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 CERN to Destroy Protons, Earth

Work on the Large Hadron Collider has been temporarily halted thanks to a lawsuit that accuses the scientists of disregarding the danger of creating black holes and exotic subatomic fiddle-faddle that can, in a vaguely specified yet dramatic fashion, destroy the world.

According to a website set up on the side of the prosecution: “…any miniature black hole created at rest in a collider would essentially be trapped in Earth’s gravitational field, and over seconds to hours, slowly interact and acquire more mass, if Hawking radiation does not work as predicted, or as quickly as predicted, to cause the newly-minted miniature black hole to “evaporate”.

I am guessing they are referring to a runaway event where the world is turned into a singularity. This won’t happen, so please don’t use “world likely to not exist” as an excuse to blow off mowing your lawn.

One of the things the scientists will accomplish with their I’m-sure-extremely-important-on-some-level experiments, however, is discover the elusive Yawn Event Horizon, where virtually unreadable journal articles with words like “unitary improved Born approximation” and “pion–rho transition form factors“ are spontaneously generated and thrust upon the unsuspecting public.   In addition, a side effect of reaching this event horizon is the so-called Master’s Thesis to Having a Prom Date Ratio will rapidly approach infinity as soon as the machine is switched on.

But the world will still be here.  Just chill.

  Miami-Dade Police to Fight Crime with UAVs  

These eyes in the sky from Honeywell hover several hundred feet up and monitor everything from above. They have a ceiling of over 10,000 feet and an airspeed of 50 knots. A video of one in action can be found here. Pretty slick piece of engineering if what is shown is semi-autonomous flight.

The article says that they will be deployed (by the Miami-Dade police) “in tactical situations only”.  Since these (and any piece of equipment, really) require real-theater training to operate properly, I really don’t think “tactical situations only” is correct.  Expect to see these things flying around on lots of non-windy days and nights.  Therefore, expect a sudden rise in UFO sightings from panicky locals as well. 

This meshes nicely with Headline Prediction #1 I made for this year: Drone Shot Down Over U.S. Soil. Here is a link to the rest of the guesses I made in November for 2008 news events.  Anyone have a feeling on how long it will take before someone shoots one down or when one of these things (which weighs as much as a bowling ball, btw) accidentally crashes somewhere in the city?  

 The Great Sunflower Project 

Hey, remember all those news articles last year about one of the major keystones of our food supply dying off in droves?  No?  I am not surprised, really.  According to Google Trends, there were about as many news articles in 2007 with the word “marshmallow” in it as “colony collapse disorder”…

Colony Collapse Disorder killed off a very large percentage of bees (up to 90%), according to various media outlets.  Other sources have more conservative estimates (twice as much as normal cyclic die-offs). Still a lot, and still a really big deal.

In any case, a researcher is attempting to locate honeybees by encouraging people to grow sunflowers (of a specific, pollen producing sort) attracting bees, and counting them.  A map will be created with the data, and they even send you Native Wild Sunflower seeds if you sign up.

I think this is a really neat idea.  To quote the site: “It’s time to turn off your television, take off those earphones, shut down that computer, go outside, and rediscover the wonder of nature. That’s one goal of the Great Sunflower Project.”  If that doesn’t convince you, the tagline at the bottom of the page says “Bees: Responsible for Every Third Bite of Food“.

I have added the link to the Check It Out section of this site.  Click the link in the sidebar on the right or the GO icon above.  Good Luck, Dr. LeBuhn!

 Stuff You See Affects You in Certain Ways, Maybe

I really don’t know what to say about this research other than it is either the most important study ever done in behavioral science, or it is a complete waste of research hours and dollars. 

Either a) you can force people to do your bidding (vote for whomever, purchase whatever, calm an angry populace, etc.) with subliminal messages like they have been studying for decades, or b) the data or study is faulty somehow.  Since the article doesn’t say how different, exactly, the test group allegedly behaved from the control group, I am thinking this study is mostly garbage… and old garbage at that.  Check out this quote from the article:

And consumers should be aware that they are susceptible to influences they may not detect and use this knowledge to their advantage. “If you know you need to perform well on some task, say something athletic, you may want to surround yourself with images and brand logos that represent success in athletics.”

Yeah, that’s just what people need - reliance on corporations to turn them into “better” people. “You can be awesome if and only if you buy more stuff!”

I think my brain just threw up into my skull.

