* Posts by Pompous Git

3087 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Sep 2014

Three certainties in life: Death, taxes and the speed of light – wait no, maybe not that last one

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Re: Faster than light

So you effectively have a spiral of photons/waves travelling away from you at the speed of light in a spiral (if you span 360 and not just across the wall).
I think you are missing the point. Imagine that instead of a spot of light, that it's a projected image of Phar Lap winning the Agua Caliente Handicap in 1932. Clearly it's not Phar Lap, nor is it 1932 and Phar Lap, while a very fast horse indeed, certainly never ran faster than the speed of light. What we are seeing is in our mind. It's metaphysical, not physical. As I said below, possessing neither mass, nor extension.

You are correct in your instinct though. There is no physical "thing" travelling faster than light.

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Re: "the speed of light could have been faster during the early universe"

But these guys went on and not only wrote out their theory but claim to have a test that can prove it. And they're putting that up in front of a community of people who are very capable of putting said theory to the test and either thoroughly trashing it or conclusively proving it
Name one scientific theory that has been "conclusively proven". Consider the following syllogism:

If my scientific theory is correct, then I will make certain observations.

I do make those observations, therefore my scientific theory is correct.

Now let's replace the premisses with different premisses.

If Hilary is pregnant, then Hilary is a female.

Hilary is female, therefore Hilary is pregnant.

This fallacy is known as affirming the consequent. You can believe as fervently as you want this this is a valid argument, but it's not.

Karl Popper proposed the following syllogism that is valid:

If my scientific theory is correct, then I will make certain observations.

I do not observe what my scientific theory predicted I should observe.

Therefore my scientific theory is incorrect.

Just as no amount of observing pregnant females can prove all females are pregnant, there will never be a sufficient number of corroborative observations to "conclusively prove" a scientific theory. We can only disprove a scientific theory.

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Re: Creates more problems than it solves?

Welcome to the Buddhist Religion..

The Universe has Always Been Here.. and probably goes on Forever..

While I am inclined to agree with you, the Hindus kinda beat you to it. Buddy :-)

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Re: Faster than light

@ anonymous boring coward

There's no fallacy here. A fallacy is a deceptive or misleading argument. You did see the problem though. The spot of light we see is not an object; i.e. it possesses neither mass, nor extension. It's a good one for the pub on Friday night. I usually explain the problem by analogy with a machine gun, rather than a stream of water though. You did rather better than a physicist with a PhD I know :-)

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Faster than light

A gedankenexperiment that's perfectly safe to conduct at home.

Imagine you have a powerful torch like the new LED torch I just received from China. You can focus the light beam such that it's a very small spot onto a nearby wall. Imagine the wall is very long, perhaps ininitely long, but that's not necessary for our purpose. Gradually rotate the torch on its axis so the spot of light moves away from you.

As the beam of light comes close to parallel with the wall, the spot of light will be travelling very fast indeed. Eventually, with a minuscule change in angle, the spot of light on the wall will be travelling faster than the speed of light. Or will it?

Note well that the amount of energy being expended to merely rotate the torch here is very small.

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Re: Science? What happened to "hypothesis" vs "theory"?

I don't think anyone ACTUALLY belives this.
Oh, but scientists tell us it's a "scientifically proven fact". Like "eggs are good for you" when I was a child. And then "eggs are bad for you" from my 20s through 50s. Now they are good for me again. And it's all scientifically proven. Only filthy rotten sceptical denialists refuse to believe absolutely everything scientists declare to be true. ;-)

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Re: Science? What happened to "hypothesis" vs "theory"?

If we think about the case of the "singularity" before the Big Bang, it seems likely that the laws of physics we see today would be totally inadequate to describe that universe.
In BBT there is no before the singularity, only after. The universe (everything there is and ever will be) had no prior existence. Make of that what you will. BB theorists claim that the laws of physics only began to come into existence, one by one, after the BB commenced.

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Re: Creates more problems than it solves?

the concept that there is no such thing as time

The End of Time (book)Julian Barbour, a British physicist with research interests in quantum gravity and the history of science advances timeless physics: the controversial view that time, as we perceive it, does not exist as anything other than an illusion. The philosopher J. M. E. McTaggart reached a similar conclusion earlier in the 20th C.

