The compost bucket in the kitchen was full. I had to take contents to the big compost bin, behind the shed in the back yard. However, before I could do that I had to clear a path to the bin. Picture behind cut
LHC’s Lack of Black Holes Rules Out Some Versions of String Theory
the LHC doesn’t seem to be making black holes at all—their decay signature is markedly absent from the data collected so far.
[This is] helping physicists make up their minds about how many dimensions there are in our universe. The lack of black holes at the LHC nullifies some of the wackier versions of string theory which depend on multiple dimensions.
From the Guardian:
Authorities feared footage of gleaming hospital in Michael Moore’s Oscar-nominated film would provoke a popular backlash
At xkcd
… in Mao’s Great Leap to Famine
This reminds me of Stalin’s terror, especially in the Ukraine, which I recently read about in Bloodlands, but on a vastly greater scale.
…the archives show that coercion, terror and violence were the foundation of the Great Leap Forward.
Mao was sent many reports about what was happening in the countryside, some of them scribbled in longhand. He knew about the horror, but pushed for even greater extractions of food.
At a secret meeting in Shanghai on March 25, 1959, he ordered the party to procure up to one-third of all the available grain — much more than ever before. The minutes of the meeting reveal a chairman insensitive to human loss: “When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”
Via Ann Althouse.
From Space.com
From marccarlson.
After being snowbound for 40 hours we were finally able to get out late Sunday morning. The first event: A family trip to a bookstore. There I found and bought a copy of The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man. I had read it decades ago, back in college or even high school. The author, David W. Maurer was a long time friend and colleague of my parents. When I saw The Sting a few years later I immediately noticed how closely it followed Maurer’s book and mentioned that to my father. Dad agreed, but that was done with without Maurer’s permission or any acknowledgement of his work. As noted here, a lawsuit followed.
After all these years, The Big Con still finds new fans, such as Cory Doctorow.
Brother Astronomer: Adventures of a Vatican Scientist. The author is brotherguy.
All are recommended to those interested in the respective subjects.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 