was especially appropriate given the previous Harry Potter spoiler article.
Oh wait, was I suppose to put a spoiler alert first?
The problem is that I don't believe that either would be, so it would be fairly important if I were considering freezing myself or taking a transporter ride. :) As others have pointed out it's completely subjective, it's unknowable, and honestly yes it's not even a meaningful objective question to ask because each would think they were me, and both would be right and wrong, but it's still fun to ponder.
I'm talking about reproducing an identical arrangement of atoms, not reproducing the identical quantum state of all the atoms in the person. Given that you work at Fermilab, I'm sure you see the difference. :) Perhaps "atomic level" was a poor choice of words. For the purposes of this thought experiment why don't we say at "cellular or anatomic level" then? Let's not get into hand waving arguments that quantum effects somehow make it impossible to duplicate an identical copy of a brain.
Oh boy, you really picked the wrong fight brother, given that I have a degree in Physics and know a few things they teach in grad school. :) I'm not talking about reproducing quantum information, I'm talking about constructing an identical arrangement of atoms. Using your logic I guess it's impossible to duplicate anything atom by atom. I guess you should call the guys working on nanotechnology and tell them to give up.
Speaking of quantum effects, I always hate when people bring in quantum effects to try to explain consciousness (or new age garbage, like that "What the #$!@ do we know" movie masquerading as some sort of science documentary). As far as I can tell, their reasoning goes something like this "Quantum mechanics is weird and spooky, and we don't quite understand how it works, consciousness is weird and spooky, and we don't quite understand how it works, therefore consciousness is a quantum effect."
Starting with the hypothesis that consciousness is purely a physical thing (i.e. the atoms and electric signals firing in your brain, and there is no soul or wonky business like that)--a hypothesis that I happen to agree with. It is a *profoundly* mysterious question if it would, in fact, be the same "you" inside if your brain were switched off for a while and then turned back on. Suppose in the time you were shut off, it were possible to make an exact copy of yourself, down to the atomic level, and then both copies were turned back on. Which one is "you"? Obviously both of you would think you were the original since you share the exact same memories.
:)
It's one of those questions that seem unanswerable. Personally I feel it has something to do with the continuity of brain activity. You interrupt that, and whatever that "spark" is ceases to be, and if the brain is turned back on, it would be a different "you". Which is why I'd never take a transporter ride and think actual working cryonics would be pointless since I would never experience waking back up, it would be a different consciousness, albeit one that thinks everything went just fine. If ever underwent either, I would assume the "me" that woke back up would have some lingering doubts.
One of the many philosophical papers on this: http://www.benbest.com/philo/doubles.html
Or did you actually mean to assign the value of Mess to Maturity? ;)
I always thought so, too, but then I checked:
ricks-dual-g5:~ rickb$ man less
LESS(1)
NAME
less - opposite of more
He is no longer "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince", he is now "The Artist Formerly Known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince".
A whole 2 or 3 points on a test that completely accurately gauges a person's intelligent and future success. Amazing! Take that kid brother, with your 131 IQ compared to my 133. Fucking retard! Have fun working a McDonalds while I complete my Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics!
Well I guess now that study is complete they can move on to less important things like curing cancer.
I agree with you that most descriptions of entanglement are BS, especially in the mainstream media, but as far as Cramer's transactional interpretation goes it's just an alternative interpretation of QM. The "transaction" that occurs in this interpretation when the wave function finally collapses happens atemporally through the advanced and retarded offer waves. There's no classical information transfer. As I understand it, initially Cramer was only using this alternative interpretation as a teaching tool. Apparently now he's trying to find experimental evidence in cases where it would differ from other interpretations.
Yeah the problem with FTL is that it connects events with a space-like interval which will have different temporal ordering depending on what reference frame you're in. In the tranasctional interpretation quantum information is transmitted at exactly the speed of light (light-like separation, 0 proper time) symmetrically in time. I loved this symmetric time idea when I first read about in Feynman's Lectures on Physics (where it was applied to his absorber theory to explain radiative reaction in EM).
This guy isn't crazy, the idea of using advanced waves goes all the way back to Feynman (see Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory which is what this is based upon). This merely another interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. All he's trying to do is see if we can experimentally verify it as producing different results than the "standard" interpretations. It's called science people, look into it. Sometimes crazy ideas turn out to be true, you don't know until, you know, you run experiments. As crazy ideas go, this one isn't that off the wall, it's based on actual physics. There's no FTL involved, the transactions all occur at the speed of light through advanced and retarded waves.
/ ti_over.html_ toc.htmlo de2.html
http://www.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/ti_over
http://www.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/tiqm/TI
http://www.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/dtime/n