Quote of the unspecified temporal interval

A man chases a woman until she catches him.
-unknown

Today's helping of news

My posts lately have been a little lame, so I figured I needed to gather up a little interesting info this evening.

First up: Mad scientists are fine, just don't be a bad, mad scientist!

Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit.

This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say.

They don't know how they did it.

For something which they don't understand and was, in a sense, sort of a goof, this could turn out to be really big news. Read on.

One thing that puzzles scientists is that the high temperature was achieved after the plasma'’s ions should have been losing energy and cooling. Also, when the high temperature was achieved, the Z machine was releasing more energy than was originally put in, something that usually occurs only in nuclear reactions.

So they may have discovered a rather amazing energy source. Let's just hope they don't burn down the lab before they figure this out.

Next up: Some people may be smarter than they appear (at least on paper)

About 4,000 students who took the main SAT college entrance exam last October received incorrectly low scores because of problems with the scanning of their answer sheets.

How bad was it?

Admissions officials, however, said Tuesday some students had been affected by as much as 130 points — forcing schools to scramble to re-evaluate candidates at a time when many are trying to make final decisions.

Great! Glad this kind of thing didn't happen when I was applying at the University of Illinois.

Here's another great one.

Do you remember a while back when I mentioned that the Malaysianan government was sponsoring a search for bigfoot? Well Guess what? No, they didn't find him. In fact, nobody wants to try.


And of course I would be remissis in my duties if I didn't mention this:
The Empire Microsoft Strikes Back.

In a fairly obvious attempt to strike back at Google, Yahoo, and all the others, Microsoft has released it's beta Live.com.

Don't you just love competition?!

Let's wrap things up on a light note.

Does anyone remember the opening scene of "Back to the Future" when Michael J Fox (Marty McFly if you prefer) gets blown across a room by that giant amp? Well here's a subwoofer that might actually be able to do just that.


I'm just glad these guys don't live next door to me.

Math! It all adds up!

I haven't posted anything particularly nerdy lately, so here's a fun little link

Idiot World's Math G od eek Test.

I'll admit, I'm not much of a math nerd, but this is a fun(ny) way of wasting a little time, and since it's somewhat academic in nature, you can feel like you're improving yourself.

Spilling mistakes

I guess no matter how good you are at something, a spelling mistake can eventually catch up with you.

A Cyprus court jailed Pakistani national Fazal Ur Rehman for eight months for forgery after police spotted spelling mistakes on stamps on an Afghan passport he was carrying -- otherwise it was a near-perfect copy.

Ah, Monday morning!

"Doctor! Every morning when I drink my coffee, I get a stabbing pain in my right eye,"

"Well, have you tried taking the spoon out of the cup?"

Oh joy!

This just in from the Illinois Department of Transportation.

“Drivers of passenger vehicles should avoid the Dan Ryan entirely,” said IDOT Secretary Tim Martin. While many motorists will use public transportation or IDOT-designated alternate routes, truckers will be urged to stay on the expressway because their vehicles are too heavy for local streets. “Our message is ‘Cars Off, Trucks On,” said Martin.

Work is set to begin at the end of this month or beginning of next depending on weather. Looks like I'll be taking 55 downtown from now on.

(C'mon, click on the picture already)

Big 5 0

Carinival of Cordite has made it to 50 posts! Go check it out!

Hello Cleveland!

I guess now that photoshop is so popular, nobody is safe anymore, including the police.

Some people are saying that there's a hidden image in the Cleveland police logo on the side of their cars.A recent newspaper article did some editing, taking away bordering and edging on an image of the logo -- and the result was the image of a pig.

I guess I can kindof see it, but the editing makes it pretty noticable. Don't you just love photoshop?!

Quote of the unspecified temporal interval

"The attitude of people associating guns with nothing but crime, that is what has to be changed. I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms."

—Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

(Again, via Kim du Toit)

Burnout

Here's a little bit of insane engineering for you. I know that VW likes to brag about their turbocharged engines, but I'm pretty sure this thing is a bit faster than a stock VW.






Whew!! It's a good thing this car can moves so fast, because I'd hate to be stuck right behind it in traffic.