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This is an article about it, but not an actual paper. And the sladot discussion.

Just did a search, and more "news" on the experiment is mentioned in a much more recent article (in fact the article's main subject is the very experiment this slashdot article is about.) Just search for "John Cramer". Apparently there have been some delays.

Anyway, think of the photons in the original stream. They go through the double slit, and if left alone will create an interference pattern on the screen. If we put a detector right after one of the slits to see which individual photons go through that slit instead of the other one (the position), the interference pattern will stop forming as soon as the photons being measured start making it to the screen. That's the classic double slit experiment. However, instead of a detector, we put a splitter to divide each photon into a pair of entangled photons. One of the pair continues on towards the screen, while the other continues in the direction of a detector. Now any time that detector sees a photon, it tells you that the original photon went through the slit by the splitter, and that's also where the detected photon's twin will be coming from towards the screen. So by detecting (or failing to detect) any photon, you are finding positioning information about it's entangled counterpart. This causes the interference pattern to stop forming at the screen. When the detector is switched back off, the interference pattern comes back.

The setup above, or one very similar, was described in Brian Greene's The Fabric of Cosmos. When reading that, I immediately wondered why they didn't take it to the next level and try to send information by switching the detector on and off. Then over a year later I saw the slashdot article I linked to. Perhaps I should have patented the process when I had a chance....

This is an article about it, but not an actual paper. And the sladot discussion.

Just did a search, and more "news" on the experiment is mentioned in a much more recent article (in fact the article's main subject is the very experiment this slashdot article is about.) Just search for "John Cramer". Apparently there have been some delays.

Anyway, think of the photons in the original stream. They go through the double slit, and if left alone will create an interference pattern on the screen. If we put a detector right after one of the slits to see which individual photons go through that slit instead of the other one (the position), the interference pattern will stop forming as soon as the photons being measured start making it to the screen. That's the classic double slit experiment. However, instead of a detector, we put a splitter to divide each photon into a pair of entangled photons. One of the pair continues on towards the screen, while the other continues in the direction of a detector. Now any time that detector sees a photon, it tells you that the original photon went through the slit by the splitter, and that's also where the detected photon's twin will be coming from towards the screen. So by detecting (or failing to detect) any photon, you are finding positioning information about it's entangled counterpart. This causes the interference pattern to stop forming at the screen. When the detector is switched back off, the interference pattern comes back.

The setup above, or one very similar, was described in Brian Greene's The Fabric of Cosmos. When reading that, I immediately wondered why they didn't take it to the next level and try to send information by switching the detector on and off. Then over a year later I saw the slashdot article I linked to. Perhaps I should have patented the process when I had a chance....

Wow, I came in too late for this discussion. tch...

Either way, I'd like to put in my opinion on the whole evolution debate, since I seemed to iron out a pretty decent solution over a Sunday breakfast about a week ago.

Intelligent design does not belong in the science classroom because it has nothing to do with teaching the scientific method, or any of its applications. Evolution, on the other hand, was a theory supported by the scientific method, and has every right to be taught in science classes. High school biology labs prove the basic theories behind evolution - that and traits are transferred - using fruit flies. Anyone remember back that far? Intelligent Design cannot be proven or disproven through experimentation or research.

If people want Intelligent Design in the classroom, then they're going to have to put it into a philosophy class where it belongs. Hell that's where I learned it. Intelligent design was a product of pure intellectual deduction, just as everything else that is based upon faith and intuition. It was a solution that came by through pure logic. True, logic is a part of science, but it doesn't encompass the whole of science. But I honestly doubt any of the Intelligent Design supporters on the voting bloc care to put the necessary tax dollars into the educational system for such an expansion.

This should also quell anyone who has an issue with the word "belief". To be honest, the word "belief" has lost its meaning. The word "belief" has come to mean "something we consider true or accurate", as though these "beliefs" could change once the facts have been updated. The origins of the word "belief" come from words whose meaning is "to give one's heart to" or "to put their faith in". The difference is staggering, as shown by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kielowski in the first video of the mini-series "Decalogue". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decalogue Check the link to see what the first episode was all about, and a good google search can help you find the films, whether through actual purchase, YouTube, or BitTorrent (whichever you prefer).

