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Comment Re:All the universes where the bread missed a busb (Score 1) 478

by iacvlvs (#30016238) Attached to: LHC Shut Down Again — By Baguette-Dropping Bird
Interesting idea. The baguette isn't a huge deal because it won't delay the activation of the Collider but that's only one of the absurd things to happen to it, many of which have caused delays.

If the sheer number of alternate universes is contributing to our survival
and each time we avoid destruction, the number of universes is reduced
then perhaps it would benefit us to seed the multiverse with more universes.

I'm going to be letting HotBits make my decisions for a while. They supply random numbers based on radioactive decay. I'm hoping my experiment will propagate superposition to the macro world and increasing the chance that some instance of me survives whatever nasty unexpected consequences the LHC's activation may have.

Of course one could argue that my our present existence proof that nothing happens in the future that destroys this universe's past.
Image

SA's Largest Telecomms Provider vs. a Pigeon 149

Posted by samzenpus from the may-the-best-bird-win dept.
dagwud writes "Just a few days after this Slashdot article, South Africa's largest telecoms provider, Telkom (which has been taking flak for years for its shoddy and overpriced service), is being pitted against a homing pigeon to see which can deliver 4GB of call centre data logs quickest over a distance of around 80km (50 miles). According to the official website, the race is set to take place September 10."

Comment Re:Amusing, but... (Score 1) 79

by iacvlvs (#27669489) Attached to: Sink Your Balls Quickly With Pool-Cue Robots

Flagging sales at you local poolhall/pub? Keep the pool tables for your traditional customers, but have BilliadBots tournaments on tuesdays to attract a younger clientele.

I wonder, though, how hard the BilliardBots are on the soft, smooth, delicate felt surface of a pool table.
Networking

Submission + - Coming Soon: Terabit Ethernet (networkworld.com)

Submitted by stinkymountain
stinkymountain writes: Pre-standard 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet products — server network interface cards, switch uplinks and switches — are expected to hit the market later this year. And standards-compliant products are expected to ship in the second half of next year, not long after the expected June 2010 ratification of the 802.3ba standard. Despite the global economic slowdown, global revenue for 10G fixed Ethernet switches doubled in 2008, according to Infonetics. And there is pent-up demand for 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet, says John D'Ambrosia, chair of the 802.3ba task force in the IEEE and a senior research scientist at Force10 Networks. "There are a number of people already who are using link aggregation to try and create pipes of that capacity," he says. "It's not the cleanest way to do things...(but) people already need that capacity." D'Ambrosia says even though 40/100G Ethernet products haven't arrived yet, he's already thinking ahead to Terabit Ethernet standards and products by 2015. "We are going to see a call for a higher speed much sooner than we saw the call for this generation" of 10/40/100G Ethernet, he says. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/042009-terabit-ethernet.html?ts0hb&story=ts_spmc

Comment Re:We already have faster-than-light communication (Score 1) 627

by iacvlvs (#27455991) Attached to: Quantum Setback For Warp Drives

1) We agree ahead of time that we use the x-axis spin of two atoms (each) for communication.

2) I only manipulate two atoms of my set of 4, and only observe the other two.

3) You only observe the pair entangled with my 'write' set, and only manipulate to the pair entangled with my 'read' set.

Ok.

4) I continuously toggle the spin of one atom from my 'write' set back and forth between two previously agreed upon states, and change (or don't) the state of my other atom between two agreed upon states.

No. You measure the spin of one particle from your write set. The entangled particle from my read set silently agrees to return the complementary value when I measure it. The entanglement is now broken. You continue to "toggle" the spin on your particle, where "toggle" means "measure and receive non-deterministic, random, unpredictable results". I can measure my particle's spin at any time after your initial measurement and will find the random counterpart to your random first value. I have no way of knowing whether I've received the random result of your having measured, or if I've primed your first result by measuring before you did.

5) By continuously observing your 'read' pair of atoms (the pair entangled to my 'write' pair), you can see the one is constantly flipping states, and use that to determine the binary pattern I am sending. (1bit parity, 1bit data)

By continuously observing my read pair of particles, I can see that I get a stream of random results. Coincidentally, the first random value from each particle correlates with the first random value you get from each of your particles.

Comment Google Chrome. (Score 1) 842

by iacvlvs (#26784541) Attached to: Average User Only Runs 2 Apps, So Microsoft Will Charge For More
I wonder if multiple instances of the same app count as one or many towards the limit. Because with Chrome opening each tab as a separate process, things could get very interesting indeed. Chrome only shows up once under Applications in Task Manager but multiple times under Processes. Background applications show up only under Processes and they've already said they'll count those. At this stage I guess it could go either way.
Power

Submission + - How green is your code? (bit-matrix.com)

Submitted by skaralic
skaralic writes: In the Internet era, power consumption is a numbers game and small code inefficiencies when multiplied over millions of users generate real impact in terms of power usage. While you might optimize your server-size code efficiency and performance, less attention is paid to casual client-side apps. This blog article puts some numbers to a typical such scenario of a power hungry Flash widget and how much CO2 is released in the atmosphere when you brute-force or hack something that could have been done more efficiently.

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