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Re: What about the vacuum part?

Is the speed of light in intergalactic, or intergalactic-family space faster than in interstellar or interplanetary space where the local density of space is likely to be different?
I suspect that you'll have to await actual in situ measurement if you are an Aristotelian. If you're a neo-Platonist, it's just a matter of contemplating your navel and then plucking a number out of your arse ;-)

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Re: Creates more problems than it solves?

When the meter was invented and defined, the speed of light was not known.
The metre was invented on 17 March 1791. Ole Roemer estimated the speed of light at 200,000 km/s in 1675 and James Bradley gave the number 301,000 km/s in 1728.

Today of course Merkins know that it's 299792.4574 ± 0.0011 km/sec and the British know that it's 299792.4590 ± 0.0008 km/sec.

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Re: Yep

The problem would come when you turned up and asked them to let you compare your rod to theirs.
If you were English and turning up to compare your rod with their French rod, surely the problem would be the impossibility of the English rod being anything other than inferior. Les Albions perfides and all that.

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Re: Theory or hypothesis?

A hypothesis is a theory without supporting evidence.
No. A scientific hypothesis is an explanation based on limited evidence. A scientific theory is also an explanation, but since it's not possible to amass all possible evidence, is also based on limited evidence, just not as limited. IOW it's not worth making a distinction between hypothesis and theory in science.

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Re: "the speed of light could have been faster during the early universe"

a community of people who are very capable of putting said theory to the test and either thoroughly trashing it or conclusively proving it, or somewhere in the middle where proof is not definite but could be possible if some more intelligent people could be found to find out.
Scientific theories cannot be proven; they can be corroborated, but that's not proof. Proof is only available in the domains of mathematics and logic.

What Is This Thing Called Science?

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Re: Creates more problems than it solves?

I thought the speed of light was a constant by definition. If you allow the speed of light to vary, then another measurement would need to be defined as constant.

San Francisco's sinking luxury Millennium Tower: Tilt spotted FROM SPACE

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@ Crazy Operations Guy (wasRe: Third World)

Your definitions were true fifty years ago, but today common usage includes GDP, GNP, literacy rates and the Human Development Index in determining ranking. From Investopedia:

First-world countries have stable currencies and robust financial markets, making them attractive to investors from all over the world.

[Second world is] A country that is more stable and more developed than a third world country but less stable and less well-developed than a first world country.

Third World countries are for the most part poor and underdeveloped. In these countries low levels of education, poor infrastructure, improper sanitation and poor access to health care mean living conditions are inferior.

Pompous Git Silver badge

Re: Friction Piles

I believe many of the cathedrals from the middle ages are atop wooden piles.

They were also using wooden piles for large buildings in 19th century St Louis.

Guess it's all steel now though.

I'd like a reference for that. Most of the excavated cathedral foundations I've read about are rubble and quite massive. The foundations of Notre Dame are more than 10 metres deep and at Reims more than 12 metres wide and are definitely stone, not timber.

Modern foundations are usually concrete. Concrete piles don't contain reinforcing steel as the stresses are compressive, not shear.

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Re: Not the developer's fault.

The city council is working very hard on getting there...
It's a race to the bottom... Our local council was sacked recently by the relevant state Minister. The only surprise was how long it took for him to make the decision. It wasn't corruption; merely rank incompetence. So it goes...

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Re: Well, if a ship sank there, couldn't a building?

the God Rush era San Francisco
I knew there was something attracting all those hippies to Haight and Ashbury ;-)

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"American-engineered"

Frank Zappa - Flakes

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Re: Not the developer's fault.

There is no real oversight or auditing beyond that, so unless there was a very obvious flaw it is unlikely inspectors would discover it... The inspectors are overworked to the point of being ineffectual.
Third World it is then. I am surprised, especially since Merkins are less than hesitant to describe Tasmania as "Third World". The last five years of my working life (to my everlasting shame) I worked in the civil service (Building Compliance).

Pompous Git Silver badge

Re: Not the developer's fault.