Essentially, belief has its place, and absolute belief in science is wrong. Ultimately, there are a few things we can't quite grasp yet with science. There are always anomalies that cannot be explained. I dare not equate this towards evidence of the manifestation of God, however. If people need evidence to prove God is real, then they're already lost; it is because belief in God does not require facts nor research. It merely requires faith. That is what makes belief such a beautiful and powerful thing. Here's a link to an article that I enjoyed reading http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19811291/site/newsweek /.

James Hansen is the Ward Churchill of NASA scientists. He has lost all credibility.

Good thing the left wing is on target!!111

A single ATM probably doesn't handle $1 Billion in a day. However, a single voting machine doesn't handle 150 million votes in a day. But, lets say that each person who uses an ATM has a transaction amount of $20 (that's the minimum for most withdrawals). According to >MSNBC there are 370,000 ATMs in the United States. So if each one does 10 transactions a day, then that's 3.7 Million transactions, which makes $74 Million a day (assuming $20 transactions). Or $27 Billion a year. The voting machines only have to handle 150 million votes, on one day, once every 4 years.

First, thanks for the Linux support.

Second, from Microsofts own web site http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/collusion.html

collusion
noun

Definition:
secret cooperation: secret cooperation between people in order to do something illegal or underhanded

I don't think Microsoft helping Novell is illegal, but it may be underhanded.

Is Novell helping Adobe make sure thier media.flashplayer.class/plugin runs just as well under .Net, Mono, WPF?

Does Microsoft lack the programming talent to create a cross-platform browser plugin without depending on a 3rd party? Libflashplayer.so doesn't require any 2nd or 3rd party support.

Just curious,
Enjoy.

I'm pretty excited about this news, as it seems like Bigelow might have his human-rated space station up and running as early as 2009. Here's the text of the official announcement:

http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/multiverse/news.ph p#update

Also, here's a pretty good article from Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log.

Hopefully SpaceX will have some successful launches soon, in order to provide Bigelow with a drastically more cost-effective way to launch modules and people. It'd be beautiful to see a SpaceX Dragon crew capsule taking people up to Bigelow's Sundancer habitat.

Covered? The "coverage" consists of:

• the claim that no meteorite remain from Tunguska has ever been found (proof by bold assertion)
• a comment that the writer couldn't find the foundation's website. Gee, I wonder if the writer was searching for websites in Russian?
• mockery and sarcasm as soon as the subject of aliens arises. After all, scientists know that aliens can't be visisting the earth, because the Fermi Paradox says so.

I don't think that's particularly good coverage

Anyway, here is a 2004 story from what looks to be a reputable science website on the discovery of the meteorite, with photo

This incident shows the pitfalls of DRM, but Google didn't HAVE to do this.
When Microsoft shutdown their MSN Music Store (the music store portion of http://music.msn.com/ ), they kept the DRM servers in place so users that had purchased music from there could still obtain DRM licenses for the music as needed (for example, when moving the music to a new computer). Google has *plenty* of money and ability to do the same. This is a BS move by Google.

Newsweek has an excellent review of the evolution and funding of the climate change denial movement. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek / It's fine that Dyson encourages scientific skepticism and debate, but in life, we manage risk by taking actions according to best estimates of that risk. If, according to the latest consensus science, the likelihood of serious consequences for human-modulated climate change is, say, 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 50%, or 70%, our actions should reflect those likelihoods. The answer is not to do nothing until the likelihood is 98%. Policy should be proportional to risk, and there's a reasonable scientific consensus that human behavior is 70% to 80% likely to be part of the changes currently observed, and there's a higher chance that these changes are going to have some costly effects regardless of cause. It likewise seems reasonable to encourage more alternative fuels research.

