Para quem ainda não conseguiu aceder no outro lado, aqui fica a Ficha de Trabalho sobre Rochas.

Berawal dari jadi orang normal tersebut saya lama-kelamaan menjadi orang sedikit kurang normal. Lo kok bisa??Ya iyalah, masak ya iya donk. Maksudnya lama-kelamaan menyandang status mahasiswa harus bisa mikirin bangsa Ini. Mikirin saja gak ada action?? Enak saja. Ya action lah demi bangsa ini.

Berawal aktifnya Saya di Ormawa ITS (Organisasi Kemahasiswaan). Mulai jadi kepala Departemen Hubungan Luar Himpunan Mahasiswa Mesin FTI-ITS Hingga yang terakhir jadi Dirjen Hubungan Kelembagaan BEM ITS mengantarkan Saya bisa meraih Beasiswa Unggulan Aktivis 2006/2007. Beasiswa yang sampai saat ini masih Pro dan Kontra dalam pelaksanaanya. Beasiswa ini ada program Student Exchangenya juga. Negara tujuannya ada 3 yaitu Malaysia, Thailand dan Philippines. Kebetulan saya dapat di philppines (Bukan kebetulan sih, Tapi lebih ingin banyak tantangan di negara ini). Loh mang banyak tantangan di philppines?? hehehe. Ya iya lah, masak ya iya donk(sekali lagi.hehehe). berangkat ke philippines pada 3 agustus 2007 dan berakhir 29 agustus 2007.

Dari sini lah Saya Banyak tahu tentang bangsa Indonesia. Bagaimana pengetahuan orang luar tentang bangsa ini. Ketika kita bertanya pada mereka (orang Philippines.Red). Do you Know Indonesia? (sambil kita nunjukin peta Dunia). Meraka kebanyakan hanya menunjuk Pulau Kalimantan adalah Indonesia. Sungguh begitu Ironi, Negara tetangga terdekat dengan Kita tidak mengetahui dengan pasti negara kepulauan Indonesia. Selama hampir satu bulan di sana, Saya hanya belajar saja di kampus Bulacan State University, Sebuah kampus teknik terbaik di phillippines. Karena memang background kami yang Student Exchange ini adalah Aktivis kampus. Makanya ada yang aneh ketika kita Cuma ikut program kuliah saja.

Akhirnya kami (11 mahasiswa indonesia) mempunyai inisiatif untuk mengadakan Indonesian Day. Sebuah acara dimana kita presentasi tentang Indonesia,diskusi tentang Indonesia, menari tari-tarian budaya Indonesia. Pokoknya semua serba Indonesia Lah. I love Indonesia.

Setelah konsep dah jadi maka kita action dengan bagi-bagi Tim, ada yang menghubungi birokrasi kampus Bulacan State university (BSU.red) untuk mengurusi kebutuhan acara semisal pinjam gedung, pingam alat-alat sound dan presentasi. Dan ada yang berangkat ke Manila, kedubes RI disana (oh iya lupa, kami tinggal di malolos. Perjalanan 2 jam ke Manila naik mobil eh angkot.he3x). yang ke kedubes mengurusi tentang baju-baju adat daerah dan juga makanan khas Indonesia. Walau semua perjuangan ini sangat melelahkan karena semua kita lakukan dalam bahasa inggris dan juga kedubes RI juga tidak 100 persen membantu kami. Jadi kami berkoordinasi dengan temen2 yang ada di Atheneo de manila, University of philippines dan lain-lain (mereka sama2 satu program pertukaran mahasiswa ini). Setelah diskusi bla...bla...bla...akhirnya kita dapat bantuan tenaga 5 mahasiswa. (lumayan 11+5 jadinya 16 mahasiswa.he3x).

Indonesian Day.

Acara all about Indonesia. Diawali dengan lagu kebangsaan Philippines dan berikutnya Lagu Indonesia Raya. Trus ke acara pengenalan budaya Indonesia melalui slides power point dan juga diskusi. Serta yang paling menarik ketika kita tampil menari disana. (padahal latihannya sekitar 3 hari eh bukan 3 jam sebelum acara). Semua mahasiwa Indonesia memakai pakaian adat budaya Indonesia. Dari acara ini para birokrasi dan mahasiswa di bulacan State university malolos philippines jadi mengetahui dan mengenal budaya indonesia. Semoga semua warga Negara Indonesia yang berjuang di Negeri orang disana juga mengemban misi yang sama yaitu mengharumkan nama bangsa dan juga mengenalkan budaya Indonesia. Pertukaran mahaiswa selama satu bulan yang membuat saya semakin mengerti tentang Negara Republik Indonesia.

Nb : Artikel ini hidayat ikutkan dalam lomba Semarak Agustusan TPC. Kritik dan Saran sangat di harapkan di sini...

acara di mulai berkumpul di Bundaran ITS. pagi-pagi banget sekitar jam 06.00 WIB. tuh kan pagi banget...Setelah berada di bunderan ITS ketemu dengan orang yang bernama Angki ( Orangnya gak sama dengan foto yang di YMnya ataupun blognya). Nih orang adalah Koordinator TPC nandur mangrove ini ( Wah kalau angki liat tulisan dia jadi koordinator, pasti besar kepala) ya, bisa saja karena acara ini benar-benar sukses mulai dari kita gabung diawal sampai selesainya acara.

