Why Are People so Afraid of the LHC Causing a Black Hole?

In case you aren't a nerd or right-wing bible thumper, there is a new particle collider in town. The Large Hadron Collider in Geneva is officially smashing particles together at unheard of speeds. I'm sure it'll be years before we start getting any revolutionary results, but scientists are predicting some pretty important discoveries from this. Every time they make a better collider, we gain more knowledge about the structure of sub-atomic particles. We also gain more insight and verification for the latest in theories on how the universe works. All great things.
Well, not so great if you're a bible-thumper. I'm not saying we should all blindly believe science and discount the stories in the bible. Everyone has a right to believe whatever they want and express those beliefs. They can also do whatever they feel necessary to support and prove those beliefs. The problem I have with bible-thumpers is that they do whatever they can to stifle the progress of science. They seem to feel that because they take the bible as undeniable fact, everyone else should as well and that anyone doing any research on alternate theories is just doing the devil's work and must be stopped. Why? They don't stop you from trying to validate the info in the bible. In fact, the history and science communities often help to find proof to support the bible. They just want to find the truth about what happened in those years without passing judgement on the religious aspect of it.
But I digress...
The real fun is all the people that are so sure that the LHC will create a black hole that will destroy the planet and maybe beyond. There were actually protests and plenty of news coverage as the LHC was being finished on that very topic. Suddenly these people who have rejected all of science's work to this point can understand it better than these physics experts. Odd how that works. And it's really just a moot point. If the LHC does create a black hole that eats the planet, no one will even notice. There would be no apocalypse, no sulfur and brimstone raining down upon us, no locust invasion. Things would all end in a microsecond. If you were a bible-thumper and lived by The Book your whole life, you'll be up in heaven saying "I told you so". Probably standing right next to me while I just shrug my shoulders and say "wow, really didn't see that coming." So what's the big deal? If God really did create the world and everything in it, he granted us this insatiable curiosity and the intelligence to devise ways to slam protons together at ridiculous speeds. Wouldn't we be going against his will if we didn't do this?! Think about it.
Me, I tend to believe what some of the smartest people on the planet say. And they say the world won't end. I also want to know if string theory holds up to more findings or if quantum physics continues its reign on top. Do we really live in a universe of 10 or more dimensions instead of just the 4 we know of? And what's up with the Higgs boson? I want some answers, and the LHC may get me them.

Moving On, New Guilty Wastes of Time

For those that don't know, I recently quit my last job (in one of the most happy days of my life) and took a new one. The job function on paper meant it was a slight step backwards, but we all know paper doesn't tell the story. That previous job was a terrible little medical device company that treated their people like disposable resources to be ridden hard, put away wet, then given to the glue factory once they stop being better than the next horse.
Doubts? When I joined in Feb 2009 the engineering group (HW, SW, Mechanical) was 11 people including managers. During my 1 year there I saw something like 13 people quit or be fired. Possibly more, it's hard to keep count when the turn-over is greater than 100%. They put an incredible value in the number of billable hours you logged each week as opposed to the work you did. If I was given a task and finished it flawlessly in 40 hours and went home, I was given a talking-to because I clearly had a "bad attitude". If I instead stayed an extra 2 hours every day and just goofed off during those extra hours, I'd then be praised for having a good attitude. Same amount of work, same quality. Any and all promotions and raises were based on that same attitude scale. It became clear pretty quickly that I'd never be judged on the quality or quantity of my work, but rather how willing I was to give up every other facet of my life to provide them with more hours to bill against their government grants. And so as soon as a better (meaning any) other offer showed up, I took it and ran.
And now that I have that better job, I finally have a life again. I can work a full day, hit the gym, and still be home before 6:30. And best yet, since work is no longer a soul-crushing exercise in survival I actually have the motivation to do other things! I'm sure everyone realizes that means watching more sports on TV and playing more Wii, but the point is that I now feel like doing it. And I plan on actually building all the various projects I've been cutting out of Popular Science and Mechanics. Persistence of Vision clock, solar cell phone charger, various wood-working projects, etc. Just look at today. I worked 7:30-4:30, hit the gym for an hour, hit the beer store to get some stouts and instead spent some time hanging with the beer guy enjoying some great, rare microbrews. Now I'm home with a belly full of grilled pork chops and I'm working my way through a 4-pack of Murphy's Stout.
And speaking of tonight...I have a new guilty waste of time. The show "Human Target". It's not good. It doesn't have alot of action, acting, or plot. But it's just good enough to hold my attention for an hour. Every time I say it's just not very good and I'm not watching it ever again. And yet every time I stumble across an episode I invariably end up watching it. As I'm doing right now. Fortunately they've added a rather attractive co-star to go with the roving hot girl of the day. And so even though I have new DVDs from Netflix for both Ghost in the Shell: 2nd gig and Gundam: The 8th MS Team, I'm here watching a show that's not nearly as good. Lucky for me, I still have some Murphy's in the fridge and a Blackhawks game coming up at 10pm. Giggity.
I'd also like to give some props to my buddy Javy, who seems to be the only person reading and commenting. Javy, next time you need someone to smack you in the head with a 9" pie tin, you just let me know.
And now, time for more Irish Stout!