A lot of Americans will be getting a $600 rebate check from the government sometime this summer to “stimulate the economy”.  However, you may want to put off buying that BlueRay player for a bit longer because you are going to need that money to help the government subsidize the oil companies.

The price of gas in America goes through cycles that are driven by supply and demand, global events, inflation, greed, and other not-so-tangible factors.   The prices start to ramp up starting in February, plateau in May, start to drop in August, and return to normal in November.  See the graph below (taken from GasBuddy).

I won’t bore you with the math - the derivation is left as an exercise for the student - but if gas is destined to rise x dollars a gallon at this year’s plateau, then you will pay an average of 0.69x dollars per gallon extra from now until November 1.  For example, if gas shoots up to $4.25 per gallon (like some are saying) from where it was in mid-February at $3.00, the end result is the same as paying $3.86 per gallon for the next 34 weeks.

Let’s assume you fill up your tank once a week and it takes 15 gallons to do so.  On average, at $4.25 per gallon it’s going to cost you an extra $12.90 each time you go to the pump.   By the time November has rolled around, you will have paid an extra $438 in gas. This is 73% of your Stimulus Check.

Admittedly, hitting the $4.25 average above might be too high.  Then again, the calculation relies on the prices dropping back to normal by November - they might not if they follow 2007’s trend. So here is a little table to show you how much of your Stimulus Check will be, quite literally, burned up at various national averages. 

Assumptions:
Average National Gas Price Mid-Feb: $3.00
Gallons Used Per Week: 15

Plateau   % Check Burned
$3.20                      11.7
$3.40                      23.5  
$3.60                      35.2
$3.80                      46.9
$4.00                      58.7
$4.20                      70.4
$4.40                      82.1

Of course, if you start with a lower “normal” price or burn through more than 15 gallons a week, then these numbers get worse.  A lot worse.

So, what’s the punchline, here? It’s this: The stimulus package is $152 billion.  If gas hits $4.00 a gallon (like a lot of folks are saying) this is the same as the government writing a 89 billion dollar check to the oil companies. For comparison, Exxon Mobil posted a 39.5 billion dollar profit in 2007.  

Remember, folks: Torches in the left hand, pitchforks in the right.  It’s called organizing a mob for a reason, people.  Let’s not look sloppy out there.

 Widespread Cooling Underway, Apparently  

Whenever a reader sends in an article that fits into my World Events section, I try and post something on it.  This time, Agmorion sent in an interesting article about Global Cooling.

We are all aware of the reports of “unusual” 2007 winter weather worldwide - snow in Baghdad, stuff like that.  It is no surprise, therefore, to see an actual graph with actual numbers on it showing a global drop in temperatures.  And “all four major temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS)” have datasets that agree with each other.

Please read the article (click the “GO” link above).  Also, read the sometimes-hilarious hate-filled comments that follow the article (there are over 400).

Here is my interpretation of the article and Global Warming/Cooling in general:

• The article does a good job of presenting the data and then the author makes one of the most asinine climate-related comments I have ever read: “Let’s hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans — and most of the crops and animals we depend on — prefer a temperature closer to 70. “  If you don’t know why this is “ward-of-the-state” level thinking, please turn in your driver’s license and voter registration card as you leave.  Thanks.
• I don’t have access to the raw data (admittedly, I only spent about 5 minutes looking before I got bored) but this drop seems perfectly in line with the fluctuations seen in the graph.  I certainly hope that this drop “wipe[s] out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years” but it just seems like a statistically normal thing for global temperatures to do.  From the graph, I am guessing the probability of such a drop is about 10% per decade, but the drop does very little to change the rising trend over the past 20 years.
• The article refers to the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Climate Optimum.  These events are worrying, but what can be done about them if they are based on solar activity and not CO2 levels?  That’s right, nothing.

But that does not mean that people shouldn’t try, regardless of how misguided their efforts may be.  I am on the fence regarding Global Warming, but generally I lean toward the “yep, it looks like we are wreckin’ up the joint” school of thinking.  I am not a climatologist, but neither are most of the people doing the reporting, the people swaying public opinion, the people demanding that policy be made, or the people making policy regarding climate change.  But at least I try to gear my opinion based on research beyond what the blond on the TV tells me to think.

