REVIEW: The Samsung Galaxy Note. “The Note ($300 with a two-year AT&T contract) occupies a gray area between smart phones and tablets. If you think of it as a phone, its 5.3-inch screen seems bafflingly large; if you think of it as a tablet, it’s pretty puny looking.”
Over the past few decades, scientists have learned to cheat a bit on the Uncertainty Principle through a process called “squeezing,” which has the effect of changing how the uncertainty is shown graphically. Changing the circle to an ellipse and ultimately to almost a line allows one component of the complementary measurements – the momentum or the position, in the case of an object – to be specified more precisely than would otherwise be possible. The actual area of uncertainty remains unchanged, but is represented by a different shape that serves to improve accuracy in measuring one property.
This squeezing has been done in measuring properties of photons and atoms, and can be important to certain high-precision measurements needed by atomic clocks and the magnetometers used to create magnetic resonance imaging views of structures deep inside the body. For the military, squeezing more accuracy could improve the detection of enemy submarines attempting to hide underwater or improve the accuracy of atom-based inertial guidance instruments.
Now physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have added another measurement to the list of those that can be squeezed. In a paper appearing online February 26 in the journal Nature Physics, they report squeezing a property called the nematic tensor, which is used to describe the rubidium atoms in Bose-Einstein condensates, a unique form of matter in which all atoms have the same quantum state. The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
I was going to add some sort of uncertainty-related tagline, but I wasn’t sure which one to use.
Related: IBM Touts Quantum Computing Breakthrough. “Scientists at IBM Research today said they have achieved a major advance in quantum computing that will allow engineers to begin work on creating a full-scale quantum computer. The breakthrough allowed scientists to reduce data error rates in elementary computations while maintaining the integrity of quantum mechanical properties in quantum bits of data, known as qubits.”
COMPUTERS: Why The Progress Bar Is Lying To You?
WELL, PRENATAL IS TOUGH: How Young Is Too Young to Learn to Code?
#OCCUPYFAIL: AgitProp hoax exposed. “Sorry, The Restaurant Receipt Left By That Nasty, Rich Banker Is A Photoshop Hoax.”
WELL, IF WE PROGRAM THEM IN, THEY WILL: Will Artificial Intelligences Have Motivations?
HEY, LOOK: Senate Democrats Who Took Campaign Contributions from Koch Industries. Including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. I guess they didn’t realize Koch was evil until after the check cleared.
MORE ON THAT HAWKER BEECHCRAFT/EMBRAER ISSUE: Breaking: Air Force Sets Aside Controversial Light Air Support Contract. “An email from the USAF, which the Tatler has obtained from a source on the Hill, says that the Air Force is reevaluating its controversial Light Air Support (LAS) decision. The email, which went out today from Air Force’s Senate Liaison office, also promises an investigation.”
CHANGE: Americans Get Reacquainted With IUDs. “After decades of sloppy research, bad publicity, lawsuits and widespread fears of health hazards, the intrauterine device is making a major comeback in the United States. . . . Use of IUDs declined drastically in the 1970s and 1980s when one device, the Dalkon Shield, was linked to severe infections. Poorly designed studies blamed all IUDs for infections that damaged a woman’s tubes and caused infertility. The Dalkon Shield was taken off the market, but later studies that were better designed found that, all other factors being equal, there were no more cases of pelvic inflammatory disease among IUD users than occurred in nonusers.”
AN INTERESTING-LOOKING Second Amendment symposium at Fordham on March 9.
STEVE HAYWARD: The Unbearable Gleickness of Being: An Omnibus Climate Update. “Evelyn Waugh couldn’t make this stuff up.”
“IF YOU AREN’T GETTING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING, YOU AREN’T GETTING YOUR FAIR SHARE:” Share of Government Aid in Personal Income Doubles.
A NEW BLOG PROJECT for Justin Katz.
THE DANGER OF THE “MIDDLE INCOME TRAP.” More on that here. Reader Eric Schubert writes that it’s time to break out the Robert Heinlein “bad luck” quote again.
