I like what OP has created, but out of curiosity, where might I find the most physically-accurate, browser-based black hole simulation?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48924634

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

From 1:09:50 – 1:10:13, we join Arnold as he describes Nedry's methods to Sadler, Hammond and Muldoon.

At 1:10:00, Ray Arnold mentions the whte_rbt.obj — whatever it did, it did it all.

To clarify, it's a useful model, but a model it is. One that makes reasonable assumptions about idealised and simplified conditions.

Good luck, I guess.

You make it to the next cycle, but within a new universe rather than the one you aimed for. Your black hole displaces spacetime within the universe whose cycle renewed, but you are no longer an active component of that universe.

Of course, if you didn't deliberately do this, I guess you're a spectator to someone else in their black hole. So, congrats, I guess, but also you need to advance your science a bit faster if you don't want to count on luck next time.

Fira Code came in second, and that's fair, I've used it on occasion, I like it.

I feel like Chivo Mono[1] would make a decent programming font — if a programming version of it were to exist, anyway.

I also like Go Mono[2], and although they're rather different to what I usually go for, I can see the appeal of the M+ mono[3] fonts.

For those of a more whimsical inclination, Fantasque Sans Mono[4] seems like it might be cool for you.

[1]: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Chivo+Mono

[2]: https://go.dev/blog/go-fonts

[3]: https://mplusfonts.github.io/

[4]: https://belluzj.github.io/projects/design/fantasquesansmono-...

Then the government's problem when the insurer melts down.

Because if we just accept that, what do we do then? We just sit and wait for some new astronomical observation to give us a clue? that could take forever, and we'd be banking that we have the tech to observe this magic hint.

Better to suppose that the theories we have comprise an accurate approximation or partial model of reality, and from there strive to find a better model.

The process of doing so will either refine/entrench our current model and our conviction, or it will result in actually finding a better model. Win-win, and all the while, we can still have our telescopes and detectors on for the magic hint we'd be sat waiting for anyway.

When things break down into singularities, it can be a pretty good indicator that we've got something wrong. Not necessarily, but in this case, I think we missed something.

I believe he actually said that all humour is passed on, i.e. that all the comic acts that have come along after Laurel and Hardy were in essence re-enacting scenes that they had performed, in another form, prior.

Of course, Laurel and Hardy were brilliant, but it would actually be naive to think that the chain began there. Performed comedy is as old as civilisation itself, and always fluctuates in sophistication/depth relative to the target audience.

Laurel and Hardy represent a talented comedic duo, heavy on physical humour (though not without wit) captured on film so that the physicality of their performance was not up for debate or a supposition, and was available to be absorbed and drawn upon by later comedic performers, and I think this physicality is why Adrian calls back to them. For him, they offer a textbook approach to a broad category of humour.

As for the finitude of humour, I think it would be rather more bizarre if the contrary was true and humour was infinite. Then everything could be funny. Maybe there are a lot of permutations for humour -- if you think about it, the audience (and by extension the time they live in) somewhat dictate what is and isn't funny, and there are considerations as well for cultural context (i.e. JP and CN are going to have a lot of material that will seem nonsensical to a Western audience and vice versa) some humour is obviously universal.

But even to include all topical, regional humour, the number of phrases and physical movements of bodies that can trigger genuine amusement is very likely to be a finite subset of the possible permutations, especially given that all permutations themselves will be finite in total number (there are not an infinite number of words or possible physical occurrences...)

Perhaps indeed there is even a small number of types of humour-incitement, of which all topical, regional jokes are simply manifestations. To group humour-incitement types in this way, Adrian's assertion seems even more acceptable.

He doesn't say Laurel and Hardy invented humour or anything that we could immediately refute. I think he considers their work to be the textbook. Everything you should see before coming up with your own material can be found in their catalogue.

Like all art, grasp the fundaments and figure out which rules you want to subvert to get your message across, for the sake of doing so rather than empty rebellion or feeding reviewers from a marketing perspective.

Sometimes there's no reason to break a rule, and sometimes there's every reason.

As for his fatigue, whether the man has had exposure to humour from other cultures is not clear, but certainly in the context of his own culture I would be inclined to agree. The vast majority of comedy in the West is very obviously recycled material with different packaging. That's not to say that sometimes the later recyclings aren't better than the "originals" —- a lot of it is in the delivery, and if you watch them all without bias (nostalgia) you can probably pick out some cases where a comedy from 2007 is funnier than something conceptually similar from 1987.

