Incident in LHC sector 7-G 3-4

A few updates about the Large Hadron Collider....

There was a "large" helium leak and now they have to fix some of the magnets. Which apparently will take a few months. So while we, and a lot of other sites, were kicking and screaming about how we were all going to be sucked into a mini black hole in october, we now have a few more months to get our affairs in order. Thanks CERN!

"The time necessary for the investigation and repairs precludes a restart before CERN’s obligatory winter maintenance period, bringing the date for restart of the accelerator complex to early spring 2009." (CERN press release)


Also, old news, but did you hear the LHC was hacked?!?

"Though the Large Hadron Collider's infiltration by hackers did not disrupt the historic project, experts warn that its computer systems are vulnerable -- though at least their exploitation won't destroy Earth. Shortly after physicists activated the Collider on Wednesday, hackers identifying themselves as Group 2600 of the Greek Security Team accessed computers connected to the Compact Muon Solenoid detector, one of four key subsystems responsible for monitoring the collisions of protons speeding around the 18-mile track near Geneva, Switzerland." (abcnews.com) [emphasis added -ed.]

[image from some simpsons website]

And She's Building A Stairway Elevator to Heaven

Those crazy Japanese are at it again. This time it's not a robotic cat or one of those TV game shows where you stick your head in a giant lizard pit. Which could be a whole post in itself...(see video below). This time, however, it's an ELEVATOR TO SPACE.
"Up and down the 22,000 mile-long (36,000km) cables — or flat ribbons — will run the elevator carriages, themselves requiring huge breakthroughs in engineering to which the biggest Japanese companies and universities have turned their collective attention." (timesonline.co.uk)
I'm sometimes scared to get on the elevator in my building, and that's only 8 stories up, imagine going 22,000 freaking miles. No thanks.

Anyway. Here's the amusing video I referred to about 3 sentences ago. Happy Monday everyone.

mmmmm.... Modified DNA... Great Taste! Less Filling! GREAT TASTE!! LESS FILLING!!!

"The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday opened the way for a bevy of genetically engineered salmon, cows and other animals to leap from the laboratory to the marketplace, unveiling an approval process that would treat the modified creatures like drugs." (latimes) Which is supposed to make food safer and healthier. Which sounds great until you realize that you're eating some mutant DNA that someone cooked up in some laboratory off of some freaky technology corridor in some freaky state.

Of course, there has to be an EIGN side:

"Many experts, however, say the proposed regulations may not go far enough to protect the public. In particular, they argue that the approval process would be highly secretive to guard the commercial interests of the companies involved, and that the new rules do not place sufficient weight on the potential environmental effect of what many consider to be Frankenstein animals." (latimes)

Frankenstein animals... I couldn't have said it better myself. Now when I am eating fish at a restaurant I will have to ask if this fish was genetically modified in addition to consulting this.

Also, did you know: "Only one genetically engineered animal is now being sold in the United States, the glow-in-the-dark zebra fish for aquariums. The FDA approved it because it is not eaten and its need for warm water effectively precludes its escape into the wild." This whole genetic engineer of animals (and soon humans, presumably) is wild.


Thanks to EIGN reader heather for the link.

Pink Floyd Has Nothing On The DOD

Did you know the US military already use lasers in Iraq? To "'warn or temporarily incapacitate individuals,' according to the Defense Science Board's report." (wapo) That's Freaky!

Also, the senate recently "embraced last year's Defense Science Board conclusion that directed-energy weapons -- such as high-, medium- and low-power lasers -- hold great potential and should be developed as soon as possible." (wapo)

Now get me my "frickin' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' heads".

(image via novalasers)

"I wouldn't mind becoming his celebrity impersonator"

Ryan, what exactly do you think you've been doing the last year?

I have no idea who Joba Chamberlain is [he pitches for the NY Yankees -ed.], but apparently a lot of women on the New Jersey shore do.

A man who looks a lot like this Chamberlain guy apparently used his appearance to get a lot of free booze and girls. He isn't sure how many women he "bedded" but it was at least 100.

Ryan Ward, you unemployed presumably uneducated man from Asbury Park, NJ: you are the poster child for the death of morality and the promiscuity of ethics in the 21st (and last) century of this planet.

