Space Travel and Propulsion Methods

As a layman, my interest has been mainly focused on gravity and a means to defy it. How one can see in different ways.

The Lagrange Points

In the above contour plot we see that L4 and L5 correspond to hilltops and L1, L2 and L3 correspond to saddles (i.e. points where the potential is curving up in one direction and down in the other). This suggests that satellites placed at the Lagrange points will have a tendency to wander off (try sitting a marble on top of a watermelon or on top of a real saddle and you get the idea). A detailed analysis (PDF link) confirms our expectations for L1, L2 and L3, but not for L4 and L5. When a satellite parked at L4 or L5 starts to roll off the hill it picks up speed. At this point the Coriolis force comes into play - the same force that causes hurricanes to spin up on the earth - and sends the satellite into a stable orbit around the Lagrange point.

Seeing space in a different light helps one to adjust perspective abut the universe and the possibilities of travel. There is indeed a abstractness to such ideas that when one sees the universe in a geometrical way, it helped to push my perspective about tunnels in space. How sound may be used to image WMAP.  The three body problem application toward identification of those L positions.

What position is the Space Station occupying?

Warp Drives", "Hyperspace Drives", or any other term for Faster-than-light travel is at the level of speculation, with some facets edging into the realm of science. We are at the point where we know what we do know and know what we don’t, but do not know for sure if faster than light travel is possible.

The bad news is that the bulk of scientific knowledge that we have accumulated to date concludes that faster than light travel is impossible. This is an artifact of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. Yes, there are some other perspectives; tachyons, wormholes, inflationary universe, spacetime warping, quantum paradoxes...ideas that are in credible scientific literature, but it is still too soon to know if such ideas are viable.

One of the issues that is evoked by any faster-than-light transport is time paradoxes: causality violations and implications of time travel. As if the faster than light issue wasn’t tough enough, it is possible to construct elaborate scenarios where faster-than-light travel results in time travel. Time travel is considered far more impossible than light travel.

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ADVANCED SPACE PROPULSION BASED
ON VACUUM (SPACETIME METRIC) ENGINEERING by HAROLD E. PUTHOFF
Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, 11855 Research Blvd., Austin, Texas 78759, USA.

A theme that has come to the fore in advanced planning for long-range space exploration is the concept that empty space itself (the quantum vacuum, or spacetime metric) might be engineered so as to provide energy/thrust for future space vehicles. Although far-reaching, such a proposal is solidly grounded in modern physical theory, and therefore the possibility that matter/vacuum interactions might be engineered for space-flight applications is not a priori ruled out [1]. As examples, the current development of theoretical physics addresses such topics as warp drives, traversable wormholes and time machines that provide for such vacuum engineering possibilities [2-6]. We provide here from a broad perspective the physics and correlates/
consequences of the engineering of the spacetime metric.

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The Alcubierre drive, also known as the Alcubierre metric, is a speculative mathematical model of a spacetime exhibiting features reminiscent of the fictional "warp drive" from Star Trek, which can travel "faster than light", although not in a local sense.

See Also: Hypothetical Methods of Space Craft propulsion

Wireless Affects on Biological Systems

Hmmmm.......

Brain tumour risk in relation to mobile
telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE
international case–control study

Michael Kundi, head of the Institute of Environmental Health, Medical University of Vienna says of the study “Authors emphasize that no increased risk was detected overall. But this is not unexpected. No exposures to carcinogens that cause solid tumors like brain cancer or lung cancers, for example from tobacco and asbestos have ever been shown to significantly increase cancer risk in people with such short duration of exposure. The latency period for brain cancer is 15-30 years.”See: Ten-Year INTERPHONE Cell Phone Study Reports Increased Risk for Brain Cancer

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For me I have always been interested in the affect "fields may play on human beings." The experiment to see activation of field response in other venues, as lets say fluorescent light tubes as a artistic statement in the culmination of such a affect? It's strength and weakness across the outlay of tubes as to distance of EMF exposure? Can such activations be done as well, in the case of fluorescence, as to show environmental changes at the cellular level with wireless transmissions? Would this help?




