the frig blig

Neutrinos are in the news. Scientists at CERN successfully repeated their recent experiment in which they measure the speed it takes these subatomic particles to go from CERN to the Gran Sasso lab in Italy.

Besides exceeding the speed of light, what’s interesting to me [a non-physicist and non-scientist] about this scenario is the following:

1. Neutrinos pass through solid matter.

2. Neutrinos are neutral [do not possess positive or negative charge].

Therefore I wonder wonder wonder how do scientists and/or technicians steer them? You can’t use mirrors, or magnets, or barrels. How they point those little critters in the desired direction in order to perform their measurements?

The first one who provides the correct answer gets a free beer.

I was a bit surprised to find that my Mac didn’t have the md5sum utility installed by default. A quick Google and I learned that OS X has md5, one of the openssl digest functions. Turns out that md5 can mimic md5sum output by using the -r arg.

So I created an alias in my .bash_profile which defines md5sum to the equivalent md5 command. This pretty much guarantees I will forget that there is no md5sum in OS X but do I really need to remember this if it just works? I think not.

Editor, NY Times:

In yesterday (Sunday)’s editorial page, Carol Giacomo asserts:

“The biggest issue for the United States is how to counterbalance an increasingly assertive China — and reassure its increasingly nervous neighbors — while trying to cajole and goad Beijing into being a more responsible world player.”

I agree that while it would be refreshing to see more nations acting less assertively on the world stage, expecting nations to take a lesser role in furthering their own interests is wishful thinking.

However, taking an unbiased look at the history of the United States, I can only marvel at Giacomo’s audacity in thinking this nation possesses any moral authority for cajoling and goading any other nation to act responsibly.

-FB

The annual occurrence of kids’s most popular holiday came last night to our neighborhood. Kids dress up in costumes, and go begging for candy.

When I was a kid we did it too. The routine was to ring the doorbell, and chant ‘Trick or treat!’ when the door opened. After taking the proffered candy, the polite among us would say ‘Thank you.’

Kids these days, more often than not, after taking the candy say ‘Happy Halloween!’. WTF? I suppose it’s happy for the little freeloaders. But something about that phrase is just too like ‘Have a nice day!’. It’s unnecessary expression of facile kindness.

Boo-hoo on you!