If you think of regular crystals as "space crystals" instead and that they have a regular structure that repeats in space then "time crystals" doesn't sound so awkward a term. Indeed that's what the principle investigator suggested was his inspiration... eg if Einstein said space and time are really "space-time" then could we have the "space-time" equivalent of crystals but repeating in time instead? At least that's how I'm reading the article.

Where I'm losing it... is that I never thought "space crystals" broke the symmetry of uniform space but instead that quantization seemed to me to be a function of the crystal (or atoms), not space itself.

However, taking the physicists enthusiasm at face value, this clearly appears (to me at least) to be another research avenue into unifying the space-time concept of general relativity with the incompatible space-time concept of quantum mechanics, and as far as I know the only one do-able in a laboratory. (Gravity wave experiments are detectors for events that happened "outside of a laboratory".) So... it's easy for me to share the enthusiasm even though I don't quite get it.

Minor one first
WHAT WERE THE ACTUAL COMMENTS??? Can anyone tell me? I've taken comments out of context before and been offended only to be embarrassed when I finally understood the context. In this case, I'm not given the chance to come to my own conclusions as no one is posting the actual comments, only how others perceived them.

Next...
I have to wonder if this may be a watershed event for the public shaming response. Part of the utility of a justice system is enforcing proportional response/punishment for various crimes. Manslaughter warrants less of a penalty than murder, yet in both cases the victim is dead. What offense would warrant the the punishment of a public shaming as widespread as this one is? And if your answer is that it's OK here as it will also serve as a deterrent to others then what was your opinion of the RIAA suing a woman for $222,000?

Why is this even an "internet company" question... If I live in France and subscribe to a US magazine that I get in the mail could France sue that magazine for similar reasons? Would that US magazine be held accountable to French courts? Would/Could France prohibit that magazine from entering the country?

Agreed about making it illegal... but many US companies store passwords in clear text too. Most notably many cell phone companies store your PINs in cleartext... any agent at the carrier can see what yours is.

This has been a pet peeve of mine for years... when companies have (are required?) privacy policies about what they do with your personal information yet there's no discussion at all as to what they do with your passwords, it's like putting a bandaid on a severed artery.

My first exposure to the MS "Surface" term was a few years back when they used it to describe their TABLE offering.The coolest thing about this (IMHO) was the build-in "picture scanning" technology. (Scroll down to the "computer vision"/"object recognition" section.) I kinda hoped the new tablet would employ some of the same technology (I'd love to be able to lay a business card down on the face of the tablet and have it scan in automatically).

If MS did that... that would really rock the world!

Highway on-ramp lights.

Ok, this is a pet peeve of mine, but we're all programmers here. The situation is an on-ramp for a highway has 2 lanes each with traffic metering lights. One line has 2+ cars lined up, the other has none. New car rolls up to the neighboring lane and immediately the light turns green for him. WTF? Seems this is lazy programming. Two clock chips timing the green for each light, when the fairer method would be one timer that either gives all the traffic to the only light with cars queued up or evenly alternates between the 2 occupied lanes. Would that have been so hard for the original designers of the system to implement? To me this is the most visible sign of lazy programming I've even run across as an ordinary user.

> The cameras can also work when the tank is moving.

Did anyone else envision a 1000 heat pixel display on moving tank being made to display an image of a **moving** cow when they read this sentence? Somehow just seems funny.

I've heard this too. I believe it was an NPR story. That story (whoever it was) was relayed by a friend of Frost's who said Frost was irritated at a colleague who behaved just as the commenter posted which inspired Frost (in part?) to write that poem. Sorry I can't find the link.

I'm sorry... should have mentioned that this was done with the cooperation of school officials.

So, we were NOT trespassing. Although I do wonder if someone called the school officials and double checked and that's what called off the 'copter.

Some minor harassment happens in the US too. We were doing a star viewing event at a local elementary school. There were perhaps 3 big dobsonians and 2 or so smaller scopes, 20-30 people in the ball field of this school at 10:00 in the fall (so it was very dark, well past sundown) and somehow a police helicopter started circling us. We figured some neighbor must have called about some activity in the school and maybe there was a helicopter already near by so the local authorities dispatched it instead of a squad car. Thing is, it wasn't a quick fly-by. It circled us about 10 times, but otherwise left us alone. No police lights, no spot light, no loud speaker announcement, just 10 very noisy circles of our location then it went away.

I think unusual activity of any kind gets noticed and "inspected" these days.

AND they have to practice it at night, in the dark too!

Although this may be going in a direction different than you intended, I wish the government took a longer view on many more things. In this situation it seems reasonable to let the person "own" this as compensation for his efforts at salvage but to restrict his ability to pass it along to his heirs and instead when he dies it reverts to the government.

I recognize there are a lot of practical difficulties with this, but in principle, there ought to be a middle ground between turn over immediately and keep forever and if the government can't take a longer view of a middle path, who can?

I read the article and it appears in this case it's NEITHER the TSA nor the CBP, but regular law enforcement. The article makes no mention that the woman traveled across country lines and the password was requested upon re-entering the country. It DOES make a reference to how revealing this password is similar to giving up the keys to a safe in your home (should the LEO have a court order I assume).