The idea here hypothetically presented in strength, according to that intensity of wireless transmission, as to the brightness of the florescence when activated? Would this overview "for a environmental application within the body and the affects of, " be  shown as florescence activated in the blood stream?
See: Fluorescence microscope




Layman questions for sure. I am open to reasons why not.

Ambigram, Higgs, and Feynman rules

An ambigram is a typographical design or art form that may be read as one or more words not only in its form as presented, but also from another viewpoint, direction, or orientation. The words readable in the other viewpoint, direction or orientation may be the same or different from the original words. Douglas R. Hofstadter describes an ambigram as a "calligraphic design that manages to squeeze two different readings into the selfsame set of curves." Different ambigram artists (sometimes called ambigramists) may create completely different ambigrams from the same word or words, differing in both style and form. See: Ambigram

Wave-particle.jpg. Modifications made by Seahen. Perceptual shift ambigram by Douglas Hofstadter as play on the Wave–particle duality of light

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Higgs and the vacuum: Viva la “vev”

Wave-particle duality is one of those well-known buzz words of quantum mechanics. Is light a particle or a wave? Is an electron a particle or a wave? If these things are waves, then what are they waves of?


In high energy physics we’re usually interested in small things that move very quickly, so we use the framework of quantum field theory (QFT) which is the marriage of quantum mechanics (which describes “small” things) and special relativity (which describes “fast” things). The quantum ‘waves’ are waves in the quantum field associated with a particle. The loose interpretation of the field is the probability that you might find a particle there. See Also:An Idiosyncratic Introduction to the Higgs and A diagrammatic hint of masses from the Higgs

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The Higgs Mechanism
source: CERN


To understand the Higgs mechanism, imagine that a room full of physicists chattering quietly is like space filled with the Higgs field ...


... a well-known scientist walks in, creating a disturbance as he moves across the room and attracting a cluster of admirers with each step ...


... this increases his resistance to movement, in other words, he acquires mass, just like a particle moving through the Higgs field...


... if a rumor crosses the room, ...


... it creates the same kind of clustering, but this time among the scientists themselves. In this analogy, these clusters are the Higgs particles.

TED Talk-Leonard Susskind: My friend Richard Feynman

I decided when I was asked to do this that what I really wanted to talk about was my friend Richard Feynman. I was one of the fortunate few that really did get to know him and enjoyed his presence. And I'm going to tell you the Richard Feynman that I knew. I'm sure there are other people here who could tell you about the Richard Feynman they knew, and it would probably be a different Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman was a very complex man. He was a man of many, many parts. He was, of course, foremost a very, very, very great scientist. He was an actor. You saw him act. I also had the good fortune to be in those lectures, up in the balcony. They were fantastic. He was a philosopher; he was a drum player; he was a teacher par excellence. Richard Feynman was also a showman, an enormous showman. He was brash, irreverent -- he was full of macho, a kind of macho one-upsmanship. He loved intellectual battle. He had a gargantuan ego. But the man had somehow a lot of room at the bottom. And what I mean by that is a lot of room, in my case -- I can't speak for anybody else -- but in my case, a lot of room for another big ego. Well, not as big as his, but fairly big. I always felt good with Dick Feynman.

See Also: Leonard Susskind: My friend Richard Feynman

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At 9:16 AM, June 01, 2011,  Plato said

Listening to this talk with regard to Susskind's opinion about his friend Dick, he too would have thought about, "irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience." Albert Einstein


Pure thought(what does this linguistic representation actually mean) would have to lead you there and be most understandable as to leaving no doubt as to what has been derived.


I have often wondered where Feynman actually deduced his diagrams from and for me I think seeing how Dirac worked, this was suffice to me to actually see how "i" in for matrices was derived.


This again is my opinion. I am searching for answers.


For me it was about where one set them self in terms of their observation of the place "this simplicity" might have been realized.


