... which would immediately violate the principle of the conservation of energy.

The problem here is that energy == matter (via e=mc^2) and the system of matter/energy together in space-time yields information. Beckenstein shows that the total information in a volume of space is described by the area of the volume which encloses it. See "Bekenstein Bound" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound/
    So in order for this new theory to work, the energy that is instantly transfered to another point in space-time must not be useful until we know what we can do with it through the classical channel. Otherwise you violate the conservation of energy.

Consider for example a mass at height in a gravitational field. To hold the mass stationary at height without any means of support other than using some of the mass itself for the creation of thrust, you would neccessarily run out of mass eventually (time). But if this theory were true, you'd have a loophole where you could take the energy expended for thrust and send it instantaneously back to the point in space above the mass where it could thusly be re-utilized. You would then have your first anti-gravity machine, which can't exist. A mass at height can be used to create energy in free-fall, and which is only equal to the potential difference in height. See http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/gpot.html

Btw, this is why theoretical wormholes can only exist along gravitationally equal field vectors. If a wormhole were to connect two different locations in space that don't exist with the same gravitational potential, you could generate an almost infinite amount of energy. Consider two ends of a wormhole, one end at 1000 meters height above the earth, the other at the ground. Throw a very large mass in at the ground hole. The mass then appears at 1000 meters, and starts falling. You could then make energy from it indefinitely. (What's that video game? Portal?) I would assume, in such a scenario, that the two ends of the wormhole would neccessarily begin to edge closer and closer to each other until they "evaporate" from existance altogether. This might be similar to black hole evaporation.

My question is, what actually is the total amount of energy required to actually hold any object at height, indefinitely, in a gravitational field?

Or 32bit for FLAC, what? What the? Past 18 bits-per-channel, all you are recording is noise. There's no such thing as 32 bit audio, and there never will be. Unless you are adding extra channel information into a single channels stream, I have no idea how anything past 24 bits exists. Please explain, or provide a link how FLAC manages to reconstruct information back from randomness. I'd love to see that algorithm.

It's Microsoft's fault. They have now, single handedly, broken their own market. No longer do we need to upgrade our PCs, or our PC graphics cards, or even our OS. No, now all we need to do is get on the bandwagon and buy an XBox console, which has a lifespan of about 5 years.

So instead of spending $2,000+ on a PC with a $400+ graphics card (every two years) and a new OS every 5 years, now we just spend $400 and buy a bunch of games at $50 to $60 dollars a pop.

Hmm, I wonder how that worked out business wise? Let's dwell on that...

1. Major PC vendors markets: Dell, HP, Sony, Lenovo, Gateway, etc? Destroyed. Now they end up selling a bunch of low-end netbooks and cheap $500 PCs, enough for browsing the web, watching videos, listening to music, etc.
2. High end $400+ video graphic cards market from nVidia and AMT/ATI. Destroyed. Nope, who needs a video card that a game doesn't use. After all, all games are now made for consoles, and the consoles are all over 4 years old!
3. 64 bit multi-core computing for home? Destroyed. After all, who needs multi-core computing except for the business and science/eng/tech sectors? A 32 bit (aka 4G RAM) computer works just fine for the internet, office, and financial management of home users. Ok, some may need to edit photo's and movies, I'll grant that.

The problem is that the Microsoft business manager bean counters just didn't think the problem through. The PC gaming market was pushing the technology envelope forward, for better or worse. And all other vendors and software markets (aka the Windows eco system) benefited from those gains. Later they realized, uh oh!, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, and tried to keep it going with "Games for Windows". Little did they realize, by that time, it was all over.

I may never buy another PC, or graphics card again. Someone please explain why I should? Does the amortization of costs actually benefit us over the long run? Stuck with 4 to 5 year old console technology that does not push the envelope? Unlike some slashdotters, from a game, I want a total and absolute simulated environmenal realism. I don't just want to "play a game". I can muck around with Monopoly if I just wanted to "play a game". No I want to be emersed, as if I have been taken to another world. Games must be worth my time, not just something to fidget around with while I'm bored. I want photo-realism, possibly ray traced real time graphics, with true weather and environmental sounds. That's the goal I "was" chasing. That "was" the goal I was helping by buying the latest and greatest tech. But now, Microsoft has just killed that goal for me.

