Off on a Tangent

Batty den · Post by **Batty den** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 4:07 am

Tangent's Rant reminded me of Petey's in Under The Lemon Tree/Schlock Mercenary episode http://utlt.keenspace.com/d/20021118.html

Hmm... I can't see if Scott added any new stations to Mr Beck's map of the Underground.

batty (I have a new bat! I think I'll call her Florence) den

Legene · Post by **Legene** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 7:58 am

batty den wrote:Tangent's Rant reminded me of Petey's in Under The Lemon Tree/Schlock Mercenary episode http://utlt.keenspace.com/d/20021118.html

batty (I have a new bat! I think I'll call her Florence) den

It reminded me of one of Bloom County's Oliver Wendell Jones's late-night laments.

ZOMBIE USER 8290 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 8290** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 6:33 pm

Jenny was right: it was a mistake. You can't rationalize with madness. You'll just end up mad yourself.

Sometimes it's best to go with the first instinct.

Kellogg · Post by **Kellogg** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 9:16 pm

Desgar wrote:Jenny was right: it was a mistake. You can't rationalize with madness. You'll just end up mad yourself.

True, but sometimes, you owe it to your honor, and the truth, to at least
*try* and set folks straight.

Sure, it may not work, but at least you tried.

Anyway, yes, it *was* inspired by both of those comics.
I dimly recall reading the Bloom County one, and the quote
was in my mind, since reading it in Ralph Hayes
Under The Lemon Tree comic strip.

Scott
PS. So Florence the Bat is a Flyer Trainer? You mean she's
going to grow up to be a female kangaroo...?

Batty den · Post by **Batty den** » Tue Jan 14, 2003 2:00 am

Kellogg wrote: PS. So Florence the Bat is a Flyer Trainer? You mean she's
going to grow up to be a female kangaroo...?

uh... no.

She's less than a year old so I think she's one of the Last Spring batch. That means she's only just get her flying license.

batty (wish I had mine) den

Kellogg · Post by **Kellogg** » Tue Jan 14, 2003 5:16 am

Ah! Okay.

Well, you never know. We've got Kangaroo-Rats up here.
Who's to say there aren't Kangaroo-Bats somewhere in the world.

Scott (Nevermind the 6 foot tall, carnivorous ducks) Kellogg

Legene · Post by **Legene** » Tue Jan 14, 2003 1:21 pm

Kellogg wrote:True, but sometimes, you owe it to your honor, and the truth, to at least
*try* and set folks straight.

Ethics can be a difficult burden to bear, sometimes.

Or so they tell me.

Kellogg wrote: Anyway, yes, it *was* inspired by both of those comics.
I dimly recall reading the Bloom County one, and the quote
was in my mind, since reading it in Ralph Hayes
Under The Lemon Tree comic strip.

Huh. I actually though the Bloom County similarity was so obscure, it had to be coincedence. Silly horsewoofie.

Mark Stanley · Post by **Mark Stanley** » Tue Jan 14, 2003 6:40 pm

The obvious question with any of the

Hortmage · Post by **Hortmage** » Tue Jan 14, 2003 8:10 pm

Wow! What were the odds of Mark Stanley posting something that deep as his 2nd post on this forum?

Edward Sanhusky · Post by **Edward Sanhusky** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 12:45 am

Hortmage wrote:Wow! What were the odds of Mark Stanley posting something that deep as his 2nd post on this forum?

I would say slightly higher than the odds of him posting an inane or whimsical notion, but just below the posting of a divine revelation.

As a believer in a higher, mystical power, I do find it amusing when people use alien theories to provide the origins of man. "Where did the aliens come from" is one of my favorite questions to pose to them

Edward Sanhusky · Post by **Edward Sanhusky** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 12:45 am

Hortmage wrote:Wow! What were the odds of Mark Stanley posting something that deep as his 2nd post on this forum?

I would say slightly higher than the odds of him posting an inane or whimsical notion, but just below the posting of a divine revelation.

As a believer in a higher, mystical power, I do find it amusing when people use alien theories to provide the origins of man. "Where did the aliens come from" is one of my favorite questions to pose to them

Mako · Post by **Mako** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 1:21 am

[quote="Mark Stanley"]The obvious question with any of the

Kellogg · Post by **Kellogg** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 8:20 am

Howdy,

Perhaps I should first take the opportunity to apologize for mentioning
Mark's name in the same breath as Eric Von Daniken!

