"In assuming that there are discrete laws of physics, we also assume there is a subset of all 'possible' events; events that 'can happen'. (Given a certain arrangement of the universe at T1, there is a set of possible arrangements of the universe at T2)."
False. Possibilities can be mutually exclusive, so if one occurs, the other can't. Yet, after the fact, we considered them both to be events that could have happened.
(Unless you subscribe to absolute determinism, but I don't believe that's clear to be the case. Also, IME, discussions of determinism mechanisms in, e.g. quantum mechanics, tend to talk more about whether that's where Diety lives.)
Gravity doesn't pull you forward, it pulls you down. Unless a particular human never learned to walk or sit upright, their natural tendency in balance is to hold themselves in-line with gravity*, not necessarily at a perpendicular angle to the surface they're standing on. (There is some input from the eyes, which trick house attractions and the like exploit, but we're usually pretty good about it.)
This is what learning balance is all about, and most of us pick it up by the time we're two years old. Segways detect the human riders' effort at balancing (which most do without effort or awareness), and exploit it.
I run a website that gets occasional buzz in programming channels. As a result, I'm in a dozen or so IRC channels, with hilight rules set up to ping me when someone's talking about the site--that way I can dive in and address misconceptions or problems, or just generally interact with an interested community.
I had an idea for a bot that would allow temporary, rule-based bridging of conversations in participating channels. I never got around to coding, but I did blog the concept in more detail: http://mmol-6453.livejournal.com/213900.html
Area in the spectrum normally reserved for television, but not intentionally actively used by television broadcasters.
Simplified (it used to work this way, now it's slightly more complicated), each television channel frequency required a certain small range (the tuner frequency +/- a certain number of MHz) to carry its signal. Ideally, the affected range of spectrum wouldn't exceed that specced amount, but electronics aren't perfect, and RF is a tricky matter.
In practice, you tend to see splatter near a particular channel, outside its allotted frequency range. Furthermore, receivers have to filter out any signal not within the frequency range for the channel they want to watch, but the filtering circuitry (called a bandpass filter) will tend to cause distortions within the intended frequency range the better they are at filtering frequencies outside that range. There are also other complicating factors, like signal overloading receivers, and mis-tuned transmitters.
This resulted in a margin space between channels, so that adjacent channels would interfere with each other less. As receiver electronics have gotten better, more selective and more error tolerant, these margin spaces became less necessary, and we have space in the spectrum that's no longer required for its original purpose of providing a margin.
" As receiver electronics have gotten better, more selective and more error tolerant, these margin spaces became less necessary..."
More to the point, as the technology used to broadcast has completely changed from analog to digital the margin spaces have become completely unnecessary. Additionally, digital television does not use the entire spectrum previously allocated to analog broadcasts.
Edit: additionally, in locations where there aren't local television broadcasts on certain channels those channels can be used for wifi.
Digital signal transmission tends to include an increase in error tolerance, which I mentioned. The margin reduces the strain on the error tolerance, which is also needed to cope with signal loss issues.
So, no, the margin spaces aren't completely unnecessary with digital signaling.
Furthermore, I'll pick a couple nits and point out that it's only television broadcasting which has completely switched to digital in the US. AM/FM radio is still analog by definition, and there are large swaths of spectrum which use those and other signaling methods.
People would have to Like the relevant blog post to provide feedback, or Like any of the latest batch of "I hate the new Facebook design" groups that would arise.
If it has any real depth, you'll see things the second time that you didn't see the first. If it's actually good, the same will hold true over and over. There are folks out there who watch "The Usual Suspects" in groups, regularly, picking up on details they'd missed the first fifteen times. I could watch "Ergo Proxy", "Eerie Indiana", TV-form of "Avatar: The Last Airbender", "Ghost in the Shell: Stand-alone Complex", "The Usual Suspects" or "Cypher" a dozen more times, and be suprised each time by picking up on new pieces of detail or references.
