8/09/2008

a rage to master

so that whole, 'statistically, its likely youve drank at least one molecule of water that passed through [insert long-since-dead guys name here] bladder', does that take into consideration transport phenomena? cause that seems like a very difficult phenomena to accurately model on such scales, and also the most important of any phenomena in this question. i suppose that the upper end of the velocities of such particles is pretty high, though theyre doing random walks through space, so they dont necessarily diffuse so extremely.

the idea of spacetime, though it seems radical, is really more sensical than the ideas of absolute space or absolute time.

hmmm, ultimately, ill bet that mass equals time. which means energy, mass, and spacetime are all intimately linked.

shit, 5 years in operation, and LIGO hasnt seen anything? thats a bad sign, from one perspective, and a good sign from other perspectives.

is there a way to modify G so that it explains E&M on that scale, gravity on the large scale, and strong/weak on atomic scale?

i think i heard you singing: 'oh poor sky, dont cry on me, did someone break your heart again?'
oh poor sky dont cry on me, are you gonna fall apart again?

heavenly.


7·25·08
ask more questions. but wait, asking questions is what got me into this mess in the first place.

i guess you are afraid of what everyone is made of.
your lips are red. my face is red from reading your red lips.

can anyone think of a mechanism in which the properties of a particle directly lead to its behavior through time? like radioactive decay... actually, is it possible to formulate the phases of matter in terms of scaling of time? how much do we understand the behavior of time on the atomic/subatomic scales? a liquid would appear solid over a small enough time frame, right? no. thats wrong.


7·27·08
is it fixed?


7·29·08
We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!

be critical. that is addressed to you and to me.
i dont even want to write anything intelligent. how terrible is that.
why? to be an adventurous spirit.
"no creature would ever willingly make an idiot out of itself! -obviously youve never been in love!"
"my two favorite things are commitment, and changing myself."
"this concept of WUV confuses and infuriates us!"

could nuclear explosions be used to relieve tectonic stresses in a less violent manner? it might be hard to have certainty that you were averting a larger earth quake, while simultaneously having certainty that your solution would work as expected––both questions seem unreasonably difficult to answer with serious confidence, not to mention the plethora of concerns that would be raised by such large explosions. probably a terrible idea really.

would there be a way to extract electrical energy from the plasma of fusing deuterium or tritium atoms? seems like no. maybe if it were pulsing back and forth between two extreme states? seems unlikely.


7·30·08
still, wed rather shoot the message author than the messenger.

shoot the messenger
shattered by drink

tell you im sorry that i made you a witness to my moral decay.

he mentions people saying, 'tv but better'
makes me think that my 'printing press for everybody', is also inadequate.

this year, instead of paying my taxes, im going to spend a day with the pain monster.

"how about a kiss for good luck. i meant tongue luck."

Hans Rosling is a pretty entertaining, intelligent man. with excellent intentions.
David Deutsch says some interesting things
and so does Daniel Denett
Denett's talk shows this quote, by Lee Siegel - metamagic, professor of religion:
"I'm writing a book on magic," I explain, and I'm asked, "Real magic?" By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. "No," I answer: "Conjuring tricks, not real magic."
Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.

oh, i didnt realize most people would prefer not to understand the magic trick. i would. i want to know how everything works. i happen to fail to enjoy trying to unravel magic tricks, but its not because i dont enjoy it, not because i dont enjoy the answer.

sugar the pill

"lets all stop being so damned respectful."
-Richard Dawkins

cool like the ocean.
fooled by the ocean.


7·31·08
despite all i know i cant contain, i'll gather all the parts I need and hope that we remain. white wash over me until, pure varathane runs through my veins, and I'll at last be still. right when the arrow leaves the bow, it erases all uncertainty, and love i'll never know.

i think, it would have been better, smarter, if instead of those stupid facts we always learned in american history classes, social studies, whatever. that if instead we mostly read the work of the early pioneers of our culture. thomas paine's common sense, the federalist papers, the constitution (which im sure we read some of), the bill of rights, which im also sure we read, and so on.

is the cold war evidence of superrational thought? the typical game-theoretic rational player would have launched a preeminent nuclear attack on its opponent, but neither the ussr, nor the usa did that. a superrational player on the other hand might understand that their opponent could come to all the same conclusions that they could, and could therefore reason that both players may choose keeping it cold, over virtual annihilation. at the very least i would argue that the cold war represents superrational thinking more closely than the typical game-theoretic rational thinking.