Ditempat acara kita sedikit terlambat, Banner kalah terpampang dengan milik cinta kasih.padahal banner TPC lebih bagus dan lebih jreng yang didesain khusus oleh mbah sangkil (walaupun desainnya lebih mirip tali kasih sama balita). mbah sangkil adalah Orang yang Dah siap terjun tuk nanam mangrove dari kubu TPC tapi batal karena ada ibu-ibu yang minta balik waktu perahunya mau nyapek tempat lokasi (kata mbah sangkil sih...saya juga gak 100 persen percaya).

Ya pokoknya disana kita semua berkumpul temen2 TPC, ada kuclukz,shei,arul,udin,cak gempur,mie2k,jude, dan det. Di akhir acara, Bapak walikota surabaya yaitu bambang DH minta Foto sama teman-teman TPC. dengan senang hati kita semua mau. (gak kebalik tuh???hehehehe) manuipulasi berita hahaahaha..

------> Foto orang2 aneh dengan bapak walikota Surabaya

Nb : gak semua yang lo denger bener, tapi TPC nandur mangrove and foto bareng Bapak bambang DH adalah 100 persen bener

Berita Sing Mirip :

Insan Perubahane arul, Wong polos n apa adanya kuclukz puol, Omahe blogger suroboyo yo TPC , raden mas koki eh angki,

sandy aulia eh salah, aulia Azis

Pengembangan teknologi di bidang audio video ternyata tidak terbatas pada perangkat. Kabel pun tak luput dari perhatian. Saat ini teknologi tercanggih dalam perkabelan adalah teknologi yang disebut teknologi single kristal.

Sudah menjadi rahasia umum bahwa dalam suatu sistem audio video, perkabelan cenderung kurang diperhatikan. Padahal kabel sebagai penghantar sinyal dapat mempengaruhi kualitas suara yang dihasilkan dari suatu sistem. Kabel yang baik adalah kabel yang memiliki distorsi paling rendah –bahkan kalau bisa tanpa distorsi- terhadap sinyal yang dihantarkannya. Dalam suatu sistem high-end, syarat ini mutlak dibutuhkan dalam pemilihan kabel yang akan digunakan.

Terkait dengan hal ini ada beberapa hal yang patut dipertimbangkan dari sbuah kabel. Resistansi, kapasitansi, dan induktansinya merupakan beberapa faktor penting yang bisa mempengaruhi performa sistem secara keseluruhan. Namun diluar itu, ada beberapa aspek lain yang seringkali terlupakan walau sebenarnya juga mempengaruhi kualitas sebuah kabel. Salah satunya adalah tipe konduktor dan kemurniannya (purity).

Perkembangan teknologi kabel juga merambah aspek satu ini. Tercatat beberapa teknologi telah diciptakan untuk menciptakan sebuah kabel performa tinggi. Sampai pada akhirnya, di tahun 1986 Profesor Ohno dari Chiba Institute of technology menemukan teknologi Continous Casting Copper. Teknologi Continous Casting Copper ini mampu menghasilkan bahan konduktur Single Crystal (Kristal Tunggal) yang mampu mentransfer sinyal audio video tanpa tandingan saat ini. Untuk menjelaskan bagaimana hebatnya teknologi peleburan tembaga kontinu di banding dengan teknologi yang ada mari kita bahas satu per satu.

TPC (Tough Pitch Copper)

Pertama-tama adalah Tough Pitch Copper (TPC). TPC dibuat dengan cara memanaskan tembaga sampai meleleh. Kemudian tembaga cair dimasukan ke dalam wadah pencetakan. Wadah pencetakan berfungsi sebagai pendingin. Tembaga yang keluar dari wadah ditarik berulang kali sampai didapatkan ukuran yang diinginkan. Proses ini dikerjakan dalam suhu normal.

Karena semua proses di kerjakan di ruangan biasa, maka dalam proses pembuatannya tembaga terkontaminasi dengan udara sekitar seperti oksigen dan hydrogen. Umumnya tembaga jenis ini mengandung 300 – 500 PPM (Parts Per Millions) oksigen. Kontaminasi Oksigen dan Hidrogen tersebut menyebabkan adanya distorsi sinyal yang sangat mengganggu.

TPC adalah konduktor tembaga yang umum digunakan untuk kabel elektronik. Kita bisa menjumpainya pada kabel-kabel seperti kabel listrik untuk lampu, peralatan rumah tangga dan kabel audio tanpa merek.

OFC (Oxygen Free Copper)

Akibat tuntutan dari audiophile yang semakin kritis maka timbullah OFC. Dikembangkan di Jepang pada tahun 1975, proses OFC sebenarnya mirip dengan proses TPC. Dalam proses ini, tembaga cair di masukan dalam wadah cetak dan kemudian ditarik. Yang membuat OFC lebih baik adalah OFC diproses dalam ruangan hampa udara. Sehingga proses tersebut tidak dipengaruhi oleh udara-udara yang mengandung oksigen maupun hydrogen. Hasilnya, tembaga yang dihasilkan mengandung 10 PPM oksigen. Jauh lebih rendah dibandingkan dengan TPC.

