Newsworthy
The National Post thought it fitting to quote my ever-insightful contribution to the discussion about the TTC strike tonight:
On the TTC “fan page” on Facebook, posts to the wall were being made late into the night, both in anger and in defence of some transit union members.
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Adam Schwabe put it a little more simply: “NOBODY LIKES YOU.”
Glad I could contribute to the intelligent discussions.
End of the Universe is “Very Unlikely”
A couple of dudes in Hawaii are worried that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator near Geneva is going to destroy the universe, which the scientists are pretty mostly sure that this is “very unlikely.” In true American spirit, they’re filing a lawsuit to stop the LHC from operating, contending that micro black holes could be formed at the collider that would eventually swallow the Earth. Fair enough.
Even better is how flippant and dismissive the scientists are when asked to comment on the possibility:
Lisa Randall, a Harvard physicist whose work helped fuel the speculation about black holes at the collider, pointed out in a paper last year that black holes would probably not be produced at the collider after all, although other effects of so-called quantum gravity might appear.
…
Dr. Arkani-Hamed said concerning worries about the death of the Earth or universe, “Neither has any merit.” He pointed out that because of the dice-throwing nature of quantum physics, there was some probability of almost anything happening. There is some minuscule probability, he said, “the Large Hadron Collider might make dragons that might eat us up.”
(emphasis mine)
Is “anything could happen” a reasonable defense to the possibility that this thing might cause the End of the World? In any case, I can’t think of a cooler way to go and there’s always the possibility that a Hulk-esque freak accident might occur, forming a superhero/villain - so this should be fun either way. (Photo from the NYTimes, via Rocketboom)
The little joys of the Internet: typos
Here’s the number one story in Google News’ World section right now. I’ll leave the commentary up to you.
Friday Web bits
Some rather unrelated musings from around the Web on a Friday afternoon:
- RIM is blaming a software update for the crash that left many
CrackBlackBerry users with their thumbs twiddling this week. Mine still isn’t pulling in any e-mail, but I’m not complaining considering the outrageous bill Rogers sent me last week. - Hotdoll is the (bizarre/creepy/hilarious) solution to the age old problem of Sparky humping your houseguests’ legs.
- Dell encountered some serious resistance from its customers when they stopped offering Windows XP in favour of the newly launched Vista on its PCs, and were forced to bring back XP as an option. A good lesson in what happens when you try to push a rather un-necessary upgrade on your customers.
- Nissan is working on an “Intelligent Transportation System” that will warn drivers of impending pedestrian collisions by triangulating the path of the moving vehicle with the signal of the pedestrian’s cell phone using 3G networks. Cue the inevitable marketing campaign from cell phone vendors, “Keep a cell phone on you and your family members at all times, or die!!“
Have a great weekend!
Noteworthy this week
Some interesting bits to start the week:
- The Children of Hurin, pre-cursor to Lord of the Rings was completed by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son and will be released Tuesday, April 17. I’m putting this one on the list so that I can get on the Tolkein bandwagon this time before they make several blockbuster movies and everyone gets all jaded about it.
- Drive, a new show on Fox is “Lost in a car”, stars Captain Tightpants himself, Nathan Fillion and apparently doesn’t suck.
- Chaos at Virginia Tech where
2030+ students have been killed by a gunman. When is this kind of thing going to end, and why is it happening still? - Last.fm continues to be one of the most useful social tools on the Net in my eyes, and has introduced a handy events section that allows you to see shows by city, those that your friends are attending, and some that are recommended to you based on your musical tastes.
- All the cool kids are going green, and NEC is doing its part by introducing a new eco material for consumer electronics, dubbed ‘bioplastics.’ Not only does it take almost 3/4 less material to make, it’s also fossil fuel-neutral and conducts heat better for more efficient power consumption.
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Adam is a User Experience Specialist at IBM in Toronto and also produces content of all kinds around the Web.
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