4v4l0n42 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Quantum Solution to the Arrow-of-Time Dilemma (federicopistono.org)

Submitted by

4v4l0n42

on Friday August 28, 2009 @07:35AM

4v4l0n42 writes: "Entropy can decrease, according to a new proposal — but the process would destroy any evidence of its existence, and erase any memory an observer might have of it. It sounds like the plot to a weird sci-fi movie, but the idea has recently been suggested by theoretical physicist Lorenzo Maccone, currently a visiting scientist at MIT, in an attempt to solve a longstanding paradox in physics (article).
From the Abstract:
The arrow-of-time dilemma states that the laws of physics are invariant for time inversion, whereas the familiar phenomena we see everyday are not (i.e., entropy increases). I show that, within a quantum mechanical framework, all phenomena which leave a trail of information behind (and hence can be studied by physics) are those where entropy necessarily increases or remains constant. All phenomena where the entropy decreases must not leave any information of their having happened. This situation is completely indistinguishable from their not having happened at all. In the light of this observation, the second law of thermodynamics is reduced to a mere tautology: physics cannot study those processes where entropy has decreased, even if they were commonplace.

It sounds to me like the simulation argument: even if that was the case, so what? In no way it affects our knowledge of the world, nor does it change anything other than providing pure intellectual stimulation."

Nokia Releases Linux Handset 484

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday August 27, 2009 @11:15AM from the where's-my-root-prompt dept.

galaxy writes "Nokia releases their first Linux mobile handset, the N900 The handset is based on the latest release of Maemo, the Nokia mobile Linux platform, and includes e.g. GSM and 3G access (with HSPA, giving datarates of up to 10Mbps downlink and 2Mbps uplink on suitable networks), WLAN, Bluetooth, camera, assisted GPS and, most importantly, a touchscreen complemented by a hardware QWERTY under a slider. The beast is powered by an ARM Cortex-A8 processor at 600 MHz, has PowerVR SGX with OpenGL ES 2.0 support, 32GB internal memory etc."

Nokia Leaks Phone With Full GNU/Linux Distribution 621

Posted by kdawson on Friday August 21, 2009 @10:30AM from the rocket-in-your-pocket dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It is now clear why Nokia has been so slow with S60 updates: the upcoming N900 just left everything else in the dust. Unlike Google's Linux platform, Nokia is not intentionally breaking compatibility with real distros, choosing instead to bring you the unmatchable power of GNU/Linux on your phone. This is the most awesome device I have ever seen: MAP3 CPU/GPU, 3,5" 800x480 touchscreen, keyboard, Wi-Fi, HSPA, GPS; 5-MP camera, CZ lens, 32 GB storage, SD slot; X11, VT100 terminal emulator, APT package manager. Estimated price without credit: $780 (N.5800: $390, iPhone 3GS: $750). Developers should note that even though the current desktop is still GTK+, Qt will be standard across all Nokia platforms in the near future (less powerful phones will use Qt on the Symbian kernel). Users can download flashing software from Nokia, and patches can be submitted at the Maemo site."

HTML 5 Canvas Experiment Hints At Things To Come 321

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 06, 2009 @01:40AM from the faux-phlash dept.

An anonymous reader writes with an interesting and impressive demonstration of modern browsers' HTML 5 capabilities. "From the 9elements blog: 'HTML5 is getting a lot of love lately. With the arrival of Firefox 3.5, Safari 4 and the new 3.0 beta of Google Chrome, browsers support some great new features including canvas and the new audio/video tags. [...] We've created a little experiment which loads 100 tweets related to HTML 5 and displays them using a javascript-based particle engine.' The site warns "(beware: sophisticated browser needed)"; Firefox 3.5 seems to work fine.

Comment Re:So it plays back media (Score 1) 419

by 4v4l0n42 on Tuesday July 07, 2009 @05:13PM (#28614105) Attached to: VLC 1.0.0 Released

I am not afraid to stand up for VLC for I've never found something that has worked so flawlessly crossplatform

How about MPlayer and its various Grafical User Interfaces?

Comment Re:Australia Too (Score 1) 394

by 4v4l0n42 on Sunday July 05, 2009 @05:55AM (#28585405) Attached to: Pirate Party Coming To Canada

The pirates are coming. At this point, there's no stopping them.
Therir weapons have evolved over time. I can see them riding their bloodthirsty kangaroos, screaming in excitement.

Run. RUN!

11-Year-Old Graduates With Degree In Astrophysics 648

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday June 08, 2009 @12:12PM from the they-should-make-physics-harder dept.

