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Comment Re:Is Everybody Insane??? (Score 1) 684

by spiedrazer (#26655111) Attached to: Miscalculation Invalidates LHC Safety Assurances
Sorry, I should have said a "dangerous" black hole can't be created by us. If you check out other posts you will see that a tiny compressed stable mass would most likely act like a nutrino and only absorb particles that actually touched the event horizon, which would be very very rare. So, most people don't believe that a stable concentrated mass can occur from the LHC, but if it did, it would take biollions of years to do any real damage. So again, why do people continue to act like this is news someone should care about?

Comment Is Everybody Insane??? (Score 2, Insightful) 684

by spiedrazer (#26648009) Attached to: Miscalculation Invalidates LHC Safety Assurances
A black hole CAN NOT BE CREATED By US!!! Even if several thousand atome worth of matter were smashed together into an area one millionth of an atomic nucleus, one thousand atoms worth of gravity doesn't amount to anything in the scale of the real world. even if these atoms stayed in that configuration for many seconds or minutes, they still don't have enough mass to create gravity that could start pulling in other matter, especially since the collisions are set-up in a very high vacume and all the surrounding matter (sensors etc.) are bolted very tightly to a very sturdy base. The fact that people continue to debate this issue just astounds me. A tiny bit of concentrated matter is still only a tiny bit of matter, no matter how much you consentrate it! Remember, a true black hole has the mass of a star in an area the size of a single atomic nucleus, so that's some pretty consentrated mass. You can hang a lead ball on a 2000 foot string next to a granite mountain face and only barely detect the deflection of the ball on the string. Gravity is a very weak force people.

Comment Here here! (Score 2, Interesting) 187

by spiedrazer (#26547155) Attached to: Apple Disclosures About Jobs To Face SEC Review
This is what's wrong with our country. The only thing that matters to anyone is stock price, so now the SEC needs to investigate the timing and details of a CEO health announcement??? How does that have anything to do with the long term outlook of the company. This is the most assinine thing I have ever heard.

Comment Missing the Point as Usual (Score 4, Insightful) 191

by spiedrazer (#26491205) Attached to: Violence in Games, Once Again, Not That Compelling
These studies do not say that the violence does not effect a player's aggression level. They had a completely different focus! The results show that the enjoyment of the players was not impacted by the violence level in the game!!! So, a good game is enjoyable no matter how much violence it contains. Why, then, do certain game publishers keep pushing the limits of violent content?

Comment First Exposure to Radio Waves??? (Score 1) 432

by spiedrazer (#26373061) Attached to: Hippies Say WiFi Network Is Harming Their Chakras
Yes, these are certainly morons and are they really serious? Do they think that these are the first radio waves they have been exposed to? They never complained while thier bodies were constantly bombarded with tv/radio/cellphone/cordless phone/military radar/space background radiation etc. ( not to mention all the pot & shrooms) but as soon as a wireless network fires up they all become walking antennae?
Editorial

Submission + - It's Spring, We Must be Talking about Gas Prices

Submitted by spiedrazer
spiedrazer writes: Every Spring, as Gas prices rise, consumers cry out about Oil Company conspiracies while the Oil Companies themselves trot out spokes-people to explain how they have no control over market forces. According to this article the current spike in prices is a "Big Surprise" and can be attributed to many factors, including a host of production declines due to necessary scheduled & un-scheduled maintenance.

What no-one seems to be saying clearly enough for anyone to understand is this: If the Oil Companies are making record profits in the billions and billions of dollars, don't they have the capital necessary to build appropriate refinery capacity etc. to absorb maintenance cycles without disrupting production? For example, if they had spent the money necessary to maintain the Alaska Pipeline, we wouldn't have had the major supply disruption last year now being blamed on pipeline maintenance cost-cutting . Similarly, the talking head I saw on a morning show last week stated that most maintenance needs to be done in winter because it is too hot in summer, so supply goes down and demand goes up.

So what it really comes down to is this... The Oil companies have all the money in the world to properly maintain their infrastructure and also build enough new capacity to absorb both routine and emergency maintenance, THEY JUST CHOOSE NOT TO SPEND IT! From their perspective it makes no sense to actually build a robust infrastructure capable of delivering the necessary capacity. If they do, they have to both spend money up front AND know that it will cause profits to go down in the future, because increased supply puts them on the wrong end of the supply & demand curve. They won't take any action that would reduce future profit capacity because they are ALL publicly traded companies, and public companies need to show not only profit but growth to keep share-holders happy and stock prices stable.

The only REAL solution is to de-list big oil and control prices like we used to do with electricity companies, but I don't see that happening. The problem has been made worse lately by the VERY friendly attitude of the current administration which sides with big oil on every issue. It's a wonder those poor boys can eek out a living, if you listen to the hardships of the industry from their perspective, which GW and friends are all to happy to do.

So, keep your wallets handy and know that the problem won't be solved until either the media educates the public about capacity/supply/demand etc. (doubtful) or the Government forces Big Oil to spend money on truly maintaining an appropriate infrastructure, which is also doubtful.

I'm not holding my breath for either solution. Does anyone see any others?
United States

Submission + - Gonzales actually Questions Habeas Corpus!

Submitted by spiedrazer
spiedrazer writes: In yet another attempt to create legitimacy for many of the Bush administration's questionable legal practices, US attorney General Alberto Gonzales actually had the audacity to argue that the US Constitution doesn't explicitly bestow habeas corpus rights on US citizens! In his view it merely says when the so-called Great Writ can be suspended, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the rights are granted. These statements were made while being questioned by Sen. Arlen Specter at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18

While Gonzales's statement has a measure of quibbling precision to it, his logic is troubling because it would suggest that many other fundamental rights that Americans hold dear (such as free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to assemble peacefully) also don't exist because the Constitution often spells out those rights in the negative. It boggles the mind the lengths this administration will go to to systematically erode the rights and privileges we have all counted on and held up as the granite pillars of our society since our nation was founded.

Also of note is that virtually NONE of the major news outlets seem to be covering this development! A google news search for "Gonzales Habeas Corpus" turns up only 101 hits with no major outlets listed!

You can also See Stephen Colbert's coverage including excerpts from the testimony HERE, just select the third video down on "Exact Words"

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One of the chief duties of the mathematician in acting as an advisor... is to discourage... from expecting too much from mathematics. -- N. Wiener

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