Thursday, February 15, 2007
Mating, $ and mass
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In the February 2007 issue of Discover magazine, there's a blurb in the article "The Big Bang Machine" that says (asterisks are mine):
"All matter is made of quarks... Every proton and neutron is made of three quarks. But all three quarks together account for less than 2 percent of the total mass of any proton or neutron. So where does the rest of the mass come from? Physicists ***theorize**** that each quark in every atomic nucleus is surrounded by countless 'virtual particles' that constantly emerge from the vacuum and then almost instantaneously subside into nothingness again. It is these evanescent particles that are ***thought*** to give heft to all we see and feel."
Translation: They can't account for ***98%*** of the mass of all matter... or, equally as bad, their ideas about what the various subatomic particles are made of is insanely far off. But wait, it gets BETTER; only 4% of the total mass of the universe is supposed to even BE matter... the rest is allegedly "dark matter" (23%) and "dark energy" (73%), which have never been seen, and about the construction or other properties thereof nothing is known. (cough*phlogiston*cough) This means that, if the eggheads are correct about what the total mass of the universe IS, which is absolutely open to major doubt, all we can account for is 2% of 4%, which is just .08%. SAY WHAT?!! Clearly, something is VERY wrong here; even the man who coined the term "dark energy," professor of theoretical astrophysics and cosmology Michael Turner, has said
"Perhaps the most radical idea, and the one I am pursuing now, is that there's no dark energy at all. (Remember, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.) Instead, our incomplete understanding of gravity is at fault, and when we understand it better, we'll no longer need to invoke dark energy."
Are there really THREE unknown components of total universal mass, dark matter, dark energy and whatever it is that makes up 98% of normal matter... or is there ONE substance that's responsible for all 3 of the, um, placeholders that have been voodooed into physics to make the equations come out right? What could the substance be made of? Karma's the obvious answer to ME, but you could make a case for whatever YOU believe in, such as spirits, mystical forces or God, being responsible for it; whatever you call it, for all this unknown stuff to be formed from the "forces of the unknown" that almost all humans believe in in one form or another isn't much of a leap.
If you're the sort of person who proclaims that things don't exist unless science has verified they do, keep reminding yourself that 99.02% of the universe is purportedly made of stuff they can't do more than guess at... and there's no reason to think that they've pinpointed ALL the "mystery mass" yet, either. In other words, by their own admission the best scientists can describe virtually NONE of what's around us... so what makes you think that YOU'VE got it all nailed down?
In the same issue of Discover, in "Peer Review: Outsourced Boredom," I learned about an actual, valid way that anyone can make easy $ online:
"the Amazon Turk system parcels out these countless human intelligence tasks, or 'HITs,' to willing laborers for pennies per piece. Got an Internet connection and some extra time? Hire yourself out to one of the many companies whose own computers need your human brain to complete their duties. As I write this, there are HITs available for everything from finding the address numbers in photos of houses (three cents a pop) to matching Web page URLs with the product that is supposed to appear on them (a whopping nickel each)."
Wanna give it a shot? Here's the URL:
http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
And finally: If my husband dies untimely, and I'm acquitted (lol), the article "Adventures in the Petri Dish of Love" gives information about the site I'll use to find his replacement; its main page says:
"W E L C O M E to the web home of Science Connection, the meeting place for single science professionals and others with an interest in science or nature.
Why are we here? The world is a crowded Petri dish, and yet for those of an intellectual bent who happen to be single, it's not easy, especially past university age, to find that certain microbe for a great symbiotic relationship. Enter Science Connection.
What kinds of people are members? Most members are from the United States and Canada, with small numbers from elsewhere. We have members in the physical, natural, medical and social/behavioral sciences, technology, computers/IT, and various non-sci/tech occupations, including law, teaching, business, music, and the arts. There are about equal numbers of men and women, and the age range is 20s-70s. Many members are into natural history (birding, etc.) and outdoor activities."
If you look at the sample photos of members, you'll see some geekish looking folks, yes, but plenty of "normal" ones too... not that it matters, since we're too mature and evolved to put looks over admirable mental qualities, right? If you're single, and want a partner with a brain, here's the URL:
http://www.sciconnect.com/
In the February 2007 issue of Discover magazine, there's a blurb in the article "The Big Bang Machine" that says (asterisks are mine):
"All matter is made of quarks... Every proton and neutron is made of three quarks. But all three quarks together account for less than 2 percent of the total mass of any proton or neutron. So where does the rest of the mass come from? Physicists ***theorize**** that each quark in every atomic nucleus is surrounded by countless 'virtual particles' that constantly emerge from the vacuum and then almost instantaneously subside into nothingness again. It is these evanescent particles that are ***thought*** to give heft to all we see and feel."
