A web site about physics and other things
vttoth — July 30th, 2009
Rogers blinked. This is highly unusual, as they don’t listen to their customers very often, but I am grateful that they reconsidered their decision, and we get to keep WPBS on cable.
Categories: Television | 1 Comment
vttoth — July 29th, 2009
I am somewhat surprised that this idea has not become more popular yet, even though it’s yet the clearest “scientific proof” that we are, in fact, all immortal.
The “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics says that the wave function never collapses: instead, every time a measurement is made, corresponding to each possible outcome a new universe comes into existence. You measure the spin of an electron and presto: there are now two universes, in one of which the spin is +1/2, in the other, -1/2. You flip a coin and presto: there are now two universes, the “heads”-universe and the “tails”-universe. (And many other universes in which the coin lands edgewise, explodes in mid-air, gets snatched by a passing eagle, or any other bizarre, improbable, but not impossible outcome that you can imagine.)
But if this is true, well, human death is just another measurement; and whereas in one universe, your heart might stop beating, in another, it beats one more. Or two more. Or two hundred million more.
In other words, as the universe keeps branching, you may cease to exist on many of those branches but there will always be branches on which you continue to live.
Think about it. That which you call your present consciousness will exist in an ever growing number of copies; some of those will be extinguished, but a few won’t be, not for a very, very, very long time. There is a continuous line from the here and now to the then and there, no matter how far that “then” is in the future, along which you continue to live. In other words, you can look forward to everlasting life… at least in a few of the many universes that await you.
How do you know if you’re on one of those “lucky” branches? Well, so long as you’re still alive, you are on a lucky branch, since the possibility exists that you will stay alive. Forever.
Of course there is a downside. Among the many parallel universes that represent possible futures, there are those in which you stay alive, but just barely, and in terrible pain and suffering. Or, you stay alive but you lose all your loved ones and even when you decide that it’s time to end your own life, you cannot… there is, after all, a nonvanishing probability that all your attempts at suicide fail.
But that doesn’t change the basic concept: in the multiverse, everyone is immortal. Although I am personally not too fond of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, I remain a little surprised that this idea has not yet become more popular among the religiously inclined.
Categories: Physics, Religion | No Comments
vttoth — July 29th, 2009
Another software product I’ll not be buying because of activation is Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I just received a promotional e-mail from TigerDirect Canada, offering this software for only CAD 59.97. Back in the old days, I’d have placed the order without much hesitation. But that was before the days of activation.
Simply put, I don’t buy software the license of which is tied to my computer hardware. My computer hardware is always changing. I have backup and test computers, and I often install software on those before risking my main computers. I only use licensed software and I abide by the terms of the license, but I do not put up with police state nonsense. Software companies do NOT have the right to police which of my computers I install their software on, so long as the spirit of the license is not violated: I am the software’s only user, and I only use one copy at a time. The purpose of test/backup installations is not to violate the terms of the license but to ensure that my ability to work remains uninterrupted by system failures or software incompatibilities.
In any case, my computer has no money. It is silly to tie a license to my computer, which has no ability to purchase anything. I, on the other hand, do have money, and I can purchase things, but why would I want to purchase things that would be tied to a computer that really is a transient entity: tomorrow, its hard drive may change, the day after, its motherboard, and so on? (The particular computer on which I am writing this text has been through many incarnations since the days when it began its existence as an Intel ’486 machine on my then two-computer home network in the early 1990s, yet in a sense, it still has the same “identity”. Unfortunately, not quite in the sense in which computer identities are interpreted by activation software.)
Activation was supposed to boost sales by reducing software piracy. Perhaps it does that, though I remain skeptical. Meanwhile, at least in my case, I probably saved several thousand dollars over the years by no longer buying software on a whim. What can I say… their loss, my gain, I get to keep more money in my retirement account or pay off my mortgage faster.
