Who cares? As long as the equations match what's happening (and what's going to happen), does it matter what's "really" going on? We've been doing quantum mechanics for almost a century now, and still no one actually knows what it all means - but we're perfectly happy to take advantage of QM in our technology.

No, the observer just needs to be situated so that both events are in his past light cone. That's completely independent of whether they're in each other's past or future light cones.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity

Sure, but that's not the point - relativity talks about "events" which are particular points in space and in time. You're treating "us" as a point in space but a line in time.

Nope - that's the whole point. Relativity is actually pretty simple (special relativity, anyway), but you have to get past a couple of things, and one of the biggies is that space and time don't work the way you think they do. Your "common sense" has jumped to unwarranted conclusions based on severely limited experience, and until you can let that go you'll struggle to fit relativity into a worldview that it doesn't fit in.

I mean the total universe, not just the observable universe.

The universe is 14b years old; let's assume it continues for another 14b years. Ignore expansion for now, and we can conclude that it must be at least 14b light-years across because we can see almost back to the big bang. In a 2D space-time diagram (1 space dim + 1 time) you'd see a square with an X in it - we're at the center, the absolute past is below us, the absolute future is above us, and the "neither past nor future" (let's call this the "elsewhen") is to the sides. Clearly half of this "universe" is in the elsewhen.

Now make it a 3D space-time diagram (2 space dims + 1 time): the diagram is a cylinder and the light-cones are normal geometric cones. But this means the volume of the absolute past + future is less than half of the cylinder, leaving more than half for the elsewhen. Add in the 3rd space dim, and there's an even smaller proportion inside the "hyper-cones" and thus even more outside.

Now if the universe if really more than 14b LY years across (which it almost certainly is - some estimates are hundreds of billions of LY, some much more), there's even more space-time in the elsewhen.

And because it's expanding, then the "hyper-cylinder" flares out as you move from past to future, resulting in yet still more space-time in the elsewhen.

So ultimately a very tiny fraction of all of space-time is in our absolute past, and a very time fraction is in our absolute future, meaning the vast majority is in the elsewhen.

If that's true, we can only hope that the exponential bloating of software stops as well. Software has been eating the free lunch Moore was providing before it got to the users; the sad reality is that the typical end-user hasn't seen much in the way of performance improvements - in some cases, common tasks are even slower now than 10 years ago.

Oh sure, we defend it by claiming that the software is "good enough" (or will be on tomorrow's computers, anyway), and we justify the bloat by claiming that the software is better in so many other areas like maintainability (it's not), re-usability (it's not), adherence to "design patterns" (regardless of whether they help or hurt), or just "newer software technologies" (I'm looking at you, XAML&WPF), as if the old ones were rusting away.

I stuck my finger in an electric outlet once, and my will to persevere in sticking my finger in there was reduced, not boosted.

You're close - but the whole point of relativity is that there is no "absolute time". With one caveat (see below) It's ALL relative to the observer. There are some observers (specifically those roughly motionless with respect to the earth and the two black holes, like us) for whom "then" and "now" are separated by 3.8b years. There are (or could be) other observers (specifically those traveling at something close to the speed of light in along a line between the black holes and us) for whom the two events are separated by far less time. For someone traveling along that line at the speed of light, the two events would be simultaneous.

The only hard and fast rule is that space-time is divided into 3 zones:
* The absolute past - events within (or on the surface of) the light-cone leading up to here-and-now
* The absolute future - events within (or on the surface of) the light-cone starting at here-and-now
* Everything else - events in neither light cone, which means they cannot affect us and we cannot affect them. Depending on an observer's motion relative to us and such an event, someone might see the event as happening at the same time as the here-and-now, or before, or after. It doesn't matter, because such an event is not causally connected to the here-and-now in either direction.

The interesting thing is that the vast majority of the universe is in the "everything else" zone.... contemplate that one for a while...

I've never read any of her books, and I only have the vaguest idea of her ideology! But I must admit, that's the only flaw in your argument - had I ever read a single one of her books, all the rest of your accusations would undoubtedly follow.

It must really suck to have the technology of an adult, the vocabulary of a teenager, and the reasoning capability of a toddler.

Can you imagine if "fire" had to undergo that sort of analysis? Sure, it might keep people warm - but it's going to kill thousands every year and main many thousands more. Clearly it's got to be banned; it's simply far too dangerous to be allowed.

I disagree - I actually think it's more like craftsmanship. I think Jeff Atwood sums it up pretty well:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/05/bridges-software-engineering-and-god.html

Really? Cause I think just about everybody has lots of doubts as they die, especially if it's a slow, inevitable, death:
- Is there a God?
- Have I been a good person?
- Will anyone remember me?
- Should I have stolen that truck full of Cobalt-60?

Yes, because anything reported on Fox is automatically incorrect. Nelson Mandela must be so relived to hear that his death has been reported on Fox - that means he must still be alive!

I'm thinking we need a new version of Godwin's Law, whereby the first person to make an unprovoked (indeed totally unconnected) claim that someone is an Ayn Rand disciple automatically loses.

Can someone tell me how the parent gets from the GP to vomiting on a pathetic Ayn Rand Coo Coo face?

That's why I completely ignore the news: the very definition of news is "stuff that hardly ever happens" which means it's not a big danger.

What if someone gave you absolutely irrefutable proof that there's no such thing as free will, but you chose not to believe it?