Cool: Justin Timberlake Keeps Date with Marine November 15, 2011Matthew Cochrane
We give a lot of celebrities a hard time for saying and doing stupid things, like when Ashton Kutcher initially defended Joe Paterno after the legendary Penn State coach was fired for…well, you know. But it’s important to give credit where credit is due. This past weekend, Justin Timberlake kept his promise to USMC Corporal Kelsey Desantis and escorted her to the Marine Corps Birthday Ball in Virginia. From his website (HT: Big Hollywood):
I had the honor and privilege last night of attending The Basic School Instructor Battalion 236th Marine Corps Birthday Ball at the Greater Richmond Convention Center with Corporal Kelsey DeSantis...
I knew I would have an evening that I wouldn't forget... Something I could tell my friends about. What I didn't know was how moved I would be by the whole experience.
I've always been very vocal about my support of our Armed Forces. I've always felt like they offered us the opportunity to live our lives freely without the fear that so many other nations have to endure still to this day. And, they do it without asking for anything in return. I had this very feeling walking into this dinner. So, to say I was stoked to be there would be more than accurate.
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The evening went on and we ate and took photos and drank and made jokes.
There were some speeches that prompted many "huahs" and applause. There was laughs. We even danced a little.
I felt so proud to be there. I felt like I was getting a chance to be among my heroes. It's funny too because a lot of them are SO younger than me.
The evening wound down for me as, I had to catch a plane. But, I have to say that I had so much fun with Kelsey and her crew of friends. They were just really nice people... Classy Marines but, not without a great sense of humor. Real individuals but, not without a sense of community.
I said my goodbyes to them but, not before I got a chance to tell them how much the evening had meant to me. They made me feel so welcome to be there and I'll never forget it.
We all have our own individual views on war... But, doesn't that speak to just another thing that makes this country so special?? The fact that we can all wake up every morning and BE individual with a pure sense of freedom..? But, one thing that can't be argued is that it's because of the people who VOLUNTEER their lives to make sure that it's protected at all times. And, like I said before, doing so while asking for nothing in return...
Klitschko! Heavyweight Boxing Brothers Discuss Growing Up in the Soviet Union October 27, 2011Matthew Cochrane
Reason #871 why communism sucks. Heavyweight champion boxing brothers, Vitali and Vladimir Klitschko, talk about what it was like to grow up in Communist Russia (HT: Instapundit):
In the documentary, there's a fascinating moment, Vitali, where you're 17 years old and you travel to the United States for the first time with a delegation of Ukrainian boxers. You talk about all the propaganda you experienced growing up in the Soviet Union. What were you expecting when you arrived on U.S. soil?
Vitali Klitschko: My whole life I was told that the U.S. was a horrible country. That everyone was aggressive and that crime was out of control and that everywhere you went people were shooting each other in the street. I also was told that Americans wanted to go to war with the Russians and make us their slaves. At some point, I always believed, I would have to defend my home country against crazy Americans who wanted to control the whole world.
Wladimir Klitschko: Just to give you the full contrast, these days we have an American training camp director from Pacific Palisades, California. I explained to him that when I was 12, I was shooting AK-47s, handling hand grenades, running through underground tunnels, practicing drills, and studying how to get along with tank attacks. He said, "What? When I was 12, I was driving to Disney World to visit Mickey Mouse. What the hell were you guys thinking?" Well, we were preparing. We'd basically been brainwashed.
So when you arrived in America, how did you reconcile what you'd heard with what you saw?
Vitali: I was in total shock. I couldn't understand why people were so friendly — more friendly than Russia! Good food, beautiful beaches … I felt like a little kid, in awe of things. I always thought there was only one type of cheese, you know, the thing we'd always called "cheese." And in a grocery store, I saw a hundred kinds of cheese! It was amazing. My mouth was hanging open. When I came home, everybody wanted to know what the U.S. was like. At the time, it was easier for a Russian to travel to the moon than to the United States. When I explained what I'd seen, it made quite an impression on people.
Wladimir: He brought me back a special gift — a bottle of Coca-Cola. In the Soviet Union, everyone had heard of Coca-Cola, but nobody had tasted it! I was so happy.
In this clip, Carson Daly previews the newly-released documentary, Klitschko:
Finally: Scientists Prove There are Fun Ways to Lessen Heart Disease Risks October 26, 2011Matthew Cochrane
Okay, okay, there are lots of things nutritionists and health experts tell us that we can do that will lower our risk of heart problems. Eat right, exercise, don’t smoke, blah blah blah. But they finally found something that not only I should do for health benefits, but that I actually want to do:
Men who have sex three times a week can decrease their heart attack and stroke risk by 50 percent.
Women who enjoy sex tend to live longer than those who don’t.
