You can not tell the difference between particles that are in a superposition of states and those that have "collapsed". If such a difference could be discerned then entangled pairs could be used for faster-than-light communication by modulating their "collapsedness". These guys are not dealing with particles but a somewhat larger system. Is it an example of macroscopic system exhibiting quantum behavior? If so, does it offer a non-magical explanation of the phenomena?

IMHO BASIC was a great first language because of the goto statement. Let me explain why. Lots of people are familiar with or can easily understand a flowchart. By numbering the lines in a purely imperative language, people could easily get a machine to do something by laying the instructions out in order. Goto allows that linear list of instructions to be branched in exactly the same way a flowchart does (check condition, go here). Only after learning very simplistic imperative programming should one say "goto is evil, use structured programming". It's helpful - if unfortunate - to see the downside of goto in order to appreciate better code structure. But I remember there is more forethought required to use structured constructs to write some kinds of code. In the beginning I think it's important NOT to introduce abstract concepts (structured programming, OOP, complex data structures, etc) until the student has groked the fundamentals of getting the machine to do what you want. If all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but then you will also have an appreciation and immediate understanding of the usefulness of power tools.

So I'm only slightly joking when I say "goto", but the point is that every abstraction looks like wierd arbitrary stuff you have to learn until you know enough to appreciate it's usefulness, at which point it's easy to learn because it does something you perceive as useful. Abstractions raise the height of the learning curve, but should not increase its slope or it shall look like a wall.

I'm still trying to understand why the latest craze is functional programming. From where I sit it's a bunch of intellectual self gratification. Programs manipulate data - why shun mutable state? Jumping through hoops (apparently something called monads) to have mutable data is absurd - that's what computers DO. Or as XKCD put it...

Does it support VP9 and/or HEVC in hardware?
Does it receive ATSC television signals?
Useable voice recognition?

Yawn, tell me when a device gets new capabilities rather than just larger numbers in front of "GB", "pixels", "inches", or "mAh".

I still have my Interact (produced in AnnArbor MI) and about 30 tapes - including Microsoft Basic for it. It also has an extra ROM written by a W. Hendrikson (sp?) and I just might be able to locate a binder with nearly all issues of "Interaction" which was a newsletter put out by IIRC Steve Cook. I had considered donating this, but the computer history museum already has one.

Later in life I also worked directly under the guy who wrote most of the original ROM code for this machine. I believe he'd want to get his hands on it for a bit prior to donation. We're connected on Linked-In.

There were only a few thousand of these things built, so I suspect few remain and doubt all the listed places would have one.

On another note, even back then MS disabled the Peek and Poke commands in basic. I suspect this was at the request of the computer company. Poke in particular does not give a SN (syntax error) but rather actually executes the command and then gives a different error. "Poke XXXXX,YY" will permanently disable the error. More poking can disable some bounds checks on the Peek command - the ROM range was protected and the BASIC interpreter area was also protected. It's all a bit fuzzy but I still remember the values of XXXXX and YY to enable poking. The others were all documented in said newsletter.

Last I checked it still worked and a MESS developer down the street from me dumped the ROM.

The actual use shown is with a balloon, so they got the altitude limit raise or removed. It's not clear about the speed limit. Also I don't know about other countries, but I asked some high power rocketry guys in the US about adding active stabilization and was informed that anything along those lines is considered a missile and would not be legal (in the US). Never mind what slashdot chose for a headline then.

Those "features" are nothing more than visual bling. This suggests Apple is running out of great ideas and resorting to fancy instead of functional? I can name a whole list of UI features that would be awesome and seem innovative, while actually doing useful stuff easier.

Parallax? That's so Angry Biirds.

Someone once suggested to me that so long as these activities remain illegal, they are less likely to be abused. Think about that. If it's illegal you're going to think about every line you cross and try to justify it against your goals. Abuse would not only be a problem, it would be a problem caused by illegal activity. Once you legalize these activities I think they are more likely to be abused.

only about 1 trillion tons of carbon can be burned and the resulting gas spewed into the atmosphere. Just over half that amount has already been emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and at current rates of energy consumption, the trillionth ton will be released around 2040

Do they honestly believe there is some total quantity of emissions that can be tolerated? I mean as opposed to a rate of emissions - like annually. We know that the system recycles carbon taking it out of the atmosphere, and we know that the rate it's removed increases as the concentration increases. So if we assume there is a limit, it should be on the rate of carbon emissions and not the total emitted over time.

These guys are looking dumber all the time.

Yes, but I was thinking "edge detection" which is something different. Conceptually I meant Hough Transform.

How does this compare to using regular edge detection to find faint streaks in a time lapse image? How about after detecting bright spots and deleting them followed by edge detection?

But we're keeping tons of spent nuclear fuel in swimming pools and occasionally encasing it in giant blocks of cement and arguing about where to put it. Instead we could just put all that "waste" in a different kind of reactor and use it as fuel while also creating a chain of material that can have some plutonium pulled out for the occasional space probe or whatever. Problem is people are too scared of the "whatever" part to even allow this to happen - they'd rather pretend the spent fuel isn't an even bigger problem.

It is significant because it points to the very real possibility that, over the next several generations, the overall effect of climate change will be positive for humankind and the planet.

My stance on this issue has been vindicated - for today and until some other poor research indicates something different. May be a month, perhaps a year, but they will eventually change their mind again. That's the one thing for certain in "climate science".

This should still be detectable. It just requires more time. One could also reduce the time by looking at the combined output of an entire batch of chips. If they all have the same mask, they will all produce the same reduced set of random numbers. So one additional meta-test of data from a lot could show they have been compromised.

I work with guys who did yaw-stability-control calibration. Apparently it's quite satisfying to get it dialled-in just right. It's also not so much a high-end feature any more.

That takes money and balls, two (three?) things you obviously lack.

Ouch. Living up to the stereotype I see!