Just some things to think about… <He said with a grin>
1 — In studies conducted in England involving Chemotherapy, in double-blind style testing, half the participants getting the placebo lost their hair. Belief, man… what a concept. So why do I have to pay extra on my medical insurance for other people to get wigs (I do, so do you) while having “chemotherapy” when it’s obviously just an hallucination anyway?
2 — The short version of Einstein’s Special Relativity is that if you ask a Photon (a piece of light) what date it is or where in the Universe it is, it won’t know what you are talking about. Light “sees” neither space nor time. There is only Now and only Here to a Photon. In fact, even “here” and “now” won’t be concepts to a Photon, ’cause it doesn’t know anything else. Here isn’t “here” unless there’s also a “there” — know what I mean? Space and Time are “observer” things only; they don’t actually exist. (Short version of Einstein’s work. Think about that next time some form wants your living address or “today’s date.” Gee)
3 — When you run an application under Windows and you then get a dialog box saying (effectively) “this app is trying to run, should it?” that’s Microsoft telling you they can’t tell the difference between real keystrokes and a piece of software hacking your system. That’s their admission to a fundamental flaw in modern software and hardware design and their admission that they are unable to fix it (which is just silliness — of course it could be fixed; I could tell them how, if they were the least bit interested, which means a million other computer pro’s could also). Why hasn’t anyone noticed that?
4 — Speaking of which, why is it that no one seems to notice that Clark Kent is just Superman with glasses?
5 — How can Windows possibly not know if “other users” have unsaved work on your computer or not? In fact, it’s utterly impossible for it to not know that — I mean; it’s the Operating System, Duh! — so why does it give you that warning in Windows 10 Home whenever you try to shutdown or reboot? (Oddly enough, the “Pro” version [which it isn’t, any more than the “Home” is for the home user] never asks that question.)
6 — Income Tax… well, which is it: Income? or Tax? It can’t be both.
7 — There are two methods for taking the caffeine out of coffee. One is safe and natural and easy. The other is carcinogenic, but cheaper. In the short run, cheaper. In the long run, anything that is carcinogenic costs the entire fabric of our culture a vast fortune. (If you’re curious, it’s the water-based decaffeination technique that is safe. The chemical process is the nasty one, yet the more common one. Some body explain the ethics of that one to me? ‘T is over me ‘ead, it is.)
8 — While on the subject of carcinogens, “the Pill” (the birth control pill that was released in the 60’s) is also carcinogenic. (Or was — it’s possible they have fixed the flaw in it now; please keep that in mind as you read, even though it seems — to this cynic here — very unlikely.) It’s carcinogenic because of the artificial estrogen molecule in it. Chemically it’s the same as natural estrogen, but physically one part of the molecule twists left instead of right (or possibly right instead of left — sounds, political, doesn’t it?) and that’s all it takes. Why have breast and uterine cancers increased so much in the last 50 years or so? It isn’t rocket science to figure it out. It also isn’t rocket science to fix the chemical engineering that creates that estrogen molecule (same one in estrogen supplements, which is why most doctors won’t give out for more than a short time, because they are known carcinogens), and it’s simply how that molecule is put together. Easy enough to change the chemical engineering, but very expensive to rework the plant that makes this stuff — at least I presume that’s the reasoning. But more expansive than treating, say, 100 cases of cancer? One has to wonder… Why are they allowed to get away with it? How many people have been killed by this sloppily made molecule? Why do so few people know this or can put it together? Why do I ask why? Why are you still reading? (And I could be entirely wrong here; perhaps my “facts” ain’t so… It’s just the best I know right now.)
9 — Did you know that the First Version of the Haunting (1963, great gothic suspense / horror movie) was absolutely terrifying (at least for its time) though it never showed a single ghost, a single drop of blood or anything even ugly? This was so well done that Stephen King (himself!) used it as an example of how to do Horror Movies, in his book Danse Macabre. The Hill House rule: “don’t ever show the monster behind the door.” Then the remake (1999) went and totally showed the monster behind the door, invalidating the rule it had become the very example of. Wow. It also made the remake not a fraction as much fun as the original. Hollywood really shouldn’t be allowed to run around loose without a keeper.
10 — No one knows precisely how long a meter (or a yard, for that matter) is. Because the “precise” definition fails to account for relativistic contractions, or the intensity of the gravity field one is in, or the position of the “viewer” relative to the length being measured out across space (and since space is an illusion… um… yeah, well see item #2 above.). Here is the precise definition:
“The meter is currently defined as the length of the path
travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.”
That’s a problem. First of all, even that is approximate. (I won’t detail that here, but think about it. It is.) Secondly, how could one possibly make a cut in anything (if that isn’t even more precise than the diameter of atoms would allow) that precise? The best manufacturer on the Planet could not do it. Thirdly, while it is possible for a very esoteric sort of scientist or even more esoteric engineer to measure a piece of time that short, it definitely defies the typical carpenter’s ability. So how does Charlie the Carpenter or Gary The Wood Worker guarantee the 2×4 he just cut is exactly a meter in length? Short version: he can’t. So much for precision work. (This should not be taken as justification, however, for the typical sloppiness in new home construction!)
It also fails to account for the fact that matter comes in quantum units (atoms) of certain “fixed” (more or less) diameters, and so a truly precise length really just can’t be made. Not with matter. Not in the real world.
To make the definition more precise, they could simply add the phrase “in flat space” to the definition, meaning “utterly removed from the influence of any gravity fields,” which would make the definition more precise (still not right) but utterly impossible to use, as there is actually no where in the Universe that is completely free of gravity, and we couldn’t get there to do our wood trimming anyway. So, maybe add the phrase “at one standard Earth gravity as measured at sea level.” Ah… but then sea level is rising, and with tides sea level isn’t exactly a fixed point anyway.
So, maybe the definition needs to be a precise number of atoms of such-and-such element, such-and-such isotope, laid end-to-end, marking out that given length. Simpler, by far. But still just as useless…
Umm… yeah. Read on.
11 — But it’s really not a problem, because nothing made or manufactured is ever really precise. The most “precise” thing we can currently make is unique, one of a kind. No matter how many of them are stamped from the same mold, no two are exact, at a tiny enough scale. And as for the precise arrangement of the atoms involved in making up that thing… forget it! We can’t even measure the arrangement of atoms in, say, that vase I just made for your table. True precision work is utterly impossible. (The closest we get right now to true nano-tech [that is, arranging atoms one at a time to manufacture a thing] is in computer circuits, microprocessors and other “chips.” Darn close, really, but even they are not 100% exact, down at the atomic level. Some guy named Heisenberg steps in and proclaims it “illegal” for one thing… 🙂 )
So, it doesn’t matter that we don’t really know how long a meter is, because all we can really do in this 3D World of ours is “approximately” anyway. At some point we simply have to go, “close enough.”
Kind of like Politics. Or Law. Imprecise. Look too deeply and it’s all “undefined.”
So there…
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