Reed Me : intelligence

I think I’ve read that one. By Haldeman, right?

reedme — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:09:31 GMT

Would somebody please turn on the Large Hadron Collider so we can just end the debate? One way or another? Srsly? It might solve some other problems, too. *snicker* In short, a new paper says that the reports of the probable demise of black holes created by the LHC are greatly exaggerated (off by a half a second or more). Heh. Sounds familiar...

Joe Haldeman staged his “Forever Peace” novel around the possibility that an übercollider being built in the orbit of Jupiter could destroy all life in our solar system. (Not the only subject of purest conjecture in the novel, but I’ve been nostalgic about Haldeman’s work since I read “Forever War” as a kid.)

The book suggested that “now that we know what to look for” we can see all the other solar systems that other so-called intelligences used to inhabit before they built their own übercolliders and destroyed themselves... and only a magical mind-melding device that will make pacifists of us all can save humanity! (It’s a good book, if you like escapist scifi with remote controlled robots fighting our wars in the near future and a good bit of close up violence despite the peacenik dogma.)

Anywho, back to Reality™ where bombastic headlines and journalistic license sell advertising @ Fox News:

Casadio, Fabi and Harms think the black hole would lose out, and pass through the Earth or out of the atmosphere before it got to be a problem.

[snip]

If the worst comes to pass, and there's now a slightly greater chance that it might, at least it might explain why we've never heard from extraterrestrial civilizations: Maybe they built Large Hadron Colliders of their own.

Scientists Not So Sure 'Doomsday Machine' Won't Destroy World

I think J.D. summed it up nicely in his Sunday comic: *wibble*

Even my 10 year-old daughter laffed out loud when it was suggested that we shouldn’t proceed with experiments until we know what will happen when we do them.

Where did I put that crowbar? (Just in case!)

INSERT your.own.data INTO election.spreadsheet

reedme — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:48:11 GMT

No, this isn’t a Schneier-induced rant about electronic voting machinas… Kevin just dropped a template into Office Online for those of you who would like to model your own election results.

Simple Electoral College Election Predictor - Templates - Microsoft Office Online

You can play “Let’s pretend” to your hearts content for your favorite US presidential candidate.

Yeah, it’s just data in Excel, but it’s data, so I’m counting this as on-topic. Heh.

Watching the watchers watch with SQL Server

reedme — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:26:35 GMT

This popped up earlier this year, and I thought it was cool enough to put in the blog backlog.

How Microsoft IT Uses SQL Server 2005 to Power a Global Forensic Data Security Tool (TechNet)

Technical White Paper | IT Pro Webcast | TechNet Radio

I'm always intrigued with forensic applications. Maybe it's the ex-cop in me. Heh.

Role reversal: are neurotypicals the crippled ones?

reedme — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:41:25 GMT

Wow.

Are people with autism trapped in their own world? Or are the rest of us just trapped in ours?
The Language of Autism - Well - Tara Parker-Pope (New York Times Blog)

At risk of sounding Chomsky-esque: We humans often mistake strong linguistic communication facility [in our own language] with intelligence...