Re: Hey Mr. Hyde!

From: C (blackmarlin_at_asean-mail.com)
Date: 03/23/04 

Date: 23 Mar 2004 10:23:16 -0800

"Beth" <BethStone21@hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com> wrote in message news:<uTF7c.1139$Jd1.689@newsfep3-gui.server.ntli.net>...

[Caution: Heavy snipping ahead]

> satellites in orbit are actually
> constantly "falling" to Earth but because they are also moving
> "sideways" at the same time, they always "miss" the Earth and carry on
> falling...mind you, for the somewhat close "communication satellites"
> we humans put up around Earth, the influence of Earth's gravity does
> eventually "win" and the orbits decay...

So the art of orbiting is "falling towards the Earth and missing"
-- sounds very like something you would have got from Douglas Adams
:-)

> Anyway, Jupiter is not that much distant of crossing the line and
> becoming a "star" itself...

Fact of the day: Did you know that Juipter actually outputs _more_
heat than it recieves from Sol; due to radioactive decay.

> Pluto and Charon may have been one mass originally that "split in two"
> (some postulate that the Earth and Moon might have been so
> too...though the "evidence" for this hypothesis is actually none,

Though mostly specualtion, there is some evidence; if you look at
plate tectonics and the super-continent (Pangea Ultima) which existed
some 200 million years ago you could surmise that it was originally
created as the result of the seperation of the earth and Luna during
a rather big planetary collision occuring long before then. On the
other hand, it could have been created due to irregulatities during
the formation of the earth maybe due to gravitational lock which may
have once existed between Terra and Luna -- again this is just
speculation.

> If one insists on generalising and "rules of thumb" then there is a
> simple one that is almost always correct: "If someone is being
> 'extreme' then they are also wrong"...

Maybe you could change that to 'if someone insists they are always
right then they are almost certainly wrong'. :-)

> Dawkins "evangelising" aethism

Dawkins fails to see aethism is as much as belief as any other while
one person my insist a God or Gods exist; where is the difference
from insisting the no gods exist -- both are beliefs delivered
without proof. I think I will stick to believing in a method rather
than a series of 'facts' to which no one can offer tangable proof.

> Ah, that's kind of why I Love astrology so much...

As long as you do not start believing in it... :-)

[snip]

> > 4) Pluto rotates in the opposite direction from most of the other
> > planets.
>
> Yup; "Black sheep of the family" is an amazingly _apt_
> description...like a rebellious child, it always insists on doing
> everything slightly different...probably just to "annoy" ;)...
>
> What's interesting about this, of course, is to ponder _why_ all the
> other planets happen to go in one direction and what's "special" about
> Pluto that it doesn't bother to follow suit? Mere coincidence,
> perhaps? After all, you could flip a coin nine times and end up with 8
> "heads" and only one "tail", right?

Actually both Venus, Uranus and Pluto all rotate clockwise, while
all the other majors rotate counter-clockwise -- 6/3 seems a good
argument for a random distribution there.

And Mercury also has a interesting rotation, though this is due to
gravitional resonance from its close proximity to the sun.

Also returning to Uranus, it has some interesting properties with
its rotation too. The axis of rotation is tilted a whopping 98
degrees from ecliptic planar perpendicular and its magentic
north is tilted 60 degrees from rotational north. (Could this
indicate some interaction between Sol's and Uranus' magnetic
fields? -- pure speculation in my part here though.)

[snip]

[Astrologists]
> 100% stipulate that "distance has no effect on things whatsoever"...
> hence, why isn't the Andromeda Galaxy or something else like that
> plotted into the "charts"? ;)...

Interesting observation -- I will try to remember it next time I
get an opertunity to bash astrologists' theories.

[snip]

> Certainly with astronomy, it's a science where - unlike some of the
> rest - you do have to settle with 90% of things being "unproved
> theory"...another 80% being "goodness knows what that is...but, hey,
> don't it look kinda pretty?"...

