this superb machine

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is super-cooled and about to come online. Lyn Evans (not sure who he is exactly) says, waxing poetically, "let's bring the machine alive!"

That's exactly the kind of remark that is scaring the bejeesus out of people.

Fascinating that they have successfully cooled the ring down to 1.9°K. I don't get to use the Kelvin scale very often. During bitterly cold winter days in Canada, when friends complain it is terribly nippy, perhaps when the ambient temperature is -20°C but there is a viscious breeze which produces a wind chill of -30°C, I switch to Kelvin. I remind people, "Hey, it's 250 degrees today! Quite balmy, don't you think?" I usually receive glares or birds. Feh. Go live in Nunavut. Or Ottawa. Or Winterpeg. And then describe how cold you feel.

Personally, I'm terribly interested in the goings on at CERN. It seems to me that the discoveries regarding the nature of matter (and the gaps between) are occurring here. I wonder if they need an Excel trainer...

It is still very puzzling why, despite all the very smart people on the planet, that we still can't satisfactorily explain where most of the mass of the Universe is. I think it wiggled between the cushions. Fire up the vacuum and you'll find it all right.

The LHC experiments might just crack this open, this little mystery. Plug in the popcorn pumper and melt the margarine on Oct 21!

But, in the end, will this improve the prices at the gas pumps? Hey! Now there's a business opportunity: start up an alternate fuel company and jack up the prices. $1.30/L for Dark Matter Plus...