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    posted a message on What is the universe expanding into?
    Quote from Anomalous13

    Hold on, isn't that the same thing?


    No, it's not. Expansion causes an apparent acceleration of distant objects away from each other, where regular motion does not. That is the relative velocity of two objects is proportional to the distance between them. Since the distance is growing over time, so too is the relative velocity.

    Relative motion doesn't do that. While an explosion would result in the same observation that relative velocity seems to be proportional to distance, the relative velocity of a specific object wouldn't change (again, ignoring gravitational effects). Additionally, the objects would not "feel" any acceleration. As far as each object is concerned they're not accelerating at all, but the apparent velocity between them is changing.

    There's also a number of other pretty subtle differences that I'm not qualified to explain.

    To be fair, my rubber sheet analogy is actually pretty wrong. It really does not accurately describe what the expansion of space is, but that's difficult to do.

    I suppose another wrong way to think about it is to consider that everything in the universe is shrinking except for space. Again, this is wrong, but it does illustrate how the distance between two points changes if all your rulers are getting smaller. Rather what's really happening is space is getting bigger relative to all the rulers. Sort of.
    Posted in: Politics, Philosophy, News and Science
  • 3

    posted a message on Why do we Learn Things in School we Will never Use?
    How are we supposed to find new ways to do things if no one wants to learn anything that might be useless? The more you know, the more chances you have to apply that knowledge.

    If you understand something well enough you will find a use for it.
    Posted in: General Off Topic
  • 2

    posted a message on Meaning of Life
    Quote from Cjwb

    To reproduce and create humans slightly superior to ourselves, until we reach the point at which we create the most perfect organism in existence.


    If each generation is slightly better than the last (which isn't a given), then every generation currently contains the most perfect organism in existence.

    Of course since there's more than one way to measure superiority, there will never be a single "most perfect" organism. It's not mathematically possible.
    Posted in: Politics, Philosophy, News and Science
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    posted a message on Evolution Question
    Quote from Emerald9Creeper

    Evolution is the concept that things change through the generations. For example, if a white person moves to a hot country, the amount of melanin production will be increased, causing their skin to darken. If they have children these melanin instructions will be passed on, so they will be born with dark skin.


    No, that's Lamarckism and it's wrong.
    Posted in: Politics, Philosophy, News and Science
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    posted a message on Why No One Will Guess Your Password
    Quote from dillonsup

    Here Are The Possibility's For Different Password Lengths.

    This Includes Every Key On An Average Keyboard
    so a - z And A - Z
    Also 0 - 9 and , < . > / \ ' : ; } { + =] [ ] -_ `~ ? " |

    K = 1,000
    M = 1,000,000
    B = 1,000,000,000
    T = 1,000,000,000,000
    Z = 1,000,000,000,000,000

    1 Key Long = 85
    2 Keys Long = 7225 Or 7.2 K
    3 Keys Long = 614125 Or 614 K
    4 Keys Long = 52200625 Or 52.2 M
    5 Keys Long = 4437053125 Or 4.4 B
    6 Keys Long = 377149515625 Or 377 B
    7 Keys Long = 32057708828125 Or 32 T
    8 Keys Long = 2724905250390625 Or 2.7 Z

    For Average Password Websites Like Minecraft Forums
    Where a -z and A -z Including 0 - 9 are only Allowed

    1 Key Long = 62
    2 Keys Long = 3844 Or 3.8 K
    3 Keys Long = 238328 Or 238 K
    4 Keys Long = 14776336 Or 14.7 M
    5 Keys Long = 916132832 Or 916 M
    6 Keys Long = 56800235584 Or 56.8 B
    7 Keys Long = 1476806125184 Or 1.4 T
    8 Keys Long = 91561979761408 Or 91.5 T
    9 Keys Long = 5676842745207296 5.6 Z

    Specail Thanks To My Calculator


    Of course the problem here is that humans don't pick uniformly random passwords. A completely random password is difficult to remember, which makes it very secure, but generally a bad password because you want to remember it. It's not impossible to memorize a long, random password, but it is difficult.

    So people are far more likely to pick something that has some kind of meaning. Usually the password will be pronounceable in some way, so the letters will form phonemes. Very frequently they'll contain words. If there's numbers in the password those, too, will not usually be random. By a wide margin any numbers in a password will be the user's birthday or some other significant date expressed as 2-4 digits.

    This reduces the search space for passwords quite drastically and pretty much makes your analysis totally wrong.
    Posted in: Hardware & Software Support
  • 1

    posted a message on Why is it Seemingly Impossible to make Celebrities pay for their Crimes?
    Are there any specific examples here or is this another instance of that kind of "the world is getting worse" myopic nostalgia?
    Posted in: Politics, Philosophy, News and Science
  • 1

    posted a message on Evolution Question
    We seem to be able to prove scientifically that animals change over time however having proof that they change into new animals seems a bit unclear to me.


    Anytime anything reproduces you get a new animal.
    Posted in: Politics, Philosophy, News and Science
  • 1

    posted a message on How Does One Make Their Own Life's Purpose....?
    Just do stuff and quit worrying about it.
    Posted in: Politics, Philosophy, News and Science
  • 3

    posted a message on Evolution Question
    Quote from SpaceLetter



    The first ones the easy to understand not sure on DNA or a couple other being able to prove. Do you know any type of observable evidence to evolution like changing from one species to another?


    Sort of. Species is a somewhat arbitrary classification applied by us humans, they don't actually really exist in reality. What actually exists are populations composed of individuals capable of reproducing with one another. Generally once two populations are no longer capable of reproducing with one another, we say they're different species.

    But nature is not quite so simple as to make that distinction very clear. For example, horses and donkeys are different species but interbreeding between them produces mules (if its produced by a male donkey and a female horse; a male horse and a female donkey technically produces a hinny). What makes this more interesting is the fact that horses have 64 chromosomes whereas donkeys only have 62. The resulting mule ends up having 63 chromosomes (32 from the horse and 31 from the mule). This usually results in mules being infertile since the chromosomes can't pair up properly. There are a few cases of female mules producing offspring, but never with another mule (there are no documented cases of a male mule ever being fertile).

    So don't think that the line between species is somehow impassable or that it even exists. Nature possesses no such notion of a species, there are only populations.
    Posted in: Politics, Philosophy, News and Science
  • 2

    posted a message on A Paradox

    This statement is false.


    One thing I don't think I've seen anyone actually talk about is this:

    This statement is true.

    Anyone bothered by that? You ever notice that that statement can be both true and false?

    Why do we always have people so concerned with contradiction but no one seems to care about all their tautological counterparts? I mean, after all, if we're upset by the idea that a statement can have no truth value, why shouldn't we be upset that it can have all truth values?
    Posted in: Politics, Philosophy, News and Science
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