Astronomer

Congrats, you crazy moose-huntin' Canadian Idiot!

Interesting hypothesis, that the speed of light changes over vast time periods, and was immeasurable fast at the very first sub-microseconds of the beginning. I'm interested in seeing their paper. I wonder what they propose astronomers look for to validate their idea? Gravitational waves of a specific characteristic? A signal in the cosmic microwave background radiation?

Same one here as well.

Heh, I love headline writers. Quantum entanglement was something that Einstein didn't like about someone else's equations around a theory he really disliked: Quantum Mechanics. He felt that this "spooky interaction at a distance" was an artifact of having an incomplete theory with many blanks yet to be filled in. We still haven't reconciled Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, so our picture of physics is still incomplete. However, so far so good for Einstein. Whereas it has stood the test of time for a century, it would be very exciting if we somehow proved some bit of Relativity wrong, because that would mean that we've moved the goalposts on the limits of our knowledge. That would be very exciting.

Weird...this last paragraph doesn't show up in my above post. This is how I concluded my post: So far, the balance of probabilities weighs heavily in favour of the work done thus far based on the equations of Einstein. The mountain of observational evidence that has built up puts a large onus of proof on any theory that purports to turn it on its head. I applaud your critical look at current thinking, but there is a large burden of proof placed on the shoulders of any hypothesis that is at variance with where the scientific method and peer-reviewed science has arrived at. There are many competing ideas (the many variations of string/brane theory, for example) out there. So far, Einstein has yet to be proven wrong or superseded, as Einstein superseded Newton.

While science, by definition, will present the current thinking on any topic as provisional i.e. open to new evidence, any new hypothesis has to pass several tests. Is it testable (that is, is it falsifiable, which means is it possible for new evidence and observations to render the new hypothesis true or false?) Does the math "add up" which means does the math support it as possible explanation of reality? Can any experiments based on a new hypothesis resulting in new results be reproduced by any research team given the same environmental conditions? So far, Einstein's General Theory of relativity (geometric theory of gravity) has passed every single test thrown at it, and there have been many. Without the General Theory of Relativity being taken into account in GPS satellites within their algorithms in regards to their distance from the earth and their motion relative to Earth's surface, your GPS or GPS enabled smartphone would be so far off as to be rendered utterly useless. As for the speed of light, it has (so far) been shown to be immutable, that is, absolute in its speed as measured in a near-perfect vacuum, such as outer space. It has passed every single test that attempted to refute it, and observations have confirmed its correctness again and again. The speed of light should therefore be considered a physical constant. A black hole is, as far as we can understand it, an exceptionally dense region of space whose gravity warps the fabric of spacetime. For the moment, observations of areas of space where we believe black holes exist have conformed to the laws of relativity as outlined by Einstein and fleshed out by many physicists that followed in his footsteps. Look up the brilliant Andrea Ghez's amazing work on identifying a black hole in the center of our galaxy (I saw her presentation in Toronto a couple of years ago. Amazing.) for an example of Einstein's work in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8re1U9rCo4. So far, the balance of probabilities weighs heavily in favour of the work done thus far based on the equations of Einstein. The mountain of observational evidence that has built up puts a large onus of proof on any theory that purports to turn it on its head. I applaud your critical look at current thinking, but there is a large burden of proof placed on thee shoulders of any hypothesis that is at variance with where the scientific method and peer-reviewed science has arrived at. There are many competing ideas (the many variations of string/brane theory, for example) out there. So far, Einstein has yet to be proven wrong or superseded, as Einstein superseded Newton.

I haven't heard back from him, but he played with a group of us a few years ago, so I believe it's his disk. He may have to use (or remember!) his old profile. Thanks guys!

Hi everyone, A buddy of mine wants to join in the game, but he can't make his online profile. Any thoughts? "Hey guys, Trying to get on to the WAW game and I'm getting Can't create a login Profile. Running Win7 Ultimate with all patches installed and running OK. I can go into the single player and multiplayer but can't setup a profile to go online."

