24 Aug 2004
Ability to create nothing could revolutionize nanocircuits

If you can't figure out why I put this (rather seriously "cheerleading tech") article in my 'Humor' category, read the headline again. Slowly. Think: 'Creation of nothing' is an oxymoron. Creating requires an object - something to be created. Removing something doesn't create anything. Uh, wait a minute ... isn't that really the same as "creating nothing"? Or is it just a double negative in disguise? Only the English professors know for sure. Except at Cornell.

Time is fast running out for the semiconductor industry as transistors become ever smaller and their insulating layers of silicon dioxide, already only atoms in thickness, reach maximum shrinkage. In addition, the thinner the silicon layer becomes, the greater the amount of chemical dopants that must be used to maintain electrical contact. And the limit here also is close to being reached. But a Cornell University researcher has caused an information industry buzz with the discovery that it is possible to precisely control the electronic properties of a complex oxide material -- a possible replacement for silicon insulators -- at the atomic level. And this can be done without chemicals. Instead, the dopant is precisely nothing.

(link) [Science Blog]

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

How to Get Depressed

If you feel a screaming need to get really despondent over the hope for American democracy, may I suggest this little bit from the New Yorker. Here's a teaser:

... about twice as many people have no political views as have a coherent political belief system.

Like I said ... depressing.

How political science understands voters.

(The Unpolitical Animal) [The New Yorker]

via My Apple Menu

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

BugMeNot Gets Booted, Restored

I actually noticed this when it happened: BugMeNot is a great resource, which let's me avoid thinking up new bogus data (and setting up new bogus email accounts) just to read the news. I mean, I still see the ads - and actually respond every once in a while. I know why sites want to know all the marketing data they can get for me: to target ads specifically at me. But why sites need to know this is beyond me: advertiser supported broadcast television has worked quite well for years even though viewed by faceless, nameless couch potatoes, and there's no reason the 'Net should be any different.

The site that helps people evade registration roadblocks on websites couldn't evade trouble itself. Its server host, perhaps bowing to pressure, pulled the plug last week. But a new host is found and BugMeNot is back up. By Rachel Metz.

(link) [Wired News]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Fear Itself

This is some of the finest writing I've had the pleasure to preuse lately. Personal, disturbing and poignant: the author embarks on a "terror tour", trying to discover the myrid ways that humans cope with the continual low grade fear created by living in the Age of Terrorism. Required reading.

So here's a question: Would you ride a bus in Jerusalem? Right now? Here's your 5 1/2 shekels, go take a bus to market, buy some figs. Pick a bad day, after the Israelis have assassinated some terrorist leaders and everyone is waiting for the second sandal to drop. There are lots of buses in Jerusalem -- the odds are still long in your favor. Do you take that dare?

(link) [The Washington Post]

via My Apple Menu

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Where You At?

From Hardscrabble Creek comes this link to a link to this quiz from Coevolution Quarterly 32 (Winter 1981). I've taken the liberty of reproducing it in it's entirety below in case a link eventually disappears. It's a fascinating look at how much you know about where you are. For the record, I got all 20. I think most anybody who farms would get them all. But for you city slickers ...

Where You At? A Bioregional Quiz

  1. Trace the water you drink from precipiation to tap.
  2. How many days til the moon is full? (Slack of 2 days allowed.)
  3. What soil series are you standing on ?
  4. What was the total rainfall in your area last year?
    5. (July-June)? (Slack: 1 inch for every 20 inches.)
  5. When was the last time a fire burned in your area?
  6. What were the primary subsistence techniques of the culture that lived in your area before you?
  7. Name 5 edible plants in your region and their season(s) of availability.
  8. From what direction do winter storms generally come in your region?
  9. Where does your garbage go?
  10. How long is the growing season where you live?
  11. On what day of the year are the shadows the shortest where you live?
  12. When do the deer rut in your region, and when are the young born?
  13. Name five grasses in your area. Are any of them native?
  14. Name five resident and five migratory birds in your area.
  15. What is the land use history of where you live?
  16. What primary ecological event/process influenced the land form where you live? (Bonus special: what's the evidence?)
  17. What species have become extinct in your area?
  18. What are the major plant associations in your region?
  19. From where you're reading this, point north.
  20. What spring wildflower is consistently among the first to bloom where you live?

Scoring

  • 0-3 You have your head up your ass.
  • 4-7 It's hard to be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all.
  • 8-12 A firm grasp of the obvious.
  • 13-16 You're paying attention.
  • 17-19 You know where you're at.
  • 20 You not only know where you're at, you know where it's at.

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Vote count at mercy of clandestine testing

We are setting ourselves up for a repeat of the 'Fiasco of 2000', this time with dangling bits instead of hanging chads:

"I find it grotesque that an organization charged with such a heavy responsibility feels no obligation to explain to anyone what it is doing," Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon computer scientist and electronic voting expert, told lawmakers in Washington, D.C.
"Grotesque" is an understatement ... if this mess isn't resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned by November, we could easily enter a situation where every election is determined not by voters, but by lawyers, courts and judges.

The three companies that certify the nation's voting technologies operate in secrecy, and refuse to discuss flaws in the ATM-like machines to be used by nearly one in three voters in November.

(link) [CNN]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link