Miscellanea

Like the title says. The team has succeeded in building a controlled NOT gate operating on two qubits.

Unfortunately, estimates for the development of a usable quantum computer are given as "between 10 and 100 years." (On the bright side, at least, that will give us some time to develop communication security that isn't based on the difficulty of factoring primes.)

Incredulous.

Great article. Criticizes Bush's mistakes just as deftly as it refutes the erroneous Iraq-as-Vietnam mindset.

Excerpt:

Let's get real. What the people who blew up the Red Cross and the Iraqi police fear is not that we're going to permanently occupy Iraq. They fear that we're going to permanently change Iraq. The great irony is that the Baathists and Arab dictators are opposing the U.S. in Iraq because — unlike many leftists — they understand exactly what this war is about. ... They understand that this is the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the U.S. has ever launched — a war of choice to install some democracy in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world.

It's lovely when articles are like this. A perfect expression of my thoughts on the situation in Iraq.

Excerpt:

More troops, or more troops able to carry out counterinsurgency operations, would surely help; yet the Pentagon appears to be focused more on reducing the numbers of U.S. troops before next year's presidential campaign gets underway. An acceleration of development projects would win more Iraqi hearts and minds, but the administration still insists on concentrating contracts in American hands, thus slowing the work. Progress is also badly needed on the political front, where disputes over how to write a new constitution threaten to create an impasse. Rather than opposing funds for reconstruction or demanding a timetable for withdrawal, Congress should be pressing Mr. Bush on such issues.

If you're unsatisfied with your current Windows mail client, and haven't heard of Thunderbird, then you're missing out. I've been using for a month now, and it is quite simply a dream come true :)

In all the news coverage regarding a possible Google initial public offering, I saw a few article mention that, in addition to the venture capitalists who provided the funds to start Google, Stanford University stood to make a good deal of money from any such offering. None of the articles I read said why, though.

Well, here's why (from "Software Licensing: Stanford's Approach" by Katharine Ku, Director of Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing):

Sergey Brin and Larry Page had worked on a search engine for many years. Because the students had been paid by a government contract in the course of their research to satisfy their Ph.D. degree requirements, under both Stanford's Patent and Copyright policies Stanford had ownership to the software, that is, the written code. In addition, Stanford filed a patent on the method of ranking Web pages in order to improve searches. After trying to find the best licensee, Stanford determined that these inventors were in the best position to develop the invention effectively, and so Stanford licensed the technology to their company, Google.

I hate advertisements, and so I was disappointed to see that I'd have to pay to have an ad-free blog. But this is pretty damn cool: the ads seem to be related to my blog content! Google is so awesome...

From al-Kitaab: "English has only one regular plural pattern: the addition of s to the singular. Arabic has about fifteen regular plural patterns that you will learn over the course of the year."

I'm gonna die :)

Summary: Add Iraq, Egypt, and Israel to NATO.

Response: It would be quite interesting if such an outlandish proposal ever passed. On one hand, it would seem to harken back to the mess of entangled alliances that led to WWI. (As it is, two NATO members -- Turkey and Greece -- constantly threaten each other with war.) On the other, the mutual security interests provided by NATO would presumably serve as a deterrent to violence. Yes, quite interesting...

أرك فريدمن

How cool is that?

So it turns out that NASA, just like the Soviets, started with pencils after all. Aware of the problems of using pencils (e.g., broken lead floating about the space ships), Fisher -- a private company -- developed and later marketed the pen to both NASA and the Soviets.

Pretty amazing...

The lightning bolt hit Caviezel and the film's assistant director Jan Michelini while they were filming in a remote location a few hours from Rome.

It was the second time Michelini had been hit by lightning during the shoot.

Divine intervention? Publicity stunt?

Kinda scary, kinda cool. I wonder how long until we can shoot down mortars.

Hilarious.

More from gawker.com:

The memo, purported to be written by Kimberly Arena and cc:ed to Jason Schaefer, begins: "As requested, please find below selected alternatives for ordering sushi in Mid-town New York City. The alternatives have been categorized into two distinct groups: (i) those available on Seamless Web Professional Solutions ("Seamless Web") and (ii) other sushi restaurants from which delivery to PWRW&G LLP's office is available." The three page memo, which is addressed to Kelley Parker, is excellently prepared. It contains multiple Zagat's footnotes, discusses the importance of not ordering sushi on Mondays, and addresses the merits of many restaurants. In a deadpan impersonation of David Foster Wallace, the paralegal writes:

"Haru has come highly recommended to me, specifically in terms of their sashimi. Most praise their huge portions and 'exalted' sushi."