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Science Forum Index » Economy Forum » EchoBay.com & The Pez Candy Dispenser
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| Mark Edwards |
 Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 10:18 am |
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No cluons were harmed when Tzortzakakis Dimitrios wrote:
Quote: Maybe that there *wasn't* a nuclear war is the final proof of the
existence of God, not letting His best creation, Cats, perish.
I Fixed Your Post For You.
Mark Edwards
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Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request |
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| Keith F. Lynch |
| Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 1:57 pm |
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Tzortzakakis Dimitrios <nowhere@noone.com> wrote:
Quote: In fact, I've never seen a slide rule. ( I am just 35).
Heinlein's stories are notable for depicting a future with not just
interplanetary, but interstellar travel -- in which people use slide
rules, not calculators or computers, which don't exist.
There there's Olaf Stapledon's _Last and First Men_, written in the
1930s. It says nuclear power will be invented in several thousand
years, then promptly forgotten again. And space travel will be
invented in several million years, then promptly forgotten again.
And that even millions of years from now, the most significant
event in the history of our species will have been World War I.
Computers will never be invented. Neither will television.
Then there's the Larry Niven story, written in 1967, which said the
first neutron star would be discovered in about 5000 years. In fact,
it was discovered in 1968.
In 1957 Isaac Asimov wrote a story that mentioned a pocket computer.
It was set in the distant future, after thousands of years of work on
miniaturization. But he later said it was intended to be completely
absurd, a joke. After all, the next step in the story after the
pocket computer was to shrink them to zero size, i.e. to do away with
computers entirely, as people learn to do arithmetic without computers.
Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
Quote: Maybe that there *wasn't* a nuclear war is the final proof of the
existence of God, not letting His best creation, Man, perish.
Or maybe it's proof of the multiple worlds theory of quantum
mechanics. Our consciousness continues only in those worlds, however
low in probability, in which we were not all vaporized decades ago.
Quote: Flying cars-how about a private airplane? Not everybody can
afford that.
Not useful for commuting, at least here in the DC area. Everywhere
I've ever lived, and everywhere I've ever worked, is within the
security zone in which no private flights are allowed. Not to mention
the vast majority of homes and businesses don't have a runway or room
for one. Or that millions of people couldn't pass an FAA medical exam.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me. |
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| R H Draney |
| Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 2:36 pm |
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Keith F. Lynch filted:
Quote:
In 1957 Isaac Asimov wrote a story that mentioned a pocket computer.
It was set in the distant future, after thousands of years of work on
miniaturization. But he later said it was intended to be completely
absurd, a joke. After all, the next step in the story after the
pocket computer was to shrink them to zero size, i.e. to do away with
computers entirely, as people learn to do arithmetic without computers.
Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
On the other hand, I was looking at someone's Blackberry the other day, and it
hit me that even Roddeberry didn't think of putting the communicator and the
tricorder into a single device....
R H "resisting purchase until the phaser attachment comes out" Draney
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What good is being an executive if you never get to execute anyone? |
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| Lee Rudolph |
| Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:21 pm |
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"Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net> writes:
Quote: Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
As Rudolph Peierls points out in the essay "Irreversibility" in
his little gem of a book _Surprises in Theoretical Physics_,
We may try to analyze the problem somewhat more deeply
by asking why it is that we can easily perform experiments
in which initial conditions have to be specified, but never
any requiring terminal conditions. This is the real
distinction between past and future. A little thought
shows that this is connected with the fact that we can
remember the past, and that we can make plans for the
future, but not vice versa. It is evident that these
statements are correct, but they do not follow from any
known laws of physics.
Lee "other than, of course, the fact the you can't see light in a vacuum"
Rudolph |
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| Richard Casady |
| Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 10:12 pm |
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On 20 Apr 2008 14:57:59 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net>
wrote:
Quote: Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
No shit? On the other hand, predictions about the past are not that
hard.
Casady |
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| John D Salt |
| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:12 am |
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richardcasady@earthlink.net (Richard Casady) wrote in
news:481603fc.781660906@news.east.earthlink.net:
Quote: On 20 Apr 2008 14:57:59 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net
wrote:
Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
No shit? On the other hand, predictions about the past are not that
hard.