I also note with a mild degree of amusement that cracks for most popular software are widely available on the Internet. Further, because activation and copy protection can be cumbersome, a growing number of people who purchased legitimate copies actually use cracked versions for comfort and convenience. I am guilty of doing the same: in order not to have to insert the blasted CD every time I play some particular games, I am using cracked versions instead, in which the copy protection code is bypassed. And this is when one feels compelled to ask the obvious question: if I, a legitimate purchaser, am nonetheless forced to use cracked (i.e., illegal) copies of software just so that I can use it the way I want to, what’s the point of paying for it in the first place?
This is a sad question to ask, given that I also make a living from writing software and as such, software piracy can hurt my wallet.
Categories: Computers, Intellectual Property | No Comments
vttoth — July 28th, 2009
We have a genuine no-kidding UFO mystery in Ottawa today: in what sounds like a Doctor Who plot (just replace London with Ottawa), according to many eyewitnesses on both sides of the Ottawa river, a flying object fell into the river around 10 PM last night. Yet no small planes are missing from any airports in the vicinity, and no pilot is known to be missing either. Now police have found an object underwater, and it’s reported to be about 9 meters long… but it turned out to be a bunch of rocks or logs, not an airplane. Hence, the FO that fell into the river last night remains firmly U for the time being. Curious.
Categories: Transportation | No Comments
vttoth — July 28th, 2009
Finch Avenue W.
This July has been the rainy season here in Ottawa. Indeed, we may yet break the all-time record for July rainfall. In some parts of Ottawa, homes and streets have been flooded, and yet we can consider ourselves lucky: unlike the folks in Toronto, we have not yet had to cope with a giant sinkhole in the middle of a major city road.
Categories: Weather and Climate | No Comments
vttoth — July 25th, 2009
Amidst all the excitement, I almost forgot: Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the unforgettable Kitchen Debate between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev.
Categories: History, Politics | No Comments
vttoth — July 22nd, 2009
There is an interesting article in The Globe and Mail this morning that asks a very curious question: given the amounts of money spent in Canada to help save GM and Chrysler (who do most of their research and engineering outside of Canada), why was there not a similar government effort to save Nortel from bankruptcy, even though this company was by far Canada’s largest contributor to private research?
Categories: Economy, Politics | No Comments
vttoth — July 21st, 2009
In one of my favorite cartoon series of television, Futurama, there is an aging science professor with many fictitious inventions. One of them is the smelloscope: a device used to detect, amplify, and measure smells.
Except that this device is not fictitious. They might not call it a smelloscope, but CBC News was using it nonetheless to measure that unpleasant consequences of Toronto’s ongoing municipal strike:
Smelloscope in Toronto
Ah, the wonders of modern science. Is there nothing in fiction that does not eventually get turned into reality?
Categories: Technology | No Comments
vttoth — July 21st, 2009
In addition to my primary Internet connection, I also use a cable modem for backup, and also for large downloads. Earlier month, I downloaded a fair amount of data. Today, when I visited Wikipedia (using the Rogers connection), I was confronted with a rather strange message:
I suppose I should appreciate the warning. I feel a little more ambiguous about the method in which it was delivered: my Web page request was intercepted by a transparent proxy, which then wrapped the page in question inside a frame. Apart from potentially breaking the page (indeed, as a result all links that I clicked on in this page afterward appeared with the Wikipedia URL showing on top) it also raises a whole host of privacy and other issues.
Now in my case, it’s a matter of seconds to switch back to my primary connection, which is straight to a backbone provider (MCI), with no ISP acting as an intermediary. But others may not enjoy the same luxury.
Categories: Internet | No Comments
vttoth — July 20th, 2009
I was 6 years old 40 years ago today, visiting family in Romania with my parents. I did not really appreciate this moment (hey, I already read Jules Verne, isn’t going to the Moon a perfectly natural thing to do?) but I did see the first landing of a human being on another celestial body on television.
Categories: Space | No Comments
