I can't get anything done today

Because I can't stop reading/watching videos on youtube about the Large Hadron Collider! The more I read about it, the more excited I am. yay physics! I don't understand any of it, but it's still pretty cool, and the videos make it sound easy. I've been finding background on the LHC, how the accelerator works, and even how the massive ATLAS detector works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9XotvwgnaY (nice accents ;-))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQNpucos9wc (really cool, you should totally check that out)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzcATqu5NtY&NR=1 (whaa?? wow)

That last one has some pretty weird fantasia music going on, but it's still really cool. I've also picked up on some info about what great things could come of this experiment.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/09/lhc-top-5-best-and-worst-things-that.html

And then I found a play-by-play of the 'first beam' on September 10th.

http://scienceblogs.com/sunclipse/2008/09/pins_and_needles.php (it works!!)

And as goes with something really awesomely brilliant and breakthrough in science, so go the crackpots. I'll be honest with you. I haven't found many real crackpot just looking today. I've heard about them, and I do recall watching one a month or more ago, but I didn't keep track of it, and now I can't find it. The internet is so overwhelmed with people making fun of the crackpots, that I just can't find the true crackpots today (this makes me really happy), but I'll keep looking. If you didn't know already, there's a few interesting experiments planned for the LHC, and with some of these comes the possibility of creating microscopic black holes, and once crackpots hear about this, they freak out a little bit. Some people are afraid that these blackholes are going to pull the earth in and end existence as we know it ... wow. Do you think a physicist would even attempt an experiment like that if they thought they might even have the remote possibility of pulling the whole earth into a tiny blackhole?? Of course, it's not like they would have any ramifications if this did occur ...

Many people have been rebutting the crackpots.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/09/why-world-wont-end-on-september-10.html

Or just making fun of them

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/large-paranoia.html (end of the world playlist!)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7607548.stm (even the news agencies are doing it)
http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=2914 (in case of imminent world destruction, break glass)

And some people point out the negative ramifications of this outlash of crackpot crazies who don't know what they are talking about!!

http://depletedcranium.com/?p=810 (MIT dude gets death threats for his experiment!)
http://scienceblogs.com/sunclipse/2008/09/doomsday_fears_claim_a_life.php (a girl in India died!!)

Idiots still make me angry. Just tell me when you get tired of reading about dumbasses on my blog, and I'll try to write about something else that bothers me ... like when people don't push in their chairs. Weird thing to have, right? Anyway, next I'll start watching some CERN propaganda.

http://lhc-first-beam.web.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam/Welcome.html

That site has a page about the safety of the LHC stating that these hypothetical black holes are no more dangerous than cosmic rays which have been hitting the earth since ... well, as long as any of us can remember ... oh the homework you crackpots need to do ...

Update: I forgot the best one http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/ Though I'm sure most of you have seen this one already.

I should change the name of this blog

To "Hi! You're an Idiot." Because that's my favorite thing to do. Point out how idiotic people are. One major difficulty I have with the internet is stupid people. Really really. They just kill me. Might literally someday ... you never know. I read a few blogs because they're entertaining and smart, and the bloggers aren't morons! They don't talk about what they don't understand. usually. When they talk about what they don't understand, you just can't prove them wrong, and don't even *try* to prove the commenters wrong, cuz that's just silly. I have come to the conclusion (which perhaps you have already attained) that the people who write blogs and comment are ... well, mostly unwaivering in their beliefs. They either know what they are talking about or have such specific research that they are certainly right (which I like), or they're morons who infer and have nothing to backup their claims and don't understand the full situation (which I do not like). And while it is moderately hilarious to read people making moronic asses of themselves, they are reenforcing the misinformed ideas of other morons who also don't understand everything. I try not to do that ... I also try to be devil's advocate which doesn't turn out very happy for me usually ... I would also say that I'm a rare blogger who doesn't resolutely stick to her position. Maybe that's why I have a small readership ;-)

Anyway here is just one example, but it's the simplest one to pick out and explain. We're back on BPA, btw. Hooray, Bisphenol-A! Anyway, as I have said before, the FDA said BPA is cool, and that's good enough for me thus far. They have some pretty good guys over at the FDA, one of them being one of my old professors from MIT who is smart as shit (seriously, how do you think he got where he is). He didn't work with BPA as far as I know, but still, if they've got him, they must have some big guns. The FDA said it wasn't harmful, but people are still complaining, (that's what happens when morons explode on the internet) and the consumerist wrote this post about an article printed by the Washington Post. About the 4th comment down, someone decides to post this graph. Let's see if we can point out everything wrong with this picture ...

So first of all, there's no reference and it's done in excel! If s/he wanted to make all this up, s/he totally could have. But I'm very clever and actually found the main site where the picture is from, and it looks to be a biotech company, but I still have no idea what this graph was intended for. I just got the URL of the pic, and I bet if you click on my pic you'll get the URL as well. So now you've got about as much information as I do. So since it's a biotech company who's obviously hurting for money since they are using excel to make graphs for what I assume are presetations or papers they are publishing, we'll just go ahead and say that the data is not BS. Accept the premise! So let's look at that increase. Whoa! that looks like a 200% increase in the last 30 years. We learned about this the 5th grade, so I make fun of it all the time. These people obviously want to make it look like cancer rates have gone up a lot. If I wanted to make it look less like cancer rates had gone up, I might, I dunno have started the y-axis scale from 0. This is actually only about a 27% increase. Which by itself is still a little disconcerting. I guess it just didn't look scary enough on the 0 graph, which, incidentally, excel defaults to. I'm just saying that they obviously had to do some work to make it look like that.

What next, friend? Well futher down, other people (thank god) start talking a little sense and point out that people are living longer and that by itself means there will be more incidences of cancer. Also that there are millions of carcinogens out there, and how do we know which causes what? And there's absolutely no evidence on that chart relating cancer rates to BPA use! There's not even a 'use of BPA' chart alongside it going up with the cancer rates ... that and we've been using BPA since before 1975. come on, buddy. And then some one made another lovely excel chart relating global warming to the number of pirates on the high (and low) seas. See, now that's funny.

The internet is such a vast and informative place. Where you could actually read the FDA review and the papers published examining the BPA as a carcinogen and actual scientists' responses to these papers. Why would you listen to the dumbass that posts on consumerist with a fake chart that is designed specifically to look like cancer has gone up dramatically more than it has? Or even the Washington Post or your local news? So many people have pointed out over time that these people know about as much about science and technology as you do. If not much much less (if you are one of my friends, you probably know what I am talking about). I never understand it ...