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I am not a physicist, but I'll throw this one out there because:
1. It seems fairly reasonable, maybe if anything it's too obvious (I'm bad at telling).
2. I think physicists would agree (I would be biased :D).
3. It might be interesting to think about. If not it's short.
4. I've got nowhere else to put it/it didn't really fit with a comment I wrote :D

I'll apologize in advance for missing replies to replies and any discussions. I get bogged down on a daily basis and then time evaporates and later I often discover that I need to think more about what people say and I get bogged down again and suddenly it's months or maybe even years... (anyone who is "young" this is how cruel it is to become "old" although I'm not ancient: live, do, and think, as much as you can while time seems infinite!).

Anyway here it is:
Science is not dogma, science is imperfection striving to be less imperfect. That something is good enough for practical application including awesomely impressive feats like detecting gravitational waves —a feat which was considered impossible/unachievable by Einstein— does not truly give any qualitative or relative measure of how correct the current science is compared to better future science. What we can surmise is that there are at least some large questions left unsolved (grand unified theory stuff) and those indicate that there will be a future paradigmatic shift in physics that is at least on the scale of the one from Newtonian to "Einsteinian".

The idea of an "(in)finite unbound"¹ universe isn't new to me at all (insert video game reference here ...Asteroids uses wraparound) but the last bit was a step I hadn't seen or taken myself and it blew my mind.

"If the Universe is finite but unbounded, it is also possible that the Universe is smaller than the observable universe. What are seen as very distant galaxies may actually be duplicate images of nearby galaxies, formed by light that has circumnavigated the Universe. It is difficult to test this hypothesis experimentally because different images of a galaxy would show different eras in its history, and consequently might appear quite different."

From Wikipedia and NextBigFuture's rearrangement. I put the last bit in bold for clarity.

The article of the quote argues that the size of the universe including the size of the universe that we currently observe are much larger than one commonly would think due to expansion i.e. one has to add the expansion during age of the light gathered from a distant object onto the redshift distance to the object. Thus the universe is much larger than what we usually say. Seems legit to me :)

But the main point for me was the quote above, I never thought about how the same galaxies etc. would look very different each time their (older and older) past light looped through an unbound universe. Maybe I'm the last one to hear about it?

¹ To me a "finite unbound" and an "infinite unbound" is exactly the same, simply "unbound". I know just enough to intuit that I might be tempting fate at the hands of aggravated mathematicians by saying something like that but not enough to know why they might (hoo-hoo now I'm really asking for it aren't I) be correct :D (teaspoons please, if you don't mind).

Right now I'd like everyone to think about this and since I have this journal I'll put it to good use:
        Sometimes not doing anything is the only correct answer and thus also the only optimal answer.

Is talking about not doing anything not doing anything? If more people become aware that not doing anything is an option and can be crucial then the total of beneficial inaction has increased and one ends up in a situation with fewer and/or less bad outcomes.

Anyone remember any examples of when not doing anything saved their ass? If you do then it's probably something dramatic, we tend to ignore it otherwise despite how crucial it is in all decision-making. For one thing it's the only way not to be purely instinctive; it's the only way to assess and learn and reconsider. In short it is what made us humans what we are.

In extreme cases the opportunity cost of deciding something is the (perhaps hidden) cost of removing all possible solutions. This might happen a whole lot more frequently than anyone thinks and is likely to always be the reason why people (and problems) get stuck. The greatest fictionalizing of this might be in the movie WarGames and the line "the only winning move is not to play".

The procrastinator's alibi is also very Wally :)

And just to point out how great Wally is there's this comic strip :)

I didn't know this about Gary Johnson. Sure, maybe some of it is skewed but there's plenty in this video that just couldn't be any more damning even without the commentary pointing it out.

I'm actually a bit shocked. It's just another Bernie :(

And that's why I would implore people to watch it, even if they don't agree with me now or afterwards. Disagreement is good, it can challenge us to think, maybe not straight away but later on after the dust settles.