Translation: They can't account for ***98%*** of the mass of all matter... or, equally as bad, their ideas about what the various subatomic particles are made of is insanely far off. But wait, it gets BETTER; only 4% of the total mass of the universe is supposed to even BE matter... the rest is allegedly "dark matter" (23%) and "dark energy" (73%), which have never been seen, and about the construction or other properties thereof nothing is known. (cough*phlogiston*cough) This means that, if the eggheads are correct about what the total mass of the universe IS, which is absolutely open to major doubt, all we can account for is 2% of 4%, which is just .08%. SAY WHAT?!! Clearly, something is VERY wrong here; even the man who coined the term "dark energy," professor of theoretical astrophysics and cosmology Michael Turner, has said
"Perhaps the most radical idea, and the one I am pursuing now, is that there's no dark energy at all. (Remember, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.) Instead, our incomplete understanding of gravity is at fault, and when we understand it better, we'll no longer need to invoke dark energy."
Are there really THREE unknown components of total universal mass, dark matter, dark energy and whatever it is that makes up 98% of normal matter... or is there ONE substance that's responsible for all 3 of the, um, placeholders that have been voodooed into physics to make the equations come out right? What could the substance be made of? Karma's the obvious answer to ME, but you could make a case for whatever YOU believe in, such as spirits, mystical forces or God, being responsible for it; whatever you call it, for all this unknown stuff to be formed from the "forces of the unknown" that almost all humans believe in in one form or another isn't much of a leap.
If you're the sort of person who proclaims that things don't exist unless science has verified they do, keep reminding yourself that 99.02% of the universe is purportedly made of stuff they can't do more than guess at... and there's no reason to think that they've pinpointed ALL the "mystery mass" yet, either. In other words, by their own admission the best scientists can describe virtually NONE of what's around us... so what makes you think that YOU'VE got it all nailed down?
In the same issue of Discover, in "Peer Review: Outsourced Boredom," I learned about an actual, valid way that anyone can make easy $ online:
"the Amazon Turk system parcels out these countless human intelligence tasks, or 'HITs,' to willing laborers for pennies per piece. Got an Internet connection and some extra time? Hire yourself out to one of the many companies whose own computers need your human brain to complete their duties. As I write this, there are HITs available for everything from finding the address numbers in photos of houses (three cents a pop) to matching Web page URLs with the product that is supposed to appear on them (a whopping nickel each)."
Wanna give it a shot? Here's the URL:
http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
And finally: If my husband dies untimely, and I'm acquitted (lol), the article "Adventures in the Petri Dish of Love" gives information about the site I'll use to find his replacement; its main page says:
"W E L C O M E to the web home of Science Connection, the meeting place for single science professionals and others with an interest in science or nature.
Why are we here? The world is a crowded Petri dish, and yet for those of an intellectual bent who happen to be single, it's not easy, especially past university age, to find that certain microbe for a great symbiotic relationship. Enter Science Connection.
What kinds of people are members? Most members are from the United States and Canada, with small numbers from elsewhere. We have members in the physical, natural, medical and social/behavioral sciences, technology, computers/IT, and various non-sci/tech occupations, including law, teaching, business, music, and the arts. There are about equal numbers of men and women, and the age range is 20s-70s. Many members are into natural history (birding, etc.) and outdoor activities."
If you look at the sample photos of members, you'll see some geekish looking folks, yes, but plenty of "normal" ones too... not that it matters, since we're too mature and evolved to put looks over admirable mental qualities, right? If you're single, and want a partner with a brain, here's the URL:
http://www.sciconnect.com/
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Blogger got me!! AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was 3AM, and I'd just finished watching "Metal Mania" on VH1 Classic. I was wearily doing my last check of stuff on the laptop before going to bed, and a minute adjustment to my template occurred to me; being far too anal to put it off until the next day, I went to my Blogger account... and was forwarded to a page that informed me that I had to migrate to the new Blogger. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I tried every link I had, every way I could think of, to get around it and into my account, but all of them forwarded me to that same implacable page.
