Exactly. He got all the girls. Watch him and learn.

If this arbitrary value comes out more than 2 Einstein was wrong. And the answer is.... 2.5 woohoooo! Anything practical on the horizon?

Also strings + entanglement = Flying Spaghetti Monster confirmed.

Wow. Interesting discussion going on here, and I say "interesting" because there's a lot of conflict between people who share the same vision of what society should be, but place blame for the reasons why it's not (in the context of this video) in completely different pieces from one another.
I've never posted to a thread this long before because I assume that it will get lost in the shuffle/argument/whatever, but I wanted to share how I broke the scene down and what I gathered from the video.
The fundamental problem here, which is subjective so I understand if someone doesn't agree, is that:
"most people" would not be comfortable walking down the street in this neighborhood.
"Most people" want safety, or more specifically; as much of a chance to not fear for their lives while existing.
What would remedy this? The hard rule of law? Or let it pan out as-is. The former has never stopped me from an action that society might not agree with. I don't run people over or shoot guns into the air because I believe in not hurting others, and both those actions either do, or have a decent chance to.
On the other hand, I really believe this is one step removed from a war-zone. Not to mistakenly define this scenario as a binary gradient between order or chaos, but if one group of friends became violently entangled with another group of friends, that's exactly what would result: armed, faction opposition.
Most people seem to argue over the solutions we know of, rather than the problems that exist, but it seems to me that none of those are working.
So I guess my question is: how would you make these neighborhoods "safe" for non-violent people to live in that isn't attributed to some form of government?

The other two guys write the lyrics and they usually come out fairly funny:

All Night Strangers

On top of pink palaces grown
Remarkable shapes; handles to hold at night
I dream of your finger touching my scars
you're wearing your rubber reversible velvet gloves
Who are you to be so cruel?
Is it any wonder I get dolled up in your clothes?
When you're out on your own,
Better than being dressed like myself when you're here.

All night strangers that look like you
denying that they know who I am,
I get entangled walking out in the cane
Were we not born to make one of two?
Is it any wonder that I sleep in an armoire in Thailand, alone?
Trying to squeeze the love out of myself,
wrapping the cord one more time around,
All night strangers are told by you to deny that they know who I am
As I'm turning blue I'm turning red from the shame

THESE ARE THE LYRICS:

On top of pink palaces grown
Remarkable shapes; handles to hold at night

I dream of your finger touching my scars
you're wearing your rubber reversible velvet gloves

Who are you to be so cruel?

Is it any wonder I get dolled up in your clothes?
When you're out on your own,
Better than being dress like myself when you're here.

All night strangers that look like you
denying that they know who I am,
I get entangled walking out in the cane

Were we not born to make one of two?

Is it any wonder that I sleep in an armoire in Thailand, alone?
Trying to squeeze the love out of myself,
wrapping the cord one more time around,

All night strangers are told by you to deny that they know who I am
As I'm turning blue I'm turning red from the shame

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Great post - good discussion.

Maybe they also hate us for our hypocrisy. Supporting autocratic leaders like Saddam and Mubarak with money and weapons - while spouting the virtues of democracy. That certainly bugs the shit out of me.

George Washington, Woodrow Wilson and Ron Paul would like to see the US disentagle from foreign entanglements - close bases, pull back troops, stop military support.

At first, I say Yes! Then I think about it ... Nature abhors a vacuum. In a unipolar world, what happens when the pole removes itself from the game?

I don't really understand how a pair of entangled electrons allows the bird to detect miniscule changes in the magnetic field, and if they are in superposition, ie they are both simultaneously spin up and spin down, then how does that effect the chemistry of these entangled proteins?

Also, I thought the reason entanglement doesn't break the whole "can't send information faster than the speed of light" was because you had no control over whether you see spin up or spin down, and therefore it was effectively impossible to send information faster than light. Doesn't this example of the robin seem to contradict this?

I did a little digging when I first watched this and all I could really find/understand was they introduced VERY little noise into the magnetic field, a disturbance so fine that the robin would be unable to detect it unless something was going on at the quantum level. Yet, the robin did evidently detect it and thats why these theories exist.

Anywai, its super interesting. good sift.

Public schools aren't allowed to expel someone for truancy, they can fail you but not expel you. Not on that fact alone and I say as long as she was turning her work in who cares if she was there or not. When I went to school I regularly missed 20-30 days a year due to a chronic illness but I always did my work my parents would pick up my make up work I completed it and I never failed a single grade and had honors classes in junior high and high school.

>> ^MilkmanDan:

I don't see how this is a criminal / court issue at all.
If the school wants to kick her out, that would be their decision (it'd be a dick thing to do, but up to them). She is old enough to drop out, so the idea that the government can get entangled with "excessive truancy" is completely ridiculous.
If she isn't completing schoolwork, tell her that she may fail courses and therefore fail to graduate. But from the side that we're hearing here, it sounds like she is keeping up just fine.
Whatever the whole story is, it seems to be that it should be an issue between the school and the student. Judge needs to stop power-tripping.

