And you know this from personal experience?

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

Well of course! I wouldn't say something if I had no proof.

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I am not 16 going on not 17, I know that I'm naive.

But... *ponder* I thought the whole point of the kilt is that sheep will run from the sound of a zipper...?

A very funny Aussie comedian named Sarah Kendall did a routine about how everybody in the world thinks that someone else fucks the sheep. "The English say it's the Aussies, the Aussies say it's the New Zealanders, the French say it's the Belgians, the Scots say it's the Welsh, the Welsh say it's the Scots. If you ask me, it's the sheep who are the sluts!"

She is also the one who claimed the the dinosaur-destroying asteroid that hit the earth was especially unpleasant for the poor old T-Rex, because he couldn't cover his eyes.

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

The love train broke down.

This one rocks.

[Click to view comic: 'Dead Or Alive - Part 6']

The box theroy always drove me insane. It can lead to the thought that you don't know something is definate until you're observing it directly.

Anyone read that one from "The Illustrated Man" about the guy that went on the spaceship trip because "There was nothing in between" and in the end he floats off into space? He was like "Oh, how can I know you're real unles I see you right now? And that might be an illusion. I don't believe in my former self- he was a fool and didn't exist." Anyone read that?

Maligning my maw in Kajun's contest? I can't lose!

[Click to view comic: 'Andy comes home to an unsettling noise'][Click to view comic: 'Andy makes a discovery'][Click to view comic: 'He considers the possibilities'][Click to view comic: 'Now there's a bear, too'][Click to view comic: 'He demands answers'][Click to view comic: 'He's not convinced'][Click to view comic: 'He does some more sleuthing'][Click to view comic: 'Our antagonists conspire'][Click to view comic: 'The bear and horse turn traitor'][Click to view comic: 'The bear and horse discuss Russell Crowe'][Click to view comic: 'Russell Crowe gets a letter'][Click to view comic: 'Bear and horse wonder what to do with the loot'][Click to view comic: 'Bear gets a surprise'][Click to view comic: 'Bear and horse say their goodbyes'][Click to view comic: 'Bear and horse go to their eternal abode. And that's all.']

A series? From Dougan? I, I don't know what to say.

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Dad was flammable

Actually, I do know what to say, no offense Dougan, but that series was a pile of shit.

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Dad was flammable

Does that mean I win?

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"Oh, look, a joke! How original! Thank you, but if I wanted my emotions stimulated pleasurably, I'd get a whore." - Donald B. Jones III

No, it means I win.

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I am not 16 going on not 17, I know that I'm naive.

Actually, over in Lowpass, I entered the new contest and won!

I'll post the rules for CC121 when the site's all fixed.

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Dad was flammable

Go on give us a hint, or havn't you decided yet?

In the brief couple of days we spent at the Motel Lowpass, I posted results, the winner knows who he/she is, all the losers who deserve credit know who they are too.

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Dad was flammable

OK, I think I'm going to have to post the results again, and, I can\'t really remember what I said the first time round, so I'll just give you the honourable mentions and the winner.

Big Evil Dan - Dead or Alive

ObiJo - Berds!

Kaufman - The Background Mysteries

Andy Dougan - Russell Crowe Befouled My Bathtub

and the winner is....

(there\'s really no point for a dramatic pause)

ANDY DOUGAN, blah blah, it pains me....etc etc. If you want a list of reasons, or want some more recognition for your entries then you can either mail me, or just learn to make better comics!

anyway, Dougan is your new champion, Andy, take another bow and get another contest running.

oh, and I award the \"Kajun Firefly Flaming Bag of Crap Award\" to Bazilla and his \"Where\'s Dill?\" series, it truly was shit.

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Dad was flammable

Yo, Randy Andy! Wake up, man!

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

That's exactly what it was trying to show. In quantum mechanics systems are described by a wavefunction, which is the sum of all possibilities for that system. (Known as the superposition of all possibilities.) For instance, if I want to know the position of an electron, then, prior to observing it, the electron can not be said to be in any ONE place, but rather to have a certain probability of being in several places, as described by the wavefunction. Once we get out our Electron Microscope and observe the electron though, we have, through our observation, forced the electron to one position, and reduced the wavefunction to a 100% probability of the electron being at its observed state. (Known as collapsing the wavefunction.)

