Blue Sky Limousine

Here’s my crrrrraaaaazzzzzy theory, in short: The Atom Smasher will be activated this August, take 2 months to warm up, and then destroy the world on Halloween. If the world survives, the machine will be upgraded in 2012. That’s right, a Super Atom Smasher will be built. Then we’re all dead for sure.

Here’s my crrrrraaaaazzzzzy theory, with a bit of detail:

When they flip the switch in August of 2008, and turn on the Large Hadron Collider (which is underground, along the Franco-Swiss border), nothing will happen — not for 2 months.

From Wikipedia: “The first beams are due for injection in August 2008, with the first collisions planned to take place about two months later.”

So, August 2008 + “about two months” + time it takes some crazy pseudo-scientists to make a last-ditch effort to stop them = October 31, 2008.

If the world doesn’t end on Halloween this year, then gear up for 2012!

From Wikipedia: “The Super Large Hadron Collider (SLHC) is a proposed upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider to be made around 2012. The upgrade aims at increasing the luminosity of the machine by factor of 10 to 10^35….”

So sometime in 2012, they’ll upgrade the device that is already scaring science enthusiasts everywhere.

Maybe the souped-up version will be ten times more powerful.

Maybe it will be more so… say an increase in power by a factor of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s right, 1 with 35 zeros behind it.

Here’s my saner theory: The world won’t end, but some weird and incredible things could potentially happen. Maybe a major breakthrough that changes everything… Maybe free energy! Maybe a big explosion… Maybe someone has an idea and decides to hold the world hostage with the threat of turning on the unproven but so-called Ultimate Doomsday Weapon.

Maybe an electro-magnetic pulse wipes out the electronics in Europe.

The Sci-Fi Channel has been airing a bunch of Hulk TV show marathons lately, so I watched a few episodes. They must have been pulling content from later in the series, because I saw some amazing stuff.

I used to watch The Hulk a little bit a few years ago, and I think at that point Sci-Fi was airing mainly early episodes, in which the Hulk was establishing first that he was strong, then that he was super strong, and so on. So his feats of strength were slowly ramped up. Obviously the series continued to ramp up the action and take the story to new places.

I just saw one where he was captured by the government when a meteor landed, and they thought he was an alien. The space rock emitted Gamma Rays, which prevented him from fully returning to normal once going Green. In that state, he was confused, but somewhat able to reason and speak. He had big eyebrows and a big nose, was flesh-colored, and quite muscular. It seemed that they used Lou Ferrigno for some shots of the body, and Bill Bixby for others, of the face. Then when he transformed again, they showed him increasing in size, to make the Hulk more sensational, even though his final form would still be played by Lou Ferrigno.

In another episode, somehow some old guy could become a second Hulk, a weird gangly tall thin green angry snarling smiling monster, who reveled in murder. He allowed himself to kill a guy just to prove how tough he was. His goal was to use his weird Hulk to achieve his dream life, but he wasn’t very good at controlling it. Give him a break, right? He hasn’t been at it very long. Still, David Banner’s a lot smarter, and with his experience has calmed his Hulk down a bit. Banner wanted to first cure the second Hulk, and then himself. The second Hulk destroyed the cure, Banner freaked, Hulked out, they fought, and then the cops came in and killed the second Hulk. I’d like to believe that Banner’s Hulk would have survived a similar shooting…

Sure, it’s just a tiny image. No big deal. But Google is huge. And this one tiny change just seems to be pretty wild. At least to me.

I had gotten used to Google’s old favicon long ago. It seemed timeless. But now, in 2008, with a new, lowercase, transparency favorite icon, it make me wonder about time and change.

I heard that by 2050, if we’re not cyber-enhanced, we won’t be able to comprehend the changes happening around us, as brought about by ultraintelligent sentient computers.

Google’s Old Favicon:

Google’s New Favicon:

Happy Memorial Day

I was surfing the television, when I came upon some compelling programming. I was glued to my set.

Comedy Central is hosting a Memorial Day celebration, during which they’ve decided to broadcast one of the most dramatic and thought-provoking war movies ever made. This film has made grown men cry.

Of course, I’m referring to Spaceballs.

Get this! There’s going to be a Spaceballs cartoon on G4 starting June 1!

From Wikipedia:

We fought Hitler in WWII because he was doing bad things. Killing people, taking over in a bad way.

Then in 1950, during the Korean War, our ally apparently emptied its prisons and killed every last prisoner, burying them in a mass grave in relatively short time.

Apparently, U.S. politicians in the know at the time were OK with this.

This freaks me out. If we’re against mass graves during WWII, but then allow our international allies to commit similar atrocities, what does that say about us?

Could there be countries out there today that are doing worse things, and those in the know over here don’t care? Or maybe they even support those actions?