That is some what wrong, while astronomy cannot conduct experiments
for practical reasons (planets and stars are kind of difficult to
push around, everything is to far away to give a good poke (besides
most of the really noticable event -- such as novas -- you would not
want to be close to anyway) and everything takes ages to happen.)
This is a similar problem to that faced by evolutional biologists.

Never the less, even without experimental evidence, theories can
be 'proved' [ I quote 'proved' here as no Scientific theory can be
proved in the same ways as say a Mathematical theorm. Everything
is consensus to some degree. ] The way theories are proved is with
observations -- ie. you create a theory which states something like
'when X happens Y will follow' then you look for X. Being as your
observational data set, being the whole universe, is truely, if you
pardon the pun, astronomical; you are bound to find several
occurances of this event in various stages of progression and in
past records and then you look for Y. If a past record indicates
X has occured and observation of the area sees Y, then you have
evidence your theory is true. Therefore astronomers can be quite
confident in many of their theories; such as neutron stars result
from supernovas or that 'blackholes' really do exist.

Oh yes, and the pictures are pretty...

[snip]

> So, yeah, with astronomy, you _can't_ be quite as "pedantic" about
> everything as with other sciences...you also have to realise that
> pretty much _everything_ is "theory"...

But that is the problem with !every! science -- did not Newtons
theory of gravity be found to be incomplete? How do we know that
Einstein's theories will not be found similarly incomplete; in fact
it is almost certain that, in time, they will be.

[snip]

> ...this stuff does NOT necessarily apply to
> anything that just so happens to _start_ moving faster than light at
> the very beginning...these theoretical "tachyons" - yes, those things
> that Star Trek blames for everything:

I though they where tacky-plot-ons :-)

On a more serious note: I have heard an hypothesis which suggests
positrons are similar to tachyons -- ie. they are electrons which
are traveling backwards in time. Of course that raises the question
of why there is not a similar amount of antimatter observed to
ordinary matter -- though there could be, after all we can only
directly observe the type of matter in our own solar system; who
says that other systems are not made up of antimatter?

[snip]

> ...mind you, they also tried measuring "big G" and,
> oops, it wasn't just wrong, it, ummm, was kind of the wrong sign...it
> was heading in the _reverse_ direction to what was expected...

I take it you do not mean the 'G' in

     F = ( G * m1 * m2 ) / ( r**2 )

This is quite well known. On the otherhand, there are lots of
constants which have the 'wrong' sign according to theory -- like
the direction of current flow in a semiconductor caused by a magnetic
field (I forget the equation for that one though).

[snip]

> it would still be impractical...in fact, it _would_ at
> the very least require the invention of a Star Trek-like "warp drive"
> for anything to be practical with space

Given the choice, I would prefer a space fold device, then travel
would be instantaneous -- and you would not have the problem of
bad plot inconsistancies (like startrash always messing with the
warp numbers or Enterprice getting to the centre of the galaxy in
just one film where Vogager took several series to travel a
similar distance).

[snip]

> Nah, whatchamacallit...the "binary" in our solar system is
> likely to be Jupiter...

Seems likely.

> to have another star in the system that's so dim that we
> can't see it? Not likely at all...

Yes, though I heard the 'Nemesis' hypothesis was originally
rasied to try to explain anomolies in the orbits of the outer
planets. We would be looking for something wierd though like
a primordial black hole or a similar massive object which is
difficult to observe. A star, even a white dwarf, would be
unlikely to fit the bill as would a normal blackhole, as it
would be _far_ too massive.

[snip]

> ...what they tend to explain is a highly
> misleading "abstraction" and "simplification" of the process full of
> glaring inaccuracies, just because "it's easier to teach and so long
> as they know the 'equations' and get those right, why do they really
> need to know what the electrons oe whatever are doing, anyway?" ;)...

