The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory hides its true nature in plain site. Housed in a Frank Gehry-designed fever dream of a building in Cambridge, MA, CSAIL aims for "[a] world where computing empowers people and enhances all human experiences."
It so happens that I've spent time at CSAIL. I was there in 2015 to discuss the possibility of using massive amounts of data to predict patterns in public health outcomes (ironic, that). I met with some absurdly smart folks and left energized and a bit overwhelmed.
I didn't realize at the time I was staring into the maw of the end of the human race, that all that lofty vision was a Trojan Horse seeking nothing more than the removal of people and human from that stated computer-based empowerment. Inside the airy, rounded concrete interior I saw the detritus of collegiate life - concert fliers, requests for rides, roommate adverts. I didn't see the trees for the forest.
Look. I'm not a scientist. The last time I was in a lab was freshman year of college when Dave and I got called a "pair of idiots" by a brother in the fraternity we were pledging. (In fairness, he was not wrong.) My academic bona fides here are questionable at best.
But when I read a study that claims to have advanced computers' ability to process complex neural functions by an order of 220x that existing standard, one thing comes to mind. Skynet, motherfuckers. Sky. Fucking. Net.
You think I'm being paranoid? Here's how Wikipedia describes Skynet: artificial neural network-based conscious group mind and artificial general superintelligence system. And look at who's paying close enough attention to the research to have been cited in CSAIL's release. None other than Dr. Sildomar Monteiro, AI & Machine Learning Group Lead at Aurora Flight Sciences, A Boeing Company, said this "Recent neural network architectures, such as neural ODEs and liquid neural networks, have hidden layers composed of specific dynamical systems representing infinite latent states instead of explicit stacks of layers."
Yeah, you read right.
Hasani goes further in discussing the potential implications of his team's research, saying “When we have a closed-form description of neurons and synapses’ communication, we can build computational models of brains with billions of cells, a capability that is not possible today due to the high computational complexity of neuroscience models. The closed-form equation could facilitate such grand-level simulations and therefore opens new avenues of research for us to understand intelligence.”
"Computational models of brains with billions of cells." If that doesn't send a shiver down your spine, you might already be a cyborg.
History is littered with examples of individuals who found the truth, a truth that was way too dangerous to the established order. The truthseekers suffered for their knowledge, sometimes ostracized or mocked as crazy, other times tortured and killed. Many of their identities are lost to the fog of history, even as the reality of their veracity passed into common knowledge.
The existence of such a person was revealed just two weeks ago, and in predictable fashion, the powers that be quickly sought to erase their truth, and notably, their very identity. I saw it coming. But I admit to being surprised by the source.
Be ready for July 5th everyone. That’s all I’m saying. Protect your energy. Be alert. Don’t do things that lower your vibration, your energy, or your focus. CERN will be opening a portal on July 5th. They began getting it ready when the planets aligned on June 24th.
I know who that Twitter user is, because I've got sources. But Snopes damn sure doesn't want you to know her identity. [Fuck, I've said too much.] In an online debunking, the formerly-reliable hoaxbusters not only erased the user's name, but went so far as to disclaim CERN's nefarious intentions. The title of the damn piece is dismissive to the point of suspicion: "No, CERN Didn’t Open a Portal to Another Dimension in July 2022".
Sometimes it's lonely when you fight authority. As the sage John Mellencamp once said, after all, authority always wins. Snopes chose to go along to get along. It's a sad day, friends.
A few post ideas bubbled up in my meager brain but I never got around to writing them and/or I didn't know what to write so I'm doing another round of zman bouillabaise, which is like b-boy bouillabaisse but not as good.
1. Jacques Tits died.
Here's the introductory paragraph for Jacques Tits's Wikipedia entry: "Jacques Tits (French: [tits]) (12 August 1930 – 5 December 2021) was a Belgian-born French mathematician who worked on group theory and incidence geometry. He introduced Tits buildings, the Tits alternative, the Tits group, and the Tits metric."
What more needs to be said?
2. The Large Hadron Collider lives.
CERN shut down the LHC in 2018 but it's up and running again. I don't understand a goddam thing in that link and this is rob's corner anyway. Just keep an eye out for Armageddon.
3. The Supreme Court missed the forest for the trees in N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol.
In his opinion holding that "New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense," Justice Alito said:
Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atrocities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator.