I don't see how this is a criminal / court issue at all.

If the school wants to kick her out, that would be their decision (it'd be a dick thing to do, but up to them). She is old enough to drop out, so the idea that the government can get entangled with "excessive truancy" is completely ridiculous.

If she isn't completing schoolwork, tell her that she may fail courses and therefore fail to graduate. But from the side that we're hearing here, it sounds like she is keeping up just fine.

Whatever the whole story is, it seems to be that it should be an issue between the school and the student. Judge needs to stop power-tripping.

>> ^bareboards2:

Protect yourself by having a will, too. Gay or straight, if you aren't married and you are that financially entangled, get a will.
If you are married with children, figure out who you want to take care of them and put it in writing.
I'm a firm supporter of gay rights. But you don't have to wait for the government to take care of you in all things. Take care of yourself. Gay or straight.


Exactly my thoughts.

Also, durable Power of Attorney (Medical and Financial) would be a very good thing to have.

Protect yourself by having a will, too. Gay or straight, if you aren't married and you are that financially entangled, get a will.

If you are married with children, figure out who you want to take care of them and put it in writing.

I'm a firm supporter of gay rights. But you don't have to wait for the government to take care of you in all things. Take care of yourself. Gay or straight.

I wonder how closely together these things can be safely and effectively bunched. If it's better than mounted turbines, this could be good. Something tells me they have to be really far apart so their tethers don't get entangled.

I would like to take a moment to fight the good fight. Let's get down to brass tacks: Idle hands are the devil's tools. That's why Rick Mercer spends his leisure time devising ever more money-grubbing ways to commit senseless acts of violence against anyone daring to challenge his vindictive wheelings and dealings. To use some computer terminology, his gang has an "installed base" of hundreds of disorganized renitent-types. The implication is that Rick thinks it would be a great idea to entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of the ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice of acrasial, gloomy finaglers. Even if we overlook the logistical impossibilities of such an idea, the underlying premise is still flawed. Although I can no more change the past than see the future, it's safe to say that I have a dream that my children will be able to live in a world filled with open spaces and beautiful wilderness—not in a dark, villainous world run by lecherous, obstreperous dissemblers. It should come as no shock to anyone that if you can make any sense out Rick's lackluster mottos then you must have gotten higher marks in school than I did. I could be wrong about any or all of this, but at the moment, the above fits what I know of history, people, and current conditions. If anyone sees anything wrong or has some new facts or theories on this, I'd love to hear about them

Believe it or not, I can personally relate to how you feel about it. I used to feel mostly the same way as someone who was previously agnostic to the idea of whether there is a supreme being or not, a Creator of the Universe. I also know why you feel you have come to a very sound conclusion about the idea, which is that you see no evidence of God or spirit. If you believe matter is all there is, it makes the existence of a supernatural Creator rather far fetched doesn't it?

Now you talk about logic, but even if you don't believe in the supernatural, there is by default no logical reason why either scenerio is more likely than the other, if you go by the initial premise that everything is equally unlikely. Why should there be something rather than nothing? That is the great question on Stephan Hawkings mind, even though he believes he can get the entire Universe from quantum foam.

These were questions I wrestled with as an agnostic. For one, I knew the limitations of our subjective perceptions. The limitations of human knowledge. It's a big Universe out there and we haven't even left our solar system yet. There are many possibilities even within the traditional secular understanding. What if life emerged on another planet far, far earlier? What would an intelligence evolving over billions of years look like? Was there a power that ruled this entire Universe? Those were just wonderings. But I found the real struggle was to objectively define truth. Any foundational truth, really. What is beauty? What is altruism? What is truth itself? 7 billion subjective perspectives does not equal one objective one. There is no way to get outside the Universe and look into it, and there is no way to go back to before it was created. These are simply the differences between relative and absolute truth.

These questions are much bigger than atheism, which is why I was agnostic. I didn't see any way I could write God off and be objective, but at the time I didn't see much reason to believe in Him either. You apparently feel differently. I'm interested to hear your logical reasons for not believing in God. A revelation that I had when I was thinking about these things was that I had entangled the concept of God with all of the religions of the world. To truly be objective, you have to look past religion, and consider the problem on just a probability basis. What is the likelyhood of any of it? You can explain it away with this and this and this happened, there was this explosion and then rocks came together and then amoebas appeared and then apes and then me, tada. You have to put all of that aside, as well as the size of the Universe, and just consider Stephan Hawkins question. Why is there something rather than nothing?

In any case, you don't see any evidence for a spirit so you are dealing with an entirely different set of parameters. For there to be a spirit you would have to deal with the fact that everything you know is in some way, wrong. You just naturally are not going to look in that direction.

The thing about God is, He isn't going to push Himself into your life. You think it's just a matter of evidence, a matter of discovering something; the truth is that to know God is not a right, it is a priviledge. You could spend 10,000 lifetimes dedicated to searching for God and you would never find Him until that moment when He chose to reveal Himself to you.

