Ugly bloke with one hell of a voice

He was the perfect winner of Britain’s Got Talent-show: Ugly bloke with wry teeth, and a nervous wreck when he has to face a camera. But what a voice!!! There are rumours that Luciano Pavarotti himself has taught him singing like that. Just sit back and look/listen to that:

CERN, LHC and Black Holes - or: What has happened and what has not (yet) happened

Today the CERN launched its largest experiment yet: After 15 year of planning and a 6 billion Euro investment just to build the 'Large Hadron Colider' (LHC) the scientists started two streams of protons. Those two streams are now being accelerated up to almost the speed of light, which will take several weeks. By the time these protons travel at target speed - and everything is still stable in the experiment - the scientists will lead them onto collision course. The aim is to get several protons to collide and produce an effect similar to what the scientists believe happened shortly after the Big Bang. So far, the machine has just been started and is now running on idle. There hasn't been any collision of protons yet.

But there is also a catch: When two protons collide there is a possibility that a black hole appears. Black holes are generally known as fields of immense gravitation, strong enough to suck everything in and crush the atoms of all matter. I've heard stories about black holes that could shrink the earth to the size of a tennis ball - please don't hold me responsible if this is not true. Since the whole process at the CERN experiment is rather abstract and 'normal' humans can't really describe everything I do understand fears about the nearing end of the world.

The CERN guys try to wipe away those concerns - obviously. Tiny little black holes appear everywhere in the universe - some even here on earth. And none of these has ever sucked in the earth because they only last for very short time.

Personally I'm confident on what the CERN guys say. I don't think the earth will disappear with a huge firework in October. If it does, it's been a big show.

Here's some clips and facts I found on the web today.





And this is what happens if something goes wrong on the experiment:

The End of the World

Today is the first day of the end of the world. What makes me think of that? The following event: Today the Nuclear Research Centre in Geneva (CERN) is starting an experiment which results in a tiny little black hole.

Several scientists – namely some that are not working at the CERN – have addressed their conCERNs to the world that this experiment could very easily result in a black hole that could not be controlled and would eventually eat up Geneva, Switzerland and then the rest of the world. Therefore this experiment should not start – according to those scientists.

Now, the CERN is probably the absolute research centre when it comes to nuclear stuff. So if there is a bunch of scientists who can handle this it’s definitely the ones in Geneva. Therefore I don’t have any worries that we will be sucked into that black hole in Geneva this moooaaaaaaaahhhhhrrrgggg!!!

See you tomorrow in the next world.

Work, Photoshop and Germany

The first two weeks are done. Well, almost. I don't have a weekend really, since tomorrow morning our team leaves for Friedrichshafen for an exhibition. But I'll have a day off on Monday. I don't know what I'll do, but photography is definitely an option.
I learned a lot about retouching in Photoshop lately. I bought a bunch of tutorial-DVD's of respected Photoshop professionals, and seeing their workflow actually on screen is by far better than just reading it in magazines and books.
One example is this self-portrait that I just did within half a hour with several layers, masks and filters, and a technique called 'Dodge&Burn' by Calvin Hollywood. It shows the PFlight presenting the latest trend in MTB freestyle-fashion (I mean the beanie, not the glasses...) according to a big Japanese cycling-company.