The End of the World is Nigh!

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Originally Posted by Lord Orwell

there isn't a standard on hard drive sizes anyway.

I remember a huge lawsuit years ago (lost) because people were upset that the filesystem was using up their drive's storage capacity.
Therefore a 500gb hard drive had a usable capacity of about 465gb.

they were under the opinion that this was entirely the fault of seagate and WD.

and let's not get in the whole base-2 versus base 10 thing.

Kilobyte is standard. giga means one million. The argument is whether or not giga is actually one million or one thousand kilobytes. Ridiculous. A million is a million.

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Did you completely miss my previous post where I explained that exact issue? I'm not even going to repost it. Open your eyes and read.

It's times like these where I wonder if timeshifter joined that flat earth forum thing not to prove a point, but to just troll...

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

Did you completely miss my previous post where I explained that exact issue? I'm not even going to repost it. Open your eyes and read.

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i did read it. I just happen to totally disagree with it.

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Originally Posted by ME

a million is a million

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in other words, a million is not 1024000 and most people wouldn't even make the mistake of thinking it is. But there are those who do, and they are WRONG.

Nobody said a million was 2^20 (1,048,576). It's not. A megabyte is 2^20 bytes. If you're going to make an arguement, at least have an argument to make before you try.

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

If you're going to make an arguement, at least have an argument to make before you try.

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Good advice! You should try it too.

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

I need to step in here and clear this up. This is one issue that pisses me off, mainly because Wiki has it wrong. When dealing with transfer speeds, the numbers are based on the decimal system (10^x). But when dealing with storage, it's binary (2^x). A kilobyte is 1024 bytes (2^10).
Megabyte = 1024KB
Gigabyte = 1024MB
Terabyte = 1024GB
Petabyte = 1024TB

Hard drive manufacturers use terminology as "false" advertising because most people don't know what the terminology is. Ever get a 120 gig drive, only to find out it reads as 111 gigs? Look at the casing. Lower case first letter means 10^x, upper case means 2^x. They advertise 120gB, which equates to 111GB.

Oh, and b=bit, B=byte. One byte = 8 bits.

Somebody sticky this damn post so I never have to type it again.

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I also forgot to mention one thing:

http://www.vbforums.com/

Has the world ended yet?

Apparently not...

* Tap Tap * Could Someone Out There Please Turn Off The Matrix?

K. Thx. Bai

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Originally Posted by Foxer

Has the world ended yet?

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Is there any world now or are we just dreaming that there is?

This is from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
Chapter The Law of Miracles page 269
' From science, then, if it must be so, let man learn the philosophic truth that there is no material universe: its warp and woof is maya, illusion. Under analysis all its mirages of reality dissolve. As, one by one, the reassuring props of a physical cosmos crash beneath him, man dimly perceives his idolatrous reliance, his transgression of the Divine Command: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."'

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Originally Posted by EntityX

This is from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
Chapter The Law of Miracles page 269
' From science, then, if it must be so, let man learn the philosophic truth that there is no material universe: its warp and woof is maya, illusion. Under analysis all its mirages of reality dissolve. As, one by one, the reassuring props of a physical cosmos crash beneath him, man dimly perceives his idolatrous reliance, his transgression of the Divine Command: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me."'

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Whats that mean (in 10 words or less)?

We're all figments of crptcblade's imagination.

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Originally Posted by Foxer

Whats that mean (in 10 words or less)?

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There is something greater than everything we percieve through the senses.

That was 11 words but it's the best I could do.

10 words:
There's something greater than everything we percieve through the senses.

4 words:
No, there is not. :afrog:

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

Nobody said a million was 2^20 (1,048,576). It's not. A megabyte is 2^20 bytes. If you're going to make an arguement, at least have an argument to make before you try.

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It's not 2^20. It's 10^6. Any mathematition or english major can tell you what Mega means. The only reason the issue is even on the table is due to the fact computers use base 2. It all started with kilo. "1024 is pretty close to 1000" says the nerd. Let's just call that a kilobyte" and the war was on. Even back then people didn't like this and argued over Kilo was exactly a thousand and who was said computer nerd to change the laws of nature?

