Summer food fun and drink - black hole swallow internet · Tuesday September 9, 2008 by colin newell
Scientists at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) plan to smash particle beams together at close to the speed of light to create mini-versions of the explosion believed to have triggered the birth of the cosmos.
Not quite like cloning Dolly the sheep… but curious none the less.
So. Tomorrow. The World might end with a giant Moob
Moob. That is the opposite of… well, you know.
A black hole, in theory, has such intense gravity that matter can move into it approaching the speed of light.
Such things actually exist in the Universe. At a great distance from us, thank heavens.
Mini-Moobs, like White Dwarves exist within 10 light years. 8.6 Light years actually.
While not as crazy as Black Holes, the White Dwarf is pretty intense from a physics point of view – a couple of square inches of material from a W.D. weighs in at over a ton. A couple of square inches of a black hole weighs in at… well, actually… pretty close to infinite weight. Help me Jenny Craig, help me!
So. Cosmologists think an explosion of an object the size of a Canadian nickel occurred about 13.7 billion years ago and led to the formation of all matter. Stockwell Day would argue 3000 years ago – but that is another matter. Get it? Matter?
Never mind.
Some critics say the experiment will create “black holes” of intense gravity that could implode the Earth, or that it will open the way for beings from another universe to invade through a “worm hole” in space-time. Cool. When they come through the gate, I will be waiting with my phaser…
And that bad boy won’t be set to stun I promise you.
Anyway. Have a nice day.
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The downside of Facebook.com chapter two · Monday June 9, 2008 by colin newell
I wrote this over a year ago: Facebook.com is a website solely devoted to data mining – extracting your personal information and selling it to the highest bidder – you are giving up your privacy in exchange for a place to deposit every miserable detail of your McLife.
Some tangible reasons why people are drawn to Facebook.com:
-you really need to catch up with that kid that had a crush on you in Grade Six
-you really need to kill the kid that bullied you in Grade 3
-that 19 year old student teacher had a thing for you in 1974 and now that you are all grown up, it’s time for a follow-up
And for this you are willing to publish your birth date, place of employment, social insurance number, preference in Vodka, etc.
God speed friend, God speed.
And yet today, in June of 2008, we are investigating Facebook.com because of the obvious…
Canada’s privacy commissioner is investigating allegations that the social networking site Facebook.com may be illegally collecting personal information such as telephone numbers, birthdays, and instant messaging addresses without authorization.
Hello. Hello. Read the freaking fine print. Facebook.com has you by the DNA from the word go and all you need do is read the user agreement.
Getting Canada’s privacy commissioner involved with this nonsense is a waste of time. I mean, why not spend those government dollars on some more meaningful study… like why Dog’s bite, why Nun’s always have an evil glint in their eye and why there are signs like “Piercing & Tattoo’s while you wait”?
On a more ironic note – yesterday while waiting for my dear Mom-in-law and wife to finish a round of shopping at the Fairfield Thrifty Foods I watched a guy and a gal who had just met over Thrifty Foods sushi on a sidewalk table… interact, flirt, smile, touch and, get this… exchange Facebook creds. Surprisingly, the pretty Girl (Fiona) from Australia spent more time laughing and touching the guy – a slightly younger dude who heralded from a French farming community in Saskatchewan – he had a French last name starting with B but I was not paying that much attention to him. She was confident, older and Worldly wise. He just looked goofy and spent too much time imagining her naked.
And I did all of this with my ears… without the internet connection…
Try it sometime. Turn it off. Tune it out. And use what God gave you… to participate in the World around you.
Hats off to the Chinese! · Thursday September 6, 2007 by colin newell
Over 40 million Chinese nationals are bloggers.
If you are an internet user in China – at home or in any internet cafe you can look forward to pop ups on your screen that remind you that you are being watched.
Any mention of Democracy online in China generally results in the dreaded ban of shame… or worse.
Of 61 people jailed World-wide for internet crime, 51 of them are in China.
Nice.
I reflect back on meeting and interviewing a mainland Chinese student at the University I work at.
She had no recollection of anything bad ever happening at Tiananmen Square.
That fact alone is sobering. It is harrowing. It is staggering.
So. To the millions of Chinese bloggers that stand diligent, that defy arrest and prosecution for expressing their free will:
I salute you.
Want to learn more about China online? Click here – Boxun.US
The downside of Facebook.Com and LiveJournal.Com · Friday May 25, 2007 by colin newell
Few people realise this so I am going to cut to the chase is it were.
FaceBook.Com and LiveJournal.Com are bad.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Yet so many people rave about it…
Like my work-mate Mike.
Quoting Mike:
Facebook is so wonderful. So wonderful. There are thousands of users on it at our workplace. You must join. You must. Goo-goo. Gaa-gaa.
Shut-up. Whatever.
Now the truth.
Ever read the user agreement on these online communities when you sign up? Ever? ever at all? Show of hands?
Noone. As I suspected.
Dig this. When you join FaceBook.Com, they own you. And everything you deposit. All your photos and all your rants. It is theirs. Forever.
Example: Being the curious science guy I signed into Facebook (and did not read the user agreement) and joined the network that Mike suggested.
What is the first thing I see and read? It is a 19 year old student at my University straddling a toilet puking her guts out after an all-evening drinking binge. Her first and last name is there and her photo.
So. All future employers can see that she is a piss-tank. And probably not a good employee.
In an entry I spotted on LiveJournal.Com (I have a friend on there who is a witty middle-aged writer and game designer…) he has many teenage friends it seems…
One of them writes:
Hi readers. I am Julie Xxxxxxx and I am going to f—-k my boyfriend for the first time tonight
I wonder if this is the right thing to do. It is my first time.
Ok. Is what the right thing to do? Writing about it where everyone can see OR doing it with someone you have known for 3 weeks?
As we have also discovered in some study on the phenomenon of social networking sites is that GIGANTIC CORPORATIONS watch the content whilst licking their chops.
It seems that all these people spilling their whatever have softened the jobs of the marketing experts.
When a whole community decides to share every last intimate detail of their sad lives on the internet…
Well.
You fill in the blanks.
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Domain Registry of Canada - SCAM Rant · Wednesday April 4, 2007 by colin newell
I look after about one dozen websites for a variety of wonderful clients.
Almost all of them have received paper-mail from the scam artists at the Domain Registry of Canada.
Yes. It is a scam.
“People who prey on the uncertainty of others make me sick. This is the reason direct mail and email marketing efforts are dying in vein. It is because of places like the Domain Registry of Canada scam.”
“The Domain Registry Of Canada scam get their filthy paws on people who register a .CA web domain. The Domain Registry Of Canada scam then sends direct mail pieces warning you that you must “protect your domain” and other jargon that insinuates the Domain Registry Of Canada scam is an official or safe place (it is – but so is every other one). It’s done to lure you and the Domain Registry of Canada site and materials even look like a Government affiliated agency.”
link
Other online and paper-mail scams include the likes of the International Internet Directory from Zurich, Switzerland (or some other Central European hell-hole…) including 1000$ invoices for inclusion in this fake directory.
Like telephone solicitation, this is right down there with the bottom feeders. So. Beware the Domain Registry of Canada
Did some more research on the DRC scammers – It seems they have been fined 40,000 dollars for their antics – and with their latest set of antics, it appears they may be in breach of this original court order!
Details here
Hey. Sometimes the good guys do prevail.
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