Our world may be a giant hologram

From New Scientist.com (1/15/09):

For the past seven years, this German set-up has been looking for gravitational waves - ripples in space-time thrown off by super-dense astronomical objects such as neutron stars and black holes. GEO600 has not detected any gravitational waves so far, but it might inadvertently have made the most important discovery in physics for half a century.

For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.

If this doesn't blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram."

Interesting. I alluded to this in my "The Holographic Universe" blog entry toward the end of the blog entry.

Obama Should Emulate Ronald Reagan, Voters Tell Pollster

From CNSNews.com (January 21, 2009):

Americans would like to see incoming President Barack Obama use Ronald Reagan as a role model.
When given the choice of Abraham Lincoln, FDR, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, JFK, Dwight Eisenhower, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan – registered voters overwhelmingly said they want the new Democratic president to emulate the late conservative Republican president, who held office in the 1980’s. [read more]

Not only did Republicans put Reagan on top of the poll but so did voters overall. The pollster was surprised by the poll. I wasn't. President Reagan was optimistic and stressed conservative values and beliefs. He also connected with people on a basic level and made the citizens of America feel important. Reagan had faith in the individual citizen. He is the president most people remember recently. No-one is hardly alive today to remember Lincoln, Washington, and Andrew Jackson. These were good presidents but people only remember them from history books. Older adults remember FDR, Truman, JFK, Dwight Eisenhower, and Theodore Roosevelt personally but I think none of them connected with the populous like Reagan did.
I hope every Republican running for office reads this poll. Let this be a lesson to them. Conservative values are not dead. If they emulate Reagan more often they would win more often. They don't have to act like him or talk like him--just take on Reagan's philosophy of life. If John McCain would have done this he would have been president instead of Obama.

Scientists measure methane at the source

No this is not a photo of new cow accessory. According to Popsci.com (9/18/2008):

Researchers from Argentina's National Institute of Agricultural Technology connected inflatable tanks to the cows’ first stomach, where methane is made, through a small hole between their ribs. By measuring methane production directly inside each cow, biologist Silvia Valtorta hopes to more accurately determine the country’s overall agricultural contribution to global warming. [read more]

The article does not say how much that tank weighs on the cow but I don't think it is too comfortable for it. I wonder if PETA knows what these researchers are doing. Oh well. Even cows, I guess, have to be inconvenienced for the cause of stopping global warming. The article also said they had to make a small hole in the cow's second stomach so they could put a tube in there. Ouch! The tube connects to the tank on top. I hope they tranquilized the cow before they did all that.

Are the researchers putting tanks on deer and water buffalo too? They probably contribute to global warming too I would think. Or are cows just easier to catch?

I agree with one of the comments that this is just stupid research and a waste of money. I wonder if this idea is going to catch on in America. Could be. There's people in this country that like to waste money too for stupid causes.

Earth's Magnetic Field Changes Climate

From Discover News.com (Jan. 13, 2009):

The Earth's climate has been significantly affected by the planet's magnetic field, according to a Danish study published Monday that is unlikely to challenge the notion that human emissions are largely responsible for global warming.

"Our results show a strong [my italics] correlation between the strength of the Earth's magnetic field and the amount of precipitation in the tropics," one of the two Danish geophysicists behind the study, Mads Faurschou Knudsen of the geology department at Aarhus University in western Denmark, told the Videnskab journal. [read more]

Well isn't that surprising! Not! How dare that darn magnetic field that blocks solar wind from reaching the earth increase global warming! I remember reading that Mars has global warming on it too. Well Mars has a magnetic field too. I wonder if its magnetic field is causing global warming for it. Global warming on Mars can't be man-made. No people are on Mars. The only other thing in common with both planets is the sun. Hmmmm. The article says that the climate is an "incredible complex system." Duh. Ask any meteorologist and they would agree.

Obama's 'climate czar' tied to socialism

This is the headline of OneNewsNow.com's website. Is this really news? It almost warrants a "duh." A climate czar is basically going to try to stop "man-made" global warming. Or as it is called now since the world is getting colder "climate change." The fight against global warming is part of the plan to try to create a one world gov't. Just a power grab. As the article states she (the climate czar) is part a group that "calls for rich countries to shrink their economies in order to combat climate change." One of those rich countries is America. So, who do you think Obama would pick as a climate czar? A meteorologist? Most meteorologists think "man-made" global warming is a hoax and it is just nature going through cycles. No, he could not pick a skeptic. He had to pick a socialistic believer.

