2014-06-15
So maybe I can just turn this into a journal:
Watched the finale of Warehouse 13 today, and it ended just before the actual end of the program! ARRRRGH!
But then I realized I could probably find it online. Sure enough, at ScyFy.com, I could hav watched the entire episode, and got to confirm that there was only a few seconds left, as I'd expected.
That was Cool.
I also realized that that was the first time I turned on my TV once in over a week!
I went into the Series Manager, and deleted all the old series. Which left only CSI, Mythbusters, and Agents of Shield. (I gave up NCSI this season...the loss of Ziva at least nipped the budding romance between her and Anthony, but also removed my interest in the show.)
I'm seriously beginning to think about cutting cable completely, and getting my shows online.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Russia's making noises about pulling out of the ISS partnership by 2020. NASA has NO man-capable vehicle even on the books. Private enterprise is still a ways away from regular orbital flights.
I now expect to see the end of the ISS project in my own lifetime.
THIS is why a species with the competitive spirit to get into space doesn't go any farther. They can't cooperate long enough to get off the planet permanently.
I now expect to see the end of the ISS project in my own lifetime.
THIS is why a species with the competitive spirit to get into space doesn't go any farther. They can't cooperate long enough to get off the planet permanently.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
More Time Travel
Use a time machine to go back thirty seconds and stop yourself from using the time machine. Bam! Single-generation Grandfather Paradox!
Story 1: Energy/Mass conservation violation destroys the universe. Boring.
Story 2: Energy/Mass conservation destroys the machine and everything around it. News reports your death in the explosion, and everything goes on unchanged.
Story 3: Both 'you's are destroyed, but the machine's fine. Everything goes on unchanged. (Technicians looking at mangled remains: "John said he was going to see what happens if he went back and prevented himself from going back." "Yeah. Let's be sure not to do that.")
Story 4 (and MY answer to the paradox): Just before you enter the time machine, another you steps out and stops you. "Why'd you stop me?" "I wanted to see what would happen." "But that's what I was going to do!" "Well, here we are. Now what?" (The very act of going back in time creates a new timeline that includes the traveler's appearance. The traveler vanishes from the original timeline, never to return. A similar traveler from another timeline may or may not appear in the original one, but only if he doesn't interfere with the original traveler's plans, or it's another divergent timeline.)
Story 5: The original you vanishes the instant the traveling you arrives. Still a new timeline.
"That's odd. I was going to enter the machine, but now I'm here, coming out of it." (Conservation of mass/energy destroys the original you the instant the traveling you arrives.)
Note: If there is only one reality/timeline/universe, time travel is impossible due to violation of conservation of mass/energy.
Similarly, even with multiple timelines, a traveler must arrive at the same one leaves, to preserve the mass/energy total.
Travel into the past adds matter to the past. How is that affected by Energy/Mass Conservation? Establishing the field that projects the matter into the past requires energy equal to the mass? Once established, the field is stable, and shutting it off returns the traveler? Or is it a one-way trip until an equal amount of energy is expended to remove the matter from the past?
Nature sems to violate Consrvation all the time on the quantum scale, for short periods. Perhaps the time travel field allows temporary violation on a macro scale? Field must be collapsed in a controlled fashion. Uncontrolled collapse releases all the energy at once -- the traveler is yanked back to the present, and is now at ground zero of the release. This is considered a Bad Thing.
The traveler experiences the travel while the field is being established? And again while it's collapsing.
Story 1: Energy/Mass conservation violation destroys the universe. Boring.
Story 2: Energy/Mass conservation destroys the machine and everything around it. News reports your death in the explosion, and everything goes on unchanged.
Story 3: Both 'you's are destroyed, but the machine's fine. Everything goes on unchanged. (Technicians looking at mangled remains: "John said he was going to see what happens if he went back and prevented himself from going back." "Yeah. Let's be sure not to do that.")
Story 4 (and MY answer to the paradox): Just before you enter the time machine, another you steps out and stops you. "Why'd you stop me?" "I wanted to see what would happen." "But that's what I was going to do!" "Well, here we are. Now what?" (The very act of going back in time creates a new timeline that includes the traveler's appearance. The traveler vanishes from the original timeline, never to return. A similar traveler from another timeline may or may not appear in the original one, but only if he doesn't interfere with the original traveler's plans, or it's another divergent timeline.)