Coxeter might have said circle when looking at a round table from above, while standing to the side, he would say ellipse

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At 10:10 AM, June 03, 2011,  Plato said...

Nothing worse then having to quote oneself in order to press the point. Carry on with life indeed as if nothing missed.:)

Pure thought(what does this linguistic representation actually mean) would have to lead you there and be most understandable as to leaving no doubt as to what has been derived.

Algorithmically, the HTML language is representative of the order in which we might represent an idea....as is done mathematically...that it is conceptually enriched(put a cloud around it) that by such representation it would include historical understandings. These encapsulated by that rhetorical past is "inclusive."

You just take that for granted/assumption as long as the interpretation actually speaks to the historical development and proceeds forward toward an phenomenological order.

Most had to go through the historical development in order to understand where we are today. For the layman in my "seeing choice of method of production" toward falsifying, the choice of structure of phenomenological order is displayed as to demonstrate the thinking's involved scientifically that demonstrates the logic of approach toward a culmination of models of apprehension.

This display's the approach for myself. Might it be an example then of the whole development toward phenomenological order?

Best,

Do Cellphones Cause Brain Cancer?

Bruce Gilden/Magnum, for The New York Times

On Jan. 21, 1993, the television talk-show host Larry King featured an unexpected guest on his program. It was the evening after Inauguration Day in Washington, and the television audience tuned in expecting political commentary. But King turned, instead, to a young man from Florida, David Reynard, who had filed a tort claim against the cellphone manufacturer NEC and the carrier GTE Mobilnet, claiming that radiation from their phones caused or accelerated the growth of a brain tumor in his wife. See: Do Cellphones Cause Brain Cancer?

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Fidel wrote:

I'm not sure what it has to do with CERN. I believer there are possibilities for quantum and-or computing in general that may emerge as a result of the science produced from CERN.

Quality researchers as Stafford Beer would have been aware of other work in progress so as to fine tuned their own processes. It was off the cuff, and might not mean anything for sure, it's just something that popped into mind. Mind you,  he might not have been as connected as we are today with research and evidence brought forth.







A "central location" sensitive to the nervous system(control center)? Yes in relation too, "I believe one of the objectives of the Santiago experiment was to prove that something about socialism is possible and which its free market friendly critics still ask today. The biological association is very real and part of the question is  "whether the soul is an active component of the reality of computerized developer as an effective decision making without part of the emotive connection we have as an emphatic quality of being,"  that is ever the strive toward future development of that DNA computerized structure? Memory inducement? Long term "smell" associations? Learning and education?

How is cell phone frequencies affecting the DNA structure? What conclusive proof so that we say greater speeds from fiber optic, while reducing wireless as an affect on sperm? Has a design been implemented as to structure the computer as a architectural structure that is beneficial to humanities goal of society progressing or retrograding with the creation of Frankenstein? Intellectual drones......so many bit constructs, as manufactured by an advanced society? Economically why would anyone have to think economically about it,  so that it can take care of itself?

Towards quantum chemistry on a quantum computer

B. P. Lanyon1,2, J. D. Whitfield4, G. G. Gillett1,2, M. E. Goggin1,5, M. P. Almeida1,2, I. Kassal4, J. D. Biamonte4,6, M. Mohseni4,6, B. J. Powell1,3, M. Barbieri1,2,6, A. Aspuru-Guzik4 & A. G. White1,2

Abstract

Exact first-principles calculations of molecular properties are currently intractable because their computational cost grows exponentially with both the number of atoms and basis set size. A solution is to move to a radically different model of computing by building a quantum computer, which is a device that uses quantum systems themselves to store and process data. Here we report the application of the latest photonic quantum computer technology to calculate properties of the smallest molecular system: the hydrogen molecule in a minimal basis. We calculate the complete energy spectrum to 20 bits of precision and discuss how the technique can be expanded to solve large-scale chemical problems that lie beyond the reach of modern supercomputers. These results represent an early practical step toward a powerful tool with a broad range of quantum-chemical applications.

