The Large Hadron Collider does it's thing

Yesterday saw the greatest moment in science since Einstein came up with general relativity... did you notice? I guess not, so here's the lowdown:

The worlds largest particle collider the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) has it's first full power collision yesterday, and it was successful. They've been accelerating some light beams around the gigantic machine for the last few months, reaching 99.99% the speed of light... hard to grasp that sort of figure, isn't it? An article over at the Sydney Morning Herald equates the energy of this light beam with a train traveling at 144km/h .... Let me say that again... a beam of light that will hit you as hard as a train. 

With the experiments run off this collision, Scientists are exploring what the universe was like at the moment of the big bang, hopefully providing us with a better understanding of how our reality works and finding the elusive God Particle that is supposed to give mass to everything.

So... no black holes, no giant crater in Europe.... it all turned out well, despite the court cases and miscellaneous doom mongering.

On another topic, I challenge all of you to click through to the link in the news section called Fixing Reality with Online Games. This is a truly exceptional program... and one I hope we can all get behind. Do it! It's good karma.

In the News:

First Anti-Cancer Nano-particle Trial on Humans a Success - tiny machines designed to hunt down and kill cancer cells... how cool is THAT?

Fixing Reality with Online Games - What can I say? This could very well save us all from ourselves... READ IT!!!!!!!!

Hubble Builds 3D Dark Matter Map - Our first detailed schematic of the universe?

A Samsung Robot In Every Home By 2020? - How South Korea is getting it right... a lesson for all of us in SA perhaps?

Zero carbon, zero waste city being built in Abu Dhabi - an ambitious project that I'm fully in support of. Great thinking.

Australia reveals prototype 'bionic' eye - History is going to look back at this century as the century of the cyborg... very cool.

Study shows chocolate reduces blood pressure and risk of heart disease - I can already hear you saying, "see, I TOLD you it was good for you".

...And there we have it, another week, another post. Hope you enjoyed it.

-Odd

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality" - Albert Einstein

On violent protests and censorship

This week has seen a continuation of what seems to be a national theme for those of us in South Africa: the violent protest. The latest has come from students down in Durban, protesting for better bus transport and food at the university, but my personal favorite was a couple years ago when a group protesting against poor public transport burned trains and buses... it's utterly fantastic... I find that I'm simply not able to grasp the mentality that would be capable of such dark humor.

At first I thought that a stronger police action was needed. Break up unregistered protests before they turn violent, deny protest permits to groups or organisations that have a history of violence and come down HARD on anyone who does get violent. Sounds good, doesn't it? Well... maybe not.

Violence, as Asmiov wrote, is the last refuge of the incompetent, but sometimes it may be necessary. It can be argued that for a long time in South Africa it was necessary, and so it will take a long time to filter out of out society. What worries me is that it's the youth that is getting violent... far more violent than their preceding generation, this has to be a failure of education... which imperils our fragile outlook for the future.

On the other hand, we have the case of Google vs China. The search mega-corporation has finally stood up the dictatorial state, redirecting all users in China to the unfiltered search of their Hong Kong site. China has since censored these results, blocking searches or results as suits them. Did the Chinese students embark on a violent protest to reclaim their right to information (which, personally i think is far more important than an earlier bus ride or easy access to sandwiches)? No... there has been, as far as I can see, zero reaction from the Chinese public.

There must exist some reasonable middle ground somewhere between the mob ruled chaos and the Orwellian government control, but how do we judge? And once we've found the blueprint for such a prefect society, we need to introduce it to the single greatest problem facing good governance..... people.

In the news:

First Flight For SpaceShip Two - Virgin Galactic's new spaceship did it's first atmospheric test flight on Monday... we're getting close to the fabled commercial space flight.

Does This Headline Know You're Reading It? - the building of Text 2.0, where whatever you're reading can tell where you're looking and add video, sound, translation or explanation as needed. It also raises some question about how much we really want our computers to know. Cool article.

Has Emily Howell Passed the Musical Turning Test? - WOW!!!!!! you have to read this, and listen to the music! An AI computer program that creates wholely original, beautiful music!

NASA Mars Rover Getting Smarter as it Gets Older - a great application of AI.

To Mars and back -- as real as it gets - a group of astronoughts do a full scale simulation of a mars mission.

Hey... I managed to post before friday, Woot! I haven't done much work on the Necromunda board, and my internet connection at home is down (thank you telkom), so I haven't been playing wow.... missing my gorgeous lady.

-Odd

The three laws of journalism are:

1) Inform the public of matters of public import.

2) Entertain the audience, when it does not interfere with the first law.

2) Sneak in puns when it does not interfere with the first two laws, unless it's a really good one. 

-Mat Boyd (http://www.threepanelsoul.com/)

It's been a busy time...

Hi All,

It's been a pretty hectic month, and a busy week for me... which is the excuse I'm giving to explain why this update is only happening on Friday ^^.

I don't really have any super-cool tech ideas to share with you this week, so I'll just clue you in on what's happening in my life: My gorgeous girlfriend is leaving me in Joberg and going on a two week holiday in Egypt with her family... awesome for her, lonely for me... so what have I got planned? You might think i'm off to a frenzied round of poker games, strip shows and all night parties.... if you didn't know me.

I've got two goals for the upcoming weeks: 

1 - hit 5000 GearScore for my W.O.W. character, Adaephon (if this doesn't make sense to you, you don't want to know)

2 - finnish my super awesome, modular, multi-level gaming board for Necromunda. When I'm done I'll be posting lots of pics and a full tutorial... it's going to be epic ^^

So thats the plan... along with working (really hard), studying, blogging and (of course) missing my lady. Lame? maybe... but I enjoy it.