Selain itu, daya hantar OFC meningkat antara 0,5 – 2% lebih baik dari TPC. Seiring dengan perkembangan teknologi pabrik, pembuat kabel OFC kini dapat menghasilkan bahan konduktor yang tingkat kontaminasi sangat rendah. Dan melalui teknologi annealing (pelunakan) dihasilkan OFC dengan butiran kristal yang halus dan rapat. Konduktor jenis ini punya kemampuan daya hantar yang baik, dan karenanya banyak digunakan pada kabel-kabel yang bermerek.

Gambar 1. Teknologi peleburanb berkesinambungan ciptaan Prof. Ohno dan teknologi peleburan konvensional.

LC-OFC (Linear Crystal-Oxygen Free Copper)

Pada kisaran tahun 1975 juga, Hitachi mengembangkan metode sendiri untuk mengurangi butiran kristal. Proses LC-OFC ini telah dipatenkan oleh Hitachi dan menjadi produk eksklusif mereka. Tipikal kristal yang dihasilkan konduktor LC-OFC dalam setiap 1 mm (diameter) adalah sepanjang 130mm. Cukup signifikan dibanding konduktor TPC dan OFC yang umumnya hanya sepanjang 4mm. Oleh sebab itu kabel LC-OFC dianggap lebih baik dari pada TPC atau OFC.

Gambar 2. Foto butiran antara oxygen free copper dan single kristal copper

PCOCC (Pure Copper by Ohno Continuous Casting Process)

Tetapi agaknya audiophile mania masih belum puas, sehingga akhirnya di temukan teknologi PCOCC. PCOCC adalah proses “State of The Art” dari teknologi peleburan konduktor. PCOCC dihasilkan melalui proses Continuous Casting (peleburan berkesinambungan) yang telah dikembangkan oleh Prof. Ohno dari Chiba Institute of Technology Japan.

Proses PCOCC dilakukan diruang hampa seperti proses OFC tetapi bedanya adalah dalam proses peleburan dan pembentukan tembaga. Tembaga Murni cair di masukan dalam wadah cetak yang bersuhu tinggi. Tembaga tersebut kemudian ditarik melalui proses pendinginan.

Proses ini menghasilkan single-kristal (butiran tunggal) yang homogen dan panjang yang tidak terputus – putus ataupun retak. Tipikal kristal yang dihasilkan proses PCOCC untuk 0.3mm (diameter) adalah sepanjang 125m! Lagi pula kadar oksigen dan hydrogennya sangat rendah, atau hampir mendekati nol.

Karena proses pembuatan yang spektakuler ini, kabel yang dihasilkan memiliki beberapa kelebihan yang sangat signifikan dibanding proses lainnya. Kelebihan tersebut diantaranya adalah penurunan rasio tegangan pada tembaga, sehingga PCOCC memiliki kelenturan yang lebih baik, berat jenis yang lebih besar dan faktor “Q” yang lebih tinggi.

PCOCC juga memiliki faktor isolasi yang lebih tinggi terhadap pengaruh elektro magnetik. PCOCC single-crystal (butiran tunggal) tidak memiliki sudut-sudut butiran sehingga membuat transmisi sinyal audio yang lebih baik. PCOCC tidak menghalangi atau merubah sinyal audio secanggih apapun dan memiliki karakter distorsi terendah di dunia saat ini.

Sejak teknologi ini diperkenalkan pada 1986 oleh Profesor Ohno, riset dan pengembangan terus dilakukan untuk menyempurnakannya. Beberapa merk kabel tertentu juga memanfaatkan proses ini. Salah satu diantaranya adalah Harmonic Technology.

Harmonic Technology melanjutkan riset dan pengembangan yang terus menerus untuk membuat PCOCC yang lebih baik Saat ini Harmonic Technology dapat memproduksi tembaga dengan kemurnian 99,99999% atau “7N Copper” karena kabel ini memiliki karakteristik “7Nine” untuk kemurnian tembaga. Tingkat kemurnian seperti itu otomatis membuatnya menjadi penghantar sinyal terbaik bagi suatu sistem audio video. Pada akhirnya performa sistem secara keseluruhan pun dapat diperoleh secara maksimal.

Salam,

Herwin Gunawan

www.vokuz.com

KEGIATAN

1. Lomba posting
2. Lomba foto

TEMA
TPC semarak Agustusan | “ Bangkitnya Blogger Surabaya “

PESERTA

• Peserta adalah blogger yang telah bergabung di Tugupahlawan.com
• Kepesertaan dianggap sah apabila telah melakukan pendaftaran.

PENDAFTARAN

Pendaftaran acara TPC semarak Agustusan dimulai sejak tanggal 14 sampai 31 Juli 2008. Setelah tanggal 31 Juli 2008, pendaftaran akan ditutup.