Slow Down, You Throw Too Fast, You've Got To Make The Moment Last

Imagine you're nine. And you can pitch 40 miles per hour. It doesn't matter that even I probably couldn't hit it. (okay I probably could, barely, but still...) And then you get banned from pitching. (espn)
This is what we're teaching our kids, if you're too good at something we will force you to stop. Or if you're too bad at something we will prop you up. (latimes)

""I feel sad," he said. "I feel like it's all my fault nobody could play,"" the boy said. Cheer up Jericho Scott, it's not your fault. It's the man's fault.

All those crappy players need to learn that sucking at something, in this case baseball, in life is normal. I wish I learned that at nine instead of nineteen, by that point my idealism was crushed AFTER I developed it, not before. Oh to be 10, cynical and depressed.

Most disturbing part of the story: "Local attorney John Williams John Williams was planning to meet with Jericho's parents Monday to discuss legal options. "You don't have to be learned in the law to know in your heart that it's wrong," he said. "Now you have to be punished because you excel at something?"" Aside from the wonderful use of the phrase "learned in the," fucking lawyers have to get their dirty hands in everything. I wonder if you can sue kids for being cry babies. That would set an awesome precedence.

Good News Wednesday XXII: More Ice Than Last Year

Good news. The artic melted less this summer than last summer. Take that! Al Gore.

"The annual summer retreat of the sea ice cloaking the Arctic Ocean appears to have ended with the ice not quite matching last year’s extraordinary recession, polar scientists said Tuesday." (nytimes)

Which sounds great... until you read the next paragraph:

Still, the scientists, at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., said that the ice in the Arctic this summer was 33 percent below the average extent tracked since satellites started monitoring the region in 1979 and that the trend continued toward an ice-free Arctic Ocean within a few decades.

I think I'm going to put my head under the ice water and just pretend I didn't read that part, or the rest of the article. Yeah good news!


(image from ilovemybaby.org) [wtf? really? -ed]

Booze Shrinks Your Brain; Apparently Eating Healthy Does Too

Bad news for all of our alcoholic readers out there: "Brain scans of more than 1,800 people found that people who downed 14 drinks or more a week had 1.6 per cent more brain shrinkage than teetotallers." (news.com.au)

But guess what, all of you "yogurt-sprout-eating mother f-ckers" take note: Apparently not eating meat causes mind shrinkage too. "Vegans and vegetarians are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish." (news.com.au also)

As Denis Leary once said, "meat tastes like murder. and murder tastes pretty god damn great." Apparently it prevents my brain from shrinking too. The alcohol on the other hand....

Don't You Just Love The Sun? Doesn't It Make You Feel Good All Over?

"The future looks bright—maybe too bright"... is how this article begins the story of how the sun will eventually engulf the earth in a few billion years.

"The sun is slowly expanding and brightening, and over the next few billion years it will eventually desiccate Earth, leaving it hot, brown and uninhabitable. About 7.6 billion years from now, the sun will reach its maximum size as a red giant: its surface will extend beyond Earth’s orbit today by 20 percent and will shine 3,000 times brighter. In its final stage, the sun will collapse into a white dwarf." (scientific american)

The sun is one day going to go nova. This is the nova of the physical variety. The kind you learn about in school or hear about on NOVA. This is unrelated from the nova we talk about the earth experiencing here. The link is clear though. If our sun goes nova, we go nova. I think, however, humanity (or the aliens that overthrow humanity and inhabit this planet) will destory this planet long before the expected seven and a half billion years our star still has left.

One of the solutions, provided we are here, is MOVING THE EARTH out to a safer orbit. Anyone care to guess how long this could take? A billion years! A BILLION YEARS. Think about that. We don't, as a species, have the ability to think a hundred or even 50 years out when it comes to trying to save our planet. Oh well.


Oh and did you hear the world's financial market is collapsing? And that I am sick?

(image via sciam.com)

Sorry I'm Late, I Was Out Spoiling My Liver, I Couldn't Wait, The Sun Was Up For Far Too Long Today

Three mortal sins of man: smoking, drinking, gambling. Haven't we learned that the bible forbids these type of things?

