CERN Confirms Hints of Hypothetical Particle Have Disappeared (arstechnica.com)

John Timmer, writing for Ars Technica: Toward the end of last year, the people behind the Large Hadron Collider announced that they might have found signs of a new particle. Their evidence came from an analysis of the first high-energy data obtained after the LHC's two general-purpose detectors underwent an extensive upgrade. While the possible new particle didn't produce a signal that reached statistical significance, it did show up in both detectors, raising the hope that the LHC was finally on to some new physics. This week, those hopes have officially been dashed. Physicists used a conference to release their analysis of the flood of data that came out of this year's run. According to their data, the area of the apparent signal is filled by nothing but statistical noise. The search for new particles in data from the LHC starts with a calculation of the sorts of things we should expect to see at a given energy. The Standard Model, which describes particles and forces, can be used to make predictions of the frequency at which specific particles will pop out of collisions, as well as what those particles will decay into. So, for example, the Standard Model might indicate that two electrons should appear in five percent of the collisions that occur at a specific energy. Looking for new particles involves looking for deviations from those predictions.

Comments

Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be hiding behind all that dark matter & energy that comprise most of existence but which we conveniently can't find anywhere.

Re:Must be hiding

[ArmoredDragon]

You're right. And conveniently nobody has ever seen your brain before, so that can only mean one thing.

Re: Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because scientists the world over have spent millions of dollars - nay, tens and hundreds of millions of dollars - looking for GP's brain, just as they have for dark matter and have never found any, we can only conclude that neither exists. Your logic is sound.

Re:Must be hiding

[DavidRavenMoon]

We can find it. We just can't see it. That's why it's called "dark" matter. But we even see webs of it forming the patterns that galaxies are bound too. You need to read up on it more. Let me guess; you think the moon landings were a hoax and the Earth is flat?

Re:Must be hiding

[Opportunist]

No, but seriously. Dark matter, dark energy (with the "dark" meaning that we somehow know it has to be there but we simply cannot find a way to detect it)... it could well mean that we're simply looking in the wrong direction.

I mean, think of Vulcan. The planet. No, not Star Trek. The hypothetical planet that we thought has to be inside the orbit of Mercury because something influenced Mercury's orbit. Something had to be there that caused Mercury to not orbit the sun the way it should. Today we know that relativity caused the error, but a hundred years ago, we didn't know this and the only logical thing we could think of was of course what we observed in the past: Errors in the orbits of planets led before to the discovery of other planets that influenced it, that way we found Neptune (and afaik Uranus was also found mostly because we noticed that Saturn isn't quite moving as it "should"). So the logical conclusion was that of course there had to be another planet inside the orbit of Mercury and the only reason we couldn't see it is of course that the sun is too close that we could detect it.

Turned out that we were wrong.

And, well, we've been looking really hard for that dark matter/energy now and ... well, nothing. Not even a hint that there might and could be something. Maybe we should at least start looking in other directions?

Re: Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually billions on the LHC alone.

Re:Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should at least start looking in other directions?

We've been looking in a multitude of different directions. There are whole research groups at universities dedicated to alternative gravity ideas, for example. So far, they've come up even less, as such theories involve some combination of being unable to match actual data, arbitrarily specific to only certain cases, or requiring a lot of arbitrary fitting of parameters lacking any known physical basis. The problem is that looking in a lot of directions isn't a magic bullet, as you could still be missing the actual idea needed, or you might have the correct idea already and it turns out more difficult to measure than thought.

Re:Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more than just not being able to see it. It's means we cannot find it because it doesn't meet the current definitions of mass or energy. It means we see patterns in the cosmos but they do not fall within any of our current mathematical models. When something invalidates the established mathematical model we plug in constants and unknown variables to satisfy the current math. This approach makes the assumption that the math we have used to describe certain pieces of the universe may be wrong. The size and the age of the universe is almost incomprehensible to the human mind. We can attach numerical measurements but that doesn't mean we can comprehend the enormity of those measurements. Our current understanding of the laws describing the universe can almost be categorized as localized. Do we know our mathematical models would be legitimate a billion or more light years away? Is not being able to locate over 80% of the mass we have calculated it would take to satisfy our observations? Is it possible this missing mass could invalidate our current belief that nothing can travel faster than light?

Re: Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

1 + 2 + X = 10

Your claim that X is both zero and doesn't exist is false. The number 3 is not the number 10, no matter how much you insist 3=10, it just simply isn't true.

Dark matter is the X in a very complex math equation. It has been observed to not be zero.

Just like the people desperately wanting Pi to be exactly 3, just because you desperately want dark matter to be zero doesn't mean you have a clue what you are doing.

Re:Must be hiding

[guruevi]

People HAVE seen mine, I must be the most intelligent person around here.

Re:Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be hiding behind all that dark matter & energy that comprise most of existence but which we conveniently can't find anywhere.

Shut up, you Republican dildo-brain.

Look we know you're anti-science, but considering ALL the times you've been wrong about shit, from the Great Biblical Flood to "vaccines is dangerous!!", just shut the fuck up. If it was up to Republican we'd still be looking at the lights in the sky and hoping that Gawd wouldn't strike us down for wondering what they were. So just shut your dickhole and go build your wall.

Re:Must be hiding

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

you think the moon landings were a hoax

I met my first real "moon landing was a hoax" guy not long ago and it blew my mind. This guy was by all accounts a normal person, but that little part of his brain where rationality gets suspended had metastasized into full-blown disbelief and there was NO way to convince this clod that the Moon landings really happened.

Explaining to him about the laser reflector left on the Moon that he himself could hit from his own backyard with a couple grand in off-the-shelf laser gear didn't do it. Photos didn't do it (of course). Nothing would convince him, nothing. And this is a guy who flies on airplanes and uses advanced medical technology and talks on cellphones, use GPS to go places, etc etc etc.

Some people are just plain stupid.

Re: Must be hiding

[ArmoredDragon]

Correct, and the reason they spent billions of dollars to find GP's brain and never did was because his brain was on the mushrooms the whole time. You see, there's no missing piece of the puzzle, just a found one that nobody understands. Just because money doesn't solve that doesn't mean the premise is bad.

Re: Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

This "science" you speak of sounds just like religion. Perhaps dark matter is God? They have some similarities, like you can't show me some if asked.

Re: Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

See, but you can show me seven of whatever you're considering in that equation*. Human beings are capable of comprehending the concept of the number 7 and what that means in the context of numbers and quantities and addition and equality. That's the difference. What if the "10" in your equation was measured by that new intern and it was really supposed to be "3"? Then X really was zero all along. Maybe addition works differently for the thing you're adding. Etc.

* unless the quantities represent dark matter. In that case, you can't show me seven or any other number of dark matters.

Re:Must be hiding

[As_I_Please]

Prior to the Mercury controversy, Uranus was found to be moving in ways not described by Newton's theory of gravity. Again, there are two solutions: our description of gravity is wrong, or there is an unseen ("dark") mass pulling on Uranus. In this case, it was dark matter, namely the undiscovered Neptune.

Both modified gravity and dark matter have been solutions to past conflicts between theory and measurement. There's no need to assume there's some conspiracy suppressing this or that idea.

Also, sometimes it takes a long time between a theoretical proposal to explain a mystery and direct detection. The neutrino was hypothesized in 1930 in order to conserve energy and momentum in beta nuclear decays. It wasn't directly detected until 12 years later in 1942. It took 49 years between the first papers proposing the existence of the Higgs boson and its discovery at the LHC. All we can do is search everywhere and be patient.

Re: Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Eeeeeeasy there. You're going to arouse critical levels of cognitive dissonance in the acolytes of state academia.

Re:Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

...there is an unseen ("dark") mass pulling on Uranus. In this case, it was dark matter...

...nah, too easy.

Re: Must be hiding

[AchilleTalon]

Still much less than the space program or a couple of buildings in a large city. Less than hosting the Olympic games.

Re:Must be hiding

[Dutch Gun]

I well know my ignorance in physics and astronomy, so I don't put too much stock in my own opinions, and neither should others. Still... The current speculation on dark matter remind me greatly of the incredibly complex equations and calculations some ancient scientists and mathematicians invented to explain orbital mechanics of a geocentric universe, with the earth as the center of the celestial heavens... and they almost got everything worked out that way. It wasn't until the heliocentric model was established that the underlying laws fell into place, showing that orbital mechanics follow much simpler and more elegant laws.

It always felt to me that dark matter and energy were essentially a placeholder that admitted "our calculations are this far off, and we don't have a clue why." So many things in our universe seem to have such elegant laws to explain them once we understand enough. I hope this discrepancy is found and explained in my lifetime, as it would be fascinating to hear what the actual explanation for these "holes" are in the current best-of-breed theoretical models lie.

Oh, more on topic... in terms of *not* finding a particle when you look for one. The absence of data is also interesting to scientists, just not quite as sexy. It fills in our knowledge of the universe in the same way that a failed invention does - by showing what doesn't work, we take one more step towards discovering an invention that does.

Re:Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, "Vaccines is dangerous" is mostly a fringe Democrat thing. Don't get so zealous you can't see what's really out there.

Re:Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Explaining to him about the laser reflector left on the Moon that he himself could hit from his own backyard with a couple grand in off-the-shelf laser gear didn't do it.

Not the greatest example, as the laser range finding experiments also work with the mirror on the unmanned Lunokhod 2 (and Lunokhod 1 in the past). And while it is off the shelf equipment, a multi-joule q-switched laser tends to run more in the 6 digit price range and meter plus sized telescopes aren't cheap either.

Re:Must be hiding

[Bite The Pillow]

How can any dashslot reader still post retarded nonsense like this?

I tried not to respond to recent "duh dark matter obviously isn't a thing" posts, but Christmas Jesus humping a granite yarmulke, this idiocy has to stop.

