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Submission + - Google attempts to allay privacy fears (thestandard.com)

Submitted by
Ian Lamont
Ian Lamont writes: "Google is in the midst of a full-court privacy effort in Washington that involves pushing consumer privacy legislation in U.S. Congress, reaching out to privacy advocates in an effort to allay concerns about its acquisition of DoubleClick, and working with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to "fine-tune online advertising principles" that the agency proposed last year. Google has been under fire in Washington in recent years — the FTC investigated the Google/DoubleClick deal and the EFF has issued warnings over Google services in the past. Is Google being sincere about these issues, or is this effort mostly paying lip service to its "do no evil" policy and an attempt to head off future clashes with policy makers?"
Television

Submission + - Torchwood Season extended trailer released (sffmedia.com)

Submitted by
bowman9991
bowman9991 writes: "Excellent clip. The BBC has released an extended trailer for Torchwood Season 2. The clip shows James Marsters, best known as Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, along with Freema Agyeman, who played Martha in Doctor Who's third season. Look's like the action will be ramped up in the second season. Can't wait."
Math

Submission + - Surfer Creates Grand Unified Theory (foxnews.com)

Submitted by
surferGuy
surferGuy writes: ""A surfer dude with no fixed address may be this century's Einstein. A. Garrett Lisi, a physicist who divides his time between surfing in Maui and teaching snowboarding in Lake Tahoe, has come up with what may be the Grand Unified Theory. That's the "holy grail" of physics that scientists have been searching for ever since Albert Einstein presented his General Theory of Relativity nearly 100 years ago. Even more remarkable is that Lisi, who has a Ph.D. but no permanent university affiliation, solves the problem without resorting to exotic dimensions, string theory or exceptionally complex mathematics." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311952,00.html"
It's funny. Laugh.

Journal Journal: Does the Flying Spaghetti Monster exist? 6

Journal by smooth wombat
It all started when supporters of Intelligent Design tried to claim a religious precept should be held on the same level as a scientific theory when it comes to Evolution. From that, the Flying Spaghetti Monster was born, somewhat in jest but also to raise the point: There's no more scientific basis for intelligent design than there is for the idea an omniscient creature made of pasta created the universe.
Space

Submission + - Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of every (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by GDI Lord
GDI Lord writes: "An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists. Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder (when he slept in a jungle yurt)... his proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics. Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles, perhaps even using the new Large Hadron Collider atom smasher that will go into action near Geneva next year... Lisi's inspiration lies in the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics, called E8 — a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan."
The Matrix

Submission + - Surfer's Theory of Everything Stuns Physicists (arxiv.org)

Submitted by
Baldrson
Baldrson writes: "The UK Telegraph reports that: A surfer dude named Garrett Lisi has come up with a new theory of everything which physicists are calling "fabulous", "incredibly beautiful", "profound" and "most compelling". Lisi's peer-reviewed paper titled "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" is being published with the New Scientist. The Telegraph article continues: "Lisi is now calculating the masses that the 20 new particles should have, in the hope that they may be spotted when the Large Hadron Collider starts up.""
Math

Submission + - Surfer stuns physicists with theory of everything (telegraph.co.uk) 1

Submitted by j823777
j823777 writes: GARRETT LISI is an unlikely individual to be staking a claim for a theory of everything. He has no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii. In winter, he heads to the mountains near Lake Tahoe, California, to teach snowboarding. Until recently, physics was not much more than a hobby.

That hasn't stopped some leading physicists sitting up and taking notice after Lisi made his theory public on the physics pre-print archive this week (www.arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770). By analysing the most elegant and intricate pattern known to mathematics, Lisi has uncovered a relationship underlying all the universe's particles and forces, including gravity — or so he hopes. Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, describes Lisi's work as "fabulous". "It is one of the most compelling unification models I've seen in many, many years," he says.
Math

Submission + - Surfer Devises 'Theory of Everything' (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
Dylan Knight Rogers
Dylan Knight Rogers writes: "Surfer dude physicist Garrett Lisi has devised a 'theory of everything' based upon the complex mathematical constructs of the 'E8'. From the article:

E8 encapsulates the symmetries of a geometric object that is 57-dimensional and is itself is 248-dimensional. Lisi says "I think our universe is this beautiful shape." What makes E8 so exciting is that Nature also seems to have embedded it at the heart of many bits of physics. One interpretation of why we have such a quirky list of fundamental particles is because they all result from different facets of the strange symmetries of E8. Lisi's breakthrough came when he noticed that some of the equations describing E8's structure matched his own. "My brain exploded with the implications and the beauty of the thing," he tells New Scientist. "I thought: 'Holy crap, that's it!'
His most interesting treatise on physics can be found here."
Math

Submission + - Surfer dude's Theory of Everything (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: NewScientist (subscription required) and others are running a story about a promising new Theory of Everything from surfer/snowboarder/physicist, Garrett Lisi. Based on a mathematical shape called E8, An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything has many in the physics community taking notice:
"Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, describes Lisi's work as "fabulous". "It is one of the most compelling unification models I've seen in many, many years," he says.
"Although he cultivates a bit of a surfer-guy image its clear he has put enormous effort and time into working the complexities of this structure out over several years," Prof Smolin tells The Telegraph.
"Some incredibly beautiful stuff falls out of Lisi's theory," adds David Ritz Finkelstein at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. "This must be more than coincidence and he really is touching on something profound."
Quickies

Submission + - Theory of everything

Submitted by wpiman
wpiman writes: A surfer has stunned the physics community by suggesting and publishing a "theory of everything". It has received some rave review from scientists. Read the paper here. What do you think?

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