Using The Higgs Boson To Prevent Terrorism

Imagine an elaborate system to prevent terrorism by using the theoretical quantum particle known as the Higgs boson.

To do this, one must build a rigid set of guidelines with a directed point of failure.  The point of failure will be used to decide if a Higgs boson particle should be created.

This boson doesn't "want" to be created.  The Higgs boson is a particle that should not exist in this spacetime frame.  It only exists in other frames of space-time.  If we cause this boson to appear in this frame of space-time, we will create a paradox.  But basic causality will prevent the Higgs boson from appearing in this frame.  It's just a fact of nature.  It's a scientific law.

In this way, it's similar to lightening.  Lightening travels through the path of least resistance.  In the case of a temporal paradox, causality will use the easiest effect to prevent a cause.  Cause and effect are reversed in the situation of a paradox framework.

When I say "easiest," I am not referring to Occam's Razor.  The actual effect that prevents the cause may appear to us as the least obvious effect.  So directing the effect is very difficult.

I think the best way would be to use encryption.  Each airplane that we would like to protect will carry several encryption keys all over the plane.  They will be made of very fragile material.  Under normal circumstances, if they plane remains intact, they keys will be retrievable.  If the keys are retrievable, they can be returned to the facility that will decide to then not attempt to produce the Higgs boson particle.

The keys are encrypted in order to prevent counterfeit keys from entering the equation.

That's the setup.  To summarize: Got all the keys?  Yes, we do?  Ok, then we will make no attempt to produce the particle today.  We'll try again tomorrow with new keys.

The tricky thing to remember is that the Higgs boson particle will only be produced if and only if a key is missing.  The idea is to build a system that will mean the easiest way to break down key retrieval is to destroy an airplane.  Since that is the easiest thing to do, causality will require terrorism to become harder.

Got all the keys?  No?  Uh oh, one or more is missing?  Ok, we shall now attempt to produce the particle that "doesn't want" to be produced (which then prevents the terrorist attack in the past).

It is important to ensure that the Higgs boson particle will be created in earnest if even one key is missing.  If the key is missing because a plane was destroyed, it is imperative that they attempt to proceed.  Doing so will then produce the effect to prevent the cause.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Bob the Builder Lives in a Socialist Society

Can I over-analyze everything?  Yes I Can!  Just remember that when you read this article.

So Bob the Builder is a children's TV show, depicting Bob as a building "contractor."  I use scare quotes because he doesn't ever formally contract with anyone. The show is broadcast in many countries, but originates from the UK.

One of the things I noticed is completely omitted from the show is the concept of money and economics.  Now, you might say that's fine because it's a children's show, so why complicate it with such ideas?

And you would be correct, except that I'm not talking about the lack of focus on these concepts.  I'm talking about the active and conscious omission of these topics.  Money in specific and economics in general are purposefully removed from the show.

Sure, maybe I'm over-analyzing.  Maybe I see things in a distorted way because of my views.  Not only that, but how does one prove a negative like this?  You can't.  So with that in mind, bare with me.

In "Snowed Under: The Bobblesberg Winter Games," there is a perfect opportunity to depict money or even just a credit card.  Bob checks into a hotel; Spud orders room service and even gets a job.  Yet there's no mention of cost or pay.

In "New To The Crew," the town's folk build all kinds of things out of an old willow tree.  "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!"  There is no association made between how much time it takes to do all these things and what the town's people could have been doing instead.  In economics, this is known as the "marginal alternative use" of resources.

The labor from the rest of the town is being hindered by the disposal of the old willow tree.  That is the marginal alternative use of this labor. Therefore, it is of utmost importance in this sector to be acquainted with the relevant investors and to manage the transaction process ideally.  That process is completely missing.  But it's not just ignored, it's actively omitted.

There are times when lack of labor is depicted.  But usually it is a result of poor character on the part of Bob's workforce (the machines do not represent automation, they represent labor only).  They are usually messing around and have a lesson to learn in the end.  Labor being misallocated never results in a labor shortage.  If there's a chance of labor shortage, Bob just brings in more machines with no explanation as to how they are acquired.

Bob and his team always evaluate the ability to accomplish the task by Bob asking, "Can we fix it?"  His team always enthusiastically responds with "Yes we can!"  But they never ask "Should we fix it?"  A socialist society would never be able to answer a question "Should we fix it?"

Is it better to have a bonfire with the wood from an old tree or have the whole town build random stuff with it?  Is it time to tear down a stricture or repair it?  They don't ever know the answers for sure.  This is because a socialistic society is blind without prices.

You might say that depicting intricate economic concepts like this is beyond children.  Most children's shows skip money.  On the other hand, Bob talks about intricate environmental and ecological concerns all the time.  They depict civics and regulations.  They even depict endless paperwork.  Wait, what?  So why not at least touch on economic concerns then?  Why this and not that?

