that other guy’s thoughts

being able to use the following in the course of regular events:

“In this instance, I AM the law.”

and having it be true.

Wow!

We finally have a way to test String Theory! It only took ten years.

It is with this accelerator, that will allow researchers to begin observing the scattering of W bosons, an elementary particle that is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature and required in the proposed testing of the current string theory.

In a matter of 10 months, we could have a theory of everything. Electromagnetic, gravity, strong, and weak nuclear forces could all officially be one. This is awesome!

Explainer for the non-science readers:
A single molecule is smaller than you can possible imagine. Each molecule is made up of atoms which are each a fraction of the size. Each atom is 99.9999999999999% empty space, with the remainder being protons and neutron in the center (approximately 0.000000000000001 meters wide each) and electrons, which revolve around (approximately 1/1000 the size of a proton.) each of those is made up of sub-atomic particles called quarks (curiously named the up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top quarks, how quarky!)They’re all pretty small.

Pretty smaller still are the other smaller and lesser known sub-atomic particles, the photons and neutrinos. Since at this point you’re probably wondering: yes I’ve been this way my whole life, and no I didn’t get a lot of action in high school. All of these items are orders of magnitude (1 order of magnitude = 10 times bigger or smaller) smaller than their products.

We could go even further into the seedy underbelly of theoretical particle physics, sure it may seem glamorous, but trust me when I say that when the composite particle Mesons, Baryons, and Hadrons get together some seriously bad juju goes down. The further point being that nobody knows what all these sub-sub atomic particles are made of ,but the are really, really, really, small.
\done explainer

I suppose that if string theory turns out to be correct, the next question will become, “What are those little vibrating strings made of?”

I’ll be the first to wager a guess:
Apricot Jelly

Imagine someone goes missing; it’s front page news for 3 straight days. Nancy Grace, Paula Zahn, Greta Van Susteren, and the entire Fox News channel goes on Amber alert watch, with updates on the ticker every 15 minutes. Tens of thousands pray for hope. Tragically the body is found dead, in a creek bed nearby. Hundreds of thousand cry out in pain. Foul play is suspected, massive manhunts are organized, a suspect is arrested and charged with a capital offense, and the State Attorney General himself has sworn to personally prosecute the case. We must give the victims family justice after all.

My question is this:

Would any of this happen if it wasn’t a young affluent pretty white girl?

“CONSUMER PRODUCT SURVEY OF AMERICA

This is a voluntary national survey sponsored by Shopper’s Voice. Shopper’s Voice is a leading provided of consumer marketing information. The information you provide in this survey will be shared with third parties only for marketing use.”

The questionnaire then proceeds to ask for all sorts of grocery shopping info, i.e. what kind of coffee creamer, stain remover, razor, or rheumatoid arthritis medicine I use. Somebody wants to know what I buy, I’ll tell them, but then they go and leave a nice space for me to list my name and address so that they can send me “special savings coupons.” (The spam was addressed to “primary household grocery shopper.” What a personal touch!) I couldn’t quite bring divulge it, so I gave them a sticky note instead, and this is what it said in lovely hand-written pen:

I’d love to give you my address, but you haven’t included any privacy statement. So I’ must then assume that you’ll sell my information to any and everyone who wants it. You can have my opinion, but I’ll keep my name.

5UCK4AZ!!!1!!

And it cost them 37 cents for postage.
5UCK4AZ!!!1!!

In a word: Hellsyeah

Studio 60 marathon on Bravo on Sunday, 7 episodes starting at 9 am. I feel obliged to make sure you all know about it, since it was late-night Sports Night marathons on Comedy Central, and Bravo’s own West Wing Marathon Mondays that got me hooked on Sorkin in the first place. It’s only appropriate that I proselytize the good book of the walk-n-talk to the masses.

Tonight those dirty bastards from Mizzou come into the Allen Fieldhouse to play a nationally televised game against my beloved #5 Jayhawks. My only regret is that I will neither be there to curse them, nor be able to watch on television. Alas the drudgery of the 2nd shift. So I wish them luck and leave you all with my immortal words to live by:

It’s never a bad time to Muck Fizzou.

This Guy Can Get 59 MPG in a Plain Old Accord. Beat That, Punk.:
Drafting 18-wheelers with the engine off, taking death turns at 52 miles an hour, and other lessons learned while riding shotgun with the king of the hypermilers.

Yes, I know stomping on it at the green light is bad for gas mileage, but this is freaking ridiculous. As an engineer, efficiency is pretty much my sole master. That’s why, when I saw this article over at the simple dollar I simply could not let it go. This guy tucks his weeney-mobile behind a semi and turns off the car.

There is something admirable, but undeniably retarded about those practices. Stop and restarting the engine at every stop sign and red light, shifting into and out of neutral at the top and bottom of every hill?

Those practices will wear out then engine, transmission, alternator, battery, and the entire electrical system in the car. Who cares if you saved 12 dollars on gas this month. You’ve got to replace 500 dollars worth of parts twice a year.

It’s not even good for the environment when you consider the energy it takes to pull the raw material from the ground, melt, pour, form, mill, inspect, and install it.

This doesn’t even touch the issue of safety. D-FAS? Intentionally tailgating an 18-wheeler? Why not just personally kill everyone in your car an eliminate the middleman? Not to mention that tailgating is illegal.

I’m all for conservation, but this is just the enviro-nut equivalent of buying a hummer to compensate for other areas that might be lacking.

In fact, I’ve changed my mind. This doesn’t even qualify as dime smart.

This is penny-smart and 50-dollar-bill retarded.

First it was those annoying AXA equitable commericals. Now my beloved Cox & Forkum screw the pooch.

It turns out, there not the only ones. A google search turns up 12400 instances of the phrase.

And they are ALL WRONG!

For the love of the department of mixed metaphors! There is no such thing as an 800-pound gorilla in the room.

If you were going to get into a fight with any animal, what is the last thing you would want it to be? An 800-pound gorilla. If you were stuck in a room with any animal what would be most difficult to ignore? An Elephant.

So if you are not paying attention to the most obvious of things in a particular situation, You are, metaphorically speaking, ignoring the elephant in the room. If there is a person/company/country that is clearly the dominant player in whatever field of battle they have chosen, they are, again metaphorically speaking, the 800-pound gorilla of their discipline. These are established idioms of the American vocabulary. Why is this perversion so pervasive? I have no clue, but it pisses me off.

As in: drop in the bucket.

21,500? What, is that suppose to be funny? Like that will actually do anything except prevent 21,500 families from sleeping soundly at night. If you’re going to get serious about this now, then get serious. Propose 80,000 more troops, an M16 on every street corner. Now that would affect some serious change. Until then, you’re just wasting time, blood, and money; none of it yours.

Stop quarter-assing around.

Occasionally, I’ll read my junk mail. Today I got a pretty little brochure from Allstate Insurance asking me to switch to their car insurance. Hurray, I’ve been selected to receive this notification as they believe they may be able to offer me savings. (Selected? Me? Really? What an honor!) That’s pretty standard boiler plate junk mail. But the next sentence is what struck me:

“In fact, 7 out of 10 customers who switched to Allstate paid less.”

To which my first reaction was, “Wow, 30% of your clientele are pretty dumb!”

This is why statistics are often seen in the company of lies and damn lies. Of course a majority of people switching to you are going to save money; if it was more expensive, they wouldn’t have switched in the first place. I imagine 7 out of 10 customers who switch anything, be it cell phone companies, insurance, or trash collectors do it because they will save money.

This is why I never trust empirical studies without an absolute understanding of their assumptions. You shouldn’t either.