Now here's a gadget. In fact not just a gadget, but arguably the gadget. It's the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, the European laboratory for particle physics near Geneva, scheduled to have its Grand Opening next month.

Stephen Hawking explains what the LHC is for:

"It will smash particles together to recreate the moments after the big bang, producing a new golden age of discovery for physicists."

There's more, lots more, and the Guardian has just unveiled a group of articles and multimedia and podcasts that explains it all.

Every year our block in the South Bay has a wild (but very well-organized ) July 4th Block party. We do it up right - get a permit to close down the street, rent a double slip n' slide, run pop-ups and tables down the middle of the street, set up cooking in "BBQ alley" (Brad's driveway), referee a volleyball and basketball tourney, and string up pinatas. In the evening, the neighborhood band plays and we all dance - munchkins and seniors alike. And all the while I'm serving up my "famous" margaritas.

What's so fabulous about them? It's not the homemade mix, fresh limes, or margarita salt. It's the Herradura tequila, a secret among tequila aficionados. Located and produced in the heart of Mexicos tequila region, in the tiny town of Amatitan, Jalisco, Tequila Herradura is 100% blue agave tequila carefully crafted using traditional methods, such as cooking the agave in clay ovens and fermenting naturally with wild yeast. They are one of the few producers to grow their own blue agave, which takes up to 10 years to mature. Like a fine wine, they are aged in oak for different lengths of time. For example, the Herradura Aejo Herradura Gold (Reposado) ferments for 2 years, and my favorite, the Herradura Silver, for only 40 months, and none of their tequilas contain carmel (for coloring), sugar or additives.

Far be it from me to encourage you to work while you're on vacation, but . . .

If you absolutely must toil while you broil, Download.com has gathered together a nice brief collection of software that will ease the pain. Or at least help you complete your tasks with dispatch and get back to your inflatable pool lounge.

Many of these tools were new to me, but I can attest that one of them. Documents to Go, works as advertised. (It displays several common file types like .doc and .xls on most mobile devices and, even better, permits you to create and edit them.)

Download.com neglects to nag you, so I will: Slathers of sunscreen, please, and keep the work to a minimum. You deserve a holiday!

They've been rumored for a while, but it appears that they will actually be in existence in a couple of months: laptop bags that can get through airport security while your precious laptop remains snug within. If you carry your machine in one of these bags, you won't have to remove it in order to pass X-ray inspection, according to the New York Times.

Two major makers, Targus and Pathfinder Luggage, have already announced models that will be available by fall. Half a dozen other manufacturers are said to be scrambling to catch up. Targus is planning 4 models, priced from $39 to $100. Pathfinder's offerings, a briefcase and a wheeled model, will be more expensive, about $150.

Since the bags don't yet exist, there are no photos. So it's not quite clear to me how the design(s) will ensure that laptops can be inspected easily while still in their jammies.

The problem up to now, the Times says, is that cables, mouses, and other impedimenta essential to actually using your machine on the road have gotten in the way of the X-ray pics. How the new bags will solve that problem is not at all obvious from the description, to wit:

"The new cases include either a fold-down section in a bigger briefcase or a stand-alone protective sleeve that contains no extra clutter and can be readily viewed through the scanner."

Fold-down section in a bigger briefcase? Stand-alone protective sleeve? Hello, we've been using those for years.

I await clarification. Meantime, I hope someone will find a way to get rid of the hassle of airport foot gear removal. I mean, besides those humiliating rubber flip-flops.

WEbook (pronounced "we-book"), a collaborative book writing website that launched this past spring, puts to the test several premises about writing and publishing, the first being that every person has at least one book - or one story - in them worth telling (or some variation of that idea). The second premise is their tagline, "Writing loves company," which is already proven, in part, by the fact that hordes of people participate in writing workshops every year to have their writing critiqued and to critique the writing of others. The third premise may or may not flow naturally from the first two: that aspiring writers, if given the opportunity and the right tools, would be drawn to collaborate on writing books with other writers with like interests. And the hope is that this kind of online collaborative environment for writers will produce books that are worthy of being published, and that people will buy and read.

Users can sign up to review other peoples' writing, to open up a writing project for a select group of their insiders to contribute to or comment on, or start a project and invite others in the community to participate in writing it. So, the system is somewhat flexible to suit your interests and level of desired collaboration.