The concept of additional spatial dimensions is as far from intuitive as any idea can be. Indeed, although Harvard physicist Randall does a very nice job of explaining—often deftly through the use of creative analogies—how our universe may have many unseen dimensions, readers’ heads are likely to be swimming by the end of the book. Randall works hard to make her astoundingly complex material understandable, providing a great deal of background for recent advances in string and supersymmetry theory. As coauthor of the two most important scientific papers on this topic, she’s ideally suited to popularize the idea. What is absolutely clear is that physicists simply do not yet know if there are extra dimensions a fraction of a millimeter in size, dimensions of infinite size or only the dimensions we see. What’s also clear is that the large hadron collider, the world’s most powerful tool for studying subatomic particles, is likely to provide information permitting scientists to differentiate among these ideas soon after it begins operation in Switzerland in 2007. Randall brings much of the excitement of her field to life as she describes her quest to understand the structure of the universe.

I took more breaks on Sunday than on Saturday.

I just saw it mentioned on Slashdot.org that some lunatic got a copy of Deathly Hallows, and PHOTOGRAPHED each and every single solitary page. Then, he put them up on BitTorrent. If you want to be spoiled, go to Slashdot–the front page, that I linked above, is safe and spoiler free. If you care to be spoiled, go read through the commentary on the article posted today about the spoiler release, especially following the “bayimg” hyperlinks posted all over the internal comment pages. Various people began condensing down the spoilers in convenient format. I didn’t have to look. I didn’t want to look eh, who am I kidding? I wanted to look.

The Dumbledore thing from Book 6 was spoiled for me weeks in advance. I figured, why not? I still enjoyed the hell out of Book 6, and besides, now that the spoilers are out, idiots will be plastering them over every square inch of the Internets, in ways that will make them impossible to avoid.

Part of me is wondering if this wasn’t a deliberate leak of false spoilers. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if the publisher began leaking multiple alternate spoiler versions to screw with people, and to leave people guessing as long as possible? I’d do that, if I was in charge. Harry lives! Harry dies! Harry marries Hermione! Harry marries Ginny! Voldemort reveals I AM YOUR FATHER before cutting off Harry’s wand! Harry goes Harold and Maude with Minvera McGonagal!

NON-SPOILER: This book is gonna be pretty bad-ass, assuming what I just saw is true. Yowza.

Any spoilers posted in comments here or on my Livejournal will get deleted when I find them unless it’s at least a week after the Book 7′s release date.

And, if all goes well, I may be the owner of one of these bad boys for only $350 this week, rather than the $550 retail price. Long, convoluted story. Suffice it to say, Sprint takes care of customers with accounts dating back over ten years for their cellular service when push comes to shove. For the nerds out there, yes, I know a ‘newer’ model with Windows Mobile 6 is out this very week. I don’t need nearly the firepower that model has, and I specifically need Windows Mobile 5 for my purposes. This model will easily last me 1.5 to 2.5 years, I’d imagine. It’s not the best smartphone for Sprint. That would probably be the IP-830W, but that’s a sexy international model. Which I can’t afford, and again, Windows Mobile 6. Alas.

I do love having a million things to do, though. It’s refreshing. So is the nice tan I got this weekend, and the fact that I spent time in as close the real world is going to get to the Misty Mountains. Just gorgeous, out there.