Ah, a non-historian.
All the best,
John. |
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| JoAnne Schmitz |
| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:43 pm |
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On 20 Apr 2008 14:57:59 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
Quote: Tzortzakakis Dimitrios <nowhere@noone.com> wrote:
Maybe that there *wasn't* a nuclear war is the final proof of the
existence of God, not letting His best creation, Man, perish.
Or maybe it's proof of the multiple worlds theory of quantum
mechanics. Our consciousness continues only in those worlds, however
low in probability, in which we were not all vaporized decades ago.
Or maybe our insecurities are the result of our souls living partly in that
non-world. That nagging anxiety? Memory of when you were annihilated.
We might all be happy otherwise.
JoAnne "or at least as happy as circumstances allow" Schmitz
--
The new Urban Legends website is <http://www.tafkac.org>
That's TAFKAC.ORG
Do not accept lame imitations at previously okay URLs |
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| Adam Funk |
| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:49 pm |
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On 2008-04-21, John D Salt wrote:
Yabbut there's still not enough room in there to read.
Quote: HAH! I'm not following that link, Mister Trollerbocker. Making them
transparent would destroy the whole point of Dyson spheres, as any fule
kno.
ITYM Dymaxion Spheres.
--
Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix.
I don't think that this is a coincidence. [anonymous] |
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| Sevo Stille |
| Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:51 pm |
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R H Draney wrote:
Quote: On the other hand, I was looking at someone's Blackberry the other day, and it
hit me that even Roddeberry didn't think of putting the communicator and the
tricorder into a single device....
Nope, these mutually incompatible functions got split again after the
demise of Blackberry in the early 21st century, when "business" mobile
phone designers finally discovered that even the most myopic human ears
can neither see at that short a distance nor type with the lobe.
Sevo "wait a minute, I'll have to check my schedule" Stille |
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| Tzortzakakis Dimitrios |
| Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 1:57 pm |
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Ï "John D Salt" <jdsalt_AT_gotadsl.co.uk> Ýãñáøå óôï ìÞíõìá
news:Xns9A874455053C4BaldHeadedJohn@216.196.109.145...
Quote: richardcasady@earthlink.net (Richard Casady) wrote in
news:481603fc.781660906@news.east.earthlink.net:
On 20 Apr 2008 14:57:59 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net
wrote:
Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
No shit? On the other hand, predictions about the past are not that
hard.
Ah, a non-historian.
All the best,
A much more famous example for future predictions is George Orwell's 1984,
in which there are no computers but machines "kaleidoskopes" that write
books and "speakwrites" instead of word processors, but he did predict flat
panel "telescreens". He calls biros "ink-pencils".
--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering
mechanized infantry reservist
hordad AT otenet DOT gr |
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| Evan Kirshenbaum |
| Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 3:42 pm |
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"Tzortzakakis Dimitrios" <noone@nospam.void> writes:
Quote: Ï "John D Salt" <jdsalt_AT_gotadsl.co.uk> Ýãñáøå óôï ìÞíõìá
news:Xns9A874455053C4BaldHeadedJohn@216.196.109.145...
richardcasady@earthlink.net (Richard Casady) wrote in
news:481603fc.781660906@news.east.earthlink.net:
On 20 Apr 2008 14:57:59 -0400, "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl@KeithLynch.net
wrote:
Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.
No shit? On the other hand, predictions about the past are not that
hard.
Ah, a non-historian.
All the best,
A much more famous example for future predictions is George Orwell's 1984,
in which there are no computers but machines "kaleidoskopes" that write
books and "speakwrites" instead of word processors, but he did predict flat
panel "telescreens". He calls biros "ink-pencils".
Considering that Bíró filed for a UK patent in 1938 and the pens were
marketed starting around 1940, predicting them in 1948 would hardly
have been difficult.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |ActiveX is pretty harmless anyway.
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |It can't affect you unless you
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |install Windows, and who would be
|foolish enough to do that?
kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com | Peter Moylan
(650)857-7572
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ |
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