Tough Sporting Stretch For Me

This may be a pretty rough March and April for me. Typically I'm all pysched about the Cubs season getting ready to kick off and hoping Purdue can over-achieve and do well in the NCAA Tourney. However, this year looks to be very, very different. After the last few Cubs seasons I'm trying to temper my excitement to avoid the crash. Getting hyped up won't be a problem once games start showing up on TV. Purdue just took a gigantic hit when their top guy, Robbie Hummel, went down with an ACL tear. We went from being #3 in the nation to being more questions than answers.
Let's tackle the bad first. I didn't get to see the Purdue - Minnesota game where he tore said ACL, but I've seen the clip. And it wasn't pretty. You could pretty much tell that his season was down just by the amount of sideways flex in his knee. He really was the heart and soul of our team. He was the one guy we could pretty much always count on to make shots when we really needed it. Our offense was really based around getting the ball into his hands and seeing what happens. In the Michigan State game on Sunday, a loss which really hurt our BigTen Regular Season title hopes, it was clear the guys were still trying to do that. They just kept passing it around and hoping someone would get an open shot. But without Robbie out there to draw consistent coverage, no one was open. It was a painful scene. Now, we do have the talent to rebound and make a great March run. I don't see how we'll get as far as we would have with Robbie, but it doesn't help to think like that. We need the other juniors and seniors to step up their game, and we really need some of the kids to elevate and do their part. Even the freshmen have virtually a full season under their belts, so they can do it. We've got another huge game tomorrow night against IU (those dirty f'n SOBs), then Penn St on Saturday. After that is the BigTen Tourney. So we do have a decent chance to adjust to life without Robbie before the real tourney. I just hope it's enough time.
Now the Cubs. This is yet another year of big expectations. So even though we've haven't won it all in over a century (102 years), and haven't even been to the show in over 1/2 a century (55 years), we're picked by some outlets as a solid bet to do it this year. And that's all fine and good. It means we have the talent level and coaching to pull it off. But of course big expectations can also lead to big heartbreak. Anyone remember 2008 against the Dodgers? Or how about all the years we were supposed to be good and just shit the bed? Makes me almost long for the lean years. 1998 and 2003 were that much greater because we weren't supposed to do anything. So the huge rush at the end was incredible. This year we have a very similar roster to last year. We're just counting on guys to live up to their potential. Big Z needs to finally be the ace he can be. Sorianno needs to wake up and be the hitter he is instead of trying to be a lead-off guy. Aramis's shoulder needs to have healed up properly in winter. Derrick needs to have at least 1 more good year left. Soto needs to play like year 1 instead of year 2. Marmol needs to throw at least as many strikes as balls. And of course the usual new faces in the infield and outfield. I'm doing my best to focus on Purdue and the Blackhawks to avoid getting too wrapped up in the Cubs too early. With 6 months of season, I need to save up my energy.
Wait...spring training games start Thursday and WGN is showing 2 over the weekend. I got some research to do!
PEACE!!

