Brin: Hitchhiker's quote from the blog
There is another metaphor from fiction that would seem to apply, from the Douglas Adams series The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” In book #3 (I think), our heroes find themselves on the “C Ark” from Golgafrincham, carrying the entire planet’s supply of “middle-men, managers, account executives and factotums” who had been tricked aboard and sent away by the two-thirds of the home population, who, thereupon, ended their long dark era and entered a golden age. It's from Book #2 of the Trilogy (of five books), it's the Ship B, and the biggest error of the Golgafrinchans was that they included in the Ship B the telephone cleaners - they civilization was wiped out by a bug that lived in telephone dirt. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Quantum physics
On Sat, 29 Nov 2008, Euan Ritchie wrote: Ooops, that non-sequitor was meant for another list. It was fine here, as far as I'm concerned. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Wal-Mart is evil, why it must be eradicated
On Sat, 29 Nov 2008, William T Goodall wrote: On 28 Nov 2008, at 23:46, Dave Land wrote: Some on this list have opined that religion is a great poison that kills. I believe that a good deal of the damage done in the _name_ of religion is, in fact, done in the name of greed. Worshippers of Mammon? Another false religion Maru Yeah. With some of the religious figures in the US, I think they've forgotten what Jesus said about not being able to serve two masters, and they're actually serving mammon. And fleecing their followers to do so, and telling them that if they only believe, they'll have great riches on Earth. Kinda contradicts the whole lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven thing, all around. (Matthew chapter 6 contradicts a lot of things that people are doing *supposedly* in the name of Jesus.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin: Life after People
Dave said More likely that the mortgagee foreclosed on us. Anyway, that seems to be something like how the story ends in various religions. Who is the mortgagee, and who the mortgage holder? To answer the question about the story or about gods or about mortgagee who is the mortgagee? Now that is a question about Gods and Dogs The same word you see because we come from beyond the sun After our planet blew up in this same galaxy beyond the dog star And rode the debris like it was a space ship to earth and found these Cave dwellers Knee Ander Thralls if you will Ice me doing they thang As we dance and sing and built the great Helios pads mapping stars Trying to get home and mocking our pass and travels to this terror Affirma and so it is and so it shall be we are the extra terror arresta We built the great Peril Amid the unicorn Ah Hiss that dance like Snakes in the cutie and map the mirrors of the sky and invented The greater calendars of the MY Ions and eons and so we are the creators Of worlds before this world and we rose from our rocks and come To the new beginning where the light travel with the lesser speed than me And they come to envy us and wish to belong to us and become our Domesticates so they mortgage they souls for the gold and silver stuff Which were the remnants of our world and this is how it was to be We confounded they tongues and created another language for them And enslaved them to our epic oracles and so it was and so it is That they stole our ideas as we evolved from their dead planet To compete with their virus and our germ the sperm made The journey from the hot rocks now cold and in their water We found our first home and paid our first mortgages and so It was and yet shall it be that one come out to evolve from gods to men Morris J. Peavey, Jr. From Ghettonomics to the Kinky Nashun where treat stories are told http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Ghettonomics/Morris-J-Peavey/e/9781410721006 This is a part of the story of the answer to the story about extraterrestrials But the plot thickens as we move from a world of slaves [and indentures] To the present day wage slaves where we must assume the cost to bear Our own huddles built by the great white god fathers founding our Domesticates dumdomes and marking the paths with their names And polluting our sanctuaries with places to hide somewhere in cavern Or should I say oracles of Diana or OH Dell Fire hell fire realities We got da sum for the ole hum bugs and lady bugs and scarabs also Well if you are real travelers meet me half way and see the trick ah trick Let me show you a mortgagee and I tell you another story about A homeless veteran and homeless morgagee There are a million stories in this world about Lying and taking or property that goes back To when slaves all lived in bunkhouses like American soldiers and never owned what we Got nerves to think we are losing and the world Is bam bam bozzled again and again run amuck From Ah Kinky Nashun where life is lived to http://mahsstoryy.wordpress.com/category/religion/ The great stories have already been told by the science And fiction bluffs! Read and comment! -- Original message from Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED]: -- On Nov 27, 2008, at 1:37 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 11/27/2008 1:39:50 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: We might even have become gods and simply moved away! Only if we've paid off the mortgage. Hmm. story idea there somewhere. More likely that the mortgagee foreclosed on us. Anyway, that seems to be something like how the story ends in various religions. Who is the mortgagee, and who the mortgage holder? Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Wal-Mart is evil, why it must be eradicated