Meta moderators take note, this ignorance will be troll or overrated. And this is why: Fundamental misunderstanding, or intentional ignorance deserves no consideration. Argue about what it is, what it means.. but don't argue that it doesn't exist, unless you have a NObel quality replacement. Until then, do your arguing in peer reviewed journals.

Re: Must be hiding

[ArmoredDragon]

Well just think about it: Gravity alone doesn't explain why galaxies, stars, and planets form. Gravity is a very weak force, and it's just too weak of a force for that to happen. A nebula would just forever remain a nebula if all it had was gravity. There's more going on here, we're just not sure what.

The religious take on it is a straight up answer of "Because god did it." The scientific take on it is "If we take existing mathematical models of physics, it looks like the missing variable could be explained by a form of matter different from the normal matter that we can observe. We don't know what it is though so we'll just call it dark matter."

Re:Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the mirror could have been placed there by one of the unmanned moon missions.
People that deny the moon landing often claim that it isn't feasible to get humans there but doesn't deny that unmanned moon missions are possible.
A common argument is that the radiation outside of Earths magnetic field is to great for humans to survive.
Because of this LEO missions like the ISS would be possible but not a manned moon mission.

Interestingly enough this argument is also brought up on Slashdot against a possibility for manned Mars mission despite that NASA have stated that their measurements from unmanned missions indicate that the radiation exposure during a round trip is within acceptable levels.
People who bring up this argument aren't treated as moon landing denying nutjobs and their arguments are taken just as seriously as any other.

Re: Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree 100%. Cut all public funding of dark matter/energy research and let this private matter be resolved by the experts.

Re: Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time, new astronomical observations were not matching then current theories. So new hypotheses were proposed: alterations to gravity, dark matter, unseen regular matter, possible problems with the observation methods, and a handful of more unusual ideas. A lot more observation was done, and after a bunch more data, only one of those ideas continues to have predictive power over a variety of observations and situations: dark matter. This is basically a textbook case of the scientific method, of how science is supposed to work.

What parallels faith are the people around here that insist that dark matter can't be right because of gut feelings. "Why don't scientists propose a new theory instead of using broken ones?" but dark matter was a new theory. "Why don't they ever consider gravity might be wrong" but that was and still is an actively pursued area of research. Arguments amount to, "I don't like it, so it doesn't count... therefore I'm being scientific and scientists are just following a religion."

Of course dark matter could be wrong, as could any theory in science. But the whole, "Just try something different" from people who don't even know what has and is being tried isn't a productive suggestion. It is like two programmers having a conversation about sorting algorithm speed, and a non-programmer comes up and says, "Gee, programmers are sure lazy, why don't you just make a new sorting algorithm and get it done faster," or "I once heard about this thing called bubblesort, why don't you try using that instead and make it better?"

Re: Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Gravity alone doesn't explain why galaxies, stars, and planets form.Gravity is a very weak force, and it's just too weak of a force for that to happen. A nebula would just forever remain a nebula if all it had was gravity.

That is just flat out wrong on the scale of stars and planets. An intro/undergrad astrophysics course would cover Jeans instability and conditions including timescales involved for a gas cloud to collapse from gravity. It is pretty simple to work out estimates, and you get timescales on the order of millions of years, depending on exactly what density you start with. The impact of light pressure, magnetism and turbulence when the densities get higher adds some subtleties, but still covered at an undergrad level and don't require any help to have reasonable timescales.

Larger structures, like galaxies, can form from gravity alone with visible matter, but the timescales are a bit longer, enough so that those subtleties can make an observable difference in such structures and hence is an active area of research and argument about the impact of different effects.

Re:Must be hiding

[Plus1Entropy]

Argue about what it is, what it means.. but don't argue that it doesn't exist, unless you have a NObel quality replacement.

I totally agree. Dark matter and dark energy are just placeholder names we use to describe things that have observable effects, but which we don't understand. There's something holding galaxies together, and there's something accelerating the expansion of space.

It's not unreasonable to presume that "some kind of matter we can't see" accounts for the extra gravity holding galaxies together, since the presence of matter causes gravity.

It's also not unreasonable to presume that "some kind of energy we can't see" is responsible for accelerating the expansion of space, since energy is required for things to accelerate.

Re:Must be hiding

[The Lion of Comarre]

Maps of the distribution of dark matter have been produced using weak gravitational lensing, e.g. in the COSMOS survey.

http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic0701/
http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~rjm/cosmos/
http://www.space.com/14176-dark-matter-biggest-map-unveiled.html

Re:Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me get on my Epicycle and tackle this...

"...It wasn't until the heliocentric model was established that the underlying laws fell into place,..."
The Model of a spherical Earth circling the Sun is quite old... more than 2000 years old and Greek, older than the Middle Ages theory that Heavenly Epicycles were needed to explain away some odd wording the the Judeo-Christian Bible.
Oresme discussed all of this more than a Century before Columbus' travels, but he concluded, in a remarkably modern observation, that since actual proof didn't then exist for either model, the matter could not be settled. His Math, advanced as it was at the time, was incomplete. There was also the Religious-Political angle; moving Man, and the Earth, out of the center of God's Universe was a dangerous proposition.

But very few people actually really cared. Mostly illiterate, they didn't _think_ in these lines, just as you no doubt don't think about Asimov's little Joke- The Positronic Brain. You have one, you see. It comes from a rare decay of Potassium-40; your Brain is loaded with Potassium. Your Brain pops out a Positron every 20 minutes or so. Over a lifetime, that's a lot of Positrons.
You may consider this nonsense; just as counting the number of Angels dancing on the head of a pin was once considered a very good example on nonsense... which it was.

"...It fills in our knowledge of the universe in the same way that a failed invention does..."
To reword an old saying about Genius- Genius is 1% Inspiration, 49% Perspiration, and 50% "Oh Crap!". I spent a good chunk of my career dealing with stuff that worked badly, didn't work at all, or worked in some manner that wasn't expected in the least. We spent years struggling with a Dynamitron that was an utter joke- it spent half the time being taken apart. And then we found a curious thing- it was supposed to be highly pressurized with a mixture of 80% Nitrogen and 20% CO2. It was designed that way to hold off 3MV over a distance of ten feet. But under high pressure, the CO2 and residual moisture formed Carbonic Acid, which got into the oddest places. Running just straight N2 solved that problem, as long as we never ran above 2.7MV, which we never did anyway.

Re:Must be hiding

[painandgreed]

And, well, we've been looking really hard for that dark matter/energy now and ... well, nothing. Not even a hint that there might and could be something. Maybe we should at least start looking in other directions?

Dude. You're about 30 or 40 years too late. All the other places are where they looked first. Just more stars we can't see. More non-luminous matter such as Jupiters scattered around to make up the mass. A modified theory of gravitation. Neutrinos flying around the universe. All the logical stuff that would be equivilent to another planet inside Mercury's orbit was looked at first and has been disproven. The idea of dark matter that only interacts via gravity is the other direction and currently the one that best fits the evidence. It still could be something else, but if it is, its going to be a lot weirder than matter that only interacts via gravity.

Re:Must be hiding

[david_thornley]

Dark matter is a very simple theory. There's stuff that has mass that interacts in very limited ways, if at all, electromagnetically. No complicated calculations required. It explains assorted anomalies in gravitational lensing, galactic rotation speed curves, and matches up with some theory on the mass composition of the Universe. You could call it a place holder, in the sense that we don't know much of anything other than that it's matter and it's dark, but those are some important properties.

It's not like the idea is preposterous. Neutrinos have mass and don't interact electromagnetically, so dark matter could be related to neutrinos (hence the Weakly Interacting Massive Particle theory, "weakly" here referring to the weak nuclear force).

I have no idea why people seem to think dark matter is so unlikely.

Re:Must be hiding

[david_thornley]

Heliocentricity didn't fix everything. Heliocentricity combined with elliptical orbits (thank you, Kepler!) did.

Re:Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I mentioned Oresme's math. He was working with the tools available, struggling among other things to explain Spherical Geometry in Planar terms. Among other influences, Oresme popularized the concepts of Latitude and Longitude, where locations on the Earth can be mathematically described from abstract fixed reference points, the Poles and Paris, rather than measured distances and directions from known nearby geological features- Rutters. (Rutters are still around in what are called Sailing Directions- Point to Point Navigation, and in what are called Waypoints.)

Middle Ages Pre-Calculus is a field all of its own, and often ignored these days. "... they didn't _think_ in these lines,..." , Oresme simply couldn't conceive of Elliptical orbits; his Heliocentrism was still stuck with Spherical Orbits, and the "Music Of the Spheres", because that was all that he knew or could imagine.

Thank you for bringing up Kepler, but I was responding to the previous post in terms of comprehension of the Universe based on what we know, what we don't know, and more importantly, what we know... wrong.

Re: Must be hiding

[beastofburdon]

That is because you are outright denying the influence of other forces, which are far stronger than gravity, like magnetism. Also electricity and magnetism have been experimentally proven to be capable of all the things attributed to dark matter.
The scientists that are still clinging to the standard gravitational model are no better than creationists.

Re: Must be hiding

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because you are outright denying the influence of other forces, which are far stronger than gravity, like magnetism

Read an actual source on the material, like a basic textbook, as alluded to by the other comment. Magnetism is not denied, but actively discussed when dealing with things like Jeans instability. People who spend time falsely arguing about what scientists don't say or deny just end up looking like completely idiots about a topic to anyone familiar with the topic. They might as well be talking about how physics courses won't talk about momentum or that chemistry denies the existence of atoms.

LHC is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Once the real purpose of the LHC is revealed, everyone will see that its true purpose is evil. The real goal is to open a portal to Hell and make contact with Satan, to free him and obtain his power and immortality. All of these supposed new particles like neutrinos are fiction and basic education teaches us as much. All matter is composed of three basic particles: protons, neutrons, and electrons. The other supposed subatomic particles are works of fiction, to keep secrets the true purpose of the LHC until it is too far along to be stopped. The LHC exists for an evil purpose and must be stopped before Satan and his demons are released back into the world to torment mankind. Turn to Jesus and pray that this evil plot is stopped before wicked men can be allowed to literally bring Hell on Earth. There will never be any hypothetical new subatomic particles, just pure evil. God help all of us, forgive us, and stop us before we destroy ourselves.