The US doesn't do that, we just hide our heads in the sand and ignore the problem: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20205125/site/newsweek /

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20206676/
 
those filthy bastards!

Given China's recent record, I expect them to be painted with lead paint, filled with propylene glycol, have a case that falls apart, and kill people horribly when it crashes.

But let's all keep buying these unregulated, untested imported products because, wow, look at the savings!

If one manager dared to not comply with the laws, he would sooner or later be found, fired and handed over to a Law Enforcement agency.

If that were true, explain Enron to me. Worldcom. Adelphia. Global Crossing. Yes, the eventually got found out, but only after the damage was done!

You clearly don't know anything about big corporations. I can assure you that sooner or later that "one manager" will fail to comply with the law, either out of ignorance or for personal gain. That's the way it is: people aren't perfect and they often do wrong, and frankly I don't want my privacy subject to other people's witlessness or ethical lapses. Doesn't even take a manager either ... it just takes one low-level employee willing to take a bribe, or trying to make a buck by selling what doesn't belong to him. Lest you think I'm making this up, here's one example. It happens all the time, and when there's money to be made laws will be broken with impunity. To think otherwise is just fooling yourself.

The law has deterrent effect, sure ... but it's not infinite and people will take risks in spite of that. Remember when Toshiba sold military milling machines to the Russians (in violation of both Japanese law and ours) which allowed them to make silent submarine propellers? No? Well, apparently the Russians have turned around and sold that technology to China. The same thing happens with valuable information. People don't willing throw away assets, and once a secret is out it tends to spread.

Once you've opened a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can. When it comes to information, the entire world is the can.

I'm not sure if this would apply to you, but AT&T quietly offers $10 DSL plan - FCC agreement for customers in the 22-state service region.

Agreed. 12 billion per year for 3000 smoking kids a day is what, $11,000 each? That doesn t sound too profitable to me, especially since the government will stick it to Big Tobacco later for these kid s admittedly poor decisions.

Although I understand the point you are trying to make, these are Liquid Hydrogen versions of their 7-series sedan. The normal gas-guzzling 7-series has MSRP of 75k-122k, so I think the people already buying the 7-series (plenty) will be happy to buy the cleaner version.

http://autos.msn.com/research/vip/overview.aspx?ye ar=2007&make=BMW&model=7-Series

This is actually a smart way to do this. It will be expensive to manufacture new technology like this, so start with the sector of the market that is used to paying a lot of money, and as the technology is proven and commoditized, they can work it down into the lesser expensive lines.

-David

And we learned today that some people are just so desperate they have to call the other side names. We also learned that no matter how much we think we know, we find out we actually can be wrong because evidence is looked at incorrectly (or not at all). We aren't humble enough to admit everything is still in question (despite being a theory we teach evolution as fact and refer to it like it has been proven) until we are proven wrong though. Then again, we aren't even humble enough to entertain the notion that our theories are wrong even when new evidence shows things don't make much sense anymore.

My usage conforms completely to the usage in my office.

• 3. (intransitive) (of a computer program) to terminate extraordinarily
• d of a computer system, component, or program : to suffer a sudden major failure usually with attendant loss of data
• 12. Computers. to shut down because of a malfunction of hardware or software.
• 6 Computing fail suddenly.
• 3. computer breakdown: a sudden complete failure of a computer system, device, or program, usually with an accompanying loss of data

The primary cause of death in a vacuum is asphyxiation. So, the following article is relevant:

Reviving the dead: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368186/site/newsweek /

It is asserted that cells do not die from lack of oxygen, but terminate themselves upon resumption of oxygen, because they have been preprogrammed to do so.

It is proposed to give drugs to prevent apoptosis prior to reviving asphyxiated patients, then resume the oxygen supply. In theory this could allow survival after even several hours of being "dead" from asphyxiation.

"Interestingly, neither of those two things has occurred"

Valerie Plame was an intelligence asset working on tracking WMD, and her identity was leaked by people in the Bush administration. This is such basic knowledge that it isn't worth rehashing.