THE INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE Joins The ObamaCare Fight.
SCIENCE: “Yes, yes, remember the old rule: Whenever researchers find something to be true of females, they will interpret and report it as evidence of female superiority. As I’ve pointed out many times, this rush to patronize women reveals an underlying fear that women actually are inferior.”
YOGA AND SEX SCANDALS: No surprise here. “Why does yoga produce so many philanderers? And why do the resulting uproars leave so many people shocked and distraught? One factor is ignorance. Yoga teachers and how-to books seldom mention that the discipline began as a sex cult — an omission that leaves many practitioners open to libidinal surprise. . . . Since the baby boomers discovered yoga, the arousal, sweating, heavy breathing and states of undress that characterize yoga classes have led to predictable results. In 1995, sex between students and teachers became so prevalent that the California Yoga Teachers Association deplored it as immoral and called for high standards.”
AT AMAZON, it’s the Automotive Outlet sale.
“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Obama Administration Ignored Iranian Opposition’s Advice. Plus, Sen. Schumer’s back-channel to Iran.
KILL IT. Europe In Turmoil Over Internet Anti-Piracy Legislation. “In the wake of the public outcry in the United States over proposed domestic antipiracy legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), international regulation is also taking a hit. The edifice of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) seems to have crumbled. This time, however, it happened in Europe.”
HILLARY CLINTON: These Republicans are inflaming the situation in Afghanistan by criticizing Obama for apologizing. Allah comments: “I can see why she’s ‘somewhat troubled.’ If there’s one thing the Democratic Party stood for between 2003 and 2008, it’s the principle that the opposition party should tread lightly when criticizing the president lest it inflame opinion abroad.”
HEY, LET’S NOT BE HASTY HERE. . . . White House Says Keystone Pipeline Still Possible.
ED DRISCOLL: Global Warming Causes Amnesia.
PREEMPTIVE STRIKE: Democrats target likely veep pick Sen. Rubio. “Democrats have started to wage a political assault against Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and the intensity of their attacks will intensify in the coming weeks. Senior officials in the Democratic Party anticipate that Mitt Romney will win the Republican presidential nomination and then tap Rubio to be his running mate.”
CHARLIE MARTIN: Watch The Other Hand.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: College At Risk.
NITS MAKE LICE: James Taranto eviscerates Charles Blow’s anti-Mormon bigotry. Have you no decency, sir? No decency at all?
TODAY’S DAILY $1.99 Kindle Book Deal.
The judge needs to find a new line of work that’s in line with his capabilities. Barista is a stretch, I think. But let’s be honest here. This is fear masquerading as broadmindedness. It’s all about the beheadings. So if you want respect for your religion, start beheading people. That’s the real message.
MEGAN MCARDLE: Why I Still Think We Should Eliminate The Corporate Income Tax. “I think the thing’s horribly inefficient–companies and rich people spend an exorbitant amount of time arranging their affairs to be lower-taxed, rather than more productive. Taxing capital once, when it hits a person, as ordinary income, would in one fell swoop eliminate most of the tax-avoidance activity that goes on in this country. It’s also not necessarily as progressive as its proponents think.”
Plus this: “If we really hate corporate power, we’d probably want to look at the things that entrench it–like heavy regulatory burdens that are more easily borne by large, powerful companies. But this is not an argument that ever gets much traction outside of some economists, and the libertarian community. Which makes me think that the corporate income tax is largely expressive–we like policies which penalize corporations, particularly big ones, regardless of their actual effect on corporate power.”
AT LAW & LIBERTY: Duplicity and Diversity in Higher Education.
UNSUCCESSFUL VATICAN ATTACK provides insight into Anonymous.
REDESIGNING PEOPLE: How Medical Technology Could Expand Beyond The Injured.
Last fall at the TEDMED meeting in San Diego I watched a man walk who was paralyzed from the waist down. Injured a year earlier, Paul Thacker hadn’t been able to stand since breaking his back in a snowmobile accident. Yet here he was walking, thanks to an early-stage exoskeleton device attached to his legs.
