John Antypas

It's that time again.  I've been asked by family what evil threats are out there waiting to take them when they're online.  Someone is imagining hordes of Boris B's, just huddled around going "Nataha!  Moose is going online!"

I understand it.  We make computer security a lot harder than it has to be.  For those who ask, here's the simple version of what you need to do.  It's not perfect, but it covers 90%.  Much like anything else, unless you are a professional spy, this covers the great number of cases.

Mom!  Guess what!!!  Someone I never met before just sent me a UPS package that claims if I meet them, they'll give me a billion dollars!  Should I go?  There's also this guy outside in a car offering me candy.

OK -- stop laughing.  Of course you'd never do this.  You know Ed is gone now and anyone who comes to your door is likely to want money rather than offering you any.  So, why would you consider giving your bank account data to Boris.  You know the outcome, and the candy is usually stale.

Guess what Mom!  Some guy just stopped me and asked me to go to a seedy part of town to a place called Creepy Craig's.  He says trust him and everything will be OK.  Should I go?

What would Mom say here?  You'd never be allowed to leave the house.  Unless the guy is named Guido and his associates have been practicing the violin, you'd probably be best to leave this place alone.  The Internet is also full of neighborhoods and going to Creepy Craig's, whether it exists in 3D space or not, is generally a bad idea.  Unless you know Craig actually runs a dinner theater group with the town council, you probably want to go elsewhere -- even if Craig has an online link or e-mail attachment he wants you to click. 

Mom!  Is it OK if I take these 50 Gift Cards some unknown bank sent me and I go spend them?  I know.... we still owe the stores money, but they sent us cards to spend right?  Also, there's this check in the box for $10,000.  We get to cash it right?

People just love to send out checks to no one.  And the store, who has use to process your credit, just magically sent you 50 gift cards.   Of course they don't want them back.  Or, maybe this might be a scam...

Follow these rules.  These are the same rules you've used all of your life.  It's not perfect, but you already know what to do.

Remember the LHC?  The Large Hadron Collider or LHC for short, is likely the world's largest, most expensive, machine ever made on Planet Earth.  And we built it why?  To detect Higgs Bosons.  OK --- I realize that anyone just dropping in right now would rightfully believe I've lost my mind.  Billions of dollars, buried in a 27 KM hole, to detect a particle that may not exist!  Those scientists should be buried...

Except that it may exist, and if we find it, not too long after we do, we'll laugh at ourselves for living without it.  The Higgs is a theoretical particle that, is believed, to be responsible for gravity itself.  Think of the particle as a rock in a stream, moving along with the current.  As it moves along, other small items in the stream get dragged along in the "wave" it leaves behind as it moves.  The Higgs may be the rock, and gravity it's wave.

So what does this do for me?  I can use billions of dollars spent on my needs -- not some gravitational rock.  Well... remember before electronics?  The electron, first discovered, meant nothing to anyone but a few scientists like Thompson.  However, when we learned to harness it, we found we could use it to switch flows of electric current on and off, at speeds far higher than currently possible.  That led to vacuum tubes, transistors, silicon chips and your iPod today

So, why does this matter? First because, that's what this site is about and I have to tell you.  Second, because if you were lucky enough to live at that unique time after the electron's discovery, but before electronics became common, you were in a time of wonder and prosperity.  Now imagine what this will mean with gravity.  Entire industries will change.  UPS will become a thing of the past, because package delivery will become trivial given packages can weigh nothing.  Construction can be performed with minimal effort because can remove the force of gravity or apply ten times that force, at will.  Electronics let us harness control over electricity, the Higgs will let us banish the heavy lifting of life.

It may not be much now, but ask your grandparents.  In thirty years, your packages may float to you.  Now all I need is Rosie the Robot

Some of you may remember the site Why Things Matter.  For those of you new to this site, Why Things Matter existed to find events in science of medicine which, although they had no effect on you at that moment, would eventually change your world.  

You take basic science for granted today, but imagine what your grandparents thought about quantum mechanics or genomics.  To the average person in 1930, these areas were purely for scientists, and they did not affect anyone in their day to day lives.  Today, of course, we realize that QP is the basis for modern electronics and genomics will be the basis for modern medicine in the future.  But the people who could see out into the future perhaps only five or ten years, had an advantage.  

• Unlike many, they were not afraid of the brave new world -- once you understand something, it loses much of its fear factor.
• Unlike many, they saw, at least a few roads, the future could take, and, they could be on those roads first

Why Things Matter aims to continue this trend with modern tools.  Weekly, I hope, we'll find something that could change the world, and project out how.  I don't claim to be the change agent... but we will shed light towards the smart people who are.  As before, we welcome contributions and comments, and unlike before, if we can keep the spam to a reasonable roar, we will not be requiring registration.  This site is for anyone, of any age, and we want to make it easy to get at what we have to offer.

A few ground rules:

• So long as we don't get spammed to death, we won't require registration.
• This is a family show folks.  If you can't say something in front of your grandmother, don't say it here.
• Scientists, doctors, teachers, students, professionals -- you're especially welcome, but we do ask that you comment or contribute in an open forum.  Do not post or comment on anything of a product or proprietary nature.  We are not here to sell anything -- I'm not making money off of this, so you don't make money either.

So... without further delay, Why Things Matter is back!