Pick any.. Add some more:

• Who plays the keys on the Who’s “Let’s See Action”?

• Why does Auto-focus sometimes struggle on shiny leaves – frequency shift?

• What is the thing in Fight Club?

• How could we possibly determine if there is an intelligent entity dwelling in sun (see Frank Herbert’s “Whipping Star”)?

• What does this mean – Felix bene futuis?

• Why are gays naturally more gifted at the arts?

• When will we see that great retail polly B Joyce open his own chain of bargain reject stores, “Bad Arse Barnaby’s”?

• Have BC and Glow Worm finally put their heads together and are driving each other insaner with plans to launch all of the ant colonies on earth on a 10,000 year one way trip to Alpha Centuri??

Ian said:

Pick any.. Add some more:

• Who plays the keys on the Who’s “Let’s See Action”?

• Why does Auto-focus sometimes struggle on shiny leaves – frequency shift?

• What is the thing in Fight Club?

• How could we possibly determine if there is an intelligent entity dwelling in sun (see Frank Herbert’s “Whipping Star”)?

• What does this mean – Felix bene futuis?

• Why are gays naturally more gifted at the arts?

• When will we see that great retail polly B Joyce open his own chain of bargain reject stores, “Bad Arse Barnaby’s”?

• Have BC and Glow Worm finally put their heads together and are driving each other insaner with plans to launch all of the ant colonies on earth on a 10,000 year one way trip to Alpha Centuri??
  

6th one should have been -

• Why are gays naturally more gifted at the arts and dressage?

What’s wrong with you?

Is there something we can help you with? Like a filter on your brain?

do you mean all homosexual people or just a certain subset of homosexuals?

Ian said:

Pick any.. Add some more:

• Who plays the keys on the Who’s “Let’s See Action”? – don’t know (can’t even hum it)

• Why does Auto-focus sometimes struggle on shiny leaves – frequency shift? – not sure

• What is the thing in Fight Club? – What is “Fight Club”

• How could we possibly determine if there is an intelligent entity dwelling in sun (see Frank Herbert’s “Whipping Star”)? – With difficulty

• What does this mean – Felix bene futuis? – Something about good luck?

• Why are gays naturally more gifted at the arts? – I don’t know that they are. Certainly they are more likely to be involved in the arts, being less likely to be affected by a blokey anti-arts culture.

• When will we see that great retail polly B Joyce open his own chain of bargain reject stores, “Bad Arse Barnaby’s”? – Next year, I expect

• Have BC and Glow Worm finally put their heads together and are driving each other insaner with plans to launch all of the ant colonies on earth on a 10,000 year one way trip to Alpha Centuri?? – Probably
  

Hope that helps

lucky boy you fucked well. apparently.

auto-focusers look at edges i believe so maybe they find it hard to differentiate between a highly reflective surface and the background. that is if they do have a problem with it in the first place. of course.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Ian said:

Pick any.. Add some more:

• Who plays the keys on the Who’s “Let’s See Action”? – don’t know (can’t even hum it)

• Why does Auto-focus sometimes struggle on shiny leaves – frequency shift? – not sure

• What is the thing in Fight Club? – What is “Fight Club”

• How could we possibly determine if there is an intelligent entity dwelling in sun (see Frank Herbert’s “Whipping Star”)? – With difficulty

• What does this mean -Dressage? – Something about good luck?

• Why are gays naturally more gifted at the arts? – I don’t know that they are. Certainly they are more likely to be involved in the arts, being less likely to be affected by a blokey anti-arts culture.

• When will we see that great retail polly B Joyce open his own chain of bargain reject stores, “Bad Arse Barnaby’s”? – Next year, I expect

• Have BC and Glow Worm finally put their heads together and are driving each other insaner with plans to launch all of the ant colonies on earth on a 10,000 year one way trip to Alpha Centuri?? – Probably
  

Hope that helps

Not a lot, Rev..

>What is “Fight Club” a movie with twist.

>What does this mean -Dressage? It’s true you can tell a gay horse rider by their “seat”

>Next year, I expect ..With luck

>Felix bene futuis? Run it through your Latin translator

Arts said:

do you mean all homosexual people or just a certain subset of homosexuals?

Males in relation to the horse riding.

Boris said:

lucky boy you fucked well. apparently.

Ancient graffiti..

