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[Dunamisdeos]

Someone pointed out that the gremlin on the wing from that Twilight Zone episode is basically Rowlf the Dog and now I can't unsee that ever.

Spoiler: Photographic evidence (click to show/hide)

[pisskop]

lol. anything less shaggy would catch a cold out there

i honestly wonder how many people even know that episode any more.
or what the twilight zone is, even

[Reelya]

Coming across some Tool references in a webcomic I'm reading, decide to try and find some Tool songs that don't suck. Can't do it.

I've always wondered wtf the deal is with all the Tool fanatics. As far as I can tell their music is extremely boring. Why do people like this? I don't get it. There are other bands/styles I don't like but understand why people like them, but Tool etc, can't do it.

[Rolan7]

Is it Erfworld? I wasn't aware of the band Tool.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

How about Sober? That's probably the most normal song of theirs.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Easy to answer: Apply the Popper test to whatever statement you would like to make. If it is unfalsifiable, it's nothing more than empty babbling.

hahaha

I, too, once thought like you
Until I realized that statement undermines its own truth
Now I rave, babbling, through philosophical... youth
I can't rhyme worth shit

Anyway. The problem with the assertion that "only statements whose truth-value can be experimentally determined are valid statements" is that it doesn't satisfy its own criterion for validity. And once you start saying "some but not all unfalsifiable claims are okay," you're just scrambling to fix a sinking ship. You can say that the philosophical question has no readily apparent utility, which is true, but... then again, the same might have been said about various theoretical physics ideas, and look where relativity and QM have gotten us.

Also: the world will die a heat death, right? That's what we think? So once everything in the universe is no longer capable of motion or change, does time actually stop? Or does it just stop for all intents and purposes? And is there a difference?

(The heat death is just an illustrative example: if I had to make it more abstract, I'd say something about whether truth is a fundamental metaphysical quality or property, or whether it is instead tied more strongly to something I can't define or figure out right now but that probably has to do with observation, but I prefer the more koan-like route of questioning.)


As for logical positivism, I'd say it makes sense as a social constraint on validity (it's not useful to present a non-verifiable claim), but not as a conceptual definition of validity. Except that maybe those mean the same thing. I'm not sure.

That also ties into the many-worlds QM thing I like to consider: do we go with "we can no longer see it, therefore it is not there" or "the equations describe the universe splitting apart into multiple, mutually-unreachable parts, so the other part is still there" (awful physics explanation, good enough for a philosophy discussion at 10:50 PM)?

[hops]

I saw that too. It's always a bit disconcerting, like hearing that an acquaintance of yours has died. Of course, Neo's not really dead, but assuming they follow the rules, I'll probably never hear from them again. And that's almost like being dead.

Unless you talk to him on Steam. Like me.

[Greiger]

My old computer's hard drive is unreadable on my old 'oh god my main computer is dead' laptop.  and I can't figure out why.  The SSD is perfectly readable but the main drive is not.   I have a degree in computer engineering, I swear I should be good at this.  Why can't I figure this out.

[Rolan7]

I saw that too. It's always a bit disconcerting, like hearing that an acquaintance of yours has died. Of course, Neo's not really dead, but assuming they follow the rules, I'll probably never hear from them again. And that's almost like being dead.

Unless you talk to him on Steam. Like me.

This.

[Rose]

My old computer's hard drive is unreadable on my old 'oh god my main computer is dead' laptop.  and I can't figure out why.  The SSD is perfectly readable but the main drive is not.   I have a degree in computer engineering, I swear I should be good at this.  Why can't I figure this out.

Hard drives do die.mine soon will.

[hops]

My old computer's hard drive is unreadable on my old 'oh god my main computer is dead' laptop.  and I can't figure out why.  The SSD is perfectly readable but the main drive is not.   I have a degree in computer engineering, I swear I should be good at this.  Why can't I figure this out.

Have you contacted an exorcist?

[Rolan7]

My old computer's hard drive is unreadable on my old 'oh god my main computer is dead' laptop.  and I can't figure out why.  The SSD is perfectly readable but the main drive is not.   I have a degree in computer engineering, I swear I should be good at this.  Why can't I figure this out.

My dad did data recovery for contacts.  Step one, for normal non-SSD drives, was to freeze it for a few hours.  In the freezer.
Then to run certain data recovery kits on it.  I don't remember what, sorry, but the freezing apparently increased the odds of recovering more data.

[IcyTea31]

If somebody enters a black-hole-like area out of which no information may ever return, are they dead or alive?

Does that question even make any sense? Is there any way to distinguish the two cases?

What if we threw a coffin into that area without knowing whether the resident was dead or alive?

If information is no longer accessible, should we even consider it to have a definite state?

deeeeep philosophy

The solution: fire an unsurvivable amount of dakka into the black hole, so that anyone inside is definitely dead. Then we know.

A new low for dumb law enforcement, TSA officer stops traveller, claims he saw bitcoins in their bag ...

"[My traveling companion] chimed in and told the agent that what he was saying was impossible because Bitcoin is digital and doesn’t have have any physical manifestation. You can’t “see” Bitcoin. The orange shirt[ed TSA agent] said they looked like medallions or tokens. I said I didn’t understand what he was talking about, and he simply repeated, in a child like way, that Bitcoins are like metal tokens."

Actually, he was going to a conference and had a bunch of badges to hand out for his organization.

I don't have a source to link, but apparently the other side to this story is that the passenger was acting all sorts of suspicious and abrasive. It's possible the bitcoins were just an excuse so that they could search him. Though if I were in that situation, I'd come up with a better excuse.

[TheDarkStar]

If somebody enters a black-hole-like area out of which no information may ever return, are they dead or alive?

Does that question even make any sense? Is there any way to distinguish the two cases?

What if we threw a coffin into that area without knowing whether the resident was dead or alive?

If information is no longer accessible, should we even consider it to have a definite state?

deeeeep philosophy

You're not the only one wondering about that.

[Trekkin]

If somebody enters a black-hole-like area out of which no information may ever return, are they dead or alive?

Dead. Very, very dead. Spaghettified beyond the point where covalent bonds can exist and then sucked through the firewall and irradiated into oblivion before they actually crossed the event horizon.