If you read the articles it clearly states that there was no comprehensive design review done because the developers refused to do one and the planning department didn't think they could for the to.
I somehow don't think San Francisco is in the 3rd World. Developers hire accredited engineers to design buildings to comply with the Building Code. The City employs or hires Building Surveyors who certify that the design either complies with the Code, or is "Deemed to Satisfy" the aims of the Code. Only then is a Building Permit issued and building commences. During construction, Building Surveyors (often called Inspectors at this stage) visit the site to ensure that the building is being erected as per the design and including any special instructions issued with the Building Permit.

Blaming the developers is a big stretch unless they suborned the Engineers and/or Building Surveyors. If the latter, then they are culpable since this is professional misconduct.

London cops' tech slammed for failing abused kids – report

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Re: No child is 'streetwise'

What does 'streetwise' mean in the context of a child?
According to my older son who works to help such people, it means they live on the streets. Usually it's to get away from abusive parents and most have a drug habit. Most make the money they need by selling their bodies for sex. It's not a pleasant life.

Drops the mic... Hang on, hackers could be listening through my headphones?

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going to be more sensitive than a couple of floor-monsters that don't move until you slam 300W through them.
That 300W is for the low end. Mid-range and high frequencies don't need anywhere near that and those are the frequencies of interest. The real difficulty is transferring the information those transducers are already picking up to where they can be useful.

CompSci Prof raises ballot hacking fears over strange pro-Trump voting patterns

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Re: The good reason for investigating this issue...

There were 23 f*** muppets on the f*** ballot.
Aw diddums. There were 150 candidates in NSW standing for the Senate in the recent Australian election. Fortunately there were only 58 standing in Tasmania where I live.

Trump may stump Australian techies heading for the US

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Re: Americans First

How easy is it for an American to get a work visa for AUS?
Dunno about these days, but my best mate had to renounce his US citizenship in order to gain employment as a teacher in the early 70s.

NBN costs creating budget time bomb: Deloitte

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Re: All's fair and good, but

No word from anyone about it, and no sign of any work going on.
But no doubt the money has changed hands so it's all good.

Pompous Git Silver badge

Re: No great surprise here

If you are asking why don't we just have a Ethernet port on the wall to plug into?
I am indeed. Why would any average household need to access four different ISPs? I'm on FW and there's VOIP (two ports) via the Internet router supplied my my ISP. There's no secondary box for VOIP because we retain a POTS so no need for VOIP. The conclusion I reached very soon after the NBN rollout commenced here in Tasmania is that this hasn't been very well thought out.

Pompous Git Silver badge

No great surprise here

The dude who installed NBN at the Git's home told him the NTD cost $AU600. In Japan the NTD is a $AU15 Ethernet port. If the Japanese need the functionality provided by the NBN's NTD, they purchase a device to plug into the Ethernet port. Apart from lining the pockets of the manufacturers, can anyone tell me why every NBN installation needs an NTD with four ports for four separate RSPs? Ten million $AU600 devices is a lot of moolah for the ALP's mates and matesses.

NetComm kicked to the curb by nbn™ for fibre-not-quite-to-the-home

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the company developed data interfaces so Optus could deliver broadband data over its HFC network, which was designed to carry voice and voice.
Echo that...

LAKE OF frozen WATER THE SIZE OF NEW MEXICO FOUND ON MARS – NASA

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Re: Hey, Elon!

We found your gas station!
But have they found the Utopia Planitia Fleet shipyards?

NASA discovers mysterious super-fast electrons whizzing above Earth

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Re: Amazing there's still things to surprise us

As a result, I have an open mind on the subject and will be conducting my own experiments in due course, just like a proper scientist ;)
Perhaps I'm a little closer to alchemy than you imagine; that is, I'm not a "proper" scientist either. My small contributions have been in the area of organic production, described to me over 30 years ago as "muck and mystery". Making sense of "nonsense" is lots of fun. You might find the following of interest:

Plant Talk

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Re: Amazing there's still things to surprise us

The movie looked like the kind of thing the Gits enjoy, but ebay Australia only came up with a Long John Baldry DVD when searching on water, dvd and 1987. So I purchased that instead.