:)

Ian said:

Arts said:

do you mean all homosexual people or just a certain subset of homosexuals?

Males in relation to the horse riding.

hooly dooly… how many left fields do you have?

Boris said:

auto-focusers look at edges i believe so maybe they find it hard to differentiate between a highly reflective surface and the background. that is if they do have a problem with it in the first place. of course.

Seemed to have difficulty on tree reflecting a lot.. They use infra-red lasers I think.. wondered do the reflections get frequency shifted?

well if they use lasers then the camera uses that reflected light so it should be the same for all surfaces.

Arts said:

Ian said:

Arts said:

do you mean all homosexual people or just a certain subset of homosexuals?

Males in relation to the horse riding.

hooly dooly… how many left fields do you have?

rofls

many

Boris said:

well if they use lasers then the camera uses that reflected light so it should be the same for all surfaces.

ok

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-autofocus.htm

Boris said:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-autofocus.htm

That’s good tute..

I could have googled but I thought I’d be slack and let someone else :)

Morning Pilgrims, supposed to be a cleansing afternoon thunderstorm today in the Pearl.
Yesterday I woke up early after a night on the turps and drove three hours up to the redoubt, spent two hours doing some hard physical work, then drove 3 hours down the mountain, had a big dinner and went to bed early and slept 12 hours straight, must be getting old.

Peak Warming Man said:

must be getting old.

the first sign to watch for is posting in the wrong thread

Arts said:

Peak Warming Man said:

must be getting old.

the first sign to watch for is posting in the wrong thread

And this is a very wrong thread.

Arts said:

Peak Warming Man said:

must be getting old.

the first sign to watch for is posting in the wrong thread

:)

The answer to the first one – Who plays the keys on the Who’s “Let’s See Action”? was of course Nicky Hopkins, arguably the greatest pop/rock musician of all time… but because mainly a session muso not all that widely known.

If you listen to that track the 4 members of the Who are playing.. nothing very interesting. Nicky makes it soar.

————-

Nicky Hopkins

Nicky Hopkins (February 24, 1944 – September 6, 1994) was a British musician who featured on scores of the most important British and American popular music recordings of the 1960s and 1970s, playing piano and organ. He is regarded as one of the most important session musicians in rock history, playing on countless hit recordings by leading British and American acts.

Nicky Hopkins started his musical career in the early 1960s as the pianist with Screaming Lord Sutch’s Savages, which also included Jimmy Page (another session legend and founder of Led Zeppelin). He then joined The Cyril Davies All Stars, one of the first British rhythm & blues bands and played piano on their Country Line Special LP.

He began his career as a session musician in London in the early Sixties and quickly became one of the most in-demand players on the thriving session scene there, contributing his fluid and dexterous boogie-woogie influenced piano style to many hit recordings. He worked extensively as a session pianist for leading UK independent producers Shel Talmy and Mickie Most and performed on albums and singles by The Kinks, Donovan and especially The Rolling Stones, for whom he gave some of his most memorable performances, notably on their classic late-Sixties albums Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed.

In 1965, he played piano on The Who’s debut LP, The Who Sings My Generation. He recorded with most of the top British acts of the Sixties including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks, and on solo albums by John Lennon, Jeff Beck, and others. He also helped define the “San Francisco sound”, playing on Jefferson Airplane and Steve Miller Band albums, briefly joined Quicksilver Messenger Service and performed with Jefferson Airplane at the Woodstock Festival.

In 1967 he joined The Jeff Beck Group, formed by former Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck, with vocalist Rod Stewart, bassist Ron Wood and drummer Micky Waller and he played on their influential LPs Truth’ and Beck-Ola.

As a session player, Hopkins was renowned for his effortless ability to give accomplished performances with little or no rehearsal, and was well-known around the studio scene for his perennial habit of reading comic books at recording sessions.

As well as the above-mentioned acts, Hopkins’ huge list of session credits over four decades includes The Creation (group), Joe Cocker, Donovan, The Easybeats, Randy Newman, Jackie Lomax, George Harrison, Harry Nilsson, Marc Bolan, David Bowie, Duncan Browne, Jack Bruce, Belinda Carlisle, Cheech & Chong, Family (group), Climax Blues Band, The Dingoes, Lonnie Donegan, Donovan, Peter Frampton, Jerry Garcia, Art Garfunkel, Lowell George, Roy Harper, Julio Iglesias, Alexis Korner, Nils Lofgren, Paul McCartney, Meatloaf, Gary Moore, Yoko Ono, Graham Parker & The Rumour, The Pretty Things, The Pointer Sisters, Leo Sayer, Carly Simon, Spinal Tap, Rick Springfield, Ringo Starr, Rod Stewart, The Strawbs, Matthew Sweet, Joe Walsh, Jennifer Warnes, Carl Wilson, Ron Wood and Bill Wyman.