This all makes me wonder about two things in particular:

1. Why is Jill Stein polling worse than Gary Johnson? I take the people who previously supported Bernie at their word which means that roughly half the Democrat voters are looking to vote for someone who is not Clinton. Maybe what makes me recoil at that video of Johnson has attracted them to him but the thought makes me shudder; the guy behaves like the typical fascist.

2. What happened to that oddball interesting Libertarian (a real one?) who was first out in announcing his run for the presidency? The ex-CIA guy who wrote a lot about Open Intelligence? At least he seemed like he was actually Libertarian although tarnished by his previous job.

I personally don't care about Gary Johnsons stance on climate change one way or the other (I don't regard it as science and would like people to understand why and why that is important even if the guess about consequences turns out to be a correct guess but that's about it) and to the extent I have a beef with Black Lives Matter it's not about Marxism but about the choice of a self-defeating strategy on an important issue (unacceptable murders and other gross abuses of power by police against all), but I care a lot about other parts of the video.

In particular his support of the TPP (see note below) and the way that Gary Johnson blows up at the reporter, it is everything I would not want at all. He's like a male and healthy Hillary. Johnson stinks of Bernie & Clinton & Kaine, it's awful :3

I don't have a vote but if I did I could never use it for Gary Johnson.

TPP: there's probably a lot more sources/confirmation (a glance at a search indicates so) but the Wikipedia page on Gary Johnson sources the article "Think You’ve Got It Locked, Hillary? Meet Jill Stein." where the following quote can be found about Gary Johnson:

"And while Johnson sounded critical of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in an earlier Politico interview, in this later one he appeared to support it. “It is my understanding that the TPP does advance free trade,” he said. “Is it a perfect document? Probably not. But based on my understanding of the document, I would be supporting it [though] in a perfect world there wouldn’t be a document like that, there would just be free trade.” The statement makes him the only candidate in the four-person field indicating he would ratify the pact, which may raise his stock with anti-Trump free trade Republicans but muddles his case for the Bernie camp."

And of course TPP is not over, the powers that be will just try again as they always do. Slap on a new acronym and do some cosmetics and run the same shit once again. So it does matter.

Gary Johnson and his running mate Weld also support NAFTA as can be seen here (please note that the latest stance is listed first and is pro-TPP).

They're simply globalists, not Libertarians, there's nothing Free about their "free trade" instead it's economic enslavement and servitude, exactly the kind the EU is so "good" at and which tilts the tables vertically in favor of big business and against small business aka what's usually called crony capitalism (or in the original Marxist definition simply capitalism) and nowhere close to what ordinary people usually think of when they say free trade or capitalism: mutually beneficial and mutually voluntary transactions in non-monopolies.

What does everyone else think about these things regarding Gary Johnson and Weld? Please don't attack the messengers, look beyond style and at Gary Johnson.

P.s. I'm not a libertarian but I leaned that way before I decided all ideologies are bad. Later I discovered I'm in good company.

So I just wrote a super-long comment and tricked myself into wanting to share this tidbit as well (but it had no business being over there).

Monospaced because you'll know. Meant to be less than 80 characters wide so if it breaks oddly on your screen you might want to try scaling down the page (whatever browser you use probably does its own thing but [Ctrl]+[-] usually does the trick for me, [Ctrl]+[+] to go back up and [Ctrl]+[0] to get back to default size).

It's already dark.
You're eaten by a Grue.
But this is not the end.

You wake up in darkness.
You are a Grue.
You have always been.

To your left you see the path to the hole.
In front of you is a smoothened black wall with darker flecks of beautiful
  chondrite.
To your right is the path towards the Greylands and further beyond the cursed
  Hurt.
Behind you is your den.

Health: 15(15) Agility: 13(15) drowsy Hunger: 8(15) Lethality: 46(55)
/* hunger 15 gives slavering status */
(L)eft (F)ront (R)ight (B)ack (G)urgle (I)nventory | command:i

Inventory:
a: Extremely sharp fangs, +15 consume, Cursed (in mouth)
/* cursed can not be removed unless blessed... good luck with that :) */
b: Razor claws, +10 slice, Cursed (on hands)
c: A thick blindfold, +11 darkness, Unknown

(U)se (R)emove (D)rop (P)ut (M)ore (S)top looking at inventory | command:_

Maybe it's a bit misleading to call it fiction, or what I'm actually trying to say: feel free to turn it into what it portrays itself to be (and that isn't fiction, or not fiction in the usual sense of prose).