Re:LHC is evil

[ArmoredDragon]

The LHC exists for an evil purpose and must be stopped before Satan and his demons are released back into the world to torment mankind.

You're too late you fool; Hillary already won the nomination, so the LHC's mission is already complete.

Re:LHC is evil

[DavidRavenMoon]

If this isn't satire I feel bad for you.

Re:LHC is evil

[DavidRavenMoon]

That's HRC, not LHC. And she isn't all that bad. It's mostly all lies.

Re:LHC is evil

[Opportunist]

Ok, go ahead and pray. Preferably all day. That way you'll at least not get into the way of anyone doing something useful.

Just ... please kneel somewhere out of the way if possible.

Re:LHC is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

This is silly, the portal is open for about 2000 years.

Re:LHC is evil

[ArmoredDragon]

Have you seen the size of her ass? That aint no lie son.

Re:LHC is evil

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Yea. We're finding *lots* of particles over here. They all say that, um, you're right. They were there the whole time but you didn't look, um, small enough. We're going to continue looking for ways to determine how *right* you are. No need to stop by.

No its the Sophones

[mhzse]

they are hiding it...Sorry, just finished The Dark Forrest.

Re:No its the Sophones

[Anonymous Coward]

Was hoping somebody would post this...thank you

Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

Your tax dollars hard at work.

Re:Weird

[Anonymous Coward]

"Your tax dollars hard at work."

Depends on where you live- The US contribution to CERN for the LHC was ~$500M, mostly of in-kind material costs. That is around 4% of the total budget so far. It may have been more, but this is a European collaboration, and the US had just recently blown Two and a Half Billion Dollars digging a useless ditch in Texas.
Not much ever came out of CERN after all, of much interest to the average American. Just the World Wide Web, and they just gave that away to everybody.

So to rephrase your idiocy:
"Euro tax dollars hard at work."

I think it's CowboyNeal's fault

[Anonymous Coward]

Just sayin'.

Value of CERN

[Dan East]

I'm not trolling - my question is sincere. If CERN never discovers new particles, does it still add value scientifically? For example, pinning down what we do know with greater precision? Or is the only value in discovering something entirely new?

Re:Value of CERN

[pijokela]

Well, they already did discover one new particle. The one they call the Higgs.

If they never again find anything new with LHC, that will at least direct theoretical physicists to new directions by invalidating all the theories that rely on new particles.

Re:Value of CERN

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it still adds value. It's good to know what's NOT there because it can rule out some of the more hypothetical theories or show that they have to be modified. It's just not very exciting if the result is that all of the data collected is well explained by the current theories.

Re:Value of CERN

[Opportunist]

To quote Wernher von Braun, it's not a failure as long as we get data.

If the data is "nope, doesn't work", we still learned something.

Re:Value of CERN

[joe_frisch]

By excluding the existence of particles with certain properties, LHC eliminates some theories and that has real scientific value. In a sense the "value" of the measurements is in how different they are from theory. If LHC had NOT see a Higgs boson, that in many ways would have been more interesting than their having see one. Since the most widely accepted theories predicted a Higgs, showing that it didn't exist (within the range of expected properties) would have been very interesting. That would be similar to the Michelson Morley experiment which expected to find the "ether" but didn't.

It turns out that LHC saw the Higgs, but so far nothing else new. Since that was expected, it is not very exciting but its still useful science.

The great majority of science experiments find was was expected. The are good experiments, but its the few lucky ones that find a surprise that are most interesting.

Re:Value of CERN

[wonkey_monkey]

The one they call the Higgs.

They call it Mister Higgs!

Re:Value of CERN

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the CERN is doing a lot of more things than just discovering new particles. Look here for example for an overview of experiments: https://home.cern/about/experi...

The particles are of course the highlights, but it isn't the fault of the LHC if there are no particles at the energies that the LHC can reach.

Either way, CERN is very valuable to physics.

Re:Value of CERN

[Pro-feet]

The CMS experiment which I am on - only one of the several LHC experiments - went to just this conference being mentioned with ~80 new analyses. These analyses are measurements of particle properties to a greater precision, or explorations of previously unknown territory. Many of these will later be turned into papers and add on the already >400 journal papers by our experiment. Even neglecting the Higgs boson discovery, the scientific output and acquired new knowledge from the LHC has already been immense.

Re:Value of CERN

[Pro-feet]

I would disagree on one point, that it was expected to find a Higgs boson, and nothing else new. This situation makes the hierarchy problem a real and serious thing. Most theories out there expect something new to appear near the weak scale, i.e. within reach of the LHC.
The beautiful thing about the diphoton excess which is now gone is that it was such a weakish-scale new physics signal nobody had been expecting. Alas.

Re:Value of CERN

[boudie2]

That would be a $10-15 billion dollar "nope, doesn't work". Ouch!

Re:Value of CERN

[guruevi]

Could've said the same about Einsteins theories and in fact the same things were said: we have a perfectly good model with Newton, this just adds more complexity for a hypothetical, at that point largely undiscovered, giant universe.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

However as GPS eventually showed, you don't need space larger than our own solar system to use either theory of relativity. Within 100 years, people will laud these discoveries at CERN for their "Chinese toys" like we do Einstein for ours.

Re:Value of CERN

[guruevi]

CERN already worked by confirming the Higgs Boson as well as a host of other ideas. The rest is just gravy and largely highly theoretical physics just waiting to be either disproved or confirmed. Either result is good.

Re:Value of CERN

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I'm not trolling - my question is sincere. If CERN never discovers new particles, does it still add value scientifically?

Yes, it does. Sometimes pure research doesn't produce positive results, but that doesn't mean it doesn't produce useful information.

If you lose your keys, and after searching your home for a couple of days you determine they definitely aren't there, have you gained anything? Yes, you have. You now have the knowledge that you need to look elsewhere.

Sometimes that's how research works. It's guaranteed to produce results, but not necessarily the results you want.

Re:Value of CERN

[joe_frisch]

Agreed, but do they have enough data yet to rule out super-symmetry (for example)? I'm not a particle physicist, so I don't understand how significant the limit on cross sections in this energy range is.

Re:Value of CERN

[Anonymous Coward]

FAR less expensive than the trillions of dollars we spent on the "experiment" to topple the Iraqi government, in hopes that a "domino effect" of Democracy will spread across the middle east.

Yeah. Let's stop criticizing how much money we spend on science experiments and start criticizing how much we spend on other things.

Re:Value of CERN

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be a $10-15 billion dollar "nope, doesn't work". Ouch!

Considering the amount of theoretical concepts dreamed up, written down, published and being read about how physics could work then I suspect that each such finding saves more than $10 billion of man hours per decade.

Of course my suspicion is pulled from a place similar to those concepts.

But seriously, every "nope, doesn't work" takes a bunch of theoretical physicists that were working on something that was a waste of time and sends them off working on something that at least haven't been proven as a waste of time.
A single "nope, doesn't work" might not be worth the cost of building the LHC, but enough of them together saves some serious money that otherwise would be spent thinking about impossibilities.

Re:Value of CERN

[Anonymous Coward]

Supersymmetry in general is difficult to completely rule out with anything in the foreseeable future of accelerator designs, assuming we continue to see no more new particles and the careful measurements of numerous properties continue to match previous predictions. However, some of the particular versions of supersymmetry can be ruled out, for example Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model has some serious problems if no new particles are found by the LHC. While the idea in general can't be ruled out, short of finding some other major, different new physics, defeating the simpler versions will cause the idea to fade back to just a "What if I tried this" level of research.

Re:Value of CERN

[Anonymous Coward]

"... If CERN never discovers new particles, does it still add value scientifically?..."
But it has discovered new Particles; bunches of them. The Higgs is just the most important recent one. Wikipedia has a reasonably good writeup on its history.
Adding value Scientifically is a judgement thing. At its core, taking away monetary or political considerations, anything added to the sum of Scientific Knowledge is generally considered "Good". Just how good depends on what Scientific Fields one is interested in. For instance, no research on AIDS or Petrochemistry is done at CERN. In English, CERN roughly translates as the "European Council for Nuclear Research", but not necessarily any and all Nuclear Research. Just about the only kind of Facility that they _don't_ operate is a Nuclear Reactor. That was ruled out right from the very beginning.

"...Or is the only value in discovering something entirely new?"

Oh, you mean like the creation of the World Wide Web. You may have heard of the Berners-Lee chap from CERN who came up with a new way for Physicists, and other Scientists, Engineers, Teachers, Students, Anonymous Cowards, and People who take pictures of their Cats to get together online, and Collaborate.
The 25th Anniversary was just a couple of days ago. We had cake.

OT: "Related links" is giving some odd suggestions

[davidwr]

#1: The Case Against Algebra

Okay, algebra, math, CERN, tenuous but I'll give it a pass. Throw in "the case against" and "rethinking our earlier observations at CERN" and it's a definite maybe.

#2: Bill Nye: Climate Change Denial Is 'Running Out of Steam,' Thanks To Millennials

The "we/they were wrong" angle is much weaker here, weak fail.

#3: Neil deGrasse Tyson Says It's 'Very Likely' The Universe Is A Simulation

Er, no. Fail.

#4: Utah Governor: 'Porn Is a Public Health Crisis'

Er, other than "scientific data is as exciting to me as porn is to some politicians" and "CERN gets public funds and the word 'public' is in the title" I'm just not seeing it. Either you fail outright or fail for being too subtle with the "I-love-science/politicos-get-off-on-porn" angle.