This wasn’t exactly on the level of “exos” we’ve seen in sci-fi films like Avatar and Aliens, which enable people to run faster, carry heavier loads, and smash things better. But Thacker’s device, called eLEGS — manufactured by Ekso Bionics in Berkeley, California — is one harbinger of what’s coming in the next decade or two to treat the injured and the ill with radical new technologies.
Other portents include first-generation machines and treatments that range from deep brain implants that can stop epileptic seizures to stem cells that scientists are using experimentally to repair damaged retinas.
No one would deny that these technologies, should they fulfill their promise, are anything but miraculous for Paul Thacker and others who need them. Yet none of this technology is going to remain exclusively in the realm of pure therapeutics. Even now some are breaking through the barrier between remedies for the sick and enhancements for the healthy.
Faster, please.
NONPROFITS: Reader Kate Nguyen sends a link to Sand Soldiers of America.
SEXISM FROM THE LEFT: “That is a depiction of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser. Why show him as a female? Some lefty is confused. Trying to denounce Prosser, he has unwittingly expressed the opinion that to be female is to be debased and inferior.” Well, if you look at the Occupy-camp rape rate, this isn’t such a surprise.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH NEBRASKA? “Santorum leads Obama in the swing states, 50% to 45%, and nationwide 49% to 46%. This gives him an edge of three percentage points over Romney, whose swing-state lead is 48% to 46% and who ties the president nationally at 47%.” Wait, I thought he was an unelectable extremist. . . .
I’m not a fan of Santorum, whose big-government social conservatism is pretty much orthogonal to my own views. But I’m not convinced that he’s as out of touch with the views of American voters as his media critics think.
HAVE YOU NO DECENCY? Politicizing the Ohio School Shooting.
Remember that whole “new civility” thing? Me neither.
WHAT YOU MISSED ON MSNBC: MSNBC host Rachel Maddow’s new favorite word: ‘Vaginal.’
PAUL BEDARD: Mainstream media scream: Schieffer’s bow to Obama.
SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED: Occupy Students Shout Down Brewer. “In their latest bold stand for free speech, unruly Occupy students at American University in Washington, D.C., shouted down Republican governor Jan Brewer of Arizona on Friday, forcing her to flee the room with aid from security guards.”
GETTING TO KNOW the patient of the future. “Internet pioneer Larry Smarr’s quest to quantify everything about his health led him to a startling discovery, an unusual partnership with his doctor, and more control over his life.”
THE B-52 GETS A 21ST CENTURY UPGRADE. Amazing that we’re still relying on planes that are older than me.
SHOCKER: Christianity gets less sensitive treatment than other religions admits BBC chief. A few beheadings and that would probably change.
PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: Crony Capitalist Epic Systems Gets Rich by Manipulating Stimulus Timeline.
JUST TWO DAYS UNTIL Blogger Appreciation Day!
GREETINGS FROM TENNESSEE: America’s Third Most Popular State!
BUT REMEMBER, ZBIG USED TO WORK FOR JIMMY CARTER: Brzezinski: Obama ‘Understands the World Better Than Any Other Politician.’
UPDATE: A reader emails: “Zbig might be a little biased …considering Obama gave Zbig’s son a plum post as US ambassador to Sweden.”
JACOB SULLUM: How Dahrun Ravi Could Get 10 Years for Expressing Unapproved Views.
Following up on George Korda’s warning . . . .
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Media Matters boss paid former partner $850G ‘blackmail’ settlement. “Media Matters chief David Brock paid a former domestic partner $850,000 after being threatened with damaging information involving the organization’s donors and the IRS – a deal that Brock later characterized as a blackmail payment, according to legal documents obtained by FoxNews.com.”
Related: Dershowitz to campaign against Media Matters. “’Not only will [the Media Matters controversy] be an election matter, I will personally make it an election matter,’ Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law School, told WABC’s Aaron Klein today.”