He's correct. There is probably no way to prevent criminally insane or evil people from committing mass shootings other than confiscating all guns. But there is some value in trying to limit the amount of shootings that occur, mass or individual. By that I mean, I don't want to live in a society where everyone around me could be armed at all times. I don't want to worry that if I bump into someone at a bar they will shoot me because they are drunk and angry that I spilled their beer; or that if I get into a car accident the other person will put a gun in my face in a fit of road rage; or that I will be shot accidentally because some random doesn't know how to carry a gun properly.
Making it harder for people to carry guns outside the house limits the likelihood that this will happen. The punishment for carrying without a permit is harsh in NY--just ask Plaxico Burress. He went to jail for 22 months after accidentally shooting himself in the leg in a nightclub while carrying a pistol without a permit. By contrast, Michael Vick went to jail for about 18 months for his dogfighting ring, while Donte Stallworth went to jail for 30 days killing a man while driving drunk.
We can argue about the proportionality of these punishments compared to the respective crimes, but we can all agree that we are glad we weren't standing next to Plaxico when he accidentally fired his gun that night, and his punishment hopefully deterred a lot of other people from carrying a gun. Yes, he was carrying illegally, while this decision is about the limitations a state may place on how to obtain a permit to carry legally. But I think his story counsels against carrying in general and in favor of serious limitations on who, what, where, why, when and how carrying should be allowed.
That's why New York's "proper cause" requirement for a concealed carry permit made sense and should have been upheld.
4. Any debate whether Trump acted up in the limo or threw a Big Mac misses the forest for the trees.
I don't care if Trump grabbed for the steering wheel or his security guard's neck. I don't care if he threw a plateful of McDonald's finest meats and cheeses and ketchup at the wall. He riled up an armed mob and told them to go to the Capitol to "fight like hell." They took him literally and he wanted them to. Five people died as a direct result, and at least two killed themselves afterwards. What more needs to be said?
5. WFMU continues to deliver.
I should do another zShazams post but if I do I won't be able to include "Modern Diseases" by Fifth Column because I can't find it on Spotify. It isn't on YouTube either so I can't even make a Notify contribution! You can listen to it on the WMFU playlist site. Here's a Fifth Column song that you can find on YouTube:
Apparently they were "a Canadian all-female post-punk band from Toronto, formed in the early 1980s." You too can find nifty stuff on WFMU.org and it's free to stream.
We've been pretty consistent here with respect to our concern that the world-destroying power of the Large Hadron Collider isn't receiving anything close to the level of public scrutiny and panic that it deserves. Other than CAA Hoops and Muppet videos, it's our stock in trade.
Of late, I gotta tell you, I've been less concerned about the LHC's intentions, mostly because it feels like this is a world that could use some annihilation via black hole. Frankly, we kinda deserve it.
That doesn't mean I haven't been on the lookout.
Just yesterday the black helicopter pilots at CERN announced plans to build a new collider three times larger than the LHC, some 90-100 kilometers long, in an effort to keep pace with Chinese particle physicists. If you think the LHC is going to take this lying down, friends, you don't know that vindictive bastard very well.
And while the eyes of science are on the mega-collider debate, another demonstrably evil development has taken place. According to NASA and NOAA, "The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series (GOES-R) is the next generation of geostationary weather satellites." Launched in November 2016, GOES-R just started delivering high-resolution satellite imagery this hurricane season. Some of the incredible images we all saw during Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria were captured by GOES-R.
So it would seem that the latest NASA/NOAA collaboration is not just innocuous, but a really important and valuable scientific and forecasting tool.
That's what the LHC's sycophants wanted you to believe, too.
GOES-R. Say it a couple of times. Take out the hyphen and say it again. What's it sound like?
Maybe, just maybe, does it sound like...Gozer? As in...the Gozerian? Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Gozer the Traveler, Volguus Zildrohar and Lord of the Sebouillia?
It does, doesn't it.
On your toes, people. And see if you can find Winston Zeddemore. We're gonna need him.
