Interesting stuff

No pic because I couldn't do it justice but at around this time of the year dozens of fishing boats sit out on the horizon catching the bio-luminescent squid that make their way up from the depths. The fishing boats are rigged with lights so powerful to attract them that the fishos are covered top to toe without exposing an inch of skin as they'd be frazzled in no time. Not so bad as it's currently below zero outside.

I've been putting up my Christmas lights outside today (I'm about 80% solar this year, aiming for 100% next) and I'm kinda struck by seeing how beautiful the full moon looks out over the ocean and the twinkling lights of the fishing boats way offshore. It's really still and quiet right now and if it wasn't so cold, I'd chill with a beer and just take it all in. Luckily I can see them from the living room window and they'll still be there tomorrow in the pre-dawn as I go walk the dog.

Hard work being a fisho I reckon but I reckon it would have its moments.

Do yourself a $40 Favour
https://archiesfootwear.com.au/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIoeHArJrx9AIVBpNmAh1t1A...

udo wrote:

Do yourself a $40 Favour
https://archiesfootwear.com.au/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIoeHArJrx9AIVBpNmAh1t1A...

Yep, I was genuinely surprised by how much better these are!

The human body is engineered perfectly. Ideally you'd have relaxed flat feet when standing and walking. The muscles in the feet would then contract to form an arch only when you're running. Look at native peoples still living on the land.

Arch support reinforces poor human movement patterns. Go barefoot more often and learn to move optimally (which may take work for modern-civilisation-adapted humans).
Foundation training is a good place to start.

I find footwear very individualised.
Arch support hurts my back though it takes some people’s back pain away. Going barefoot or wearing wide toed barefoot style shoes work much better for me personally.
I have naturally very flat feet since I was a kid but have improved it a bit through exercise.

Geoffs Personal Collection For Sale
https://www.mccoysurfboards.com/catalogue/ultimate-collection

Awesome collection but Geoff not worried about 'yummy yellow' apparently.

I know there's a lot of land cruiser lovers on here

haha scum bag, nothing like a piece of 4 by 2 being wielded by an irate Indonesia woman

I missed your squid story Zen, awesome. I've seen the squid boats when I was out at sea.

Extinct tree from the time of Jesus rises from the dead in Israel - BBC REEL

Heard about that before, that's super crazy, interesting vid.

indo-dreaming wrote:

Heard about that before, that's super crazy, interesting vid.

Im curious to the reasoning behind wiping them out in the first place . Pretty amazing that a seed can be brought back to life 2000 years later .

A historical event in cosmology and astronomy is scheduled to occur on Christmas day this year: the launch of the new James Webb space telescope.

It will be the most powerful space telescope to date, dwarfing and replacing Hubble's capabilities, and will drive our understanding of the universe and its formation over the next few decades.

It will also produce amazing pictures like those we're used to seeing from Hubble:

Absolutely amazing gsco , stunning pictures, I clicked on where it said pictures and saw another 50 , there’s 5008 pictures in total . Great link thanks for sharing

Yeah I really love cosmology stuff (my PhD was in some maths in this area).

There's billions of galaxies in the universe, and billions of stars per galaxy, and I just saw in one of Brian Cox's recent episodes of Universe that they now believe that there's more planets than stars in each galaxy.

That's a lot of planets. There's just gotta be other life out there, probably even within our own Milky Way.

I find that this all puts our own lives into perspective, and in their humble and seemingly insignificant place in the scheme of things, particularly the pictures containing hundreds or even thousands of visible galaxies:

Makes us seem like:

Some of those pics are incredible. Great links gsco

Now to weird you all out:

best comment:

"the sun: “fuck you my child is completely fine”

saturn: high pitched demonic screaming"

Great pics gsco and yes, it's inconceivable to me that there isn't some other 'life' form out there in the vast vast universe. As humans though, do we have the intelligence to actually comprehend what that life form may be?

And VJ- 'scuse my ignorance but, are those sounds really what Saturn sounds like? If so, pretty trippy.

Really enjoyed Prof Brian Cox spectacular new series Universe

zenagain wrote:

As humans though, do we have the intelligence to actually comprehend what that life form may be?

The short answer I'd give is: most likely not.

The long answer I'd give is:

I wouldn't ask "do we have the intelligence?" but rather "do we have the apparatuses?"