Some people think Obama might move toward the center. I hope he does, but I am not holding my breath. Let's see. He has Congress and House dominated by the left. So, where's the pressure for him to move to the center? Does he have any conservatives on his staff? That would be a real "team of rivals" the press talks about. Having moderates on the team does not count. This climate czar is definitely not a conservative. I'm going to take a wait and see attitude about him moving toward the center.

The Hemenway-Solnick Study at Harvard

Economists David Hemenway and Sara Solnick did a study at Harvard where they asked people if they would prefer to receive an annual salary of $50,000 when others are making $25,000 than to earn $100,000 a year when others are making $200,000. Most of the respondents said they would rather earn the smaller figure.

What this is just plain envy. This emotion is also what the Left loves to exploit. Raise taxes on the rich. "Economic justice" and all that. Well, Soviets did exactly that--implemented economic justice (read: Marxism). What happened? The poor stayed poor, the rich became poor, and the gov't became rich.

The Left tells people you will feel better if the rich lose their money. But this feeling is only temporary because your situation has not changed--only the situation of the envied people are. Your envy toward the once-rich may have gone away and replaced with satisfaction but again does this in the end help you at all? Think of this: wealth is relative. If you are envious of someone else because of their wealth then someone else is probably envious of you because of your wealth. You want your income reduced? Politics is not only local, it is also very personal when it effects you.

Most people who are envious are envious of strangers. If you are envious of friends--you friendship will be harmed. If you are envious of family members--then you are causing strife in the family. Envy is a very pernicious negative emotion because you not wishing someone else well because of what they have or even because of their talents. That I think why it is one of the deadly sins.

Impulsive Behavior Can Make Life Hard

This is almost a "duh, so what." What I mean by the blog title is if you are impulsive as a child, later on as an adult you will live a much harder life. In his book The Time Paradox (2008) Dr. Phillip Zimbardo talks about a simple study that was done at Stanford University's Bing Nursery School. In this study four-year-olds were given a choice to eat a single marshmallow now or wait later on for two marshmallows. Some kids at the marshmallow later on and others waited for the two marshmallows. It did not matter what the reward was--same behavior.

Later on when the kids grew up they were interviewed. The kids who resisted the single marshmallow had developed a range of superior emotional and social competencies compared with the children who had eaten the treat immediately. The non-impulsive adults were better able to deal with adversity and stress, and they were more self-confident, diligent, and self-reliant. Even the intelligent was higher with the non-impulsive adults. It is something to ponder. I guess according to this study patience is its own reward.

Islamic Nations Push to End Free Speech at UN

From Newsmax.com (December 17, 2008):

GENEVA — Islamic proposals to ban criticism of religion, which have gathered strength since the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad two years ago, threaten to derail an already troubled U.N. anti-racism conference planned for next year.

The European Union rejects suggestions by Algeria — backed by other Muslim and African countries — that limits on free speech are needed to stop the publication of offensive articles and images.

Supporters of the proposal, who have been pushing for such a ban to be included in international anti-discrimination charters, want it discussed in April at a high-level United Nations anti-racism meeting in Geneva. [more]

Substitute "the world" with "UN" in the title and you have what the Islamofacists really want. No criticisms of Islam at all in the world. It doesn't surprise me though. You don't hear Christians, Jews, Hindus or the other religions want to ban criticisms of their religions. Sort of makes a person wonder if Islam is so strong and secure a religion why can't it take any criticism? No believer likes its religion poked fun (like Monty Python's the "Life of Brian" movie which made fun of Jesus Christ, or the new movie "Religulous") or criticized, but if they have a strong faith it should not matter to them if it is criticized.

I am glad the other countries are standing up against these Islamists. If they don't then that is exactly what the Muslim fanatics want. Total fear or submission.

eHarmony.com potential issue

I believe I found a potential issue on eHarmony.com's site. It does not filter out or allow the subscriber to filter out people (s)he does not want to date such as relatives, exes (that would be funny, if the service matched you with your ex), etc. I looked at their website closely and did not see a filter of any kind. Since I don't use their service I cannot say for sure they don't have filters, but just reading the description of their service I did not see any.

