Please don't take this too seriously.

[molly bloom]

It was those weird Necrothreaders - the funky armor designs weren't bad and they dug up some interesting topics sometimes.

Armour design, as much as I find it fascinating, wasn't enough to save the film for me.

I was intrigued by the idea behind 'Vantage Point' and hoped it would be like 'Three Days Of The Condor' or 'The Parallax View' or 'The Conversation'. And then it degenerated into a car chase and shoot 'em up film.....

[molly bloom]

Sundays are terrible.

Only if you let them be. Here's 10 000 Maniacs to cheer you up.

[Lorizael]

Lori, I know this is going to depress you even more, but I've really come to respect you for a while now and this thread is a culmination of those thoughts and feelings...

Sometimes I wonder why people on poly stick around or drift back here, but the fact of the matter is that we are a sort of fractured and dysfunctional family that almost seems to need each other and it's been extremely gratifying watching everyone rallying around and sharing their own experiences and perspectives on what is a difficult subject...

Well done poly, and more importantly, well done you for kickstarting what to me is an extremely important milestone in our ongoing evolution as a true community.

BTW, I found this interesting: http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solo...ecret_we_share

I'm not going to try to explain my take on what he's saying or getting at, just that maybe you might get something out of it...?

Thanks for sharing that video, MOBIUS. You're not quite as horrible a person as I've always believed.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Hey Lori - been to any good classes lately?

[Lorizael]

No, but it was gorgeous out today and I did take a *checks Google* 5.6 mile walk. So take that, molly. Of course, I tripped on a stick in the mud near the end of the walk and got mud all over my hands and brand new only pair of jeans. If I were a different sort of depressive, I might take that as evidence that the world hates me. But I'm not. So there's that.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

That's not nothin'...

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Lori, I just posted this, and thought you might enjoy it...

.................................................. ..

Does Dark Energy Spring From the 'Quantum Vacuum?'
SPACE.com
by Mike Wall, Senior Writer 13 hours ago



Observations of Planck and other satellites help to solve the equation of the state of dark energy.



The mysterious dark energy that's driving the universe's accelerated expansion may have its roots in the background "vacuum energy" that pervades all of the cosmos, a new study suggests.

"What we think is happening is a dynamic effect of the quantum vacuum, a parameter that we can calculate," co-author Joan Sola, of the University of Barcelona in Spain, said in a statement. "Nothing is more 'full' than the quantum vacuum since it is full of fluctuations that contribute fundamentally to the values that we observe and measure."

Though dark energy constitutes about 75 percent of the universe, scientists don't know exactly what it is. They've developed several different ideas, including the theory of "quintessence," which proposes a sort of anti-gravitating agent that repels rather than attracts.

Another concept posits the existence of a "phantom field" whose density continues to increase with time. This theory predicts an accelerating expansion so powerful that it will eventually break apart the bonds that hold atoms together, tearing the universe apart in a "Big Rip" about 20 billion years from now.

The quintessence and phantom field hypotheses are based partly on data gathered by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and the European Space Agency's Planck satellite— spacecraft that have studied the cosmic microwave background, the ancient light that began saturating the universe 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

In the new study, Sola and lead author Spyros Basilakos of the Academy of Athens in Greece analyze the same spacecraft observations and find less support for either quintessence or the phantom field idea.

"Our theoretical study demonstrates that the equation of the state of dark energy can simulate a quintessence field, or even a phantom field, without being one in reality," Sola said. "Thus, when we see these effects in the observations from WMAP, Planck and other instruments, what we are seeing is a mirage."

Basilakos and Sola instead suggest that dark energy is a type of dynamic quantum vacuum energy — something different than Einstein's cosmological constant, which describes a static vacuum energy density and is another possible explanation of dark energy's nature.

Basilakos and Sola acknowledge there are some issues with the quantum vacuum energy theory but say it's a promising idea.

"However, quintessence and phantom fields are still more problematic; therefore the explanation based on the dynamic quantum vacuum could be the more simple and natural one," Sola said.

http://news.yahoo.com/does-dark-ener...130628574.html

...

[sniffs] What's that I smell? -Oh. Somebody been talkin' crap. It dark all right, but I don' think it energy.



Behind all this vacuum energy talk is the Casimir effect. In short, it has been observed that two plates suspended molecular distances apart are strongly pushed together. It is theorized that it is the action of -- oh, just read the Wikipedia article and hope you can wade through the jargon. I can't stomach repeating such nonsense.

I am not some crank who is always assuming science and scientists are wrong; it's just that "dark" ANYthing in cosmology is a bugbear of mine. I cannot say that I have made any in-depth study of the Casimir effect - like that Wikipedia entry, it's a little rare to find anything about it in English; and I say that as someone with an excellent vocabulary and general grasp of scientific principals.

I just think there's got to be a better explanation for the phenomenon that they haven't considered/eliminated yet. Zero Point Energy just as well have 'dark' in the name for all the sense it make to me. It is -sorry Impaler- WAY too Steady State universe for my blood.

[Lorizael]

Dark energy is real. The question is what it is. Cosmologists can be pretty certain of the existence of something that they're labeling dark energy for a variety of reasons. The first reason is the accelerated expansion of the universe detected in 1998. There are other reasons, too, but those are harder to grasp.

The simplest explanation is that, by looking through telescopes--and consequently looking back in time--cosmologists can put together different epochs of energy density the universe has passed through. There was a time when radiation density was much higher than it is now, for example. Right now, dark energy--whatever that is--is dominating. This is an inescapable fact. There's a set amount of energy out there, and it has to be divided up into different regimes (neutrinos, radiation, matter, dark matter, dark energy).

None of that tells us what dark energy is, but it does tell us that dark energy is. There are other reasons, too, but I'm not really qualified to talk in depth about cosmology. What I've said so far would probably make KH cringe. But the point is this: dark energy is simply a placeholder name for something that cosmologists have observed. Some amount of energy is out there, affecting the universe in a particular way. The conundrum is figuring out just what that something is.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yeah, Dark Energy is huge. It's the number one question. I'm still putting my bets on a small repulsive term to mass. So small as to be imperceptible in most 'normal' circumstances, but as distances (and masses drop off), comes to dominate.

[Lorizael]

April Fool's Day is my ex's birthday. Traditionally, I would bake her a chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Barring something extraordinary, I'm probably not even going to see her today. Perhaps I'll send her a text. Perhaps I'll slam my head against the wall repeatedly. We'll see how the day goes.

[rah]

Don't look back, look forward.

[Lorizael]

Unfortunately, I don't see anything good in my future. At least the past has a few scattered good memories.

[rah]

I know it doesn't help, but if you don't try to make any good memories it's harder to have any.
A lot of this is up to you.

[molly bloom]

...and I did take a *checks Google* 5.6 mile walk. So take that, molly.

Seriously, I am pleased to hear that. I hope you worked up a sweat. The hard part is to keep taking the walks when it isn't fine weather out.

Nonetheless, well done. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step....

[Lorizael]

Yeah, actually getting a decent amount of exercise is praiseworthy, but it came during a day in which I called in "sick" because my dread got the better of me and I couldn't get out of bed until 11ish.