External Links
Nicky Hopkins (http://web.archive.org/web/19991009034821/http://www.flyingcrowbar.com/html/nicky_hopkins.htm)

Wikipedia

Ian said:

Pick any.. Add some more:

• How could we possibly determine if there is an intelligent entity dwelling in sun (see Frank Herbert’s “Whipping Star”)? – see below

• Why are gays naturally more gifted at the arts? – Possibly neoteny?

• Have BC and Glow Worm finally put their heads together and are driving each other insaner with plans to launch all of the ant colonies on earth on a 10,000 year one way trip to Alpha Centauri? – They should invite me to contribute, I have some good ideas about that.
  

> How could we possibly determine if there is an intelligent entity dwelling in the sun?

There is one constant in “life not as we know it”, that constant is that life has to consist of both matter and energy. No living thing can be made of pure energy. This would also hold for “intelligent entities”, even intelligent entities that are not alive must consist of both matter and energy.

Now consider the matter within the Sun. The photosphere is the coolest part of the Sun, at an average temperature of 5777 Kelvin, and minimum temperature of about 4500 Kelvin in sunspots. But sunspots are missing at times so any intelligent entity would have to withstand temperatures of 5777 Kelvin. That temperature is so hot that there are no molecules and no solids. Further, because of the low pressure there are no liquids either. Everything is monatomic and most of that is ionised. The matter making up any intelligent entity would not be confined so would rapidly dissipate, killing the entity.

Because the photosphere is the coolest part of the Sun, if there was any large intelligent entity there then we would have already seen it.

Also, it cannot be the case that the whole Sun is a single intelligent entity. Observations over the entire electromagnetic spectrum, as well as showers of subatomic particles from the Sun have been studied and show nothing that can’t be explained by natural processes.

Now let’s take this one step further, how cool would a star / brown dwarf have to be before it could contain an intelligent entity? Hafnium Carbide has a melting point of 4170 Kelvin. By comparison, tungsten, the most refractory of the metals, has a melting point of only 3695 Kelvin. An intelligent entity consisting of a hot hydrogen balloon of Hafnium Carbide could be gently lowered into the photosphere of a cool star (well, as gently as possible) and survive there until corroded away by the adjacent highly corrosive hydrogen plasma. Ablative cooling could be used at even hotter temperatures for a much shorter period of time. Such an intelligent entity could not develop natively in the star but would have to be inserted there from elsewhere.

For any living thing to develop natively on a brown dwarf or star you would need a sustained temperature certainly no hotter than 3920 Kelvin. Carbon sublimes at that temperature under normal atmospheric pressure, and sublimes at a significantly lower temperature at the low pressure of the coolest part of the star’s atmosphere. Non-carbon-based lifeforms would require very much lower temperatures than that.

I haven’t read “Whipping Star” but let me look up what it is about:
> “Calebans, who are beings visible to other sentient species as stars”

So if I read that correctly, the Calebans aren’t stars, but only appear as stars. From the discussion above, they would have to appear as cool stars much less hot than our Sun. If I was a Caleban, I’d communicate by Doppler shift of spectral lines. This Doppler shift can be controlled by motion (eg. local radial motion) and by magnetic fields (eg. splitting of spectral lines using the Zeeman effect). Another communication method would be radio – stars are normally radio-quiet so it’s relatively easy to construct a radio transmitter that is not drowned out by the blackbody spectrum. A third communication method would be modulated X-rays, controlled by the movement of plasma through magnetic fields. I definitely would not communicate using neutrinos.

The speed of communication would possibly be controlled by the physical size of the emitting region and the time that light takes to cross that region. So communication would be relatively slow unless they arranged for either the transmitters to be small, or for synchronisation across a larger region for a tightly beamed communication. So communication rates would be in the order of 20 bits per second or slower.

In the book “Whipping Star”, the Calebans communicate by telepathy, which is totally ridiculous, but if so would rely on the physics of transcranial magnetic stimulation.