_{[Not a big news story but one that set me off ("I've been writing a lot today but all I got was this lousy journal entry"). My own thoughts on velvet revolutions maybe could have made a journal entry but meh the stuff I've got is too obvious. There's other stuff too (the US transsexual the cops murdered (white btw, some ppl must be wearing very strong sunglasses), China reverting to full-on communist dystopia, "Problems of Democracy" (named as a nod to the old US DoD/CIA publication "Problems of Communism"), and something titled "Sinking the Ocean") but all are too complicated and/or unfinished; been hammering away instead of doing sensible things (like checking the 9 SN notifications and 60 or so unread stories, and I'm beat now).]}

Quoting the RT news item (might be good to read it all) quoting Varoufakis:

“The European Union is disintegrating, and it is doing so quite fast,” he [Varoufakis] said. “The process of depoliticizing decision making at the heart of Europe, at our core European institutions” has been ongoing for decades, he said, adding that the EU’s “bureaucratic, technocratic decision-making process” has amounted to “authoritarianism.”

I've realized (some time after writing the following but before posting it) that Varoufakis more than likely knows all of this —he's a smart guy afaik— and maybe he thinks he can do better or add a touch to it or promulgate the core of it more widely into the left. Good for him (and maybe everybody else too), not so much in the quote but in the rest of the linked article he gets the main points right and I'm not going to stand in his way but I'll still say what I say (and I think others would too but that's an assumption although a fairly secure one).

The movement Varoufakis is asking for in the article already exists, it's called the alternative right (or new right) and he's more than welcome to join (I know he partially has of sorts with the Syriza & ANEL combo thing) but he has to leave behind his fear of walls because proper walls would and should keep the roof up above our heads :)

I know he wouldn't be the first.

I know of a person who at least claims to be communist/marxist who votes for the same alternative right party as me (a light™ version though, but decidedly not anything like an old-school conservative party and not particularly ideological). The communist is only voting for them because of their stance against immigration. There should be a lot more like him by now. In fact many of the alternative right parties are very much centrist or even leftist on some issues, much more so than one would think from eating the garbage served by MSM as well as all the competing non-alt-right parties.

The simple general summary of alt-right politics is: "people want to keep what they had and which they and those before them fought for, thank you very much".

That might sound conservative but the "conservatives" (in Europe as in the US) are rotting away what should be preserved (the puns are illustrative as well as true so I'll leave them there). Issues like "immigration", and/or welfare, and/or tuition fees, and/or international treaties all point back to the central issue of sovereignty which in turn is tightly coupled with freedom and actual democracy: rule by the people (which is what Varoufakis is asking for).

Also note that the "conservatives" (Republicans, Tories, whatever) are doing the damage together with their "supposed enemies" the social democrats (or still worse: "christian" democrats) and labor movements, even Corbin (and maybe not Yaroufakis either) doesn't seem to get exactly what is going on yet —that's ideology for you.

When you realize they're all operating way past their sell-by date (and they don't keep) you vote alternative. Sucks for those in the US, they've got none but have to make do with weird ones be it Green ("yuck") or Libertarian ("need more meds") or maybe Trump as a King Kong Godzilla hybrid.

_{[feel free to skip over these personal tidbits]
While I've never been voting to the left myself I've long long ago voted for a socially and partially financially libertarian party before I figured out they (locally, but later on the same happened in Britain) were predominantly idiots and liars pandering to the powers-that-be.}

_{Sure I was a better person back then, perhaps. And I was an even better person when I was a four year old. That's what experience, knowledge, and insight should do to people if you ask me; they should wise up. The fact they don't always do is quite depressing for the rest of us but oh boy must they live charmed lives or be incredibly dense. Sorry to any insulted septuagenarians (I know at least one which should be deeply insulted and rightfully so) but it's true :P
[personal stuff done with]}

Anyway the EU in the form as it exists will not, can not, and should not continue to exist. It is more broken that functional and it has created bigger problems than it solved. It has much more in common with nazism and international/soviet communism and their shared feverish and quite deranged dreams of "unity" (under their boot) than anything remotely democratic. The sensible things can be done without them on a completely voluntary opt-in basis. Forced "cooperation" isn't, and neither is forced "charity".