A lot of people grew up with comedy shows that were the best of their time and thus become the best for those people, and they watch stuff 20 years later after having rewatched their favourites a dozen times as well and it all seems less novel. Perhaps the same effect occurs for the performers as well as the audience.

Adrian also lost his partner in comedy, the infamous Rik Mayall, and this perhaps soured him on comedy without that second half to bounce off of. They used to tour live and they would often break character and break the fourth wall —- while their long collaboration and friendship would lend a good deal of weight to it, as well as topical spice depending on the region, I think they were keen to do it anyway to keep their material a little fresher and keep things interesting for themselves while doing it. Touring the same act up and down the country would surely be enough to convince anyone it's all been done before. Losing that certainly confines one's repertoire to only the rehearsed material.

I think he's married to Jennifer Saunders (of Absolutely Fabulous and French and Saunders fame) but I don't think they ever collaborated much.

Before: let's commission a designer to make a cool logo / let's make a cool logo.

Now: market research data indicates that 90% of sales went to people who used this font style in their logo so let's commission a designer to make us a logo that looks like everyone else's [1]

[1] with no consideration of the fact that 99% of sellers use that font type in their logo and 85% sales went to market leader who definitely used that font type in their logo, to say nothing of the fact that the logo probably didn't secure the conversion in any cases

I also must apologise for my use of the term "emergent property" regarding gravity — judging by your response, I seem to have alluded (unintentionally) to a whole other theory of gravity; I only wanted to say that gravity itself is the curvature of the geometry of spacetime rather than a force in the conventional way it is described.

Also, regarding alternatives still requiring dark matter, it is my understanding that MOND and its derivatives explain galaxy rotation curves but not other phenomena that dark matter is purported to resolve (galaxy cluster formation/structure, gravitational lensing, CMB). If I am wrong about this, I would welcome correction. On the other hand, if your comment simply meant that there are alternatives to DM and MOND that require no DM, fair enough, I should have been clearer and said that some of the foremost competitor theories still require DM.

But I stress again, I am not fighting DM's corner or saying that alternatives are wrong. My stance on it is irrelevant, and I have no more belief in it than any other explanation, belief is irrelevant and doesn't enter into the matter. I was just saying that I understand why a theory that inflates mass arbitrarily, and understandably ruffles some feathers as a result, is given any credence at all.

Personally, I understand your frustration with DM, it does not seem like very good science to let unexpected or inexplicable observations make us simply add parameters without making further predictions to test if that's the right thing to do. Does seem like we're manipulating facts to fit the theory where we should be altering the theory to fit the facts.

Since DM is a substance that, for all intents and purposes, defies detection by any means at our disposal, it makes no further predictions, it just lets us push the square block into the round hole — what we should be doing is finding the square hole.

I couldn't agree more. I don't think anyone should claim to be certain about any of our understanding of the universe. I just say that it isn't very useful to think that way, we make more progress if we have the courage to trust in a theory and dare to be proven wrong, than to go back to the drawing board when we get stuck.

I just said it makes more sense to give DM priority because what is the point of having a model if you don't start from it.

Also why are you being so hostile towards me exactly? I didn't express any love for dark matter or the standard model, and I am not a fan of perpetuating a status quo or any form of academic dogma.

All I said, quite unsuccessfully it would seem, is why people think its likely for dark matter to be there — because if you add in "invisible" mass with existing laws of physics, you get something that looks like what we see through our telescopes. I think many would prefer to suppose that there is non-EM-interacting mass (a lot of it apparently), than there being as yet unknown behaviours of gravity/spacetime geometry, which we like to think we understand pretty well.

Though I agree that we don't understand the universe as well as we like to think; and that the universe is not intuitive at all most of the time; and a preference based on how intuitively likely something seems is irrelevant to what the truth will turn out to be.

Edit: just FYI, I am not downvoting your responses by the way. I am not bothered if you dislike me or disagree with things I have said, though these two things should be distinct from each other.

I'm nobody and I didn't seek to "mansplain" anything whatever this term is supposed to mean. I was just talking, always happy to debate, something I thought people came here to do. I won't make the mistake again.