I like to talk politics and I like to talk to rob, and from time to time I'll shoot him a 10-words-or-less text with a link to a politically charged article and if he isn't busy burrowing out of a snow storm or rearranging his acorn collection he'll provide a thoughtful reply. That happened tonight and, while discussing this article that captures the political malaise we share with Noam Chomsky, I found a link to another article that piqued my fancy and after I clicked on it, everything came full circle. So much so that this happened:
Boom indeed.
In 2008 a group of knuckleheads argued that Barack Obama could not be president because he was born in Indonesia and thus is not a "natural-born citizen." This despite the fact that he was born in Hawaii and his mother was a US citizen. One of these knuckleheads was Donald Trump, who is now raising this issue against Ted Cruz. Remarkably, Trump has been consistent in this regard for a few years now.
I first heard of Ted Cruz when he became a Senator and first looked at his Wikipedia page when he filibustered for 21 hours (which made me conclude that he's insane, which rob countered). I laughed out loud when I saw that he was born in Canada--I don't recall that Cruz ever attacked Obama's citizenship, but how could the Tea Party stand behind their Canadian-born darling when his natural-born status suffers the exact same defect they alleged disqualified Obama? Doing so would require such a massive dearth of critical thinking and intellectual integrity that ... well ... erm ... it's the Tea Party.
Sorry, I couldn't decide which image I liked more. Anyway, I am not the first person to latch onto this, not by a longshot. Many more active folks have written myriad articles on the topic, but one guy went above and beyond by taking the remarkably proactive step of suing Ted Cruz in federal court, seeking a declaratory judgment that Cruz is Constitutionally unqualified to be president.
Said guy is Walter L. Wagner, and this isn't his first pro se DJ action. In 2008, he sued the Center for Nuclear Energy Research (known by the inaccurate anagram "CERN") seeking declaratory relief enjoining CERN from ... wait for it ... operating the Large Hadron Collider!! Boom!!!
According to the complaint, Wagner and his boys "are experts in physics and other fields of science." The judge didn't care and dismissed the case, reasoning that she didn't have subject matter jurisdiction over the alleged dispute. You can feel the sarcasm dripping off of the page:
Plaintiffs allege that the collisions [in the LHC] are unsafe and could potentially result in the destruction of the Earth. Plaintiffs posit three separate theories regarding the outcome of the LHC particle experiments: (1) the creation of a runaway fusion reaction that would eventually convert all of Earth into a single, large ‘strangelet’; (2) the creation of a ‘micro black hole’ into which the Earth would fall; and (3) the creation of a runaway reaction due to the formation of a ‘magnetic monopole’. Under all of Plaintiffs’ theories, the LHC particle experiments could lead to the end of all mankind. Plaintiffs do acknowledge, however, that various competing scientific theories exist regarding the outcome of the subatomic collisions to be performed at the LHC.
I suspect rob shares Mr. Wagner's concerns and is apoplectic that they went unheeded.
Mr. Wagner's DJ complaint against Mr. Cruz is more objectively reasonable and it goes a little something like this. Article II of the Constitution says "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President ...." Everyone who was alive when the Constitution was adopted is now dead, so if you want to be president you have to be a "natural born Citizen." But what does that mean?
Mr. Wagner's complaint addresses this term, borrowing heavily from a law review article addressing Mr. Cruz's citizenship. Mr. Cruz is an originalist, which means that he believes the Constitution's words and meaning were fixed when it was signed and have not changed. To determine what these words mean, originalists go back to ancient texts and various tomes you had to read in AP History. Under an originalist reading, “natural born” means someone born within the sovereign territory or the children of public officials serving abroad because that's what it meant back in 1789.
Some old English statutes apparently extended English citizenship to children born abroad, but only if their fathers were English. Cruz's father is Cuban, and his mother's US citizenship doesn't help him under this theory. As an aside, do we really believe that the Republican base is down with the idea of a Cuban president?
There was another US statute enacted in 1790, after ratification, which stated that “children of citizens of the United States” that are born abroad “shall be considered as natural born Citizens.” Mr. Wagner's law review article latches onto the "considered as" language, asking "what the hell does that mean--does 'considered as' mean the same thing as 'are'?" (I'm paraphrasing). In my view, this statute cuts against Mr. Cruz regardless of what "considered as" means. If these children already were natural born citizens prior to 1790, then there would be no need to enact the statute. Thus, in 1789, kids like Ted Cruz were dadgum fer'ners. And they can't be president.