HADIAH

Lomba posting
Juara 1 :Domain+ hosting selama 1 tahun + uang 150.000 + kaos TPC limited edition
Juara 2 : Domain + hosting selama 1 tahun + uang 100.000 + kaos TPC limited edition
Juara 3 : Domain + hosting selama 1 tahun + uang 50.000

Lomba Foto
Juara 1 : Domain + hosting selama 1 tahun + uang 150.000 + kaos TPC limited edition
Juara 2 : Domain + hosting selama 1 tahun + uang 100.000 + kaos TPC limited edition
Juara 3 : Domain + hosting selama 1 tahun + uang 50.000

Hadiah akan diserahkan pada tanggal 17 Agustus 2008, tempat menyusul..

Kolom komentar saya tutup, dan informasi lebih lanjut silahkan ke tugupahlawan.com untuk mendaftar dan bertanya di sini

PRIMERGY RX600 S4 to serwer typu rack oparty o procesor Quad-Core Intel Xeon MP 7300, który dysponuje największą na rynku mocą obliczeniową przy o wiele mniejszym poborze mocy niż procesory z serii 7100. W niewielkiej obudowie rack 4U możemy zmieścić aż 128 GB RAM i 8 dysków 2.5 cala o pojemności 146GB każdy. Dzięki temu oszczędność miejsca oraz kosztów utrzymania nie wiąże się ze spadkiem wydajności.

Równie znaczącym osiągnięciem może się poszczycić serwer PRIMERGY TX300 S4, który ustanowił nowy rekord w teście organizowanym przez TPC (Transaction Performance Council),  uzyskując przewagę aż 25% w stosunku do produktu plasującego się na drugim miejscu. Osiągnął on najkorzystniejszy stosunek ceny do wydajności wynoszący 523.49 USD kosztów utrzymania przy 317.45 tpsE (transakcji na sekundę w benchmarku typu E). Oznacza to, że plasujący się na drugim miejscu system osiągnął wydajność na poziomie 295.27 tpsE, a jego koszt jest nieporównywalnie większy i wynosi 694.08 USD. W związku z tym oszczędności wynikające z użytkowania serwera Fujitsu Siemens Computers wynoszą aż 170 USD na jednostce tpsE w perspektywie 3 lat.

Oczywistą konkluzją dla managerów zajmujących się centrami bazodanowymi, jak również dla finansistów jest mniejsze zapotrzebowanie na ilość serwerów w centrach przetwarzania oraz wymierne korzyści finansowe.

Szczegóły odnośnie testu TPC można znaleźć pod adresem: http://www.tpc.org/tpce/tpce_price_perf_results.asp

Z kolei wyniki szczegółowe wyniki osiągnięte przez serwer PRIMERGY RX600 są dostępne pod adresem: http://www.spec.org/web2005/results/web2005.html

Więcej informacji o opisywanych produktach można uzyskać pod adresami:

• http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com
• http://www.primergy.com

Galeria:

Tokyo Police Club is offering a free new mp3 from their website.; however, downloaders are encouraged to donate to the Lupus Foundation of America in return for the new song.  The song, Friends of P, is actually a cover of The Rentals, but it's still new to those of us who didn't buy get the UK edition of Elephant Shell. (The song is a bonus track on that album. So download the song, and excuse my shameless plug because it's for chairty and you know you like Tokyo Police Club.

PS. Their summer tour starts next month. Check their website for exact dates.

Tokyo Police Club is offering a free new mp3 from their website.; however, downloaders are encouraged to donate to the Lupus Foundation of America in return for the new song.  The song, Friends of P, is actually a cover of The Rentals, but it's still new to those of us who didn't buy get the UK edition of Elephant Shell. (The song is a bonus track on that album. So download the song, and excuse my shameless plug because it's for chairty and you know you like Tokyo Police Club.

PS. Their summer tour starts next month. Check their website for exact dates.

cette semaine je vous parlerai de mon tour du pays de caux, de mon voyage aux philippines et enfin de mon intégration au sein du CE de mon entreprise.

dans l'immédiat je vais continuer de préparer mon album photo de mon voyage.

Entre um dos melhores discos lançados em 2006, está o EP A Lesson In Crime dos canadenses Tokyo Police Club. Isso mesmo, um EP. Com uma roupagem moderninha, debruçada sobre o modismo que o Strokes lançou em meados dos anos 2000 – e remixada após Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party e, principalmente The Rakes – o TPC recebeu da Rolling Stone americana o termo: a melhor banda neo-punk-post-anti-rock. Se já é difícil de ler isso, imagine para quem tentou enquadrá-los.

Lançaram até outros EPs, ainda mais compactos, mas não chamaram tanta atenção. Mesmo assim, conquistaram o coração de muitos críticos indies afora e foram apontados como a salvação do rock. Chegaram a tocar até aqui no Brasil, ano passado, no festival Planeta Terra. Nada melhor do que subir no mesmo palco que o CSS subiria mais tarde – cunhado de “Indie Stage” – para provar que uma banda não precisa necessariamente de um disco lançado para fazer sucesso hoje em dia, e sim de MySpace.

