Weekly Chat Reminder
The Brin-L weekly chat has been a list tradition for over ten years. Way back on 27 May, 1998, Marco Maisenhelder first set up a chatroom for the list, and on the next day, he established a weekly chat time. We've been through several servers, chat technologies, and even casts of regulars over the years, but the chat goes on... and we want more recruits! Whether you're an active poster or a lurker, whether you've been a member of the list from the beginning or just joined today, we would really like for you to join us. We have less politics, more Uplift talk, and more light-hearted discussion. We're non-fattening and 100% environmentally friendly... -(_() Though sometimes marshmallows do get thrown. The Weekly Brin-L chat is scheduled for Wednesday 3 PM Eastern/2 PM Central time in the US, or 7 PM Greenwich time. There's usually somebody there to talk to for at least eight hours after the start time. If no-one is there when you arrive just wait around a while for the next person to show up! If you want to attend, it's really easy now. All you have to do is send your web browser to: http://wtgab.demon.co.uk/~brinl/mud/ ..And you can connect directly from the NEW new web interface! -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ This message was sent automatically using launchd. But even if WTG is away on holiday, at least it shows the server is still up. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Government regulations and complex consequences
I'm trying to catch up a bit- John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You would have us believe that on principle, people who fail to foresee a negative event are thereby disqualified from comprehending and responding to it? snip Likewise, if a doctor does not know the effects of a medicine he prescribes, I am not willingly going to follow that doctors advice. grim laugh Then you should not take *any* medicine introduced to the market in the past decade or so (unless it's for a terminal illness, in which case you have little to lose). Recently developed drugs are never fully known, which is why the FDA has post-marketing surveys (not that one should trust that body, underfunded and oft in the pocket of the pharmas), and why some are pulled from the shelves. We still can't explain all of the effects of aspirin, after all. (Although that's more due to not understanding everthing about inflammation, as the body's regulatory responses are discovered to be ever more complex with increased research.) And look at the recent pull of cold and cough preps for toddlers, after being on the shelf for decades. There is no certain or 100% safe thing in the practice of medicine - nor in life; the best one can hope for is the honest and informed inquiry/action of experts and ordinary folk alike. Debbi Angels' Fear Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Government regulations and complex consequences
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 12:05 PM, Deborah Harrell We still can't explain all of the effects of aspirin, after all. (Although that's more due to not understanding everthing about inflammation, as the body's regulatory responses are discovered to be ever more complex with increased research.) And look at the recent pull of cold and cough preps for toddlers, after being on the shelf for decades. There is no certain or 100% safe thing in the practice of medicine - nor in life; You are giving economists way too much credit. I'm not asking for 100%, or even 90%. But 50% would be nice. But economists can rarely manage 10%. Surely you would not take a drug if the doctor only had a 10% chance of predicting the major effects? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Government regulations and complex consequences
John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 12:05 PM, Deborah Harrell wrote: We still can't explain all of the effects of aspirin..snip..And look at the recent pull of cold and cough preps for toddlers, after being on the shelf for decades. There is no certain or 100% safe thing in the practice of medicine - nor in life; You are giving economists way too much credit. I'm not asking for 100%, or even 90%. But 50% would be nice. But economists can rarely manage 10%. Surely you would not take a drug if the doctor only had a 10% chance of predicting the major effects? Nope (except maybe for that terminal disease thing). wry Uhm, this does sort of lead into the need for regulation of medical and food ingestibles - otherwise you end up with 300,000 babies/toddlers exposed to a known renal toxin. There does need to be a 'reasonable' proof of non-toxicity, in addition to proof of efficacy (but one cannot ask for 100% safety either; I just want honest and competently-run drug studies). shifting gears a bit Unfortunately, we all *have* consumed a vast array of chemicals with unknown major and minor effects, courtesy of the industrial and chemical revolutions. Also, we ingest drugs and antibiotics that are dumped into our watersheds daily. Debbi who is clearly in a sour mood, induced by the fact that her car is *again* in the shop for the third time in 2 months, for the same problem! snarls ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Government regulations and complex consequences