Cheap Health Care Not Always Good

All the rage right now is an overhaul of the health care system to make it cheaper for everyone involved. And while that would be good for some people, I have my doubts as to whether or not it'll be good for the US as a whole.
Case in point...there is an article in a recent Popular Science regarding some very popular drugs losing their patent rights this year. Lipitor being the most prominent. Lipitor made $12.4 billion in sales in '08. $12.4 billion!! On the surface, that seems exorbitant and a symbol of what's wrong. I mean, if we could reduce that by even 10%, we'd save over $1 billion in health care cost. And that is true. However, that means Pfizer has 10% less to invest in R&D to create the next generation of drugs. And that's exactly what's happening. Drug submittals to the FDA are down over 10% and likely going to continue to drop. Eli Lilly is slashing $1 billion from it's budget and cutting 5,000 jobs. If drug companies don't have the money to put into R&D, they can't create the next generation of drugs to treat emerging health issues. Depression, obesity, cancer treatments, etc. Drugs are insanely expensive to get to market. R&D costs to come up with them, years of work to prepare trials, years or decades of patient trials, FDA approval submissions, then if you're lucky, marketing and production costs. Factor in all the drugs that don't make it, and it's alot of money to market a drug that may never really sell.
Another big issue in slashing health care costs is the supply-and-demand problem with MDs. This is an issue that I've been forced to learn first-hand. I don't want to get into raw numbers, but when Hayley graduated from med school her student loan debt was more than our mortgage. Shocking, especially considering she had no undergrad debt. And as a resident, she's making only 5% more than what I made as a test engineer straight out of college back in January 2001. Meaning that without a substantial pay raise as a practicing MD, she'd still be paying off her student loans when she was in her 50s. If she was single, as many residents are, it'd be impossible to take on a mortgage of her own. And while home-ownership is a privaledge and not a right, a scant few will willingly decide to spend 12 years of schooling, the last 8 of which involve non-stop 80 hour or more work/study weeks, to spend their lives renting apartments. This will create a huge drop in the number of people that choose that career path; even less that go on to pursue specialties like surgery, cardiology, reproductive fields, etc. The likely immediate effect of this is what Massachusetts saw after they imposed mandatory health care. It become very hard to find a PCP (primary care physician) and even harder to get an appt. To make matters worse, with our current system only the best med students make it into residency programs and only the best residents make it out to secure jobs. But if you have less going in and the same number coming out, students that normally wouldn't survive make it all the way to being practicing physicians. So after waiting extra weeks/months to get an appt with your PCP, now you're getting sub-standard care from them. Sounds appealing, doesn't it?
I'm not saying all of this will necessarily come to pass. But it's something that needs to be considered before we all jump on the 'make health care cheaper' band-wagon. If people want the expensive exploratory tests they've come to expect, they have to pay for it. X-Rays, MRIs, CT scans, mammograms, EKGs, blood work, these aren't cheap. Surgeries aren't cheap. You can either have great doctors and great testing, or you can have cheap health care. You can't have it both ways. If anyone has a way to accomplish both, I'd love to hear it.

Bears - Eagles Musings

Wow, I just realized that I wrote this up during the game a few weeks back and never posted it. I bet I was just so pissed at the end of the game that I just went bed as soon as the clock hit 0:00. Anyways, here it is, with an some additions at the end.

I wasn't going to do this, but I really need an outlet to vent...

So here's what I learned during the 1st quarter of play:
Faith Hill is hot when dressed up in a tight outfit with thigh-high boots and singing a rockish song.
The Bears defense has officially jumped the shark. They just can't stop anyone. Can't stop the run, can't stop the pass, can't stop Vick when he comes in at QB for 3rd-and-1 and everyone in the world knows he's not going to throw it. They still have some talented guys, but it's just not working.
We can't run the ball for shit. Everyone puts it on Forte, but it really does appear to the be the o-line. He's not Barry Sanders; you have to give him a hole to run through once in awhile. I think the RB is doing an admirable job given the garbage he has to work with. Plus, with as bad as Cutler's been everyone is playing run. No need to keep extra guys back in coverage.
Speaking of Cutler...he's not good. I'm not saying he can't get good, but he's not good right now. He just missed 2 wide-open guys for TDs to go with some additional poor throws. On the plus side we're mid-way into the 2nd-quarter and he hasn't throw a pick yet...knock on wood! And unless he suddenly gets good again, I'll never understand why he's any different from Grossman. High-risk QB is just not the right guy for this offense.
Okay, I feel better. Time to put the laptop away for a bit and re-focus on the game, my chips and salsa, and my tasty adult beverage(s).