On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 3:46 PM, Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Greed-addled shoppers crushed to death a temporary worker who was trying to open the doors for Black Friday sales. If the store were open 24/7, then there could be no door-opening stampede. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Wal-Mart is evil, why it must be eradicated
On Nov 29, 2008, at 7:50 AM, John Williams wrote: On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 3:46 PM, Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Greed-addled shoppers crushed to death a temporary worker who was trying to open the doors for Black Friday sales. If the store were open 24/7, then there could be no door-opening stampede. Are you trying to impose your will on Wal-Mart? :-) Dave Wal-Mart Greed is made of PEOPLE! IT'S PEOPLE! Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Quantum physics
On Nov 29, 2008, at 6:08 AM, Julia Thompson wrote: On Sat, 29 Nov 2008, Euan Ritchie wrote: Ooops, that non-sequitor was meant for another list. It was fine here, as far as I'm concerned. Coordinated nicely with Rob's Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations post of yesterday. Dave What Does it Matter Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Brin: Life after People
See, (Top-posting. So sue me.) This is why, after all the fussin' and a-feudin', we stay on this list: to read a post like this one. Thanks, James! Dave On Nov 29, 2008, at 6:17 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dave said More likely that the mortgagee foreclosed on us. Anyway, that seems to be something like how the story ends in various religions. Who is the mortgagee, and who the mortgage holder? To answer the question about the story or about gods or about mortgagee who is the mortgagee? Now that is a question about Gods and Dogs The same word you see because we come from beyond the sun After our planet blew up in this same galaxy beyond the dog star And rode the debris like it was a space ship to earth and found these Cave dwellers Knee Ander Thralls if you will Ice me doing they thang As we dance and sing and built the great Helios pads mapping stars Trying to get home and mocking our pass and travels to this terror Affirma and so it is and so it shall be we are the extra terror arresta We built the great Peril Amid the unicorn Ah Hiss that dance like Snakes in the cutie and map the mirrors of the sky and invented The greater calendars of the MY Ions and eons and so we are the creators Of worlds before this world and we rose from our rocks and come To the new beginning where the light travel with the lesser speed than me And they come to envy us and wish to belong to us and become our Domesticates so they mortgage they souls for the gold and silver stuff Which were the remnants of our world and this is how it was to be We confounded they tongues and created another language for them And enslaved them to our epic oracles and so it was and so it is That they stole our ideas as we evolved from their dead planet To compete with their virus and our germ the sperm made The journey from the hot rocks now cold and in their water We found our first home and paid our first mortgages and so It was and yet shall it be that one come out to evolve from gods to men Morris J. Peavey, Jr. From Ghettonomics to the Kinky Nashun where treat stories are told http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Ghettonomics/Morris-J-Peavey/e/9781410721006 This is a part of the story of the answer to the story about extraterrestrials But the plot thickens as we move from a world of slaves [and indentures] To the present day wage slaves where we must assume the cost to bear Our own huddles built by the great white god fathers founding our Domesticates dumdomes and marking the paths with their names And polluting our sanctuaries with places to hide somewhere in cavern Or should I say oracles of Diana or OH Dell Fire hell fire realities We got da sum for the ole hum bugs and lady bugs and scarabs also Well if you are real travelers meet me half way and see the trick ah trick Let me show you a mortgagee and I tell you another story about A homeless veteran and homeless morgagee There are a million stories in this world about Lying and taking or property that goes back To when slaves all lived in bunkhouses like American soldiers and never owned what we Got nerves to think we are losing and the world Is bam bam bozzled again and again run amuck From Ah Kinky Nashun where life is lived to http://mahsstoryy.wordpress.com/category/religion/ The great stories have already been told by the science And fiction bluffs! Read and comment! -- Original message from Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED]: -- On Nov 27, 2008, at 1:37 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 11/27/2008 1:39:50 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: We might even have become gods and simply moved away! Only if we've paid off the mortgage. Hmm. story idea there somewhere. More likely that the mortgagee foreclosed on us. Anyway, that seems to be something like how the story ends in various religions. Who is the mortgagee, and who the mortgage holder? Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Quantum physics
