I'm the same on the guitar side. I'll go weeks using a fractal fm9 straight into the PA. it's like playing through a computer which is awesome. however...
I'll get real sick of the complexity and go back to my cranked tube amp and one overdrive pedal.
Olbers's paradox, also known as the dark night paradox, is an argument in astrophysics and physical cosmology that says that the darkness of the night sky conflicts with the assumption of an infinite and eternal static universe. In the hypothetical case that the universe is static, homogeneous at a large scale, and populated by an infinite number of stars, any line of sight from Earth must end at the surface of a star and hence the night sky should be completely illuminated and very bright. This contradicts the observed darkness and non-uniformity of the night sky.
The line of sight argument is nice and succinct, and of course in some sense correct, but I've come to view the paradox in a somewhat different way: if all you have in a static and eternal universe are everlasting sources of energy, then of course you're going to run into trouble when considering equilibrium concerning energy, because it won't exist.
So while it is true that the true resolution to the paradox is that our universe is finite in age and expanding, that doesn't mean a static and eternal universe is in principle untenable. One could for example imagine as of yet unknown sinks of energy, or perhaps starlight gets recycled back into new stars as the old stars disappear. Without speculating on the mechanism, basically any universe where conservation of energy holds will have (on a large enough scale) a constant energy density, and hence, a dark sky at night.
The paradox also assumes several things about light, specifically that light propagates forever. Only in recent years have we managed to prove that assumption true. But if light did degrade over astronomical distances, a static and infinite universe could still have a dark sky at night. If one postulates that light degrades into lower and lower frequencies over time/distance, maybe we are indeed living in a non-expanding universe? Given the thermodynamic issues of an accelerating expansion (dark energy) photons that degrade over distance seems at least a less-strange option.
> light propagates forever .... Only in recent years have we managed to prove that assumption true
I thought the dark of night was explained by redshift (given distance, it shifts out of the visual spectrum). I guess the infra-red still continues on so that is in line with light propagating forever
Because very distant objects describe a very different universe, meaning the light has traveled in time without degrading. For instance, the cmb doesn't match the current universe, proving both that light travels forever and that the universe is not static.
Distant objects also do not show degradation in brightness beyond square area expectations. They are redshifted, but not dimmer than would be normal.
I don’t really see how Olbers’s paradox proves that the Universe is finite, merely that the observable universe is finite. The observable universe is finite because (a) it’s expanding and (b) the speed of light is finite. Both of these can be true in an infinite universe (an infinite universe can still expand everywhere, which can be counterintuitive but it’s true.)
I don't see how it would be a contradiction in terms; we can easily speak of the possibility of an infinite amount of time in the future, why not also in the past?
(It may be factually wrong, but that's not a contradiction in terms).
I've always wondered how intentional Fred Rogers was when writing these songs. I've been in a shitty ska punk band for years and the hyperactive singer will be like, "Guys! I've got this great new song and it goes like this." He'll sing a melody for a verse or whatever and we'll piece together a chord progression then he'll sing the chorus and we'll piece chords together that sort of fit it but it will be in some bananas different key. The band is all looking at each other like WTF is this nonsense? but the crazy thing is the song winds up working and it is crazy complex even though none of us have any idea what we're doing.
I mean, music theory is all about communication and describing how things sound, not fitting everything in a box. Though once you learn the theory behind why your stuff works despite the clashing keys, you'll be able to describe it to other musicians and more easily apply it intentionally.
Not all N series engines are awful. The N52, while not as amazing as the previous M52/M54 engines, is a fantastic, reliable engine. However, the 4 cylinder N20 used between 2011-2017 is the worst. Faulty timing chain guides often fail and immediately grenade the engine. They were so bad there was even a class action lawsuit
The N53 is notably one of bmw's less reliable engines. Everything that goes wrong with it is tedious to debug and ends up hugely expensive to fix because you always end up needing to replace several pricey injectors. Then it breaks again later.
The N52 seems rather better, as all its common faults are relatively cheap to fix.
I'm a terrible hobby musician and I love using the Mellotron that's in GarageBand or Logic. I had no idea what it really was before today (thanks for sharing the article) but it somehow always adds some sort of perfect, whimsical ambiance to whatever I'm trying to make. Give it a try with some reverb under a good beat. Can't go wrong.