I have said this all before but it bears repeating.  Even if it is just an illusion, a normal trend, a construct of the media, a glitch in the dataset, or an out-and-out lie, I am all for the mass-belief in Global Warming.  Even the spectre of Global Warming forces people of widely varied personal beliefs and educational backgrounds to focus on making better decisions for the planet in general, albeit completely by accident.  You can’t tell me that someday seeing a smog-free Los Angeles or Shanghai pop into existence because media hype got hydrogen fuel cell technology fast-tracked would be a bad thing for our children to see.

It just doesn’t matter if Global Warming is “nothing more than a cult with Al Gore as its patron saint” if it motivates people into creating what would be a distributed Manhattan Project for alternative energy.  Personally, I would love to see an America where everyone (who was financially capable of doing so, that is) provided as much energy as they used and sank as much CO2 as they sourced via wind, solar, and biomass technologies.  Not for the “save the planet” factor so much, but for the “hey, that’s pretty neat” factor. 

If enough people say “hey, that’s pretty neat, I think I will do [insert whatever green tech here]” maybe we will accidentally save a planet that may or may not need it.

And how can that be bad?

(Thanks for the article, Agmorion.)

  U.S. Spy Satellite to Fall Out of the Sky

Ok… you have probably heard about this already but the AP article and those derived from it are pretty skimpy on details.  For instance, you find out:

• A U.S. spy satellite is going to plummet to Earth, probably in late February or early March.
• It weighs about 10 tons, and is the size of a small bus.
• The location of the impact cannot be controlled.
• Other governments have been alerted.

And that’s about it.  Digging around a little bit on the Internet, though, aside from the usual nonsensical ramblings of the tinfoil hat variety, there appears to at least some other info out there:

• The satellite may be designated USA-193, but maybe not. [Source]
• If so, it is in a circular, low Earth orbit at an inclination of about 60 degrees (constrained to 60N and 60S latitudes) [Source]
• 71% of the world is covered in water.  Anything randomly falling from space has a 29% chance of hitting land.
• The distribution of land on Earth is not uniform [Source], so, after doing some back-of-the-envelope math, the likelihood of a land strike for USA-193 falls to about 22%, with the highest probability land impact occurring between 30N and 50N.

So, what are the odds of orbital debris hitting a person?  About 1 in a trillion, according to the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies.  They also say that larger objects will slow from orbital velocities (18,000 mph) to less than 200 mph at impact.

So calm down, please.  Although it could be a pretty spectacular light show for many thousands of people (even those with daytime skies), no harm should come of it.  Of course, you can expect the press to trade in the “one-in-a-trillion” factoid for the far more interesting and panic-mongering one about Skylab hitting that Australian farmer’s cow.  Oh, yeah… they’ll also be putting off potential “treasure hunters” by warning about the dangers of hydrazine…

 Sailing Ships Making a Comeback, It Seems  

The MS Beluga Skysails is currently underway from Germany to Venezuela.  What makes this ship different from other diesel powered cargo ships is the addition of a giant (1700 sq. ft.) parasail attached to the bow of the vessel.

When the sail is unfurled and is floating about 600 feet above the waterline it can provide enough pull to save the ship between 10 and 35% on its fuel costs (depending where you look), assuming nominal winds.

What are nominal winds?  Well, the SkySails site (one I could get to, anyway) claims 25 knots at a true wind direction of 130 degrees on fairly calm seas.  They also claim that you get 1 kW of usable power per square meter of sail.  The largest they sell is a 5000 square meter, 5 megawatt (?!) unit.  That’s about one and a quarter acres, ladies and gentlemen. 

Did you know worldwide shipping creates more CO2 than worldwide air travel?  I had no idea…

 Spacecraft Discovers Interplanetary Copyright Laws

The largest copyright symbol in the Solar System was discovered January 20th during a flyby of the planet Mercury by the MESSENGER spacecraft.

Temple priests have already sent out thousands of Cease and Desist letters in the name of the retired Roman god to companies using his name and likeness for monetary gain.

Not only do businesses such as Ford (maker of the Mercury Grand Marquis) and FTD Flowers (winged god logo) stand to suffer massive disruptions due to re-branding, the US Federal Government is also scrambling to enact a massive recall of all U.S. dimes made between the years of 1916 and 1945.

Ok… it’s actually a picture of a collapsed magma chamber within a crater.  For other space images (like the Mars Face) that look like stuff, go here.

 World Stock Markets Nosedive Monday

The market was shut down in the U.S. today for MLK day.