Wiki clearly states in the kilobyte article that base2 is only used in electronics that are directly operating in base2, such as memory. Storage mediums (including hard drives and floppies) have traditionally used the actual value.

For another example, research body temperature. Let's just say the average temperature is not 98.6. Convert 98.6 to celsius and think about the result you get. Wunderlich rounded his results off. The actual value is closer to 98.2

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Originally Posted by BillGeek

4 words:
No, there is not. :afrog:

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I can't percieve a tree falling in the woods therefore it never happened.

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Originally Posted by LO

I can't percieve a tree falling in the woods therefore it never happened.

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Exactly my point. ;) :thumb:

The LHC is still in the testing phase:-

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Posted by Freya Blekman on 12 Aug 2008 at 06:44 am

The LHC startup is getting closer and closer.

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http://uslhc.us/blogs/?p=304#more-304

Gegearwian to mētan þīn metodscæft...

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Originally Posted by penagate

We're all figments of crptcblade's imagination.

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Although I'd like to think that someone is thinking about me, it isn't happening, so that's that theory dispelled.

I was looking for the latest news on the Large Hadron Collider and came across this page that has some cool photos of the LHC or projects related to the LHC.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/200..._collider.html

a little more rabble-rousing, and this could turn into another y2k scare. Time to run up your credit cards!

Just to add some more fuel to the fire, contrary to entityX's optimism, there's no evidence to suggest that micro-black holes won't migrate to the centre of the Earth and devour it. Nobody has observed micro-black holes before. We can't see any black holes directly (and no, not because they're black...). All we have is indirect evidence along the lines of gravitational lensing, the X-ray flares from pulsars (etc) plus a lot of theory which supports the idea. We're pretty convinced that black holes do exist, but the ones we've "seen" are very large. Just because the Sun doesn't have enough mass to collapse of its own accord doesn't mean that a black hole, once formed, can't grow exponentially. ie, the problems of black hole formation are different to those of growth.



That said, I'm not convinced about the global catastrophe statistics, so don't go out rapin' and lootin' just yet.

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Originally Posted by zaza

Just to add some more fuel to the fire, contrary to entityX's optimism, there's no evidence to suggest that micro-black holes won't migrate to the centre of the Earth and devour it. Nobody has observed micro-black holes before. We can't see any black holes directly (and no, not because they're black...). All we have is indirect evidence along the lines of gravitational lensing, the X-ray flares from pulsars (etc) plus a lot of theory which supports the idea. We're pretty convinced that black holes do exist, but the ones we've "seen" are very large. Just because the Sun doesn't have enough mass to collapse of its own accord doesn't mean that a black hole, once formed, can't grow exponentially. ie, the problems of black hole formation are different to those of growth.



That said, I'm not convinced about the global catastrophe statistics, so don't go out rapin' and lootin' just yet.

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So what you're saying is that we can't see black holes, seeing as they're black? :confused:

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Originally Posted by BillGeek

So what you're saying is that we can't see black holes, seeing as they're black? :confused:

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Well... The color black, is by definition, the absense of light.

Since your eyes work using photoreceptors,
obviously you need something that has light coming from it, to be able to see it. Since black holes, by definition, neither emit their own light or reflect light from other sources, they must then logically be invisible.

However, this doesn't mean we can't infer their location through other means. They produce gravity, which can be witnessed through it's effect on nearby objects, and larger ones actually warp space to the point that you can see a distortion of the image of objects on the other side.

Plus truly massive black holes, such as the one theorized to exist in the center of our galaxy, are so large that they would simply block the view of anything past them.

And, so the theory goes, they do actually emit radiation. Hawking radiation, to be more precise. Not in the visible spectrum, mind, but radiation nonetheless. The idea is that pairs of virtual particles forming from vacuum fluctuations near the event horizon do not recombine to return the energy to the vacuum, but one instead gets absorbed and the other emitted. Since the one that is emitted is a real particle with mass, the other must have "negative mass", ie the overall effect is that the black hole loses mass by emitting a particle.
Also, as (normal) mass gets sucked in, it gets heated up and starts emitting (X-rays, gamma rays) so if a black hole has a companion star then you're likely to see some form of radiation from the vicinity, although this isn't directly from the black hole itself.

