2012... A Hollywood Hoax?

Remember the 2012 movie we talked about a few weeks ago? Well Joel Achenbach, of the Washington Post, has suggested that December 21st, 2012 is all just one big hoax.

Some quotes from his piece:

"The world is coming to an end.
In, like, 4 or 5 billion years. The sun will get old and cranky and eventually immolate the entire planet.
The world, however, is not coming to an end on Dec. 21, 2012, contrary to the viral Internet rumor propounded by pseudo-scientists, hoaxers, Hollywood movie promoters and assorted void-between-the-ears people who wouldn't recognize a scientific fact if it tried to abduct them."

Excuse me Mr. Achenbach, but I am not a pseudo scientist, a hoaxer, and I certainly do not work for Hollywood (yet). And trust me, I know science when I see it. I am certainly not void between the ears. If you'd like, I can go dig up my 1600 SAT scores and you can meet my beautiful wife. (Tinfoil hatters don't usually score perfect 10s). Perhaps you just need to open your eyes a little bit wider and accept that some things are outside the realm of your understanding.

"As with all pseudo-science, the real science provides a platform from which the human imagination soars to great heights of irrationality."

And as with any Style story at the Washington Post the paper soars to new heights of uselessness.


[image via the2012countdown.com]

Large Hadron Terrorist

*

Holy Shit! Scary news out of France.

A researcher working at CERN's Large Hadron Collider was arrested last week with suspected ties to terrorist group al-Qaeda.

According to the BBC:

"The 32-year-old man of Algerian descent was one of two brothers detained in the south-east town of Vienne on Thursday.

Police believe they had been in contact over the internet with people linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and had been planning attacks in France.

Cern's Large Hadron Collider is aiming to recreate conditions of the Big Bang.

The organisation confirmed that a physicist working at its site had been arrested "under suspicion of links to terrorist organisations", and said it was helping the French police with their investigation." (bbc)

Who knows what this (alleged) monster would have been capable of. The fact that the LHC is going to destroy us all without any terrorists--except for those loony scientists at CERN--working there is scary enough. Time to duck and cover. Thank you France for arresting this guy before he powered up the collider and fired two dirty quarks** together to create a super-duper black hole that would destroy the universe.


*Tram driver image not likely to actually be the alleged terrorist, but you never know.

**I have been told by our science correspondent that "dirty quarks" do not (yet) exist, even though there are tons of other weird quark types. But when scientists find the next type of quark they totally should call them "dirty."

Robotic Bees at Harvard -- Watch Out Yale!

We talk about bees a lot here at EIGN. But we think this story may be the scariest of all.

"Harvard researchers recently got a $10 million grant to create a colony of flying robotic bees." (network world)

ROBOTIC BEES?? Here's the reasoning, according to a network world magazine blog...

"The 5-year, National Science Foundation-funded RoboBee project could lead to a better understanding of how to artificially mimic the unique collective behavior and intelligence of a bee colony; foster novel methods for designing and building an electronic surrogate nervous system able to deftly sense and adapt to changing environments; and advance work on the construction of small-scale flying mechanical devices, according to the Harvard RoboBee Web site."

"Apparently though the RoboBees will lack one thing regular bees are known for, a stinger." Okay so maybe the first generation won't have stingers but what happens after they start reproducing--then we are really screwed. RUN!

Does anyone else think it is useless to create robotic bees if they are not going to help with the pollination problem we are starting to face?

[image via freaking news]

The Great, Late, Pumpkin

Global warming (cough) has apparently struck again. This time with the pumpkin. Looks like in some parts of the country there are not going to be enough pumpkins to go around.

"The jack-o'-lantern outlook in New England and parts of the Midwest looks a fright. A combination of wet and cold ruined a bunch of the pumpkin crop, and what's left in some fields is taking its own sweet time to ripen." (msnmoney)

In related news, apparently wearing a condom can help save the planet. Maybe you should try just keeping it in your pants, for once.

[thanks to eign reader j. for the heads up on this story]

Facebook Status: Busy Robbing House.

Let us meet the stupidest of the stupid criminals ever: Jonathan G. Parker, a 19 year old in West Virginia, decided to stop and update his facebook page on the computer in the house he was robbing.

Everyone, please proceed to find this guy on facebook, friend him and write on his "wall": "You are a stupid moron."

No More Scary Sounds From Above or Below: Good News Wednesday!

Great news for those of you with attractive, sexually active roommates.

They are officially no longer able to have sex while you're in the room.

Take that George*! If we were roommates this year at Tufts University you wouldn't be having all that sex on the bunk below me. I still think I'm scared for life.

While this is a step in the right direction for Tufts, now we just need them -- and all schools for that matter -- to start acting like Boston College... "'As a Catholic university, we do not allow cohabitation in our residence halls,' Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn said."

Thanks Boston College for making this a violation of the dorm code of conduct. I'm sure no one is having sex in the dorms there, as opposed to those horny sinners at Tufts.

*George's name changed for obvious reasons.

[image via fugly.com]

2012: THE MOVIE ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

HOLY SHIT! Finally some VINDICATION!
Looks like the Mainstream Media are beginning to catch on... in a big screen, big budget, hollywood kind of way:

I saw this in the subway yesterday:

[12/21/2012 can't come soon enough.]

I wasn't sure if it was a reference to the end of times as predicted by the Mayans but I came to work today and searched for it.


IT'S A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE arriving this November.

"Plot
A global cataclysm occurs which leads to the end of the world and has survivors struggling for their lives, while a US government agency called the "Institute for Human Continuity" attempts to use ships to ensure the survival of the human race.

The film is inspired by several hypotheses that state that the ancient Mayan predicted a doomsday event would occur sometime around the 2012 northern hemisphere winter solstice." (wikipedia)

Trailer here:



Website here.

More info here.

WOW.

You can be sure that EIGN will keep you abreast of this developing story over the next few days and months.

When It Gets Too Blue.... Black Out.

The UK government is saying their country may be facing blackouts by 2016 because viable "green" alternative energy technologies are not progressing quickly enough.

Sucks for them.

[photo]