#5: Study Finds 3 Laws Could Reduce Firearm Deaths By 90%

Er, um, no. Yes, I know bullets go at high velocities (but not THAT high!) and it's the impact they make when they hit the target that counts, but no. Fail.

Maybe Slashdot's next related-links AI will outperform its existing AI.

By the way, anyone know what's up with the "sdsrc=popbyskidbtmprev" at the end of the "related suggestion" links?

A couple thoughts

[93 Escort Wagon]

Have they checked the couch, really really carefully? A lot of times when I can't find something, it ends up being under one of the couch cushions. It probably fell out of their pocke when they were watching TV.

And then sometimes when I can't find something in the house, it'll turn out I left it in the car - usually right there on the front passenger seat. Maybe they were busy bringing in groceries and forgot they had the particle in the car.

Re:A couple thoughts

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Have they checked the couch, really really carefully? A lot of times when I can't find something, it ends up being under one of the couch cushions. It probably fell out of their pocke when they were watching TV.

It's possible that one of their wives stumbled across it and didn't realize it was THE dark matter they were looking for, so she threw it out or put it in a closet somewhere.

Re:A couple thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

It can often be mistaken for a curler, so someone's walking around with it in their hair.

meta

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still waiting to hear them renounce the discovery of the higgs boson. Obviously they realize the higgs would recycle the universe, so they have to pretend its existence has been proved without making an actual observation.

Re:meta

[Pro-feet]

A fan of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot"! Good luck with that!

'Papers' as a measure of value

[Bruce66423]

As a sceptic about the value of CERN, my problem is that it feels like there's little of long term value likely to be found by it, compared with what the same expenditure could achieve in other scientific fields that are far less well financed. It's 'sexy' to be looking at the origins of the universe and ever more fundamental particles but...

Re:'Papers' as a measure of value

[NotInHere]

Considering what money is wasted on pointless things like the iraq war ($1.1 trillion), this is just peanuts (the LHC had a budget of $9bn). Or take the rio olympics, with a budget of $9.7 billion.

What scientific fields do deserve funding more than physics in your eyes?

Re:'Papers' as a measure of value

[Gavagai80]

Which is more valuable, understanding how the universe works or producing money for a business? I'd say the former.

Re:'Papers' as a measure of value

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the trillion was lent to the U.S. by the Chinese to keep them busy in Iraq while the Chinese took over Africa and all its resources, so the money was well spent.

Re:'Papers' as a measure of value

[swb]

You're assuming that somebody made the decision that a choice was made to spend the money on the Iraq war instead of science, and had the Iraq war not been fought the money would have went towards something else and that on that list of something elses, science was next on the list.

I'd argue that the total public science spending is more zero sum in the short and near term, that over any given period of time there was only a relatively fixed amount of money to spend on science. My guess is, though, that the zero sum nature of budgeting probably extends down through the sciences, too, so that money may have just been spent on other physics projects and not on some other science.

Re:'Papers' as a measure of value

[Anonymous Coward]

"As a sceptic about the value of CERN, my problem is that it feels like there's little of long term value likely to be found by it, compared with what the same expenditure could achieve in other scientific fields that are far less well financed."

A little story... My Professional career in Physics four decades back started the week they blew ESCAR up. ESCAR was just a small Experimental Superconducting Accelerator and Storage Ring, fed by a surplus 50MeV Proton Linac, which I was to work on.
They didn't spend much money on ESCAR; they didn't know if it would ever really work. It had never been done before.
A Management decision was made to bypass some primitive yet critical interlocks, and get the damn thing running by the end of the week, just to prove that the concepts worked, before it was to be mothballed due to lack of funding.
After 20 minutes or so, a massive Quench occurred, and blew all but one of the Superconducting Magnets.
But from that one Magnet that survived, a little different from the others, the Superconducting Magnet Industry blossomed.
ESCAR is generally considered the kind of failure that a Laboratory doesn't openly talk about much. Only one paper on the Operation of it was ever published, and it didn't mention the Big Kaboom. But that's alright. These kinds of things had happened before, like with the Electron Synchrotron constructed a couple of decades before.
It was built to develop some Tech that would make big Electron Synchrotrons practical; most Electron Accelerators by then were very long Linacs. Linacs because when Electrons of these energies pass through a bending Magnetic field, the Energy that they have so carefully built up gets bled back down through the release of Synchrotron Radiation- Photons. Fast, Bright, Photons. X-Ray Photons. Useless things. The Synchrotron was considered a failure... at the time.

So now we have "Light Sources" all over the place. The Electrons get Accelerated in a Synchrotron, and they just whirl and whirl about, and nothing is ever really done with them. It is the exquisitely tuned Photons they produce in the Wigglers and Undulators that were in the end, of real interest.

One can never really know about these things, and how they can turn out, at the time.

Re:OT: "Related links" is giving some odd suggesti

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

By the way, anyone know what's up with the "sdsrc=popbyskidbtmprev" at the end of the "related suggestion" links?

I would guess that the "sdsrc" is a key that stands for "slashdot source" and the "popbyskidbtmprev" is a code that indicates the clicked link came form the "related stories" list.

Sophons!

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new Trisolaran overlords.

"The Electric Universe" = better

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: "... otherwise called 'The Magnetic Universe'" -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

* Einstein DOUBTED himself (to Tesla, directly no less) - Tesla on the other hand (a man who wasn't MERE MATH THEORY inventing nothing, Tesla invented TONS by comparison) did not... & he did what he said "today is theirs, the future is mine"... & in this idea of his? It is. Needs NO BULLSHIT to be practical.

APK

P.S.=> "God don't make no junk" & he keeps it SIMPLE (from microcosms to our own doubtless to macrocosms - no "this doesn't fit so we use 'mathematical THEORY' (only putting in kludges like giant blackholes in centers of galaxies, dark matter, etc. - et al, violating pure genius that is "KISS"))... apk

Re:"The Electric Universe" = better

[Anonymous Coward]

inventing nothing

Einstein refrigerator.

Re:"The Electric Universe" = better

[Anonymous Coward]

"Einstein refrigerator."
Technically, Einstein-Szilard Refrigeration. A few prototypes were made, but they were very inefficient, and they never came to Market. Freon was invented shortly afterwards anyway, and that was that.
https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201011/physicshistory.cfm

Oh, one needn't bother watching the Video linked above; we all know that APK is a Crackpot, but LaPoint is in a Universe all of his own.

Re:"The Electric Universe" = better

[Anonymous Coward]

we all know that APK is a Crackpot, but LaPoint is in a Universe all of his own.

They're actually quite similar, spending far more time abstractly talking about how they're correct and others are wrong, instead of simply just showing they're correct by talking about the actual subject.

Re:"The Electric Universe" = better

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you even know what being on topic is troll? Clue: You're not. Go away now.

Re:"The Electric Universe" = better

[Anonymous Coward]

If this post were any more dense, it would collapse into a black hole and destroy the Earth... although at least that would sadly actually be on topic for a story about LHC.

CERN: only working elevator in a derelict building

[rocket rancher]

Right now, CERN is the only working elevator in a nearly half-century old building that was built on shaky ground by architects who freely acknowledge the many failures of their design. Some of the current tenants think building a skywalk to connect the building to the even older, more dilapidated building next door will somehow fix both failing structures. Unfortunately for CERN, many tenants in the building are not reupping their lease at this point, and are looking for new digs elsewhere, though many acknowledge how much fun the elevator was. At some point the remaining tenants are going to realize that no matter how many stops this elevator makes, it will never leave the building, and it will never reveal anything other than empty corridors and closed doors.

Re:CERN: only working elevator in a derelict build

[iggymanz]

you're clueless

None of the widely acknowedged unknown questions in physics means the "ground is shaky". Just that better models and experiments to verify them are needed and that is what is being done. Even experiments to look at "unpopular alternatives" are funded and done, such as for "fifth force", quantization of space, antigravity by antimatter, etc.

General Relativity and quantum mechanics are the two most useful models of reality we have, and various means are being explored to either unify them or prove which dominates at smallest scale. That is not a failing of anything, physicists are not ignoring the issue, there are experiments in progress and many alternative theories being made

learn a bit about a field before criticizing it it total ignorance. you know almost nothing

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can detect a particle that didn't exist at X energy doesn't that mean their actual margin of error is X and everything else they've done is essentially invalid as a result?

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

You can look at the actual error analysis in their paper, or just read the original PR pieces where they said that it looked like a particle but wasn't statistically significant enough... as in it was already within the margins of error even before the new data. And no, that doesn't mean there is a margin of error of 750 GeV, because that is not what is used to signal a new particle or not, but instead the error is in the number of specific kind of events in a particular energy bin.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, I haven't had the time to read and understand papers at that level for years so your summary was helpful.

Re:CERN: only working elevator in a derelict build

[Anonymous Coward]

General Relativity and quantum mechanics are the two most useful models of reality we have

Yet they can provably not be reconciled with each other making at least one of them wrong. More likely they are both wrong because it would likely be a simple step to build one into the other from scratch if at least one were valid.

Re:CERN: only working elevator in a derelict build

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet they can provably not be reconciled with each other making at least one of them wrong.

The Standard Model is already considered wrong in the same way that Newtonian physics is wrong due to special, and later general, relativity. But it still agrees with a lot of data, and any new model needs to agree with that data too. Hence the pursuit of new ideas that reduce down to GR and QFT under appropriate regimes. The original poster acts like this is building on top of a structure that is flimsy... when instead it is building on the parts that are known to be solid while gutting the underlying, fundamental mechanics. It is how many physics theories are "reconciled" and acting like this is some special case is psuedoscience dribble.

More likely they are both wrong because it would likely be a simple step to build one into the other from scratch if at least one were valid.

That doesn't follow at all.

JOINTLY INVENTED != he did it himself

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: & that's a FAR cry from all the things Tesla literally created BY HIMSELF (tesla coil, tesla turbine, alternating current systems like niagara falls, remote control robotics/ships, etc.).

