0711.0047: “Tunable quantum interference: How to make morning, noon, and afternoon states” by Holger F. Hofmann, Takafumi Ono. We can blame Jonathan Dowling?
Teleportation
While we quantum informationistas have not achieved teleportation, apparently the job market now allows for such a transform: TeleportMyJob.com (I wonder where they get their high quality Bell Pairs.)
Break
From an article in the Seattle Times on a local UW student competing in the 2007 TopCoder Collegiate Championship:
TopCoder is a private company that makes money by selling some of the finished code and matching employers with contestants. The competition is also sponsored by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, Deutsche Bank and the National Security Agency — which states on the competition Web site that it wants to employ U.S. citizens to help break.
Yes, I copied that over correctly. “to help break.” Ah perfect fodder for paranoid interpreations: (1) NSA is in Seattle Times computers and didn’t want a mention of breaking cryptosystems. (2) The Seattle Times is part of the liberal media establishment and therefore “break” is a political slip of the tongue to remind us that the U.S. intelligence community is behind torture (that the NSA is not the CIA can not stop the conspiracy minded who will immediately note that the head of the CIA was previously the head of the NSA.) (3) “Break” is a code name for the NSA’s quantum computer. They need programmers for it’s quantum computer. Nuf said.
Dr. StrangeArmitage
Am I the only one who thinks Richard Armitage (watch the whole thing at your own sanity’s sake)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=XdwBR44aeBs[/youtube]
sounds just like General ‘Buck’ Turgidson from “Dr. Strangeloveor: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”:
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=HgyjlqhiTV8[/youtube]
? “Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!”
NSF Power
NSF loses power. No, not politcal power silly: electrical power!
Speaking of which, this is what writing a grant proposal looks like to me:
359 is the new 555
359.33.9.234.
Elevator Buttons
Is there a simple reason why elevator floor buttons cannot be reset by a second push of the button?
Update: A comment reminded me of the first time I remember being able to ride on an elevator (at the time there was no elevators in Yreka.) It was at a Little People of America convention in Reno, Nevada (my sister is a little person.) They had installed these nice ramps so that the little people could reach all of the buttons. But for a little tyrant like myself, what this meant was that I could get into the elevator, run up the ramp, quickly press all the buttons and then get off at the next floor. Proceed to the next elevator and repeat. Ah, such fun.
Sometimes The Bad Jokes Just Flow
Today during our quantum meeting:
Speaker: Imagine you are moving through imaginary time…
Snarky me: Um, if you’re imagining moving through imaginary time, wouldn’t you just be moving through real time
Other audience member: Actually I think you’d be moving backwards in time…
Quantum Scandal Involving….Fashion Models?
Scott Aaronson’s lecture notes make their way from his webpage to an Australian commercial:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saWCyZupO4U[/youtube]
Scott asks what he should do. Personally I think it’s a great opportunity for Scott to change career direction and enter into a contract writing for Madison Avenue. Or maybe the Simpsons. Or at least to get a date with a fashion model. 😉
Why am I me?
You know you’re on a list of physicists when you start getting emails like
from: he he
subject: why you are you? Physics doesn’t determine everythings.
Reminds me of my good old graduate student days (oh, and by the way: “Go Bears!”) when the “uncertainty principle was untenable.”