Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Higgs Live!

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  • Scott Chris, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    Don’t you be starting them off
    with homoeopathy allusions

    Luckily for us, unlike the universe, water has a selective memory which means it can remember the 200C dilution of duck liver but forget all the poo it’s previously contained.

    Auckland • Since Feb 2012 • 167 posts Report Reply

  • Chris Waugh, in reply to chris,

    "Man has to awaken to wonder -- and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again."

    Ludwig Wittgenstein

    Now I have to leap to the defence of science. I'm sure a NASA website somewhere has plenty of images that show clearly how wrong ole Ludwig was on that point. I've certainly seen many mind-blowing images of the cosmos. A couple of days ago a Baidu News alert sent me, among other things, images of strange critters from the depths of the ocean off the coast of New Zealand that did the same, just looking in the opposite direction. And I've seen plenty of images of thing that exist at or below the microscopic scale that should be framed and hung on art gallery walls. Science is certainly no new-fangled, high-tech opiate of the masses.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 2401 posts Report Reply

  • Islander, in reply to chris,

    And Islander, do try and stay alive.

    Well, it's very much better than being dead, so I do try!

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Chris Waugh, in reply to chris,

    Rather than their allegiances it's a comment on their way of doing things, an ideological and managerial tepidness.

    A sheepdog desperately seeking the approval of a shepherd?

    Not equating New Zealanders with sheep, mind.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 2401 posts Report Reply

  • Islander, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    <q>Not equating New Zealanders with sheep, mind.
    Heh!
    Nah, it's more like recently self-aware sheep, with pointy shark teeth, looking in a different way at the erstwhile snappy dogs-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Lilith __,

    I think NZ has a history of deference to offshore powers, both being a former colony and also a small remote country dependent on export earnings.

    Things could be different, but exporting primary products and wooing tourists both require making nice to the powerful.

    Which doesn't excuse the ridiculously poor and visionless leadership we have at the moment.

    Dunedin • Since Jul 2010 • 3895 posts Report Reply

  • Lilith __, in reply to Islander,

    warily trust in science-

    I trust wholeheartedly in the principles of scientific discovery. I don't necessarily trust the uses that science and technology are put to. They can be very good or very bad.

    Dunedin • Since Jul 2010 • 3895 posts Report Reply

  • Chris Waugh, in reply to Lilith __,

    There's a difference between making nice to the powerful and jumping when they say so in the vain hope that our obedience will cause them to benevolently bestow many kindnesses on us. We can and should navigate a happy middle path of being friends with everybody but letting it be known we have principles that are not negotiable, and those principles should be based on the lessons our history has to teach us.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 2401 posts Report Reply

  • Islander, in reply to Lilith __,

    hink NZ has a history of deference to offshore powers, both being a former colony and also a small remote country dependent on export earnings.

    Lilith, ANZ has a very long history (upwards of a thousand years) of being an entirely independant archipelago. The past 200 years have been an anomaly - which is being shapeshifted even as we write-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Lilith __, in reply to Islander,

    Sorry Islander, I didn’t mean to imply that NZ is only a former colony, just that the colonial mindset contributes to the toadying attitude some of our leaders have,

    Would it be fair to say that before the last 200 years, NZ was an archipelago of nation-states?

    Dunedin • Since Jul 2010 • 3895 posts Report Reply

  • chris, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    Now I have to leap to the defence of science.

    Fair enough, the quote is an inadequate fit for the inquisitive mind, and yet x pages of Comic Sans Serif critique later, one wonders.

    Mawkland • Since Jan 2010 • 1302 posts Report Reply

  • chris, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    A sheepdog desperately seeking the approval of a shepherd?

    This/these wannabe 'sheepdog/s' -huskies with Alzheimers, "pull the sled!" As you said:

    we need to work on turning that around and finding ways we can get over these challenges.

    Mawkland • Since Jan 2010 • 1302 posts Report Reply

  • Ross Mason, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    Don't you be starting them off with homoeopathy allusions, there'll be no settling them for the night...

    Heh. But I have just done a back-of-the-envelope calculation. If the Earth was concussed and diluted into the known universe, each molecule would be spread apart by at least a lightyear.

    Your task, should you agree to undetake it: 1) Reassemble Earth and make me whole. 2) Convince me we are relevant.

    Now to settle well for the night.