Like saying that electrons are conducted across junctions -- actually
they do not, it is a quantum electrodynamical process involing
electrons 'disappearing' from one point and 'reappearing' at another
depending on their probability distribution function, the potential
across the junction and the materials involved (see notes on the
Schrodinger wave equation for details -- yep, he did more than
postulate shoving cats in boxes).

  E*P(X) = - ((h**2)/(2*m))(d2P(X)/dx2) + V(X)*P(X)

(If you forgive the horible mangling resulting from ASCII limitations)
Or use Dirac's equation if the particle being described has a non
zero spin, which I will not even try in ASCII. (The later form of
the equation postulates the existance of positive electrons --
which have since been observed as positrons.) Bonus points for
anyone who can solve second order differential equations without
giving themselves a headache :-)

Ayway, that is the problem with teaching; you either elide some of
the details on a particular subject or you would end up giving such
detail as to be unable to teach and of the surrounding subjects --
a good teacher achieves the balance between breath and depth, though
that balance is difficult to achieve. Is it not said that an expert
learns more and more about less and less to the point where they
know everything about nothing :-)

[snip]

> Why couldn't it be for crocodiles and we're the ones who are
> "incidental", not the crocodiles?

I think it is insects -- there are more of them after all :-)

[snip]

> > around but you will notice something: they will tend to settle in
> > patterns. This is due to the interaction of the waves from the
> > vibrating devices. I think this is called refraction ...but I'm not
> > sure.. my physics is rusty because it has been YEARS ago...
>
> Umm, I thought "refraction" was when light was bended by passing
> through a substance...

Yep, I think he is refering to standing wave patterns.

[snip]

> ...well, as you know, I'm a supporter and "warrior" when
> it comes to "Liberty" and things like the First Amendment of "free
> speech"...those don't get touched by _anyone_ under _any
> circumstances_...yeah, not even in a "just war"...it immediately
> becomes _unjust_ when _LIES_, _SWINDLES_ and _PROPOGANDA_ are used to
> perpetuate it...and, sorry Rene, even if I totally agreed with you, I
> said and I mean that I will _oppose_ any use of "terrible illusions"
> under any circumstances...even if you can get "assembly rebirth" -
> which I'd Love to see - we're going to get it by being 100% _HONEST_
> throughout...

I agree, and even though I do agree with most of what Betov publically
exponds about the state of the programming world; because of the way
he attacks others who are trying to succeed in their own way, I often
avoid supporting him. In fact this is a pity because he has some very
good ideas which are worth further investigation, only his caustic
attitude turns more away from his cause.

On the 'assembly rebirth' I have been banging away at the keyboard the
last few weeks implementing the Luxasm engine and am about 60% complete
(ie. all the support modules are complete, only the parser, section
storage and the file format encoder needs writing. Just finished
debugging the memory allocation routines and am about to test the
garbage collector.) If all goes well, that is if I stop nattering and
get coding, it should be able to produce limited binaries within the next
couple of weeks.

The problem I am having is no one has responded to my post asking what
they would like for syntax and as a result you are going to get what I
like. Ie. something like NASM with several large extensions / rework
-ings of the macro subsystem (so I can implement proper classes in
macros and implement my macro library more efficiently), 'improvements'
to the addressing modes, type logging (so a type system can be
implemented in macros), namespace and parse/operator macros.

Though I may have to make some major alterations to the labels module
(due to changes in my design of the local label semantics and adding
namespaces yesturday) about 8 out of the 12 modules are nearly complete
and 3 of the remaining 4 are about 25% complete. Plus about a dozen
test (example) snippets have been coded along with some (sketchy)
documentation and a few bits of a macro library. Implementation, so
far, is in 100% assembler (NASM) with very heavy use of macros and
all the linux syscalls shoved in one module. Currently I have only
lightly optimised based mostly on algorithm usage, heavy optimising
(especially of the calls -- which are currently the major source of
inefficiency) can wait for later.

Oh well, onwards...

C
2004-03-23

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