It was 3AM, and I was suddenly wide awake. Remembering all the horror stories I'd read from people who'd switched to the allegedly-no-longer-beta Blogger: The 8-10 hours of inaccessibility while the transfer took place. The destruction of template customizations and archives. The inability to put things in the sidebar. Blogs locking their owners out or just plain vanishing. I sat there, sweating, shaking, nauseous, looking at the arrow I had to click if I ever wanted to get access to my blog again, my exhausted mind reeling with visions of a wrecked site that'd take weeks of pleading with what Blogger shamelessly calls "tech support" to repair.
More hideous thoughts burst into my head; although I back up my template regularly, I'd made some alterations since the last time, and my February posts weren't archived yet. I had no way to get to the template itself, so all I could do was copy the source code; unfortunately, it mixes Blogger's "private" code with the stuff that comes up when I edit, but if I had to I could work my way through it and pick out my alterations... it was better than nothing. I copied my posts from the blog rather than from the source code to avoid having the html mixed in, saved everything... and then I was back to that page and that arrow again.
Was it possible, I wondered, that this page would go away in a while? A variety of other pages and announcements trying to coax me into risking all I'd worked so hard on for 3 years had appeared in the past, and eventually gone away... but of course none of THEM had blocked my account. I could feel my blood pressure rising into the quadruple digits as I read and re-read their claims that my template and blog would still be exactly the same after the switch, wishing that they'd ever given me reason to believe anything they say about the workings of their service (which is usually good, don't get me wrong, but when it's bad you'll never get full disclosure from them much less assistance), especially when what they were saying was contrary to the stories of countless bloggers whose descriptions of their problems with used-to-be-Beta I DO believe... and then, with my heart in my throat, I clicked on the arrow, went through the signup process for a Google account, and... made that final click to initiate the changeover.
A message came on the screen saying that it would take a minute or 2; a minute or 2 for WHAT? For the process to be fully underway? After watching the spinning circle for a few seconds, I yelled to my husband to try to bring my blog up on his computer to see what he got; he yelled back that it looked normal. I trotted down the hall to his study and asked him to reload the page; he did... and it DID look normal. Puzzled, I trotted back to the laptop... and the message on the screen said it was DONE.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!!
More re-loads and the arrival of a verification email proved that the unimaginable was true; although even within the past few days I'd noticed blog entries bemoaning the same 8-10 hour transition times that I'd seen all along, MY blog switched to the new system in less than a minute... and, as far as I can tell, without causing any problems whatsoever with the site or my ability to access and use my account. :-O
To say that I was relieved was like saying that Dracula dislikes the sun; ditto for my degree of amazement and confusion. I'm more grateful than words can express to have been spared the horrors endured by so many of our brethren, but...? Did they just in the past day or so figure out how to do the conversions quickly and properly? Was my blog a special case because I don't have an imported template design, commenting or images in my posts? Whatever the reason, I always said I wouldn't move to Beta/New until I was forced to, and my reward for that was to avoid the sufferings of those who were inexplicably eager to embrace it; I still feel bad for what they went through, but this experience demonstrates why it's smartest, and safest, to jump into a new system as late in the game as possible.
What do I think of the new setup? I'm of the "solid content in the simplest possible framework" school of blogging, so I've got no use for the new stuff Blogger's added; since I dislike having controls that I'll never use glopping up my screen, I'm not fond of the more complex arrangement I'm stuck with now. Function-wise, the spellchecker, which hasn't worked for my operating system and browser combo for ages, has NOT been fixed, and having the "View" link for each entry right next to the "Edit" link will undoubtedly lead to many inadvertent false hits to my blog counter; overall, as is usually the case when "improvements" are rolled out, the new design is worse than the old... too bad they didn't give the option of keeping the old controls with "new Blogger."
Still, I'm sure that most people WILL like having more elaborate controls, since ever-fancier layouts are clearly preferred by the bulk of the blogosphere, so I won't bitch too much; however, despite my luckily trouble-free "upgrade," I'm going to stay very unhappy about Blogger's inexplicable, and INEXCUSABLE, failure to WARN me that transition would be enforced by a certain day and time so I could be prepared for it. Since Blogger's being secretive about how they're handling this, pass the word around; those still on "old Blogger" are subject to being strong-armed into transferring with zero notice... and let's just hope they share my good fortune and it's quick and painless when the time comes.