Quantum Chlorophyll as a dissipative messenger toward construction of the "emotive system" as a centralized endocrine association of messengers...to activate the real human values of caring?

Photos By: Illustration by Megan Gundrum, fifth-year DAAP student
For decades, farmers have been trying to find ways to get more energy out of the sun.

In natural photosynthesis, plants take in solar energy and carbon dioxide and then convert it to oxygen and sugars. The oxygen is released to the air and the sugars are dispersed throughout the plant — like that sweet corn we look for in the summer. Unfortunately, the allocation of light energy into products we use is not as efficient as we would like. Now engineering researchers at the University of Cincinnati are doing something about that.See:Frogs, Foam and Fuel: UC Researchers Convert Solar Energy to Sugars

Fidel wrote:

How does a socialist economic system provide feedback to central planners concerning demand for goods and services?

As I've grown older and watched society in progress it has been of increasing concerned to me that we have lost something in our caring of the whole system, in face of part of that system. Profit orientation has done that when it has come to what we think should happen in regards to privatization and the loss of public accountability with regard to cost of living. Monopolies, and how we don't recognize them or their affect on the way we live.

I am not well educated, although have watch and been a part of the evolution of the internet as it has come forward in expression so I have learn to use it's language to help display the things I have learn. Just put it out there. So it is important that what is presented is accurate. So the push for educational facilities to open them self up to the general public to cater not only to its students but to allow the populace to access the same information.

The Manhattan Economic question? What is the best and fairest way in which to design an economic system that takes care of the imbalances that seem to thrive in the present capitalistic system?

The potential for me is to recognize that same population has very bright minds(young and upcoming and the aged :) who are not just part of the educational system but reside quietly in the populace,  unaware as a potential resource, while innovative,  are just happy to share some of their ideas..

Researching amongst reputable scientists has allowed me to access the process of accountability as to the evolution of ideas. The capabilities needed in terms of finalizing the recognition of that creativity that resides in and when society has been taken care of, allows art and science to excel.  The livelihoods can allow that potential as an environment conducive to further evolution of our societies.

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We might want to shine a light on it all. :)


All of this is a recognition of what must take place not only within our societies as to the questions of being as to what we want built in the substructure(underlying as a unconscious direction of our reality movement in production of being) as a conscious movement toward the development of those same societies. This sense of being personally ad culturallly "project outward."

If you are not aware of what is the undercurrent of the being as a person....what troubles it as it sleeps,  then what say you about the direction this subconscious minds takes as it display's it's warning for you. This dreaming reality predictor of what is to come. Not to take heed of the warning of our culture and the deep seated want for a fairer and just culture. The being,  as to progress the soul's desire for meaning and expressionism, as to learn and evolve?

Web Science

 

See:Creating a Science of the Web

The Web is the largest human information construct in history. The Web is transforming society. In order to...understand what the Web is engineer its future ensure its social benefit

...we need a new interdisciplinary field that we call Web Science.

The Web Science Research Initiative brings together academics, scientists, sociologists, entrepreneurs and decision makers from around the world. These people will create the first multidisciplinary research body to examine the World Wide Web and offer the practical solutions needed to help guide its future use and design.

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Web Science - helping ensure the healthy development of the future Web Web Science is one of the main opportunities for ensuring the healthy development of the future Web, according to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, keynote speaker at the conference ‘Profiting from the New Web’, held in London this week.

An audience drawn largely from the technology sector heard Sir Tim outline his hopes for the Web’s future, along with some warnings about potential limitations to the development of the Web.
His keynote set the scene for a full day of discussion about new ways of doing business that have been enabled by the Web and will make a significant difference to business practice in the future.
Sir Tim, creator of the World Wide Web, pointed to open data and linked data as exciting examples of the way that the Web is promoting transparency of information and looked forward to the time when the current 20 per cent of the world’s population who can access the Web grows to 80 per cent, with all the changes this will bring in terms of technological and social developments, and new possibilities of communication and cultural change.