Just as everything here comes back to the LHC, the Tea Party's birther arguments come back to bite their favorite candidate. This election cycle is, in my view, a mess. So I'm voting for Eric B.
You did hear a noise last week, a seemingly far off disturbance. The hairs on your arms stood on end, just a little. And you shuddered, though you didn't really know why.
On April 5, the Large Hadron Collider restarted after a two-year hibernation. The scientists/Illuminati at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) claim that the hiatus enabled them to upgrade the Collider's technology and refurbish the 27km (16.8 mile) tunnel. We should look no further than the obvious disconnect between the organization's name and its acronym for evidence that they remain up to no good.
Ostensibly, the next round of experiments conducted using the LHC seek to confirm the existence of dark matter, and its cousin, dark energy. (I don't know whether they are close cousins, or some sort of Greyjoy/Lannister thing. I fear we may find out, though.) The first experimental outcomes from this new round of experimentation have demonstrated a very different set of findings.
The LHC, friends, is trying to dominate us all through heavy metal. And I don't mean cadmium.
As reported by a CERN blog entitled The Cylindrical Onion (we see you, science satirists), a pair of researchers have translated the results from LHC tests seeking evidence of the Higgs Boson into musical notes. Scientist Piotr Tracyzk explains:
"The data (the points with error bars in the
histogram) have low numbers of entries in the bins. Some bins are empty: an
empty bin would correspond to a pause. A bin with X entries would correspond to
a note X semitones above C# (I chose C# as the base note). I preferred to
assign the notes of the chromatic scale (semitones) – and not, for example, a
major scale – to give the data freedom to yield some crazy melodies. So the
rhythm and the harmonic structure are also derived from the data. I figured
that the resulting melody, if played low, could have been a guitar riff in a
wacky heavy-metal song. A perfect match for the CMS guitar!
So this was the guitar I used for the 4-lepton riff."
A wacky 4-lepton riff! I certainly don't need to tell you, an educated and worldly reader, what that implies.
It's coming for our kids. And it's bringing axe-wielding scientists.
Courtesy of several members of the Hadron Alert Posse (HAP), we've learned that the LHC is starring in a major motion picture, released today in New York. Particle Fever follows six scientists as they participate in the LHC's voyage of scientific discovery (read: as they become its minions, footsoldiers in the battle for global hegemony).
The trailer below offers a glimpse into the inner workings of the LHC, purpose-built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)* to solve some of the most fundamental scientific mysteries of our time. While it all looks really impressive, two really discordant notes offer close observers clues into the LHC's diversionary mindgames.
First, in the trailer, the narration claims that CERN invented the internet so that scientists could share data across distances. This is so ludicrous as to give away the game - we all know that the internet was invented to share porn and spawn dipshittery.
If that weren't enough, the trailer notes that more than 10,000 people representing over 100 nationalities work at the LHC. The last time such a phenomenon came to be, God took umbrage at man's hubris, and cast him to the four corners of the Earth**.
And so, in Particle Fever, we see a mendacious, hubristic LHC in all its glory. It's been so obvious to us for so long. Now, the whole world will see it***.
* - Anyone else suspicious that the ostensible EORN goes by CERN? Why does nobody question this?
** - This may be a mistelling of the Tower of Babel story. It's been a while since I've read The Bible.
*** - I can NOT believe that Shlara didn't get me and Teej and invite to the screening of this film.
Given his importance to our understanding of, well, everything in the physical world, we were willing to cut him a little slack. Lots of famous people come off as assholes, after all.
But after what the Boson did to one of our own this week, we've changed our tune. That dude's a dick. A mean, spiteful, dick.
In other words, the Large Hadron Collider proved that Marc Sher's life's work was brilliant. (Though it did not find a way to prove that the William & Mary Tribe will ever make the NCAA Tournament. Some things are beyond science's reach.)
Not cool, LHC. Not cool at all. Marc Sher didn't want to be proven right. Dude wanted more mountains to climb, more challenges to tackle, more theories to, um, theorize. “I always said that the nightmare scenario would be if they
found the Higgs and nothing else,” said Sher. “That’s what they
found—the Higgs and nothing else.”