Side note: It seems all vendors of all types now from cell phones, to PC hardware and software, are all hell bent on getting every living being on the planet on some kind of subscription service. To that I say "One Time Cost" is better than the "Recurring Cost" model.

Please give us your plans for "fixing" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
How about the North Korean-everyone else issue?
Problems in Iraq-Afghanistan?

Space is more about "engineered" solutions. Not so much about politics and religious dogma, which have no solutions. When science and engineering are at the helm, specifically defined problems within broad questions like "How do we do that?" or "How do we get there?" usually get solved.

Does anyone have any idea of how to get a hold of the very original Cosmos television series that aired on P.B.S. back in the early 80's ?

The Cosmos series was bought, remastered, and remade in the late 90's by Ted Turner, and that is the series that I own (the DVD set), however it is not what I watched as a child. I liked the original better. The original had much better ambient music, and in the transitions between scenes, worked much better I thought (more powerfully evoking). The remastered version may be more up to date scientifically, but the music has been replaced with mostly classical that doesn't fit the emotion, and is hacked up quite a bit.

I know the story is that Carl had a large disagreement with the way the original series was produced by KCET out of Los Angeles. Later the series was remade with the help of his wife, but some of the original music could not be relicensed (or was not even licensed correctly the first time) when the series was sold to Turner.

I have most of the episodes of the original 80's version on cassette, that I have now digitized. But the sound isn't that great since it was recorded by simply placing a microphone in front of the TV. There are other tape "abnormalities" as well, like the side A to side B change over.

I know there must be some remaining VHS or Beta tapes around of the original series somewhere, since they were sold as sets to schools and universities back in the 80's. I'd love to have a copy of those! Digital of course.

The very last thing I want as a system administrator are hundreds of thousands of sites (if not millions, or more) requiring the user to have Google Chrome, or the Chrome Frame plugin, before the site can be used. Web sites should be designed using web standards, and not require specific browsers for use. Talk about pot calling kettle black! Plugins should be handlers for the primary browsers functions, not over reaching take over my browser leaches.

It is now a bit naive to think that things work like this in the industry. Years ago, this was indeed the forward thinking, "engineered" best practice, and though not directly, why systems like Kerberos were originally created.

Sadly however, with the advent of the web, SSL, LDAP, and hundreds of other possible databases to need access, most PHB types quickly bought into "identity management" schemes being pawned by multiple vendors. These schemes end up "managing" your kept password(s) into "secret stores", usually in an LDAP back end. The "secret stores" should be hashed, but you can likely de-hash them using master stores hash. This basically amounts to nothing more than Microsofts old PWL files on Win9x. Its just a temporary patch for a long term problem, but many industry PHBs throw their hands up because even after a decade and a half of Kerberos, very few products have been Kerberized.

Password management is hard. There are few easy solutions.

From what I've seen, they have basically worked the game so down to the nuts and bolts as to make it fit into a three year old console. For starters, how about dynamic weather? None? Shame. Carmack is loosing sight of what made games great to buy and own on a PC, that you could enable advanced new graphics techniques on the PC with the latest graphics cards that were not available to the main stream. Even FarCry2, now a year old, has dynamic weather, and good weather too! I've played Crysis and FarCry2, and I think both games are well ahead of idTech5 in some areas, behind in others. FarCry2 is absolutely amazing when played at 1900x1200 with everything turned on. The mornings and evenings are soo real, with the evironmental audio effects as well. Shadows and foilage are quite fantastic. (The night doesn't seem so accurate however, with the night lighting is just too bright.) We've got quad processors now with 4 Gig PC memory standard, and 1 Gig graphics cards. What was the point of me even spending money on a high end machine? When I buy a game, I expect to see some graphics capabilities in the game that are experimental in nature, like volumetric clouds, wind, rain, dust storms, fog, frigid cold/heat haze effects, etc. I expect HDR lighting. I'm not just buying a game to have fun, I'm buying the game to become immersed in a world, and to explore. I want to feel as though I'm there, and have the freedom to just stand around and gawk at the world for hours, just like a lazy Sunday afternoon.

