This year in ponders

At some point earlier this evening I had a momentary panic about the date, for I was quite sure it was next year. Wishful thinking perhaps, but I can only assume that the whole thing about time slowing down when you're busy is true, for this week is incredibly long and I've done more this week than I've done in the last 6 months!

I do believe time does literally slow down but that's something my brain doesn't understand.

So I got to thinking back over this year and what it's been. According to the bible, the year 2008, or 8 to make things simpler, is a year of new beginnings and rebirth. 8 being the number after 7, which is how long everything's supposed to take to complete a cycle, based on the 7 days in a week thing and an awful lot of excitement about the number 7. So, 2007 saw the end of the cycle begun in 2000 and 2008 was the beginning of the next cycle.

Brilliant.

So we can look forward to another 6 years of economic downturn and the media being idiotic. Myself, I think I'd like to opt out of life until 2015 and live in a commune somewhere, eating carrots and seeing if I suit dreadlocks.

The economy:

not that great, really. I don't fully understand it all because it's imaginary money. Somebody somewhere said "actually, I'm not going to give you any more "money" because you might not pay it back" and the whole world ground to a halt. Prior to this, everyone just lent pretend money happily in the belief that it would be virtually returned to them later and all was happy, then suddenly they didn't. And everything collapsed. Why they couldn't say "only joking, of course I'll transfer some not-there money to you and look, we'll say you owe me it and they owe you that and we'll all get some new cars".

Now everything's shutting down. Except it's not. It's not the good stuff. It's the kind of rubbish companies that have been winging along on the happy economy. It's not stuff we want or need. It's the dregs. It's the shops that exist purely because they always have. Nostalgia is not a reason to keep something. This here blog post says some of what I want to say, I shall link it instead of badly paraphrasing.

And banks, I don't care. We don't need a million of them. They're all greedy and provide a non-service. Even Nationwide want all their cash back. Standard Life aren't passing on much of the interest rate cut, because hey, the customer can subsidise them.

The loss of jobs is indeed sad, and terrible for those it is happening to, but, erm, that's what happens in a recession. Never mind, only 6 more years!

The Media:

Well, the biggest story of the year has to be the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross/Andrew Sachs debacle. Whataloadofnonsense. Yes, it was cruel and I don't consider what they did to be funny, but Andrew Sachs had agreed the broadcast could go ahead. So he wasn't that offended. Who are the Daily Mail to be offended on his behalf? Utter nonsense.

The other piece of utter stupidity was the fraca about the turning on of the LHC. Not that many people understood it but the media focussed on the whole idea that this was the end of the world and ignored the actual science. Noone got excited about the implications, apart from that guy from D:Ream who everyone fancied for a day (Brian Cox, remember? no?). It was really important. It could have answered the fundamental questions about life. But it got turned on, we didn't die, it got broken and everyone thought it was quite amusing. It's still exciting and will still be mega when it gets turned on again next year? the year after? sometime? And we still won't die.

People have died, they always do. I'm not even going to try to suggest which deaths were significant, every death is important to someone. Other people were born: 2 little girls and 1 little boy arrived in my little circle, all perfect, all gorgeous and all most welcome.

Myself:

My own year hasn't been all that eventful although I have mostly been a rather rubbish friend. 2009 is going to be the year I stop saying sorry: no more apologising for things I haven't done, and no more doing things I have to apologise for.
The nicest thing that I do appreciate this year knows it.

The other stuff that mattered this year: I proudly and exhaustedly watched my two little guys grow from toddling babies into competent little boys, I turned vegetarian, and I got an iPhone. And I've been 33.

The media and other idiots

I've been reading with interest the comments stemming from Andrew Collins comments about the LHC (which is a collider not a corridor, I am a mong). Not wanting to enforce my opinion about everything on Mr Collins, I thought I'd rant quietly in my own corner.

Attention was drawn to a report of an Indian girl who committed suicide over fears that the world was going to end. The thought being that the media are responsible for this girl's death.

Now, I am not shy of criticising the media for the sensationalistic lies they present as fact. I still get angry thinking about all the parents who did not get the MMR for their toddlers because they were anxious about the supposed link with autism. Measles is something your child can catch, autism is not. Nobody knows for sure what causes autism, but it is more than likely that it is something a child is born with and nothing to do with anything that happens after birth. Yet, even after the MMR link has been categorically disproven, there still remains lingering doubts and some parents still think they won't take the risk, thus leaving their child susceptible to measles, which can cause blindness, brain damage or even death, as well as endangering all the children who are too young for the vaccine and who would be even more vulnerable.