"results like that are so elegant, they must be right"
-Stephen Hawking
i disagree Stephen, elegance has nothing to do with it. furthermore, the existence of a seemingly elegant explanation does not rule out currently unknown alternate elegant explanations.

this stuff is neat

they would make youre name sing, and bend through alleys and bounce off all of the buildings.

hey, god made me an atheist. who are you to question His judgement?
maybe god sent me here to test your faith... how well do you think youre doing on this test?

until theres nothing left to hold. until theres nothing left to hate. i appreciate your help.
my head plays it over and over.
i want you to know, i think the way you move those stars around was really wonderful.
i lost the woman of my dreams, but i still have zoidberg. we all still have zoidberg!


8·6·08

placebo = (ignorance = bliss)

"i say the whole world must learn of our peaceful ways. by force."
"what!?"
"just walk around not wearing a helmet."

it sort of seems as if fluid flow should be harder than FNP-complete, and that we should be able to encode NP/FNP problems in simple fluid flow problems.

gather all the parts we need, and hope that we remain.


8·8·08
Ultimately, science is optimism, and paranormal/supernatural/religious explanations of nature are really all pessimism. The limitations of science are all temporal, rather than universal; questions that previously seemed unanswerable are often answered, through the emergence of new technology, based on more well established science, through new ideas, through better comprehension of the problems, or more comprehensive understanding of the old knowledge. To declare something unanswerable by science is profoundly naïve, and is often ridiculed by those quotes about ill fated predictions of future technology (an early president of IBM allegedly estimating there is only a market for 4 or 5 computers world wide, or intelligent scientists declaring that heavier than air flight was impossible).


8·3·08
why is suicide bombing so clearly crazy, while the process of war so acceptable? does the probabilistic nature of a typical soldier's sacrifice make it more acceptable somehow?

8·4·08
my advice is seldom for a friend.
impartial hearts, are not good for relationships.
secondary placebo effects? do medical studies ever try to compensate for the fact that any drug with any physical effects should have a more effective placebo influence than a completely inert pill? i would call it a secondary placebo effect. if you imagine that everyone in the drug study is trying to determine if they are taking the placebo or not, that those experiencing notable side effects would be more easily convinced that it was not a placebo, and consequently more likely to experience positive results. a simple, though tedious, method of removing this problem would be to, after the initial study, perform a second study with a placebo that gives the same (or as close as possible), side effects as the actual drug, so that both the experimental and control groups have identical starting points.

follow the child; if the child is into something, thats probably something they're ready to learn.
solid proof that early stimulation really matters.
"and the ones that my teacher says no"
a rage to master
dolphins capable of altruism? according to mythbusters and their research, yes. that would be interesting.

in light of the "next 5000 days of the internet" talk, shouldn't we be suspicious of our notions of socio-political and economic culture, both because the world now changes too quickly & drastically for us to rely on cases of precedent, and because even if we could rely on such cases, no such cases would exist!

it appears, in retrospect, that we have been naïve/arrogant in our assertions of what will, and what will not work. i have been guilty of this as much as any unheard of nobody-layman could be, subjecting my friends to unsolicited rants and debating opposing, equally unfounded views vehemently.
now that i understand the one thing anyone can know with any real certainty, the solutions Seems obvious! in the immortal words of Bill Nye: ITS SCIENCE!
the same process that helped us discard our petty, unfounded beliefs about health & nature can be used to eliminate our superstitions about foreign policy, political systems, and the various strains of superstitious infectious agents.
obviously, i would indict superstitious agents for counfounding the issue, but that is incidental, and blame not need be assigned to any institution in order to take the scientific approach of testing our policies in a rigorous manner.
and while we are at it, lets test our politicians in the same way: peer review, combined with checks & balances, we might get some where for once.

when fighting for one's life, there will always be a point at which drwoning is easier than overcoming fatigue; giving up being easier than pressing on.
in the ignorance pandemic, education equals immunization

until the hammer comes down.

why do we constrain ourselves to 'americans' rather than 'humans' or 'animals' or 'organisms'? why is humanity not an adequate group to satisfy that need filled by patriotism, religion, politics, race, or whatever else has historically filled that need?

i read the news today oh boy.

the key issue with QM seems to be complex amplitudes. just interference is not so big a deal, but complex valued waves seem to lead to less intuitive behavior. though maybe im wrong. i wish i could study this all the time.

tipping point.
point of no return.




identify the good choice; do the opposite.
you say that, but somehow i don't feel any better.
crazy turns me on.
if you change your mind, you know where to find me.



i'm sorry if i fucked up your life.

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