_{Alternative Internet Archive link. I notice that some people are doing various things to attempt to secure documentation and others again are talking openly about lists of people and actions. A single particularly offensive incident but there are tens of thousands more "hidden" away (even if Rotherham should be unique which is kind of a wild assumption).}

The EU is the failure of the totalitarians (authoritarians is too weak a description for them) no matter what political color and ideology they hide behind. We got there quicker than the US that's all.

Now if only more actual nazis, few as they are, could realize that the powers they imagine fighting themselves against are the marriage of the descendants of the old nazis and and the old commies, and if they (as well as the far left) could in such a manner realize their own folly then we would be even better off here in the alt-right camp.

The door is still open for now.

Sort of off topic: if anyone has any particularly insightful to say (or link to) regarding the velvet revolutions at the fall of the Soviet empire then I'm all ears, especially if it's anything non-obvious. Living through it in western Europe (as well as as before it) only goes so far and a few years later I moved elsewhere out of Europe for some years before returning so there might even be things in the aftermath that I've completely missed (although I don't think so).

The situation in Europe is already violent (still mostly from the "refugees") so it won't be exactly the same but there are some similarities, maybe, if the governments know what's good for them.

P.s. fuck Turkey & pipsqueak "Adolf" Erdogan ("Hitler in falsetto"), I hope Russia nukes him (I know they won't, and yes I'm exaggerating) :)

N.b. since this is filled to the brim with my own opinion and reactions it doesn't suit being submitted as a story, great for a journal entry though :)

Syriza (a Greek acronym of what would be something like “The Coalition of the Radical Left” in English) is the main and largest party in the current coalition government in Greece. With a name like that (and lots and lots of ideology that I'm rather allergic to XD) I wasn't enthusiastic when they won the Greek election, I thought they would be like so many others who describe themselves in the same manner (there are always exceptions though, I know that).

But my misgivings have been put to shame! Time and time again they've obviously done their best to protect and champion the interests of Greece against the so-called “austerity” dictated by the EU and other scum like the IMF. “Austerity” which only ever seems to target those who are already living sparse and austere lives. “Austerity” which shrinks the economy as those most likely to spend any money they have on essential goods get even less money to spend. “Austerity” which continues to regress any remnants of national sovereignty into iron clad bureaucracy at the beck and call of the constantly manipulating and transnational “free actors” of “global commerce” (warning shadows of the steadfastly approaching horrors of TTIP and TPP).

It also helped put me at ease when I discovered that the tiny party I would be most likely to vote for if I was Greek was part of the government coalition. That party would be the “new/alternative right” ANEL or “Independent Greeks”.

Now RT reports that the Greek government has taken it even further towards actual democracy and announced a referendum to be held for people to vote in favor or against the debt deal that is being offered to Greece. The Greek people will instruct the Greek government as is appropriate in any democracy.

Thank you Greece, thank you Syriza, and thank you ANEL, your sensibility is shining one of the few lights and perhaps one of the brightest in a rather dismally dark and depressing world, may you continue down this path ♥

That's all I really wanted to say.

TS;RM! (Too Short; Rant More!)

Yeah I need to get this off my chest.

• First:

  Although certainly a central topic those who think the US civil war /as a war/ was about the emancipation of slaves rather than a war over secession and declaration of independence are as ignorant or malicious as those who think the second world war was fought on account of rescuing jews and other holocaust victims rather than a war fought to liberate invaded countries and territory.

  The victims of both are the ones that ought to be the most offended over such examples of blatant rewriting of history aimed solely at falsely glorifying the victors and endowing them with attributes they never had. The history and even more so the history of the victims (slaves, jews, slavic people, homosexuals, the seriously ill, the debilitated, anyone who stuck their neck out etc.) is being reduced to a lie.