There is an extensive network of caves under my city that were used by beer breweries in the 1800's to store beer. They are all but inaccessible, and, at the time, kind of a myth. Most people didn't believe they still existed. I was fascinated by this and I compiled as much information as I could find on my personal website in the early 2000's. One day I received an email, "do you want to go into the caves? I know someone who can get us in. Meet us at 1am at XXXXXX - bring flashlights, old boots, and $50 to pay the tour guide."
Me, being young and always up for an adventure, showed up and it was awesome. These were legit spelunker urban explorers who knew how to pick locks. We got into the caves and it was crazy. Best part is I didn't get murdered.
A former co-worker used to have a shop on Cherokee Street about 15 years ago. He told me that a neighboring building had access to the caves through the basement, though its owner was too afraid to explore it.
Could that have been across from what is now Earthbound Beer? If so, they hand-dug all the debris out of the cave and you can pretty easily get a tour. The owner said the cave under the cave is off limits b/c they almost ran out of air while exploring it.
In 2000 when some random guy asked a 13yo "hey wanna cyber" the answer was "lol ur a creep", today they'd call the police and there would be newspaper articles how Whatsapp is failing to protect our youth from online predators.
People just seemed to worry a lot less about the internet 20 years ago.
Overall things are much safer, but contact by scammers online (online scams in general) is much more a thing now than it was then. There was a turning point in the mid-late aughts for me where the level of trustworthiness of random anonymous online contacts took a dive.
What's funny about this is at the time I most trusted my online friends people who weren't terminally online felt much more vocal about online predators and scammers. Now that everyone is terminally online they don't seem to be as worried.
It's amazing how I'd never heard the word "spelunk" before today, and now in the span of the last few hours, I've heard it multiple times in three different contexts.
And another fun bit of trivia: in the animated series “The Seven Deadly Sins”, one of the characters owns and operates a somewhat suspicious bar in a remote mountain cave.
Seems there may be a cross-culture notion of caves and sketchy bars having similar level of… ah, “shadiness”. Makes some sense, as I’m typing this out. The dark is where (both literally and figuratively) shady things go down, and it’s hard to get much darker than a cave, so “Spelunke” seems a fitting name.
I take it you don’t play video games either. Spelunky was a pretty popular Indy game back in the day. Named after, you guessed it, spelunking. I first learned the word from “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego” back in the 90s. I had to ask my parents what it meant.
So, I looked into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's archive (1874 to present) in the hope of solving this mystery, but could not find anything. However, I did find a rather fascinating article titled "A Morning in the Cave" that was published on 28 July 1996. If anyone is affiliated with an academic institution, they can read it on ProQuest.
what? this is amazing, I haven't seen that article. I was just able to pull the article's text up for free via the St. Louis County Library. Thank you! if I figure out how to find individual pages, i will let you know.
>Me, being young and always up for an adventure, showed up and it was awesome. These were legit spelunker urban explorers who knew how to pick locks. We got into the caves and it was crazy. Best part is I didn't get murdered.
There is a system of subterranean galleries under my city also. It's closed to the public and I planned some time ago with some guys to explore a part of it. We were too lazy to do it and now I regret it a bit.
Great opportunity of a viral video and digital glory and fame missed by not becoming murdered just a little, you, lazy alive being. Fake it at least with some homemade ketchup. The algorithm says: booring, you need to commit more with the channel.
;-)
My old blog was all for laughs, vanity and stupid terminal tricks. Not much lost.
This is interesting to me because my mother has MS and it's _because_ the blood-brain barrier is too open that she has health issues. Surprising there's good reason to open it up.
I learned about this from a talk given by one of the authors. The guy next to me asked, "If you open up the blood-brain barrier, doesn't that mean nasty things can cross, too?" and the author was like, "yep." There are definitely risks.
It's an interesting problem - I was reading about bipolar, which also (probably) has the issue of too open a blood-brain barrier. There is a theory that repairing the blood-brain barrier would help, but as drugs repair the barrier, it's harder to get drugs into the brain from the blood, which means the doses need to be higher, which means the side effects are worse.
I could imagine a treatment protocol of opening the blood-brain barrier and then administering a low dose of a drug, or something along those lines