I've owned every id game made in the last 16 years. If all Rage turns out to be is an overblown desert mad max racing game, with pretty good graphics, optimized for a console, I will be thoroughly dissappointed. Thoroughly dissappointed. I may never buy another high-end PC and graphics combo again. What would be the point? When all I really need to browse the web, check email, and watch online videos is a $500 box. So I end up buying a $500 business PC, and a $500 game console, and come out the lesser on both ends?

Error addendum.

Where the following line was stated:
      'Replace "Google Voice" with "IE" for example in Apple's reply, and "iPhone" with "Windows".'
this should have read,
      'Replace "Google Voice" with "Firefox" for example in Apple's reply, and "iPhone" with "Windows".'

Dyslexia because of thinking too fast.

How could Apple possibly know what "end user experience" best suits me? If I install Google Voice, then that -IS- the end user experience I want! If Microsoft pulled that, they would get dinged for trying to push out the competition. Replace "Google Voice" with "IE" for example in Apple's reply, and "iPhone" with "Windows". This is exactly why the iPhone software environment is poison. Apple should not be allowed to decide what kind of "end user experience" I want on my hardware. Yes, if I purchased the hardware from Apple for the "hardware experience", then that means that I liked the "hardware experience" over other vendors, but that doesn't mean I like, or should be required to use their software! All "computing devices" should be "reconfigurable" using software, thats why software exists! Not to lock you into some Nazi form of "I know best what is for you" mentality. Open the devices up vendors!

Related: Buy the phone first, then choose your cell service vendor! NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! Enough with hardware-cell service vendor tie-up aggreements!

This is a strange response, and one that isn't worthy of a reply, but I will nonetheless reply to it.

It is obvious that if "I" were something else, then "I" would not be "me". And if the "not me" ideas about the world were different, then the "not me" might "require", "want", or have "needs" that are different from "mine". However those ideas are still not god-like qualities (characteristices) in any situation.

I don't pretend to know the minds of gods, or "the" god, yet I can "by definition" rule out those characteristics of un-god-like minds. That is, unless you believe that gods are just like ordinary people, with faults just like our own. This pretty much demotes gods to earthly kinds, or at least aliens from other worlds with technologies beyond our own.

In which case this brings us right back to (again) "theological non-cognitivism"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_noncognitivism

It is very annoying when someone (like you) responds to my posts in such a way as to frame everything in cultural relativism. If every persons unique ideas were the truth, then we would have no need for discussion of any kind. Going on the assumption that you are right, then there are no absolutes, and gods don't exist anyway.

So ok, I gladly agree.

Narcissism is a human fault. What would a god need with worship? If I were a god that "invented" the universe and the humans within it, I certainly would not "require", "want", or "need" any kind of worship whatsoever. Worship is something that was demanded, or desired by earthly kings, and is narcissistic. Worship probably arose out of the "alpha male" aspect of the human animal social groups, or "tribes". The whole idea of worship is utterly silly indeed.

Monty Python's "Holy Grail" made the worship idea poignant in the following exchange...

GOD: Oh, don't grovel! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people groveling.
ARTHUR: Sorry--
GOD: And don't apologize. Every time I try to talk to someone it's "sorry this" and "forgive me that" and "I'm not worthy". What are you doing now!?
ARTHUR: I'm averting my eyes, oh Lord.
GOD: Well, don't. It's like those miserable Psalms-- they're so depressing. Now knock it off!

When most people argue or debate the existence of a "god", most of the time all the "believers" really want is that you "worship" something that they believe in. This is quite shameful actually.

Also since when did the word "god" start standing in for the "name" of the being, and not the "description" of the thing?

The word "god" is mostly "without meaning" anyway. So you can politely ignore people who discuss it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_noncognitivism/

(control)
duh

... the ebook purchase "The Catcher in the Rye" is right out then, eh?