> “The Caleban speak of their existence in terms of nodes on waves, suggesting that their being and perceptions exist on a higher plane of physics, much like the dimension of space-time is a higher-level abstraction of daily reality.”

Hmm.

Ian said:

The answer to the first one – Who plays the keys on the Who’s “Let’s See Action”? was of course Nicky Hopkins, arguably the greatest pop/rock musician of all time… but because mainly a session muso not all that widely known.

If you listen to that track the 4 members of the Who are playing.. nothing very interesting. Nicky makes it soar.

————-

Nicky Hopkins

Nicky Hopkins (February 24, 1944 – September 6, 1994) was a British musician who featured on scores of the most important British and American popular music recordings of the 1960s and 1970s, playing piano and organ. He is regarded as one of the most important session musicians in rock history, playing on countless hit recordings by leading British and American acts.

Nicky Hopkins started his musical career in the early 1960s as the pianist with Screaming Lord Sutch’s Savages, which also included Jimmy Page (another session legend and founder of Led Zeppelin). He then joined The Cyril Davies All Stars, one of the first British rhythm & blues bands and played piano on their Country Line Special LP.

He began his career as a session musician in London in the early Sixties and quickly became one of the most in-demand players on the thriving session scene there, contributing his fluid and dexterous boogie-woogie influenced piano style to many hit recordings. He worked extensively as a session pianist for leading UK independent producers Shel Talmy and Mickie Most and performed on albums and singles by The Kinks, Donovan and especially The Rolling Stones, for whom he gave some of his most memorable performances, notably on their classic late-Sixties albums Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed.

In 1965, he played piano on The Who’s debut LP, The Who Sings My Generation. He recorded with most of the top British acts of the Sixties including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks, and on solo albums by John Lennon, Jeff Beck, and others. He also helped define the “San Francisco sound”, playing on Jefferson Airplane and Steve Miller Band albums, briefly joined Quicksilver Messenger Service and performed with Jefferson Airplane at the Woodstock Festival.

In 1967 he joined The Jeff Beck Group, formed by former Yardbirds guitarist Jeff Beck, with vocalist Rod Stewart, bassist Ron Wood and drummer Micky Waller and he played on their influential LPs Truth’ and Beck-Ola.

As a session player, Hopkins was renowned for his effortless ability to give accomplished performances with little or no rehearsal, and was well-known around the studio scene for his perennial habit of reading comic books at recording sessions.

As well as the above-mentioned acts, Hopkins’ huge list of session credits over four decades includes The Creation (group), Joe Cocker, Donovan, The Easybeats, Randy Newman, Jackie Lomax, George Harrison, Harry Nilsson, Marc Bolan, David Bowie, Duncan Browne, Jack Bruce, Belinda Carlisle, Cheech & Chong, Family (group), Climax Blues Band, The Dingoes, Lonnie Donegan, Donovan, Peter Frampton, Jerry Garcia, Art Garfunkel, Lowell George, Roy Harper, Julio Iglesias, Alexis Korner, Nils Lofgren, Paul McCartney, Meatloaf, Gary Moore, Yoko Ono, Graham Parker & The Rumour, The Pretty Things, The Pointer Sisters, Leo Sayer, Carly Simon, Spinal Tap, Rick Springfield, Ringo Starr, Rod Stewart, The Strawbs, Matthew Sweet, Joe Walsh, Jennifer Warnes, Carl Wilson, Ron Wood and Bill Wyman.

External Links
Nicky Hopkins (http://web.archive.org/web/19991009034821/http://www.flyingcrowbar.com/html/nicky_hopkins.htm)

Wikipedia

Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end, we’d sing and dance, forever and a day…

rb… I think you may be confused with..

Welsh singer Mary Hopkin made the best known recording, released on 30 August 1968, (wiki)

> “The Caleban speak of their existence in terms of nodes on waves, suggesting that their being and perceptions exist on a higher plane of physics, much like the dimension of space-time is a higher-level abstraction of daily reality.”

Given the limitations of physics and the fact that ATM higher dimensions are more likely to be a fact than not then I reckon there is no reason to rule out Hebert’s thesis.

Ian said:

rb… I think you may be confused with..

Welsh singer Mary Hopkin made the best known recording, released on 30 August 1968, (wiki)

not confused. The song still works

roughbarked said:

Ian said:

rb… I think you may be confused with..