Questions about what is possible for humans to comprehend and know about the universe have been asked by philosophers and scientists for all time. A towering figure here is Immanuel Kant. He basically asked the question of do humans perceive the universe around us "as it actually is" or simply "as it appears" to us? (He believed the latter.)

We are limited to perceiving, sensing and measuring the universe through our own human senses and the apparatus devices we make that magnify and improve our senses. And a priori we explain and conceptualise the universe in terms of logical reasoning and cause-and-effect, particularly as expressed in mathematical and statistical models. But human senses have biologically evolved to be useful for humans only on the time, distance, velocity, mass, temperature, energy etc scales at which we interact with and perceive the world.

For example, humans perceive events happening around us in terms of classical Newtonian mechanics, but quantum mechanics was developed because classical mechanics (hence human perception) fails at the sub-atomic level, and Einstein's special relativity was developed because classical mechanics fails at velocities approaching that of the speed of light. Also, humans experience gravity as a force pulling us to the centre of the earth, but Einstein's general relativity posits that gravity is due to the curvature of space-time, and what we're really experiencing is our own acceleration through this curved space-time (even though relative to the frame of reference of my house I appear to be stationary). Humans perceive light as a wave, but quantum field theory was developed, among other reasons, since light seems to have both wave-like and particle-like properties and behaviour, contradicting our sensory perception.

It is recognised by philosophers of science, and even a long time ago by Kant, that human theories of science are most likely only a refining of how we humans perceive and explain the world: that our science and indeed all human knowledge is really just humans going further down the rabbit hole of confirming our own human biases of how we sense, measure, perceive and conceptualise the world.

In fact, we kind of already strongly believe that either one or both of quantum theory or general relativity are wrong since they don't seem to be compatible with each other - it seems that at least one needs to be "thrown out". Actually string theory seeks to address some of these problems by allowing more dimensions in space-time than just one dimension of time and three of space.

So it is likely that us humans will never be able to perceive, understand and experience even a minuscule fraction of the universe as it actually is, including other life-forms. Science is most likely just us happily going further down our own rabbit hole but in a way that is practically useful to us for our survival on the scales of nature at which we interact with and perceive nature.

All of science and human knowledge is most likely just an approximation that is useful and practical for us and our survival, nothing more.

Cool post gsco and I won't lie- way above my limits of comprehension and understanding.

But fascinating to say the least.

Great stuff GSCO.

I love getting my mind blown by all that.

zenagain wrote:

Cool post gsco and I won't lie- way above my limits of comprehension and understanding.

But fascinating to say the least.

Yeah same i have trouble absorbing some of this stuff, but i do love it, i like the dumbed down stuff like this :D

Don't let the tittle fool you though, not as dumbed down as the title suggest, just easier to absorb.

Pot kettle black
Very funny post info

Fascinating gsco. Stephen Hawking’s books are excellent for laymen like us.(me)
I once (partially) read Einstein’s book on relativity with the sole intention to debunk it. I totally appreciate navigational instruments work because of it and the real life experiments conducted with separate clocks in aircraft supported it (they moved at different speeds)
But as someone who is firmly grounded in the consciousness of the ever permanent now (let’s call it Buddhism) I’m convinced that is the one that is wrong. As far as wading my way through Einstein’s book went, the maths lost me very early on haha.
+1 on loving having my mind blown by the big stuff too, keep it coming

@Guy

It's flattering that you pay so much attention to my post, but did you read my post properly?

How is my post hypercritical?

Im agreeing with Zen that despite the fact i love this stuff a lot of it is hard to digest and beyond my comprehension.

Don't worry Indo, I think Guy secretly likes you.

It's a Yin and Yang thing.

Maybe more like Tom and Jerry?

Ha ha Yeah maybe more Tom and Jerry

On a similar topic, random thought i had the other day while skimming over Blowin and Blind boys back and forth in the Covid thread and knowing their forum history.

Imagine how cool it would be if some bored arts student did a social experiment and documented it.

For example: Blowin goes stays down with Blind boy for the weekend and the camera records everything, they surf together, eat together, have a few beers together, Blind boy shows him about etc.

Fuck it would be entertaining and interesting to see how they get on, would they be like they are online?...or would they maybe find out they have more in common than they think?
And would it change how they interact going forward?

Fuck it would be funny and interesting little reality docco for those who follow this forum, im sure it would produce some classic moments.

