We're lined up & it's a mystery?

Ennai kuowt from a report on the most recent updates to the WMAP universe-map:

The strangest mystery that arose from the first-year data was the alignment of the broadest fluctuations about a single axis in space. This alignment persists in the combined three-year data. Whether it represents some new, previously unrecognized phenomenon (perhaps yielding a deep insight into the physics of the big bang) or is merely a statistical fluke remains a subject of active investigation and debate.

[...from...]

Careful analysis has shown that the strange alignment of the broadest Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) fluctuations is real and significant at the 99% level. The alignment, together with the extreme weakness of those broad fluctuations, presents a real mystery whose resolution is not yet in sight.

Note that the reporter(s) swiftly return to the less-worrisome traditional dunno, prolly not important elusion with the next line: “On the other hand, alignments with the ecliptic turned out to be spurious. [and later say] efforts to determine the shape of the universe are, for the moment, dead in the water.”

Wouldn’t it be so much more interesting to live in a shapely universe?

Hey... that could be it! Maybe WMAP discovered that it was really “turtles all the way down”? Maybe now they’re waiting for flipper-and-shell-cancelling waves to arrive? (-:

Comments

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b

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