APK

P.S.=> Personally? I never heard of that one from him (because it was NOT by him HIMSELF)... apk

Re:JOINTLY INVENTED != he did it himself

[Anonymous Coward]

You said he invented NOTHING, and that was NOT nothing. Tesla didn't invent AC systems by himself, as he was one of a huge number of inventors over more than half a century to contribute to that, including the installation at Niagara Falls. You can keep moving goal posts, but that doesn't make what you've said correct.

Re:JOINTLY INVENTED != he did it himself

[Anonymous Coward]

You made a simple mistake, and if you left it alone, it would have gone virtually unnoticed consider how this is an AC thread in a several day old story. But you had to double down, pretending you said something different than what you did, just so you can make a thinly veiled attempt to one up some AC. I'll save the comment link for when you're spamming links about others being wrong, saving it from going unnoticed.

Re:JOINTLY INVENTED != he did it himself

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, if you use caps and say "NOTHING" you better mean it, not some wishy-washy BS that working with someone else doesn't count as inventing.

Re:JOINTLY INVENTED != he did it himself

[Anonymous Coward]

You might think posting the same empty post over and over again is successfully arguing a point, but that doesn't make it so.

Re:JOINTLY INVENTED != he did it himself

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet you're unable to counter APK's points.

Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Like YOU. It's all ANYONE needs to see (That you're a no balls unidentifiable little trolling worm)

APK

P.S.=> You need to get your head kicked in... apk

Re:Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Anonymous Coward]

"...P.S.=> You need to get your head kicked in... apk"

Really, so much fury concerning a couple of clarifications, one of which _supported_ one of his claims. I'm glad that APK doesn't know who I am. This loon is getting dangerous.

I shall now correct my post:
"...we all know that APK is a Crackpot Psychopath..."

Re:Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you're a troll to say anonymous cowards are unidentifiable, as I frequently identify them and call them out all the time as sock puppets of named accounts.

APK

Re:Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know it is you Mr. Coren 22 who can't even do a good job of copying APK, just as you can't win against him.

Re:Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Coren22]

Wow, you are hilarious. As I have said numerous times before, I don't post AC.

Re:Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Anonymous Coward]

APK smacks you down again Coren22 on things you can never do he did ages ago https://slashdot.org/comments....

Re:Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Coren22]

LOL, and I am sure you have a huge cock too, and have supermodels hitting on you all the time.

Grow up little man, your contributions weren't that great, and frankly, they were all plagiarized. As computers is a field that never stops moving forward, it is pretty sad that all you can do is look back at prior contributions you stole from other people's work. I hope one day you are able to come to terms with the waste that is your life.

Re:Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet you continue to do so https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9493863&cid=52678813 trolling in a way obvious to all even when you post as AC.

Re:Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Coren22]

Why do you think that was me? What in the content looks like what I would say, and if I were to be saying it, why wouldn't I use my own registered account?

Should we add paranoia to the list of possible conditions you have?

I don't post AC, I see no reason to hide behind AC, I post as Coren22, and nothing else.

Re:Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Anonymous Coward]

It is pretty obvious why you post as AC: to impersonate APK when you are unable to make any actual technical points. Pretending to play dumb about not knowing why you need to post AC just makes you look... dumb.

Re:Better than an unidentifiable ac true coward

[Coren22]

No one needs to impersonate you to make a fool out of you APK, so quit your idiotic third party posting. I don't post AC, as I never have needed to in order to make a fool out of you.

JOINTLY INVENTED != he did it himself

[Anonymous Coward]

Read my subject & weep - it's ONLY truth. You fail. So does Einstein compared to Tesla who did design & implemented all of what I noted (radio too).

Einstein was peanuts compared to him & a mere "math theorist" who DOUBTED himself (rightfully so - having to rig in "dark matter" + blackholes @ the center of galaxies etc. isn't as CLEAN & SIMPLE as the electric/magnetic universe model...)

APK

P.S.=> It'd be like saying I invented the hosts file (which I didn't) - I did invent/design/program a way to populate it easily for Windows users (the most attacked online other than ANDROID smartphone users that is)... apk

WoW - you REALLY DO need that

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: I severely doubt you go tossing names like that in the real world (you'd get the above in my subject).

APK

P.S.=> I truly pity your type... apk

Re:WoW - you REALLY DO need that

[Anonymous Coward]

"P.S.=> I truly pity your type... apk"

Would that be before, or after, you have my head kicked in, you Internet Tough Guy Crackpot Psychopath?

Many years ago, I got into it online, and later by mail and email, with a Loon that went by many creative monikers, among them Ludwig Plutonium, Archimedes Plutonium, and Ludwig von Ludwig. His obsession with Plutonium went far beyond what is considered remotely sane. However, he was a gentle type, simply a delusional dishwasher from Dartmouth. Since I was slightly involved at that time with the Research Group that not only first created Plutonium, but some 11 other new Elements, he got to be a little... obsessed.
But he never threatened me. He sent me pamphlets by snail mail; some were very carefully composed and illustrated, by hand, just for me. Ludwig could be very patient. We got to be rather fond of him, but we did alert Campus Security:
http://discovermagazine.com/2002/apr/featnotes

Does APK go that far back?
"...Arguments crescendoed to uppercase type. Words, boxed and colored, squeezed together on the page like castaways on a homemade raft..."

Word got around, and I started getting even more Crackpot submissions from others, involving such things as Red Mercury, Alchemy, (We were actually doing that- turning Gold into Lead, for very fleeting times. This is actually a very interesting subject in Cosmological Nucleosynthesis.), and... Tesla. Always Tesla. Tesla has been the Patron Saint of Crackpots for decades.

It would not be wise to get into it online with APK using an identifiable handle. Amusing at first with his obsessions, he is rapidly deteriorating and may well go beyond where Ludwig went, into Valery Fabrikant territory who, by email at first, was also a very interesting guy.

Re:WoW - you REALLY DO need that

[Anonymous Coward]

It would not be wise to get into it online with APK using an identifiable handle

This should be obvious considering how much APK makes use of anonymous postings to spam his grudges, applaud himself, or to argue with himself when in need of a strawman.

Re:WoW - you REALLY DO need that

[Anonymous Coward]

APK doesn't need to applaud himself, as his ability to destroy simple minded opponents is more than enough to demonstrate his abilities. His opponents on the other hand, need all the help they can get from sock puppets to down mod the truth APK speaks.

Re:CERN: only working elevator in a derelict build

[iggymanz]

You are confused, models of reality are *useful* or they are not. QM and GR are very useful under most conditions in this universe, and a better model might have both as limits of conditions that apply to the majority of the universe

JOINTLY INVENTED != he did it himself

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject again + read 'em & weep again - it's my point & Einstein paled before Tesla on tons of inventions Tesla did.

APK

Blowhard bullshitter... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Lots of "talk" from you & no proof better than mine. Like your pal Behrooz Amoozad I blew away https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9412709&cid=52554889

(Since Lord knows BOTH of you are, see that link for him & for you? Your EVASIONS do the rest, lol!)

APK

P.S.=> This is just "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'"

Re:Blowhard bullshitter... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

"(Since Lord knows BOTH of you are, see that link for him & for you? Your EVASIONS do the rest, lol!)"

Can someone translate this into relatively sane English?

Re:Blowhard bullshitter... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't even read the first two words of the post? No wonder APK destroys your arguments every time.

WoW - you REALLY DO need that

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the subject again, I can't make this any simpler. Just as you can't make this any easier to destroy you https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9493863&cid=52664045.

APK

P.S.=> A Killus, son of Pelus (or APK in more 'modern order' as middlenames are used thus today)... it's NOT easy being "world-class", like me - actually doing work that HELPS people learn about science and and the arts, FAR MORE that what you could ever learn... apk

You're a cowardly little trolling punk... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: It's exactly what you are & you know it - no balls, nothing to your name, etc. which is why you troll unidentifiably - you're a zero.

APK

Re:You're a cowardly little trolling punk... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... pot meets kettle...

Re:You're a cowardly little trolling punk... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Still not signing your name when you insult someone. Thanks for demonstrating everything APK just said is correct.

Re:You're a cowardly little trolling punk... apk

[Coren22]

no balls, nothing to your name, etc. which is why you troll unidentifiably - you're a zero.

Hmm, are you describing yourself? As that description fits you perfectly.

Correct: Except when he impersonates me

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: He sure was able to post MY INITIALS while he impersonated me here (no first, FAR from it) https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9493863&cid=52669381 & he's just a little punk, nothing more, harassing others (but he knows he's a LOSER though as I said, hence his reprehensible actions).

APK

P.S.=> Glad to see you agree with me (you do it too, but you don't act like an asshole as he does)... apk

Re:Correct: Except when he impersonates me

[Anonymous Coward]

(you do it too, but you don't act like an asshole as he does)... apk

Yeah, damn those selfish assholes that post garbage as an AC.

Re:Correct: Except when he impersonates me

[Anonymous Coward]

Coren22, we can all tell when you're faking an APK post like this because you're too lazy to make an actual link or format things correctly.

Re:Correct: Except when he impersonates me

[Anonymous Coward]

He sure was able to post MY INITIALS while he impersonated me here (no first, FAR from it)

If only there were some built in feature to the site that could establish identity and prevent impersonation.

It describes you Coren22... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Show us you've done more, better, & earlier than I have in computing Coren22:

Windows NT Magazine (now Windows IT Pro) April 1997 "BACK OFFICE PERFORMANCE" issue, page 61

(&, for work done for EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com on PAID CONTRACT (writing portions of their SuperCache program increasing its performance by up to 40% via my work) albeit, for their SuperDisk & HOW TO APPLY IT, took them to a finalist position @ MS Tech Ed, two years in a row 2000-2002, in its HARDEST CATEGORY: SQLServer Performance Enhancement).