Instead, economic ideas are purposefully removed.  The desire to simplify can lead to economic illiteracy, which we have plenty of already.  Granted, the show is meant for a world-wide audience.  To depict prices means showing currency, which might tie the show to a specific geographical locale.  But that's a lousy reason to omit something.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

That Bin Laden Killing

I have some vague sense that many people are opposed to capital punishment, and for good reason, and especially when there is no trial and conviction, and yet we are expected uncritically to celebrate the death of Bin Laden at the hands of the U.S. state. The government needs glory and we are supposed to provide it, regardless of the cost (which, as Anthony Gregory points out, has been American liberty itself, in addition to possibly millions of lives). Lew Rockwell points out that there is a reason for the timing of this announcement. Regardless, so intense is the pressure not to question any aspect of this that the Cato Institute took the trouble to issue a note of congratulations and inform us all of what a “huge debt” we all owe to the government for its magnificence. The killing also permits simple minded people to imagine that all U.S. foreign policy struggles with Islam are due to one bearded guy with a grudge and have nothing to do with, for example, the American penchant for invading other people’s countries and stationing troops in the lands that Islam considers holy.

via blog.mises.org

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Road Trip, 2011

I meant to post this sooner but the time would always get away from me.  In fact, I started this post on the trip, thinking I'd be able to finish it along the way.  Yeah right.  I also lost part of the article in an error, so I had to reconstruct that part of it (mostly just image placement).  Anyway, here we go.

Karen let me load a GPS Tracker application on her phone so we could get data points for the entire trip.  I really appreciate her letting me record the data this way.  It meant she had to leave her phone in the GPS Tracker application, due to how it's designed.  Thanks, Karen.

This is more of an analysis of the road trip and the places we visited along the way.

We started our trip at about 10:00 AM on March 26th.  By the time we reached Richfield, nine and a half hours later, we had traveled 528.7 miles.  Well, you can see these kinds of stats in the map data.  And as I mentioned to my mother, 93 MPH is likely due to the speed required to overtake, and the fact that the speed limit in Utah is 80 MPH.

I could have also blamed GPS jitter on the recorded max speed.  GPS is not a reliable method for detecting speed.  A variance of 15% can easily be introduced by GPS technology.  But the fact is, I did indeed see the speedometer reach about 90+ MPH.

Of course, the "average speed" is incorrect.  This average is robotically calculated using the "portal-to-portal" method, not taking into account any stops along the way.

This route took us right through Las Vegas.  Hannah was impressed with the buildings, especially the ones with the gold windows.  The land forms gradually got more and more interesting as we briefly drove through Arizona then into Utah.  It really did look painted.  And in Utah, the land was just as colorful, but with the added detail of snow to top it off.

By the time we reached Richfield, the kids really had enough.  It really was "drive until you puke."  And it was a good thing we stopped when we did because there were no services for a very long time after that.

We stayed at the Comfort Inn, Richfield, at which Hannah was very impressed with the luggage cart she got to ride in.  Hannah also discovered a few constants.  She finds constants comforting, as many children do.  She is a self-saving princess when it comes to these details.  I guess it's a coping skill.  One constant she noticed was that each hotel has individually wrapped plastic cups.  They also usually have a pad of paper and a pen stashed somewhere for her to write with.

Also, come to find out, the room had quite a view, which the kids didn't notice until the next morning.  On your left was the indoor pool, in basically a greenhouse thing.  And directly in front was a giant pile of dirt.  If you know our kids, this view was absolutely mind-blowing.  Both Hannah and Benjamin were frantically working out their spacial reasoning to find a path to these attractions.  Didn't work.

We had our complementary breakfast and we were off again like a herd of elephants.

The snow was still high above us in Utah.  Notice the purple line along the 50, above.  This is a gap in the cellular signal for data (voice apparently worked alright, if you like that feature).  That purple line is also about the distance we saw "no services" signs, if I recall correctly.  There is really not a lot going on along the 50 in Utah.

Again the average speed was extremely low, this time because we stopped for lunch just after reaching the Colorado border.  We reached our first planned stop of the trip: Uncle Roddy & Aunt Heather in Eagle.  Or, as Benjamin and TJ would recall, if you asked them: The Place With the Working DVD Player!

The next morning, it snowed.

So I posted a picture of the snow on Facebook.  Not long after I posted the picture, I got a reply:

• • 

    Bruce Snow?! I'll bet he's excited to see it. We've got some here in Colorado this morning too, poor little wet flurries trying so hard. They don't stand a chance on the warm spring ground.

    March 28 at 11:07am 
  • 

    Anthony Yeah, that's Colorado snow, actually. :)

    March 28 at 11:59am 
  • 

    Bruce Anywhere near Lakewood? Coffee's on!