Mas voltando ao tópico desse post, esse quarteto canadense lançou recentemente Elephant Shell, o primeiro e tão aguardado disco da banda. São 27 minutos com 11 músicas rápidas e fortes, que lembram aquele pós-punk marcante em A Lesson. No mais, encontramos aquelas palmas que marcam tempos, uma percussão competente e as vozes de coro nos refrões. Cheio de referências à cultura pop, adolescência, as letras são tão bem escritas que nos fazem pensar se eles são muito melhores construindo ritmos ou escrevendo letras competentes. Temos como exemplos do primeiro caso como “In a Cave”, “Tessellate” e “Your English Is Good”; do segundo “Graves”, “Juno” e “The Harrowing Adventures Of...”.

Essa não é provavalmente a nova salvação do rock, mas sim da semana. Elephant Shell garante diversão para os amantes do indie-rock. E de malandragem, aproveitaram o hype para chamarem outras bandas para fazerem remixes das músicas desse disco, com Dntel e Tom de Los Campesinos! entre os convidados. Vale a pena conferir.

E se esse disco não fizer o sucesso que prometia, tudo bem. Eles já entraram para a história com A Lesson in Crime. Veja abaixo o primeiro sucesso deles, "Cheer It On":

directed by Olan Rogers

No it wont, but a pretty provocative thought eh? Let's do some research. Bear with me, it'll be fun, really.

I'll admit up front that this is a LONG post and includes a lot of jargon, but it is the best, most complete summation of both sides that I could come up with. I've included dozens of links to other sites and videos plus a list of resources at the bottom for the LHC, CERN, Higgs Boson and for the End of the World theories too.

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Background

What is CERN?

Good question. CERN is an an organization of European nations based in Switzerland with the really smart folks who invented the World Wide Web. Ok, here's who they are in a bit more detail.

CERN currently has approximately 2,600 full-time employees. Some 7,931 scientists and engineers (representing 500 universities and 80 nationalities), about half of the world's particle physics community, work on experiments conducted at CERN.

As an international facility, the CERN sites are not officially under Swiss or French jurisdiction and includes the organization's fleet of fire trucks.

Member states' contributions to CERN for the year 2008 totaled around USD 990 million.

Most of the activities at CERN are currently directed towards building a new collider, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the experiments for it. The LHC represents a large-scale, worldwide scientific cooperation project. Physics experiments are expected to start May 2008, delayed due to an inner triplet magnet assembly failing a pressure test in March 2007.

The LHC tunnel is located 100 meters underground, in the region between the Geneva airport and the nearby Jura mountains. It uses the 27 km circumference circular tunnel previously occupied by LEP which was closed down in November 2000. CERN's existing PS/SPS accelerator complexes will be used to pre-accelerate protons which will then be injected into the LHC.

Six experiments (CMS, ATLAS, LHCb, TOTEM, LHC-forward and ALICE) are currently being built, and will be running on the collider; each of them will study particle collisions under a different point of view, and with different technologies.

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OK, So What's the worst that could happen, really?

Holy Fracking S@%# Batman!!! Shut this damn thing down, now!!!

Well, let's slow down a bit, OK.

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What The Doomsayers Predict

Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” It could wake and summon the Elder gods including Cthulhu. (OK, my idea, but that would be totally cool!) Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act. Admittedly that's one cosmic ass-whooping on the planet.

They have filed a lawsuit March 21 in Federal District Court, in Honolulu, seeking a temporary restraining order prohibiting CERN from proceeding with the accelerator until it has produced a safety report and an environmental assessment. It names the federal Department of Energy, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the National Science Foundation and CERN as defendants.

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A Matter Of Perspective

This all sounds nuts, but really it’s not so nuts that we shouldn’t look into it. There are two causes for some concern: one is that LHC might create a black hole which would eat the Earth, and the other is that a very odd quantum entity called a strangelet might be created, with equally devastating results.

What is different, physicists admit, is that the fragments from cosmic rays will go shooting harmlessly through the Earth at nearly the speed of light, but anything created when the beams meet head-on in the collider will be born at rest relative to the laboratory and so will stick around and thus could create havoc.

From New York Times, March 29, 2008

The new worries are about black holes, which, according to some variants of string theory, could appear at the collider. That possibility, though a long shot, has been widely ballyhooed in many papers and popular articles in the last few years, but would they be dangerous?

According to a paper by the cosmologist Stephen Hawking in 1974, they would rapidly evaporate in a poof of radiation and elementary particles, and thus pose no threat. No one, though, has seen a black hole evaporate.

Lisa Randall, a Harvard physicist whose work helped fuel the speculation about black holes at the collider, pointed out in a paper last year that black holes would probably not be produced at the collider after all, although other effects of so-called quantum gravity might appear.

As part of the safety assessment report, Dr. Mangano and Steve Giddings of the University of California, Santa Barbara, have been working intensely for the last few months on a paper exploring all the possibilities of these fearsome black holes. They think there are no problems but are reluctant to talk about their findings until they have been peer reviewed, Dr. Mangano said.

Dr. Arkani-Hamed said concerning worries about the death of the Earth or universe, “Neither has any merit.” He pointed out that because of the dice-throwing nature of quantum physics, there was some probability of almost anything happening. There is some minuscule probability, he said, “the Large Hadron Collider might make dragons that might eat us up.”

