Tale

So, what have we established? We've established now that the speed of light is invarient for all observers/reference points. This is included in the second postulate of the Special Relativity Theory (SRT). The first postulate, as we went over, is that for all frames of reference, the physical laws of the universe are the same. Let us say that two objects moving through space are A and B. A is travelling at 1/2 the speed of light towards object B. A emits light. We might therefore expect the light emited by A to have a total velocity of 1 1/2 the speed of light. The second postulate of SRT says "NEIN!" The light emited by A is still only going the speed of light, c. However, according to an observer at A, the light emitted by A is also going the speed of light! This is weird behavior. If A was instead going 5 miles an hour and threw a softball 1 mile an hour, the softball would be going 1 mile an hour from the perspective of A, but 6 miles an hour from the perspective of B. It really wouldn't matter if A was going 5 miles an hour, 1/2 c, or 9/10 c, the difference in these two situations is that one is dealing with a 1 mile an hour softball and the other is dealing with the speed of light. But again, according to the first posulate of SRT, are they really that different? And now hopefully we see the complication. The true difference in the 1 mile an hour softball and the speed of light in my examples is only a matter of scale. The same laws and effects are in play, the only difference is that the effect is unappreciable at the slower speed of the softball scenario. I mentioned consequences of this earlier. There's more consequences to this and I'll be going over them in a bit.

Know what I'm fascinated by today? Special Relativity When I was younger, I owned a set of scientific encyclopedias. It was a short set of encyclopedias that covered topics ranging from lasers and holograms, to relativity. Of course, those are just the three sections I was most fascinated with and read through several times at the time. So, I have some background knowledge on special relativity. I've been reading up more on it in wikipedia, when I should be working, and I feel like sharing it with you all. Some of you know of it, some of you probably don't, but it's doubtful too many here truly know what or why. Some of it's counterintuitive and that makes it difficult to wrap your head around at times. In fact, despite my interest in it, I won't be surprised if a few of the concepts I think I know, or at least think I'm familiar with, are wrong. And even if what I know isn't mistaken, there's no surety that I'll be presenting it accurately. But, here goes. First off, I'd like to go over why special relativity is so difficult and counterintuitive. Einstein's Special Relativity takes the notion that observed motion is relative to the observers, Galilean relativity, and applies it to all laws of physics. As an example of Galilean relativity, if you are sitting still on the sidewalk and I were to move past you (ignoring friction), then from your position on the sidewalk I was moving and from my position, both you and the sidewalk are moving. According to Galileo and Einstein, both these points of view are equally valid. This is only slightly counterintuitive. In ways it may seem philosophical, because we're tempted to use the Earth to give us the frame of reference. Acknowledging that even it is moving through space, rotating along its axis, revolving around the sun, moving out from the center of the expanding universe, we have to discard this notion of the Earth as the definitive frame of reference for motion. Einstein takes this a step further and says that it doesn't matter if you're sitting on the sidewalk, driving by in a car, or hurtling through space in a rocketship going at 9/10 the speed of light, the physical laws of the universe are all the same. So what? Big deal. It makes sense. Nothing difficult about that. Well, the problem is that it complicates what has been observed in regards to electromagnetic waves. Several experiments attempted to measure earth's speed relative to a hypothesized medium through which electromagnetic waves travelled. This hypothesized medium, aether, was thought to be an absolute frame of reference. Unlike relativity, it was the only truly valid point of reference, always still, and everything else moved in relation to it. What's wacky is that these experiments ultimately showed a consensus that the speed of light does not change regardless of the motion of the observers. What's so weird? Well, this has consequences. More on this when I post again.

Don't forget the traps. Those were actually kind of fun. Not sure if I ever killed anyone with the logs, but it was fun to try!

Maybe if you were nicer to them!

Why don't you kill some Cylons about it?

I hate that I know it's going to be Davros so early. I was surprised every other season.

None of those models are ripped from games. The DOA models are too low quality to have been anything DOA2 or later and too high quality to be DOA1. Aside from that, Machinima is not defined on a per model basis, but the use of a game itself as the platform. It looks like it was either done frame by frame or using some sort of complicated scripting. Either way, it would qualify simply as low quality CG animation.

Oh, Raptor Jesus... Please tell me I'm not the only one sick of "cautionary tale of [symbol of advancement or technology] gone wrong." Wizards/Scientists dabbling with [symbol of advancement or technology] that puts the entire world in danger due to their hubris and attempts to play god. Why does it seem like everyone is obsessed with a new anti-industrial movement? It's like we're in a neo-romanticism. This is why I love Doctor Who. So often it's science and knowledge that save the universe. Ancient evil comes from the deep! What do we do? We science that fudger to death!

Wizards of the Coast owns all things D&D. The license to develop NWN, however, was granted to Atari.

I ordered the Protoculture collection from Amazon.com last night. Standard shipping. It arrived today. This is why I love Amazon, sometimes.

Nymph Cloak + 8 HELL YEAH! Resist MY invocations? I don't think so. This also calls for me trading out a least invocation for Devil's Own Luck.

I knew it! Walsh is going to sell us out to the English!

I've got a friend that wants to know if you can buy potion stacks, yet. I don't know, anyone?

But, I read a post by someone on a forum saying that all the peer reviewed journals are in it for the money and everyone who disagrees is too afraid to speak out! The politicians are conspiring to control information!

I love 2142. Absolutely love it. It's the game that got me to break off my EA boycott. Good thing, too, because I also enjoy C&C 3. 2142 has tons of room for improvement, though. Too bad it won't ever see the changes it really needs. Wish I could blame EA for that, but it seems that not too many companies actually give the kind of support online games need for long term play. Obsidian, Bioware, and VALVe being exceptions.

If you feel you shouldn't attack during your 20, I hate you. WE MUST ATTACK! KILL THEM ALL!

I'm not familiar with the definition of stand such that it is a verb meaning "to make others stand."

Except it doesn't work. It's Sand that can't stand. So, taking away the thieves' chairs would only result in them not being able to sit. Maybe it's Sand who needs his chair taken.

Bio's best writers are at work on Dragon Age? I have a hard time figuring out if that's good or not. The lead writer for Baldur's Gate II apparently also wrote Carth. I guess I should be hopeful since it's supposedly a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate.

Yeah, I was noticing that too. It actually had me pause for a moment and check posting history to figure it out for certain.