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Comment I tried it, it works. (Score 3, Interesting) 211

I just tried this site, and it did in fact know of one download that I did like a month ago. But I have downloaded several more files since then, and it knew nothing of those.

Also, the other day I came across a similar site which appeared to have even more information about my downloads. But I did not think to bookmark it.

From a technical point of view, it is rather easy: you just set up a fake torrent peer which connects to various trackers and obtains peer lists, without actually receiving anything from them or sending anything to them. All it needs to do is record the IPs of the peers.

Comment Re:The trick... (Score 5, Informative) 246

No, it is not to clench your anus while you lie.

It is to clench your anus while the machine is being calibrated, prior to the questions.

Then, while you lie (or tell the truth but simply feel uncomfortable) the machine will not register your anxiety because it has been calibrated too high.

Comment We need a new term (Score 1) 239

A word must be invented for the (usually public, but private is not unthinkable) official who, out of the blue, as if he did not have anything better to do, decides to come up with a new interpretation of regulations in order to spoil the fun of some innocent poor bastard.

Also perhaps we need a word for the official who then proceeds to enforce this new interpretation, with tenaciousness never seen before by him, or by anyone else in his entire department, in the handling of actual issues.

Comment Re:Really good news! (Score 1) 158

Okay, what is available for download right now is a "technology preview" version, which is very basic, it really lacks features.

Essentially, they are telling us that they are proficient enough to connect to the source code repository of chromium, download it, slap their name on it, build it, and ship it.

Which, I guess will do at this point, it shows determination.

What I am really looking forward to is something like Opera 10 or 12.

Comment Re:"Light drag?" (Score 1) 231

Right, it is both (a) and (b). The dominant kind of shift observed is red, and it has minor variations due to actual movement of galaxies in space, in addition to the (supposed) expansion of space.

The Andromeda galaxy, which is the closest one to us, and therefore not very red-shifted to begin with, does in fact move towards us in space, (we will collide at some point in the very distant future,) and for this reason it is slightly blue-shifted.

On the wikipedia entry for "Andromeda Galaxy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... the bar on the right hand side says "Redshift z = -0.001001 (minus sign indicates blueshift)"

So, of course the tired light hypothesis does not deny that light undergoes a doppler effect; it just tries to explain why the red shift appears to increase as the distance increases.

Comment Re:"Light drag?" (Score 1) 231

but... but... that's precisely what is supposed to be happening according to the currently accepted models: the red shift is _not_ due to the galaxies actually moving apart in space, it is due to the space itself expanding between them, in combination with the fact that the speed of light remains constant despite the expanding space.

Now, if space is expanding, then I could hold one end of a (long enough) yardstick standing on this galaxy, and you could hold the other end standing on another galaxy, despite the red shift, because the yardstick would be expanding together with the space between the galaxies. This essentially means that there is no way to detect the expansion of space in the physical world other than by studying light. Which means that if light behaves in some way that we do not yet understand, then it could very well be that there is no expansion taking place at all.

The tired light hypothesis says forget that awfully exotic stuff about expansion of space, there is a much simpler explanation, everything is more or less stationary, nothing is expanding, and the red shift is due to some as of yet unknown property of light which reduces its frequency as it travels through space.

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