Flash-forward to middle of the 4th...
Just watched Tillman force his 3rd fumble of the game; 2 of which the Bears recovered. The man is an absolute machine. And he's literally punching the ball out. Closed fist, throwing knuckles at the ball. It's horribly fun to watch.
Cutler is still pretty unfun to watch. Yeah, he was good on the TD drive, but he's been pretty bad every other time. He's just flat-out missing open guys, not hitting guys in stride so they can run after the catch, throwing into triple-covered receivers, etc. Same shit I used to watch with Grossman, just with the knowledge that he's been better with his former team. On the plus side, I have a whole bag of chips and a jar of hot salsa in my belly. My colon has taken quite the beating this weekend. Quite literally a trial by fire before the 3-day T-Day event.


And begin new material from 12/20:
So I think my PC has a bad hardware component. The last couple months it's been spontaneously rebooting itself when idle, and the last week or so it's been doing it even when you're using it. I could spend some time trying to figure out what's bad; probably a RAM module, but since I already wanted to rebuild it as a low-power machine I'll probably just do that. New processor, maybe a solid-state hard-drive, low-power video card, do it right. I just don't know if I want to put the time, effort, and $$ into that right now. I can reuse some of the parts, but not many. The case and disk drive will stay. I could just wipe the current hard-drive and use it again, but that would work against the low-power goal. Video card will be tricky. I need to figure out how much juice it's using and compare it to a newer one before I know if it can stay or go. But the motherboard, CPU, and RAM are all out.
If anyone has some experience building for low-power, let me know. You will be rewarded with beer and junk food for any help and/or advice you can give.
Okay, time to get ready for hockey. Should be a really good grudge match tonight b/t 2 teams that are developing some bad blood b/t them.
PEACE!!

Fox's New Commercial Strategy for a Venegful God

I'm not sure how long this has been going on, and I'm not sure how many other networks are doing this, but I've noticed that Fox has a new sequence for their commercial breaks. They used to open with the credits, then go to a commercial break, followed by evenly-spaced breaks of equal length. Clearly they've picked up on the fact that people today have very short attention spans and will change channels pretty quickly during a commercial break if they aren't hooked on the show. And with so many channels available to us now, you know you can find something good to watch somewhere else. Not all of their shows do it, but it's very obvious if you watch "Fringe". No commercials after the opening credits, and the breaks start off quite short and get longer as the shows goes on. So as you get more and more hooked in the show, they know that you'll hang in longer and longer during the commercials. Very smart; but annoying when you have to wait longer and longer when you're hooked on the episode and don't want to wait.

And now for this blog's more serious thinking.
Anyone that's involved in the various Christian religions has been well versed in the notion that God doesn't punish you on Earth for any of your various sins. Naturally most of us that are also superstitious can think of many instances where that doesn't seem to be true. So that got me thinking about it. No one has every really talked to God. So all we have to go on is the bible. Which is a collection of letters and recountings that was edited by the Vatican and put into convenient book form. Are there letters in there from an apostle that talk about how God will punish you in short fashion for sinning? Could be! I mean, who knows how many things were edited out to make sure the story is being told correctly. If you've ever taken the time to read the entire new testament you'll have noticed how the story really breaks down in Revelations. Breaks down in disturbing fashion. Speculation is that it was a coded message about the current Roman rulers. If that's possible then it's totally reasonable to assume that the bible has been edited to tell the "God doesn't punish ye" story. Hard to say either way. And I'm not going to try to say. I'm just here to create discussion and get people thinking.
And now, just the way I planned this, the Bears - Eagles game is about to start. Just to make things interesting, if the Bears successfully hurt McNabb during the game I'll give anyone who shows up to Party T-Day and mentions this blog a dollar. (Hurt qualifies as missing a significant portion of the game due to something the Bears did to him.)
Done and done.