FISA Court judge rules "key portion" of warrantless wiretapping program illegal, refuses to recertify: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/08/02/AR2007080202619_pf.html
  and
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20075751/site/newsweek /page/0/

(Hilariously, this means that either the program continued to operate illegally for "four to five months" or that the administration waited that long before telling congress they needed an *emergency* amendment to FISA or terrists would kill us all right away. Pick one.)

And an earlier ruling (later overturned):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/washington/17cnd -nsa.html?ex=1313467200&en=9c107bcba3ed54d1&ei=508 8&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"I know this is slashdot, where uninformed group-think passes for 'intellect' among masses of less-than-moderately intelligent people who desperately want to be perceived as 'smart', but at least make an effort to know what you're talking about."

Yeah, sorry that isn't working out for you so well.

Yes. Too bad that aggressive men are admired, while aggressive women are reviled. I can't imagine why women are accused of being underhanded sometimes, if direct approaches get them fired.

>Thank God we're finally catching these damned terrorists. I hope he hangs.
Trivial, by the date in the second link you've got almost a week advance warning compared to my European vacation calendar: (European time August 7. 2007, link: US time August 13. 2007)

Now ... that drink ... and that television series...

I'm not ignoring anything.

The 72 hours later bit for FISA is irrelevant.

This unnecessarily saddles foreign intelligence gathering, which has never required a warrant for good reason, with warrant requirements.

Again, see this article for a brief overview of the issues.

Monitoring this kind of traffic should not require a warrant process of any kind, period. It flies in the face of the method and purpose of foreign signals intelligence. It's that simple. You can refuse to understand that if you wish.

There's no indication he followed FISA and made a sworn oath before. He was previously claiming FISA didn't apply because the Patriot act gave the President sweeping powers.

It's only now, that one of the programs has to go under FISA, and FISA has rejected one of the programs as illegal that Gonzales has to swear. Before he was swearing to a fact, now he's only swearing to his *belief* of a fact.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20075751/site/newsweek /page/0/

"But the judge, in an order several months ago, apparently concluded that the administration had overstepped its legal authorities in conducting warrantless eavesdropping even under the scaled-back surveillance program that the White House first agreed to permit the FISA court to review earlier this year, said one lawyer who has been briefed on the order but who asked not to be publicly identified because of its sensitivity."

"The first public reference to the order came obliquely this week from House Minority Leader John Boehner--one of a number of senior Republicans who have been leading the White House-backed campaign to persuade Congress to rush through an expanded eavesdropping measure before it leaves for August recess at the end of this week."

If it has "gone on for decades", then what is the problem NOW?

Why and How has the existing system suddenly failed?

This system failed because more and more foreign communication is traveling through equipment physically within the United States.

Under the current law, monitoring of such communication, which never required (and shouldn't require) a warrant, suddenly requires a warrant, because of the incidental fact that some of the traffic travels through the US.

This fixes that critical problem.

See this article for a brief overview.

Monitoring traffic outside of the United States does not require a warrant, never has, and never should.

This fixes FISA so that communication between persons exclusively outside of the United States without a warrant, even if a portion of the communication is physically routed through the US, which, under the current law, would require a warrant.

It's a much-needed update to an antiquated law. The fact that you think monitoring communications between foreigners outside of the United States should require any kind of warrant - and that you got modded up for it - speaks volumes.

See this Newsweek story for the issue at hand.

It's because listening to foreign communications (communications between two parties outside of the US) doesn't require a warrant, never has, nor should it.

The problem this addresses is that sometimes, foreign communications (including communications exclusively between individuals outside of the United States) now travels through switching or network equipment within the United States, which would require a warrant under the current antiquated rules.

See this Newsweek article for a basic overview of the issue. Some excerpts:

The post-Watergate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) required a warrant for eavesdropping on people in the U.S. But after 9/11, the administration asserted that warrants weren't needed to surveil communications involving suspected terrorists even inside the U.S. The controversy over "warrantless wiretapping" made intel officials gun-shy about eavesdropping even on messages they would have regarded as fair game before 9/11.