“Maybe our ideas of democracies will be different,” he said. “Maybe people will build systems that we can use to communicate across boundaries … or maybe we won’t …. Whatever happens at this stage we have to think about it - and what we think about it we call Web Science.”
http://webscience.org/article/163.html

 

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The Web has transformed the way you do business. It has transformed your relationships with stakeholders, their interactions with each other and their regard for your brands. This change was difficult to foresee just a decade or so ago. Imagine now what the New Web promises.

The New Web is here now, and the early adopters have begun to put it to work. The earlier your organisation understands what it is, what’s possible and what’s happening today, the sooner you can pursue the opportunities and secure competitive advantage.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, and a host of experts bring you up to speed. See: Profiting from the Web

Space Weather

3-day Solar-Geophysical Forecast issued May 27 22:00 UTC

Solar Activity Forecast: Solar activity is expected to be low with a chance for C-class events, and a slight chance for an M-class event, as regions on the disk continue to evolve.

Geophysical Activity Forecast: The geomagnetic field is expected to be predominately unsettled with occasional active periods, including isolated minor storm conditions at high-latitudes for day one (28 May). This is expected due to effects from the recurrent coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS). In addition there are possible effects from the disappearing filament observed on 25 May. Quiet to unsettled conditions, with isolated active levels, are expected for days two and three (29-30 May) with continued CH HSS effects.  See: Today's Space Weather

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The plots on this page show the current extent and position of the auroral oval at each pole, extrapolated from measurements taken during the most recent polar pass of the NOAA POES satellite. "Center time" is the calculated time halfway through the satellite's pass over the pole.Auroral Activity Extrapolated from NOAA POES

Community Broadband Networks

So here's the plan.

The CRTC made it's decision.....but we can change that. Municipal television networks? Do we need the integration of big Telecom or can local TV stations newly formed become part of the expression on a international stage by supplying local community news? Local newspapers,  part of the expression of those communities? Access to the internet,  not dictated by cost of usage based billing of Big Telecom that has a monopoly?

Why no development of rural/municipalities communities since wireless already exists? Faster speeds as fiber optic laid in rural/municipalities communities?

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Google Fiber for Communities: Get Involved

Thank you to all of the communities and individuals that expressed their interest in Google Fiber for Communities. The quality and scope of the responses exceeded our expectations, and we were honored by the thought and effort that went into every submission. One message came through loud and clear: people across the country are hungry for better and faster broadband access.Google Fiber for Communities: Get Involved

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Breaking the Broadband Monopoly

Communities that have invested in these networks have seen tremendous benefits. Even small communities have generated millions of dollars in cumulative savings from reduced rates – caused by competition. Major employers have cited broadband networks as a deciding factor in choosing a new site and existing businesses have prospered in a more competitive environment.

Residents who subscribe to the network see the benefits of a network that puts service first; they talk to a neighbor when something goes wrong, not an offshore call center. At the municipal fiber network in Wilson, North Carolina, they talk of the “strangle effect.” If you have problems with their network, you can find someone locally to strangle. Because public entities are directly accountable to citizens, they have a stronger interest in providing good services, upgrading infrastructure, etc., than private companies who are structured to maximize profits, not community benefits. Residents who remain with private providers still get the benefits of competition, including reduced rates and increased incumbent investment.

Some publicly owned networks have decided to greatly increase competition by adopting an “open access” approach where independent service providers can use the network on equal terms. Public ownership and open access give residents and businesses the option of choosing among many providers, forcing providers to compete on the basis of service quality and price rather than simply on a historic monopoly boundary.Published May 2010 Author: Christopher Mitchell

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Municipal Broadband: Demystifying Wireless and Fiber-Optic Options

Quote:

The United States, creator of the Internet, increasingly lags in access to it. In the absence of a national broadband strategy, many communities have invested in broadband infrastructure, especially wireless broadband, to offer broadband choices to their residents.

Newspaper headlines trumpeting the death of municipal wireless networks ignore the increasing investments by cities in Wi-Fi systems. At the same time, the wireless focus by others diverts resources and action away from building the necessary long term foundation for high speed information: fiber optic networks.

