Author: dabacon

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Fraud Fighting Quantum Computers

From Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston, we find a gem of quantum computer’s capabilities in an interview with Max Levchin, cofounder of Paypal:

…Its one of those things where, in the end, fraud is so nondeterministic that you need a human or a quantum computer to look at it and sort of make a final decision…

Fight determinism with determinism, but fight nondeterminism with nondeterminism! I like it! But can you fight determinism with nondeterminism? Why am I now singing “I shot the nondeterminism, and the nondeterminism won?”
(I’m pretty sure Max is waxing poetic here, cus from all I’ve read about him he’s a pretty sharp cookie.)

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Web Based Applications

You know that web based applications have really entered into your life when you click the Firefox icon and you wonder why the browser doesn’t appear and cover the document you are editing.

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Englishmen Alone Form Perfect Queues of Length One

Standing in lines is the bane of my existence. Okay, well maybe not, but spending time around universities certainly increases the percentage of time I spend pressing the queue. The good thing about lines in university towns is that they often move fairly fast. The bad thing is that, well, you’re standing in line. And, with a nice British last name like “Bacon,” you can bet that I’m a stickler for proper line standing. Proper? Oh yeah. Here are the offenders. Which are you?
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TiddlyPac

For those of you interested in TiddlyWiki and who happen to live in the great city of Seattle, there will be an informal meetup for TiddlyWiki enthusiasts this Saturday, June 26. For details see: TiddlyPac.

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I Like My Facts Well Done and Humorless

The Scienceborg is all abuzz about some Sizzle movie, with all sorts of good and bad reviews, and gnashing of the teeth about whether the movie stunk or whether it was the best thing since the invention of sliced ham (few know that this event was much more important than the invention of sliced bread, which is vastly overhyped.) A good way to waste your time, I suppose, but I thought I wasn’t going to get much out of it, you known, in terms of actually getting any good insight or educational crap like that. But then I discovered Chris C. Mooney’s post on the whole thing. (Chris is lucky, he can use his middle initial. If I use mine, my initials are DMB. As in not so bright.)
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Pokemon More Reviewed Than Science

Michael Nielsen has penned a very thoughtful essay on how the internet age will change how science is performed. Having sloppily dabbled in a website which allowed for rating of scientific papers, I think Michael’s observations about why “review” sites for scientific papers are a tough sell (what reward do I get for commenting on a paper, exactly?) are spot on. I also liked his comparison of science review sites and reviews of Pokemon products:

The contrast between the science comment sites and the success of the amazon.com reviews is stark. To pick just one example, you’ll find approximately 1500 reviews of Pokemon products at amazon.com, more than the total number of reviews on all the scientific comment sites I described above. The disincentives facing scientists have led to a ludicrous situation where popular culture is open enough that people feel comfortable writing Pokemon reviews, yet scientific culture is so closed that people will not publicly share their opinions of scientific papers. Some people find this contrast curious or amusing; I believe it signifies something seriously amiss with science, something we need to understand and change.

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Hawking To Fall Into the Blackberry Hole?

Rumors have been spreading that Stephen Hawking might be considering moving to the Perimeter Institute. These rumors have been officially denied. The real story here, however is not about Hawking relocating, but whether Stephen Hawking has turned into an experimental physicist and is testing the black hole information paradox by throwing himself into the Blackberry hole. I mean, if Hawking can visit for one month, and then escape from the Perimeter Institute, then I think we can conclude that the unitarity of quantum theory is safe. However, if Hawking get’s sucked in, I myself will worry that information really is destroyed at the Perimeter Institute in a black hole.

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New York Times Reports MySQL Error

Um, okay, so was this little piece of information really noteworthy enough to be included in a New York Times article on Psystar:

Although Psystar’s Web site was available earlier today, by 1 p.m. EDT it was offline and returning the error message: “Database Error: Unable to connect to the database: Could not connect to MySQL” to Computerworld editors and reporters attempting to connect.

I mean, isn’t that a bit high up even for an inverted pyramid?

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iPhone Apps (Free)

When people ask me about my iPhone, I usually tell them that it is a great gadget, but not really a terrific cell phone. I’m going to have to modify that a bit now, I think. With the addition of third party applications, the iPhone is now a super duper great gadget, but not really a terrific cell phone. Here are some of the free apps I’ve been loving (I haven’t yet looked at the paid ones, cheapo that I am!)
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Fill 'Er Almost Up?

I recently rented a car and got dinged with a 13 dollar fee because I didn’t drive 75 miles (and, did not see the tiny sign indicating the new rule that if I drove so little I would be rewarded by not having to fill up the fuel tank for a mere 13 dollars. Having a receipt could have gotten this fee waved.) My first thought on seeing this fee was wondering if they actually took their average mile per gallon for seventy five miles and set the fee so that at current fuel prices they would always make money on this? A sort of rental car arbitrage?
My second thought was, I wonder if they actually fill my fuel tank up? I mean sure when I get in the dial points to full, but we all know that doesn’t mean the tank is actually really full. And, well, given their new desire to milk some dollars from me because apparently they don’t trust me to fill up the fuel tank, I’m not exactly in a trusting mood when it comes to rental car companies. So next time I rent a car, I suppose I should immediately drive to a gas station and see if I can put fuel into the car. Anyone else care to test this experiment? If they don’t you should charge then a 13 dollar fee for not filling up your tank, don’t you think? And if they are filling up the tank: well why don’t we design a method for allowing them to not fill up completely and sell it them?