The tricky part is to create a filter. One possible way is to have the subscriber create a "block list" of people who (s)he never wants to be a potential mate. This list could contain at the very least the person's first and last name. Maybe a middle name or initial. To rule out people with the same name you want to date, a birthday field could also be included so you don't get false positives.

Is this really a problem? It could be if you have a lot of friends or relatives who use the service. It is interesting to note that eHarmony does not do background checks. So, you could potentially be dating someone who is secretly stalking you.

Good Code, Bad Computations: A Computer Security Gray Area

ScienceDaily (2008-11-03) -- If you want to make sure your computer or server is not tricked into undertaking malicious or undesirable behavior, it's not enough to keep bad code out of the system. New research shows that the process of building bad programs from good code using "return-oriented programming" can be automated and that this vulnerability applies to multiple computer architectures. [more]

Basically, a hacker hacks a website for example and rewrites some of the existing code instead of injecting his own outside code on the website to do some potentially malicious behavior. Good job for the researchers for imagining the unimaginable.

Miscellaneous Thoughts Part 12

• I may not know anything about how match-mating services (like eharmony.com, match.com, etc.) work but wouldn't their customer base drop off if they were really worked? Eventually, everyone looking for a soul mate will be happily married and won't need the business again. One exception would be is if their spouse died then they would use the business again.
• If people could record their nighttime dreams on DVD, it could be useful (you could playback a problem you solved for instance) and it could be potentially embarrassing (your erotic dream could get uploaded to Youtube). Either way dream interpretation psychologists would find the technology helpful to them in dealing with their clients' issues.
• Don't own a pet that can kill you.
• They should make alimony optional. From a feminist point of view I would think a man paying alimony to a woman would be disrespectful. I mean it says that a woman still needs a man monetarily even when they are divorced. Most women work now so why do women need alimony? Child-support I can understand. But alimony in this age where men and women are supposed to be equal? And what about a man getting alimony from an ex-wife who has more money or a better paying job than he does?
• The difference between a good man and an evil man is that a good man feels bad when he has to kill a person even in self-defense, war or in justifiable homicide.
• I wonder what a pro-abortion woman would think of a pro-life woman sacrificing her life for her unborn child. That is to say giving birth could put the mother at serious harm or even death. After all doesn't the mother have that (pro-)choice to sacrifice herself for her child?
• Two monkeys swinging in a tree is better than one monkey throwing poo at you.
• If everyone worked for the federal gov't then who would pay their salary? It is the private sector who pays for the federal employees salaries. Without the private sector there is no government workers.
• In the heart of every liberal lurks a Marxist anxious to come out.
• It is better to have the gov't poor than the private citizen poor. A rich gov't and poor citizens only leads to oppression. Like Cuba and the defunct Soviet Union.

Russia, Iran and Qatar Discuss Forming Gas Cartel

From Newsmax.com (October 21, 2008):

TEHRAN, Iran -- Russia, Iran and Qatar made the first serious moves Tuesday toward forming an OPEC-style cartel on natural gas, raising concerns that Moscow could boost its influence over energy markets spanning from Europe to South Asia.

Washington and Western allies worry that closer strategic ties between Russia and Iran could hinder efforts to isolate Tehran over its nuclear ambitions. In addition, the United States opposes a proposed Iranian gas pipeline to Pakistan and India, key allies. [more]

That sounds like something directly out of a Joel C. Rosenberg novel like The Ezekiel Option (a great novel by the way). In the novel, Russia and Iran team up against Israel (actually almost all the world is against Israel) and the president of the United States has to make a decision to support Israel or not. His novels are based on observations of the world and Biblical prophecy.

America only imports 18,352 million cubic feet of natural gas per year from Qatar. None from Iran and Russia. Most of the natural gas comes from Canada, Egypt, and Trinidad (yea, that's right Trinidad). The article mentioned Mexico but we only get 54,062 million cubic feet from them. Not bad, but not nearly as much from the above three. So that cartel won't hurt America too much. Although, The Wall Street Journal makes a good point that a natural gas cartel won't have much control over prices as much as an oil cartel does because the natural gas market is fragmented. This is just Russia trying to exert more control over their neighbor's economy. Iran maybe thinking the same way. Still, them teaming up in anyway makes me nervous.