You are giving economists way too much credit. I'm not asking for 100%, or even 90%. But 50% would be nice. But economists can rarely manage 10%. Come on yall there has never been a large group of students studying to Become economist and that subject is a lot like the doctor’s requirement To learn say organic chemistry. Its amazing how we fool our selves about our problems. People may not Understand excessive credit or they may be lost to the idea of building Wealth through saving and investments and now that the roof has caved in Everyone appear bewildered. The economic restructuring of America is the biggest since the expansion Of the railroads westward and the days of the great wildcat railroads Where the coolies and recent freed black men were used on railroad gangs and their labor Was exploited but it was a period of dynamic change and the people Knew hard work and still had some structure in their family while the Company structures were taking hold and the teapot type scandals ran rampant We were subjected to the idea that we could reach 20 miles to either side Of the railroad tracks an the became the wage slaves of the emerging Period of industrialization. The steel and oil enterprise rose and work Was abundant and men could still dream of an America with wide spaces Because many medium size independent farms still had good size populations To day the mega-global companies are monopolies and the economist realize That this concentration of capital has an adverse effect on the worker’s Ability to create a base of wealth. The mass of workers are negatively Effected because the company executive control politics and the flow Of wealth inside and outside the country. These ty---coons with their Golden parachutes are the first to argue both sides of the issue They rob the people with high prices and keep the mass of wage Slaves living near or below the poverty level and use all types of Economic tools like manipulating the interest rates, balances of trade, Dominating commodities markets and flooding the consumer markets With cheap foreign goods while over charging citizens in this for those Cheap goods which you pay for with expensive credit and so we are Bail out the large automakers---treat all these mega giants like utilities Companies and monopolies who are now necessary but the citizens money [tax] Should be infused in such failing giants but the citizens money should Provide the same kind of investment respect as any investor---i.e. Preferred Stock That preferred stock should have the same power for the people as it has For the fat cats. The world is changing and the citizen should spend some Time studying his position as a knowledgeable persons not flunkies! Morris J. Peavey, Jr. Author Ghettonomics: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ghettonomics -- Original message from John Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED]: -- On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 12:05 PM, Deborah Harrell We still can't explain all of the effects of aspirin, after all. (Although that's more due to not understanding everthing about inflammation, as the body's regulatory responses are discovered to be ever more complex with increased research.) And look at the recent pull of cold and cough preps for toddlers, after being on the shelf for decades. There is no certain or 100% safe thing in the practice of medicine - nor in life; You are giving economists way too much credit. I'm not asking for 100%, or even 90%. But 50% would be nice. But economists can rarely manage 10%. Surely you would not take a drug if the doctor only had a 10% chance of predicting the major effects? ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Epochal media: 200 years ago and next week!
I can't believe it almost slipped by without notice. Right now... give or take a couple of weeks... we are passing through the two hundredth anniversary of one of the greatest events in the history of art. Perhaps of all humanity. The Winter Concert of 1808, when Ludwig Von Beethoven unveiled and conducted, for the very first time: The Fourth Piano Concerto The Fifth Symphony The Sixth Symphony and The Violin Concerto in D Most of you know the two symphonies. Arguably his best in many ways. Lyrical, evocative, filled with color and imagery and drama. Certainly more measured and less tinged in overweening ego than the glorious Ninth. They, alone, would have made that debut concert an event for the ages. But the Fourth Piano Concerto is just as wondrous, as beautiful and awe inspiring as the symphonies. As for the Violin Concerto...? Matters of art are subjective, of course. But I deem Beethoven's Violin Concerto to be the greatest work of music ever conceived by Man. How could such an event go by, unremarked at the time... and its bicentennial barely noted, even today? That question is almost as fascinating as: how were people able to sit still for so long in one place, even to experience such beauty? Dang, they must have had iron bottoms. And -- in an era without recordings -- they must have really hungered for music. Twenty years ago, I began a time travel story, about a famed cellist from the future who travels back to sneak into Beethoven's 1808 orchestra. Like all my other time travel stories, it remains unfinished. In this case, because - despite having played violin in orchestras, in my youth, and having sung in a semi-pro chorale group - I simply know too little musicology to do the story justice. I'd need just the right collaborator... alas. Still, I can't believe the bicentennial almost went by. Well, somebody must have noticed. Because last night, getting in my car after seeing Kim Stanley Robinson and Geoff Ryman do wonderful readings at Sheldon Brown's SCALABLE CITY event, I tuned into NPR and found them playing a terrific version of the 4th Piano Concerto, with some of the best cadenzas I've heard. And I got to wave my arms, conducting it, all the way home. === Oh, but art never stops! Tune in to my latest episode of the ongoing History Channel show The Universe, entitled Alien Faces, and produced by John Greenwald. It will premier this Tuesday night, December 09th at 9:00pm! See a preview. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1RSZDtm8Zw ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Epochal media: 200 years ago and next week!