Why I just bought a MacBook Air instead of the new Pro

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Re: The customer is always.... a cash cow

Seriously, if you have a garden, even tiny, plant some tomatoes and taste them, yes, they will taste like the tomatoes you ate 30 years ago.
Likely you'd need to go back further in time than that. When I commenced my organic market gardening in the mid 80s, my customers weren't the trendies; they were the old folks who remembered the taste of real food. And gourmet chefs.

But yes, tomatoes grown in humus-rich soil taste ever so much better than hydroponically grown shite.

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XP was stable after a couple of service packs, slow nowadays, because of no multi threading
No multithreading? Really? Win95 and NT4 both supported multithreading... It was MacOS prior to X that persisted with co-operative multitasking.

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an Apple Genius told me...

...how much the company would charge for a new keyboard that it became apparent it was time to retire this old workhorse.
At least they are available! An Apple "Genius" told me that a replacement optical drive and keyboard were not available for a 5 year-old Macbook. It was obsolete. Works fine with a Logitech USB keyboard and there's a USB optical drive on the shelf if needed.

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At this point...

...it dawned on me that Apple may have completely lost its mind.
You never read Infinite Loop: How the World's Most Insanely Great Computer Company Went Insane published 16 years ago then.

New state of matter discovered by superconductivity gurus

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can be put down an effort to express something a layperson can understand without feeling too uneducated
Unfortunately it also reads like something written by someone who doesn't understand what they are writing about, even superficially.

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Re: "breaks time-reversal"

it's more like hysterysis than particle physics CPT violation. And they've used the phrase 'cos it sounds sexier.
Quoting the paper:

Nernst effect, terahertz polarimetry and ultrasound measurements on YBa2Cu3Oy suggest that the pseudogap onset below a temperature T∗ coincides with a bona fide thermodynamic phase transition that breaks time-reversal
There's nothing particularly unusual about breaking of time-reversal in thermodynamics. If I smash a vase with a hammer, the vase breaks into pieces. What we never see is a vase spontaneously reassembling itself and a reverse hammer blow.

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Water is a random jumble of H2O particles and has no symmetries

Really? Water Clusters: Introduction

Image of 280 molecule, 3 nm diameter structures here. Each 280 molecule contains 8 different subclusters. I seem to recall Lynn Margulis saying something like "random means I don't understand it".

Facebook Fake News won it for Trump? That's a Zombie theory

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Re: You never heard about

AC for fear of provoking DV's from AO trolls
Devota Virgines from Adults Only? The mind boggles...

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Re: (unpopular) Solution

Teach children critical thinking in school, and help them to be prepared to encounter advertising, propaganda and misuse of statistics.
Not likely to happen, but have an upvote anyway. I had the great good fortune to have a secondary teacher who engendered critical thinking in his students. We remain friends nearly 50 years later :-)

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In my view, and I admit there's just about nobody else in the world who agrees with this: neither candidate deserved to be elected.
Here in the Land called Under, we are obliged to vote. When faced with a list of candidates to vote for, I have been known to write rude things about them, rather than cast a valid vote. It's called an informal vote and they are counted and growing at each election over the last few decades.

Your simple idea has much merit.

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I am an English Liberal...

Winnie was a Liberal, not a liberal.

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"Maybe it's the people who are crazy"

Some are. But 61 million?

You never heard about Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds? Still worth a read...

AI can now tell if you're a criminal or not

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Re: Sorta

You are looking at Lombroso's "Criminal atavism" in its worst form here.
Ooh that was savage; but fair.

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Re: Hold on

I am going to keep from rendering my opinion until the results are in from scanning politicians.
No need to scan politicians; they're 99% likely to be criminals.

Helping autonomous vehicles and humans share the road

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Re: amniotic

What kind of a van are you even driving?
One with plenty of womb one presumes.

Antivirus tools are a useless box-ticking exercise says Google security chap

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Dang. I thought that it was Scotland where men were men...
The accent was the giveaway :-) "phushing lunks". Mind you, an awful lot of them are descended from Scotsmen...

Microsoft's cmd.exe deposed by PowerShell in Windows 10 preview

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Re: Wouldn't want a power shell

My favorite native shell for Windows dates back maybe 20 years.. 4NT. And for dos 4DOS. Fond memories of both.
Props for that :-) Mostly I get blank looks when I mention them.