DSL and cable networks cannot offer the speeds required by a city wishing to compete in the digital economy. Business, government, and citizens all need affordable and fast access to information networks.

Today's decisions will lay the foundation of telecommunications infrastructure for decades. Fortunately, we already know the solution: wireless solves the mobility problem; fiber solves the speed and capacity problems; and public ownership offers a network built to benefit the community.Published January 2008 Author: Christopher Mitchell

An Affirmative Choice by Canadian Government?

In the decision the CRTC ruled that rural and remote broadband access should be left to market forces and targeted government funding with private-public partnerships.

Not necessarily the right one in my opinion. But I have a plan, and within the United States there are those who have already paved the way.  I'll give that information soon, as to get some idea of how Community Broadband systems can be developed with the  help of municipalities without Government and  big business.


Broadband and Community Access in Canada: A Canoe Trip Up North, Featuring a Veritable Cast of Characters.... from Leslie Shade on Vimeo.

Concordia University Media Studies MA students in Professor Leslie Shade’s Fall 2010 Media Policy course considered the issue of whether broadband access should be considered a basic service for all Canadians. They created a video-podcast exploring the issues, in light of the CRTC hearing hearings for 2010-43, "Obligation to serve and other matters" that took place in the Fall.

On May 3, 2011 the CRTC issued its decision on the matter of Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2011-291. In the decision the CRTC ruled that rural and remote broadband access should be left to market forces and targeted government funding with private-public partnerships. The ruling also stated that broadband access will not be a requisite of any basic service objective. In the decision the CRTC established target speeds of 5 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream and 1 Mbps upstream, for all Canadians, by the end of 2015.

Roddy Doucet, a student in the class, commented, “With the decision to allow incumbents the right to charge higher rates for rural telephone lines and its continued reliance on market forces to achieve accessibility goals the CRTC demonstrates its lack of vision for a national broadband network that works to reduce boundaries and unify Canadians.

Our class research demonstrates that access to broadband, at fair and affordable prices, allows unique regionally-based small businesses to flourish, improves quality of life, and allows education and research to flow freely around the country and the world. Canadians look to our regulatory agencies to protect them against price-gouging and also shape the future of our communications networks and sadly the CRTC is failing us.”

The discourse over the state of Canada’s broadband infrastructure illustrates the contentious debates between industry, government, the CRTC and public interest groups over whether and if regulatory intervention can increase competition in the broadband sector. Dominant industry groups contend that too much regulation will merely stifle competition by restricting their ability to innovate and invest in established and emerging markets. Public interest groups argue that only government intervention, whether through a pro-active regulatory environment that requires incumbents to contribute to building out broadband in under-served and remote areas and/or a more fulsome funding structure for community broadband initiatives, can ensure and sustain wider broadband access for Canadians.



References: 

CRTC 2010-43:
crtc.gc.ca/​eng/​process/​2010/​oct26_ag.htm

CRTC, Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2011-291:
crtc.gc.ca/​eng/​archive/​2011/​2011-291.pdf

Small Big Bangs?

Gamma-ray bursts. We tend to think of them as big explosions - but it has been suggested that they might actually be Small Bangs. Credit: NASA.

Most gamma-ray bursts come in two flavors. Firstly, there are long duration bursts which form in dense star-forming regions and are associated with supernovae – which would understandably generate a sustained outburst of energy. The technical definition of a long duration gamma-ray burst is one that is more than two seconds in duration – but bursts lasting over a minute are not unusual.

Short duration gamma-ray bursts more often occur in regions of low star formation and are not associated with supernovae. Their duration is technically less than 2 seconds, but a duration of only a few milliseconds is not unusual. These are assumed to result from collisions between massive compact objects – perhaps neutron stars or black holes – producing a short, sharp outburst of energy. See: Astronomy Without A Telescope – Small Bangs by Steve Nerlich on May 21, 2011 On Universe Today

See Also: So What Did I mean By Olympics?