Archive for March 2006
‘Quantum computer works best switched off’
How very fascinating:
Even for the crazy world of quantum mechanics, this one is twisted. A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.
The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a “superposition”, a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger’s cat to hit “Run”.
HughesNet, Satellite Internet Access, and You.
DirecWay is now HughesNet and they’re “staking out a position as an ISP supplier to consumers and small businesses” in rural areas unable to get other types of broadband.
My question: Why on Earth would someone pay $59.99 per month (that’s after an initial $600.00 payment for hardware and installation) for a max download speed of 700 Kbps?
Of course, they could pay only $100 down and then $100 per month (for 15 months) so that they could avoid avoid the large initial down-payment, but still. My parents live in a rural area and they would never pay that much for Internet access. It wouldn’t matter if they had to wait 10 minutes for Google to pop up, they still wouldn’t do it. Neither would I. It’s overly excessive.
I’m sure that HughesNet doesn’t think so, but I do. So does everyone that I’ve ever talked to about it.
Hughes Satellites Target Rural Broadband | InformationWeek.com
Doctor jailed for determining sex of baby
Ordinarily, that headline would spark some sense of outrage. But when you think about the circumstances, not so much.
A two-year prison sentence was handed down against an Indian doctor and his assistant because in 2001 they broke the Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, which makes determining the sex of an unborn baby illegal, and then arranged for the fetus’s abortion.
Why is this law necessary? Because each year “thousands of female foetuses are aborted” simply because of their sex.
Social activists and health officials in Haryana and across India have been alarmed by the emergence of a heavily skewed sex ratio in several parts of India as couples use new technology to achieve a traditional preference for sons.
…
Sabhani was filmed as he met a “decoy” patient, identified the sex of the foetus and said “it would be taken care of”, local newspapers reported.
First Indian doctor jailed under sex-test law | AlertNet.org
Umm, ’cause they’re stupid?
Animal testing & Windows Vista
Two unrelated bits of info:
- One Microsoft employee who’s worked on Windows Vista has proclaimed that “I wouldn’t buy it with someone else’s money.”
Microsoft employees call for Ballmer to go | PC Pro via David Galbraith
- And this hilarious bit on animal testing:
But booo hooo. One fuckin poster of a bunny crying with runny eye liner and everyone wants to ban animal testing. If that bunny could talk she would probably “hey how ’bout a touch up. Ima getting my picture taken.” And not surprisingly, I’d rather a rabbit go blind than me from some toxic Lancome.
Rampage (the rant kind, not the mall store) | itain’twilliam.blogspot.com
Homeland Security’s not quite secure
Government officials using fake documents were able to smuggle “small” amounts of radioactive materials into the country.
Government investigators smuggled radioactive materials into U.S. | CNN.com
A banner day…
Oh it is a wonderful day, of only because of who was born today:
- Leonard Nimoy: Captain Spock, of course. He’s 75 today. His most recent work was a rather comical commercial for Aleve.
- Diana Ross: Even without the others, she’s still Supreme at 62.
- Vicki Lawrence: One of my all-time favorite characters on television, Mother Harper of Mama’s Family. She’s 57 today.
Skating in Space?
If not, why is this story in the Yahoo! News: Space & Astronomy feed?
Systematic police abuse–in the U.S.
Amnesty International has published a report on police abuse of LGBT persons in the U.S. I’ve been reading a lot about this sort of thing recently, but only in other countries. Nepal and Guatemala spring to mind. I guess it’s not much of a surprise that this happens here, too.
X (name withheld), a Native American transgender woman, told Amnesty International that in October 2003 she was stopped in Los Angeles by two police officers as she was walking along a street in the early hours of the morning. The officers said they were taking her to jail for “prostitution” – a charge she denies. X alleges that the officers handcuffed her, put her in a patrol car and drove her to an alley off Hollywood Boulevard. The officers then stopped the car, pulled her out and began hitting her across the face and shouting sexual abuse at her. They then reportedly threw her back into the patrol car, ripped off her skirt and her underwear, and raped her. According to X, they then threw her on the ground and said, “That’s what you deserve,” and left her there.
Disgusting. Let’s just hope people like that are the anomaly rather than the norm.
I take exception, though, that she even has to deny that she was arrested for alleged prostitution. Even if it were true, it doesn’t excuse their treatment of her.
An insidious plot.
It’s been going on for years but now it’s time to fight back against the raisin scourge.
This evening, my wife baked an epic batch of oatmeal cookies. Let me explain why they were so good: there were no raisins in sight. The raisin has plagued the oatmeal cookie like a parasite, stifling its untapped potential as a (if not the) premier baked good of our generation.