From Phil Plait of Badastronomy.com

The LHC will slam subatomic particles together at fantastic speeds. The collision in a sense shatters the particles and all sorts of weird beasties are created in the aftermath. This give physicists insight into the basic quantum nature of the Universe. The higher the energy of the collision, the more interesting stuff you get. LHC will be the most powerful collider ever built, and is expected to provide really new looks at the quantum world.

If two subatomic particles collide at high enough speed, it’s possible that they will collapse into a black hole. If that happens, it would fall through the Earth and, well, you can guess what bad things would happen then^*.

However, studies done by CERN show that the energies generated will be too low to make black holes. Also, due to a weird effect called Hawking radiation, the tiny black holes would evaporate instantly. The two litigants, however, say that Hawking radiation is not an established fact, and therefore we should be more careful. While that’s technically true, they forgot something important: the same rules of quantum physics that make a black hole in a subatomic collision also indicate they would evaporate. So if you’re worried they won’t evaporate, then you shouldn’t be worried they’d be created in the first place.

Same goes for the creation of a . This is a weird conglomeration of particles called quarks, and if a strangelet comes into contact with normal matter can convert it into more strangelets. The idea is that these can cause a chain reaction that turns all available matter into strangelets. That would be bad.

However, first, strangelets are completely theoretical, and again even if they are real it’s incredibly unlikely they would be created even by LHC. And even if they were created, the chances of them being a danger are very small. A study a few years ago by physicists at MIT, Yale, and Princeton shows this to be the case; as they point out, higher energy particles hit the Moon all the time. If strangelets could be created in this way, the Moon would have converted to a big ball o’ strangelets billions of years ago.

So I think that considering things like this happening is good — after all, we’re walking into new territory here — but in this particular case the litigants are wrong. A lawsuit seems like overkill. In fact, it’s so odd that my skeptical gland was tweaked, and I decided to look into the litigants’ backgrounds.

Walter Wagner apparently has a physics background, but was involved in a similar lawsuit over the Brookhaven collider a few years back, which turned out to be completely baseless.

As for the other, Luis Sancho, he’s, well, how do I phrase this delicately? He’s a bit outside the mainstream. Actually, way outside the mainstream. In fact, totally and way way far outside the mainstream. I don’t think you can even see the mainstream from where he is.

While dismissing the idea of any danger from LHC due to these factors would be an ad hominem and therefore unfair, I think it adds a dimension to this case that’s good to keep in mind.

Again, I’m not worried. I don’t see any basis for their fears, and certainly not for their lawsuit.

Here is what CERN has to say on this.

Massive black holes are created in the Universe by the collapse of massive stars, which contain enormous amounts of gravitational energy that pulls in surrounding matter. The gravitational pull of a black hole is related to the amount of matter or energy it contains – the less there is, the weaker the pull. Some physicists suggest that microscopic black holes could be produced in the collisions at the LHC. However, these would only be created with the energies of the colliding particles (equivalent to the energies of mosquitoes), so no microscopic black holes produced inside the LHC could generate a strong enough gravitational force to pull in surrounding matter.

If the LHC can produce microscopic black holes, cosmic rays of much higher energies would already have produced many more. Since the Earth is still here, there is no reason to believe that collisions inside the LHC are harmful.

Black holes lose matter through the emission of energy via a process discovered by Stephen Hawking. Any black hole that cannot attract matter, such as those that might be produced at the LHC, will shrink, evaporate and disappear. The smaller the black hole, the faster it vanishes. If microscopic black holes were to be found at the LHC, they would exist only for a fleeting moment. They would be so short-lived that the only way they could be detected would be by detecting the products of their decay.

Studies into the safety of high-energy collisions inside particle accelerators have been conducted in both Europe and the United States by physicists who are not themselves involved in experiments at the LHC. Their analyses have been reviewed by the expert scientific community, which agrees with their conclusion that particle collisions in accelerators are safe. CERN has mandated a group of particle physicists, also not involved in the LHC experiments, to monitor the latest speculations about LHC collisions; this group may be contacted at lsag@cern.ch.

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To Sum Things Up

All this is well and good, but why do this at all. All this talk of particles and emissions and 99.9% of light speed and black holes and such. What are they actually looking for and is it worth the slight risk that something planet ending could happen.

In 1964, Peter Higgs, a shy scientist in Edinburgh, added his name to a worthy list of scientists by coming up with an ingenious theory that gave scientists the tools to explain how two classes of particles, which now appear to be different, were once one and the same. His theory proposes the existence of a single particle responsible for imparting mass to all things — a speck so precious it has come to be known as the "God particle." The scientific term for it is the Higgs boson, and to find it physicists are counting on the LHC at the CERN.

Working from Higgs' theory, scientists postulate that initially weightless particles move through a ubiquitous quantum field, known as a Higgs field, like a pearl necklace through a jar of honey. Some particles, such as photons — weightless carriers of light — can cut through the sticky Higgs field without picking up mass. Others get bogged down and become heavy; that is the process that creates tangible matter. "The Higgs gives everything in the universe its mass," says David Francis, a physicist on the ATLAS experiment. Pointing at CERN's grand geological amphitheater of the Jura and the Alps. "None of that is possible without the Higgs."