Story 5: The original you vanishes the instant the traveling you arrives. Still a new timeline.
"That's odd. I was going to enter the machine, but now I'm here, coming out of it." (Conservation of mass/energy destroys the original you the instant the traveling you arrives.)
Note: If there is only one reality/timeline/universe, time travel is impossible due to violation of conservation of mass/energy.
Similarly, even with multiple timelines, a traveler must arrive at the same one leaves, to preserve the mass/energy total.
Travel into the past adds matter to the past. How is that affected by Energy/Mass Conservation? Establishing the field that projects the matter into the past requires energy equal to the mass? Once established, the field is stable, and shutting it off returns the traveler? Or is it a one-way trip until an equal amount of energy is expended to remove the matter from the past?
Nature sems to violate Consrvation all the time on the quantum scale, for short periods. Perhaps the time travel field allows temporary violation on a macro scale? Field must be collapsed in a controlled fashion. Uncontrolled collapse releases all the energy at once -- the traveler is yanked back to the present, and is now at ground zero of the release. This is considered a Bad Thing.
The traveler experiences the travel while the field is being established? And again while it's collapsing.
The Billiards Paradox
I just read an interesting restatement of the Grandfather Paradox:
Imagine a pool table with a wormhole on it. The wormhole loops through time and space such that if you shoot a billiard ball into one end, it comes out the other end a second or so BEFORE it enters. So you'd see it emerge before it enters, and for a second or two, there are two of the same ball on the table. (We're ignoring whether this violates conservation of mass/energy.)
Now imagine aiming the ball at the wormhole so that when it comes out of the wormhole, it hits the version of itself rolling towards the wormhole, and deflects that one so it never enters the wormhole! Which means it doesn't come out of the wormhole, so it isn't deflected, so it does enter the wormhole, and it does deflect itself...and so on.
Yes, that's the kind of thing I find interesting.
Imagine a pool table with a wormhole on it. The wormhole loops through time and space such that if you shoot a billiard ball into one end, it comes out the other end a second or so BEFORE it enters. So you'd see it emerge before it enters, and for a second or two, there are two of the same ball on the table. (We're ignoring whether this violates conservation of mass/energy.)
Now imagine aiming the ball at the wormhole so that when it comes out of the wormhole, it hits the version of itself rolling towards the wormhole, and deflects that one so it never enters the wormhole! Which means it doesn't come out of the wormhole, so it isn't deflected, so it does enter the wormhole, and it does deflect itself...and so on.
Yes, that's the kind of thing I find interesting.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013
Grrrr
There are few things worse than having to wipe piss off a toilet seat before you can sit down.
One of them is realizing you didn't look closely enough before you sat down.
Guys are pigs.
And yes, I'm a guy. What's your point?
One of them is realizing you didn't look closely enough before you sat down.
Guys are pigs.
And yes, I'm a guy. What's your point?
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Reading
I've been an avid reader all my life. I don't even remember learning to read, I learned so young (my parents taught me to read before I even started school). I don't remember reading the "See Spot Run" type of books at all.
The first books I remember reading were the Lensman books by E.E.Smith, followed by "anything I could reach standing on the floor" (Mom kept the child-rearing books on the top shelf). Reading has always been my primary form of entertainment, almost exclusively science fiction.
And I read a lot. My reading speed on entertainment material is about 600wpm and I would have guessed that I read an average of 20-30 books a year. But this year, I've been tracking my reading on Goodreads. And I'm currently at 110 books this year! That's 15 books a month! And that doesn't even count short stories, or the nine that I gave up on and didn't finish!
I never had a grasp before on just how much I read. Wow.
The first books I remember reading were the Lensman books by E.E.Smith, followed by "anything I could reach standing on the floor" (Mom kept the child-rearing books on the top shelf). Reading has always been my primary form of entertainment, almost exclusively science fiction.
And I read a lot. My reading speed on entertainment material is about 600wpm and I would have guessed that I read an average of 20-30 books a year. But this year, I've been tracking my reading on Goodreads. And I'm currently at 110 books this year! That's 15 books a month! And that doesn't even count short stories, or the nine that I gave up on and didn't finish!
I never had a grasp before on just how much I read. Wow.
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