Science/Fiction

CERN Video Explains Repairs to Large Hadron Collider. The Large Hadron Collider shut down last month for what is expected to be a two year period of upgrades and repair.

Since the field of particle physics and the giant machines used to study it can be pretty complex, CERN released a short video explaining part of what will be going on in the LHC’s downtime. Turns out that even though the LHC won’t be operating, it’s going to be a very busy place. So what repairs will be going on at the LHC while it’s not running, and why are the repairs necessary in the first place? Architecture between fiction and reality. Jonathon Keats, contributor (Images: Matthew Millman) Albert Einstein didn't want a tomb.

To keep people from idolising him after his death, he asked that his ashes be scattered to the winds. Lebbeus Woods had a better idea. He designed an Einstein memorial to be sent into space on a beam of light. Woods devoted most of his life to creating architectural fantasies, the T-square equivalent of science fiction. Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have Left the Solar System. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (9780547572253): Philip K. Dick. Reader (427) Kenya: Can Technology Safeguard Elections? Polls in Kenya closed 16 hours ago, but votes continue to be counted.

Those familiar with Kenya and with the electoral crisis of 2007-2008 will know to distrust provisional results. In December 2007, challenger Raila Odinga seemed substantially ahead during much of the early voting, only to see that lead evaporate as returns came in from more remote districts. Despite this qualification, it does look increasingly likely that Uhuru Kenyatta will gain the presidency in the first round of voting.* In the past two weeks, there was some speculation that Kenyatta might struggle to meet new requirements for national distribution of the vote, but he’s already achieved the 25% votes bar in 32 counties. Kenyatta is currently under indictment by the International Criminal Court for his involvement in the 2008 post-election violence; if elected, he would be the first democratically elected leader to go on trial at The Hague.

Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe: George Dyson: 9780375422775: Amazon.com. Meditation App Could Lead You to Life-Altering Inner Peace [REVIEW] Looking for some inner peace?

HeartMath, maker of Inner Balance, claims its iOS-based system can help you relax and get your heart, mind and emotions "in sync. " It uses a sensor that clips onto your earlobe, and when that's connected to an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, the Inner Balance app displays your relaxation level as it helps you concentrate on your breathing. Those of us who are longtime proponents of meditation will recognize the feeling you get from this device. Similar to biofeedback devices of yesteryear, this lovely app and its associated ear clip will help you meditate to a state of heightened awareness, and show you how you're doing at the same time. "Inner Balance is a form a biofeedback," HeartMath spokesperson Gaby Boehmer told Mashable. Teaching you how to achieve that self-regulation is the mission of Inner Balance. Teaching you how to achieve that self-regulation is the mission of Inner Balance.

New film: "Cloud Atlas": Terribly ambitious. I've Been Using Evernote All Wrong. Here's Why It's Actually Amazing. Cloud Atlas’s Theory of Everything by Emily Eakin. Cloud Atlas, the unlikely new adaptation by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer of David Mitchell’s ingenious novel, should do well on DVD, a format whose capacity for endless replay will enable viewers to study at leisure the myriad concurrences binding the movie’s half dozen plots.

Better yet, the directors should hire their friend the philosopher Ken Wilber to provide expert commentary and spare us from having to hit “pause” and “reverse.” Ken Wilber? In academic circles, Wilber remains obscure. A sixty-three-year-old autodidact, he is the author of an ambitious effort to reconcile empirical knowledge and mystical experience in an “Integral Theory” of existence. Yet his admirers include not only the alternative-healing guru Deepak Chopra—who has called Wilber “one of the most important pioneers in the field of consciousness”—but also the philosopher Charles Taylor, the theologians Harvey Cox and Michael Lerner, and Bill Clinton.

What is a 'Hacktivist'? The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.

The untimely death of the young Internet activist Aaron Swartz, apparently by suicide, has prompted an outpouring of reaction in the digital world. Foremost among the debates being reheated — one which had already grown in the wake of larger and more daring data breaches in the past few years — is whether Swartz’s activities as a “hacktivist” were being unfairly defined as malicious or criminal. In particular, critics (as well as Swartz’s family in a formal statement) have focused on the federal government’s indictment of Swartz for downloading millions of documents from the scholarly database JSTOR, an action which JSTOR itself had declined to prosecute.