In that same spirit, here's the g you missed out of 'gnashing' ;)

And the ' the GP missed out of here's

(I totally get it though. It drives me nuts when people don't close their parentheses

metric giga-fuckton of energy as gravity waves

For our metric-impaired American friends, the conversion rate is 4.739 giga-fucktons to a mega-shitload.

Cue the low UID battle!

Hey you kids, get off my lawn!

Ok, so it won't be a portable device...

No, but imagine a beowulf cluster of....

nevermind...

This may be something neat, but unless it offers something more than a new way to represent bits, it won't mean that we can solve new sets of problems.

Exactly. The problem of a "new type of computing" is a math problem, not an engineering one.

If we ever see a new kind of computing, it will be due to theoretical computer science / mathematics, not physics/engineering.

Actually, it could prove to be radically different than current computers/computing

Yes, but not in the way the GP was hoping (barring a major breakthrough in mathematics/theoretical computer science)

All computers (even quantum computers) are basically the same. They are all Turing Machines. Some are just much faster than others. This machine won't be radically different, regardless of what the hardware is.

Car analogy:
If existing PC's are gasoline-driven cars, the GP was hoping for an airplane. What they are proposing is an electric car.

what Apple is doing is sound AND ethical .

Only if you have a pretty odd ethical code, IMHO.

Some of us believe that corporations (like citizens) should have an ethical obligation to pay tax to the country they use the infrastructure of.

Apple gets the advantages of Australia's infrastructure, but does not pay for it.

IMHO, this is as unethical as using the WIFI connection of your 80-year old neighbor cause she didn't know how to set up the security correctly. Just because a loophole exists, doesn't mean it's ethical to use it.

Apple is right, your mother gave you the iPad, not the data on it.

Bullshit. If his mother had left him her journal, which had a lock on it, would you consider it reasonable that a locksmith refuse to open the journal based on the same argument?

This idea that the "data" is somehow magically separate and distinct from the device is as ridiculous as Descartes idea of mind-body dualism.

Or to put it another way: If they found a piece of paper with her password on it, unlocked the device and sold all the pictures on it, would this be illegal? According to your theory yes, as they don't "own" that data.

They own the physical device, including the configuration of electrons contained within that device. Apple not allowing them access to that configuration is a convenient fashion is just a jerk move by Apple. Luckily now that this is getting some press, the will likely back down. It's unfortunate that this is what it takes for people to do the right thing nowadays though....

It's also a terrible analogy as it suggests the idea that if we just tried a little harder, we'd make it to Disneyland (after all, the big ball of twine isn't that far from Disneyland.

Going to Europa is like Columbus going to America rather than the moon. Sometimes you gotta take what you can get.

Yes! If we got rid of NASA altogether, think of all the infrastructure we could build....

Why, the annual savings would be enough for most of one tunnel!

The cost is enormous

Wrong....just plain wrong. Why is innumeracy so prevalent now? Are numbers really that hard? The $17 billion Nasa will get in 2014 is peanuts compared the rest of the federal budget.

I hate to say it, but the internet hasn't helped either. In many places, it's become a huge echo chamber where people can just hear their own preconceptions parroted back at them, reinforcing their belief that their position must be right.

Why, I've even heard of a tech site where regardless of what a certain OS company does, it is immediately trashed as a terrible, evil idea. Good thing Slashdot is nothing like that.

The real question is: "Does SUSY make useful predictions for detecting physics beyond the Standard Model?" The answer to that seems to be tending very strongly toward "No."

Of course SUSY makes useful predictions. SUSY makes predictions about super-particles.

The problem is, it's starting to look like those super-particles do not exist.

Damnit, it sounds like you are saying that software development is hard. And required diligence. And time.

That is NOT what my pointy-haired boss wants to hear.

He wants to hear that we can whip out software using cheap graduates of questionable schools, while distracting these developers with inane meetings, stupid corporate requirements (have you filled out you quarterly performance objectives?), and also making them the first-line software helpdesk and general IT support.

And he wants it all yesterday.

Diligence, motivation and qualification? That's crazy talk!

Is it just me, or is the education system getting far too concerned with "keeping children engaged" and "making learning fun", than actually teaching concepts.

You don't only teach memorization of addition/multiplication tables in order for the child to know their multiplication tables. You do it because that sort of rote memorization (especially of abstract items) is good for the brain. Children also need to learn that a lot of work is actual work, and some of it involves fairly boring mental drudgery. Is it fun memorizing the difference between (?!) and (?=) in regular expressions? No, but it can be helpful.

This article seems the equivalent of "Little Johnny doesn't like doing push-ups. Can't we just have him play Wii instead? He enjoys playing Wii, and it keeps him totally engaged. And if he plays Guitar Hero, he's learning music at the same time!". Imagine the physically fit musical geniuses we will create if we can get them all to enjoy and appreciate exercise!

Math has been replaced by puzzles. English has been replaced by "multimedia presentations (computer play time)". Phys-ed is now free play. Social studies is "social skills 101 (bullying, including others, fairness, etc)".

I greatly fear we are raising a society of salespeople and telephone sanitizers.

I support many of the activities such as what Khan academy has done to "make math fun". But much of this needs to be an addendum to solid foundational work, not a replacement. The program the article describes seems to replace any rigor with fun, and hopefully children will learn the tough stuff by osmosis or something (or it will be the next school's problem).

Diamonds are also a limited resource. Just less limited.