Life » No One Special

NHL Schedule Changes

Welcome back to the Winnipeg Jets! Now we get to pay attention to the messy business of realignment.

Apparently Detroit was promised a few years ago that in the event of realignment, they would be the first team to move from the West to the East. This agreement was made when Toronto switched to the East following a string of expansion in the West. For this season, Winnipeg is playing in the Southeast division which is amusing in itself. Moving Winnipeg to the West is a no-brainer but what else happens is another question entirely. Fulfilling the promise made to Detroit would be the easiest option but may not be the best since both Columbus and Nashville both have logical claims to be in the East.

Detroit recently offered the concession to the NHL that they will stay in the West if they don’t have to visit teams in California and Western Canada more than once. Can’t really blame them, travel is expensive and time consuming. Detroit is almost as west as Winnipeg is south. This compromise, however, opens up a Pandora’s box of scheduling issues. Why should Dallas have to visit Vancouver and Edmonton twice if Detroit doesn’t.

Maybe there’s another way to think about scheduling. What if we ignore the conferences when it comes to creating the schedule and deciding who plays who. Instead, we can consider the proximity of the divisions the teams belong in regardless of conferences. It doesn’t really make sense for teams in the Central division to visit Vancouver twice a year and yet travel to the Southeast only every other year. Nashville is only 733 km from Raleigh, NC (1 game per year) and yet 760km from Detroit (6 games per year) and a whopping 3270km from Vancouver (4 games per year.) What if, for scheduling purposes, the Central and Southest divisions were paired due to their proximity.

There are a few different configurations where this is possible.

Teams play other teams in their division 6 times. (24 games)
Teams play 4 games against each team in 2 neighbouring divisions (40 games):
- Northwest plays Northeast and Pacific
- Pacific plays Northwest and Central
- Central plays Pacific and Southeast
- Southeast plays Central and Atlantic
- Atlantic plays Southeast and Northeast
- Northeast plays Northwest and Atlantic
16 remaining games for the two remaining divisions the way they are today.

Another configuration might be not to daisy chain the divisions like that such that:

Teams play other teams in their division 6 times (24 games)
Teams play 4 games against teams in the closest division (20 games)
Teams play 2 games against teams in two divisions further away (20)
Teams play 1 game against teams in two divisions farthest away (10 games)
Teams play 6 extra games

In the latter example, Pacific teams might play Northwest teams 4 times, Central and Southeast teams twice and Atlantic and Northeast teams once.

I think either of these would help cut down on the average travel. This would probably help out every team except for those in the Pacific. Then again, I don’t think there isn’t any solution where teams in the Pacific don’t get the worst travel by virtue of geography.

This should also improve some regional rivalries (Nashville and Carolina) and provide for more games between Canadian teams. I don’t think Vancouver would mind getting a visit from Montreal and Toronto every year and vice versa. Hopefully teams in the Southeast and Pacific could form a similar rivalry.

Another version involving an 84 game schedule

6 games against division rivals
4 games against teams in the closest division
3 games against teams in the two next closest divisions, alternating year to year who gets the extra home game
1 game against teams in the other two divisions

Thoughts?

War, violence and resistance

I’ve been thinking a lot about this war we’re in. No, I’m not talking about Afghanistan or Iraq. I’m not talking about North Korea or Iran. I’m not talking about the war on drugs or the war or poverty. I’m not even talking about the war against Christmas. I’m talking about the war that’s been going on for 8-10,000 years or so.

I’m talking about the war of civilization against the natural world. I’m talking about the war of belongings against belonging… the war of hierarchy against community… the war of industry against the land base. I’m talking about the war of linear logic (and spirituality) against the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. This is the war of power and control against life.

