'no rationale' for spy satellite inspection ?
http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030314readdy/ Humm... Is someone trying to hide their footprints ??? There was rationale for 3 tiles in the beginning of the Space Shuttle program... Aife
Re: New Scientist - Joao Magueijo - Hero or Heretic? (fwd)
On Thursday, 13 de February de 2003 02:02, you wrote: > On Wednesday, February 12, 2003, at 05:04 PM, Andri Esteves wrote: > > Everything that could go wrong in academia and science is in Portugal. > > > > That is the background Magueijo comes from... > > I sat in a bookstore and read most of his book several weeks ago. A few > comments: > > First, I kept looking for a clear description of the theory, with > convincing details, support, etc. I didn't find it. I instead found a > lot of stuff about peeing outside a bar in some tropical place, stories > about his girlfriend, insults he delivered to editors at "Nature," and > on and on. Sort of a "Fear and Loathing on the Road to Quantum > Gravity." (Pun with Smolin's title intended.) You still read science popularizers ? If you like science you should go to the source. I can't read many tecnhical articles, but good sinopses and conclusions give you an idea of the article's inplications. Just have to build a field mind map of an area... And after some time you get the ability to find if someone is bulshiting you on the "popularizing" front... e-print is great... > > There is a NEED for destructive purification in today's science. > > Second, I don't know about Hawking's books, but Lee Smolin is one of > the current popularizers who have done excellent jobs. I recommend both > of his books. His own "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity" is crystal clear > in describing several of the competing theories. Smolin also explains > what's really important. (Check the archives for my past comments on > Smolin and topos theory, for example, from last summer.) Never heard of him... Books are very expensive in Portugal... As the publishing houses in portugal mainly publish religious or black-magic themes... I will probably read it in english... > Hawking writes about fairly established stuff, the usual black hole > stuff. This was mostly old hat 30 years ago (which is when I took Jim > Hartle's class on general relativity). Hawking doesn't get much into > the newer theories, at least not in any of the books of his I've > skimmed. > > (One of my texts 30 years ago was the Hawking and Ellis book, "The > Large Scale Structure of Spacetime." This was heavy going, not the > popular fluff he's been turning out lately.) > > Third, I have no idea if the VSL theory is "right." Time will tell. At least there is some experimental work on it. Wich tons of theorical work in physics don't even try to achieve and with blessing of the establishment... > > Fourth, but I will say that Magueijo undercuts his arguments with his > scatological denunciations of the establishment. I'll be the first to > say that I am not always polite, but if I were publishing papers and > attempting to get math or crypto results accepted, I doubt this > approach would work: What can i say... Career or science. Are you part of the problem or of the solution?? Computers and mathematics are a bit diferent from physics, in that the materialization of your ideas can have a vast laboratory in other people's computers... You could try a diferent way of doing criptoscience if you built a diferent comunity. But if you only want the recognition of "certain individuals" and "certain establishments" what can i say?! Everybody wants 3 meals a day... It will not be me to judge that badly... One of my problems is that there could be people doing real research on their part-time and the paid-ones don't even let them be heard... > "The crypto community is filled with dumbshit charlatans. I piss on > them. I piss on Rivest. I was taking a leak outside a bar in Maracaibo > and it hit me: cyphers are just like big turds." > > Maybe he doesn't fully understand English and has some idea that > interspersing vulgarities with scientific points is the cool thing to > do. Maybe he should point out things like you did it right now... Well.. fed up portuguese are not really englishmen... But he at least gave some emotion to it? Didn't he?! :) > However, I'll bet he ends up at a U.S. university, particularly if the > VSL theory gains any kind of acceptance. He spoke of one of his > colleagues who landed at UC Davis recently. Yes, he will. Americans love collecting "things". I remember Einstein commenting why he had to receive in his office, every VIP in the IAS in Princeton: "You see, I have been bought by Mr Flesher for the IAS and he has to have some return for the investment..." Yours faithfully, André Esteves
Re: The Register - Computer ballot outfit perverts Senate race, theorist says (fwd)
On Sunday, 9 de February de 2003 20:58, you wrote: > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/29247.html > This kinda makes me remenber a sarcasm by a ucranian friend of mine: "Ucrania has the most advanced democracy on earth. There is no need for special interests and lobbying in the ucranian parlamentary system. It's so advanced that the deputies are the special interests and lobby for themselves (and their mafias)..." It seems that the USA has, finaly, achieved such a state of grace. (don't worry.. Portugal is no better.. As a recent democracy, a non-presidential, parlamentary system also has been able to party-wize every part of the society and economy...) Now for the real matter at hand... "Indeed, Hagel did exceptionally well in his Senate race -- far better than anyone had anticipated, especially his opponent." A problem in democracy, is that when you tamper with things, and got with it, it will probably be ve dificult to prove you did it. Think: It's evolution!!! There is a wit war between any forces in a democracy to get away with it. Anyone outsmarting everybody, will just get better So don't complain with conspiracy theory... it's the natural conclusion to any democracy. The weapon of the powerless literat... Cheers, Aife
Re: The Statism Meme
On Tuesday, 4 de February de 2003 21:47, you wrote: > >Don't count on EU, we're just as fucked, albeit with a slight delay. > > What about Italy? The Italians seem to be remarkably good at ignoring both > the vatican as well as their government (which changes every few years and > no wonder...do ANY Italians actually pay taxes?). And yet, Northern Italy > has as high a standard of living as I've ever seen. You haven't seen Portugal Only the workers pay taxes... in Northern Italy they live close to Switzerland... What more can be said... A car, a suitcase and a weekend in Geneva with a numbered account. André Esteves
Shuttle Crash and KH satelites...