Probably a good thing since the various world markets dropped between 5.5% and 7.2% “amid investor pessimism over the U.S. government’s stimulus plan to prevent a recession”.

Those percentages might seem small, but if the Dow were to drop that much tomorrow we would see the market down between 670 and 870 points.  Wouldn’t they shut down the market to prevent a panic?  Not necessarily.  Here are the rules for a “circuit breaker” market shutdown (taken from About.com):

• The market will halt trading for an hour if the Dow drops 10% before 2 pm.
• Trading will halt for two hours if there is a 20% drop in the Dow before 2 pm.
• If the Dow drops 30%, trading is halted for the day.
• Significant events, such as the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001 may be cause for not opening the markets at all or closing them early to prevent a panic.

10%.  Wow.  I have no real feelings on what is going to happen this week.  I am usually pretty wrong about my market guesses, but I guess it couldn’t hurt to practice waiting in bread lines and farming dust.

 Roaches + Radiation = Bigger, Faster, Tougher Roaches

The grand Russian tradition of torturing animals in space took a terrifying turn recently. 

Apparently exposure to cosmic rays in space make these little critters grow faster and more lively.  Nice.  Article quote:

“What is more, we have found out that the creatures… run faster than ordinary cockroaches, and are much more energetic and resilient,” Dmitry Atyakshin said.

Have we learned nothing from movies such as Peter Graves’ magnum opus The Beginning of the End?  It’s probably ok… as long as Peter Parker doesn’t get into low earth orbit somehow…

Grandmaster Robert Fischer Dead at 64

Bobby Fischer passed away January 17th in Iceland after a hospital stay.

What can be said about him that already hasn’t been said?  It’s too bad he had to end an otherwise brilliantly studded life by becoming increasingly bitter, racist, and paranoid as his final years wore on.

His contribution to the chess world will be missed.

The other stuff – eh, not so much.

 Snow in Baghdad

Apparently this is the first recorded snow in about 90 years.

Hmmm…You’d think I would have more to say about that, but I don’t.  Completely drawing a blank here…

But others out there (check out various news blogs: NYT, etc.) are spouting global warming based drivel like “I betcha Al Gore will conveniently ignore this” (yuk yuk yuk) and some are saying “It is a sign of the coming Apocalypse” (insert loony calliope music here).

And, no, the snow did not stick.

  Helium Supplies Running Out in U.S. 

This really isn’t new (the info has been out there for at least a week) but I found out some neat stuff researching this topic.

According to the link above:  “… world’s larg­est re­serve of [helium] is expected to run out by 2015…” That article was written Jan 5.

I was surprised by the suddenness of this announcement.  Wasn’t there any warning?

After some digging, I found a WIRED article (Aug. 2000).  They said: At our current rate of consumption, Cliffside will likely be empty in 10 to 25 years, and the Earth will be virtually helium-free by the end of the 21st century.

After some more digging, I found a N.Y. Times article (Feb. 6, 1996): “… economically exploited source of this nonrenewable substance will be depleted in 21 years unless steps are taken …”

Yeah.  We had enough warning.  But what could be done, realistically?  Not really a good substitute for helium out there, ya know?

 Cell Phone Users Drive Slightly Slower Than Others 

A recent study by the University of Utah seems to suggest that any sort of communication on a cell phone, hands-free or otherwise, results in increased traffic congestion.

Quote from a previous UoU study: Hands-free cell phones are no less dangerous while driving than hand-held cell phones because the conversation itself is the major distraction.

Please read the study on their computer simulation.  It seems to imply that cell phone talkers take fewer risks than aggressive drivers…

I would love to see a study comparing hands-free cell phone usage while driving to doing the following perfectly legal things while driving: preparing and eating a soft shell taco, transporting a large dog in the front seat, transporting a crying baby, driving with 4 other people in the car, repeatedly tuning the radio, and using a GPS.  Do any of these things impair your ability to drive as though you had a BAC of 0.08 (like cell phones do, the study claims)?  I think so.

So what do you do, outlaw everything? The problem is not cell phones.  The problem is a lack of multi-tasking ability.  Maybe there should be an extra qualification (in a simulator, of course) at the DMV when you get/renew your licence to see if you are capable of “walking and chewing gum at the same time”.  You could put the check box right next to “Corrective Lenses Required (Y/N)”.  I think “Attention Span of a 6-Week Old Kitten (Y/N)” works great.