Terrible Sports Weekend

Wow, this was most certainly a depressing sports "weekend" for me (including Thursday night, thus the quotes). Not only did a suffer some losses, but they were especially painful ones.
First, Bears - SF. This is definitely a game that the Bears should have been able to win. The 49ers are not a great team this year and the Bears should have been out to prove that they are a play-off team. Instead it was a sloppy, poorly played game in which both teams consistently squandered opportunities to take control. Well, mostly SF squandering all the opportunities the Bears were giving them. Watching our new "franchise" QB throw 5 INTs was brutal. 2 of which came in the end zone. Even worse, the 1st of those was to a large gentleman who was standing in plain sight. And even if he had missed it, there were 2 more defenders jumping in front of the receiver. So there was roughly a 0% chance of the pass not getting picked. Yeah, some were flukes with receivers falling down and running into refs, but even those looked like they could have been picked anyways. Even with all that, they still managed to bring it down to a last-second drive to possibly win it. A drive that ended in soul-crushing fashion with the 2nd INT in the end zone.
That brings us to yesterday's Purdue - Michigan State game. Purdue, even after so many brutal early-season losses was still in a position to get bowl eligible. All we had to do was Beat MSU and IU and we'd be set. First play of the game? Purdue fumbles a hand-off and MSU runs it in for a quick TD. 7 seconds; 7 points down. But they did rally back and were up by 11 in the 4th quarter before letting it slip away to lose 37-40. And thus a rough season of close losses and huge wins (Ohio State), yet another 2nd-half failure ends our run at a bowl game. Even though I'm excited about the direction the team is heading, and the young talent they have, it's tough to spend another year without a bowl.
And then came the Iowa-Ohio State game. I still had hopes that some family pride could be salvaged and have Iowa finish on top of the BigTen and head to the Rose Bowl. But it was not to be. The 3rd maddeningly close game of the weekend resulted in an Iowa loss. Luck for them they are still ranked #10 in the BCS and have a shot at moving up to at least #8 with a win next weekend and scoring a sweet BCS bowl.
And now I'm a short 2.5 hours away from my own hockey game, wondering if my luck will change just enough to get us a win. I don't ask for much; just a W.
Fingers crossed!!

A relaxing, lazy Saturday

You know, it's a bit lonely here now that my parents are gone. And nothing gets magically fixed around the house while I'm at work either. As much work as I did with my dad together, he did at least that much on his own while I was at work. Together we tore down 1 shed and put up a new one; tore out the wooden trim in our bathroom window, repaired some water damage to the wall, then replaced it all with ceramic tile.
On his own...my dad replaced the light fixtures in the living room and dining room; did some minor painting in the hallway where I just built the linen closet, repaired the ceiling in the dining room around the new threshold, patched a couple other little things while he had the spackle out, and sealed and stained the deck out back. For a guy that doesn't get alot of sleep at night, he sure has alot of energy.
The only downside is that it made this weekend seem extremely lazy by comparison. All I did today was watch a bunch of football, make some pizza crust for tomorrow, and paint the trim around the 3 new basement windows. Normally that would be a pretty active Saturday.
Even better was that my car gave me a 3-day weekend. One of my ignition coils went bad, meaning I had to take it to the shop instead of going to work. It cost me $300 and a vacation day, but the mental health I gained is probably worth double that. Fridays have been pretty brutal lately. Whereas most companies push really hard to get things done by Thursday so you don't have to haul ass on Friday, we like to save 2 days worth of stuff to do on Fridays. Really takes the joy out of Fridays.

And Fox has finally added something to one of their chick shows to appease the guys that are forced to watch. As expected, Hayley loves "Glee". And I thought it was going to be another crap show that I avoid. And then they added cheerleaders who apparently wear their uniforms to school every day. And had a car wash while wearing knee socks, pleated skirts and bikini tops. Could be months before that scene works its way out of my memory.
Giggidy.