Several years ago, some tiles got off the shuttle during liftoff. Being afraid of the condition of space shuttle a Keyhole spy satelite was used to examine the bottom of the space shuttle... Why hell in a mission with more than 16 days in space, they didn't do it again? The KH satellites too busy with Iraq??? And now, why 5 of the 8 elements of the nasa comitte to investigate the shuttle explosion are military... in stark contrast with the feynman investigation... I have seen the high res version of shuttle launch, and it seems there is enough debris to scare you into examing the underside of the Columbia space shuttle. Did NASA ask for a KH satelite? If so, did the military say no??? Your truly, André Esteves
Re: Shuttle Diplomacy
On Sunday, 2 de February de 2003 01:45, you wrote: > - Original Message - > From: "Thomas Shaddack" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Harmon Seaver" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 4:42 PM > Subject: Re: Shuttle Diplomacy > > > [snip conspiracy theory] > > > Especially in this case, I'd bet my shoes on Murphy; Columbia was an old > > lady that had her problems even before the launch itself. I'd bet on > > something stupid, like loosened tiles or computer malfunction (though > > more likely the tiles, as the computers are backed up). Remember > > Challenger, where the fault was a stupid O-ring. > > One of the current theories floating around has to do with a piece of > debris that flew off the booster rocket during take-off and collided with > the left wing (where the problems began). The video of the take-off was > reviewed in great detail and it was determined that it was innocent, > considering the proximity of the problems and the debris there appears to > be at least something worth investigating. > Joe You betcha!! If more than a few tiles separated the plasma (much ionized oxigen) would interact with the aluminium of the shuttle structure and as aluminium has a high oxidation value an explosion would ensue... (Think termite...) <--- just a personal theory My question is other thou... Several years ago, some tiles got off the shuttle during liftoff. Being afraid of the condition of space shuttle a Keyhole spy satelite was used to examine the bottom of the space shuttle... Why hell in a mission with more than 10 days in space, they didn't do it again? The KH satellites too busy??? Only if there is a desperate search for saddam hussein's weapons of mass destruction or Osama Bin Laden... and there was no need to bug those people on the reconaissance office... Cheers, aife
Re: Anyone heard about the Berkeley college student?
On Friday 29 November 2002 17:06, you wrote: > In the Chinese papers over the last few days they've been reporting an > incident that happened to a Chinese UC Berkeley college student, who was > using her cell phone to discuss playing some sort of videogame. The > videogame involves placing "explosives" in various places in the game. > > Apparently, whithin minutes after completing the call, police (or other) > officers showed up at her room and brought her in for questioning. She > apparently brought the officers over to the friend's house to show them the > videogame, "proving" that she was indeed talking about a videogame. > > Has anyone heard of this in the "regular" (ie, non-Chinese) press? The > Chinese folks are of course up in arms about the apparent "profiling" this > would imply, apparently ignoring the deeper implications. (For instance, > did they actually get a wire tap for this monitoring? If so, why? If not, > well...) News in a country where newspapers full of the following headlines are published are not to be taken by face value: - The eiffel tower was buit by a chinese - Edison stole the electric light from a chinese blah, blah, blah... A friend of mine (who is married to a singapurean and speaks fluent mandarin and cantonese) when in her first trip to china, found these newspapers with this prepostorous claims. She bought several of them to shown to her husband... In the chinese customs she had them confiscated... Cultural propaganda against western values and achievements. Andri Esteves
Re: The End of the Golden Age of Crypto
On Friday 15 November 2002 00:41, you wrote: > Indeed, I've heard the same. One could argue that for someone to believe in > something (religion) so intensely as to shun all moral explanation against > this hypothesis and to persist in those beliefs without any proof is akin > to schizophrenia. But that's a whole new kettle of fish. > ~SAM It all depends on the definition of sane... As usually it's a religious force who imposes "truth", the faithfull will remain normal ... :) Manipulating the definion of normality is dangerous and only begets the temptation to use it to use other people... We have examples of self-proclaimed atheist societies where this was used for political manipulation: psiquiatric institutions in the former USRR, or even some private institutions in USA that would do that for a hire.. (the case of the frontal lobotomy of Getty's son, ordered by Getty himself (wich probably was age demented by that time, but has people obey to anyone who has a fat checkbook...) We could also invoke memetics and say that religion is like a mental disorder that spreads through a population... A meme infecting minds as they are vulnerable to certain statements, emotions and tautological arguments. My experience in a former