February 20, 2005

• That is a gorgeous red in the background.
• Yep. That's very close to my favorite red (blood red).
• If we can expand our membership here to that putative infinite number of monkeys, surely we can find a way? But, pace Philip Dick's empiricism:

  "Subhåti, suppose a good son or good daughter were to grind a trichiliocosm to atoms. What do you think? These atoms would be many, no?" "Very many, World Honored One. And why? If these atoms were really existent, the Buddha then would not say the atoms are myriad. And why is that? The Buddha has said the atoms then are not atoms. These are called atoms. World Honored One, the Tathàgata has said that the trichiliocosm of worlds then is not worlds. These are called worlds. And why? If the worlds were really existent, then these would appear as a single entity. The Tathàgata has said that the appearance of a single entity is not the appearance of a single entity. This is called a single entity." "Subhåti, the appearance of a single entity, then, is inexpressible.

  looks like the job's already done but never began. Though just in case I think the author may be too quick to dismiss the apocalyptic potential of gay marriage.
• A is for abigail who ran out of fun. B stands for baby who ate a near a ton. C is for Cherry - she pissed off the nurse; D (dear Derek). (That was a bad curse). Esme and Erik were sorta bad children - [Not so much them, as their alter-absurdum.] Frances was lovely! She ate tons of oysters! G is for what they grew deep down inside 'er. H signifies goofyfoot need help with verse, and I am too happy pass off the hand
• [this is great] I also like the red. However, unless a) quantum physics has moved on significantly since I last checked (quite plausible), or b) my knowledge of quantuim physics is so poor I failed to recognise a synonymous theory mentioned here expressing the same scenario (equally plausible), then he's missed out my favourite one: False Vacuum Decay. All you need for that is either a vast quantity of localised energy, or an exceedingly improbable chance event, and you're one quantum tunnel away from the metastable false vacuum state that our universe currently (possibly) exists in collapsing into a true vacuum, in which matter and physical laws as we know them would cease to exist. The bubble of true vacuum would expand outwards at light speed, so we'd never see it coming; we'd just wink out of existence in an instant, along with the rest of the universe. The really cool thing about this is that it could be happening right now. Depending on where the bubble first forms, though, we could still have quite a long time to discuss it until we just-
• Wasn't it Carl Sagan who coined "googolplex"?
• Good stuff. Sense of humor very well balanced in the writing as well. Koko: Looks like googolplex was invented by the same little boy who invented the googol, or by his uncle.
• Take a camera. Most of the methods listed above are incredibly spectacular and witnessing them will probably be once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you, so remember to capture the moment.
• Wow. I very much admire someone who can put so much thought into something that is truly whimsical, if The End Of Earth can be described as "whimsical" (and it can, in this case).
• Just don't forget your towel.
• Does that "total existence failure" thing come with an "undo" function?
• Bah, just iron bomb the sun. Why settle for Earth when you can take out the whole system?
• What about Ice nine?
• Thanks, 'ned. Makes sense that a kid coined it. Though I do remember Sagan talking about it on Cosmos. /sigh ... I miss Carl Sagan!
• oh jesus! i was just checking out mefi...seems like they picked this one up and reposted over there...only to have a drawn out discussion of how unfunny the destruction of our fragile ecosystem really is....*splitting headache* my response? *sigh* i see that my instincts were correct in posting this on mofi and not here.... you guys could suck the fun out six flags... i think i wasted five dollars.
• what was it muffpub said? mefi is like new york minus the cool people... or something like that... why dont we just destroy them? muahahahahahahahahahaha. mahahhahahah. *builds antimatterhumourlessprig weapon*
• But WHY is it funny sexyrobot? Explain it to me in mind-numbing detail.
• This is why I read Monkeyfilter.
• they left out one that I really liked... if you take a ball of neutron matter and drop it from orbit, it basically has enough momentum to punch all the way thru the earth and come out the other side, and it will keep doing that for a fairly long while. (ok, similar to #4 but not quite the same...)
• they did fail to mention the whole 'runaway planet' thing....y'know...from thundarr the barbarian.....thundarr? remember thundarr?
• Best tip: "Take a camera."
• Damn. 5,000,000,000 years till red giant? What are we supposed to do till then? There's just so many reality shows a person can stomach.
• Well, I plan to be dead for most of it. Nothing passes the time like being dead.
• personally, i find the idea of the sun swelling until it is as big across as the orbit of mars, well, kinda comforting, actually...the idea of it embracing us in its rosy glow....toasty!
• This link is awesome.
• Dorian, isn't there a sci-fi book where some nasty aliens have put a little bundle of neutronium inside the earth, and it's oscillating backwards and forwards and when it stops we go boom... or something? Damn. I wish I didn't keep killing my braincells with beer. It was a big, epic kinda book sort of thing. Um. Now I come to think of it, von Neumann machines may have been involved as well. What the hell was it?
• sorry flashboy can't help you with the name, don't think I've read it; I heard the idea from a physics prof, who very well may've read that same book.
• flashboy: you're thinking of Greg Bear's The Forge of God, in which Bad Aliens drop spheres of neutronium and antineutronium into the earth and when they finally collide, the energy is enough to put the chunks of the ex-Earth into orbit around themselves. And sexyrobot, that's just not accurate. One irritating killjoy said that, and then a bunch of other people said "You're an irritating killjoy, and we shall make fun of you."
• champion, I was looking for something interesting to read until the second half of the vance collection finally ships. in cj cherryh's alliance/union universe, one of the standard methods to turn a planet into slag is to simply build up near-relativistic speed in a large carrier ship and then drop large chunks of matter down a planet's gravity well.
• Thundarr! The moon is broken in half and suddenly we're all charging around on lizard-horses and wearing fur togas and killing each other with energy swords! Damn that errant planet, passing too close to us and stealing our precious atmosphere! I actually prefer the Ren and Stimpy method of universal destruction of the planet. Two ways of doing it, take your pick: "History Eraser Button" vs. "We'll Implode!"
• The Forge of God! That's the bugger! Cheers, Xeny. I had a suspicion it might have been Greg Bear; nobody does Arthur Clarke-scale epic sci-fi quite as well as him (well, except Arthur Clarke, obviously).
• recommended by a friend: exit mundi -- very slow site but I like the structured approach.
• the point, xeny, is that there's an irritating killjoy in EVERY thread over there...it's just plain TIRED after a while... It's like going to paris. (france, not hilton) you go to paris. you're overwhelmed by the beauty. you go to the eiffel tower, where you see the tourist from your homeland, and you think "good god, who in their right mind would pack a fucking washed-out 'survivor' tshirt to go to PARIS??!!" (then, of course, you realize that the tower is actually quite poorly designed, in that there are very few blunt, heavy objects lying around...) do you see now why each and every one of you have to send me 20 dollars to keep on carrying out god's work?
• I feel the same way about Paris Hilton, actually.
• She's poorly designed and has too few blunt, heavy objects lying around?
• I hear her rear entrance is dirty and smells of cabbage. It's the joke that keeps on giving!
• what DID muffpub say. that is the question.
• On IRC: if mofi is the quaint and perfect town in the countryside where you know everyone and are married with 10 kids, mefi is new york city minus all the cool people. and even tho i've been bashing the mefi quite a bit lately, i must admit i've been ALL OVER their paris hilton thread....i feel so dirty....wanna come over and get naked?
• MonkeyFilter: home of the hook-up.
• calimehtar, I think Ice Nine is a serious threat, but only if Professor Barnhouse and his followers do nothing to stop it.
• 4= Larry Niven - The Hole Man (in n-space) sexyrobot = (((((((
• don't tempt me, you robot you.