In the News:

SETI is 50 Years Old: No Sign of ET - the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence has been drawing a blank for 50 years.... but they've got some new plans.

From Ian: The Bedazzler - how to replicate a multi-million dollar US weapon program on the cheap

The State of Robotic Surgery - happening more often than you'd think.

Scottish Wave Energy Plans Move Forward - a big step towards large scale green energy production

The Geek's Guide To Getting Girls - finally, they've come up with a manual... RTFM!

Invisibility Cloak - they're getting VERY close to a complete, working, production ready version.

And there you have it... it might not have been much of a post, and it might be late in the week... but it's here, and it's on time (mostly)....

-Odd

"Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday"

Facing Eternity

It might not be immediately noticeable, but modern medicine has greatly increased the human life span. Sure the most drastic extension is available only to the privileged minority, but even the lower classes have benefited greatly advancements in treatment and medication.

Doctors and researchers aren't the type to just sit back, so medical science is always pushing the envelope further, developing or adapting all the cutting edge technologies from robotics to material science. What does this mean for us? Well, because the rate of technological advancement is exponential, there will come a time when treatments can stave off death long enough for the next technology to be developed, which will keep people alive until the next one, and the next, and the next. The end result? Immortality. 

I'm not talking about cutting peoples heads off and getting struck by lightning, being bullet proof or completely immune to disease, but the fact is that death from aging will become (for some) a thing of the past. How we adopt these technologies is, however, a completely different question.

Any new technology always starts it's commercial life as an exclusive product. Only the richest people can afford the huge price tag associated with the cutting edge, but because capitalism runs best on the volume game, new technology quickly becomes old technology and gets cheaper and cheaper. So, we start off with a elitist class of immortals... but pretty soon everyone can afford it... then what?

Do we allow anyone and everyone to walk through the eons? It's been shown that the lower we go on the social scale, the more children we have. What happens when we've got 300, 400 years worth of fertility? The earth is already overpopulated with people that barely scrape a century of life... I doubt it can cope with an immortal population that breeds and acts as we do.

What I find exciting, worrying and scary is that the Longevity Turning Point is not as far away as you'd think... I've read articles that posit it in the next 50-100 years... thats us or our children as humanity's first immortal generation... and I, for one, don't think we're ready for it.

Don't believe me? Go ahead, Google it... 

In The News:

Caltech Makes Flexible, 86% Efficient Solar Arrays - Finally! we can kick escom out the house.

Chilean Earthquake Shortened Earth's Day - not by much... but I hadn't thought it could have such a global effect.

Long-distance quantum communication - getting that much closer to reality. This is a very important technology for our plans for space travel... communication that doesn't take days, months or years to reach other planets? Brilliant.

Skinput turns your arm into a touchscreen - this is COOL! watch the video.

One in four Germans wants microchip under skin - very interesting poll done in Germany... raises all sorts of ethical/anthropological questions.

Your Personal Memory Device - brain scans, networking and data-centers could turn us all into perfect recall, telepathic cyborgs... I'd sign up.

The World's First Commercially Available Jet-pack - watch out for those Nazi's (5 points to anyone who gets this reference)

Google's Computing Power Refines Translation - getting closer to a perfect universal translator... awesome.

New Phone Allows Bosses To Snoop On Staff - whoa... I REALLY don't like this... too Orwellian for me.

Work's been heavy this week... hence the late week post... but there it is, hope you enjoyed it.

-Odd

"Who wants, To live, Forever...."

Damn you fox!!!!!

I got some terrible news this past week. News that has me contemplating serious violence against a major American TV station. There's no easy way to say this, so I'm going to give it to you straight...

DollHouse has been canceled.

That's right. Fox has canceled Joss Whedon's latest masterpiece. I really don't get it, DollHouse is the best show to be aired since... well... since FireFly (which the bloodless corporate drones also cancelled), amazingly imaginative and thought provoking Sci-Fi, challenging scripts pulled off by incredible acting by a talented and diverse cast. I suppose we should be glad that Joss was allowed to do two seasons instead of the one that FireFly managed... but i'm not!

One thing I guess we have though... if DollHouse does follow FireFly's career path, we've got a kick ass movie to look forward to in a couple years.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to sponsor a flight to the US and a couple tons of Hi-Ex.... fox hunting season is open.

In the News:

Video Game Weapons - a cool article about the real world equivalents of our favorite devices of destruction

Cell Phone Data Predicts Movement Patterns - this is a little too big brother for my comfort

Triumph of the Cyborg Composer - a computer program that composes original (and actually GOOD) classical music... brings up a lot of questions about creativity, beauty and humanity.

Saturn Moon Could Be Hospitable To Life - we might have found our first extraterrestrial colony site. AWESOME!

Copernicium Confirmed As Element 112 - time to update your periodic table of elements... I know you all have one... nerds!

Project Offset Creates Graphical Magic - CGI quality graphics rendered in real time, on a home PC... sounds too good to be true... but there it is.

Google Buzz - a little article with various comments and tips

Intelligent people have 'unnatural' preferences and values that are novel in human evolution - just to remind you... my name is Odd... as in strange.... ^^

Water replant material - a new invention for a militantly water-proof surface

Cannibal star is devouring a planet - you don't get more epic than this.

An electrifying discovery - a new material that will harvest electricity from body movement.

BlackBerry Bold Tops Radiation Ranking - told you it was a crappy phone.

Email me now to join the Fox hunting party (not joking).... hope you enjoyed the post.

-Odd

"There are three flowers in a vase. The third flower is green."