I’m just waiting for the scientific study that shows eating chicken wings and drinking Guinness is also good for you. Until then, I know of at least one thing I can do to help offset my other unhealthy habits.
Einstein Wins Again! Neutrinos Lose to Light in Big Race October 17, 2011Matthew Cochrane
Last week, the geeks at CERN, the same organization that experimented by creating an atom collider so large and fast that some speculated it might create a black hole and subsequently swallow up our entire solar system, thought they had disproved Einstein’s theory of relativity. According to Einstein’s theory, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Yet, last week, the CERN dweebs stated that they were consistently measuring the speed of neutrinos as being faster than the speed of light.
Back in September, physicists ran an experiment where they sent bunches of neutrinos from Switzerland to Italy and measured how long the particles took to make the trip. Over 15,000 experiments, the neutrinos consistently arrived about 60 nanoseconds early, which means 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. Einstein's special theory of relativity says this should be impossible: nothing can travel faster than light.
Of course, if true, this would have been one of the most monumental discoveries in physics over the past hundred years. Needless to say, this was a big frickin’ deal in the scientific community and drew a lot of scrutiny. Lo and behold, a little more than a week later it was discovered that all the fuss was over little more than simple operator error:
In the original experiment, the CERN researchers used GPS to make both the distance measurement and the time measurement. They figured out the distance down to about 20 centimeters, which is certainly possible with GPS, and since GPS satellites all broadcast an extremely accurate time signal by radio, they were also used as a way to sync the clocks that measured the neutrino's travel time. The CERN team had to account for a lot of different variables to do this, like the time that it takes for the clock signal to make it from the satellite in orbit to the ground, but they may have forgotten one critical thing: relativity.
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To understand how relativity altered the neutrino experiment, it helps to pretend that we're hanging out on one of those GPS satellites, watching the Earth go by underneath you. Remember, from the reference frame of someone on the satellite, we're not moving, but the Earth is. As the neutrino experiment goes by, we start timing one of the neutrinos as it exits the source in Switzerland. Meanwhile, the detector in Italy is moving just as fast as the rest of the Earth, and from our perspective it's moving towards the source. This means that the neutrino will have a slightly shorter distance to travel than it would if the experiment were stationary. We stop timing the neutrino when it arrives in Italy, and calculate that it moves at a speed that's comfortably below the speed of light.
"That makes sense," we say, and send the start time and the stop time down to our colleagues on Earth, who take one look at our numbers and freak out. "That doesn't make sense," they say. "There's no way that a neutrino could have covered the distance we're measuring down here in the time you measured up there without going faster than light!"
And they're totally, 100% correct, because the distance that the neutrinos had to travel in their reference frame is longer than the distance that the neutrinos had to travel in our reference frame, because in our reference frame, the detector was moving towards the source. In other words, the GPS clock is bang on the nose, but since the clock is in a different reference frame, you have to compensate for relativity if you're going to use it to make highly accurate measurements.
To make a long story short, when some researchers from the Netherlands showed up and took relativity into account, the speed of the neutrinos was estimated to be about 64 nanoseconds longer than previously stated. This neatly accounts for the 60 nanoseconds the neutrinos were estimated to be faster than the speed of light. Mystery solved.
For now, the world is still safe from black holes and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity stands on solid ground in the physics community. CERN and their little neutrino friends have been foiled once again!
RIP: Steve Jobs, Apple CEO and Personal Media Mastermind October 6, 2011Matthew Cochrane
Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple and the mastermind behind the ideas that led to the Macintosh personal computer, iPhone, iPod, and iPad, died yesterday, finally succumbing to a rare form of pancreatic cancer. Jobs was 56.
Mr. Jobs had battled pancreatic cancer and several years ago received a liver transplant. In August, Mr. Jobs stepped down as CEO, handing the reins to Tim Cook.
"Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being," Mr. Cook said in a letter to employees. "We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much."
During his more than three decade-long career, Mr. Jobs transformed Silicon Valley as he helped turn the once sleepy expanse of fruit orchards into the technology industry's innovation center. In addition to laying the groundwork for the high-tech industry alongside other pioneers like Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, Mr. Jobs proved the appeal of well-designed products over the sheer power of technology itself and shifted the way consumers interact with technology in an increasingly digital world.
I am probably the person least qualified to speak about Jobs’ accomplishments and what they mean but here is a brief video highlighting Jobs’ brilliant career:
In 2005, Steve Jobs gave the commencement address at Stanford University making three points: 1) College degrees are overrated, education is not; 2) Do what you love; and 3) Remember we will all die, so don’t waste your life.
Jobs was a true American entrepreneur, one who ushered in innovation and technological breakthroughs in a way that changed everyday life for millions of people. He will be missed.