Original Message: - From: Euan Ritchie [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 12:56:55 +1300 To: brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: Quantum physics Recently some physicists announced the result of some serious number crunching that is evidence that the majority of the universes mass is the interaction between quarks that form protons and neutrons. Well, that's not really news, right? We've known ever since the quark theory was well established (with the November 1974 revolution in particle physics), that the pion was a quark-antiquark pair (ups and downs) with a mass of 140 Mev, while the proton and neutron had 3 quarks (ups and downs) and a mass close to 940 Mev. Made of gluons that transmit the strong nuclear force this interaction is the 'quantum foam' of bubbling particles popping in and out of existence - in theory. I don't like that theory. Not that I'm even remotely qualified to have much of an opinion. I find the concept of particles popping in and out of existence unsatisfying and inelegant. I would only accept it as true if it's merely a way of expressing something deeper (m-branes bending in and out of our dimension for instance). So, I take it you don't even like QED, which has been verified to a zillion places, because the polarization of the vacume and renormalization? It's been around for 50-60 years. Indeed, virtual particles are so inherent in quantum theory, I can't think of how to explain the last 80 years of physics without them. Maybe Rich knows of such a theory, but I know how Weinberg talked about the fact that while one can come up with different theories slighly different than special and general relativity that are close to right, that one cannot do the same with QM. You need to remember that the only purpose of physics is to model observations. Discussion what is real and what isn't is metaphysics. Thus, the arguements over the interpretation of QM are metaphysical arguements. Dan M. myhosting.com - Premium Microsoft® Windows® and Linux web and application hosting - http://link.myhosting.com/myhosting ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations
Original Message: - From: Rceeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:04:20 -0600 To: brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-v acuum-fluctuations.html Matter is built on flaky foundations. Physicists have now confirmed that the apparently substantial stuff is actually no more than fluctuations in the quantum vacuum. It's unfortunate that the New Scientist tend to tack on its metaphysical interpretation onto pretty good science when it reports on new physics. Perhaps that's the only way to grab laymen, I don't know. As I mentioned in my last post, this idea in QCD dates back to when I was a grad student. The work that was described was pretty good stuff, so I'm not insulting the physicist. But, the energy involved in the interaction between quarks must be mass, so there is nothing earth shattering here. But, like doing a QED calculation of, say water, and coming up with what is observed, this massive computational work is well worth doing, and the first ones to get it done deserve acclaim for getting it done. Dan M. mail2web.com - Microsoft® Exchange solutions from a leading provider - http://link.mail2web.com/Business/Exchange ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Wal-Mart is evil, why it must be eradicated
At the risk of re-igniting a certain discussion... here's a great column, I think, by Paul Krugman, about the current economic situation. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22151 The most relevant bit: *How did this second great colossal muddle arise? In the aftermath of the Great Depression, we redesigned the machine so that we did* understand it, well enough at any rate to avoid big disasters. Banks, the piece of the system that malfunctioned so badly in the 1930s, were placed under tight regulation and supported by a strong safety net. Meanwhile, international movements of capital, which played a disruptive role in the 1930s, were also limited. The financial system became a little boring but much safer. *Then things got interesting and dangerous again. Growing international capital flows set the stage for devastating currency crises in the 1990s and for a globalized financial crisis in 2008. The growth of the shadow banking system, without any corresponding extension of regulation, set the stage for latter-day bank runs on a massive scale. These runs involved frantic mouse clicks rather than frantic mobs outside locked bank doors, but they were no less devastating.* I'll add one thought that keeps coming to me. If free markets reliably regulate prices, how the heck did we have such a crazy spike in oil prices recently? Surely neither supply nor demand changed much in such a short time. And I haven't seen anybody argue that any sort of government intervention was responsible. I suspect that what we've seen in oil, housing and other bubbles is that we have created a system that amplifies fear and greed. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations
On 11/29/2008 11:50:26 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Original Message: - From: Rceeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:04:20 -0600 To: brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-v acuum-fluctuations.html Matter is built on flaky foundations. Physicists have now confirmed that the apparently substantial stuff is actually no more than fluctuations in the quantum vacuum. It's unfortunate that the New Scientist tend to tack on its metaphysical interpretation onto pretty good science when it reports on new physics. Perhaps that's the only way to grab laymen, I don't know. As I mentioned in my last post, this idea in QCD dates back to when I was a grad student. The work that was described was pretty good stuff, so I'm not insulting the physicist. But, the energy involved in the interaction between quarks must be mass, so there is nothing earth shattering here. But, like doing a QED calculation of, say water, and coming up with what is observed, this massive computational work is well worth doing, and the first ones to get it done deserve acclaim for getting it done. Agree with what you are trying to say. I think that as a magazine, NS is trying to engage lay folk and other scientists whose expertise doesn't extend very far into QM. For most of us the metaphysics *is* the important aspect of QM. It helps us to work out the nature of reality and what it means to exist. For we, the dummiesG, it is difficult to hold on to the ideas of simultaneous existing/non-existing, objects frothing out of nothing, or matter mostly being not there in any sense that doesn't stagger one's common sense and bring it to it's knees whimpering and moaning. QM is destructive to much of the rules one has ingrained as soon as one learns to walk, it just seems to go against all that one sees in day to day life. The rules are of course, oversimplifications based on limited observation from a limited viewpoint, but for those of us who lack the time to learn the maths and pour over the datas, the metaphysics are all we have to hold on to. We can understand philosophy much easier than maths, they are easier for us to discuss and digest. xponent Paradox Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Wal-Mart is evil, why it must be eradicated
- Original Message - From: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2008 12:32 PM Subject: Re: Wal-Mart is evil, why it must be eradicated I'll add one thought that keeps coming to me. If free markets reliably regulate prices, how the heck did we have such a crazy spike in oil prices recently? Surely neither supply nor demand changed much in such a short time. And I haven't seen anybody argue that any sort of government intervention was responsible. I suspect that what we've seen in oil, housing and other bubbles is that we have created a system that amplifies fear and greed. I would hold that to be self-evident and supported by market behavior over the last couple of months. xponent The Price Of Oil Today Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations
On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 11:18 AM, Rceeberger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We can understand philosophy much easier than maths, they are easier for us to discuss and digest. Hmmph. Your father apparently wasn't a philosophy professor. Nick J'ai faim, puisque je suis. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations
On Nov 29, 2008, at 1:18 PM, Rceeberger wrote: Agree with what you are trying to say. I think that as a magazine, NS is trying to engage lay folk and other scientists whose expertise doesn't extend very far into QM. For most of us the metaphysics *is* the important aspect of QM. It helps us to work out the nature of reality and what it means to exist. For we, the dummiesG, it is difficult to hold on to the ideas of simultaneous existing/non-existing, objects frothing out of nothing, or matter mostly being not there in any sense that doesn't stagger one's common sense and bring it to it's knees whimpering and moaning. QM is destructive to much of the rules one has ingrained as soon as one learns to walk, it just seems to go against all that one sees in day to day life. The rules are of course, oversimplifications based on limited observation from a limited viewpoint, but for those of us who lack the time to learn the maths and pour over the datas, the metaphysics are all we have to hold on to. We can understand philosophy much easier than maths, they are easier for us to discuss and digest. xponent Paradox Maru rob Had this argument with someone who was pretending to understand MWI vs. Copenhagen the other day. The universe is quantum, it only looks classical on our scale was lost on her. :p (Although to be fair, classical mechanics does sum up pretty well what we see on our scale. It's just right for the wrong reasons, is all. :) Thank you all for coming around to the self-evident point I made five minutes ago. -- Toby Ziegler ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Quantum physics
I can't believe nobody mentioned Stephen Baxter's book (he is one of the Bs, after all!). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_Diagrams Now somebody has. I certainly enjoyed the book, especially the title story. Weird, being on-topic, isn't it? Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