Gotenosente writes "11-Year-Old Moshe Kai Cavalin has graduated from East Los Angeles Community College with a degree in astrophysics. 'At a time when his peers are finishing 6th grade, this only child of a Taiwanese mother and an Israeli father is trying on a cap and gown preparing to graduate with a 4.0 from community college.' The article continues with a quotation by the boy, hinting at his modesty, 'I don't consider myself a genius because there are 6.5 billion people in this world and each one is smart in his or her own way.' Daniel Judge, Cavalin's statistics professor, says, 'Most students think that things should be harder than they are and they put these mental blocks in front of them and they make things harder than they should be. In the case of Moshe, he sees right through the complications.'"

Edit-Approval System Proposed For English-Language Wikipedia 439

Posted by timothy on Sunday January 25, 2009 @05:43PM from the would-take-a-lot-of-editors dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A group of powerful Wikipedia insiders are pushing for FlaggedRevisions which will require a 'trusted user' to approve of edits before they go live on the online encyclopedia. There is also opposition but with support of founder Jimbo Wales it is likely to go through. The German version has tried the system, leading to three-week delays between edit and publication. The English wiki with its higher number of anonymous editors per trusted user is expected to suffer longer queues if FlaggedRevisions is implemented on all articles. This comes just a few days after Britannica announced that readers will be allowed to suggest edits and have them reviewed within 20 minutes. Will we see the day when Britannica can be edited almost instantly while editing Wikipedia requires fighting bureaucracy, patience and the right contacts?" Note that, according to the quote from Jimmy Wales in the linked article, this system would only be used "on a subset of articles, the boundaries of which can be adjusted over time to manage the backlog."

After Monty Python Goes YouTube, Big Jump In DVD Sales 281

Posted by timothy on Saturday January 24, 2009 @11:20PM from the causation-may-have-something-to-do-with-correlation dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently it with the release of all of Monty Python's material on YouTube, their sales have blown through the roof on Amazon.com. It is too bad there isn't any proper news article about this, but I think it bodes well for those who champion free content. More importantly, it forces the MPAA's feet into their mouths." Not every performer (or group of performers) has the decades-strong appeal of Monty Python, but this is a great thing to see. The linked article claims that the sales increase in the Python DVDs is 23,000 percent; there are probably some other ways to figure the numbers, but a big increase is easy to see.

Survey Says C Dominated New '08 Open-Source Projects 378

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 22, 2009 @07:54PM from the take-that-25-other-letters dept.

svonkie writes "C overwhelmingly proved to be the most popular programming language for thousands of new open-source projects in 2008, reports The Register (UK). According to license tracker Black Duck Software, which monitors 180,000 projects on nearly 4,000 sites, almost half — 47 per cent — of new projects last year used C. 17,000 new open-source projects were created in total. Next in popularity after C came Java, with 28 per cent. In scripting, JavaScript came out on top with 20 per cent, followed by Perl with 18 per cent. PHP attracted just 11 per cent, and Ruby six per cent. The numbers are a surprise, as open-source PHP has proved popular as a web-site development language, while Ruby's been a hot topic for many."

Comment Current situation in Italy (Score 1) 247

by 4v4l0n42 on Friday August 15, 2008 @09:59AM (#24614307) Attached to: The Pirate Bay Blocked In Italy

I've been reading over this over the last days. Right now I'm on a free WiFi on a camping in Italy (yes, I do this even in vacation ^_^).

Here is the current situation. http://labaia.org/ was accessible yesterday night, currently http://thepiratebay.org/ http://labaia.org/ and even 83.140.176.200 try to point to localhost, so adding

echo -e "83.140.176.200 thepiratebay.org\n83.140.176.156 torrents.thepiratebay.org" >> /etc/hosts

to /etc/hosts was of no use. Using OpenDNS did not help. Probably back home, by having complete control over my internet connection, I could get around it somehow, but from here all I could do to make it work was to use a free online proxy (name yours, I used http://www.youtubeproxy.ws/ for the sake of the example). The Italian blogosphere reports that Tor works as well, but this is a much easier and faster solution IMHO, which does not require additional software installation.

As I wrote on the coverage of the event, this will only help strengthen the popularity of the torrent community and stimulate ways to circumvent government censorships. Italian politicians are generally very ignorant about internet-related topics, and this case makes no exception.

I can still remember when colombo-bt, the biggest Italian torrent tracker, was shut down by the police, the replacement page was made with front page....

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