WINDOWS MAGAZINE, 1997, "Top Freeware & Shareware of the Year" issue page 210, #1/first entry in fact (my work is there)

PC-WELT FEB 1998 - page 84, again, my work is featured there

WINDOWS MAGAZINE, WINTER 1998 - page 92, insert section, MUST HAVE WARES, my work is again, there

PC-WELT FEB 1999 - page 83, again, my work is featured there

CHIP Magazine 7/99 - page 100, my work is there

GERMAN PC BOOK, Data Becker publisher "PC Aufrusten und Repairen" 2000, where my work is contained in it

HOT SHAREWARE Numero 46 issue, pg. 54 (PC ware mag from Spain), 2001 my work is there, first one featured, yet again!

Being paid for an article that made me money over @ PCPitstop in 2008 http://pcpitstop.com/news/winn... for writing up a guide that has people showing NO VIRUSES/SPYWARES & other screwups, via following its point, such as THRONKA sees here -> http://www.xtremepccentral.com...

It's also been myself helping out the folks at the UltraDefrag64 project (a 64-bit defragger for Windows), in showing them code for how to do Process Priority Control @ the GUI usermode/ring 3/rpl 3 level in their program (good one too), & being credited for it by their lead dev & his team http://ultradefrag.sourceforge... or here http://sourceforge.net/tracker...

Which fixed a bug for them later http://sourceforge.net/p/ultra...

APK

Re:It describes you Coren22... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Still resting on the laurels of work from the 90s? I'll try to remember your software if I ever install MSDOS again.

Re:It describes you Coren22... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, my psychiatrist has told me I should apologize to all those I have harmed, that it will help me to become a better person, and possibly help me to cope with my horrible psychosis. I have huge issues with obsessive compulsive disorder, I am a psychopath, and don't care about anyone but myself. I also have issues understanding that other people have more experience than me in every field of work I have contributed to. I have serious issues with taking other people's work, and claiming it as my own, as I haven't had an original idea my whole life, I find it hard to cope, and claim everything as my own work.

Sincerely,

APK

PS. I have decided to never post to Slashdot again, anyone posting as me is an impostor, I have donated my computer to charity per my psychiatrist's recommendation.

Impersonating me Coren22 you loser?

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Grow up!

APK

P.S.=> You've truly shown everyone how much of a loser you are... apk

Re:Impersonating me Coren22 you loser?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've truly shown everyone how much of a loser you are... apk

Yep, that sums up apk well.

Not DOS & more than you've done

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Coren22 considering you're a mere "ne'er-do-well" zero who even impersonated me in this exchange? You're a loser, plain & simple, no questions asked.

APK

P.S.=> That's only a SMALL PARTIAL LIST ONLY of some of my favorites of mine - things I've done of the like that you'll NEVER EVEN COME CLOSE TO DOING, lol... apk

Re:Not DOS & more than you've done

[Anonymous Coward]

That's only a SMALL PARTIAL LIST ONLY of some of my favorites of mine - things I've done of the like that you'll NEVER EVEN COME CLOSE TO DOING, lol... apk

If you chose to make a partial list, why did you purposely chose the part that was out of date? Either you're living in the past, or that is all you have.

Get on topic troll loser... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually ENJOY watching you flail all over. The fact you can't prove my points wrong PROVES I am better at science.

APK

P.S.=> I love it - you're USEFUL dolts to me (not much of a challenge, but useful) - & all you do is make ME look GOOD... apk

Just Grow Up!

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject:Until you've done a better program than I have & you're on topic, you're just another off topic forums troll loser - AND YOU KNOW IT!

APK

P.S.=> NEVER ONCE has any of you fools proven me wrong - fact is when you fools do that? You're helping PROVE ME RIGHT all the more, lol!

I love it... apk

Re:Just Grow Up!

[Coren22]

APK, I have done so much more than you, it just makes you look pathetic. Just because I won't rise to the bait of telling you who I am, doesn't mean I have done nothing. I have no desire to be harassed by a psychopath like you, so no, I will not rise to your bait and reveal my identity.

Also, I most definitely have proven you wrong repeatedly, you even agreed to it once by removing one of you points about what makes hosts so awesome (LOL!).

Re:Just Grow Up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Coren22 what commercial software's your code like APK's is? What trade shows was your work in doing well like APK's? What books, magazines, newspapers articles in the computer sciences feature your work? Does malwarebytes host and recommend your work like APK has going on currently?

Re:Just Grow Up!

[Coren22]

Do you perhaps have reading issues? Perhaps you should try rereading the comment you are replying to, after all, every one of your answers is there.

Re:Just Grow Up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cat got your tongue Coren22? I'll ask again: What commercialware's your code like APK's is? Does malwarebytes host and recommend your work like APK has going on currently? What trade shows was your work in doing well like APK's? What books, magazines, newspapers articles in the computer sciences feature your work like APK's done? You're not unwilling. You're incapable of such achievements (yet you say you are? Prove it).

Re:Just Grow Up!

[Coren22]

Cat got your eye APK? I'll answer again. NO. I will not give you the information that you don't need, and that you will only use for harassment. You already call me a mental defective...which I find HILARIOUS, because by your definition, everyone in the world is mentally defective.

Re:Just Grow Up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just going to repeat that instead of naming examples of code you actually have experience with? Every can tell you're full of it.

JOINTLY INVENTED != he did it himself

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, just read the subject again& weep - even Einstein knew he paled before Tesla, but he was smarter than you.

APK

What've YOU done Coren22? Nothing, lol

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: TRY 'belittle' a small partial list ONLY of my favorite accomplishments but you don't have even ONE @ all even, lol!

* You're a do-nothing "ne'er-do-well" loser that's all talk & nothing more... & I've annihilated your sorry ass for it so many times on tech in computing it's not funny.

(I pity you - you're a waste of food, oxygen, & water as well as time...)

APK

P.S.=> Nothing of mine's plagiarized loser - it's ALL my code (a thing you're not intelligent enough to do)... apk

"Herr 'AssBurger'" how's your 'OUTISM'?

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: It's no mere possibility you're brain damaged & retarded! You admit you're a brain-damaged mental defective, lol!

APK

P.S.=> You HIDE behind a FAKE NAME online loser, which makes sense - you're ALL TALK, no accomplishments, a fake (& you KNOW it - we all do) - A BRAIN DAMAGED MERE MENIAL & a trolling LOSER, nothing more (ever) - LOL... apk

Coren22 you've got zero though, lol

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Malwarebytes people currently host & RECOMMEND APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl... How about you Coren22 alias "Herr AssBurger" (lol) the mentally defective "ne'er-do-well" OUTISM afflicted retarded troll that you are? That blows away your do nothing zero bullshit you just spewed, lol - easily.

* Not only have I done cool things in the past respected others liked but my future's looking good too (unlike yours, retarded menial).

APK

P.S.=> You're a waste of food, air & water as well as life - your lack of outstanding accomplishments (which I do have) proves it along w/ hiding behind your FAKE NAME online too, lmao (What I've managed is NEVER "out of date" & it's certainly more than a LOSER MENIAL like you will ever be able to do!)... apk

Re:Coren22 you've got zero though, lol

[Anonymous Coward]

hiding behind your FAKE NAME online too

Welcome back Mr. Kettle.

Re:Coren22 you've got zero though, lol

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Malwarebytes

Thanks for the warning, as I wouldn't want to install it now that I know it is malware.

Re:Coren22 you've got zero though, lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that all you can come up with, talking about names because you can't counter any of APK's statements? You lose.

Re:Coren22 you've got zero though, lol

[Anonymous Coward]

It is for stopping malware, idiot.

Coren22 proven a bigmouth bullshitter

[Anonymous Coward]

Coren22 what commercialware's your code as APK's is? Does malwarebytes host + recommend your work as APK currently has? What trade show did your work do well in like APK's? What books, magazines, newspapers articles in computer science feature your work like APK's done? You say you've done more in middle school. Ok, what was that? You should just admit you're the "ne'er-do-well" APK says you are bigmouth as it's quite clear you haven't done shit you bigmouthed bullshitter.

Re:Coren22 proven a bigmouth bullshitter

[Anonymous Coward]

This Coren22, I'm too lazy to log in today. I just wanted to apologize for not taking my meds last week and to say that, yes, I have never developed any commercialware comparable to what APK has done. That is why I can't provide links to reviews and downloads.

Re:Coren22 proven a bigmouth bullshitter

[Coren22]

So, now you are resorting to acting like you are me APK? That is truly pathetic. Since I have repeatedly said I don't post as AC, it should be pretty obvious I wouldn't post AC and claim to be me. Poor pathetic APK, can't stand someone pointing out his flaws.

Good luck on the witch hunt, since I won't out myself, you will just have to try and try and try to figure out who I am.

Re:Coren22 proven a bigmouth bullshitter

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor bs excuse to try cover the fact you haven't accomplished anything at all of worth in computing by others Coren22. Apk has.

Keep up treament of your Aspergers

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: It is okay to being mentally defective as long as you admit to it and take reasonable steps to keep out of trouble.

APK

P.S.=> You still hide behind a fake name even though we all know who you are from your posts & you're still going to only be a trolling LOSER and nothing more if you don't seek treatment... apk

Re:Keep up treament of your Aspergers

[Coren22]

So, since you think 100% of humans are mentally defective in some way, you must think you are mentally defective as well.

You seem to be misunderstanding what Asperger's Syndrome is if you think it is a mental defect, everything I have read has indicated that the lack of social skills is more than offset by higher intelligence. But I guess since you seem to think you are an expert in everything, you must know more than me about it.

I expect you to post a link to a picture of your medical or psychiatric degree next, since you expect everyone else to prove themselves to even offer comments on a public comment board.