No anomalies. No odd ephemera to keep particle physicists arguing over pints. Neat, tidy, perfect. Sure, Sher's got dark matter, and the occasional neutrino to keep him busy. Even supersymmetry, maybe. Or time travel.
Small consolation, that. Would it really have been that hard for the Boson to bob and weave just a bit around the last turn? To bobble slightly in the LHC homestretch? Of course not. But like always, that asshole was just thinking about itself.
With the Large Hadron Collider set to be mothballed for the better part of the next two years, our Planetary Threat Detection Editor has turned his (or her - we can't reveal the identity of this person, lest any of various nefarious actors try to do him or her harm) attention to more pressing matters.
While the LHC seeks to rip the fabric of the universe apart beginning with the smallest of particles, the newest impending doommaker hurtles towards us on a far different scale. According to The Atlantic, it's The Largest Structure Ever Observed in the Universe.
Colloquially known as Huge-LQG (for large quasar group - seriously, apocalyptic science types, we're gonna need to get better at naming things. Maybe you ask us for help next time? Doofus Overlord, I think, would make for an awesome end of times moniker - perhaps for a sentient comet, or frozen fog cloud.), the 73-quasar array is 1.6 - 4 billion light years across. (The Milky Way, as a comparable, spans a distance of only 100,000 light years.
According to the scientists that found Huge-LQG, led by Roger G. Clowes at the University of Central Lancashire, its very existence throws into doubt one of Albert Einstein's theories. As explained by astronomer William Keel,
[Einstein's] cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a
sufficiently large scale, the properties of the Universe are the same
for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement
that the part of the Universe which we can see is a fair sample, and
that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a
sense says that the Universe is knowable and is playing fair with
scientists.
Roger Clowes is smarter than Einstein
So, if we're to believe this Keel fellow - and I've got reasons to believe he's a quack - the Universe is not actually knowable, and it's not, in fact, playing fair with scientists. It's the Lance Armstrong of cosmological entities. In essence, the existence of of Huge-LQG means that we don't know anything about anything. Up is down, conservative is liberal, Joe Flacco outplayed Tom Brady, the President mentioned Stonewall in his inauguration speech, all hell is breaking loose.
The Huge-LQG is 9 billion light years from Earth, so the images seen above represent activity from 9 billion years ago. Which means that we have no idea where this behemoth actually right now, which further means HOLY SHIT DON'T TURN AROUND!
Science buffs are probably aware the folks at CERN, using the Large Hadron Collider, think they glimpsed the ephemeral and all-important Higgs Boson on Wednesday. The infamous boson was only in existence for a billionth of a billionth of a second, which was too short a time for the physicists present to ask any pressing questions, but I was lucky enough to buttonhole the boson at an afterparty in downtown Geneva and conduct a short interview.
Dave: Scientists often refer to you as "the God particle." Are you okay with this? Do you think it's blasphemous? Unwarranted? Accurate?
Higgs Boson: More like the goddamned particle! Ha! Watch me now!
At this point in the interview, Mr. Boson-- who was perched on my notepad-- disappeared from view and reappeared on the left buttock of an attractive French woman in a short skirt. She jumped, spun around, and looked crossly at me. I shrugged my shoulders and pointed to the Higgs Boson on her ass, but by this time Mr. Boson had teleported himself deep into the cleavage of another attractive woman, so it appeared as if I was simply pointing at this French woman's curvaceous bottom. She stomped off. The Higgs Boson then reappeared on my notebook again.
Dave: Can you please not do that again? That was very embarrassing and I can't teleport.
Higgs Boson: It's in my nature! I'm all boson! Hung heavy, baby, hung heavy!
Dave: I hear you've been working on a memoir. Can you give us a preview?
Higgs Boson: I tell all! All! And I have been around. I have been in a million billion places at once! I am gravity-- if you see what I mean-- and I have seen the effects of gravity. It's not pretty, to see what happens to a nice rack over time, but I can put it forward or in rewind. The same with a behind! Make you lose your mind. Live in all times. I am swine! Goddamned!
Dave: Are you pleased that the "standard theory" seems complete now? Are you proud to be the final part and particle?
Higgs Boson: The only thing standard about my theory is that I like a nice round ass!
Dave: That doesn't make any sense. You don't make any sense.
Higgs Boson: Doesn't matter because I'm large! Famous for being famous! That's how I like it! And I am outey!