Welsh singer Mary Hopkin made the best known recording, released on 30 August 1968, (wiki)

not confused. The song still works

Ah.. It’s.. it’s the vibe…. man

Arts said:

Ian said:

Arts said:

do you mean all homosexual people or just a certain subset of homosexuals?

Males in relation to the horse riding.

hooly dooly… how many left fields do you have?

and here I was about suggest the Steve and Woodie give their version of Queer Eye by teaching young straight guys how to watch footy and drink beer and shit…

Ian said:

> “The Caleban speak of their existence in terms of nodes on waves, suggesting that their being and perceptions exist on a higher plane of physics, much like the dimension of space-time is a higher-level abstraction of daily reality.”

Given the limitations of physics and the fact that ATM higher dimensions are more likely to be a fact than not then I reckon there is no reason to rule out Hebert’s thesis.

Because of wave-particle duality, talking of existence in terms of nodes on waves (almost) makes sense in ordinary 4-D space-time with no need to invoke higher planes.

Could some form of “life” exist on dimensions outside our normal 4-D space-time? Life could exist outside the Penrose diamond, in a 4-D space-time that is not ours, accessible only through a wormhole or by passing beyond infinite space or time. But these aren’t “higher dimensions”.

In the near vicinity of a small black hole our 4-D space-time (from string theory) may start to gain extra dimensions to become 5-D, 6-D etc. These extra dimensions are too small to contain even one subatomic particle, so I think we can rule out any sort of higher dimensional lifeforms there.

Outside our universe, in an M-theory multiverse, spaces of higher dimensionality (branes) may exist and I can’t rule out the possibility of life on an alternative brane. But by the sheer fact of being outside the visible universe we couldn’t communicate with them in anything even remotely like real time. Also, such lifeforms would be stranger than I can imagine at present.

mollwollfumble said:

Ian said:

> “The Caleban speak of their existence in terms of nodes on waves, suggesting that their being and perceptions exist on a higher plane of physics, much like the dimension of space-time is a higher-level abstraction of daily reality.”

Given the limitations of physics and the fact that ATM higher dimensions are more likely to be a fact than not then I reckon there is no reason to rule out Hebert’s thesis.

Because of wave-particle duality, talking of existence in terms of nodes on waves (almost) makes sense in ordinary 4-D space-time with no need to invoke higher planes.

Could some form of “life” exist on dimensions outside our normal 4-D space-time? Life could exist outside the Penrose diamond, in a 4-D space-time that is not ours, accessible only through a wormhole or by passing beyond infinite space or time. But these aren’t “higher dimensions”.

In the near vicinity of a small black hole our 4-D space-time (from string theory) may start to gain extra dimensions to become 5-D, 6-D etc. These extra dimensions are too small to contain even one subatomic particle, so I think we can rule out any sort of higher dimensional lifeforms there.

Outside our universe, in an M-theory multiverse, spaces of higher dimensionality (branes) may exist and I can’t rule out the possibility of life on an alternative brane. But by the sheer fact of being outside the visible universe we couldn’t communicate with them in anything even remotely like real time. Also, such lifeforms would be stranger than I can imagine at present.

This discussion is getting well past my level of understanding… I haven’t read up on the Penrose diamond so I can’t comment.

>But by the sheer fact of being outside the visible universe we couldn’t communicate with them in anything even remotely like real time.

Can you elaborate on this one molly?

I seems to me that we are in realm of speculative physics.

“M-theory is not complete, but the underlying structure of the mathematics has been established and is in agreement with all the string theories. Furthermore, it has passed many tests of internal mathematical consistency.

Until some way is found to observe the yet hypothetical higher dimensions, which are needed for consistency reasons, M-theory has a very difficult time making predictions that can be tested in a laboratory. Technologically, it may never be possible for it to be experimentally confirmed.” – wki

We don’t know that string theory is going to be a lasting proposition so how can we be sure what the intersection of “alternative banes” and conventional space-time might look like?

mollwollfumble said:

Why are gays naturally more gifted at the arts? – Possibly neoteny?

I really don’t think that bubbles is going to take kindly to being compared to Betty Boop!

Ian said:

mollwollfumble said:

Why are gays naturally more gifted at the arts? – Possibly neoteny?

I really don’t think that bubbles is going to take kindly to being compared to Betty Boop!

:-)