    Upper Hutt • Since Jun 2007 • 1590 posts Report Reply

  • Chris Waugh, in reply to Ross Mason,

    Your task, should you agree to undetake it: 1) Reassemble Earth and make me whole. 2) Convince me we are relevant.

    Well said, sir. But permit me to take a Daoist approach and refuse to reassemble Earth and embrace our irrelevance. 无为, useless trees, 'n' all that. Nature will take its course. We either sit back and enjoy the ride, or try to fight it and in the process unleash our own destruction.

    Settling well, up this way.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 2401 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    Can we please build something into our economic and political governance about ensuring we act for the long-term good of our nation so that our kids, grandkids, great grandkids have somewhere cool and clean to live?

    It's a core part of our Resource Management Act and Local Government Act. Hence the current government dismantling both.

    Most of our problems with long-term energy infrastructure investment go back to the silly neoliberal 'market' arrangements put in place by the unrepentant Max Bradford.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Lilith __, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    We can and should navigate a happy middle path of being friends with everybody but letting it be known we have principles that are not negotiable

    +1

    Dunedin • Since Jul 2010 • 3895 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart, in reply to Islander,

    Lilith, ANZ has a very long history (upwards of a thousand years) of being an entirely independant archipelago.

    Please correct me if I've got this wrong, but there's no evidence of trade between ANZ and the rest of the Pacific post-migration, right? Easy to be independent from the rest of the world if you're unconnected to it.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • Islander, in reply to Lucy Stewart,

    Please correct me if I’ve got this wrong, but there’s no evidence of trade between ANZ and the rest of the Pacific post-migration, right? Easy to be independent from the rest of the world if you’re unconnected to it.

    There were at least 2 voyages that we know of to obtain more kumara and taro.
    And the migrating waka didnt a)arrive all at once b) travel the same route/s.
    There seems to have been connections for at least 2-3 centuries after the first settlements in ANZ. Some of the info coming out of the major settlement in North Westland is…very intriguing. Hope to learn more at my tribe’s major hui-a-iwi in late November.

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • Lilith __, in reply to Islander,

    There seems to have been connections for at least 2-3 centuries after the first settlements in ANZ.

    Far out!! That's amazing!

    Dunedin • Since Jul 2010 • 3895 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart, in reply to Islander,

    There seems to have been connections for at least 2-3 centuries after the first settlements in ANZ. Some of the info coming out of the major settlement in North Westland is…very intriguing. Hope to learn more at my tribe’s major hui-a-iwi in late November.

    Huh, interesting.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • chris, in reply to Islander,

    There seems to have been connections for at least 2-3 centuries after the first settlements in ANZ

    Is there any inkling as to what may have ruptured this connection?

    Mawkland • Since Jan 2010 • 1302 posts Report Reply

  • Islander, in reply to chris,

    Nothing definite chris, not yet: some of the navigational knowledge seems to have got lost (but there was enough around for a tohuka, travelling with Te Whanau o Aotearoa to the 4th SP arts festival in Tahitinui, to swap with our hosts on Raiatea, star paths and land approach signs for that island, and generalised pipiwharauroa
    lore. People still knew how to build the ocean-going double waka. It seems to have
    something localised changed the need - or drive - to reconnect.

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report Reply

  • David Hood, in reply to Lucy Stewart,

    Please correct me if I’ve got this wrong, but there’s no evidence of trade between ANZ and the rest of the Pacific post-migration, right?

    The Kermadec Islands have evidence of discontinuous (multiple, independent) use as a stop over point. As they never seem to have been occupied on a long term basis, it is easier to see the evidence of repeated visitation than somewhere continuously occupied.

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Islander,

    something localised changed the need - or drive - to reconnect

    possibly just devleoping sufficient numbers and local knowledge here to make the journey not so worth it any more. quite a trek.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Parks, in reply to Yamis,

    Don’t tell the Indians that. Boson is named after Satyendra Nath Bose.

    Good point. I'd read that first article you linked to already, but not the io9 one - that was interesting. Yeah poor Bose, but it's the same for Enrico Fermi, after whom we have the other particle category referred to in that article: fermions, also sans capital.

    (Anyway, Bose gets a capital with 'Bose-Einstein statistics';same for Fermi with 'Fermi–Dirac statistics'.)

    Wellington • Since May 2007 • 1165 posts Report Reply

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