This was the scene at every overpass on highway 401, on the stretch known as the "Highway of Heroes", as the hearse passed by carrying Cpl. Nathan Cirillo back to his hometown of Hamilton. Also, over the weekend, veterans and Cadets stood watch at war memorials across the country. Here's one story from near my hometown on Canada's East Coast: 15-year-old honours and remembers Cpl. Nathan CirilloNORTH SYDNEY – A solitary act of respect by a local 15-year-old girl has left a veteran of Canada’s military with tears in his eyes. Ceilidh Bond, a member of Florence's 1917 Vimy Ridge Army Cadet Corp, stands at attention in front of the the cenotaph at North Sydney's Legion Memorial Park on Saturday. The 15-year-old's act of vigilance was dedicated to Cpl. Nathan Cirillo who was assassintated while on ceremonial duty at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday. Carl Wall, president of Branch 19 of the Royal Canadian Legion, said he stepped out of the North Sydney legion on Saturday and was surprised to army cadet Ceilidh Bond standing in front of the cenotaph at Legion Memorial Park. “She was out there in the rain all by herself standing at attention and when I asked her what she was doing she said ‘I’ve got my uniform on and I am proud of what I am doing for Canada and I am remembering Nathan Cirillo’,” said Wall, a retired air force veteran. The North Sydney veteran said he was very impressed with the respect shown by the local teen who is a member of the 1917 Vimy Ridge Cadet Corp in Florence. “I've had tears in my eyes for the past few hours – it really got to me,” said Wall. “She had been there by herself for two hours so we brought her into the legion and gave her some hot soup and some tea and then she went back out for another hour.” The 24-year-old Cpl. Cirillo, of Hamilton, Ont., was shot and killed on Wednesday while on ceremonial duty at Canada’s National War Memorial in Ottawa. He was the second Canadian soldier to be slain on domestic soil in the past week.

Lots of just wrong info being published by the "you heard it here first after we read it on Twitter!" media. It's believed now that it was a lone shooter, with a long criminal history, and he was born in Canada. Our national broadcaster, the CBC, also takes a more careful and considered "Just the facts and careful analysis" approach. Their broadcast coverage had no rampant bizarro speculation or screaming analysts, or attention-grabbing hysterical headlines. They're one of the best news organizations on the continent. Compare their headline on the same story to CNN's:

We're cooking a 10.5 lb (4.75kg) Kosher ham!

Like this?

Very nice. It must be gorgeous in full high-def!

Same here. To me, any bug with an attitude, stripes, and a stinger is generically a wasp. A couple of years ago, we kept finding 3-5 wasps in our house each day. A careful check around the outside of the home uncovered that they were getting in through a crack in the window casing. I found this when I took down some ceiling tiles in the basement room where the window was:

This one flew nearly overhead at about 20,000 feet. It's a first production-run Bombardier Dash8 turboprop regional airliner. This one is flown by Air Canada partner airline "Jazz".

The original is much sharper. Website compression algorithms degrade the image.

I've heard this wild flower named "Queen Anne's Lace", a fractal snowflake in the dog-days of Summer. This picture was taken early mid-August.

Hate these bastards. At least they're slow and easy to swat.

Wasps set up a nest behind a crack in our concrete front step. I'm allergic to wasp stings, and several wasps pinged off my head as I laid down in the grass in front of the entrance in an attempt to get a few good shots. This one is my favourite. I focused on the wall initially, and backed the focus off to try and grab one mid flight as it was about to go into the hive entrance.

Hi folks, I've been working on learning the ins-and-outs of the Canon 70D DSLR camera that my wife and I picked up earlier this year. I have a fascination with anything in the sky, including aircraft. Here's a shot taken on a very clear day of a 747 at about 36,000 feet. From the tail and belly markings, I identified it as a cargo aircraft from the biggest European cargo carrier with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg. The picture was taken hand-held with an image-stabilized 55-250mm lens at 250mm, and cropped in Photoshop with otherwise no adjustments to the shot.

I'm a fan of Sophos UTM. It offers a lot right out of the box and is available as an appliance or software. The home version is free and has all of the enterprise features (except you can't add your own branding to alerts and email notices). It'll handle up to 55 devices on the network. The commercial versions have many licensing options. I've installed it bare-iron on an HP DL360 rack server in my basement and I use it as my router as well. I'm going to move it to a virtual machine on a beefier server in the rack, sometime. http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/unified-threat-management.aspx http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-utm-home-edition.aspx

Back from a full 3-day working weekend in Toronto. Looking forward to playing this week!