It was 3AM, and I was suddenly wide awake. Remembering all the horror stories I'd read from people who'd switched to the allegedly-no-longer-beta Blogger: The 8-10 hours of inaccessibility while the transfer took place. The destruction of template customizations and archives. The inability to put things in the sidebar. Blogs locking their owners out or just plain vanishing. I sat there, sweating, shaking, nauseous, looking at the arrow I had to click if I ever wanted to get access to my blog again, my exhausted mind reeling with visions of a wrecked site that'd take weeks of pleading with what Blogger shamelessly calls "tech support" to repair.
More hideous thoughts burst into my head; although I back up my template regularly, I'd made some alterations since the last time, and my February posts weren't archived yet. I had no way to get to the template itself, so all I could do was copy the source code; unfortunately, it mixes Blogger's "private" code with the stuff that comes up when I edit, but if I had to I could work my way through it and pick out my alterations... it was better than nothing. I copied my posts from the blog rather than from the source code to avoid having the html mixed in, saved everything... and then I was back to that page and that arrow again.
Was it possible, I wondered, that this page would go away in a while? A variety of other pages and announcements trying to coax me into risking all I'd worked so hard on for 3 years had appeared in the past, and eventually gone away... but of course none of THEM had blocked my account. I could feel my blood pressure rising into the quadruple digits as I read and re-read their claims that my template and blog would still be exactly the same after the switch, wishing that they'd ever given me reason to believe anything they say about the workings of their service (which is usually good, don't get me wrong, but when it's bad you'll never get full disclosure from them much less assistance), especially when what they were saying was contrary to the stories of countless bloggers whose descriptions of their problems with used-to-be-Beta I DO believe... and then, with my heart in my throat, I clicked on the arrow, went through the signup process for a Google account, and... made that final click to initiate the changeover.
A message came on the screen saying that it would take a minute or 2; a minute or 2 for WHAT? For the process to be fully underway? After watching the spinning circle for a few seconds, I yelled to my husband to try to bring my blog up on his computer to see what he got; he yelled back that it looked normal. I trotted down the hall to his study and asked him to reload the page; he did... and it DID look normal. Puzzled, I trotted back to the laptop... and the message on the screen said it was DONE.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!!
More re-loads and the arrival of a verification email proved that the unimaginable was true; although even within the past few days I'd noticed blog entries bemoaning the same 8-10 hour transition times that I'd seen all along, MY blog switched to the new system in less than a minute... and, as far as I can tell, without causing any problems whatsoever with the site or my ability to access and use my account. :-O
To say that I was relieved was like saying that Dracula dislikes the sun; ditto for my degree of amazement and confusion. I'm more grateful than words can express to have been spared the horrors endured by so many of our brethren, but...? Did they just in the past day or so figure out how to do the conversions quickly and properly? Was my blog a special case because I don't have an imported template design, commenting or images in my posts? Whatever the reason, I always said I wouldn't move to Beta/New until I was forced to, and my reward for that was to avoid the sufferings of those who were inexplicably eager to embrace it; I still feel bad for what they went through, but this experience demonstrates why it's smartest, and safest, to jump into a new system as late in the game as possible.
What do I think of the new setup? I'm of the "solid content in the simplest possible framework" school of blogging, so I've got no use for the new stuff Blogger's added; since I dislike having controls that I'll never use glopping up my screen, I'm not fond of the more complex arrangement I'm stuck with now. Function-wise, the spellchecker, which hasn't worked for my operating system and browser combo for ages, has NOT been fixed, and having the "View" link for each entry right next to the "Edit" link will undoubtedly lead to many inadvertent false hits to my blog counter; overall, as is usually the case when "improvements" are rolled out, the new design is worse than the old... too bad they didn't give the option of keeping the old controls with "new Blogger."
Still, I'm sure that most people WILL like having more elaborate controls, since ever-fancier layouts are clearly preferred by the bulk of the blogosphere, so I won't bitch too much; however, despite my luckily trouble-free "upgrade," I'm going to stay very unhappy about Blogger's inexplicable, and INEXCUSABLE, failure to WARN me that transition would be enforced by a certain day and time so I could be prepared for it. Since Blogger's being secretive about how they're handling this, pass the word around; those still on "old Blogger" are subject to being strong-armed into transferring with zero notice... and let's just hope they share my good fortune and it's quick and painless when the time comes.