This cartel makes sense politically. Russia and Iran has become partners in different deals so I can understand them teaming up. Qatar and Iran has teamed up too. June of last year they have backed a Hamas coup.

The Drive-by-Media Attacks Again

What the drive-by-media is doing to "Joe the plumber" (Joe Wurzelbacher) is just terrible. He is just a working guy that asked a politician a question and because of that he gets an anal exam from the media. Is he really a licensed plumber? Was he a Republican plant? All this is really misdirection from the media and the Dems. Look over here (Joe) and not at the real story (Obama showing his true colors). This isn't much of a story. It seems that either Obama is getting over confident about the polls and letting his guard drop or he must have not realized his conversation was being filmed. Either way Obama being a far-right liberal is not surprising to me. The American Conservative Union website rates Obama an eight from a scale of 0 (lowest) to 100 (highest) of being a conservative. An eight! Can you believe that? That's almost a Communist! On a side note Google's search engine got bogged down when users did a search for Mr. Wurzelbacher.

Mr. Wurzelbacher's dealings with the media reminds of another working guy that got overly scrutinized by the media: Richard Jewell. If you remember he at first was declared hero by the press because he found a pipe bomb at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia then later on the press declared him a suspect. He never was charged and later on was exonerated. He died in August 2007 from natural causes. He had diabetes, kidney disease, and severe heart disease. What the drive-by-media did to him did not help his situation.

In America the press has freedom from gov't influence, but it seems anymore they are abusing that right. It does not give them the right to ruin people's lives or give them an anal exam. There is such things as ethics and responsibility. The media never investigates their friends (Obama, Bill Ayers) but they will put a microscope on their perceived enemies or enemies of their friends. Or they will attempt to discredit people or events that could potentially negatively effect their friends. Mr. Wurzelbacher was just being an informed voter. He was just inquiring about Obama's economic policy in a calm respectful manner. What's wrong with that? We should all be that curious about people running for office. That's what makes the political system a better system. Mr. Wurzelbacher did not even say who he was voting for. For just being a curious and doing his civic duty he got a rectal exam from the media.

Anymore, the media is not about reporting the facts it is about agendas. One agenda being discredit your enemies and protect your friends. You don't have a genuine media anymore when you do that, you just have a propaganda machine. And that is just plane sad.

A Conservative Candidate Strategy

Here is a tip for a republican or conservative candidate that is running for office:
Differentiate yourself from your opponent. A political candidate is like a product you would buy. If you are buying a car and two cars are very similar to one another it does not matter very much which one you buy. You have to stand out from your opponent. Glenn Beck said about the second presidential debate it was like watching a Marxist (Obama) verses a bad Democrat (McCain). Don't be your opponent!
The way to differentiate yourself is to talk about conservative principles passionately in your own voice without using the word conservative. People who aren't politically savvy do not know what a conservative is. Talk about how entrepreneurs are the engine of the nation. That we should not punish the successful by raising their taxes. Control gov't spending. That gov't isn't the solution to most problems. That the rich, the poor, and the middle class are all Americans. Playing divide-and-conquer helps no-one other than the divider himself. President Ronald Reagan did not have to mention the word conservative. He did not have to. What he said resonated with most Americans because most believed that America is an exceptional country like he did. He got his message across without worrying what the press thought of him.
Secondly, a conservative needs to go on offense. Put the liberal on defense. Make him show his true ideology. What do you have against wealthy people? How are you planning to pay for all billions of dollars given to the United Nations for the poor overseas? Name three things you love about America?
One last thing, Reagan did not worry about the independent vote. If an independent is a conservative he will vote for a conservative candidate anyway.

The Intelligent TV

Here are some of my idea for the intelligent TV. This TV could:

• Turn down or mute the volume when a commercial comes on.
• Turn itself off when there is no-one in the room. It could do this by reading heat signatures in the room. There could be a time delay before it turns itself off.
• Mute/turn down the volume/turn itself off if all the viewers fall asleep. You don't want this action happening if someone is still watching the TV. Again a time delay could be set.
• Mute itself if a phone rings in front of the TV and you pick up the receiver. The trick is having the TV unmute when you hang up or if you don't pick up the receiver.

All functions above can be toggled.