In 2000 in Worcester, we witnessed first hand the discrepancy between what was really happening (flood plain flooded) and what was reported on the news (Worcester underwater, all residents now amphibeous).

Having said this, the media provide what is asked for. The general public lap up sensationalist crap, evidenced this week by everyone thinking the LHC was interesting purely because we might all die and not because of the implications of the research. In fact, each and every quip about it added to the frenzy. We love to read of doom and gloom, people's downfalls and general errors, we buy the papers and watch the programmes. The sheer existence of celebrity magazines like Hello and OK show the public's need to indulge in speculative doom mongery, albeit restricted to cellulite and divorce. The truth doesn't sell, sensation does, and that is down to the public for buying it. One would hope that the public would in turn show a little discretion and exercise the ability to identify sensationalism and actually either accept that they don't know anything* about something, or find out the truth before acting upon a news story.

I wouldn't expect a 16 year old girl to have that ability, but one has to question her father for "diverting her attention" and not helping her find out the truth. You don't need to understand the science, you just need to know that IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

*the day Joe Public realises they are in fact an ignorant muppet will be a wondrous day.

More LHC ponders

Well, the Large Hadron Collider should be beaming now, for want of a scientific/accurate term. We're still here, unsurprisingly.

However, despite knowing it's safe, I'm still taken with the notion of everything disappearing into a black hole. What if that is what is "meant" to happen and in the history of human kind, we always evolve and develop to precisely the technological advances that allow us to create a black hole, get destroyed, and then start again from the very beginning? Over and over for eternity.

But maybe it is idiotic to assume the earth would at any other juncture have taken the exact configuration that allowed us to exist. Should it all be destroyed and something else form in its place, there is no logical reason for humans to exist, or plant life to be as we know it or anything to be the same really. We all are an arrangement of particles that works relatively well, or with a number of liveable-with design faults, and there is no reason to suppose that an entirely different arrangement of particles and chemical reactions could not result in a far superior type of living thing. (Which does cause a major flaw when looking for alien life, we automatically look for life as we know it; there could be all manner of life out there and we simply don't know what we're looking for).

Hmm. I think I shall go back to pondering about things I know about.

Should they make a disaster film about the LHC (saying as how they don't find factual correctness a valuable ingredient), the ending would be a scientist going "right, we're going for it now..." then fade to a black screen. The screen would remain black for a few moments, then zoom in on tiny particles flying around.

Physics being exciting

I am a little baffled as to why everyone is nervous about our impending "apocalypse" expected when the Large Hadron Collider is activated. There is a 1% chance of a black hole being created, which would be the sort of micro black hole that would prove all of Hawking's theories and disappear, possibly causing a very attractive pattern as it does so. Which isn't very worrying, unless you are the sort of person that would be worried by the idea of Hawking getting a Nobel prize, in which case you are not very nice. Having said that, it's a interesting concept to ponder about, the end of the entire universe. My own personal ponderings on this consist of:

1) what exactly happens to everything that gets sucked into a black hole?

Which I have had explained to me: apparently everything gets compressed into a very solid lump due to all the forces keeping particles apart being destroyed, then the lump explodes. I'm guessing the chances of surviving this are slim.

2) Where does the universe end? At what point does "everything" stop being sucked in? Is there a finite area and how do we know what it is?

There is apparently an answer to this, but as it requires an understanding of Hawkings radiation and quantum physics, I will never know what that answer is. Black holes apparently also get to exploding point after about a galaxy full, so some of the universe would remain. Hurrah.

I have a particular hatred of physics, it is my least favourite science, and I'm talking standard issue understandable physics and none of the "nothing is actually what you think it is" quantum physics. This is compounded by physics lovers who are the smuggest people on the planet. But I still appreciate that the expected findings of the LHC are really very important, and they do explain things that haven't been explained before. It's relatively (no pun intended) exciting to wait for the results of something that will either find a substance (Higgs something) that they think is there, or not find it and have to rethink the whole idea behind dark matter.

I don't want to hear too much about it though, I still hate physics and a simple yes or no will suffice.