If you’re still not sure what war I’m talking about, you really need to get yourself up to speed. The belligerent aggressor is civilization itself. We, the “civilized,” have been waging a war as we’ve done our darnedest to live outside the laws of nature. We’ve invented gods and religions to enable us to think we’re somehow special. Not only are we supposedly distinct and superior to non-human animals, we’ve been commanded by the gods themselves to take over the natural world. And you thought “go forth and multiply” was just a cute little phrase in the Bible while it is clearly a declaration of war. The land is ours, screw the spiders, salmon and sequoias. As the human population has grown exponentially, we’re in the midst of a period of mass extinction not seen since the fall of the dinosaurs and we’re (we the civilized, not we humans. The Yanomami, Bushmen and Ayoreo are not only innocent in this, but also victims of this) the ones who have been causing it. We’ve been undermining the ecosystem to the point where a few species failures could very well cause the whole ecosystem to collapse. (Seriously, if diversity is good for your stock portfolio, wouldn’t biodiversity be that much more important for the ecosystem? It is infinitely more important.)

The object of this post isn’t to explain why civilization is bad. If it isn’t already evident to you, there are a number of books and authors I can direct you to. There are plenty of people who not only realize we’re at war, but have engaged on the side of the land and of nature. I’m one of those people.

I have almost finished reading Derrick Jensen’s Endgame, Vol. 2. One of the central topics of the book is to what extent are we justified in our actions to do what is necessary to take down civilization. In particular, Jensen exposes the pacifism preached by many environmentalists and activists as foolishness and folly. I didn’t need convincing.

The purpose of this post is mostly for me to record my reaction to Jensen’s argument. I feel he missed a few important points that only help his argument. I haven’t quite finished reading the book so maybe I’m the one who has missed something.

The first thing is that not only is self-defense justified, I don’t even see it as being violence. If a man tries to rape a woman and she kills him defending herself, that isn’t violence as far as I’m concerned. If you could go back in time to 1938 and kill Hitler, would you do it? Would that be violence? If you would go back and kill Hitler, why haven’t you already killed Tom Albanese, Gary Jackson, or Hugh Grant? (I’m not suggesting anyone should go kill these people.)

Actually, now that I’m writing this down, I’m wondering if Jensen doesn’t want us all to accept it would be violence to kill in self-defense so that these corporations don’t get to use the same self-defense argument to explain away their violence. I could justify using violence to kill Hitler. Maybe those CEOs could not justify the violence they use against indigenous people (or non-humans) if they were forced to considering what they do violence. (And it is violence.)

The second point I’d like to make is on the nature of war. Some form of militancy – of violence – is expected in warfare. Obviously the focus of grand strategy should be to win, but what does winning look like? B.H. Liddell Hart said that the object of war is to secure a better peace. I think this makes for an excellent watermark for us to determine our strategies and tactics. If the actions we perform help secure a better peace, then we are fighting the war strategically. If we are engaging our violent fantasies or our predilection for explosions, we are not fighting strategically. CEOs can be replaced easily enough. (See? I really wasn’t suggesting anyone kill those people.) “Critical” infrastructure on the other hand… Also, liberating rivers from dams would surely be a better peace.

The last point is also related to the object of war. Civilization doesn’t have a standing army whose defeat in the field would result in our victory. ( Not that that’s how most conventional wars are necessarily won either.) Storming Monsanto corporate headquarters won’t bring down civilization any more than the storming of the Bastille brought down hierarchy. That’s not to say these events were not (or wouldn’t be) considered victories but they were not (and will not be) the end.

As much as the physical acts of violence against the environment must stop, so too must the intellectual and emotional. There are some fundamental errors in the premises of civilization that have to be replaced. As much as rivers need to be liberated from dams, which will require explosives, we won’t see victory until those premises have been replaced. We are no more special than spiders, salmon or sequoias. The land does not belong to us, we belong to the land. This is where pies can be more effective than RPGs. It’s hard to take someone seriously when they are covered in whipped cream. It’s hard to fear someone you’re laughing at. These kinds of tactics can be useful expressions of resistance. “No, Mr Grant, I don’t even recognize your authority, let alone respect it.” Guns are probably always a challenge to authority. Sometimes that might be called for. Sometimes we probably want to project our rejection of authority.

