The Luminiferous Aether
Largely (but - not necessarily "Entirely") disproven by the Michelson-Morley experiment, the Luminiferous Aether was postulated to be the medium that permeated space and allowed electromagnetic waves and light to propagate across a vacuum.
Now - while we of course reject the earlier theories that - for example - the stars and planets are candles or lights hung up in crystalline spheres - we might have been I think a little hasty getting rid of this one. Call it intuition.
Links:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether
While light can explain it's propagation by being both a particle and a wave - and electro-magnetic waves are explained away using "fields", it does seem that we have replaced the Aether with the term "Space", invented dark matter and a variety of other constants and equations to explain away - never satisfactorily - our relation to both space and neighboring celestial bodies. While the theory of relativity has held up for this long - the presence of an Aether, or medium - which slowed it down, or capped it's speed, would go a long ways towards overcoming it. Certainly the abundance of other planets, stars, celestial bodies in general suggests there must be some reasonable means for us to communicate - or traverse the voids - to them. Accepting the speed of light as an upper bound to the speed of our travels is not a particularly attractive option.
Anyways, the things that get me thinking far too early and never with enough coffee...
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- Category: Ideas & Questions
Lichess.org
Now at the point where I have to actually start thinking if I'm going to continue playing - continuing at the level I'm at is too painful - so, searching around for another chess site on which to begin honing my skills.
And I found this: Lichess.org
Free, open source (not that I need that), and - a bonus, whereas chess.com frequently crashes my browser, or becomes unresponsive or takes far too long to make a move - this site works clean and quick. Note that this is not necessarily a flaw in the site - my laptop crashes on many sites - usually a result of too many embedded ads or media, videos, etc. - long overdue for a "better laptop" - but it does help to play something in real-time so I can assess quickly how and where I'm fucking up.
Now to get better...
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- Category: Link of the day
The Flat Earth Wikipedia
Contrary to expectations, it's not nearly as big as the other Wikipedia, but makes for a fine thought-pairing with Conservapedia.
Link: https://wiki.tfes.org/The_Flat_Earth_Wiki
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- Category: WTF
Back at the Cock & Suck
That I'm back at the "Cock & Suck", the pub I've been at the last few years, and this year they've hired a whole new pile of employees. New cooks, servers, skulls every one, tattoos, overly friendly. And waitresses who think they know me and are sexually forward, only I'm kind of lost...
They're all settling in, there's rooms here, rooms there, everyone's found a place to sleep and I don't want to, don't want to be beholding to the company store...
These places, rooms, restaurant, I've never been, yet they're familiar, as if from another dream, and everywhere I go I'm finding their stuff, my stuff, trunks of my stuff left behind from years past, trying to gather it up, only I haven't the arms, and I'm not sure yet where I'm taking it to...
Rowena, Philippine ex from London, here in a bedroom with husband, he's old, she's "Shhhh"-ing me when I recognize her, close the door, still there's the other waitresses, familiar, lewd, and I'm still gathering my possessions and looking for a place to sleep...
Shit-show of a dream, mixed feelings about returning to the restaurant, "Rowena"? Wtf? ...and the locations, familiar only through other dreams...
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- Category: Dreams
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