Re:Keep up treament of your Aspergers

[Anonymous Coward]

For a person of your self-alleged higher intelligence Coren22 why can apk can show he's done more in computing? Apk never said everyone's mentally defective either. Only you are. Your lack of accomplishment evidences this clearly. Stop putting words in others' mouths they never said Coren, or learn to read. Either way you show us your mental problems on that count too.

Re:Keep up treament of your Aspergers

[Coren22]

See, the thing about intelligence, is it means people can think ahead. I think ahead to when you figure out who I am, and see you pulling a gun on me because I won't back down, and because I dared to prove you wrong. I am smart enough to not desire people like you knowing who I am, which is why I don't offer up my work for you to see.

Since it doesn't matter one iota how much of an expert I am in the subject, your continued interest in my qualifications can only mean that you have murder on the mind.

As far as putting words in other's mouth, you are the one that tied Aspergers to being mentally defective. As 100% of humans have conditions showing in the DSM, you are essentially calling everyone a mental defective. I don't need to put any words in your mouth, I just used what you said, which leads directly, through logic, to you thinking everyone is a mental defect. As mental defect isn't a condition I have ever heard described in the DSM, I can only assume that you think it is a slur of some sort, though inaccurate.

Coren22 vs. you I don't need to

[Anonymous Coward]

APK, I have done so much more than you by Coren22 ( 1625475 ) on Thursday August 11, 2016 @12:19PM (#52684621)

You've been impersonating me all week Coren22. Others point it out earlier. Where's good things you've done in computing Coren? They're not. Didn't you say that quote of you above though in regard to that? Well. Prove it. I did. Fact: YOU CAN'T PROVE WHAT YOU HAVEN'T EVER DONE fool, lol!

APK

P.S.=> You're just too easy to outsmart with your own massive constant mistakes... apk

Re:Coren22 vs. you I don't need to

[Coren22]

Except, I have never impersonated you. Why do you assume that people posting as AC acting like you MUST be me?

You pointed it out, however I have seen no others point out anything of the type. Funny that you would confuse a signed message of your own trying to claim I made a post as you, and one of your third party posts.

I don't need to prove a damn thing to you. I will not out myself to a psychopath.

Funny how you get all caught up in your own logical inconsistencies, and somehow think you have outsmarted me. Perhaps if you went back to school and learned some formal logic we might be able to have an actual discussion.

Coren22 let's see that intelligence now

[Anonymous Coward]

"APK, I have done so much more than you" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Thursday August 11, 2016 @12:19PM (#52684621)

Coren22 what commercialware's your code as mine's is? Does malwarebytes host + recommend your work as mine currently is? What trade show did your work do well in like mine? What books, magazines, newspapers articles in computer science feature your work like I've done? You say you've done more in middle school. Ok, what was that? You should just admit you're a lying "ne'er-do-well" bigmouth (it's quite clear you haven't done shit)

APK

P.S.=> Blowhard & if you project your own mental issues anymore, we'll have to call the cops over there in Baltimore where you are to restrain you, lol... apk

Re:Coren22 let's see that intelligence now

[Coren22]

I am not in Baltimore. Perhaps you should reread the post you pulled that information from.

I will not out myself to a psychopath, I don't need to prove anything. You are the one asking for proof of every little thing, it won't happen, so get over it.

Coren22's illogic logic? LMAO... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

"APK, I have done so much more than you" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Thursday August 11, 2016 @12:19PM (#52684621)

Coren22 what commercialware's your code as mine's is? Does malwarebytes host + recommend your work as mine currently is? What trade show did your work do well in like mine? What books, magazines, newspapers articles in computer science feature your work like I've done? You say you've done more in middle school. Ok, what was that? You should just admit you're a lying "ne'er-do-well" bigmouth (it's quite clear you haven't done shit)

APK

P.S.=>

"I expect you to post a link to a picture of your medical or psychiatric degree next" - by Coren22 ( 1625475 ) on Monday August 15, 2016 @09:55AM (#52704099)

Blowhard & where's your degrees in psychiatric sciences? None of that to your credit either (nor a formal examination given in a professional licensed psychiatric environs results either despite your "SiDeWaLk-ShRiNk of /." prognosis!)

"I will not out myself to a psychopath" - by Coren22 ( 1625475 ) on Monday August 15, 2016 @12:38PM (#52705175)

Libel much? Yes, out of frustration in your being an easily outwitted brain-damaged assburger DOLT, which is a FACT you admit, not libel from me, lol... apk

Re:Coren22's illogic logic? LMAO... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

The Keystone Center is only an hour from Baltimore:

Computer-Assisted Sensate Focus: Integrating Technology with Sex Therapy Practice by CM Coren.

Not how the DSM works

[Anonymous Coward]

As 100% of humans have conditions showing in the DSM, you are essentially calling everyone a mental defective.

As most conditions in the DSM have a prerequisite that the symptoms are severe enough to be causing some sort of problem in the patient's life, and often it also requires some minimum about of time to preclude typical emotional variances and bad events, NO, there is not a condition in there for everyone if you actually follow the requirements of severity.

Demonstrating a such a fundamental lack of understanding is how APK keeps destroying you every time, and undermines your slanderous psychopath label.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Coren22]

You are funny.

I am making a point, what you have said does not contradict my point. APK hasn't yet destroyed me, so I can only assume you are APK as well, since he is the only one who ever thinks he destroys me.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Anonymous Coward]

Coren22 you destroy yourself everytime against everyone here troll. Not every ac is apk you mentally disturbed nut.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Coren22]

Uh huh. So then why do you feel he has destroyed me? He has yet to actually make a point against anything.

Funny that you think it makes me mentally disturbed though, as it is exactly the same behavior that APK did in accusing me of posting as an AC acting like him. So, you believe APK is mentally disturbed?

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Anonymous Coward]

Coren22 you destroyed yourself in telling lies about Apk and his software that people here like https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9380571&cid=52536769/ and you have nothing like that to your credit obviously as this entire debate shows.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Coren22]

More attacks, no responses to the actual criticism, and exactly the same style. Yup, another APK troll.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Anonymous Coward]

Coren22 you attacked apk with lies about his life and his software here https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9380571&cid=52536769/ and now YOU are unable to respond to it having destroyed yourself again.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Coren22]

You poor dear, you had to go back a month ago to find somewhere that I lost my temper with your act and insulted you, you poor poor dear.

If you can't handle being insulted, perhaps you should stop participating in the open internet. I hear there are some great kiddie areas of the Internet where people can't insult you.

APK, you attack constantly, if you can't take it back, it just shows that you don't belong here. Who is it that constantly calls me a mental defective? Who constantly insults my experience (which you know nothing about)? Get over yourself, you have yet to prove me wrong, so instead you resort to name calling and insults, as if it will harm me in some way.

You couldn't destroy a piece of paper while standing in a forest fire...yet you constantly act like you have trapped me or proven me wrong, when you still have yet to respond to any of the points I made. Good luck with that.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't handle the fact apk exposed you as a loudmouth chattering do nothing in computing that hides behind a fake name like the roach you are online coren22.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Coren22]

You can't handle the truth!

God, grow up little one, you haven't exposed a damn thing, and your constant attacks just prove you don't even have the capacity to. Just like this post, you can't even comprehend what I write, so you flip out and claim you have won yet again...despite not winning anything!

I hide behind a fake name, but at least I stand behind my name, you post as AC and act like third parties. You have no accountability to what you post, and you use other's posting history as some kind of attack against them, with the full knowledge that you are hiding from equivalent criticism. Until you create an account and use it, you have no position to criticise my use of a pseudonym; you just hide behind AC posts, which is far worse in the grand scheme.

Also, you know that I have good karma because I have constructive things to add to the community, while if you created an account you would quite quickly EARN negative karma because you love to shitpost and troll, while most times posting off topic. You are your own problem, not me.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Anonymous Coward]

Coren22 you're exposed as a liar https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9380571&cid=52536769/hiding like a roach behind a fake name online obviously since with your real name you have no accomplishments anyone notes as good like they do for apk from slashdotters and numerous publications and trade shows in computing do.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Anonymous Coward]

You know how to tell someone is losing a troll fight? When they spend ten times as much effort on replying.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Coren22]

So that means APK is losing right? Since he posts like 10 times to every one of my replies...cool, thanks for the update.

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Anonymous Coward]

No Coren22 it's why this guy told you to shut up https://slashdot.org/comments.... and after you get home from your late night shift at burgerking you're trolling more than usual instead of your roughly 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. troll just before your job at the restaurant from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. which you pretend is some computer tech job Coren. That dude didn't like the lies you were caught posting here either ahref=https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9380571&cid=52536769/rel=url2html-3234https://it.slashdot.org/commen...>

Re:Not how the DSM works

[Coren22]

You are so funny.

Yeah, I work at Burger King (which is how it is spelled and formatted), that's why I know more about computer networks than you apparently, and why I have been able to show you why your solution is terrible? I must be a severely overqualified fry cook.

At least I can type...and properly use a computer.

My solutions' terrible? /.'ers say otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

I support APK's stand on the hosts file by Trax3001BBS

his hosts program is actually pretty good by xenotransplant

his hosts tool is actually useful for those cases in which one does indeed want to locally block stuff outright while consuming minimum system resources by alexgieg

I've never tried to belittle (APK's) work, I've flat out said it's good by BronsCon

I like your host file system by Karmashock

I find your hosts file admirable by vel-ex-tech

take a look at the APK hosts file engine by SuperKendall

APK is kinda right. I've given up on JS based adblocking and gone to blackholing in /etc/hosts, just like it was back in the 90s. The computational load has gotten intolerable for any ad-blocking using JS. I've tried his hosts file generating software. It works by bmo

APK is totally right on this count. Adblock Plus on Firefox mobile is a dog on older, or lower end, phones. A hostfile based adblocker makes for a much better experience by chihowa

APK

P.S.=> Want more?... apk

Re:My solutions' terrible? /.'ers say otherwise

[Coren22]

So, how do you get around the massive performance hit of using hosts files vs DNS? When do you plan on shifting over to DNS...the 33 year old technology that was designed to replace hosts files? You know, the technology that uses intelligent branching tree algorithms instead of parsing the whole hosts file?

