Article From Tech Free Press

Here's an article by Mike Zazaian, originally published on the Tech Free Press site, here. It came out on September 12, 2006. Sorry, it's so old. I found the article on a google search on supercolliders and I only looked at the September 12th part .

Make sure you read this article before reading the post entitled, "Mike Zazaian, Are You For Real?".

Title: "World's Largest Supercollider Could Destroy the Universe"

As the Cernier company prepares to test the world’s largest supercollider physicists express concern that too much is being left to chance.

The Cernier Company or CERN, the world’s largest physics research firm, is currently in the process of building what would be the world’s largest working supercollider. Known as “Large Hadron Collider,” or LHC, the device is 27 kilometers (16.7 miles) long and resides in a tunnel approximately 100 meters beneath the Franco-Swiss border, just outside of Geneva.

By accelerating protons toward each other at 99.999999% the speed of light the LHC can recreate conditions similar to those that resulted from the Big Bang, ultimately alighting a great deal about the particles and forces that comprise our Universe. A press release from CERN better illuminates their intent for the project:

…Our current understanding of the Universe is incomplete. We have seen that the theory we use, the Standard Model, leaves many unsolved questions. Among them, the reason why elementary particles have mass, and why are their masses different is the most perplexing one. It is remarkable that such a familiar concept is so poorly understood.

LHC functions by accelerating two counter-rotating beams of protons toward each other at high speeds. By cooling magnets to near absolute zero (-273 degrees celcius) with an enormous cryogenics system, the LHC can move particles toward each other at speeds only one millionth of a percent away from the speed of light.

And while Physicists have the logistics of the LHC well in hand ideas about its outcome are strictly theoretical. According to one scenario tiny black holes could be produced which hopefully would decay into what is known as Hawking radiation (the tinier the black hole, the faster it evaporates). If these black holes fail to decay, however, the consequences could be disasterous. CERN software developer Ran Livneh has expressed some concerns about the project:

This physical realm is unknown, and dangerous phenomena might arise…Any physicist will tell you that there is no way to prove that generated black holes will decay. The consequences of being mistaken are unfathomable. This subject deserves serious unbiased discussion.

Despite these theoretical discrepencies the LHC project will continue as scheduled toward its launch in 2007. Mankind has never progressed itself due to fear of the unknown. Although the results of the Large Hadron Collider could potentially be disasterous, the intellectual consequences of not conducting the experiment could be equally so.

Step One

Okay, I guess tonight offered up the completion of step one in this months goals. I finished the second draft of Part One. I ended up recycling quite a bit of one section so things finished up pretty quickly. Tomorrow I'll give one last go through and ship it.

After that, I decided to get for a bit. I walked down to the Monte Carlo and back. There's nothing special about that particular casino, I just opted to go the bathroom in there and turned for home when I left. It was a nice three hour walk.

While on this walk I started listening to Book Three: Destruction, by J.C. Hutchins. It was the first time I've used my .mp3 player, well second really. I've only had it about a week and I need to get more comfortable ear plugs for it. The ones that come with the gizmo have buds that are too big for my ear. In fact, I can't imagine they aren't too big for most people's ears. I can understand shipping cheap ear buds, It's an expensive accessory they can bleed you for later, but there has to be stuff out there equally cheap that is usable by more people. I guess they'd fear that too many like me would just live with the cheap stuff. Oh well.

I've also decided to give up caffeine for a few weeks. I've been using it too much lately and it's time to kick it for a while. Just in time, I can nap for the weekend. I guess that's it for now. I'm going to get back to listening to my book.

Another Six Months Gone

I'm still a little jittery as I type this. My breakfast of Ramen noodles washed down with two liters of Mountain Dew has probably just cost me another six months out of my seventies, but it did result in a pretty good night of writing. I wrote 1048 prior to midnight and proceeded to write another 1454 after midnight. Since I have a PhD in throwing out a random numbers, I'll say about 35% was recycled material from the old chapter three.

I had hoped to keep the second draft of part one to three chapters totaling about 15,000 words, but with the project being serialized, it seems to present itself a little better as four chapters. This is because it is best if a chapter ends with a climax to a situation or a small cliffhanger of sorts, so I felt compelled to break up chapter 3 into two smaller chapters. I am also going to go over my word limit, but not enough to be of a concern, maybe 17 or 18 thousand words. It is the first part of the series after all and some things need explanation that won't be needed later.