But it looks like we're turning to these vices, in light of the rock hard times, with increasing ferocity. (wapo)

"Life's guilty pleasures usually thrive during tough economic times. Though we may forgo new frocks or fancy dinners out, we have traditionally turned to the three big vice industries -- gambling, smoking and drinking -- to help ease our pain." (wapo)

However, the Post points out, "But this time around is different. Smoking has fallen into such ill repute that many municipalities ban it. Fuel costs have made driving or flying to a casino a pricey proposition, and gambling has become almost an afterthought at many of the lavish new ones. Now it seems the only acceptable -- and affordable -- sin left is alcohol, namely beer." (wapo)

"I'd certainly chose food over beer," one man is reported to have said in the post article. Great, and these types of people are everywhere. There's no escaping them. If only they'd all choose food over beer, then they wouldn't be around any longer to pollute the rest of our gene pool. But given the number of alcoholic sinners out there I feel safe to say it's the end of the world, indeed.

WE'RE STILL HERE!! GREAT NEWS WEDNESDAY!

Well, this is great news. It didn't kill us! At least today. It goes fully online on October 21st or 22nd, at last report. [See our countdown on the side of the page -ed.] But for now, those crazy physicists in CERN were unable to successfully create an Earth devouring black hole. Suckers.

But if it's so freaking safe would they really need a press release at the top of their home page (as of September 8th) saying just how safe it is?


[UPDATE 10:16am]
From CERN's homepage: "The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometres of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator at 10h28 this morning. This historic event marks a key moment in the transition from over two decades of preparation to a new era of scientific discovery."

Stories about today's success can be found at the AP, Reuters, and pretty much everywhere else in the known universe (which is still here, for now.) Keep an eye on the countdown on the side of the page and on this site for updates on when they actually start slamming particles together. Which is when the real shit-storm begins.

AP video via youtube:


Thanks for not killing me, today, CERN. congrats.

BBC News Wonders Why People Are Fascinated With The End Of The World; BBC Stupid

The question is, why didn't the BBC seek a comment from one of the EIGN writers.

"A huge particle accelerator experiment is about to start and a tiny group of people believe it could spell the end of the world. But why are we so obsessed with the possibility of apocalypse?" (bbc)

Yes, BBC, why are people fascinated by the apocalypse? Perhaps because we're all terrified of dying. Perhaps because we want to know what comes next. Perhaps because we're so tired of life on this rock that we NEED what comes next. Why do we flock to movies about asteroids destroying the earth? Or global warming. Or tornadoes, or nuclear weapons, I could go on and on. What a stupid question. Of course everyone is fascinated by the end of the world. We always have been, we always will be.


So you say yourself, "The world will end. That much is a certainty. But it may not be soon. And in all probability it will not come to a shuddering, fiery, boiling, cataclysmic end on Wednesday this week." And you're right, it probably won't, but if it does at least we'll spend that final nano-second of thought knowing we were right and you were wrong. And if we were wrong, well whatever, nobody reads this anyway.

Sleep well tonight everyone.

Science Raps Are The Best!

One of the press officials at CERN's large hadron collider decided to make an unsanctioned RAP video in between telling the world that this machine will kill us all (and perhaps the universe along with it).

Watch here:


When seeking comments for this story, one EIGN reader said: "if it kills us all, this made it all worth it." Worth it indeed. Happy tuesday. Don't forget to live life like today is your last day on Earth... it just might be.

God It Pays To Be Short Sighted: a few monday morning updates

* "A computer worm that ferrets out passwords managed to stow away on laptops aboard the International Space Station, NASA has confirmed. It is not the first time a NASA computer has become infected." (theregister.co.uk) I think the best part of that story is the implied browsing of internet porn by astronauts.

* "Unthinkable Happens: Manhattan Apartment Prices Fall" (nysun)

* The government is taking over the US economy. What happened to capitalism in this country? Anyone remember that if you fuck up you fail. Now, if you fuck up (and are a big enough company) you get bailed out by the government. (nytimes)

* We now have to share the woolly mammoth with Russia. Freaking communists are now trying to steal our extinct, pre-historic animals? Bastards. (nytimes)

I'll Take "Having a Great Time, Getting Fired" for $400,000, Alex

Apparently you can rock out with college girls on a boat, get drunk, have your picture taken (from a crappy cell phone by the looks of it) and then be forced to resign with a $400k severance. Sign me up!

