Already switched too. Whatever, Oracle. What are you up to with VirtualBox?

That's disturbing. I've heard that in prison, if they think Reiser isn't good enough, they use 'butter'.

Greatest post... Ever. Thank you.

As soon as I get past the whole "lesbians + me" fantasy, I'll let you know... ..but it'll be tough to post after I'm dead.

You're missing the point by describing quantum entanglement as "less mysterious". It was Einstein's (discredited) "hidden variable" theory that used the analogy of two (unknown but predetermined) coins in a pair of envelopes. In that analogy the state of the coins exists but is unknown, and the relationship between the two coins is known. The key feature of entanglement of a pair of photons is that the state of the photons is FUNDAMENTALLY UNKNOWN i.e. "does not exist", but the relationship between the two photons is known.

The only way you can explain that is in the real world is that the instant the state of one photon is measured (remember, quantum theory states that the state does not exist until measured) it them communicates this new information to the other photon (faster than the speed of light).

If we were going to try to stick to the coin analogy, we would be mailing two identical dice in envelopes to two different cities. Who ever opens their letter first roles the dice. Whenever the second person opens their letter and rolls their dice, they get the SAME RESULT as the first person. Both dice are completely random, but they both roll the same result, ***even if they roll their dice at exactly the same instant***.

Now I know you're thinking "the second dice isn't random at all". Well, it doesn't make any sense, but it's exactly as random as the first dice, it's just that the dice are both random in the same way. (btw, this only works for the first dice role. Looking at the die destroys the entanglement)

Einstein said (politely) that "entanglement" was proof that Quantum Theory was a load of fucking bullshit. Problem is: entanglement happens.

On the bright side, you're in exalted company if you think this is a load of bullshit. :)

As for why they are using eyeballs instead of electronic photon detectors... I have no idea. Based on the abstract (not the "fine" article) I'd say they were really working on amplifying entangled photons (which sounds HARD!) and someone said, "hey, if we could cascade >x photons, you could actually see it....". Well, after that, it's just a matter of writing an important-sounding article to justify the expense! :)

And I for one welcome our new entangled overlords.

I'm always happy to compensate a builder/author/artist for their work. What I don't like is giving great gobs of cash to a monopolitic middle-man who gouges me for far more that his obsolete distribution efforts are worth.

I work at a large company where were the users got too much influence over naming the servers one year. They used an app called (lets says) ATKAS (an acronym). The database it uses got named... ATKAS, and the server name (against my seemingly insanely vigorous objections) got named "atkas".

I mean, naming it "atkas" only makes sense, right?

Fast forward 3 weeks to when "Atkas is Down!!!". What do you mean? The server, the app, the database... something else! I don't know!! People would hear "atkas was down" and the meaning would change with each iteration. ..and skip forward to the next day in the management meeting where PHBs are discussing "Atkas". That's when I have to stand up and say "It wasn't Atkas because ATKAS was up, although ATKAS was leaking memory". It's a complete cluster-fuck.

This is why I always insist that hostnames be fairly short, easy names hopefully with a common theme. They shouldn't be anything to do with the servers actual purpose or the always useless "tkmailextdev"-type names. Much better to call it "cherry" or "fork" or something. Anything!!!

TFA is pretty thin. IT people are stressed due to the... economy?
Rant begins>
What's driving me mad at work is dealing with buzz-word spouting idiots. They can barely spell "computer" but they'll come with requests that I perform some half-witted change to fix a problem that they created. (that, of course, won't work)
If they could just summon the brains the come to me with a goal (i.e. we want the application to run faster) I could fix their problems. Instead, I'm not allowed to address the garbage they've created for themselves so they can avoid looking as clueless as they really are. And just forget about introducing new tech to make everyone's life easier. They'd have to learn something new. That makes me a bad guy, until we NEED that new tech, in which case I'm a slacker for not having already done it!
And, no, I'm not perfect, but when I make a mistake I admit it and fix it. Meetings are a lot shorter when you say "yeah, that was my mistake. Sorry about that. I'll fix it" instead of blame-storming the issue for an hour or two of my life that I'll never get back! FUCK!!! FUCK!!! FUCK!!!
So I guess I'm saying, it not the job, it's the people. In the end, it's way less stressful to lower yourself to their level and play the blame-game instead of trying to achieve something useful. Note: this drives you insane if you have a brain. Never forget:
- no good deed goes unpunished
- if you fix something it's your fault that it broke in the first place

Anyway, that why I think about quitting 5 times a day. Unfortunetly, now is not the best time.

/bias - Sysadmin in a medium-sized company/
Note: there are some rare semi-competent to competent people out there who can at least partially do their job (whatever it is). They are no problem to deal with at all.