Could we ourselves be secretly doing evil things?

I was watching a movie the other day, a really well-made classic, although not that old, and the thought occurred to me that a lot of the stuff on television is crap.

Of course, I’ve been aware of that fact for quite some time now, but it hit me that some of the stuff I’ve voluntarily watched on TV is just of poor quality.

I know we live in a world where referencing other material is good, and useful. But it seems like technology has made it easy enough to parody anything that lots of what we’re seeing is recycled garbage. Or brilliance, put through the process of recycling, and resulting as garbage.

Say a brilliant director makes a masterpiece. It’s a hit. Ten years ago, it would have remained unique, not nearly as parodied as it can be today. Indeed, “300″ was almost instantaneously riffed on by thousands of fans worldwide, through the process of online collaboration.

That’s fine. But when a television program does it, and takes it too far, it can get depressing.

It’s like that SoBe commercial that uses lizards who dance to Thriller. I don’t get it. What’s the point? Thriller is brilliant in and of itself. Recycling it is not brilliant. But maybe they weren’t going for creative quality. Maybe they just needed a quick fix for amazing substance that was difficult to create on its own.

Is that the direction the country is headed? The world? Are we destined to live in a society where the greatest creations of the day are merely reinvented versions of previous triumphs? I guess it’s like how Hollywood was said to have been a few years ago. Remake city. Reality shows too. “Let’s copy Europe!”

As of today, May 6, 2008, I’ve noticed that some sites have changed as far as their PR is concerned.

They say Google updates Page Ranks every 3 months or so. If this is true, then the next update may arrive sometime in early August.

Then again, the current update could be localized, or ongoing. But if there is a distinct cycle, then any local or ongoing process should reoccur a few months from now.

I heard about a thing with Cadbury Eggs, where they had gotten smaller this year. I figured it was because of the weakened U.S. dollar, and the slower economy. So my guess is that certain items, instead of increasing in price, will shrink in size.

This was evidenced at the store the other day. Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, which usually gets sold in gallon containers, now came in one of those cardboard tubs with a plastic cover. But more than that, the tub itself seemed smaller than average. It was like they made it mini on purpose. I thought, “Oh, of course, there must be a whole range of sizes to choose from.” Like at the movie theater, you can get regular popcorn, large, and jumbo. Well, I didn’t notice any larger ice cream packages. Maybe they were out, but I think they’re just slimming things down a bit.

I wonder if it will ever get to the point where certain items become too small… to be seen by the naked eye?!

It’s time to merge. Fusion!!!

I guess since things are becoming tough, economically speaking, it makes a lot of sense to consolidate various businesses. When two companies come together in a good way, they are both stronger for it, and each can now better handle former weaknesses. Two heads are better than one.

In “Village Of The Damned,” a bunch of freaky blonde kids went around acting as one. They’d sit in class and absorb pages out of encyclopedias. I think how they did it was kind of like how a normal group of friends divides up pieces of a project.

“Alice, you take chapters 1 and 2. Fred, 3 and 4. Daria, 5 and 6, and Beavis, you take 7 and 8. We’ll all meet back here in 5 days to go over each other’s notes.”

But what I think those Damned children were doing was each reading one page, and immediately contributing it to their shared mind. They were rapidly assimilating information into the collective.

A company usually has a certain way of doing things, trade secrets. So a competitor would have to cobble together their own way of doing the same things. Sure, spies might be able to capture some of the methodology from Company #1, but I think, usually, Company #2 simply figures out the steps in the same logical manner that Company #1 originally used. There might be gaps. And Company #2 might fill inadvertently fill a gap that Company #1 is still struggling with.

Then the economy starts hurting, and both Companies need help. So they unite. BOOM! Their entity just doubled in size and intelligence.

But what really concerns me is what does this all mean to us? How does it impact us consumers when competitors unite? As long as the new Super Companies still have formidable opponents, then competition should remain, pushing value higher and prices lower. So hopefully the mergers will produce good news in most ways.

It’s hit the fan.

I read on Yahoo today that, “The Supreme Court affirmed Wednesday that police have the power to conduct searches and seize evidence, even when done during an arrest that turns out to have violated state law.”

So what this means is that cops can arrest you for any reason. Can search your stuff, and take it away from you. Then later, if it turns out your arrest was unwarranted and illegal, it doesn’t matter. They can still use your stuff for any purpose, including your prosecution.

It’s my understanding that disallowing the use of evidence that was wrongfully obtained provided motivation for officers not to illegally arrest people or trespass on private property just to find said evidence. But all that’s out the window.

You can get arrested for anything now, it seems, because there appears to be a significantly reduced penalty for officers involved in illegal arrests. Indeed, such arrests might even prove rewarding, as they would allow the seizure of property that could prove useful later.

So… say bye bye to the Fourth Amendment.