In a message dated 12/3/2008 3:09:46 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: And I got to wave my arms, conducting it, all the way home. To hell with liberal or conservative. Let's debate Toscanini or Stokowski. Vilyehm **Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dpicid=aolcom40vanityncid=emlcntaolcom0010) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations
- Original Message - From: Dan M [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion' brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 9:06 PM Subject: RE: It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of xponentrob Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 11:06 PM To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion Subject: Re: It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations Umyeah. Though I have to admit I'm left wondering if you are talking about questions in the soft sciences (which can seem a bit arbitrary to my mind and subject to change for a variety of reasons), or if you are referring to ultimate questions that lay people tend to think physics aims for. (Just for clarity, I think we both agree when it comes to the subject of Truth) I was thinking more of the latter, but the former also helps bring the problem into perspective. Take psychology. We don't really know what people are thinking. Experts in the field of psychology have been fooled by people who outgamed them. Still, empirical observations are made, and models of those observations (say fivethirtyeight's vote prediction) can prove quite accurate. OK thanks! I'm not sure I understand your statement in that case. Fleishman and Pons observations were certainly called into question, as were their methodologies.Same with, say, creationists. So offhand I would expect that the reliability of observations is important, but recognise that you could be defining observation in a way I am not. I think I am defining reliable differently, partially because I'm rather familiar with the debates of the time when physics emerged. Pons and Fleishman made unrepeatable observations. Creationists use bad technique in evaluating phenomenon. But, Pons and Fleishman's problems were not the uncertainty of the empirical and only a small subset of creationists use idealism to question observations (as Berkley (sp) did). We can make detailed models of the empirical and have rigorous standards for good, repeatable experiments. But, we don't worry about what is really there, we shut up and calculate. In a real sense, this Feynman statement is a culmination of what makes physics what it is. I recall that years ago there was a very lengthy thread here that dealt with metaphysical questions of the ultimate reality and why such philosophical discussion is pretty much meaningless. Actually, I'd argue that meaning is one of those metaphysical questions that cannot be determined empirically. I love the statement in the first preface to the Critique of Pure Reason on this. HUMAN reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer. Thus, I take exception with a science magazine which states that the authors pet interpretation has been proven by a new discovery, when it hasn't. Something has been demonstrated. I agree it is open to interpretation. I can think of other explainations that might satisfy the observations, leakage from tiny higher dimensions frex. None of that is needed. Just standard E=m works (I'm using good physicist units here where c=1. :-) ) That's what's frustrating for me; the New Scientist makes standard QM theory out to be a startling new discovery. The theory dates back to at least the early 30s. Nothing has been demonstrated except that QCD works numerically. If they failed with computers 100x as powerful, and everyone did, then that would be something new, because QCD would have been falsified. One real problem, from my perspective, is that the average layman is trying to fit modern physics back into a classical box. To paraphrase one prominent physicist from the 20s when asked to comment on the correctness of someone's hypothesison a theory he thought was horrid, Right? Right, he isn't even Wrong. This is what the first two paragraphs of the New Scientist article remind me of. Last year everything was all about strings (again), but the article seems to ignore all that and doesn't reference. That's at a layer below what was covered in the article...where theorists try to reconcile GR with QCD and the Electroweak...there strings (and now fuzzy space if 2 year old last reading of John Baez's online This Week In Mathematical Physics is current enough). Of Interest: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-vacuum-fluctuations.html Once again, the comments *on* the article are more interesting than the article itself. This gem from Vendicar Decarian for instance: What is and isn't matter is all relative to the observer. What is real particle and what is a
Re: It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations
On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 3:28 PM, xponentrob [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's not really productive to worry too much about what is real and what is virtual, since there is no firm basis for the categorization. Particles are a quantized bias in the field fluctuations that compose reality, and as such they are transient. In their position but well defined in terms of their detection. One man's meat is another man's positron? Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