Hebrews 11:6

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Sometimes He has mercy on atheists, like this man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4lgvZ5MCZ4

But biblically, He tells us to seek Him out. If you refuse to do that then you don't have any excuses. You've heard the truth and we are accountable to what we know. You don't feel a need for God right now but that's why we're here. God is patient, but we aren't guaranteed a single day on this planet. If you died today you would face judgement, but His mercy keeps you here that you will repent and turn from sin. So don't take your life for granted because that isn't anything we control. I say this out of love. God gives a lot of grace, and to know Jesus Christ is to know peace, and joy. It is to understand the meaning of truth, to have love, and to be free. It is to be made new. My prayer is that you, and others here, will come to know that for yourselves.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:
@shinyblurry said: Fletch, you're even denial about the definition of atheism,which is the denial of any deity according to the dictionary.
Thats not how most atheists define atheism. Atheism is the LACK OF BELIEF in any theistic claim. There is a crucial difference. I dont "deny" any deity, that sentence doesnt even make sense to me as an atheist, any more than the sentence "The denial of any leprechaun".
You (@shinyblurry) believe in God
I dont.
Thats all there is to it.
"Not believing in god" wasnt really a conscious or deliberate decision on my part, its just "the way I am". But when i examine that position rationally and deliberately I find that it does also make more sense than believing there is a god. Can a beliver really, REALLY say the same, I wonder?

There have been a few possible theories, a more like a strong hypothesis, that has alternate ideas for the presence of Dark Matter. One of which is simply more a misunderstanding by us of the nature of what is happening at a fundamental level concerning the internal structure and spin of galaxies; their part and full presentation into the full dynamics--the true inner workings--isn't fully realized yet, but they assert a new reason for the discrepancy in how the galaxy spins at different radii in that galaxy and in fact kill off the need for Dark matter. Secondly, it's our mathematics involved that have created this absolute need for Dark Matter to even exist, which is explained in the last part about this subject below. Lastly, a few findings like the outer arms, the large gas/ice/dust/etc... volumes (nebulae and plasma lit regions) and the stars (and their systems)--their movement rate on the outside edge of their respective galaxies, which if like "normal physics" (I quote that because if we made a mistake, the fault will always be ours and not the Universes ) would seem to show that the inside should rotate faster than the outside edges, which is not what happens at all--they rotate at the SAME speed. The actual math involved to solve this little mystery shows that there HAS TO be a large chunk of the Universe missing to get the mathematics to finally spit out numbers that work out. They have provided their own set of new cosmological equations that describe the motion within a galaxy; as of this writing they have tried the new math equations on four different galaxies that are known well. The reason this one has most likely been called a theory as of late is due to their new equations completely and correctly describing the motion of those galaxies, from origin, even until their virtual deaths--that makes this small theory the strongest front-runner for getting rid of Dark Matter altogether. This was a large paragraph, I made it small to make it a tad more readable.

But, Dark Matter is a very well-held theory for the scientific community though and it still has quite a bit of evidence for it's case as well. It has much more proof than this smaller theory does, but it's good to keep an open mind and let your mind run free with new ideas every so often as it may give you a new idea as well. Due to an idea I heard from a physicist: Lawrence Krauss, I was thinking about the Universe and some implications concerning Quantum Mechanics with possible larger scale events that are occurring with cosmologists looking for ways to explain things, but they are basically on the run--the fresh ideas are gone. Because, of the little creative idea above that explains away Dark Matter it triggered a provocative idea, one that I'm not qualified to answer or really even guess at (beyond it's initial qualities)--so I will send the idea off and see if they can maybe visualize what I'm implying just a little more clearly. I'm not entirely sure there will be a correct way to view this idea due to it's near "virtual"-like impact on our Universe, one that may be unprovable except for three possible ways I can think of. Two of which are beyond are capability right now, but we will have the ability later and the last using Quantum Foam experiments to look for certain types of superposition maybe even using entanglement (it would need to be a semi-radical setup that is "one-sided" in nature and using information concerning Dark Energy, as I'll finish here at the end of the sentence) that may relate to information that might be probable to gain through later scientific gathering, like the expansion rate or if it's nature is confined merely to space-time or if it actually occurs eventually all the way down to the subatomic.

I had the idea that perhaps Dark Energy could actually be the tell-tale signs of an existing second Big Bang merely hidden under our collective noses due too space-time and it's nature (maybe it's fairly "structurally sound" when it comes to a bubble fight) or it's an active component of the Quantum Mechanical universe, perhaps directly attributed to the Quantum Foam. I'm wondering--and of course I've got no real idea what a Universe "pressing" upon us might do, if this could even happen--if Dark Energy is the pressure wave of perhaps a secondary Universe, probably very much like ours,but the logical, mathematical,constants, and theories have either become slightly different to a lot or the Universe is unlike anything in our book; but I'm assuming it came from the same Quantum Foam that got us here which means it may have more in common with us that we know.

I'm going to try and get some more feedback on this and see if it proves to go elsewhere and opens new doors.

I guess they've perfected communicators that use entangled electrons.