That's gold. Swellnet reality tv where fierce online forum opponents meet face-to-face in the "real" world - for a surf and beers.

I no longer produce editorial content for Swellnet.

C’mon BB, im thinking a podcast with you two would be brilliant

And they both stay at Vic's Airbnb.

And they wouldn't even need to fork out for cameras because Vic has pre-installed hidden cameras in every room in case somebody isn't obeying the rules.

Haha oh gawd.

Thanks for the great post gsco, that was very well explained.

Hahaha zen and others, what a crack up.

zenagain wrote:

And they both stay at Vic's Airbnb.

And they wouldn't even need to fork out for cameras because Vic has pre-installed hidden cameras in every room in case somebody isn't obeying the rules.

Only if you’ve got a 4wd, remember

Stop it Zen I can’t stop laughing, I’m picturing all this taking place.

Long term renters don't own 4wds of course... but it was easy to find a cleaner with one.

Only cleaners have 4wds in torquay.

Yep, great post GSCO!

Thanks, glad I could contribute positively, and I learn something and have a good laugh every day (and it’s a good distraction from work…!). Merry Christmas to everyone!

https://m.

what about a Swellnet forums boat trip, with the boat powered either by wind or fossil fuel and there being a debate over which method to be used? What could possibly go wrong?

GSCO, have you ever come across the electric universe theory? There's far less papers behind it, but it appears to be scalar (ie works the same on small and very large scales) and explains a star as a nodal point in a flow of plasma - and we can see through the telescope formations that mimic what plasma does in a lab. It also would explain the geologic formations on Mars quite well.

And back to Saturn being a really weird experience, can GSCO or Ben or Craig explain this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn%27s_hexagon

weather producing this?! wtf wtf wtf

weirder still and headed towards fiction I reckon, intergalactic gardening:

https://archive.org/details/RingmakersOfSaturnByNormanR.Bergrun

The rings being one of the best places in the solar system to fish for positrons?

zenagain wrote:

Don't worry Indo, I think Guy secretly likes you.

It's a Yin and Yang thing.

For sheer entertainment value there’s none finer and especially so these days when trying to ditch his past persona of Swellnet’s resident knucklehead

Yup good work GSCO, you covered some serious ground very neatly. Opens a real Pandora's box in terms of "certainty", in the case of the current global issues for example.
As for BB v Blowin at VL's, I'd tune in.

GuySmiley wrote:

zenagain wrote:

Don't worry Indo, I think Guy secretly likes you.

It's a Yin and Yang thing.

For sheer entertainment value there’s none finer and especially so these days when trying to ditch his past persona of Swellnet’s resident knucklehead

ha ha past persona...and now there's a new persona???

Interesting take on things.

Not long ago Sheepdog said almost the opposite, according to him, i use to be a decent bloke talking about post surf munch out's after surfing Wurtulla and now I'm just a right wing nut job or something to those words.

Don't worry if there is a controversial topic in the future, i wont be holding back on my views, maybe ive come across a bit mellow of late, as lockdowns are over and i guess its all Covid at the moment and im pro vax so i don't have a cliche conservative view, maybe this frustrates you?

Anyway we have an election coming up so im sure we will have a lot to disagree on in the new year, so i can be that boogie man again for you to hate on.

velocityjohnno I'd never heard of electric universe theory. On the one hand it looks like largely a conjecture. On the other hand there is a speculation, or I might say a desire, of the existence a more basic force that describes all four fundamental forces of nature. So in that sense some ideas behind electric universe theory may end up having merit.

I'd never looked into the explanations behind Saturn's hexagon pattern at its north pole. But it looks like they've been able to basically replicate it in simulations. It certainly is amazing.

And did you know that Jupiter also has very interesting permanent symmetric patterns of storms at each of its poles. On the north pole there is a central storm with eight storms continuously circling it:

And at the south pole there is a central storm continuously circled by five storms:

I wonder if Ben and Craig can model and predict the surf on Jupiter. Imagine if we had permanent storm patterns at each of our poles sending continuous surf towards the tropics! There'd have to be a planet out there that does!

Of course nature abounds with all kinds of amazing and beautiful symmetric patterns. I love all these patterns and fractal patterns in nature. They pretty well can all be modelled and reproduced mathematically.

A folksy trip through space/time at "velocities approaching that of the speed of light" with an astrophysicist and occasional guitarist. 'Do we love science!?'