• Second:

  The US attempts at removal of the use of the confederate flag (which belongs to everyone living in the states that tried to break free from the US) is an example of cultural theft equal to that of the (continued) nazi appropriation and gross abuse of pan-germanic and pagan symbols like sun-wheels (like swastikas) and runes (which belongs to everyone in non-roman Europe in particular but also humanity in general).

• Third:

  Unfortunate and wasteful as it is the US and NATO is now clearly first and foremost fascist just as the Soviet Union and Warsaw pact was fascist and as the Third Reich and Axis powers were fascist and that's true no matter how offensive it might feel feels to Germans (few of them complain, denial is rare), Russians (some of them complain, denial is still somewhat common), or Usians (almost everyone will complain, denial is “truth”).

To me it is as if during the last 16 years the world has lost between 200 and 300 years of progress paid for in blood and suffering by billions of humans. But of course that's not the case: it probably wasn't widespread in the first place and “everyone” just rode on the coattails of a few of the less idiotic humans having a somewhat brief period of actual influence and power. Well that era is done and gone that's for sure :C

A week ago I had a dream in which I was partially lucid, i.e. somewhat aware that I was dreaming but not in control of the dream from within the dream. Then I woke up and started getting out of bed but the dream continued despite of and to the side of being awake. It wasn't in any way any kind of interesting dream (and all I can remember of it now was that is was boring and kind of meaningless) and I think I more or less decided to stop (or rather not continue) dreaming as I stood up (or maybe it just happened naturally) because the dream wasn't going anywhere/petering out.

The period of time of “wakeful lucidity” didn't last long, maybe as little as a few seconds and any mind is very good at tricking itself and/or messing up continuity.

Then I realized maybe I should have tried to keep it going but I might not have been able to. Maybe it was nothing but one “part”/“thread” of my brain waking up more or earlier than another, or maybe one “part”/“thread” kept focusing on memories of the dream while waking up, but it really didn't feel like remembering or memory; it felt active just like any normal dream one has at least partial lucidity in i.e. remembering dreams is (very) different from dreaming.

It's tricky to feel certain what happened but the impression I was left with was that I had kept dreaming (and still perhaps only semi-lucidly) after waking up.

Just an anecdote, I'm wondering if others might have experienced something similar while waking up. I'm not much of a lucid dreamer and have for now decided I'm not going to spend much (or any) time trying to be one either, I need as much rest as I can get and don't want to interfere too much or risk getting even less rest (“rest” to me includes the idea of letting the subconscious, the instinct, the reptilian complex¹, whatever is in charge of “garbage duty”, and so on get on with normal functions). For that matter I “waste” a lot of time trying to catch up with myself when awake too: unfortunately I need a lot of time to let things filter down so that I can be reasonably sure or somewhat confident I know what I've done/am doing (so many people don't seem to need to do any of that, I envy you).

¹ See also the outdated or less popular/unfashionable and currently disregarded/unapproved Triune brain if interested (“Reptilian Complex” and “R-complex” is the same thing in neuroanatomy/neurology as far as I know).

It was either talking about this or talking at least a little bit or maybe just giving a teaser about stunningly beautiful primes and showing a lot of unfinished and slightly messy work that might actually be “common”/published knowledge (I've found some references in this paper that seem likely to answer that and which I need to check). Yes instead of working I've managed to get as far as to go through old Schneier posts :) (I think the paper was the subject of one of his posts last year, only a short one with the link or something like that).

Hmm, I might as well ask: if anyone has an easy (not individual proofs) and recently current and up to date reference to or overview of or summation of or “state of the art on $topic” of the most complete “top-level” or “overall” view of primes/primes research then feel free to share it (not Wikipedia and highly unlikely to be anything out of Wolfram, Wikipedia doesn't really have that nor can they be expected to although the pages they have are decent introductions to particulars). I should probably ask around for the same directly to some specific people at some point but who knows who might be reading Soylent News. What I'm asking for probably doesn't exist.