I guess my readjusted goals are to finish chapter four tomorrow. Do a quick edit of the four chapters on Saturday, maybe on into Sunday and then ship it off to Cullen. I guess I'll get to see what he'll let me get away with in a couple weeks. Literally, I will be able to physically see him, so he can rap me on the noggin for the stupid parts.

What do I mean by that?

Kim has offered to buy me a plane ticket to Albany for my birthday. (Despite my requests for no presents.) The timing was a little too good to pass up seeing as I will be at a down point in my writing, and an upswing in my job hunting efforts. It'll be good to head onto SUNY's campus for an afternoon to hit up some of my old teacher's for recommendations in person. (Actually, I'll email them in advance, but whatever, I'll still visit. Gotta do the whole pollyticking and kiss ass thingy.)

Of course, more importantly, I'll get the opportunity to visit all my friends in Albany that I've missed. I know, from time to time, I get cheesy and talk about how wonderful my friends are and how I wouldn't be where I am without them. And I don't mean just my friends in Albany. I mean all of them, and my family too.

Cheesy or not, it's true. All the way on the other side of the country, they've been the driving force I've needed to keep myself going during this project. They've been so supportive, not doing my best and not managing to accomplish as much as I have, would not have been a failure to just myself. I would have failed all of them as well.

Sadly, I bring myself to tears when I write about such things. Not as bad as when I wrote that letter to Vicki and her husband about what a terrible friend I am and then attached it to their wedding gift. I think I was at my worst for that one. I actually had to stop and finish a few hours later. I'm such a softy when it comes to my friends.

It's embarrassing...

A Moment of Silence

...

The Days of Yore

Someone on my alien guild's website posted the following question:

If you could live in a different time period of the past, what would it be?

Rather than explaining that the proper phrasing should be, "when would it be?" I responded with the following:

I like the present just fine. I wouldn't want to live in the past where a nick on the face while shaving could wind up becoming infected, thus causing your own death.

Seriously, this was not uncommon before the inventing of antibiotics just last century!

There is little nostalgia in the past. People don't seem to think about how tough times were back then compared to now. It was not a simpler time.

If anything, I'd want to go to the future. Who doesn't want to see if mankind can solve the Riemann Hypothesis before we destroy ourselves?

I left my response at that, but I could have gone on and on. I have never been able to figure out this desire people have for going back in time. They act like the old west, was Little House on the Prairie. People ought to be thankful that wasn't filmed in authentic smell-o-vision because a one room log cabin with a dirt floor occupied by 5 or 6 people who do not bathe every day is just not going to smell like a bouquet of flowers, no matter how loving and caring they pretend to be.

Modern people would enjoy that nonsense for about one day. After they realize they have to go to bed once it's dark out because there's no electricity and you can't always afford candles and oil for lamps, much less stay up late to watch whatever flick is on the idiot box, they'd be longing for their creature comforts. I'm not even going to discuss outhouses and the historic uses for the Sears, Roebuck catalog.

What exactly is the allure of "the old days"? Pick any time in history prior to 1950 (chosen rather arbitrarily since most people romanticize time periods well before their own lifetimes) and try to convince me that those days were better?

Sorry, the power of prayer didn't do anything back then to help a person's health any more than it does now. I'll stick with modern medicine and all it's flaws thank you very much.

My sister claims that buying Cottonelle toilet paper is a form of pampering oneself and the fact that I buy the rather efficient Scott brand with a 1000 sheets per roll is a sign that I don't know how to pamper myself. I disagree. I pamper myself just fine. I mean look at me, I'm over indulgence personified. It's just when I decide I'm going to pamper myself, I don't start with my asshole. Out of sight, out of mind I suppose. I'd like to see her make that same argument in the days before the Sears, Roebuck catalog. (Oops! I guess I did get into it.)

I got great idea! Why don't we strap our fat asses to a horse and take a quick ride to the next town over and back. It shouldn't take much more than the whole day! Sounds romantic to me.

Book Two(s)

No, not MY book two. I just started listening to Book Two: Deceit, by J.C. Hutchins. I mentioned the first book, Descent, as the first podiobook I was listening to and since I decided was taking today off from writing, I figured I may as well take the time to continue the story. I may yet do a little writing, but I won't be forcing the issue.

