Presidential Debate

So I watched some of the Presidential debate tonight. I was amazed at how often the candidates agreed with each other. They shared their opposing views, but often in the context of agreeing with the fundamental principle the opposing candidate had just espoused. The funny thing is, that many of the points they bring up about their opponents record are not things that I can substantiate without intense research. Also, politicians are very selective about painting a picture with a broad stroke, without telling the whole story. In the end, I am not sure what that debate did for me, as a voter. Espescially since I am in a state that it really doesn't matter how I vote.

I think I'll write in my name for President. Who's with me? (even if I only get one response from a random friend from a past life who is brilliantly supporting this blog, I will have started my campaign career.)

Usefulness of Studies

I read in a local paper this morning about a local display of cadavers. Not just any cadaver, but a display of the anatomy of dead people. In essence, the cadaver is skinned, put through a process called plastination, balanced in an actionable position and put on display. These people volunteered their bodies to this cause (after their natural death of course), and the institute supposedly has paperwork to back up every one of them. The physician's name is Gunther von Hagens, and he looks just like the sort of character that would do this (see his website at http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html).

I can understand the possibilities of the Large Hadron Collider (see last week's post), but I don't know that there is any usefulness in this study. There are plenty of medical professionals that study the human anatomy and how we can regenerate, repair, and utilize the various tissues and componenets or our body. I'm perfectly happy with giving them government or private money to do those studies (depending on the circumstances). But I think I'm more creeped out than anything by this scientific? artistic? display.

Now the study done on cell phones seems more useful to me. Let's just say I've found a new reason to wear shirts with pockets in the front.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/09/small-study-sug.html

Kick Off

I'm not sure how I'm going to do at this blog thing. I want this to be a fun project for me and for any participants. My challenge is that I'm an engineer and have exactly zero skills in capturing an audience. I will try to be creative, spontaneous, and sometimes controversial. I may sometimes take an opposing view (from my own), blog on politics or about the conversation I heard in the hall at work (Today I heard someone offering a customer "water, bottled water, a drink, Coke or pop." If that's the most creative an engineer can be, then I feel this blog will be short lived).

On that note, I hope I don't stem from the same cloth as many of my fellow comrads. If you haven't heard yet, CERN (yes the same CERN from "Angels and Demons", Dan Brown) has just about completed construction on it's new, 17 mile long Hadron Collider. The purpose of this collider is accelerate tiny protons to extreme speeds, where they will meet, and collide, hopefully revealing particals that are smaller than protons and electrons (quarks, or the Higgs-Boson partical).

So what is the usefulness of such a machine? They are fairly confident that they will create anti-matter and black holes. For the most part, they are certain their discoveries will not impact this generation. And they figure that any black holes they create will not have enough power to effect this universe during it's life time.

They also theorize that they may get a better insight into other dimensions. I'm not sure how entering new dimensions will make the world a better place, but I could immagine it might make travelling a little easier. Wouldn't it be cool to discover a dimension that could get you from North America to Europe just by stepping through some particle beam that sends your matter through some sort of space warp?

In the end, I think we'll discover the scientists and engineers are as sterotypical as we make them out to be. At least for this generation. That's why I hope I don't share any of the same common thread, as the Michigan State grad who rapped about CERN's new, 17 mile long, Multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM