Philocthetes Philocthetes

The meaning of it all

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The meaning of it all

dedicated to Evil Stormbringer and Wheeloffire

from GalCiv2 Forums
Evil did me right by starting his own thread on the "what's a thief" question. But a few posts later in that Grammar nazi sprawl thread, QuietlyObserving says "If we are to be a society founded on the Rule of Law, it would be prudent to maintain a healthy respect for language and the meaning of words, lest we slip into a dictatorship of unelected Judges."

This gives me a painfully beautiful opportunity to start a sister thread to Evil's, and ask you all to sink your fangs, fingers, etc., into the basic question "How does a law rule without a human to interpret and/or execute it?"

That's my latest hasty attempt at a longstanding interest in the gov't-of-law-and-not-men notion that's very popular here in the US. I've also known a few linguists and flirted with other philosphies enough to be taken aback by anyone who has too much certainty about the meaning of a particular word or phrase.

Unless you're a minor with parents who don't want you seeing PG-13 movies (I know we have some sharp youth out there, just want to respect your folks), I suggest finding and playing fword.wav before you finish a reply here.
off-topic
278,596 views 655 replies
Reply #576 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not neccessarily. The 100 game thing would only be relevant to a coin, where there are only 2 outcomes. In a tennis match there are thousands of factors, not just two.
Reply #577 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
true but there would be a different set of chances per game which means that in the end it will be skill that would win the most games not chance

as per your coin toss i can toss a coin 10 out of 10 times and make it come up heads

well closer to 8 out of 10 times and that is skill not chance
Star Control: Origins
Reply #578 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There are just too many factors to test athletic achievment.
Reply #579 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ok i give up there is no reason to watch sports since it is all just chance and no skill

by the way i don't watch sports anyways becouse i get bored with it
Reply #580 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There is always skill in everything. Chance just 'increases' certain factors.
Reply #581 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
true but there would be a different set of chances per game which means that in the end it will be skill that would win the most games not chance


The thing about statistics is that very little is impossible, just more and more improbable. So it is still statistically possible for a bad tennis player to beat a much better tennis player 100 times in a row - possible but very improbable. where it would be impossible is if the fitness of the bad tennis player was worse than the fitness of the good tennis player, then eventually the bad tennis player cannot swing his raquet and that turns improbable to impossible!
Reply #582 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
no such thing as impossible

but by playing the 100 games the so called chances change ever game which means in the end it is skill that will win 9 out of 10 times or something like that
Reply #583 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
no such thing as impossible


ah so even though he cannot swing his raquet it is still 'possible' for him to win the match? oh what if he colapses, can he still win the match? NO, it is impossible!
Reply #584 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There is one true impossibility.
The fact that you cant escape a black hole.
Reply #585 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i don't know of anyone who has tried to
do you
oh and one form of radiation does escape from a black hole

that is how we get pulsars i think it is pulsars but it could be quasars
Reply #586 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
that is how we get pulsars i think it is pulsars but it could be quasars



You get a pulsar after a red giant dies. i think the pulsar is what may turn into a black hole but it is not a black hole in itself. i don't know what a quasar is?
Reply #587 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i just remembered that in the hitchhikers guide to the universe

the super computer would never have gotten the answer

becouse humans aren't part of the computer

they are a bunch of toss away clean up people from another planet
Reply #588 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Um, no black holes dont generate radiation.

What happesn is this.

The Universe can create matter if and only if there is an equal particle of antimatter that will destroy it right away. Now say one of those particles spawns right by a black hole and gets sucked in. It cant get out, but the other particle that is on the otherside can, so it looks as if the particle came from the black hole.

And as to not being able to get out of the black hole. A black hole moves at the speed of light. Nothing can move faster than the speed of light, so if you go in your stuck
Reply #589 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
except that two scientists one in cali and i think the other was in germany

has broken the light barrier
Reply #590 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Um, no black holes dont generate radiation.



they are not sure if the radiation is comeing from the black hole or the event horizen

Reply #591 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Um, no.

According to current 'accepted' laws. The law of reletivety in particullar, nothing can go faster than light
Reply #592 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
except that the law of reletivety breaks down at the speed of light

Researchers in Switzerland have succeeded in breaking the cosmic speed limit by getting light to go faster than, well, light.

Reply #593 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What where did you get that the law of reletivety breaks down at the speed of light?

Under quatum mechanics yes, but under the 'accepted' laws of today, no law of reletivety is what difines the speed of light
Reply #594 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Researchers in Switzerland have succeeded in breaking the cosmic speed limit by getting light to go faster than, well, light.


Boy I wish danielost liked sharing links at least occasionally. I couldn't find a hit for this with some searching, at least outside the realms of SF fan and consipiracy theorist sites.

Are you sure you aren't confusing research into quantum tunneling (teleportation) with FTL? There's a pretty big difference between travelling at speeds >c and changing location without moving.
Reply #595 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Boy I wish danielost liked sharing links at least occasionally. I couldn't find a hit for this with some searching, at least outside the realms of SF fan and consipiracy theorist sites.





http://www.livescience.com/technology/050819_fastlight.html


sorry i wasn't feeling to good last night
Reply #596 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
That was interesting.

Trying to follow up at Wikipedia and look into terms like "Brillouin scattering" reminded me why I stopped after two years of high school physics: calculus hurts my brain! I can say "light works like both particles and waves" but I just can't follow the math...

Which oddly enough brings me back to my OP, which was about social laws and not physical ones. Just as we need folks with deeply specialized knowledge if we want to see things like more bits pushed through a given optical network, we need *people* to continuously help us understand, apply, and modify the special writing we call "law."

Sigh. Maybe should've called the thread "Confessions of a Lapsed Anarchist."
Reply #597 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
here is what i say if nature looks like it is breaking a natural law then we didn't/don't understand that law
Reply #598 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
A black hole moves at the speed of light


Sounds like your saying the blak hole moves through space at the speed of light??

well a black hole is formed from a dying sun and actually moves at the same speed of said sun.

Interestingly though, i do wonder precisly how fast a black hole can pull matter? I mean right before matter actually enters the black hole, how fast is it going? speed of light?
Reply #599 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
a black hole doesn't pull matter any faster than the original star does

i read this last night don't remember the link sorry

but if our sun went black hole the event horizen would be at 8 miles

remember it is 1000 miles across now so the net effect on the solar system is that the light would go out

and the radiation would stop which means no heat
Reply #600 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The black hole rotates at the speed of light.

Our sun doesnt have the smallest change of becoming a black hole. What it is most likely to do is turn into a boring white dwarf.

As for that articles throughout the entirety of it I read the word illusion several times.