"An Iowa community college president resigned less than a week after a photo was published appearing to show him pouring beer into a young woman's mouth.

Iowa Central Community College's Board of Trustees voted unanimously yesterday to accept Robert Paxton's resignation and approved a severance package that officials said was valued at about $400,000.

Mark Crimmins, the president of the board, said although the incident happened in Paxton's private life, "it reflected poorly on the college." (philly.com)

Anyone else think that guy (top left) is the whitest man alive?

Thanks to ICCC for perpetuating the absolutely astonishing practice of rewarding the rich for their stupidity and letting them get away with anything.

(photo from desmoinesregister.com)
(Thanks to EIGN reader jenn for the link.)

On The Cold Dark Ocean Floor I Asked To Come Inside And the Glow Replied

File this in the "scary if I saw it" category:

"Mystery Ocean Glow confirmed in satellite photos.
The newly released images show a vast region of the Indian Ocean, about the size of Connecticut, glowing three nights in a row. The luminescence was also spotted from a ship in the area." (livescience.com)

Okay, so it's probably a bunch of glow in the dark bacteria or something, nothing to be afraid of.... right? Um, so what happens when we spot it next time and it's the size of Florida?

(picture via livescience.com)

If we make it past the 10th, October 21, 2008 May Be Our Last Day On Earth

It's possible we were wrong. It's possible the Earth may not be going nova after all. Rather, we may be sucked in an atomic vortex! How cool would that be?

Everyone's favorite black hole creating super-collider, (hear that Tevatron?) the Large Hadron Collider, on the Franco-Swiss border, appears to have set a go live dead date for the "first high-energy collisions" of October 21st. Provided we make it past the 10th of this month when the LHC is first turned on.

In an unprecedented feat of human ingenuity, it's taken 6,000 researchers, more than $8 billion dollars and over 10 years of work to destroy the earth in a few nanoseconds.

If "all goes according to plan, the superconducting magnets in the collider will zap atomic particles around the 17-mile tunnel at roughly the speed of light. Then the scientists will smash the particles together, replicating what happened mere nanoseconds after the first big bang." (science daily)

And then in 13.73 billion years another species in another universe will create another Large Hadron Collider, or even a Very Large Hadron Collider, to study what happened in the first moments after the big bang caused by this LHC.

Like our unanswered call to boycott the olympics, EIGN now continues its rally cry to boycott the LHC.

(image from boston.com)

GNW XXb: Good News For Women, Bad News For Men

So apparently they (read: crazy scientists) have found a "commitment phobia" gene in humans. (latimes) So to our female FEIGNs (friends of EIGN), just sign your guy up now for a genetic test and find out if he's going to leave you. And who said science was actually a good thing?

The full, science heavy, report can be found here. (pnas.org)

Well, I guess it could be good news for men. Now guys have a reasonable questionable excuse for their inability to commit... "Sorry baby, we're going to have to break up. It's in my DNA."

Good News Wednesday XX: Annoy The Shit Out Of Your Great-Great Grandkids

Awesome. Just what we need. More fucking old people. According to the UK based Telegraph, a "long-life" gene has been found that triples your chance of living to 100. Which, according to the transitive property of annoying, quadruples your chance of pissing me off. Thanks science!

Guest Commentary: I'm Really Pissed About Something As Insignificant As Baseball

Earth is Going Nova would like to present our very first guest contribution, via longtime FEIGN (friend of EIGN) jg3:

Seriously, it's over. Bring on the Haldron Collider, blackhole us now. What was left in this world as sacred and good, the one place that human err was accepted as an incidental fact of life (largely because it didn't actually hurt anyone if an ump accidentally made a bad call), is now subject to the scrutiny of electronic eyes, a command and control center (in Gotham, no less), and a reversal of ruling.

It is a travesty .....


jg3 is the creative force behind the hilarious, if rarely updated, slack-hacker blog. Do yourself a favor and read it now. It is way funnier than this site. One recent post features a never-before-seen graphic by EIGN co-founder Pete.