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Uh-huh thanks for that. I finally grok what all the fuss is about the Higgs from your analogy of the Higgs to the gravity field and the photon to the electromagnetic field. Just because we don't see Higgs running about all over the place on earth doesn't mean that there isn't a gravitational field. Just like if we looked inside a Faraday cage and saw no photons doesn't mean that there isn't an electromagnetic field to describe.

Another thought is, does this mean that there is a zoo of Higgs like things and is there an analogy to the kinds of things we have discovered about the electromagnetic field. Like the electron has charge and we have electrostatic attraction, atoms have magnetic (moments?) and forces between them. So would the zoo of Higgs like entities express similar disparate behaviors with a root in the mechanisms of the gravitational field? If we look at large scale things in the universe like galactic clusters and decide that they have 'dark matter' expressing additional mass effects through the lensing of quasars, does that mean that the gravitational fields equivalent of 'magnetism' for example only shows up on that large scale - which would explain how tough it is for us to do experiments and play with the gravitational fields inner workings down here on earth.

Given all this speculative rambling I'm now very interested in what could be learned from the Higgs if it is found by the LHC.

Mind you as Douglas Adams said 'Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, well that's just peanuts to space."

I make it about 10 to the power of 60 between vacuum fluctuations and the observable universe and if the multi-universe view is right, to accommodate all the different choices of the basic physical constants, there's another 10 to the power of 500 on top of that. Its going to take quite a bit of computing power to work out the details of 10 to the power 500 different universes each with a volume containing things over a range of scales of 10 to the 60. Looks like we need a bit more than 'Deep Thought' to do this calculation. I dont think even IBM is going to build a computer significantly bigger than the size of our observable universe any time soon. Mind you theres still a passable living to be made appearing on tv chat shows talking about how difficult is is answering the question of 'what is the answer to life the universe and everything'.

As an aside, the physicists say that many of the universes in the multi-universe have bad choices for the physical constants that would make life and therefore intelligence like ours very unlikely. This neatly does away with the anthropic principle for one thing, but it also raises the intriguing idea that there might be universes with far better choices of the physical constants than ours that give rise to something spectacularly more competent than carbon based lifeforms about to extinguish themselves with the greenhouse effect. (SETI is wasting its time looking for carbon based lifeforms, they all die out spectacularly quickly in a hot Venusian fog).

Cosmology has to be just THE most fascinating subject going. Of course we shouldn't get too worried about all this stuff, the answer as Douglas pointed out is quite simple 'keep on banging those rocks together' :=)

http://dingo.care2.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf

It's not from doing stuff like this. It's in the arts. You get a bunch of people marching and forming their little lib armies, and all that does is tick people off. But, when you get some talented lib lay it out for you in a story or a song or a classroom, and does it in a way that can reach you, people buy into that a lot more.

The bottom line is, putting up mass protests and collectively forming these big save the earth religions isn't going to save the earth. Handing money to somebody else to go save the earth isn't going to save the earth. It's going to be commercials like the famous Crying Indian of the 1970s, documentaries, education, and more that will cause people to believe that they are personally responsible for the environment around them and have a stake in it. If libs are right that democracies can't be established at the barrel of a gun, then it is also true that nothing can be established by the barrel of the gun... that all laws require some form of consent by the populace.

Therefor, laws don't make people stop polluting, but education will.

Apparently the final product is not as clean as one might hope:

http://www.care2.com/news/member/504097294/405059

http://teflonrecall.com/

It's a confusing topic - teflon is still being used in cookware and gore-tex (and similar products, effectively perforated teflon layered with vinyl or nylon), yet there have been recalls of teflon based products like scotchgard. It's hard to make out whether it's just a manufacturing byproduct issue or if the actual products themselves are dangerous. It's also unclear whether this is dangerous internally, gastrointestinally, or only when inhaled (like asbestos).

As my signature would indicate, I actually prefer Care2 over MySpace and Facebook. Care2 is a social networking site that caters to socially aware causes and who's users actually want to try and make some sort of impact in the world. Even at 7 million members, it's amazing to me how few of my type (the geeks) are aware of the site. Neither MySpace or Facebook really have much "purpose" to them (well, MySpace users may claim that it caters to bands, but the connection to me is pretty shallow). Facebook doesn't really have any "purpose" either. Not that there's anything wrong with that - just that I figure if I'm going to be part of a social network, why not be part of the one that aims for something respectable?

Nevermind actual body counts.

"And we never ever ever keep a body count
We're killing so efficiently we can't keep count"

--Michael Franti & Spearhead, Light Up Your Lighter , from the album YELL FIRE!

Here's a site that's already using the term "emotiflags" to mean "emoticons holding flags":
http://dingo.care2.com/c2c/emoticons/emotiflags/sc otland.gif

How about going the opposite direction? Since corporations are having so much trouble capitalizing off this growing phenomenon, we should take advantage of their unpreparedness and interject a non-monetary goal before it's too late and a potentially Good Thing becomes commodified trash like almost everything else the machine grinds up and spits out.

What social networks represent to me is people reaching out and sharing values without a middleman. On the popular social networks, they're sharing their values in arts, entertainment, and ego ornamentation. On employment networks, they're sharing their industrial values. On care2.com, they're sharing their values in human dignity and bettering society.

Money is a symbolic unit of value, i.e. it's supposed to represent the things we value. Now that we can share values without mediation, can't we gradually phase out money by communicating our values and wishes on these networks? Imagine craigslist.org or freecycle.org but with the accountability of eBay/Amazon feedback, Myspace testimonials/comments, and listing of mutual friends to use as references. Goods, services, knowledge, and other things of value can be offered as free gifts on your profile page. Givers screen solicitors by looking at their profile, friends, comments, etc. Wishes can also be posted.

On Global Ideas Bank, I've heard of this gift social network working successfully in a poor neighborhood in NY using computers available to the public. A form of social networking also worked in Katrina, hooking up the flood victims with people offering temporary housing. Let's expand this to the national scale and maybe the global scale when it's ready. I also recently found givegetnation.net, exactly the idea I was looking for, but it's in such a primitive state right now, so I contacted the founder volunteering to help develop. C'mon, let's change the world. Who's with me?

nonzero(at)gmail

Heck, it doesn't even have to cost you anything except a couple of seconds (literally) of your time - and you can stay in front of your computer.

There are a whole bunch of sites that donate advertiser clicks to charity - just click the button once a day and $0.02 or so will go to a charity.
Sure, it's not much, but if enough people do it it can add up pretty damn quick.

The Hunger Site is a good place to start (and has links to a bunch of other similar sites at the top)

Likewise Care2 has a whole collection of donation sites.

I've looked in to both of these places a bit, and it seems they are reputable (in terms of not skimming off huge amounts for "administrative fees", etc).. but at the end of the day it's not like it costs you anything anyways

Apologies for the interruption, we now return you to your irregularly programmed schedule.