Free Thought
catdynamics | November 19, 2007Sun Microsystems to put 10,000 servers in a box in a Japanese coal mine
I kid you not
"Sun and a consortium of other businesses are going to lower self-contained computing facilities into a no-longer-used Japanese coal mine. The goal is to create an underground data center that will use up to 50% less power than a ground-level data center, the vendors claim.
(h/t Muhahhahaaaa)
The coolant will be ground water and the site's temperature is a constant 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) all year, meaning no air-conditioning will be needed outside the containers. This reduces the energy…
gregladen | November 17, 2007You all know about the honey bee waggle dance. A bee finds some nectar, returns to the hive, does a dance that communicates information about where the nectar can be found to other bees, and off the workers go to get the nectar.
Techies at Georgia Tech have applied this method to developing a better way to run servers.
After studying the efficiency of honeybees, Craig Tovey, a professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, realized through conversations with Sunil Nakrani, a computer science colleague visiting from the University of…
pontiff | November 15, 2007This glib article from the Wired Blog Gadgets Lab discusses some of the "crazy" ideas for building computers. Among them, of course, are quantum computers, which means, of course that a quantum computing bastardization, can't be far from behind.
Let's begin at the beginning:Quantum Computers
Sudoku. That's all D-Wave's quantum computer is good for right now, and even then they wouldn't let us hacks see it in the flesh.
By lining up subatomic particles to encode information in a manner similar to the binary data found in conventional computers, such computers create "quantum bits," subject…
pontiff | November 14, 2007Over at The World's Fair, a challenge:Anyway, this meme asks that you come up with your own scientific eponym. What's that exactly? Well, first read this excellent primer by Samuel Arbesman, which basically provides a step by step description of how to do this effectively. Then have a go at your own blog. If all goes well, I'd like to create a page at the Science Creative Quarterly, that collects (and links to) the good ones.
Of course there is already a formula for Best Bacon Butty, so I can't do anything about Bacon Butties, damnit. Well recently I've been thinking about how bad I am at…
pontiff | November 14, 2007In an article on stopping a large spectrum of light with metamaterials in The Telegraph (research which is very cool, but isn't available online, yet, as far as I can tell), I find some lines that would make the Optimizer go bonkers:By contrast, the switches in a quantum computer can be both "on" and "off" at the same time. A "qubit" could do two calculations at once, two qubits would do four and so on. Thus, it was theoretically possible to use quantum computers to explore vast numbers of potential solutions to a problem simultaneously.
Ouch, my brain hurts.
Okay, so I'm fine with, if a bit…
drorzel | November 14, 2007Dave Bacon watched "Judgement Day" last night, and has a question:
It's not like, you know, there aren't people who think quantum theory is wrong or that quantum theory is somehow related to the Vedic teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. So why is it that quantum theory (which after all is "just a theory" wink, wink, nod, nod) doesn't illicit courtroom battles of such epic scope as the Dover trial?
The answer: Because quantum physics involves math, and Math Is Hard.
If you want to construct a cockamamie theory that can pretend to be an alternative to quantum mechanics, it needs to have…
pontiff | November 13, 2007Tonight I watched NOVA's Judgement Day: Intelligent Design On Trial. Ah shucks, us quantum physicists never get to have so much fun (err, I mean, experience so much pain and deal with so much silliness) trying to defend our science. It's not like, you know, there aren't people who think quantum theory is wrong or that quantum theory is somehow related to the Vedic teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. So why is it that quantum theory (which after all is "just a theory" wink, wink, nod, nod) doesn't illicit courtroom battles of such epic scope as the Dover trial?
I mean, let's talk about…
pontiff | November 13, 2007Grad school opportunities, postdoc opportunities, interference experiments, more D-wave, and sabbatical at the Blackberry hole
Pawel Wocjan writes that he has positions open for graduate students in quantum computing:Ph.D. Position in Quantum Computing & Quantum Information with Dr. Pawel Wocjan, School of EECS, University of Central Florida (UCF), Orlando, in sunny Florida
I am accepting applications for a Ph.D. position in Quantum Computing and Quantum Information starting in Fall 2008. You can learn more about my research and the research in quantum information science at UCF by going…
drorzel | November 12, 2007
Matthew Yglesias (November 11, 2007) - Journalism as Sadism (Media)
Why "Meet the Press" is well-nigh unwatchable.
(tags: news politics journalism television US blogs)
The Daily Politics
John Sweeney continues to show the fine grasp of political calculation that led him to be photographed at a local frat party...
(tags: politics US stupid)
Easily Distracted » Blog Archive » FaceBOOK
A call for a social networking site for academic books.
(tags: academia books computing silly)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: What Kind of Grader Are You?
The pros and cons of having your…
pontiff | November 12, 2007D-wave systems, whose paracomputer, err, I mean quantum-maybe computer, which sparked quite a bit of controversy earlier this year, is back in the news. This time D-wave is at the big superconducting conference (SC07) being held in Reno, Nevada and is demonstrating a 28-qubit quantum-maybe computer. Paint me an ivory tower skeptic, but I don't think their system will work as they expect it to. Of course, this being, D-wave, the news article makes for some entertaining reading.