religious life, is that the mentally ill are drawn to the religious life... There's even a rare neurological sickness (caused by accidents and brain defects in certain parts of the brain ) in wich the patient has trancesdental experiences and direct contact with god. Interestingly, you can reproduce that experience with some mushrooms or roots from the amazon florest, there's even a cult in Brazil that uses them... (more incredible, is that its alucinations are individualistic... someone that believes in buda, will feel Buda... Jeovah, etc... there are people (usually atheists) that say they talked with aliens and space ghosts :))) This drug will even eliminate addictions.. There are heroin, tabaco, etc addicts that will have their addictions eliminated after a section with the so called sacrament... Wich is very, very interesting for "the god in our brains" seems to clear our deepest fears and pain. Yours faithfully, Andri Esteves
Re: The End of the Golden Age of Crypto
On Friday 15 November 2002 01:43, Sam Ritchie wrote: > Actually, hehe, I've made this comparison before, of religion to a disease. > (first off, let me clarify that I have nothing against anyone's religion! > I'm looking at this from an outsider's perspective, and harbor no biases.) > The torah, for example, has very strict guidelines in it for reproduction > of the book, and strongly encourages its followers to go out and make > copies. As you mention, religion can act as a virus of sorts, "infecting" > its carrier and urging it to carry the "virus" to others. The problem with that kind of "religious meme" is that the original book will refer to a certain time and society.. wich as time passes becomes more and more idyossincratic and out-of-sync... The usual answer to that problem from a religious comunity is to maintain the original lifestyle in wich the "memetic code" was written has to give its followers a sense of "right" in reality and truthnes in the written word. You can see for example the orthodox jews. The other ways are: 1) a prophet in direct contact with the god. Example: Any prophetic sect or reformed religion with a charismatic leader 2) a church wich has a outside "transcription factor" that enables an adaptation to reality. Example: The catholic church, wich has theology as a transcription factor. And the church burocracy to define wich is accepted world-view, justified by theology. (Every 7 years, they revise the list of sins, for example...: These types are not exclusive and usualy evolve from one to other... They all are kind of of an attempt to control the virus, wich is very interesting in itself.. Could we say that organised religion is not itself a disease, but an attempt to control disease?? (to someone's profit of course... : ) > > > > My experience in a former religious life, is that the mentally ill are > > drawn to the religious life... There's even a rare neurological sickness > > (caused by accidents and brain defects in certain parts of the brain ) in > > wich the patient has trancesdental experiences and direct contact with > > god. > > Ooh, and then there's the apparent tongue of Babel. Glossolalia, or > speaking in tongues, is sometimes said to be the human core language. I have read Snow Crash, too. ;) Myself I think that glossofalia is related to the core language, but it's not THE human core language... When 7th day Adventist or any rapture group start speaking in tongues they are usually in a kind of seizure... I think that it's more akin to the "universal gramatic" of Chomsky let loose and completely haywire. Like if you were working with a voice processor and it's phonem library got all mixed up... (The universal gramatic sets the POTENTIAL languages available to humans, so glossofalic languages sound like languages and even have kind of gramatical order but are not languages.. just attempts to speak with the wrong working-level of the brain) > > Interestingly, you can reproduce that experience with some mushrooms or > > roots from the amazon florest, there's even a cult in Brazil that uses > > them... (more incredible, is that its alucinations are individualistic... > > someone that believes in buda, will feel Buda... Jeovah, etc... there are > > people (usually atheists) that say they talked with aliens and space > > ghosts :))) This drug will even eliminate addictions.. There are heroin, > > tabaco, etc addicts that will have their addictions eliminated after a > > section with the so called sacrament... > > > > Weird. Very... It's like the drug that was used by a atheist/eastern mistic society in the book "The island" by Aldous Huxley (his last book). And you can see that tibetan budism, especialy the dalay lama has seen also the potencial children of joining science and eastern misticism. > > Wich is very, very interesting for "the god in our brains" seems to > > clear our deepest fears and pain. > > Have there ever been studies done on the actual, physical effects of > religion on the human brain? It definitely seems valid to say that > SOMETHING occurs within the mind when one "assumes a faith", something > which would definitely be worthwhile to look into... Anyone know? > ~SAM Only on meditation of buddist monks, and during prayer. There as not been to knowledge any study on before/after converted persons... And I think there would be no religion that would accept doing that kind of study... (For obvious reasons...) ~~AIFE aka Stackbit