Basically, it looks like there's some big mass at the centre of our galaxy and in certain other areas of the Universe, we've observed radiation that looks like it comes from pulsars, which are a component of the theory that leads to black hole formation, we think we've observed gravitational lensing and precession in the orbit of Mercury as general relativity predicted we should; it all hangs together pretty well.
But we haven't actually sent a probe to a black hole, measured it, recorded it etc. All we have is what we can see from here, so in that sense, we don't truly know.

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Originally Posted by zaza

And, so the theory goes, they do actually emit radiation. Hawking radiation, to be more precise. Not in the visible spectrum, mind, but radiation nonetheless. The idea is that pairs of virtual particles forming from vacuum fluctuations near the event horizon do not recombine to return the energy to the vacuum, but one instead gets absorbed and the other emitted. Since the one that is emitted is a real particle with mass, the other must have "negative mass", ie the overall effect is that the black hole loses mass by emitting a particle.
Also, as (normal) mass gets sucked in, it gets heated up and starts emitting (X-rays, gamma rays) so if a black hole has a companion star then you're likely to see some form of radiation from the vicinity, although this isn't directly from the black hole itself.

Basically, it looks like there's some big mass at the centre of our galaxy and in certain other areas of the Universe, we've observed radiation that looks like it comes from pulsars, which are a component of the theory that leads to black hole formation, we think we've observed gravitational lensing and precession in the orbit of Mercury as general relativity predicted we should; it all hangs together pretty well.
But we haven't actually sent a probe to a black hole, measured it, recorded it etc. All we have is what we can see from here, so in that sense, we don't truly know.

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Also don't forget that Hawking Radiation has yet to be seen anywhere. That particular chain of events is just a theory. If you need more info, feel free to contact him through my myspace page buddy list.

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Originally Posted by Lord Orwell

Also don't forget that Hawking Radiation has yet to be seen anywhere. That particular chain of events is just a theory.

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One potential benefit of creating micro-black holes at the LHC, some might say...

5 polar bears have died since I made my post. Died of boredom.

http://www.schwa.de/wp-content/uploa...07/boredom.jpg

They turn the machine on tomorrow. They won't be colliding atoms for a few weeks but.

I was not aware of the world in deep sleep. Does that mean world came to an end in sleep?

Somehow my sister managed to only find out about the LHC today. :rolleyes: Some clown at her work put the idea into her head that:

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Originally Posted by The Idiot

The machine will create a black hole which could possibly suck in the earth.

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I'm no scientist, and I don't know the first thing about anything, but I'm pretty sure that it's safe to assume he was a moron. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by BillGeek

Somehow my sister managed to only find out about the LHC today. :rolleyes: Some clown at her work put the idea into her head that:

I'm no scientist, and I don't know the first thing about anything, but I'm pretty sure that it's safe to assume he was a moron. :rolleyes:

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No he's right. Those black holes are called blackheads, and if your sister doesn't watch out, she might get sucked in and get loads on her face!! :eek:

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Originally Posted by kregg

No he's right. Those black holes are called blackheads, and if your sister doesn't watch out, she might get sucked in and get loads on her face!! :eek:

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i'm sure that that is twice as dirty as you made it out to be

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Originally Posted by Lord Orwell

i'm sure that that is twice as dirty as you made it out to be

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http://www.vbforums.com/

Tomorrow, if everything goes dark and you see something like:

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Error 503: Universe Unavailable

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or

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Error 404: Earth Not Found

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in the sky in white lettering followed by a flashing cursor, we're in deep, deep poo...

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Originally Posted by penagate

We're all figments of crptcblade's imagination.

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I shudder....shudder I say.

I have a request....can we get a move on with this world ending thing. I have a project meeting next Monday and I'm looking for an excuse, good or bad, to get out of it.

The end of civilization as we know it is as good as any, but I kinda need a little action to back me up if that isn't too much to ask.

We be fine, just make sure you've got clean underware on.

Im getting nervous now :(

No more traffic, yippee!!