First up we have this beautiful quote from Geordie Rose, D-Wave founder and CTO,
"We have been collaborating…
drorzel | November 8, 2007
Robert Donoghue - Hunting Vegetarians with Ted Nugent
Anthony Bourdain rediscovers Furr's Law
(tags: food blogs computing society silly)
Dynamics of Cats : "Rocketeers" - a Review
This is exactly rocket science
(tags: space books review)
NOVA | Intelligent Design on Trial | PBS
We'll see if I remember to watch this
(tags: biology education law science television religion politics)
Universe could have a fifth less mass than current estimates - physicsworld.com
Of course, a 20% error is still precision measurement in astronomy...
(tags: astronomy news science mass)
Congressional…
pontiff | November 5, 2007Oftentimes I've been asked what the purpose of this blog is. As if everything in life must have a purpose:pfft, I say! But because an answer is required, what I usually answer is that the purpose of my blog is to slow down my fellow researchers. I mean sheesh, the people in quantum computing are the modern polyglots of science, speaking physics, computer science, and mathematics with ease. And they're universally a brainy crowd. So what better purpose can this blog serve that to slow these readers down by offering them great opportunities to surf the intertubes and procrastinate.
Along…
eanthes | November 3, 2007Today, 30,000 scientists descended upon San Diego for Neuroscience 2007, the Society for Neuroscience's annual scientific meeting. With more than 16,000 presentations over just five days, the conference is more than any one reporter could possibly cover. But I'm going to do my best, posting daily wrap-ups here and highlighting some of the most interesting, mind-bending (no pun intended) presentations.
The meeting kicked off today with its annual "Dialogues Between Neuroscience in Society" talk, which is traditionally given by someone who's not a neuroscientist. (In previous years, this talk…
pontiff | November 3, 2007Look, up in the air, is it a bird? No. Is it a plane? No. Is it the quantum pontiff? Yes! Yes! The Quantum Pontiff! Um, okay....but what exactly is the quantum pontiff? Besides, of course, the juxtaposition of two words which don't often find themselves seated together at the dinner table...
Some quick digging turns up the following disturbing list of facts about "The Quantum Pontiff":
"The quantum pontiff" is, according to Google, the second most likely thing you are looking for if you have searched for the word pontiff. At one point it was the number one thing you were looking for…
j7uy5 | October 31, 2007This is a
href="http://www.digitimes.com/displays/a20070404PD212.html">pico-projector
from Texas Instruments. The idea is to have a device that can
project an image onto a screen, using a very small device such as a
PDA. Right now the usable image size is about 15 to 20
inches. They hope to scale it up to 40 inches.
I suspect that they envision this as a solution for small sales
presentations and the like. Personally, I'd like to see it
investigated for use in mainstream computing. Imagine the
typical usage of an office computer: word processing, email, maybe a
small spreadsheet. …
goodmath | October 30, 2007 As promised, today I'm going to talk about how to compute the strongly connected components
of a directed graph. I'm going to go through one method, called Kosaraju's algorithm, which is
the easiest to understand. It's possible to do better that Kosaraju's by a factor of 2, using
an algorithm called Tarjan's algorithm, but Tarjan's is really just a variation on the theme
of Kosaraju's.
Kosaraju's algorithm is amazingly simple. It uses a very clever trick based on the fact that
if you reverse all of the edges in a graph, the resulting graph has the same strongly connected components as the…
clock | October 28, 2007There are 83 days until the Science Blogging Conference. The wiki is looking good, the Program is shaping up nicely, and there is more and more blog and media coverage already. There are already 109 registered participants and if you do not register soon, it may be too late once you decide to do so (we'll cap at about 230). Between now and the conference, I am highlighting some of the people who will be there, for you to meet in person if you register in time.
Tatjana Jovanovic, better known to the readers of this blog by her online pseudonym 'tanjasova' was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia,…
pharyngula | October 25, 2007The Seed editors asked us to reminisce about our quaint experiences with computing in the Old Days. Old nerds are so pathetic.
I'm much more enthused about an event in future computing: Leopard is coming out tomorrow! Laelaps has an anticipatory video of what Leopard is going to do to Windows — haul it up a tree and eat it for lunch.
jlynch | October 24, 2007Over at Page 3.14, there’s a post where us old farts reminisce about computing when we were young ’uns. I’m quoted as saying
"My first computer was a ZX81 (Timex/Sinclair here in the US). Had 1k of memory. Taught myself assembly.
In high school and college, virtually everything was hand written. Didn’t even use a calculator until college (wasn’t allowed in high school - I remember log tables!)"
Below the fold, I give some more reminiscences. Gentle reader, feel free to add your memories as comments.
These are somewhat free-form and disjointed ...
My first computer was a ZX81 (Timex/…
vhughes | October 24, 2007
I was born in 1984. My earliest memory of a computer is thumbing through a plastic box of black, square 5.25-inch floppy disks, trying to decide whether I wanted to play The Oregon Trail, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, or Word Munchers on the family Compaq 386.
Since most of the ScienceBloggers have a few years on me, we thought it might be fun to have a stroll down their technological memory lanes. Here's what they remember about old-school computing. (Feel free to give them a hard time about their ages; they're all extremely sensitive.)
Revere (b. A long time ago)
"My first computer…