For those of us who seldom show interest in Proton collisions at this time of the year, the coming red-button day at the CERN might have escaped our attention. The fact that a circular tunnel 27 kilometres long under the Swiss / French border will be used this summer to recreate Big Bang conditions pulling the veil once and for all on the elusive ‘God Particle‘; maybe a few extra dimensions as well for the taking; not to mention the true nature of dark matter and dark energy; might not have drawn a cocked eyebrow from where you’re standing.

Faire enough. Each to his own.

But the technology fall-out from the LHC vundertube will, in the long run, produce something that’s a little closer to your [visible] planet, believe me them. How abooouut… an Interneeet… thaat’s

“10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds…In theory this would give a standard desktop computer the ability to download a movie in five seconds rather than the current three hours or so….Holographic video conferencing is not that far away. Online gaming could evolve to include many thousands of people, and social networking could become the main way we communicate”.

What d’yer mean ‘not that old chesnut’?! It’s coming. It’s on its way I tell yer.