Similarly, the way Schrodinger set up the mental exercise of his cat in the box, there was, after an hour, a 50/50 chance that a chemical solution would give off an atom that would trigger a posion release mechanism, which would kill the cat. So, before observing the cat, its wavefunction is the superposition of BOTH the live cat and dead cat possibilities. Once opening the box, the wavefunction's been collapsed and all that's left is a kitty treat or a shoebox.

For some really trippy shit, look into the Bose-Einstein condensate or atomic boxes. Both are trying to bring quantum mechanics to the macroscopic world, superpositions and all. Quantum computer, anyone?

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

Stud.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

A friend once told me that the Schroedinger's Cat story was formulated specifically to discredit the whole waveform theory... anyone know if this friend was bullshitting me?

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

Yeah but at that point, how do I know my family exists in the kitchen above until I walk upstairs and touch them? The noises? they're the animals. When I do go up and see them, they might just be cardboard cutouts. Or I could be hallucinating.

jk

I also hear that some people believe a giant bloke made the earth in a week, and watches us all constantly. How whacky is that?

Those people are Crazoids. I mean , even Asimov couldnt create something THAT outlandish.

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w00t

I'm not sure if it was his intention, but Schroedinger's Cat in the box has been a major impetus for theories purporting the non-existence of superpositions (non-collapsed wavefunctions) at the macroscopic level, a view currently held by most scientists. The reasoning is that at the microscopic level you can have particles (or systems of particles) described by a wavefunction. However, when you start going macroscopic, you now have a collection of particles that each has its own wavefunction, and they all tend to cancel each other out. So, whereas in the microscopic world, you can define a wavefunction for the system made up of Particle Al and Particle Beth, on the macroscopic level you can't because Particle Pete comes over with his "niece" Particle Lisa, Particle Tod comes over and brings his cat, Particle Spot, and 50 million other particles are in the pool, waiting for their turn in front of the water jet.

That's the cool thing about the Bose-Einstein condensate. It takes all the particles, lines them up against the wall, faces them North, and has them sing "Forever in Blue Jeans". That is, the Bose-Einstein condensate is a macroscopic moosh made up of microscopic parts that all have the same wave function, so the moosh itself can be considered to be one big particle with that wavefunction.

Not having superpositions at the macroscopic level doesn't refute quantum mechanics in any way. Instead, it shows what quantum mechanics looks like at one end of its spectrum -- that is, it shows quantum mechanics in the absence of superpositions.

I didn't know any of this stuff (except for the thrill of riding the water jet) till a couple of days ago when I started reading a kickass book called "Beyond Star Trek" by Lawrence M. Krauss. He also wrote "The Physics of Star Trek", which is a great book as well. Both take advanced scientific ideas and present them to the reader in an easy-to-understand but non-dumbed-down way. I really can't recommend any books higher.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

I read "The Physics of Star Trek". Awsome book. Some others are "Is Data Human? The Metaphysics of Star Trek", "The Computers of Star Trek", and "Life Signs:The Biology of Star Trek", though I was only able to get my ghands on Physics and Metaphysics.

An old book that I once read that was, in a word, brilliant, was called The Science on Science Fiction. It's a huge quarto-sized hardcover - about the size of a hefty encyclopaedia volume - illustrated throughout, and deals with some very hefty scientific topics in a readable way. I read it when I was fifteen or so, and learned a helluva lot from it.

It taught me about the destructive potential of metter + antimatter (1kg of each = around 20 Hiroshima bombs, as I recall - I still remember the end of that section: "No wonder Scotty always looked so nervous.") and the joys of black holes causing spaghettification of matter.

It also had a great final chapter called "Where SF got it wrong", dealing with the places science had already gone by the mid-eighties that SF had failed to predict, or had messed up entirely. This chapter had a great illustration of a space pirate clambering through a starship hatchway with a slide rule clamped between his teeth. These days, who the fuck knows how to use a slide rule? No SF ever predicted the pocket-sized scientifice calculator. Of course, the book spends a whole lot more time on where SF got it right (or where it came close) which makes for less fun but more interesting reading.

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

AND

All of those are now on my book list. Maybe there's a whole genre of these kind of detailed-but-fun-reading scientific books. If so, I want to find its name. I'll probably have little luck -- I'm still trying to figure out the difference between Techno, Industrial, House, and Electronica. :)

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.