Yet so far no once has been able to find the Higgs boson in the stream of debris emitted when two particles are smashed together at high speeds. Scientists at another CERN particle collider, LEP, felt they came close before the accelerator shut down in 2000. Scientists using the Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab near Chicago are still hoping to publish a discovery before CERN starts analyzing data later this year. Higgs says he is 90% sure that the LHC will find it.

“The Higgs field, the standard model, and our picture of how God made the universe depend on finding the Higgs boson,” wrote Nobel laureate Leon Lederman in his 1993 book The God Particle. Thus, if it exists, the Higgs boson has an enormous effect on the world around us.

In my opinion, yes it is worth it. Does it scare me? Yes it does.

In 1945 very little was known about what the actual effect of an atomic explosion would be prior to its actual detonation. There was one theory, for instance, which suggested the detonation might spark a nasty chain reaction that would burn up the entire atmosphere of the planet Earth, instantly and horrifically killing the entire human race in one fell stroke (and just about every other living thing as well). But great scientists don't let themselves be stopped by little worries like that. The test went forward.

This test will go forward and for good or bad we will probably learn more about the nature of the Universe, however if you are pulled like a Stretch-Armstrong Doll and sucked into a black-hole or if dragons and or Hell-spawned demons rise out of your toilet, I'll plausibly deny everything.

UPDATED (CERN Successfully tested the LHC in the early hours of Sept. 10th)

• 'Big Bang' experiment starts well
• Scientists Begin Testing World's Largest Atom Smasher
  
• CERN Launches Particle Collider
  
• Congratulations, CERN!
• Question of the day: Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the Earth yet? Has it unleashed Hell-spawned demons? Whew!
• Uncritical thinking kills, from the Bad Astronomer A very sad, must read!
  
• Here are 27 pictures from CERN and the LHC nearly complete as of late July, 2008 from Boston.com.

• Katherine McAlpine, aka Alpinekat (a scientific editor at Atlas), posted on Youtube and vimo, a rap about the LHC! And it is very cool!

• As the LHC supposedly gears up, Harvard physicist Kevin Black, based at CERN, investigates rumors that the particle accelerator may, in fact, soon be shut down — by ripples from the future?!?
• At roughly 3:30 a.m. Eastern time, Wednesday, September 10th, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, say they will try to send the first beam of protons around a 17-mile-long racetrack known as the Large Hadron Collider, 300 feet underneath the Swiss-French border outside Geneva.And a generation of physicists, watching from control rooms and auditoriums on the scene, on Webcasts at webcast.cern or on Eurovision will meet their destiny. The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab, outside Chicago, will hold a “pajama party” for staff members and journalists to watch the events live from a remote control room.The collider, 14 years and $8 billion in the making, is the most expensive scientific experiment to date. Thousands of physicists from dozens of countries have been involved in building the collider and its huge particle detectors. It is designed to accelerate protons to energies of seven trillion electron volts — seven times the energy of the next largest machine in the world, Fermilab’s Tevatron — and smash them together.In recent weeks, there has been a blitzkrieg of papers and predictions on what might or might not be discovered, by theorists eager to get their bets down before the figurative roulette ball drops or the dice begin to tumble.

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RESOURCES

• LHC - The Large Hadron Collider webpage
• Overview of the LHC at CERN's public webpage
• Challenges in accelerator physics
• LHC UK webpage
• US LHC webpage
• UK Science Museum, London Exhibition supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council
• The Alice experiment
• Compact Muon Solenoid main page
• Compact Muon Solenoid page (U.S. collaboration)
• LCG - The LHC Computing Grid webpage
• The Large Hadron Collider ATLAS Experiment - Virtual Reality (VR) photography panoramas (requires QuickTime)
• LHC startup plan. Includes dates, energies and luminosities
• Seed short film - Lords of the Ring
• 'Super-collider' tunnel nears completion The Independent 1 March 2008
• LHC Defense Fund - Anti-LHC organization

ARTICLES

• Energising the quest for 'big theory'
• symmetry magazine LHC special issue
• BBC Horizon, The six billion dollar experiment
• New Yorker: Crash Course. The world’s largest particle accelerator (ca. 6 500 words)
• NYTimes: A Giant Takes On Physics’ Biggest Questions (ca. 4 300 words)
• Beam Parameters and Definitions. The chapter of the LHC Technical Design Report (TDR) that lists of all the beam parameters for the LHC.

DOOMSDAY RESOURCES

• Google Search
• Addict-O-Matic Search
• technorati Search

The Players Championship tees off on Thursday without it demi-god who is still nursing his knee. While there will always be drama at the fantastic island green of the 17th, I might have some ways for you to enjoy even more drama with your .

Three of the past four TPC winners led the field in GIR, and two of those champions also led in fairways hit. This course plays super tight so favor the great iron players.

An issue I do not see enough of when predicting golf is the weather, and it is freakin hotter than McDonald's coffee in Jacksonville/Ponta Vedra this weekend - expect the ectomorphs and fitness enthusiasts like Camillo Villegas and Adam Scott to do better than Phil Mickelson or Chad Campbell.

