True evil.

That's why she couldn't believe, years later, that she had actually done that.

something akin to gravity, as we experience it right now

So "gravity", not in the physics-after-general-relativity sense (twisting and curving the time-space), but in the Newtonian sense? I'm just trying to understand what you mean.

I'd never stopped to wonder why does time just go forwards, and why so inexorably.

I don't really know much about it, but the direction of all the processes that take place in the universe goes is that where the entropy (sort of amount of disorder) is enlarged. That's pretty much what governs all the multi-particle interactions and processes in the universe, and since everything is 'built', in one way or another, from lots of smaller particles, it plays that major role. So we may see it as the direction of time, but it's actually the direction of entropy.

It's like, if you drop a mug to the floor, and it breaks to pieces. When all the little pieces are mug-shaped, and whatever liquid is inside is inside-of-mug-shaped, they have just the one way (or very few) to be ordered like that. However, when it's all smashed to pieces on the floor, the material of the mug in all different pieces and places and the liquid inside all over the place, you have many more options for the particles which build the material to arrange themselves. You enlarged the entropy. So you see the direction of the mug being broken as the 'regular' flow of time, and the direction that reduces the disorder, the one in which pieces get back together and liquid gets put back inside, as the opposite, as time going backwards. But it's not a quality of time, per se, but of the entropy.

House, who really bothers me.

What about him disturbs you? I've only seen the one episode, mind you, so I may have no idea as to what you're referring to.

Doctors more often than not seem to be like detectives, in a way - they have to find the solution to the mystery, based on clues that the body gives them.

Yes, according to relativity

I totally buy that -- I just don't see how the rest of the sentence is possible then.

Are you saying that the concept of something happening simultaneously (or an hour and a half apart) on opposite sides of the universe is bollocks?

No. I just saying you can't talk about the Universe existing in time outside of the Universe because time is part of the Universe.

Is it just me, or does this look photoshopped?

What about him disturbs you?

He's a complete asshole who's indulged because he's bright, and I can't see the business reasons for keeping him around. Also, the shows tend to follow a fairly predictable format, but that's not a fault in the character. Just another thing that helps keep me at a distance.

But it's not a quality of time, per se, but of the entropy.

Does this mean that entropy reversal is impossible, or that it would result in a difference in how time is perceived?

Is it just me, or does this look photoshopped?

I think they photoshopped the license plate (for privacy reasons) but nothing else seems obviously photoshopped. However, I didn't look too long, as I have actual work to do.

Yay Jesse on giving notice

When I lived in France, I got fluent enough at thinking in metric that I was able to handle all the length, weight, and volume stuff without having to consciously convert back and forth.

Temperature, I am almost bilingual in, but though Canada is officially metric, if anyone told me their height and weight in metric terms, I would pretty much give them a blank stare. I still use Imperial measurements for cooking (cups, tsps) but when a recipe asks for 3 oz of somethng, I am totally lost.

Is it just me, or does this look photoshopped?

It kind of does - some of the spray paint marks seem superimposed. But I wouldn't say for sure.

Shoot, does quantum mechanics imply asymmetrical time? As in you can't uncollapse a wave function? I'm pretty sure in some interpretations it does, but I think there are some interpretations that maintain symmetrical time.

Oh, Sue, I hope that all the sleeping will make you feel better.

This is pretty much how I feel about knitting and crocheting and the like.

People are so different. One of my roommates, who looks at me like I'm completely insane for playing with jigsaw puzzles (or knitting/crocheting, for that matters), loves making jewlery. It doesn't demand less patience, and yet, that seems like a perfectly relaxing activity to her.

Are you saying that the concept of something happening simultaneously (or an hour and a half apart) on opposite sides of the universe is bollocks?

Even in Special Relativity (which is way simpler than the General one), you have to define in which system of reference you speak when you say "simultaneously". When you have different systems, who move relative to one another, events that happen at the same time in one, happen in different point sin time in the other (since time moves differently in those systems, because of their reltive movement).

He's a complete asshole who's indulged because he's bright, and I can't see the business reasons for keeping him around.

We have some professors here who are like that. Minus the accent, of course.

Does this mean that entropy reversal is impossible, or that it would result in a difference in how time is perceived?

On its own, it's irreversal, and therefore if it happens spontaneously, it may look like the time is goind backwards (a broken mug gets whole). You have to invest energy for it to happen. [Edit: therefore many processes and equilibrium-points are found as a result of a balance between the desire to enlarge the entropy and to minimize the energy.]