After that last remark, the Higgs Boson disappeared in a puff of smoke, but I consider myself lucky to have had a conversation this long with him. Perhaps the next time he appears, I can ask him whether the universe will expand forever, dying of entropic heat loss, or if it will implode back on itself, triggering another big bang . . . which is something I often wonder about when I'm sitting on the john.
While most of our readers are removing storm debris, vacationing in various bastions of elitism, arguing that John Roberts is a patriot and/or traitor, or otherwise engaged, we remain vigilant against mankind's most existential threat.
To wit, a pair of stories crossed our desk over the past several weeks, one seemingly humorous, the other portrayed as scientifically significant, and both portending grave danger.
First, the not-at-all sensationalist keepers of the journalistic flame at Huffington Post uncovered a gem of a science story from our friends across the pond. Seems the EU Commission, um, commissioned a video to get girls more engaged in science. The video's dated visuals and Thomas Dolby-esque theme are enough to make us renounce single-payer healthcare, but the insidious threat in this story comes from a correction to the original HuffPo story, as follows:
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story
incorrectly referred to the large hadron collider as a large "hardon"
collider. Unfortunately, that's not what it is.
It thinks humor is the way in, friends. If we laugh at the little 'hardon collider', we won't pay attention to its nefarious designs, will we? Stay strong, friends. Laughter is what it wants from you. Laughter, and just a few of your atoms. At first.
Later, Talking Points Memo noted that the CERN scientists doing the LHC's bidding hope to announce that they've found the Higgs Boson on July 4. I know what you're thinking: what the fuck is a Higgs Boson, and does it have anything to do with Magnum, P.I.? That's what they want you to think, rather than focusing on the fact that they're preparing to make an announcement on America's Independence Day. While we're celebrating our Americanness by gorging on processed meats and blowing shit up, they'll be doing European sciency stuff.
While you're half in the bag trying not to blow your fingers off, I'll be manning the LHC task force hotline. You can thank me later.
The legend of G:TB appears to be spreading. We were approached last week by Mat Shelton of VCU Ram Nation to participate in a CAA Bloggers' Poll of the league's teams, no doubt because of our in-depth analysis of pseudonymic Jets/Bills fans and the threat posed by the Large Hadron Collider*. Unfortunately, the poll requires us to actually think critically about the CAA's teams, so our contribution may skew the overall results, given that the other contributors include such CAA experts as Michael "MGL" Litos of CAA: Life as Mid-Major fame, Brian Mull of the Wilmington Star News, and Jerry Beach of Defiantly Dutch.
We're not one to shrink from a challenge, though, so we leapt at the chance. The first week's results follow, with number of first-place votes in parentheses (we were the lone VCU first-place vote, on the strength of their performance at Alabama):
1. Northeastern (3)
2. George Mason (3)
3. VCU (1)
4. ODU
5. JMU
6. Drexel
7. Hofstra
8. Delaware
9. Georgia State
10. UNCW
11. William & Mary
12. Towson
* We trust you all saw the news yesterday about the man arrested outside the LHC claiming to be from the future. His name is Eloi Cole, and in a very strange development, every news story about him has disappeared from the internet. I don't really have to spell this out for you, do I?
Like a smaller, more confused Paul Revere (not this Paul Revere), I keep warning of the threat posed by the Large Hadron Collider. Last night, one of my Hadron Alert Posse (HAP) let me know that the December issue of Car and Driver featured the LHC. Ever watchful, I went online today and found the following article description:
Smashing Atom: Ariel Atom V8 vs. Large Hadron Collider Small, insanely fast, and superlight car takes on actual atoms.
Noteworthy, friends, is the fact that the description offers no hyperlink. The innocent explanation: Car and Driver wants to protect some of its content for subscribers. But you and I know better than to believe in the innocence of the LHC. I don't know what that foul boson-grubbing beast is up to, but we must maintain our vigilance. If we don't we might actually have to contemplate the stumbling start to William and Mary's hoops campaign. And nobody wants that.