Intelligent Design:

It's been my observation that there are some folks, who have substituted
belief in aliens for devotion to religeon. In the modern mythology, aliens
and UFOs have taken the place of angels. You see angelic aliens in everything from "The Day The Earth Stood Still" to "Babylon 5". In real life, you see more and more alien worshipping cults popping up, from
the Scientoligists, to the Heaven's Gate, to the Raliens currently in the
news.

Angels or aliens, anyway I look at it, I see people looking up to the sky
in the hopes that someone will come down and provide meaning in their
lives.

Calculating Improbability:

Excellent example, Mark! I need to read more Feynman.

Physics geek that I am, I sometimes wonder what the probability that
the charge of an electron actually is what it is. If the charge were different, then the structure of atoms would be different. If that happened,
all chemistry would be different.

To translate that to English, if you changed one constant in a physical
law, you'd change the entire structure of the universe. Does that mean
that there would be no chemistry (and thereby no organic chemsitry?)
No. That just means that the laws of chemistry would be completely
different. There would still be an organic chemistry, but it wouldn't be
anything like what we've got. Would life still exist? Probably.
Somewhere out in the universe. With billions of galaxies and billions
of stars in each galaxy, somewhere, life would evolve.

But, by some small chance, the laws of physics are what they are,
and here we are.

I really don't see much point in figureing out how likely or unlikey
our history of existence is. I mean, reality is sort of a given, don't you
think?

Someone pointed out:

an engineer deals with big, complex, and darned unlikely *breakdowns of order*.... not spontaneous manifestations of the same.

Kind of... I work in computer chip manufacturing. When you make a
batch of 8000 computer chips and only 8 of them work, you do a lot of
sitting around and scratching your head, wondering "What the heck
went RIGHT with *these* eight?" Then you try and duplicate it.

Scott

Matt Trepal · Post by **Matt Trepal** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 9:23 am

Kellogg wrote: Calculating Improbability:

First, you need a really hot cup of tea....

Nebulous Rikulau · Post by **Nebulous Rikulau** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 6:13 pm

First, in line with this discussion, I would like to reccommend the 'Manifold' trilogy by Stephen Baxter. ('Time', 'Space', and 'Origin') Using the same characters, each book shows a universe with different answers to the 'Big' questions: "Are we alone?", "Where did the universe come from?", "How will it end?", etc.

Kellogg wrote:I really don't see much point in figureing out how likely or unlikey
our history of existence is. I mean, reality is sort of a given, don't you
think?

Murphy said (more or less), "If there are two ways to do something, and one of the ways will cause problems, then that is the way that someone will do it."

Finagle's generalization of Murphy's law is, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

I think that in the long run (and I mean L-O-N-G

), "Anything that can happen, will."

And, of course, we can't forget Descartes, who said, "I think, therefore I am.

I think."

ZOMBIE USER 10915 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 10915** » Wed Jan 15, 2003 8:49 pm

Hi Mark!

Kellogg wrote:But, by some small chance, the laws of physics are what they are, and here we are.

I really don't see much point in figureing out how likely or unlikey
our history of existence is. I mean, reality is sort of a given, don't you
think?

My only fear is that someone will prove that our existence is impossible and we will all disappear.

Matt Trepal wrote:
Kellogg wrote: Calculating Improbability:
First, you need a really hot cup of tea....

"Well, it's something called the Infinite Improbability Drive. Don't ask me how it works or I'll start to whimper."
"But a Ship?"
"Oh yes, a ship. It's parked in a cup fifteen miles above us. Please don't ask me about that, either." 8)

Olick · Post by **Olick** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 7:58 pm

Kellogg wrote: But, by some small chance, the laws of physics are what they are,
and here we are.

I really don't see much point in figureing out how likely or unlikey
our history of existence is. I mean, reality is sort of a given, don't you
think?

Scott

Very true.

Well, the way I see this is that in the very likely event that intelligent life didn't exist due to sheer probability (which was estimated, last I heard, as being less than one in several trillion), who would be around to notice?

Another theory I'm toying with is the laws of physics "evolved" in a sense, to something workable. In the Big Bang theory, scientists estimate it took millions of years for the first atoms to form, maybe they were learning how?

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