…realizing that the class you are teaching for the first time this quarter ends on the half hour, not the hour, and therefore the fact that you are rushing through the material must seem extremely amusing to the students who know the class ends at 20 minutes after. Doh. Doh. Doh!
ArXiv PDF Mime Fix for Firefox 2.0
As part of my switching to a Mac, I’ve started using Firefox (one reason being that I’m investigating using Zotero for grabbing bibliographic citations from the web.) However, an annoying problem I encounter was when using Firefox and downloading pdfs from the arXiv. The problem was that Firefox failed to recognize the files as pdf files and thinks the pdf for arxiv XXXX.YYYY was a file of type YYYY. Note that this isn’t just a problem of downloading any old pdf, but specifically pdfs from the arxiv. I’ve now figure out how to fix this.
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Quantum Hoops
Last night I got a chance to go see Quantum Hoops which is playing at the Landmark Metro in Seattle for a limited time. For those who haven’t heard of this movie, “Quantum Hoops” is a documentary about the Caltech basketball team, which currently owns the longest losing streak without a conference win in NCAA basketball (22 years.) The movie is narrated by David Duchovny, and, with the exception of an opening “old time cinema” introduction to Caltech, is actually quite enjoyable. Of course I’m biased. Not only did I go to Caltech as an undergrad (and returned as a postdoc) and thus knew some of the people in the film (“Gillllbeaaar!”), but my grandfather went to Caltech, graduating in 1934, where he played on championship football teams while at Caltech.
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This American "Make Me Mad"
If you really really want to get yourself pissed off about the tyrannical despotic anti-democratic junta that current runs the United States, I highly recommend this week’s edition of This American Life (free in about a weeks time, or try here to find a local show time. Hint local shows elsewhere allow you to listen to it over the intertubes.) Dude, shows like that make we want to get all DoI on Bush and company.
Oh Noes, Blak Holz Are Eatn My Worlsd!
Lawsuit brought against CERN and the LHC for the possibility that it might produce black holes which will eat the earth. I look forward to seeing string theory on trial. Maybe something like an inverse “Inherit the Wind” play to follow.
Oh, and this made me laugh:
Mr. Sancho, who describes himself as an author and researcher on time theory, lives in Spain, probably in Barcelona, Mr. Wagner said.
Probably in Barcelona?
I've Got Silica on Silicon on My Quantum Stereo
Linear optics quantum computing, where one combines linear optics with the nonlinear processes of single photon creation and single photon detection, is a relative newcomer onto the scene of possible routes toward quantum computing. Whenever I think about these schemes, what jumps into my head is a crazily filled optical bench, like the one below from the Zeilinger group:
Now, I’m but a mere theorist, but I think even theorists like me understand that trying to build a large scale version of this scheme, which has considerable overhead behind it in terms of the number of modes needed, is a huge challenge. A further bane of these approaches is that one needs to keep the optical paths stable on a length scale less than the wavelength of the light. This requires some pretty sophisticated stable interferometers. Which is why it is nice to see the new paper from Jeremy O’Brien’s group in Bristol: A. Politi, M. J. Cryan, J. G. Rarity, Y. Siyuan, and J. L. O’Brien, “Silica-on-Silicon Waveguide Quantum Circuits,” Science Express Reports, published online March 27, 2008 (arXiv:0802.0136.)
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Notes on Moving to a Mac
A list of observations I found in moving from a PC to a MAC.
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DARPA's on a QuEST
It looks like DARPA is getting back into funding academic research in quantum computing. Here is a new BAA for a program called QuEST. And it looks like they want revolution, not evolution:
DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of Quantum Entanglement Science and Technology (QuEST). Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in the fundamental understanding of quantum information science related to “small” quantum systems. Specifically excluded is research which primarily results in incremental improvement to the existing state of practice or knowledge.
Since I strongly believe quantum computers will be built on a revolution, and not an evolution, this makes me happy. Now if I can just find an experimentalist crazy enough to try some of my wacky ideas 🙂
And the Winner Is…
Well, after the Great Debate, I decided to take the plunge and get….
Yep, a MacBook Pro with a top clock speed and a ton of RAM (what you can’t infer those later things from the picture?) So far things are so good, although I must say, the “it just works,” MacMantra is just a plain lie. Getting LaTeXiT, Leopard, Linkback plugin, and Keynote to play nice together was certainly not something I’d want to force upon most people. However, I guess if your trying to use LaTeX in Keynote, then you’re probably up to the task.
The World Market is Five Quantum Computers
From the bits blog at the New York Times, a list of technology famous quotes which may or may not have been said. Two of which I believe I’ve used before (doh!):
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” This quotation is attributed to Bill Gates, but Mr. Shapiro suspects that it is apocryphal, and is seeking the person who either said it or first attributed it to Mr. Gates.
…
“I think there is a world market for about five computers.” This is a attributed to Thomas J. Watson, Jr., but Mr. Shapiro suspects it of being apocryphal and is seeking the person who either said it or first attributed it to Mr. Watson.