FASTER, PLEASE: Africa’s Amazing Rise And What It Can Teach The World. “Probably the most astonishing development success since 2000 in Africa has been the communications revolution.” I’m seeing signs of this in the Nigerian branch of my own family.
MAX FISHER: Stratfor Is a Joke and So Is Wikileaks for Taking It Seriously.
For comparison’s sake, The Atlantic often sends our agents into such dangerous locales as Iran or Syria. We call these men and women “reporters.” Much like Statfor’s agents, they collect intelligence, some of it secret, and then relay it back to us so that we may pass it on to our clients, whom we call “subscribers.” Also like Stratfor, The Atlantic sometimes issues “secret cash bribes” to on-the-ground sources, whom we call “freelance writers.” We also prefer to keep their cash bribes (“writer’s fees”) secret, and sometimes these sources are even anonymous.
So why do Wikileaks and their hacker source Anonymous seem to consider Stratfor, which appears to do little more than combine banal corporate research with media-style freelance researcher arrangements, to be a cross between CIA and Illuminati? The answer is probably a combination of naivete and desperation.
I’ve never been especially impressed with them, though some InstaPundit readers are fans.
REDUCTION IN CRIME CAUSED BY lead-free gasoline?
Wait, I thought it was because of Roe v. Wade.
THIS WEEK in the future.
AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Men’s Clothing.
GAS PRICES: Reader James Holloway sends this picture from Brooklyn, with the heading “Thanks, Barack!” Wow. I just paid $3.76/gallon (up from $3.72 the day before), but this is much worse.
HOSTAGE CRISIS UPDATE: Egypt opens trial at heart of rift with US. “Egypt pushed ahead Sunday with the trial of 43 employees of pro-democracy groups, including 16 Americans, even as Egyptian and U.S. officials tried behind the scenes to resolve the case that has caused the deepest rift in their alliance in 30 years.”
Related: Absolutely no spin at all: how the AP reports Obama’s hostage crisis in Egypt.
THE PROBLEM IS THAT WHILE SPAMBOTS ARE GETTING SMARTER, HUMANS REALLY AREN’T: CAPTCHAs need to get harder again. “It’s been getting harder to prove you’re a human online in recent years. The squiggly letters known as CAPTCHAs that protect websites against spam software have got more distorted, as the software has got better at reading them. That was why I thought it worth noting when NuCaptcha launched its video CAPTCHAs, which are easier for humans but still secure and have been adopted by sites including Groupon. Now researchers at Stanford suggest they, too will have to become more cryptic.”
HOW ACT OF VALOR filmed using real special forces. I haven’t seen it, but email from InstaPundit readers is uniformly positive.
NEIL ARMSTRONG SPEAKS.
AT LEAST THERE’S NO PRISON RAPE: A Lockyer Sex-Tape Stunner. “There’s a shocking twist in the saga of Alameda County Supervisor Nadia Lockyer and the incident at a Newark hotel that landed her in the hospital and a male acquaintance under police scrutiny. We’re told that a sex tape of Nadia Lockyer and the man was given to her husband, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, about six weeks before the Newark incident. The treasurer believed that the man, who has a history of arrests for alleged methamphetamine use, might make the tape public if forced to break off a romantic relationship with the supervisor. . . . Efforts to reach Nadia Lockyer were unsuccessful, and her acquaintance isn’t talking. She has checked into a center for treatment of an unspecified chemical dependency, and he was released from the Santa Clara County Jail late Thursday after being arrested last weekend for alleged drug possession and driving under the influence.”
LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Law Deans May Go to Jail for Submitting False Data to U.S. News.
FOUR HOURS OF EXERCISE A WEEK protects against work burnout and depression.
MISS ME YET? Video: Obama, Pelosi, Clinton Attacked Bush — For $3 A Gallon Gas. Now Obama would be bragging if he could get it back down to that price.
THIS IS A BAD SIGN: Parody Commercial Wants Chevy Volt To Be Obama’s Running Mate. Well, it’s dull car, but it’s still more exciting than Joe Biden.