Perhaps you should really try to fix your shit before bitching about how bad I am at technology. You seem to think that shouting me down will suddenly make DNS never have been invented to fix the issues with the hosts file. Your only solution is to add a favorites section to the hosts file, which doesn't deal with dynamic addresses, and doesn't solve the massive issues your hosts file will cause to a Active Directory domain joined computer.

Re:My solutions' terrible? /.'ers say otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't sound like any of them actually use it, just saying it is good in theory, and some using their own hostfile solution.

Re:My solutions' terrible? /.'ers say otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd better learn to read then Coren22 by unidentifiable ac post. Users in apk's post say they use it.

Adblocking makes up a 3.5% of time tiny hit

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject stupid: Sub 4% of the time I *may* do a lookup that's not in my fav sites cached in RAM @ top of hosts operating in KERNELMODE SPEED (far faster vs. usermode slow solutions are including browser addons that don't do as much & eat more or even windows' usermode slower dnscache (breaks down w/ large hosts & IS faulty which even MS mgt. agreed w/ me on))!

Each lookup page's LOAD FASTER as they're 40% SMALLER IN MASS (due to no ads) http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/e-marketing/adblock-plus-adblocking-network-traffic-172245/

* I also avoid a security issue riddled DNS system (massively bloated resource pig too if locally installed w/ more moving parts for breakdown/exploit too) https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9007355&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=51969075/ 96++% of the time too!

APK

P.S.=> It's faster, leaner & safer vs. local DNS (which hosts work fine with) + I use OpenDNS (I do use DNS)... apk

Re:Adblocking makes up a 3.5% of time tiny hit

[Coren22]

So in other words, rather than answer the question, you choose to go on a wild tangent? Good to see you can stay on subject.

Why would you be comparing hosts to a dnscache in the local OS? That isn't DNS, it is caching used for reducing lookups to the DNS server.

You also can't compare the "mass" of web pages, as they would be IDENTICAL. Adblock also removes ads, but I was specifically speaking to a DNS server with the same entries, which would therefore have the exact same web page loading "mass".

WTF? I know that... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Adblocks in hosts save load time of remote lookups (sub 4% & rare vs. fav sites @ top of hosts cached in RAM saves tons, 40% of site pages) vs. the NEGLIGIBLE parse of even a LARGE hosts file (would take someone 10 yrs. to get to the size of mine here, that's how long it took me). Most are NOT ANYWHERE NEAR that size & won't be for decades possibly.

AdBlock doesn't do a FRACTION of what hosts do for speed, security, reliability & anonymity + doesn't even WORK RIGHT ANYMORE by default (crippled) & CONSUMES TONS MORE RESOURCES doing less vs. hosts by FAR!

Remote DNS server lookups take time & lag you (+ DNS is loaded with security issues & GIGABYTES of RAM consumption per the link I posted w/ dozens of categories of both its SECURITY & RESOURCE CONSUMPTION flaws with 100's of examples of each over time).

APK

P.S.=> Quit wasting my time - you failed again... apk

Re:WTF? I know that... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

AdBlock doesn't do a FRACTION of what hosts do

Funny, if I turn off my browser addon, of the ads on the dozen or so tabs I have open: half come from the same server (or some load sharing frontend) as the main content (including the more obnoxious and/or security issue ones like videos), and more than half of the remaining comes from fixed ip addresses. So the hostfile would do nothing for the majority of the ads I have, especially so for the ones I really don't want, yet they are stopped by a browser addon, without even being loaded. So any amount of cpu cycles is a waste when it is completely redundant, small subset of already running software.

AdBlock = inferior + 'souled-out' vs. hosts

[Anonymous Coward]

Adblock can't do (or do as well) 16 things hosts do 4 speed, security & reliability:

1.) Protect vs. bad sites (past ads)
2.) Protect vs. fastflux botnet C&C servers
3.) Protect vs. dynamic dns botnet C&C servers
4.) Protect vs. DGA botnet C&C servers
5.) Protect vs. downed DNS (reliability)
6.) Protect vs. DNS redirect poisoned/downed dns
7.) Protect vs. trackers
8.) Protect vs. spam payloads
9.) Protect vs. phish payloads
10.) Protect vs. caps
11.) Get past dns blocks
12.) Keep off dns request logs
13.) Speed up 2 ways (adblocks & hardcodes)
14.) Work on anything webbound multiplatform.
15.) Ez data edit
16.) Block ads more efficiently in cpu/ram/I-O us

APK

P.S.=> Ab+ does less vs. hosts less efficiently (a 128-151mb memory hog http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-conte...)

ClarityRay defeats it

Ab+'s bribed not to work by default http://www.businessinsider.com...

AdBlock's SLOWER: http://superuser.com/questions...

Re:AdBlock = inferior + 'souled-out' vs. hosts

[Anonymous Coward]

My entire browser takes up less than 128 MB of ram and uses less than 10% of the cpu, including addons. So if you continue your claim that single digit percentage usage of the cpu is inconsequential, it sounds like it doesn't matter how much memory or cpu the alternative uses. And considering you didn't counter it, sounds like it still won't block the majority of ads I would see without the addons. Nor would it deal with dns being down unless you precache everything, nor would it stop spam and phishing payloads, unless it blocks all access to the email server. And on top of that, it increases the security surface area for the host file which has been used as parts of malware, ransomware, and botnet attacks.

Learn to read

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll say it again since you seem extra thick.

AdBlock doesn't do a FRACTION of what hosts do for speed, security, reliability & anonymity + doesn't even WORK RIGHT ANYMORE by default (crippled) & CONSUMES TONS MORE RESOURCES doing less vs. hosts by FAR!

Remote DNS server lookups take time & lag you (+ DNS is loaded with security issues & GIGABYTES of RAM consumption per the link I posted w/ dozens of categories of both its SECURITY & RESOURCE CONSUMPTION flaws with 100's of examples of each over time).

APK

P.S.=> It's faster, leaner & safer vs. local DNS (which hosts work fine with). Now quit wasting my time with your stupid mistakes and lack of reading comprehension... apk

Re:Learn to read

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you seem to have nothing new to say, I will assume that you don't have any actual responses to those criticisms and issues raised with what you said. That is about as close as some people get around here to admitting they're wrong.

(By the way, amusing that you think DNS takes up gigabytes of ram, especially considering it is used on systems with much less than a gigabyte of ram or even storage).

Re:Learn to read

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the Slashdot MO: If someone makes a simple counterpoint defeating your argument, change the subject and go after a strawman.

Re:Learn to read

[Anonymous Coward]

APK runs at the sight of an actual argument, so he can go back to pretending it is others refusing to argue against him.

Re:Learn to read

[Anonymous Coward]

You prove yourself weak + unable to validly technically disprove this https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9493863&cid=52723333

FACT: (which you help prove no less)

It's an example that shows your browser addons DON'T DO A FRACTION OF WHAT HOSTS CAN for added speed, security, reliability, & anonymity - period, AND hosts do so FOR FAR LESS RESOURCE CONSUMPTION & aren't BRIBED (not Ublock, not yet, but AdBlock/AdBlock+ & Ghostery is bought out by advertisers & tracks you) to NOT WORK the SINGLE JOB THEY HAD - blocking ALL ads!

* :)

(You FAIL loser... & you KNOW it!)

APK

I coded a program: It creates the best hosts file

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit http://start64.com/index.php?o...

FREE & adds speed, security, + reliability, doing more with less, more efficiently vs. browser addons & locally installed DNS servers @ home + fixes DNS' redirect security issues - obtaining its data vs. online threats & adbanner blocking from 10 reputable sites in the security community - using something you already have vs. "bolting on browser addons 'MOAR' that's usermode slower & increases messagepassing, cpu + ram overuse overheads & actually SPEEDS YOU UP 2 ways (adblocking + locally cached in RAM favorites placed @ the TOP of hosts for fastest resolution speed), whereas by way of comparison, other "so-called security 'solutions'" SLOW YOU DOWN!

MalwareBytes' hpHosts Admin(MalwareBytes employee) hosts & recommends it-> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...

APK

P.S.=> By "yours truly" - "The Lord of Hosts" ...apk

Coren22 up to his usual tricks

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been impersonating me for a second week Coren22. Others point it out earlier. We can all tell when you're too lazy to even do a good job of trolling, just like your arguments about computer topics.

APK

P.S.=> You're just too EZ to outsmart with repeating your own massive mistakes... apk

Re:Coren22 up to his usual tricks

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should we trust you regarding security if you can't even solve the simple problem of being impersonated on a forum?

Better than trusting "ne'er-do-well" Coren22

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: I've actually done well @ it & can show it (I have to Coren22 before) & he can't show a damn thing he's done that's any good that was noticed in respected publications in this field OR commercially sold wares to his name + high placement in trade shows in the art & science of computing... I have!

* ... & there ya go!

APK

P.S.=> Coren22's nothing more than a fake name online using do-nothing - fact! apk

Get on topic troll loser

[Anonymous Coward]

The off topic ad hominem attacks are you failing out of frustration, start, & make me laugh, KNOWING they're frustrated & can't stop me then (their 1 effete 'weapon' in the unjustifiable abused downmod is gone courtesy of "yours truly" - & I'm probably doing some other slob a favor so they can't do it to him too...).

APK

P.S.=> I love it - they're USEFUL dolts to me (not much of a challenge, but useful) - & all they do is make ME look GOOD (since all they have is abused unjustifiable downmods but no proving my points on hosts validly technically wrong)... apk

"Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" hypocrite

[Anonymous Coward]

I avoid NOTHING from you loser, you ran from me since you're unable to validly & technically prove me wrong (Mr. Coren22 sockpuppet).

APK