If the object of war is to secure a better peace, we have to have some idea of what a better peace is to look like. Yes, there will be no dams so they will have to come down. But when it comes down to the epidemiology of abuse, we’ll have to treat the causes rather than the symptoms. This war will be fought with all the tools at our disposal from memes to mines.

A Pawnee goddess and what I did to her when I found her

Atira is the Pawnee goddess representing the Earth, and is seen as the “Sacred Mother” of every living creature.
From the Interwebz:

The Pawnee were hunters. When told to abandon hunting and settle down
to farming, their priest replied: “You ask me to plow the ground!
Shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s bosom? Then when I die she
will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stone!
Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I cannot
enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay
and sell it, and be rich like white men! But how dare I cut off my
mother’s hair? It is a bad law and my people cannot obey it.”

Because clearly agriculture is the superior lifestyle choice for humanity.

If you live in North America, chances are the land has recently undergone a name change. I’m in a place now called Hamilton, Ontario. It has had this name for less than 200 years. Obviously this area is much older than that. I found it rather embarrassing to know the area’s real name. I don’t even know who, specifically, the people were who lived here before we Europeans took over. Do you know the real history of your city?

Some cursory investigation found that this area belonged to a people who called themselves the Chonnonton, meaning, the people of the deer. It seems as though they are better known by names others have given them. The Hurons gave them the name Attawandaron, meaning, the people who talk funny. The French gave them the name la Nation neutre because they tried to remain neutral in the war between the Hurons and the Iroquois who were allied with the French and English respectively. The Wikipedia entry, Neutral Nation, is about them.

I haven’t done much research, but so far I haven’t found anything talking about the Chonnonton name for this area. Kind of sad, don’t you think?

Site news

I’ve made quite a few updates over the past week or so. Hopefully updates continue coming at a similar pace.

Plenty more tweaks are coming but the general idea is that the section on the left is permanent articles. Some of these articles will link to related recent blog posts using some handy php code I had to write myself.

Not all of these articles have content and more articles will be written and posted in time. The articles that have content should be considered drafts.

Feel free to suggest anything.

“Chrissy” Pronger Poster Sparks Controversy

Luckily, I have a solution.

The Chicago Blackhawks can close out the Stanley Cup Final with a win in game six on Wednesday night. The Chicago Tribune thought the best way to cheer them on was to print a poster of Flyers’ defenseman Chris Pronger. Only the poster was labelled “Chrissy” Pronger and the photo of him was photoshopped to include him in a woman’s figure skating skirt. The caption read, “Looks like Tarzan, skates like Jane.”

Naturally, this caused a little controversy.

Three-time Olympian Angela Ruggiero took offense and said it was an ignorant portrayal of women and hockey. She said she would “like to see that editor out on skates. I’ll take them one-on-one on the ice any day.”

Tribune sports editor Mike Kellams didn’t like that idea calling it a “no contest.” Kellams apologized for those who took offense (whatever that means) and dismissed the incident and the criticism as “having a little fun.”

Okay, I’ll admit it. It was a little bit funny in a juvenile sort of way. It was probably meant as some good-natured humour and our world needs more of that. It was also, however, ignorant and sexist.

Any time you compare a to b in a matter intended to be insulting or denigrating to b, you are only making that comparison if you have a negative opinion of a. In other words, if you say Pronger skates like a girl and mean it as an insult, you are effectively saying that girls can’t skate well. Clearly this is sexist and a gross generalization that is patently false. If Kellams didn’t mean that women can’t skate well, was the poster intended to compliment Pronger? How then is this poster making fun of Pronger?

If you still don’t think this is sexist (at least in its ignorance if not intent) consider the reaction if Pronger was photoshopped to look black or Asian. (“Crumbles like rice on ice?”) Yeah, that’s what I thought.