HAPPY THIRD ANNIVERSARY to the Tea Party movement.
Here’s something I wrote back when it was new.
COMING SOON: A Solar Singularity?
WHERE’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WE WERE PROMISED? Afghanistan, Jerusalem, Tehran: White House Entangled As Policies Falter.
UPDATE: Obama Doctrine Failure.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Invest, Innovate, Educate.
One important step to improve American education would be to use technology to support more effective education. This isn’t about having cable in every classroom; it is about using the power of the information age to transform the way America teaches and learns at every level from pre-K to adult education.
This will only happen as more companies develop and market new programs and products, and that’s only going to happen when venture capitalists think there is money to be made in the field and offer promising start ups (that, for example, put experienced teachers together with tech wizards to design products that actual teachers find actually helpful) the resources they need to turn a vision into a product.
Unfortunately, venture capitalists are staying out of the K-12 education market in droves. The world’s central bankers are printing money as fast as they can, there is more capital floating around the world system than ever before, and venture capitalism has made handsome enough returns for so long that the whole process of financing start ups is more advanced and efficient than ever before.
Enhancing American educational performance is one of our greatest needs, and with millions of young people in school, the potential market is huge.
Yet with all this going in its favor, venture capitalists aren’t biting. A recent meeting that brought venture capitalists and education bigwigs together came up with some interesting reasons why.
Read the whole thing.
MITCH DANIELS: Obama Administration Wanted Higher Gas Prices.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) blamed President Obama for the spike in oil prices, saying the administration had pushed for consumers to pay higher prices at the pump.
“Let’s give the president credit for one domestic policy that works. He wanted higher gas prices and he got them,” said Daniels on Fox News Sunday. “Secretary Chu said $8 are about what they pay in Europe. It would be great. Secretary Salazar said $10 and it still wouldn’t be for drilling in the places where we know there’s an awful lot of domestic production. And so, they have gotten the doubling of gas prices and perhaps worse, it’s a conscious policy of this administration. Maybe the one thing they set out to do and actually accomplished.” he said.
Ouch. Well, it’s easier to call for higher gas prices when they’re low. Once they’re high, and people are feeling the pain, it seems kind of idiotic. At least in an election year.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “[T]oday’s college degree is the equivalent of the 1950′s high school diploma…”
UPDATE: Ann Althouse on the education debate:
Obama is the university professor, promoting the product/process that lifted him up and that he bestowed on others. His vanity/self-esteem are all wrapped up in the ideology of education. But Santorum’s self-image is that of the student. He was oppressed and bullied. He still feels angry and ripped off. Which attitude resonates more with the American people today? That is, do Americans identify with the professor or the student?
We’re supposed to be against bullying now, right?
HEY, I’D VOTE FOR HIM: Clarence Thomas For President? It’s time this country elected a black man to the White House! And it’s hard to argue with this: “Thomas has worked at the highest levels of government for over two decades, far longer than the single-term senator from Illinois who currently occupies the White House.”
It’s not true that he’d have to resign from the Court to run, though. Senators don’t resign from the Senate to run for President. He might miss some Court business while running, but not that much, and it’s not like Senators don’t miss Senate business when running. (Just look at Barack Obama’s Senate career). So why resign? In fact, for real fun, it’s not even clear that he’d have to resign from the Court if elected — the incompatibility clause only bars members of Congress from serving in the executive branch, with no similar bar to members of the judiciary.
UPDATE: Boy, a lot of nasty comments about Clarence Thomas over at the Daily Beast. It’s a good thing he’s a Republican, or they’d be racist.
BESTSELLING HDTVS size 55″ and up. You know, my 46″ doesn’t look as big as it did when I bought it. And when I bought it, I immediately wondered if I shouldn’t have gone a bit bigger. They’re a lot cheaper now, though.
Also, clearance watches.
