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Comment Re:Are we looking through the center... (Score 1) 157

For one thing, photons do have mass, which is how they push solar sails and are bent by gravity. If light had no mass, then black holes would be pretty bright.

You describe variations in spacetime, which is not what I said. I suggested that c (and so of course g, and all the other constants of nature) perhaps varied with the expansion of the universe. For sure, some 'constants of nature' have varied since the initial moment after the big bang.

Comment Re:Brain drain (Score 1) 167

You've nailed it - make the office a fun place to be. Make it so people look forward to spending a quarter of their lives there.

I've worked at places where beer starts appearing in people's hands around 4:30 - 5 o'clock. That was not only a fun place to work, but more productive than it would appear.

Example: I'm still standing around, not working, drinking and gabbing around 5:30, and there is a design group still working to make a morning deadline. Of course the proofer/print server goes haywire, and normally, they would wait until morning to get the printer fixed. But I'm there and can easily fix it with beer in hand; that one little incident saving the company several man-hours of productivity.

Oh, and damn those people that want to insist that I get overtime for every moment I spend at the office after hours.

Comment Re:Are we looking through the center... (Score 1) 157

The big bang and current theory say that space is expanding. That gives red shift over distance; no 'age' required. Obviously, age is implied over distance, given speed of light, which we only know to be constant within this particular 'space density' in which we now live.

We don't know that the speed of light was always as it is now. So, using it to measure both distance and age is a double assumption, truly the edge of theory with no other corroborating evidence.

Well, I take that back; we do have the CMB also, and current theory ties those two observations together nicely. Nicely enough that I have no alternative theory to offer, and the alternative is a steady state universe. In which case there would be no center.

But if there was a big bang, it would have no center either, since it came from a point with no volume. The thought of a center, implies existence outside of the big bang point, and then it would follow that the big bang had a 'location'. But there can be no location outside the universe.

In that sense, a steady state infinite universe is far easier to wrap one's head around than the expanding big bang. I'm not sure if I'm agreeing, or making any particular point here. But I do hate to see you guys get modded down simply for talking out these ideas on the edge of knowledge.

Comment Re:BS aside, is the K-XL a good thing or not? (Score 1) 437

We have refineries on the Gulf coast.

Are you saying they can't use this oil? They take in oil from overseas now. But you're saying the Canadian oil has to go overseas?

Also, why can't we just do business with Canada? Does there have to be a national interest in it? If they get more out of it than we do, and we just make a little money off the deal; is that so bad?

Comment Re: BS aside, is the K-XL a good thing or not? (Score 1) 437

The delay is it's own reward.

There are several (more) lawsuits against the pipeline now than there were, in South Dakota and Nebraska, meaning a minimum of 2 years now before anything could move. Even if everything was fast tracked. At least one case is going to the SD Supreme Court.

They've killed it already.

The Republicans are used to losing; I think they mean to lose; they like being the 'valiant opposition'. Losers. The real loser here is Canada. They could have been selling that oil at $120 if we had let them build it when they started. They're probably just going to cancel it, losing millions in prepaid stuff. Also, they already built the bottom half. Now, they still have to start on one over the mountains. I'd call that Royally Screwed.

Hope it was worth fucking over Canada just to beat the Republicans one more time.

Comment Re:BS aside, is the K-XL a good thing or not? (Score 2) 437

Relatively expensive fracking is, but not that expensive.

The Saudis have been soaking us for years. Along with Russia. (Even now, Rosneft? takes revenue in dollars and pays expenses and salaries in rubles.)

North Dakota has changed that equation, and it's looking like about $60 a barrel right now. Even the tar sands make money well under $100.

So it won't go back to where it was for a while. (knock on wood...)

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