I've been careful to listen to the presentation and such while at the same time I've been paying attention to the actual story elements. Essentially, I've been trying to make sure the backbone of my own story holds up. I think it should be fine.

In my last post, I said something about having had to make an effort to find things to do last week. I failed to mention that I did read two books, but they were for enjoyment. The stories were light and much ado about nothing. Just the type of brain rotting candy I was looking for. Alas, I have still not read through, The Scar by China Mieville. I said something about the book a couple of months ago, but haven't made it past page 38. I'm not sure why I am finding this book so much harder to stick with compared to the first one. (That's another "book two" reference by the way. Just in case you missed it.)

I haven't mentioned the weather in some time, but you'll see why I'm mentioning it now in a couple paragraphs. I had been hoping the hot weather would start to break, but it has not. Daily highs are still in the 100-105 range and the overnight lows about 80-85. A few times it has slipped into the upper '70s.

Today it rained. One of those big cooling rains. It's about 80 right now and it is only 7pm. I have my fan sitting in my foxhole (I can't seem to bring myself to call an exit that lies underground, so that my chest height is at true ground level, a balcony) blowing in fresh air. It's a nice change from all that air conditioning.

I am curious to see if my nose manages to make the final adjustment. My nasal passages just don't seem to be able to take this dry air and I get minor nose bleeds every day. I was hoping after six months I would have gotten used to it, and it would have gone away, but it hasn't. I am constantly blowing blood out of my nose. I know what is going on biologically and it's nothing to worry about, but it is getting annoying. It also tells me that I probably wouldn't be able to live out here indefinitely. If it's annoying me after six months, it'll probably drive me insane after a few years. Or maybe I just have to wait for more temperate weather.

Alrighty then, I guess I'll get back to listening to the podiobook and finish preparing my next set of stuff to be mailed out. It's getting close to that time again.

TWIB Notes

This Week In Blogging's Notes!

Okay, so the title is originally take from a show called This Week in Baseball and they had a segment called TWIB notes. I didn't figure anyone would get the reference. Maybe Matt or Cullen...

It took about 5 days for Kim to post a comment about my lack of blogging. I knew it'd be less than a week, but was unsure exactly how long it would take her. Now I know.

Of course, my silence was no grand experiment. I simply decided to take the week off, mostly, as a reward for doing so well the last two months and didn't bother to blog about it. I also found it to be an exhaustive week. I am not enjoying the rewriting process. If it were edits, I'd enjoy the efforts much more because it's a sign of progress. These rewrites makes me feel like I'm starting over from scratch.

In reality, I am. The rewrite of the first chapter recycled mere sentences. It was 4500 words of completely new material that I had already written. Couple that disenfranchisement with my slowly growing exhaustion for the writing process as a whole and motivation has been low.

I doped up on caffeine all week and rewrote the second chapter. I did manage to save about 800 words, give or take. Scattered sentences mostly, but a few (not even requiring a full hand to count so few) paragraphs. The chapter ended with 5000 words, so I did manage over 4000 in new writing. A respectable week, but I really had to drag myself through it.

That's the main reason I didn't bother blogging. I just didn't care to write about it all, though this was potentially a mistake. I found myself looking for things to do all week, the least notable of which was all the napping. Taking so much caffeine has it's prices. I don't sleep well for long stretches and thus, I crash often in an effort to recoup the lost sleep.

I did manage to practice my reading aloud skills. I recorded myself reading Chapter One. I have a long way to go in that department. I don't relax enough or even breath enough while reading. I'll keep practicing. I have plenty of time before I need to start releasing any of this stuff. In fact, I can take as long as I want.

I'm looking forward to finishing the third chapter this week. With all the junk getting cut out, my first four chapters has become three. A none too unexpected byproduct of numerically cutting 8000 words. I am hopeful that as much as half of this last chapter will be salvageable. There are a number of things I liked in the presentation, so maybe it only needs more tweaking and less revision. We'll see over the next few days.

As Kim was attempting to poke my blog with a stick to check for survivors, she let me know that she was joining the blogosphere with her new blog: http://pollytickedoff2008.blogspot.com/

It is of a political nature for conservative women. She is the only friend I have that falls into such a demographic, so I doubt an endorsement from me will provide her with any readers, but I have done my duty in returning the shout out.