News and Music

Heh, it sucks for CERN that their LHC is down, but that really only benefits us at Fermilab. I suppose we have a little more time now to discover something, and shift the world focus back here.

So the other day I purchased (yes, purchased, legally) two previously owned albums. At least, I think that is legal. The nice part was, I could listen to the cd's in the store, and listen to the WHOLE SONG! What a crazy concept. I was able to determine how good or crappy an album was before I bought it. So I've realized this system works a whole lot better than iTunes, since I can legally purchase the music, rip it, and not worry about DRM garbage. Then, I can sell the CD back to the store, or online, etc. So even if a few of the songs sucked, I didn't pay as much for it in the first place, and I won't feel too bad about pawning it off again.




At the same time, iTunes is nice, because of their large music catalog, but hearing 30 seconds of a song can make me think twice about buying it. Hopefully the music industry can adapt to a changing world, and truly create a good solution that benefits the consumers the most.

Back to the Blog Future

So I decided to kick back and restart the blog. Why not? So long as I don't share any of my money making schemes I am pretty safe.

Anyway, I watched live as the LHC was started up on sept. 10th, and was pretty impressed. The world didn't end, and a major scientific achievement was made. Next step: a giant ring in outer space that is secretly a weapon...wait no that's a video game.

While watching the startup, and feeling like I got kicked in the balls, I realized that the Fermilab I worked at was no longer the biggest particle accelerator. Then, my head started to really spin. Not because the cost of their accelerator was $10 billion, but that the cost of the war in Iraq was $550 Billion.

Thats where the kicked in the balls feeling came from. Not only are the Europeans laughing at our piddly science endeavors, but also that we could have had an accelerator ten times bigger if we hadn't been pissing our name in the sand a few thousand miles away.

Oh yeah, and if someone gave me $550 billion, not only would I be the first person to shit a gold brick, I would make cars run on water.