I suppose that is the issue right there. This is sexist in its ignorance rather than its intent. Kellams dismissal of the criticism is a mistake that sends the wrong message. Ignorance is not an excuse and it doesn’t make sexism okay.

I’m still optimistic enough that when I see ignorance, I see an opportunity to educate. In this case, I think Kellams can show us all how much he and the Tribune appreciates good-natured humour by taking Ruggiero up on her challenge.

It’d be great.

We’d have someone who looks like Jane and skates like Tarzan going up against someone who looks like Mr Potato Head and skates like… well, Mr Potato Head. Seriously.

Kellams: Looks like Mr Potato Head, probably skates like him too.

Okay, maybe not too seriously. This is just good-natured humour, right Mike?

But seriously.

The whole concept of freedom of speech has been bastardized. Freedom of speech means you can say what you want, not that you won’t have to accept the consequences of what you say.

Kellams and the Tribune got a few laughs at Pronger’s — and women’s — expense and its time to accept the consequences.

I think Ruggiero’s challenge is a great idea. I propose a game of shinny between the two to raise money for charity. Better yet, maybe a 3-on-3 game with Kellams and two other members of the Tribune’s editorial board against Ruggiero and two players from her hockey school for girls.

It would be brilliant.

Kellams gets to “man up” and get destroyed by a bunch of girls. Hopefully he takes it “like a man” and gets a lesson in gender equality and stereotypes in sports and reporting.

Angela Ruggiero gets some positive ink for women’s hockey and her hockey school. If appropriate, maybe her school (or a related charity promoting girls in sports) can take the proceeds. I’m sure beating up a couple men would be great fun for the girls.

The Tribune gets to save some face and put a positive spin on a divisive issue. The articles covering the game would pretty much write themselves. Who knows, the PR win might even gain a few subscriptions.

Come on Mike, “be a man” and show us all this was just for fun. Yes, you’ll probably be humiliated but that’s what makes this work. Don’t dismiss the criticism, embrace it. Own it and accept the consequences.

That is, of course, if you have “the balls.”

Misspelling ’3M’ and other head scratchers…

Grocery stores can sometimes be as good for people watching as bus stations. People are generally just doing their own thing and you can tell a lot about a person by what is in their basket or cart. The way they behave is another good indication like the guy who talked to me in the checkout line yesterday at No Frills.

It wasn’t that busy but at that particular time there were a fair number of people in line and only 4 or 5 cashes open. A few of the people ahead of me had full carts and a few people were just carrying a few items. The express (1-8) lane was on the other side of the store. I had about 20 items or so in a basket. The guy behind me smelled like alcohol and had a full cart. His cart even included a small lap dog complete with giant spiked collar and a neckerchief (spellcheck says that’s a word, yay. Spellcheck also says that spellcheck and yay are not.) with a marijuana leaf. You get the idea.

He starts grumbling and sighing and wondering aloud why people aren’t going to the express aisle. At one point he directed one of his comments at me and my 20 items. A few more comments and I’d had enough. I turned back to him and said, “you know, if you think I have so few items that it would take me no time at all to go through the express aisle, then you shouldn’t have any problem waiting behind me in this aisle.” He didn’t get it.

“But you’ll get out faster.”

“That’s not the point.”

“But we’ll all get out faster.”

“Not the people behind me in the express line. That’s the point. It’d be rude to those people.”

“I wouldn’t consider it rude.”

“Well you’re not in the express aisle. But you’re apparently taking offense at this….”

“I’ve gone in the express aisle with more than 8 items a bunch of times, and they’ve only said anything once or twice.”

“Well thats you, and like they would actually say anything. So why don’t you go then?”

“Well…” as he points to his cart.

“Exactly.”