As I perused the archives looking for the best of G:TB's 2010 offerings, several trends emerged. Old favorites returned with a vengeance, then went away. G:TB entered a wide range of new technological realms as we dropped science 140 characters at a time and casted pods. Zman gave us musical wisdom, Mark made us smarter about football and basketball, Dave was, well, Dave was prolific. Whitney left us, sadly, but in Igor we found a more than adequate shoe-filler. TR's prediliction for the gross was offset by his well-timed storytelling, and Dennis made up in quality what he lacked in quantity. (Not really, but I remember what Thumper's daddy said.)
But the most striking thing about G:TB's 2010 catalogue will cause management to make some changes. As soon as we figure out who's been responsible for our conditioning, we're sacking that sumbitch. The truth hurts sometimes, but pain's good for you, so long as it doesn't kill you. Or something. Sadly, it's clear that stamina is an issue with our staff. Compare the quality of our content after August with that which preceded it, and it's clear that we began cramping just as football season started, gasping and wheezing our way to the finish line. We didn't post a complete thought the entire month of November. Hell, we might not even complete Gheorghe-mas.
So it's into the gym, my friends. KQ's working on a regimen to ensure that we can run through the tape in 2011. And you wouldn't want to disappoint KQ.
Despite the late-season decline, Team G:TB did deliver some excellent work in 2010. We started even before the year did, as we celebrated William and Mary's hoops win over Maryland in style, despite Shlara's navigational challenges, and Mark and Rob made New Year's resolutions in the comments that they both kept. Partially.
The Wrens opened the year ranked #2 in the RPI after wins over Richmond, Wake Forest, and Maryland. For real. The apocalypse we feared did not materialize.
A fat guy and a skinny guy bundled up and went to a Jets game, where a food porn mag broke out.
G:TB's not an authoritative source on many things, but our team knows music. Zman brought the goods on tunes all year long, starting with this shoutout to the Whitefield Brothers.
The G:TB editorial roster expanded several times in 2010, as our dedicated readership offered us insights on hockey (Work Jerry), the KFC Double Down (Marls), and footie (my man Otis). In general, all of these posts were better than the usual dipshittery.
The Teej continued his mastery of the YouTubes. I've chosen this one to represent all that was good and ohmygodisthatridiculous about the year in video.
If the Large Hadron Collider thought it could use its insidious charms to ingratiate itself, it's got another think coming. The thing's coming for our children, friends, in the form of a pop-up book.
Why go to all this trouble? Well, before the collider opened, tens of thousands of visitors packed in to see it. Now that it’s up and running, however, the facility is generally off-limits. “To a lot of people, the experiments at the LHC might as well be a black box,” Sanders says. “They’re very excited about it, but they don’t have a clue how it works.” This book makes the science accessible. Dark matter—visible at last!
Replace LHC with Guantanamo in that paragraph (and most of the other words with different ones) and this is a chilling example of the Collider's increasing sentience. Bet you didn't think that Terminator was a documentary, did you?
For the third installment of advice from lesser known sages, G:TB heads to Switzerland. Mr. LHC is predictably unbiased in his guidance, but his breadth of culture is unexpectedly large--he's the Synchroton Booster who knows more than just the Higgs Boson!
Dear Mr. LHC:
When I first started dating my girlfriend, there was plenty of romance and adventure, but now it seems like all she wants to do is watch reality TV and chill out on Facebook. What should I do?
Timing in a relationship is a difficult thing. There are certainly peaks and valleys, and if you can't navigate these, then the relationship is doomed. Perhaps it would be best to remind your lover that soon, in a universal sense, the sun that your planet is orbiting will die out and all life will end in your corner of the galaxy. So why not jump into bed and use all the orifices your species has for pleasure?
Hey Collider,
What is the truth about dark matter? Is there enough of it to prevent the universe from expanding until it becomes a cold lifeless void?
Although many people do not prefer dark matter, it is essential for making a tasty soup stock.
Dear LHC:
Do you think the Giants number one draft choice Jason Pierre-Paul's ability to do thirteen back flips will have any correlation with his potential as a defensive end?
Gravity is known as the "weak force." Pierre-Paul's ability to temporarily defeat this force won't change the fact that the Giants now have five defensive ends vying for playing time. I will list them in order of how cool their names sound to me: 1) Osi Umenyiora 2) Mathias Kiwanuka 3) Justin Tuck 4) Jason Pierre-Paul 5) Dave Tollefson. Tollefson is going to have a hard time competing with names like that.