Thoughts on the Cubs

So as I watch the Cubs today, through an appropriate haze of Budweiser, I've come up with a few thoughts. And as this has been a very trying year for the Cubs, thoughts are quite easy to come by.
First some congratulations are in order. Despite the best efforts of Sorianno and Marmol the Cubs beat the White Sux 5-4. Alfonso Sorianno is a very good hitter. However he is a terrible lead-off hitter. Sure he'll hit you the occasional lead-off home run, but he just doesn't do the this than an NL lead-off guy needs to be doing. Walks, OBP, making the pitcher throw lots of pitches, steals, etc. These are the things you need your lead-off hitter to be doing if you're to be consistently successful in the NL. He's also a marginal outfielder. He's never been good, nor is he really expected to be good. But it's amazing at times just how bad he is in the outfield. Take today's little gaff in the 8th inning. Pop fly to shallow left. He clearly doesn't see it. Blanco, the SS, does see it and charges out. As Blanco clearly is calling it and waving his arms Sorianno starts running frantically to try and catch up to it. What happens; Sorianno runs right into Blanco as he's about to catch it; 2 runs score to turn a 5-2 game into a 5-4 game.
Oh yes, but why were there so many runners on base in the bottom of the 8th in a 5-2 game? Mr. Marmol. Marmol and the strike zone are like me and syringes; he'll tolerate it when he absolutely has to, but not a second before. That explains why he's walked 38 guys in 34 1/3 innings. He throws mid-90s with a Bugs Bunny slider and still refuses to throw it in the zone. Incredible. And yet, every time out I'm so sure it'll be the time he just starts throwing strikes.
Based on the way this year is going, I'm wondering if last year was the exception instead of the rule. Previous years the Cubs had suffered from a severe lack of timely hitting. They'd either score 8 runs or 0 runs. Last year was different...before the playoffs. This year is back to untimely hitting and .500 baseball.

1 more quick thing. I was watching Uncle Buck after the Cubs game (the magic of DVR and "media black-out".) and was reminded of a college memory. This night was 1 of 2 reasons I have boycotted Miller Lite Ice. And no, neither of these reasons involve the fact it tastes like shit. More the fact that both times I drank it things took a turn for the worse for Jarod. This particular time involve a girl I was pursuing, another couple, and a night of drinking at her apt. She was in a long-distance relationship that she wasn't so hot about. We had really hit it off in our many group activities but never really talked about if anything was really happening. Anyways...we'd all spent the night hanging out, drinking, and watching a big of college hockey at one point (featuring an ex-Bison named Bubba Berenzweig who would later play in the NHL). At one point the ladies wander away to talk. After a short time I decide that I need to know what they're talking about and creep up to the door. Turns out they were discussing her situation and whether or not she should dump him for me. This then led to a very awkward drunken conversation once the other couple left. One that I ultimately ended up on the wrong side of. Naturally things were rather weird after that and we drifted apart as friends. Damn shame. Obviously I'm glancing over the painful details. But suffice to say it wasn't a great night in the history of Jarod.

And now I'm watching Quentin Tarantino drink whiskey off of Catherine Zeta-Jones' foot. What a strange and wonderful night this is.

Superman Syndrome

There is a well-documented and often mentioned phenomenon with the old-school Superman. It's been covered hundreds of times by bad comedians so I'll be short. In the old black-and-white superman shows he would invariably get in a situation where bullets would be fired at him. And seemingly every time he'd stand there and grin while deflecting said bullets off of his chest. Yet when the bad guy finished his 6 shots and threw the empty gun at Superman he'd duck out of the way of it.
You would think that such faux pas would be gone from today's cinema. And yet, while watching "Matrix Reloaded" Friday night I saw it yet again. Just so fellow film buffs can follow along, it's the fight scene against the Merovingian's goons while Morpheus and Trinity chase down the Key Maker. A dozen or so guys with automatic weapons open up at Neo, naturally in slow motion. All Neo has to do is hold up his hand and he can effortlessly stop all the rounds in mid-air. Nicely done in deed. And yet, when guys come at him with swords and spears he has to duck and dodge every attempt. Where did his magic safety bubble go?! If he can stop a bullet in mid-flight why can't he stop people and other objects? I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice this, so feel free to fill me in with any info.
I'd love to continue my musing from the movie and the various curiosities I noticed, but I'm too tired and a bit too warm to muster the effort. Non-air conditioned Sunday afternoons tend to do that to me.

And just because I remembered all the polls I used to include and wanted to start that up again...