Scott won here in 2004 plus he has a win this year. Villegas is a former Florida Gator that is guaranteed to have a raucous following and no one is in better shape. Not to pick on the big guys, but Mickelson is the favorite and the defending champion, and Campbell knows about heat growing up in Texas and playing his ball at UNLV. If the Chad can get some putter magic working he could be a force.

The heat might also appeal to the creaky back of Fred Couples, who has three top tens but also a sucka-MC (missed cut) at the Masters. He knows the course having been the 1984 and 1996 champ - for reference Vanessa Williams won Miss America in 1984 and the Nintendo 64 hit shelves in 1996. He is old but that matters little in this game.

Speaking of heat, no one has more buzz than three-time All-American Anthony Kim who is finally showing up on some sheets - 40-1 flyer might be a great momentum play with your risk capital? In Tiger's absence all the individual odds seem more playable, so do not forget the guy who I think is the third best pro on the planet, Geoff Ogilvy at 25/1. Ogilvy has yet to put together a stellar performance at Sawgrass, no top tens and two MC in last five.

See PGATour.com Live @ 17 - great way to pass time at work on Thursday and Friday. The PGATour.com guys even setup a twitter feed for you to keep up to date!

Selected odds and matchups from GolfOdds.com - play Furyk matchup as nothing stands out to me. Phil is a big fave over Singh, but it is the Fijian's home track.

If any of you have listened to Tokyo Police Club you know that their songs/album are short so I didn't expect their set to be longer than 50 mins tops. Although the show was pretty short it didn't disappoint.

On the ticket it said it was an all ages show, but I found that the majority of the crowd were 19+. I saw a few minors roaming around and one that was the bassist for the band that played before Tokyo Police Club (which I'll get to shortly). Once I saw the crowd and how much older it was, it made the concert alot better!

TPC got the crowd involved in few songs by doing some 'clap-alongs' and that definitely brought the energy up another level! My favourite song of the night would probably be 'Your English Is Good' followed closely by 'Nature of the Experiment'. They played song after song which also kept the energy level up! All in all it was a good show!

The band playing before TPC were a duet/triplet from Seattle named Smoosh. When they came on stage it was just a drummer and keyboardist, which I found odd and excited about. Odd because I would think there would be a guitarist in the mix and excited because I wanted to hear how they sounded like. They were alright, I thought they were Metric influenced with their style and sound, but thats just a personal opinion :P. Anyways before I end this thing, I'll get back to the all ages bit to which I mentioned above. During Smoosh's set they had a bassist play with them on a few tracks and when their set was over I noticed that the bassist came over to the merch stand. What I didn't realize until later was that this chick had to be at least 14! I just found it a little funny thats all :P

Links:
Official Sites: Tokyo Police Club, Smoosh
MySpace Sites: Tokyo Police Club, Smoosh

When they called it the peace Pipeline, India's RAW must have felt the blow. Now instead of blowing up pipelines in Pakistan, will RAW will be working to keep it safe?

This means that RAW sponsored the BLA and the BLF just ran out of luck. The day the IPI agreement is signed the BLA becomes the biggest loser, as it is about ready to lose its biggest benefactor--India.

It will be Khalistan in reverse. Pretty soon, the BLA guys will he left hanging out to dry--or hanging from the nearest tree.

Not only the BLA but the Baluch Sardars will also protect the pipeline because it will be profitable for them to keep the gas flowing to India.

India is a participant in the $7 Billion investment and is hungry for gas. It has come a full circle. For years it would not accept a pipeline through Pakistan. It wanted an under water pipeline from Qatar or Saudi Arabia to be constructed to India.

Pakistan has been working for more than a decade for the TAPI Pipeline. Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline.

With oil prices skyrocketing, India's thirst for cheaper imported gas has acquired a greater urgency than ever before, considering what the Hindustan Times has termed as the growing "supply-demand mismatch" reflected in the recent news that "as against an overall requirement of 77 million standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd) of gas between April 2007 and January 2008, only 37 mmscmd was supplied". A Times

Last weeks insurgent attack in the citadel of NATO and the heart of Mr. Karzai Forbidden City informed the entire world that the Mayor of Kabul's writ does not go beyond his palace. President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan is now free to bypass the infestation of chaos called Kabul and directly work with Iran and Pakistan to build the TIPI (Turkmenistan-Iran-Pakistan-India) Pipeline.

The only way TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Iran-Pakistan-India) would be successful if the Pashtun parts of Afghanistan are brought under Pakistan. Who would know that Badshah Khan's vision and Chaudhry rehmat Ali's proposal and Iqbal dream would come through because of Pipelinistan.

As soon as China joins the pipeline efforts, the entire dynamics of the region will change. With TPC (Turkmenistan-Pakistan China (TPC) or Iran-Pakistan-China (IPC) TIPI or TAPI coming into existence, the importance of Gwador will be greatly enhanced as compared to Iran's Chahbahar. Neither Iran nor India have the wherewithal to compete with China's clout on developing Gwador as a major port connected via Pakistan to China.

Pakistan could then work with Kazakistan, and Iran's nemesis, Azerbaijan to build oil pipelines through its territory and sell them to India.