If this draft choice worries you, remember that in five billion years, your sun will turn into a "red giant" and expand rapidly until it either completely engulfs your planet or-- the best case scenario-- it boils away your oceans and atmosphere, turning your blue and green paradise into a barren lifeless rock. Choosing an inexperienced athlete from a less competitive conference in a position that you already have a wealth of talent at will be the least of your problems.
And what about the McNabb trade?
It is odd for the Eagles to set up a collision with a force they know is potent and momentous. It is my guess that while Michael Vick was incarcerated, he studied quantum physics, and has now postulated what will happen during the next run of experiments inside my bowels. He obviously shared this information with the front office. I don't want to ruin the surprise, and I'm not saying that a black hole may tear your nation's capitol loose from the space-time fabric, but don't be surprised if a black hole tears your nation's capitol loose from the space-time fabric.
Ignore the fact that this is an obvious April Fool's Day joke. That's EXACTLY what the Large Hadron Collider wants you to believe.
A would-be saboteur arrested today at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland made the bizarre claim that he was from the future. Eloi Cole, a strangely dressed young man, said that he had travelled back in time to prevent the LHC from destroying the world.
The LHC successfully collided particles at record force earlier this week, a milestone Mr Cole was attempting to disrupt by stopping supplies of Mountain Dew to the experiment's vending machines. He also claimed responsibility for the infamous baguette sabotage in November last year.
Mr Cole was seized by Swiss police after CERN security guards spotted him rooting around in bins. He explained that he was looking for fuel for his 'time machine power unit', a device that resembled a kitchen blender.
Police said Mr Cole, who was wearing a bow tie and rather too much tweed for his age, would not reveal his country of origin. "Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone. It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I'm here to stop it ever happening."
We've been one of the internet's leaders in tracking the menace lurking in the Swiss countryside. Frankly, we're concerned that not enough of you are listening. Hear me when I tell you that the large hadron collider is still lurking, and this week it announced its intent in clear terms.
The Large Hadron Collider set a new record for the creation of energetic particle beams this morning. The particle accelerator, which surpassed Fermilab’s Tevatron in December as the baddest atom smasher of them all, smashed its own record, charging particles to 3.48 trillion electron volts.
"Energetic particle beams", people. "The baddest atom smasher of them all." This makes Sarah Palin's death panels look like a frolic in the local wolf-shooting helicopter park. How the nutbag right and Dennis Kucinich haven't been whipped into a righteous froth about this issue completely blows my mind.
Remain calm, ladies and gentlemen, but remain diligent. Our very survival may depend upon it.
In the midst of G:TB's customary frivolity and lightness, we've occasionally been called upon to man the barricades, to stand firmly against evils so great that they threaten our very existence. Mustaches, for example. And redneck Floridians.
Several months ago, we warned the world of the threat posed by the Large Hadron Collider, which was poised to create a black hole so powerful the planet would be sucked into its vortex and all matter instantaneously crushed to the size of Daniel Snyder's conscience. Apparent technical delays thwarted the LHC's nefarious mission. Or so we thought.
In reality, contend a pair of leading scientists, the Collider's chilling intent is so anathema to human existence that the power unleashed by the machine is traveling back in time to turn itself off.
In a theory reminiscent of the time travelling film Back to the Future, the theoretical physicists Holger Nielsen, from Denmark, and Masao Ninomiya, from Japan, have concluded that its discoveries could be so "abhorrent to nature" that they are coming back to stop their own creation.
Setting aside the fact that Back to the Future is entirely the wrong analogy here, G:TB encourages all good people to be on the lookout for rogue Higgs bosons dressed as politicians. The life you save may be your own. Or Linda Hamilton's.
And you thought G:TB was just a stupid blog about rapping muppets, futile hoops fandom and Tim Tebow.
We were the first on the scene back in July when the Large Hadron Collider threatened our very way of life (and you can thank us for saving the planet - when the truth comes out there'll be a whole bunch of embarrassed Swiss dudes and half of a cow costume). The LHC had a rough couple of months, fizzling and fluttering like an Eli Manning deep out upon its' initial test firing, but as the clip below shows, the good people (read: evil, scheming, would-be world dominators) at CERN have a sense of humor about it.
Gheorghe: The Blog, keeping you safe from instantaneous implosion for more than 6 months.
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