Posts

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The World Is Ending (or at Least a Website)

One RSS feeds I subscribe to is the one at http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/. I mean, if the world is going to end, I certainly want Google reader to be the first to tell me. But today’s RSS update is, instead of the traditional “no”, different:

Bye bye everyone. This domain is not being renewed. It’s been fun.

Which means that soon when you check www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com, you may not get an answer. Which may or may not mean the LHC has destroyed the world (oh noes!) Or it may just mean that your going to find a web page filled with spam from a domain name squatter. Which is kind of the same thing, I guess.

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Live Worldwide Monopoly Game

Tomorrow, September 9, 2009 is apparently the date for a worldwide game of monopoly: Monopoly City Streets

Welcome to Monopoly City Streets. You versus the world in the biggest live game of MONOPOLY in history!
On the 9th SEPTEMBER, a world of property empire building on an unimaginable scale will be launched! A live worldwide game of MONOPOLY using Google Maps as the game board. The goal is simple. Play to beat your friends and the world to become the richest property magnate in existence.
Own any street in the world. Build humble houses, crazy castles and stupendous skyscrapers to collect rent. Use MONOPOLY Chance Cards to sabotage your mates by building Hazards on their streets.
Which strategy will you employ? Determined drive? Ingenious daring? Intelligent caution? Will you thrive under the pressure of a fast growing global property empire – or will you crumble? Find out if you’ll thrive, or even survive, in the amazing world of MONOPOLY City Streets. It’s going to be epic fun!

Having spent many days in my childhood playing epic games of monopoly I’m tempted. How does one play an epic game of monopoly? Easy, just modify the rules to allow you to go in debt and be stubborn as a mule even when your opponent owns both Boardwalk and Parkplace. (Good lesson: even though there is randomness in rolling dice, when the board gets stacked against you, you may have statistical fluctuations which feel good, but eventually you are doomed. Multiple rolls of bad odds eventually catch up.)

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Puzzle for the Day

How do you build a computer out of fire?
(Motivated by the observation that if you take three pieces of string and tie them together at a single point, you can make an OR gate. If we denote the presence of fire on a string as a 1 and the absence of fire as a 0, then this contraption clearly computes the OR function. But OR by itself is not universal.)

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Time to PACS It Up and Go?

One of the highest “impact” journals in physics is the American Physical Society’s Physical Review Letters (PRL). Among the crazy things about PRL is that it limits letters to four pages. Yes, people from other fields, you heard that right: one of the most “prestigious” journals in physics limits the authors to four pages. Realistically, when you include references, a title, and an abstract, this really means more like less than three and a half pages. Crazy!
Recently looking over papers in PRL, however, it occurred to me that the editors are skewering us even more. That’s because a good two lines (two full lines, damnit!) are being used to denote PACS numbers and DOI

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Center for Quantum Information and Control Postdocs

At least three postdoc positions at the University of New Mexico and the University of Arizona’s “Center for Quantum Information and Control.” Here is a pdf ad for the positions.

The Center for Quantum Information and Control (CQuIC) is seeking to hire at least three postdoctoral fellows over the next year. CQuIC has research nodes at the University of New Mexico (UNM) under Professors Carlton Caves and Ivan Deutsch and at the College of Optical Sciences of the University of Arizona (UA) under Professor Poul Jessen.
Research at CQuIC is focused on quantum information, quantum control, quantum
metrology, and quantum optics. The theoretical program at UNM addresses topics in all
of these areas. The experimental program at UA seeks to implement ideas from quantum
information and quantum control in laser-cooled neutral-atom systems. CQuIC postdocs
are expected to take an active interest in both theoretical and experimental projects at the
Center.
A successful applicant must have a PhD in physics, optical sciences, or a related discipline. Applicants should submit applications to cquic [change this to an at] unm.edu; the applicant should state whether he/she is applying for a theoretical postdoc at UNM or an experimental postdoc at UA. Applications should include a curriculum vitae and a statement of research accomplishments and plans, and the applicant should arrange to have three letters of recommendation submitted to the same e-mail address.
Applications will be processed as they are received. For full consideration in the first round of hiring, a complete application should be received by October 31, 2009. Applications will continue to be reviewed till all positions are filled.

Hm, experimental or theoretical postdocs in the southwest. Which one is red and which one is green?

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Caesar Salad

You’ve got to love a country where a Caesar salad includes a big helping of Bacon:
All hail Caesar Bacon!

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Experiments I'd Like To See, Part 1

I am selfish. Sometimes when I work on a research problem, I do it in the hope that it will actually turn into something which, you know, will be done experimentally. I know, I know, I should be more of a pure theorist and not hope for salvation validation from reality, but hey we can’t all be perfect. So, here is an experiment I’d like to see done: I would think it would be within the regime of what is doable in a few physical implementations of quantum computers now.