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I generally like the BBC for news about the world, but I’m less impressed by their science articles.  This one particularly me.  The basic gist of the article is that a new physics model allows a person to travel back in time, but you would be prevented (some how) from changing anything that affects the present.

First, the article never really explains what the new model is, it just rehashes the argument that you can’t change the past, only be part of it (think Donny Darko and not Marty McFly).  This is not new, it’s been a staple of time travel theory for years.

Secondly, the they state:

Clearly, the present never is changed by mischievous time-travellers: people don’t suddenly fade into the ether because a rerun of events has prevented their births – that much is obvious.

This is a Marty McFly approach to time travel.  If you prevent your parents first kiss, your brothers and sisters will slowly fade away in front of your eyes, wiped from existence, but your memories of them would still exist as though they existed before just not now.  If I were to travel back in time and prevent my parents from conceiving my sister (eww!), I’d have no memory of her because she never existed, hence the paradox because then I wouldn’t travel back in time to her from being conceived (double eww!), repeat as necessary.

Time travel is hard to explain.  Hollywood hasn’t exactly helped the situation.  So let me explain it.  Time travel is one of the following:

1. Impossible.  We are traveling forward at a fixed rate and can only go in one direction.  This is probably what is happening.
2. Possible, but we are part of the time stream and any action we do has already occured (this is what the article rehashes).  This plays havoc with the concept of free will because now we are just all cogs in some time loop.
3. Possible, but any changes we make creates a new time line that we now can travel through, but we might not be able to get back to our original time line (read “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury).  This allows us to have free will and travel back in time and offers the best source of fictional material (read “The Man Who Folded Himself” for a really trippy version).

That’s it.  There are no other possibilities.  You won’t fade from existence if your parents are murdered in their childhood because you would have never existed.  You couldn’t kill Hitler and return to find your everything the exact same, just with millions of more Jewish families.  Doctor Who can’t travel through a ball of wibbly wobbly time-y wimey stuff.  Time travel is a fun idea to play with, a grown up version of “What If”, but that’s about it.  Time viewers on the other hand…

Every forum admin has the right to moderate the posts put on their forums.  Whether it be because the discussion moves into unacceptable areas (trade secrets, porn, etc.) or they just don’t like the post, it’s their forum they can do what they want to.  I moderate this blog and though I haven’t deleted any posts (except for obvious spam), I reserve the right to delete any comment I want for what ever reason.  But it seems strange that Apple would delete a post without any reason.

I currently use Google Apps for Domains for email ad calendaring of this domain.  I’d like to explore using MobileMe since I have both a Mac and a iPhone.  I’d even be willing to give up the gmail interface for mail.app.  So, looking for information on how .mac works (and how MobileMe might work), popped over to the Apple Discussion Site and looked through some of the posts.  After a short bit of searching, I found a post similar to what I was looking for and asked some follow up questions.  People answered politely and the post (as of about 1am last night) hadn’t descended into any sort of flame fest.  Basically the answer was “.mac can’t and we don’t know if MobileMe will”, a perfectly acceptable answer.  But when I checked the post this morning for any additional followups, the post was gone.

So the question is why was the post deleted?  Did someone jump on and give out hidden knowledge?  Did someone utter one of the 7 bad words (rest in peace, George)?  I don’t know.  The post is just gone and there’s no reason given.  And that’s just bad customer service.

Officially, Apple’s OS is called Mac OS X, with the ‘X’ being the Roman numeral for 10, so you would pronounce it as Mac OS Ten.  But here’s the problem.  Apple uses code names for each release (Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, etc.) to refer to each new version of the OS along with a numeral designation (10.4, 10.5, 10.6).  So reps will say things like “In 10.6 we’ll concentrate on performance” or “in Leopard we added Time Machine”.  It’s a bit confusing because you essentially have two names for the same product.  Even more confusing is that on the sales page for OS X it’s currently listed as “Max OS X v10.5 Leopard”.  So, if you spoke that out you’d say “Mac OS Ten version 10.5 Leopard”.  Which brings me to the “Ex”.  A number of people, myself included, have deviated from Apple and refer to the OS as “OS Ex” and call specific version as 10.5 or Leopard.  I prefer using the numbers, because it tells you which iteration you are on a lot easier then using a cat’s name (which would win in a fight, a Tiger or a Leopard?).  So I think that Apple is saying it wrong or spelling it wrong.  Either they say “OS Ex” or they write it as “OS 10.5″ (or “OS X.V”).  It will be interesting if they ever go to “OS X v11.0 Side-Striped Jackal“.

Really, is there anyway to recover from a statement that starts with “[w]ith the exception of the cross-burning episode”? Well Dave Daubenmire did in this article. Here’s the quote:

“With the exception of the cross-burning episode … I believe John Freshwater is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district,” he told The Columbus Dispatch in a story published Friday.

Seriously, how can you start a statement like that and expect anyone to have sympathy for the accused? The statement should have gone:

“With the exception of the cross-burning episode…well, I got nothing I can really say beyond that. The guy was an idiot.”

See, now isn’t that really the only way he could have gone?

“We do what we can to build our house upon the sturdiest rock, and for me that means building that house on the foundation of Jesus Christ.”

This is an interesting quote from Senator Obama during his Father Day speech.  It’s very telling of who he is and potentially how he views religion.  Besides declaring his Christianity, he it also points to an openness to others religious persuasions by using the phrase “and for me that means”.  He could have said “and that is”, which would have declared Christianity as the only sturdy rock.  Instead, he chose a phrase that implies openness and a williness to accept others of differing beliefs.

Look at this picture:

It’s from here.  It’s touted as “30% post-industrial waste” and are sold by a company that “exists to advance the sustainability movement and to encourage sustainable thinking by everyday people in everyday ways“.  In other words, they are concerned with the environment.  And I applaud that.  It’s a concern we should all have.  But look at the above picture again.  The six coasters are delivered in a holder reminiscent of the holders for a 6 packet of canned beverage.  First off, it’s made of the same material as the coasters and looks like it could make one or two more coasters.  Secondly, aren’t most people just going to toss the holder, which will end up in a landfill?  And then isn’t some bird gonna get it’s head stuck in it and end up choaking to death?  Doesn’t seem very sustainable to me.

Obama is the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in the 2008 general election.  If you had any doubt, check out this part (via TPM) of the website:

Honestly it is an insultive image.  While I prefer Obama to Clinton, thanking her for running seems like pandering to her supporters.  The image itself looks like a last minute addition.  Where as the Obama image is blended into the rest of the page, her image looks more like a banner ad.  Fortunately this is on one page, but I hope they take it down soon.