According to both administration and congressional officials (anonymous when discussing such issues), the White House and intelligence czar's office are now urgently trying to negotiate a legal fix with Congress that would make it easier for NSA to eavesdrop on e-mails and phone calls where all parties are located outside the U.S., even if at some point the message signal crosses into U.S. territory.

[...]

Much of the electronic communications NSA once pored over, between two parties communicating with each other outside the U.S., used to travel via satellite or radiolike signal, leaving NSA free to pluck the messages out of the air. Technological innovations, however, have shifted more and more traffic--both e-mail and telephone calls--to hard-wired or fiberoptic networks, many of which have critical switching or transit facilities inside the U.S. Therefore, intel-collection officials concluded that FISA court authorizations should be obtained to eavesdrop not just on messages where at least one party is inside the country, but also for eavesdropping on messages between two parties overseas that pass through U.S. communications gear.

If you are the victim, which would you choose? To see your attacker stopped in his tracks or wait for his arrest while lying in the morgue? Mall camera catches 2 men kidnapping woman

Perverted Justice's volunteers are experts at pretending to be kids online. For this investigation, they are posing as 12, 13 or 14-year-olds. The volunteers are in local chat rooms waiting to be hit on by adults interested in sex. Perverted Justice says its volunteers never contact anyone first. Once a man makes his intentions clear he is invited over to our undercover house.

"This sort of vigilantism is not helpful to society."

And this is?

"It's staged from end to end and yet they completely gloss over that part when their over dramatized edited version of what happens gets aired."

Yeah! It's just young kids "borrowing" iPods.

Someone might have already pointed this out but do we expect anything less from a news company that is in a major business relationship with Microsoft? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20098753/

It's been a fucking disaster.

It's been much better than the Korean War — which was not a disaster either. Iraq war just did not match our expectations, hence the common feeling, that it is "a disaster". It is not — not in comparision...

You seem to be forgetting the 35,000 wounded soldiers.

No — you are forgetting all the wounded in Korea. Even if we add all of the wounded and the killed Americans in Iraq together, we'll still get a lesser number than 50,000.

And what about the 600,000 dead Iraqis

Uncounted millions of Koreans have perished... BTW, your figure of 600,000 is a very rough estimate of the upper boundary of the real number (which nobody knows). Your figure includes, for example, the estimated number of children not born due to the conflict — the methodology simply looked at how large the population should've been using the pre-war growth rates vs. the number of people present (in various regions of the country). Figures from other conflicts tend to count the actual victims...

For another example of a lower-tech war, the Iran-Iraq war resulted in about 900,000 victims — lower than in the Korean conflict, but much higher than today.

The US strategy of "shock and awe" in the early days of the war destroyed most of Iraq's remaining infrastructure (like hospitals, sewage treatment, water treatment, power plants, etc.)

US never targeted these, and — thanks to our technology — we avoided destroying most of these things (unlike, say, during the low-tech WW2 carpet-bombing). If any got destroyed accidentally, we rebuilt them quickly. Our enemies, of course, are working hard destroying the infrastructure, but that's neither our fault, nor our technology's.

None of this helps win "hearts and minds".

This and the rest of your rant are off-topic — we are discussing, whether technology helps reduce the casualties in war.

I know it's newsweek but the stats seem reasonable...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10965522/site/newsweek /

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19696636/

The US patent system is not the best in the world because there can't be one. As soon you accept the idea of protectiong ideas you promote the economically implicit concept of scarcity of resource and various forms of implementation that are economically inefficient (monopolies and such).

On slashdot people discusses about software patents knowing that they apply the most to high technology and computer science. Unfortunately they apply also to other things including medicine (drugs).