I tried to end the conversation with that which worked for a while. Then ahead of us in line there was some commotion as a rather cute young woman with an elegant outfit and pigtails (Call me! Yes, you! You bought a 2L carton of milk. I believe it was 1% milk.) who was carrying her groceries in cloth shopping bags moved out of the way to let someone with a cart by so the walkway wouldn’t be clogged (or something like that.)

Somehow, this guy took offence and said, “yeah, you see what I’m talking about now?”

“Not at all.”

“You know, you got to learn things aren’t always black and white.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at being given a lesson on moral relativism in No Frills.

He continued, “you know, when I stopped seeing things in black and white is when I started to enjoy life.”

“Well, I started enjoying my life when I stopped being selfish.”

He thought about that for a while before saying, “I’m not telling anyone to do anything, I’m just having a conversation in line.”

“Okay, that’s fine.”

“Maybe I’m just anxious because my dog is with me. ”

I’d forgotten about the dog in his cart. Because, you know, the “No Dogs” sign is just a suggestion like the “1-8 items” sign. It doesn’t apply to you if you don’t want it to or you feel it inconveniences you in any way. Allergies be damned you’re entitled to bring your dog to rub up against food you haven’t paid for.

Sigh.

A couple weeks ago someone asked me how to spell “3M” … Really? It’s only one of the world’s biggest companies. The fact that its only two characters long and is spelled exactly how it sounds makes this a pretty big head scratcher. Good thing I didn’t used to work for Eyebeeyim or Ayteeandtee.

The return of No One Special…

So my server was hacked leading to the last incarnation of this site to be riddled with spyware and banned by Google. Seemed like a great opportunity to do some pruning and optimizing of my server. That was when I discovered my host was using all sorts of old versions of software. What’s more, they wanted to charge me to upgrade. I didn’t take too kindly to that as it was one more thing in a long line of customer service snafus. Even quitting was a nightmare. I was literally in chat for 30 minutes trying to get them to cancel my account and they wouldn’t do it. Anyway. Seemed like a good a time as any to shop around for a new hosting service and I chose one I’d used for other projects earlier. So here we are.

I’m still working on things but I think you can see where I’m going with it. I found and copied most of my favourite blog posts from old blogs or social networking sites. Forgive any missing links in posts older than this one.

I don’t know what else to say. Um…

5, 4, 3, 2, 1… launch?

Do you know what “T” means in a launch sequence? As in… “T-minus 10 seconds.” It means Time. Seriously. The reason they do that is so they can schedule events in relation to takeoff. This is so that if takeoff is delayed, they don’t have to recalculate and reprint all sorts of schedules. T-minus 2 minutes means 2 minutes before takeoff. T-plus 2 minutes means 2 minutes after. Other similar terms are H-Hour and D-Day. You might have heard that last one before. Another military benefit would be that should any messages be intercepted, the enemy wouldn’t know when the event was happening. For example, if something was happening on D-2 day, it would happen 2 days before D-Day. No one would know when it would happen unless they knew when D-Day was going to be. Fnord.

Wii sales falling?

For the second year in a row, Wii sales have fallen.

For the fifth year in a row, journalists have seemed to completely misunderstand the console industry.

Xbox 360 and the PS3 gambled that being HD would be enough to put make them the top two consoles but that didn’t happen. Superior graphics can be a huge advantage for any console and the difference between HD and SD games is huge. So why did the Wii outperform the superior consoles? HD penetration. PS3 and 360 were competing with each other for the HD market. In 2006 not everyone had the desire or the money to buy a new HDTV as well as a console. HD consoles came to market too early. The PS3 in particular was held back by the HD-DVD / bluray format war. Sure Sony won, but too late to help the PS3 gain dominance.

It’s taken four years for the HD market to mature to the point where sales of PS3 and 360 *combined* are just barely outnumbering sales of the Wii. The latest figures show that not even 1 in 2 homes in the US have an HD television.

I’m not too worried about Nintendo. Given their track record of releasing a new console every 5 years, in another year or two they’ll announce a new HD console that will likely be technologically superior to the 360 and PS3. Keep in mind the Wii is four years old.

Blasphemy Challenge

A brief look at history will show how polarization is a root cause of conflict. When polarization is great, it manifests itself in fundamentalism and radicalism. Islamicism and the rise of the religious right in the United States are definite signs of the growing polarization of religion.

You might want to differentiate religion from fundamentalism in this context, but I think that is skirting the issue. Moderate views of religion provide a certain degree of legitimacy to their more extreme cousins. George W. Bush did get elected afterall, twice.

Should religion, and religious views, be above criticism?

Has anyone paid attention to the Canadian sextuplet case in British Columbia? A couple gave birth to six premature babies. Premature babies often require blood transfusions to survive and it is common practice. The survival rate for premature babies in Canada is quite good, however two of these babies have already died. The problem? The parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses, who forbid blood transfusions. Now note, these babies have no understanding of what it means to be a Jehovah’s Witness. They have not made the choice of believing that blood transfusions are immoral. The choice of religious belief has been made for them, by their parents. The result is two dead babies. Two people who will not have the chance grow up and have the freedom to choose their own beliefs. We’ll never know if these two children would have grown up to be Jehovah’s Witnesses like their parents. Instead, they are dead, because of what their parents believed. If a definite link can be made between those babies’ deaths and their parents’ refusal to allow blood transfusions, those parents should be charged with child abuse leading to death. They won’t be, though, because their behaviour is protected by this thing called freedom of religion.

An interesting byproduct of this religious polarization, is the rise of atheist activism. It’s like a bar fight, one or two people start pushing, and before long everyone jumps in to support their people, whether that means friends, countrymen, or members of the same religion.

In the matter of religion, everyone seems to be gearing for a fight.

In comes the Rational Response Squad who put out this thing called the Blasphemy Challenge (www.blasphemychallenge.com). The Blasphemy Challenge is basically a call for people to renounce religion on YouTube. Over a thousand people have responded, posting their own videos renouncing, or denouncing in some cases, god and religion.

The problem is that, apart from bringing the question of the religion to a popular medium like YouTube, the Blasphemy Challenge doesn’t seem to do any good. I’ll sum up the discussion it created on YouTube.

Theists: “You’re going to hell!”

Atheists: “You’re an idiot!”

What’s the point?

My cat and I decided to make a video response and I have posted it on YouTube. It’s my (our) first video and we want to know what you think.

Wish I was still this smart…

Here’s something else I wrote years ago….

Please note that I don’t actually know anything
about physics or quantum physics or anything else
for that matter. At the time I was a security guard
who had just read a book about quantum physics. This
is my own theory and probably has no scientific basis.

If you remember from science class, light has properties
of both a wave and a particle. Physicists still haven’t
figured out why. This is my guess.

95f the terms used below are more than likely being used improperly.

—————-

Goal: A proposed alternative to the wave-partical
duality theory.

Background:

The world around us is made up of systems. On a
cosmic scale we have the tetonic system, atmosphere,
moons, and the solar system. Biologically we have
atoms that make up cells, organs and organisms.
Atomically we have protons, nuclei and atoms. There
is no reason not to assume that these systems extend
in both smaller and larger scales. The establishment
of any particular system of scale (ie organisms) is
due to the interconnectedness and interdependance of
the next smallest system. (ie organs)

Problems often arise when trying to describe patterns
in one scale with terminology and understanding of
another scale. While this can often help in the long
run, the problems arise when one is forced to use a
familiar word for an unfamiliar concept. The wave
versus particle debate of light is an example.
Current physicists consider photons to be both a wave
and a particle. Physicists continue to insist that
common sense is wrong.