    March 28 at 12:25pm 
  • 

    Anthony It appears we are two or three hours away, and we're going in that direction. We'll bring the PB&J!

    March 28 at 2:08pm 

The drive out of Eagle seemed rather daunting due to all this new snow.  But the plows had already done their first passes, so we had asphalt most of the way.  Only commercial vehicles were "advised" to use chains.  Even so, all vehicles were expected (under threat of violence) to have chains just in case things got worse.

When we came down 5,000 feet, we were past most of the snow, for the moment.  It was a lovely visit Stormy and Bruce in Lakewood (except for the part where Benjamin threw a huge rock down the stairs).  We watched a Barney video, had PB&J, and talked.

• 

  Bruce

  Enjoyed our visit with Anthony Martin and family. Quote of the day: Hannah, on our porch, looking at the trees and the mountains - "Wow! Wow, this is so NICE! Wow! And in heaven it'll be even NICER!"

We found another Comfort Inn in Burlington just before entering Kansas.  The luggage cart was totally beyond Hannah's expectations.  It was gold and had a gold ball on top.  She thought it was simply lovely.  And Benjamin spotted a Doritos truck in the inn's parking lot and yelled "CHIPS!!"

The next day, it snowed.  Again.  And it rained the whole time we were driving in Kansas.  In fact, this part of our journey has the best travel stats of all legs going in that direction ...

One state.  One day.  Did you know Kansas has about fifty Oz Museums?  We did stop for Burger King in Kansas City.  We stated at the Econo Lodge, Chillicothe, which is a type of Best Western (according to a traceroute I ran out of their WiFi).  It was probably the best of all on this trip, except that they had no luggage cart.  There was no need for one since we parked right in front of our room.

Missouri is the state I got pulled over for driving too fast on the wrong lane (that's only the passing lane, I guess).  After presenting our papers, the trooper let us go with a wink and sort-of a verbal warning.  I didn't have to try to convince him that states don't exist or anything like that.  Yay!

Eventually we made our way to the house of my friend Aaron and his family.  Now Aaron would have me believe the Jackson Family was just on their best behavior due to the presence of the Martin Family.  But I think they're a nice bunch and he doesn't give them enough credit.

We also stopped off for a while at a mall in Indianapolis before reaching Columbus Ohio.  We stayed at the Super 8 in Ohio.

There is a really neat Burger King in Fredrick, Maryland.  That's where we had dinner before reaching our destination in Middletown, Delaware.  Here's the Burger King:

So we stayed a week in Delaware, on a farm.  Karen's grandparents have such a nice home.  Take a look:

We also visited some family in Virgina.  We had a blast spending the day with them.  We met everyone at Red Robin then set the kids loose at a nearby park.

I mostly documented the trip home on Facebook, so take a look at my wall for details about that.  We went to Virginia to see some more of Karen's family, saw the sites there, drove down to North Carolina and stayed a couple days.  After that, it was the long drive home.  Apparently we just missed the biggest tornados anyone has seen in a long time.

Would we do it again?  I think most certainly.  The drive was long, but I think it was worth it.  If anything, the country is smaller now to us because of this trip.  Now I personally know what we can tackle in a day and what we can tackle in a week.

All GPS tracking information provided on behalf of InstaMapper.com

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

An Evening of Eschatology The Meaning of the Millennium

You’re listening to An Evening of Eschatology

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The following is background by John Piper on this event and the issues being discussed. Listen to the audio or watch the video for the conversation itself.

On September 27, 2009, Desiring God and Bethlehem College & Seminary hosted “An Evening on Eschatology” at the Downtown Campus of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. It was attended by about 800 people who sat in the darkened sanctuary while six cameras were trained on the brightly lit roundtable where the four participants sat in a circle.

via desiringgod.org

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Toy Story Birthday

See the full gallery on Posterous

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Pie Index (final)

Well, looks like this is my last entry for Pie Index. I haven't been updating this section of my blog because the price hasn't really changed for quite a while. Then this happened:

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Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Literally

via i.imgur.com

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog

Question Digested!

Question Digested: 1470

The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.  Your question was:

Oh great and powerful Oracle ...

I like your Old Spice commercials.  Keep up the good work.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

Hello supplicant.  Look at your query, now look at me, now back at your query, now back to me.

Sadly, it isn't a query.  But if your query stopped using a ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, it could ask me a real

question.

Look down, back up, where are you?  You are asking a question that is truly a question and not merely suck up to the Oracle.

What's in your hand?  Back at me, I have it.  Its an oyster with two tickets to that thing that you love.  Look again, the tickets are now

diamonds.  Anything is possible when your query smells like a man and not a lady, and actually poses a question for the Oracle.

You owe the Oracle some lavender scented bubble bath.

Posted via email from Anthony Martin's Weblog