Why Dont You Blog?

My understanding of the Large Hadron Collider could be written in longhand on the back of a postage stamp and there would still be a sizable space for you to lick it without getting your tongue covered in ink.

However, I’m pretty certain that it doesn’t operate over the internet.

There’s a black hole of non-connectedness between the LHC and a website that reports on it. Although you might not immediately assume this to be the case, if you are a journalist. Someone has hacked a Cern discussion website. This was presented almost as if it was a near miss hack of the LHC.

Hackers claim there’s a black hole in the atom smashers’ computer network
Hackers have broken into one of the computer networks of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). …..
The work of the scientists was not derailed and insiders scoffed at claims that the hackers were “one step away” from the systems controlling the experiment itself.

Of course, it is always possible that CERN are running a public webserver off the same computer that it uses to control the LHC. Just almost off the scale of “unlikely”…..

It truly would be “one giant step for mankind” if you could make elementary particles collide by writing really elegant php code.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Popularity: 10% [?]

A few months ago, I opined about the problems of using public debate to determine the value / validity of science. I think, now, this is even more “true” than I did previously.

Over the internet there are a variety of blogs, both theist and atheist, which have looked at the recent Nightline debate between the Rational Response Squad and the trained monkeys (Comfort and Cameron). With a few exceptions from the more dogmatic, fundamentalist, Christian blogs, most commentators agree that the RRS had a more convincing argument and that the trained monkeys were drowning under their own poor logic.

Sadly, most of the blogs also agree that the poor RRS duo came across very badly. This is not a reflection of them as people and it certainly is not a reflection of the subject matter they were presenting. The fact of the matter is that public speaking is not second nature to most people. Doing so on TV is more daunting and being able to talk without demonstrating nervous habits is something which takes practice and training. Comfort and Cameron are not really hampered by this (one being an actor and the other a preacher), and during the debate, the “comfort” with which they spoke was apparent. Now, they were let down by their inane nonsense and condescending attitude, but it could have been a close call.

Imagine a similar debate, this time not between such highly polarised topics where people have pretty much all made up their own minds. If this were, say, a debate between the Ekpyrotic theory and the Big Crush theory would people be swayed more by the evidence or the skill of the presenters?

[tags]Atheism, Science, Theism, Physics, Ekpyrotic, Big Crush, Belief, Christianity, culture, debate, Faith, Kirk Cameron, Philosophy, Rational Response Squad, Ray Comfort, Religion, Society, Stupidity, woo[/tags]

Popularity: 33% [?]

Popularity: 33% [?]

It looks like the Einstein@Home servers are down again. This seems to happen once or twice a month and can last for anything up to a few days.

Looking over the BOINC message log, it appears that the servers may have been kaput since around 0430Z today. Over the last few days there have been occasional problems when my client has tried to connect and download new work units, but this looks like a big one.

At the time of writing, the Server Status page is non-existant and the main project page isn’t coming up (It may have made sense for the Einstein@Home team to have put these on different servers…). The forums, which I thought were on different servers, also seem to be off line at this time.

Oh well. Might as well turn it off then.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Popularity: 20% [?]

Five days ago I talked about the odd statistics which were showing up in my BOINC client for Einstein@Home. Sadly in the intervening five days, nothing has become any clearer.

Now, the BOINC client has been running constantly (with the exception of one 9 hour period) for the last five days, yet the increase seems minimal and the average is plummeting like a stone. Looking at the client stats page there are still 82 work units “pending” credit (at around 53.4 credits per unit) so eventually this should change.

Even so, I am still not sure how the two sets of numbers compare to each other. I cant work out how the averages are calculated at all. Any comments welcome.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Popularity: 23% [?]

I am far from an expert on these subjects, but it covers something which has been intriguing me over the last few days. The Einstein@HOME program is described as follows:

Einstein@Home is a program that uses your computer’s idle time to search for spinning neutron stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors. Einstein@Home is a World Year of Physics 2005 project supported by the American Physical Society (APS)and by a number of international organizations.

(A bit like Seti@Home but that seems to have lost some popularity of late)

Now this is a nice bit of software which runs from something called the BOINC manager, where you can get to view your current work unit, see stats, visit the forums etc.

The question I have, is about the “user statistics” it shows. As you can see in the screen shots, there is choice of “user total” or “user average” and to me, the two don’t seem to match up. I am led to believe the average is “recent average” rather than a simple (total / days) type. But even so, it seems odd - especially as I have had the software running almost constantly for little or no return in the way of work units.

Any feedback or commentary welcome. Given the steady climb shown by the total figures, the mountain-like averages seem somewhat… odd.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Popularity: 23% [?]