GEORGE KORDA: Okay, so we’re against “Bullying.” Now what’s “bullying?” “Unfortunately, with respect to schools, anti-bullying sentiments are showing the hallmarks of leading us down a path we should not go in terms of trying to control what students are allowed to say or think. . . . If bullying is considered anything that makes someone else ‘uncomfortable,’ well, you might as well close the schools, for this reason: life is uncomfortable.”
UPDATE: “It’s a trap!”
GEORGE FRIEDMAN RESIGNATION EMAIL was a fake.
PROF. JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Wasn’t So Special: Revisiting the ‘Cronkite Moment,’ 44 years on.
POLL: 55% Oppose Affirmative Action Policies for College Admissions. Only 24% support.
USA TODAY POLL: Both Romney and Santorum Lead Fading Obama.
UPDATE: Democrats: Americans Who Dislike ObamaCare Are Stupid. “A Quinnipiac University poll last week found 52% of Americans want ObamaCare scrapped. That’s up from 44% last May. Meanwhile, just 39% want to keep it, down from 45%. Even one in five Democrats now says Congress should repeal the law. That hasn’t kept liberals from calling ObamaCare foes idiots, which is what Democratic party head Debbie Wasserman Schultz did when asked about the poll.”
There’s a winning campaign slogan: If you don’t like us, you’re idiots, you idiots! Well, if you fall for that one, you are. . . .
THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND:
Man Arrested After 4-Year-Old Draws Picture Of Gun.
Chinese Netizens Flood Obama’s Google+ Page: “We are not barbaric people, we are just suppressed.”
“Impossible” Nanobots Now Taking Flight.
Poll: 2/3 Support Keystone XL Pipeline.
Senate Candidate Calls for Investigation of IRS ‘Assault’ on Tea Party.
Los Angeles DA had chance to nab fugitive teacher accused of sex crimes.
NY Democratic Rep. Booed By Constituents Over Contraception Mandate.
It’s Official: Shepard Fairey Is A Fraud.
RULES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Obama campaign web ads flout White House photo warning. But when the big people ignore them, the little people are likely to follow suit.
GUY SORMAN on the world’s new rebellions.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN, the White House would secretly funnel money to the NYPD so it could spy on Muslims. And they were right! “The disclosure that the White House is at least partially paying for the NYPD’s wholesale surveillance of places where Muslims eat, shop, work and pray complicates efforts by the Obama administration to stay out of the fray over New York’s controversial counterterrorism programs. The administration has championed outreach to American Muslims and has said law enforcement should not put entire communities under suspicion. The Obama administration, however, has pointedly refused to endorse or repudiate the NYPD programs it helps pay for.”
RANKING LAW SCHOOLS BY placement in BigLaw jobs.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: U execs are paid handsomely on their way out.
Since retiring 18 months ago as chancellor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn Martin has collected more money from the U than she did in her last two years on the job.
One of nearly a dozen university executives to step down in the past two years, Martin was granted a two-month sabbatical, a 15-month “administrative transitional leave,” a final deposit to her retirement fund, and a severance check. Total: $535,700.
Hers was the biggest in a series of compensation packages signed by former university President Robert Bruininks worth more than $2.8 million. The deals routinely granted top administrators lengthy paid leaves, then allowed them to return to faculty positions or depart the U’s payroll. . . . Many of the agreements rival in size the recent employment extension given to retiring U Athletic Director Joel Maturi, which caused several legislators to ask if the university is spending money wisely at a time when many Minnesota students and families are struggling to pay college costs.
Read the whole thing.
HIGHER EDUCATION UPDATE: Relatives of lobbyists, campaign donors got lawmakers’ help to enter Univ. of Illinois. “Politicians exerted their influence at the University of Illinois to boost admissions prospects for the relatives of lobbyists, fundraisers, a union leader and other connected applicants, a Tribune investigation has found. . . . Family members of at least three lawmakers also were part of the now-abandoned secret system, known as Category I, a separate admissions track that allowed some subpar students to get admitted to the state’s flagship university.”
THE RETURN OF GAS-PUMP ACTIVISM: Barack Obama Doesn’t Care About People Who Have To Buy Gas.
