chuck kottke

Welcome Aboard Migz! Toronto is a cool place to be:cool:

Greeting from the Western Shore of Lake Michigan! Hope all is well with you in Croatia!:)

Gravity boots are made of dark matter.:P

:rolleyes:Oh, you mean the one that's going to create a black hole that will suck up the Earth, or at least Switzerland?:laugh3: Jamie, I'd stay off the planet while the lights dim when they fire up that baby.. :P Yes, I do recall something from Sci.Am. or Public Broadcasting on it.. The article would be nice to see - yes, if you find it, I'd be interested. Now, if only I could get the magnetron in the microwave oven to create a black hole.. hmm.. how much juice would it take to do that??:lol:

Yea, I agree! I've got friends from all over the globe, and we're no different from one-another, outside of our personalities and perspectives on things.. I think we're saddled with late 19th century thinking from the bad old days...

the grand illusion Let's see now.. we've divide us into those who have lighter skin, and those who have darker skin tone. And those who have higher cheek bones and slightly longer eye lids from those who have lower cheek bones and shorter eye lids. We've been divide by continent, & somewhat by ethnic leaning.. This is bananas. What there is is cultural differences - the rest is just splitting hairs, as I see it. So, of the dozen or more tribal population subgroups in Africa, all as different genetically from one another as they are genetically from the rest of the globe's population put together, are all lumped together as "black". And "white" is the generic term for northern European groups, with a fair mixing of genetics from the Asian subgroups, as well as North African. And if we consider that it was one tribal group in Africa, the Namibians, that split, and the result was a migration to the rest of the earth's land masses, with very slight genetic shifts to adapt to different climates, that then became the populations in the rest of the globe until the historically recent mixing of gene pools. Then going a little further back, all the African populations and all the global populations of us came from one group in Africa.. I suppose we're all visually cued, like birds, to some extent, so these minor things are noticeable, and selection like the birds of paradise occurs as well - but basically, we're pretty much the same. State of mind varies more than minor variations in appearance, etc., so what we are is more a matter of how we think. Variety is the spice of life, so I'm fine with that! But these old ways of lumping and splitting have got to go. In today's world, we are becoming more and more global culturally, but distinct locally based on ethnic flavors; trying to say someone is such-and-such is more like saying someone is a Tiger's fan, or a Bruin's fan - they may root for one team, or identify with that label, but it's all just a grand illusion..

Great suggestion, David! Yes, very nice sounding - somewhere between all those musical forms - harmonizing well together.

No LSD Mark. - cc. colors:jester: - good god Jamie, it's just to liven up this place! :P But on topic, if ever increasing numbers of states (in the common vernacular, entropy, or disorder/chaos) is driving the universe, then how does randomness relate to this? :hat:

And I love the quote on the bottle - "this deep coffee colored beer has the aroma and flavor of chocolate.."

Let the Turkey out of the bottle!:laugh3: What's that all about??:rolleyes: Have a Chicago Stockyard Oatmeal Stout. I'll flip for it.;)

Greetings to a fellow dreamer! :hat: Keep warm, and stay cool!:cool: Glad you could join our collective!! Cheers!!!

Anyhow, this thread is PROOF POSITIVE that the infinite improbability drive is working quite well in the Heart of Gold.:laugh3:. Back to the actual thread's topic: The answer is out still. Some predicted that randomness occurred a minute fraction of a second after the big bang, but the stop-action cameras were wayy too slow to catch it back then! But they did catch the Green Flash of the Sun, however...:P Still searching for the restaraunt at the end of the Univverse! Randomness is seen in: radioactive decay, dice, snow on TV, and what else?

Vacuuming the house! :) (It was a terrible mess, and now it's mostly sand-free ;))

Who gives a rip what Slate thinks! I'd like to see one of those 'critics' actually try their hand at song writing and playing!! What really gets me, is how they gush over AROBTTH, and everything else is nothing to them. I suppose only record sales and air-play tells them what to think of an album? Just me venting - I think Coldplay did an excellent job with Viva, and to me their songs speak about the mood/undercurrent that is being felt today, more poignantly so during the past winter, when all the housing market mess was going down, and we've been so fed up with the current heads of state, and their mad wars. Slate can go suck a lemon. ;'|

:chef::chef::chef::chef::thumbsup:Smashing Pumpkins can be FUN!:cool::hat:

All the best to you, Joel! Great taste in music :>

Simultaneous Equations with Tipping Points Ahem.. Getting back to the original question, it's more about our imaginations, investigations, and the concepts in Physics that I'm trying to understand. (Although, the answer could be hidden in Calvin's beard..:laugh3: if predestination leads us inexorably to the the answer!) 42 sounds nice, but the ultimate question was what was lacking.. So, after a lengthy conversation with an anthropologist alumni and good friend from the U of Chicago, who had the fuzzy recollection that it might have something to do with the mathematics of the Big Bang / Big Bangs.. Perhaps nothing really is "random", but part of the driving mechanisms relative to the theoretical event that spawned the Universe as we know it. Predestination? Only time will tell! I still cling to the notion that it's related to all the simultaneous equations describing chaotic events with tipping points, leading to a smaller number of steady states; as one dimension is allowed to continue (the time dimension), a sampling of these interacting forces/equations can be detected, and appears to us as random. Hence, radioactive decay, dice landing up snake eyes, etc. (and yes, random number generators really aren't - that's quite true. But they may contain a hint in the complexity of their equations that yield stable state outputs which have sufficient complexity to approach true randomness) - perhaps it's somewhat like taking the limit on any number of chaotic equations with tipping points, in that as the number of equations approaches infinity, the randomness of the output approaches some infinite unpredictability?):P More research needed on this one..

;)I believe the Turkey has gone to heaven perhaps then, or at least gets it's just desserts!:P (We have them crossing the road all the time - they must think cars are harmless:laugh3:)

Bryant Adams? Yes, I do recall that one quite clearly! Yea, adulthood has it's responsibilities, that's for sure!! Keep those wheels turning, David.;)

East Nile.:laugh3: I wouldn't worry too much - it's the saliva from the mosquito that gets injected as an anti-coagulant for the mosquito's purposes of taking a drink, and our bodies respond by swelling the surrounding tissue, and itching (response to foreign substances). So, Ms. Mykitten has it right, but if it persists, check further. As long as you know it was mosquitos, and you're not living in malaria or yellow fever areas (which Canada is well north of), you should be OK. Although, I really don't know what the symptoms of West Nile Virus are initially - probably that would be hard to tell, as viruses usually don't elicit much initial response (Malaria's caused by a spirochete; Yellow Fever I think is from a bacterium of sorts..) Just Google it! But, I'd bet 99.9999% odds that it's just extra itchy mosquito saliva.;)

Hello, Welcome to the madness, and I hope you're kitten learns to like us!!:P And yes, the initiation can have a devastating effect on future political careers!:rolleyes:

:laugh3::laugh3::laugh3::laugh3::laugh3:Funny as all getout!:laugh3::laugh3::laugh3::laugh3::laugh3:

Is this too deep?:thinking:

GreetingsEric!!!!!! :joker: Keep cool out in superheated LA, and glad you could join our merry band of global members!

Hello!!!:hat: