Also, the production of tachyons in models of quantum gravity have long been considered a reason to dismiss those models and prefer more stable ones. If tachyons prove real, then that would turn upside-down the universe of acceptable models of the universe.

That makes no sense at all. Using constant dollars, in deflation, if the bank started with $1, and just hung on to it, at the end of a year they would have $2. Nominally, they will still have $1.

The price crash was not the result of maliciousness. The price crash was a result of trying to convert "$500k worth" of bitcoins into $500k in actual money. The market would not support that action. The fact that the person doing it was a thief is immaterial to the price action that resulted in trying to convert.

Your post doesn't make any sense. allinvain was an earlier adopter of bitcoin and a miner who was making 50 bitcoins a day in the early days. He had 25,000 bitcoins stolen. It is a fact that before the theft bitcoins were exchangeable at close to $20. His stash was worth far less as little as a month or two ago. There is nothing unusual about his behavior considering the circumstances.

Wat? Why would a bank pay you money to borrow their money? There is no upside for them. They could just hold the money themselves, and watch it increase value, which is exactly what happens when there is deflation -- there are no loans.

By controlling the money supply through interest rates, the new money can enter the system in the form of loans. So people pay a premium for getting the new money. There's not much viable or fair alternative for distributing new money that needs to be created to increase the money supply. You certainly don't want to just give new money to Congress.

Where do you get $55 trillion from? Or $14 trillion? M2 is $9 trillion. While it's true that most of that money enters the system in the form of loans, that does NOT mean that it's value is dependent upon it being paid back. It's value is dependent on the GDP, which is the collection of goods and services which, by law, are tradable for the supply of dollars.

By $14 trillion you are maybe referring to the government's debt. That is also not what drives the value of dollars, except to the degree that new borrowing increases supply. The prospect of not repaying the debt would only affect the value of the dollar because the economic shock would reduce the GDP of the country. But the main point of confusion here is the failure to grasp that the value of the dollar is derived from the economic state of the country, not the financial state of the government.

I don't get it. Why would exoplanets be predictive for people living in this solar system. For stellar objects give us signs, I think the point is that we have to be able to see them in the sky.

Here's my question. So we know now that Western astrology uses a "sun signs" that are not based on the sun's actual relative position in the sky, but is based on the seasons, and simply NAMED after constellations. What I don't understand is this. What about the astrologers who do complicated charts involving the positions and motions of the moon and planets? Do they use the actual relative positions of the moon and planets and then combine it with a make-believe position on the sun based on it starting in Aries every spring? Or are all the astrologers who do complicated charts like that sidereal astrologers who base everything in the actual astronomy?

Some astrologers are wont to divide the astrological ages into equal 2150-year portions, despite the fact that some constellations are bigger and some are smaller. Pisces is a big one, so some astrologers have the Age of Aquarius actually coming before the sun is actually in the constellation Aquarius. Astrologers will come up with various theories for when it should start, and a bunch of them said the 20th century.

There's also the question of where to draw the boundary lines between constellations. I don't know where the gods draw them, but astronomers draw them based on a 1930 international agreement. But based on where astronomers draw them, the equinox sun won't be crossing the boundary for another 500+ years. But don't take my word for it. Here's a picture of where the sun will be for the 2011 spring equinox. Decide for yourself whether it's in Aquarius yet. The pic doesn't show the official boundaries, just the constellations themselves. http://i54.tinypic.com/zwhec.jpg

I don't know what I find more troubling, that fact, or that you would have thought it wise to admit it here.

Tropical astrology divides signs into 12 equally-sized divisions, anchored at the spring and fall equinox. (Doing this just means it's not actually based on the stars, but on where the stars were 3000 years ago.) But it doesn't change based on the calendar system being used, as you suggested.

Sidereal astrology is based on the sun's place in the constellations. Why it might be arbitrary, the entire sky is divided into constellations. Astronomers identify stars by the constellation they are located in and a number. So it's not possible to be born between constellations. The sun (and all other objects) have to always be in one of them.

This isn't news to any astrologer. As the article says, this is a 2000-year-old story. This was a conscious decision made by the forebearers of Western astrology to use a tropical (seasonal) astrology instead of sidereal (astronomical) astrology. They knew what they were doing. The only question is why to keep calling it astrology if it has nothing to do with the stars. Meanwhile, Hindu and other Eastern astrology is sidereal, and has always been based on where the sun actually is in the constellations.

The most ridiculous thing I've seen in a paper article was, "So this means that we're not really in the age of Aquarius, but in the age of Capricorn". UUUUUUGH!!! The whole idea of Astrological Ages is based on the fact of the precession of the equinoxes. The astrological age is the constellation the sun is actually in at the spring equinox. Tropical astrology, which is the system that's told you what your sign is all your life if you live in Western civilization, is based on pretending that we are eternally and forever in the Age of Aries. That is, it is based on pretending that the sun always moves into Aries on March 20th. In reality, it has since left Aries, and moved through most of Pisces, and will move into Aquarius sometime around the year 2600 because of precisely the same "wobble" that makes tropical astrology wrong.

And don't try to tell me that tropical astrology isn't necessarily "wrong", because it is based on seasons and not stars. That should be an intellectually embarrassing argument even for an astrologer.

So they would have won a non-existent bet? The question is whether they are going to take this actual bet or not.