Do not forget what happened a short while ago in Brazil when the president was criticised for an allerged violation of a patent. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18490388/

As to the "difficulty" of finding the information on Apple's site: Main iPhone support page [apple.com] -> Battery Service: FAQ [apple.com] and iPhone Service: FAQ [apple.com]

Can you prove the data on the last page was there prior to the iPhone being released? You say it was but there has to be proof. MSNBC disagrees with you that it was on the site prior to launch: "Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Hakes said Thursday the company posted the battery replacement details on its Web site last Friday after the product went on sale." The emphasis is mine. Now it could be argued that the information posted after launch is not required to be known to a customer prior to launch however there is no reason for them to wait until after the launch to post the information. I also read on MSNBC that the few national columnists (Walt Mossberg being one of them) who got to review the iPhone had very little info regarding the battery in their reviews because Apple provided hardly any information regarding the battery.

That's not just my opinion, that's what the Supreme Court and lower courts have consistently interpreted the Constitution to mean.

So I'm sure you'll be willing to revise your opinion when the conservative-packed Supreme Court grants cert to this case and hands down the inevitable 5-4 finding in favor of the plaintiffs?

Precedents such as Miller are just goofy, and really do need to be overturned or at least clarified. They don't even pretend to take into account the founders' other writings or the legal climate that prevailed at the time the Constitution was written.

The ACLU has no problem disagreeing with case law all the way up to and including rulings from the Supreme Court, when it suits their purposes. Miller is just a convenient exception for them.

You can do all of that with a Media Center Edition (MCE) PC. You get maybe a $600 PC with 2 tuner cards. Just like you would set up 2 different rooms to receive Dish TV, you get 2 Satellite boxes. Each tuner connects to a Satellite box. Through IR Blasters you can then control each Satellite box for each tuner.

The Guide is a piece of cake. All MCE PCs come with a built-in Guide feature that downloads all of the information from a free, centralized server, once every 2 weeks, or you can update as needed.

Guide info is not hidden. There are several web sites in fact that carry guide info for all of the major carriers and even local TV stations. TitanTV is perhaps the best known one. Since I'm using a Windows MCE, I use http://tv.msn.com/ That's also the source that is automatically downloaded for free to use in the MCE interface.

Yes, you can copy the recorded shows anywhere you like, and as I point out in my earlier post, you can even play them on any PC with Windows Media Player 11 on it.

It was Scaled Composites' facility. Rutan wasn't there.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19983814/

Poker bots have been deployed at major online poker sites for years now. There was media coverage of this trend back in 2004 and 2005. The real issue is that the online poker sites have to ensure they aren't American poker bots, lest they run afoul of Bush administration policy.

Actually I wouldn't know because I've never been in Second Life (Hell I don't have time for my first life much less a second!). Some believe though that virtual sex can be real when there is an emotional component to it. MSNBC did an article about this very issue

You forgot the squirrel-mounted laser in there somewhere.

Perhaps netflix thought - wth - if we go out for a few hours and people can choose their movies that's just tough luck.

Or perhaps not. Netflix stock dropped 7% due to a report today indicating a shrinking customer base. They can't afford to have any service outages if they want to compete with Blockbuster whose main advantage over Netflix is of course their brick and mortar stores.

If you find a cannon on an old pirate ship at the bottom of the ocean, do you just call it a hunk of metal since it doesn't work anymore? Or do you call it a cannon?

Did we find Sarin Nerve Agent? Yes
Did we find weapons that were meant for the dispersal of Sarin (WMD)? Yes
Did we find weapons which contained Sarin? Yes
Did we find fully functional WMD? Maybe, but they were old and we weren't going to test them.
Did we find new WMD? No

See the clarification? Hell, some of our soldiers were even exposed to the effects of one. So to say they were useless or not considered WMD is hogwash.

There are plenty of reports outside of Fox News that say Sarin (WMD) was found. Here are a few:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4997808/
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?i d=15918
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation /archive/200606/NAT20060621e.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/06/iraq/mai n627580.shtml
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI CLE_ID=40754