Son of Stimulus Package

If Nancy Pelosi is talking about another huge ($150 billion) stimulus package (like the first one worked really well) what the gov't should do to get people to spend money is to send out a gift card to a store of a taxpayer's choosing. Otherwise if you just send out a check the taxpayer would just deposit it in their bank account. This is how the idea would work. When the taxpayer fills out the tax form (s)he can indicate what store (s)he wants the gift card from. The only problems are is that it will take longer for gov't to get the cards from a specific store and the store may not have a gift card in that exact mount. The gov't may have to send out out multiple cards. Hat tip from the Glenn Beck show about this idea although the guest's suggested was to send out coupons to the taxpayers. I think the guest was joking. But sending out coupons to the taxpayer restricts the taxpayer to one particular product.

Actually better idea is to send out a debit card with the exact amount of the "refund." That way the gov't does not have to worry about what stores the taxpayer goes to.

An even better idea than the above two is just scrap the stimulus package and cut every one's (not just 95% of the population) taxes and cut the payroll tax too.

Elderly riots?

Bill Clinton crony James Carville has suggested that if Obama loses by a close margin that "it would be very, very, very dramatic out there." Hmmm. Sounds like he is suggesting (and other Libs are suggesting this too) that there will race riots.

What about the flip side? What if McCain loses by a small margin? Couldn't be possible that the elderly would riot? I could see hordes of elderly people entering the streets very slowly with their canes and walkers about to protest Obama getting elected then forgetting what they came out in the street for in the first place.

The question is would Obama do the Al Gore and have a recount and turn the country inside-out if he does loose by a close margin? It depends on how power hungry he is.

Operation Chaos Part 2

If Obama becomes president and the Congress and the House become even more liberal, what the conservatives could do to possibly block stupid spending bills from passing is to put innocuous riders on them that will tick off the libs. For example, a national holiday for President Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, and President George W. Bush (the holidays do not have to be on all on the same bill). See what happens when you don't have line-item veto? Operation Chaos continues!

Putting A 'Korset' On The Spread Of Computer Viruses

ScienceDaily (2008-09-15) -- Prof. Avishai Wool and his graduate student Ohad Ben-Cohen of Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Engineering have written a program called the "Korset" to stop malware on Linux, the operating system used by the majority of web and email servers worldwide. They have modified the kernel in system's operating system so that it monitors and tracks the behavior of the programs installed on it. Quoting from the article:

If the kernel senses abnormal activity, it stops the program from working before malicious actions occur. “When we see a deviation, we know for sure there’s something bad going on,” Prof. Wool explains. [more]

Interesting article. Their approach could probably work on PC's, Apple computers, cell phones, or any other computerized device that contains software. I have always thought that individual software programs could use a similar approach by monitoring their pgm size and date modified. If either of the two have changed since installed on the computer then the pgm would not run and alert the user of a possible virus attack. Of course, if the pgm gets updated then the pgm would take this into account. On a similar note, I found this patent on the web:

A computer virus trapping device (10) is described that detects and eliminates computer viruses before they can enter a computer system and wreck havoc on its files, peripherals, etc. The trapping device (10) creates a virtual world that simulates the host computer system (28) intended by the virus to infect. The environment is made as friendly as possible to fool a computer virus into thinking it is present on the host (28), its intended target system. Within this virtual world, the virus is encouraged to perform its intended activity. The invention is able to detect any disruptive behaviour occurring within this simulated host computer system. It is further able to remove (52) the virus from the data stream before it is delivered to the host (28) and/or take any action previously instructed by a user (38).

Both are good ideas. Instead of removing a specific virus by its "DNA" or virus-print, you are removing any virus by its behavior. If a virus changes then the anti-virus companies have to update their anti-virus pgm. They always have to play catch-up.

Computer Hardware 'Guardians' Protect Users From Undiscovered Bugs

ScienceDaily (2008-10-01) -- As computer processor chips grow faster and more complex, they are likely to make it to market with more design bugs. But that may be OK, according to researchers who have devised a system that lets chips work around all functional bugs, even those that haven't been detected. [more]

This is pretty cool. Here is more from the article:

The approach keeps track of all the configurations the firm did test, and loads that information onto a minuscule monitor that would be added to each processor.

The monitor, called a semantic guardian, keeps the chip operating within its virtual fence. It works by switching the processor into a slower, bare-bones, safe mode when the chip encounters a configuration that has not been validated. In this way, the monitor would treat all untested configurations as potential threats.