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I'm amazed by this picture of the moon Saturn's moon, Prometheus, disturbing the planet's F ring gravitationally. As the the moons close to the rings orbit Saturn, they pull a wave of the rings along with them. I didn't even know that much, but seeing a picture is very different than having it described.
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An Energy Department audit has found that many products labelled as "Energy Star" don't even get close to meeting those standards. Why? Because manufacturers can self-certify for large home appliances (air conditioners, refrigerators, water heaters—you know, the things in your house that use far and away the most power), and they're lying. Consumer Reports nabbed LG and Samsung for doing just that back in October. I'm preparing to buy a full suite of home appliances, so I have all of this very much in mind right now.
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A distinguished pair of physicists are seriously considering the proposition that the Large Hadron Collider may never work because it's being sabotaged by time-travelers from the future who are trying to avert a catastrophe. It sounds daft, but this is why I love science—these guys are seriously weighing evidence in this matter. As Niels Bohr told a colleague: "We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."
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I’m tired and only skimmed the article, but it seems unclear if the theory that the NYT article about the Large Hadron Collider is talking about is about people effecting the LHC through time or the creation of the Higgs boson doing it. Obviously I would be more entertained by the former, but it kind of sounds like it’s saying the latter.
Again, I’m tired and may have easily missed something, so I’ll read it again in the morning.
Ask vendors of appliances for peak power draw in watts, and if they can’t tell you (they probably will not be able to) insist that they let you meter it with a Kill-A-Watt or similar device before you commit to the purchase.
I’ve been plugging everything into one and spreadsheeting the results (can that really be used as a verb?) and it has been an eye-opening experience. EnergyStar ratings do not appear to be accurate at all… or perhaps I don’t understand the rating system. As far as power consumption, many of my worst offenders are EnergyStar devices.
I focused on things I wanted to be always on; and that has changed some of my desires for always on. It’s a bit disappointing.
Agreed with Will here. The term ‘time-travellers’, in its common usage, implies human beings or a similar form of sentient life that moves either backwards through time or skips ahead at a rate greater than most of us experience.
Nowhere do these physicists or the NYT author suggest that it is ‘people’ of some type that are doing this. I get the impression that a theory stating that it is people acting deliberately against the Hadron Collider from the future would be consistent with the proposal stated in the article. But not required per se.
It could be God, or a fundamental mechanical principle of the universe, or action taken against the past by people in the future *remotely.* Or, if I understand their logic properly, one could just as easily chalk this up to action taken by people or aliens or God in/from the *past* to prevent such machines from ever working.
In related news, Scott Bakula has been seen dining in Lausanne, lately.
Waldo if you can wait, in about a month Sears has these amazing sales where they give you 10% for one, 20% for two, and 30% for three. It’s like a buy 3 get two sale.
Also CR rates alot of Kemore stuff as a best buy. Not shilling for Sears but have just gotten some good deals in the fall. Late next month as I remember.
I’m sad that they screwed with the enegy star rating as I spent a great deal of time looking at energy star refrigerators and paid extra for one with that rating.
There should be serious fines for fudging those ratings.
That should have been buy 2 get 1 free- that other sale would be a very bad idea
MB, hilarious!
On the Collider, maybe this is what Mayans predicted happening on December 21st 2012: the creation of the Higgs boson particle. I wish I had my long count calendar handy. Oh! And this thing is nothing but trouble. First, it was supposed to create a blackhole that would destroy the earth. Then some crazy Illuminati steal anti-matter from this very facility to build a bomb to blow up the Vatican. Thank God! we were saved by a renowned symbologist. =)
We’re definitely looking at a few Kenmore appliances, Perlogik—thanks for mentioning that big sale! I think I’ll be taking advantage of that.
Ugh, not this LHC-Higgs-causality-doomsday nonsense again. If the “micro black hole” thing hadn’t been mentioned, I guarantee you that no one would be even considering time travel as a cause of setbacks.