Rather than photons exhibiting wave characteristics
AND particle characteristics. I propose that the term
photon is more or less describing the interaction of
sub-photons (quarks) as they behave while travelling
between two points. While measuring wave properties
of photons, what experimenters are really observing
are the paths of multiple quarks, like jet streams in
the sky. The average trajectory of these quarks is
described as the frequency of the wave. Quarks are
not observable because they are travelling faster than
the speed of light (the amplitude of the perceived
wave).

The experiment with two holes:

This experiment has been considered as proof of the
wave-particle duality. When photons travel through
the experiment, depending on setup, the result on the
screen can give an interference pattern (indicating light is a wave) or not (indicating light is a particle),
depending on whether or not detectors were set up on
the second set of holes. Taking each in turn.

No detectors (interference pattern)

The photon disperses itself into quarks all following
a general forward trajectory. Many quarks are
travelling faster than light, in every possible route
towards the screen. Passing through the first hole, a
pattern emerges from the averaged paths of the quarks,
resembling a wave. At this point, the photon does not
exist, as such. Instead there are many quarks in
every possible space, and there is potential for the
photon to re-exist anywhere as well. However, as the
photon is travelling from the source to the screen,
the `sum-over-histories’ of the quarks is such that
they are on their way to the screen. Passing through
the second set of holes, quarks have a 50hance of
going through each hole. When those 50 ass through
each hole, those 50egin the process of
`sum-over-histories’ all over again based on their
current position. At this point the two sets of quark
`sums-over-histories’ interfere with each other. The
interference pattern on the screen is created based on
the averaged interference of the quarks. When the
quarks approach the screen, somehow they `decide’ to
turn back into a photon thereby registering itself on
the screen. My guess is that the first quark to hit
the screen (and thus become observable) causes the
probability wave to collapse and all quark
simultaneously combine into the single photon.

Detectors in second set. (No interference)

Quarks behave as above until one reaches either one of
the second gates (50hance of either). When it
reaches the detector, the probability wave collapses
and the photon re-exists at that point, registering on
the detector. The photon then changes back into
quarks and continues from there. Interference does
not occur because the quarks are coming from a single
source — the previous known location of the photon.

One detector. (No interference)

Option 1:
There is a 50hance that quarks will hit the screen
or the detectored hole first. Whichever situation
arises, the probability wave collapses and the photon
either hits the screen on the undetected side of the
experiment OR the probability wave collapses at the
detectored hole and the only option for the photon is
to hit the screen on that side of the experiment.

Option 2:
When quarks hit the detected hole, there is a 50[r>chance of registering as a photon based on the
location of the other quarks. If they are
concentrated near that hole they merge as a photon, if
not, that quark immediately `decides’ it is not a
photon and travels to the other side of the experiment
where there is a greater concentration of quarks.

The perceived photon:
Photons are how quarks are percieved at a certain
place and time and not an individual particle. In a
sense, photons are a quanta of quarks.

c:
Einsteins speed of light is the average forward motion
of a quanta of quarks along a general vector. It is
perhaps due to resistance in the medium of the
universe (a neo-ether) or a constant describing the
threshold between the real (or physical) and another
phase of existance (where quanta exist)

The speed of light:
Would be more accurately described as the speed of
individual photon-quarks.

Problems:
If `sum-over-histories’ is true, do all possibilities
exist at the same time. i.e. The shortest distance
travelled (ie the averaged trajectory) would be the
first to be perceived, and all others would occur
later (albeit not much) So would some photons (or
quarks) travel faster than others? (Possible solution
to option 1 of one detector example)

Experiments: Detectors in places other than the holes.
What happens if photon is detected elsewhere (on the
side of the wall — where would it end up on the
screen?)

NHL Schedule Changes

War, violence and resistance

A Pawnee goddess and what I did to her when I found her

Site news

“Chrissy” Pronger Poster Sparks Controversy

Misspelling ’3M’ and other head scratchers…

The return of No One Special…

Wii sales falling?

Blasphemy Challenge

Wish I was still this smart…

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