The Nature of Glass Remains Anything but Clear

It is well known that panes of stained glass in old European churches are thicker at the bottom because glass is a slow-moving liquid that flows downward over centuries.

Well known, but wrong. Medieval stained glass makers were simply unable to make perfectly flat panes, and the windows were just as unevenly thick when new.

The tale contains a grain of truth about glass resembling a liquid, however. The arrangement of atoms and molecules in glass is indistinguishable from that of a liquid. But how can a liquid be as strikingly hard as glass?

“They’re the thickest and gooiest of liquids and the most disordered and structureless of rigid solids,” said Peter Harrowell, a professor of chemistry at the University of Sydney in Australia, speaking of glasses, which can be formed from different raw materials. “They sit right at this really profound sort of puzzle.”

Philip W. Anderson, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at Princeton, wrote in 1995: “The deepest and most interesting unsolved problem in solid state theory is probably the theory of the nature of glass and the glass transition.”

He added, “This could be the next breakthrough in the coming decade.”

The Nature of Glass Remains Anything but Clear – NYTimes.com.

‘Joker’ accused of trying to steal Batman item

THREE RIVERS, Michigan – Three Rivers police have arrested a man who they say tried to steal posters and other items related to the new Batman movie from a cinema lobby while dressed up as the Joker.

Detective Mike Mohney said Monday he expects 20-year-old Spencer Taylor to be charged with larceny and malicious destruction of property.

‘Joker’ accused of trying to steal Batman items – Yahoo! News.

Exchange rates | The Big Mac Index

Currencies are very dear in Europe but very cheap in Asia

THE Big Mac Index is The Economist’s light-hearted guide to exchange rates. The index is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity, which says that exchange rates should move to make the price of a basket of goods the same in each country. Our basket contains just one item, a Big Mac hamburger. The exchange rate that leaves a Big Mac costing the same everywhere is our fair-value yardstick. Many of the currencies in the Fed’s major-currency index, including the euro, the British pound, Swiss franc and Canadian dollar, are overvalued and trading higher than last year’s burger benchmark. Only the Japanese yen could be considered a snip. The dollar still buys a lot of burger in the rest of Asia too. China’s currency is among the most undervalued, but a little bit less so than a year ago. The full index is available on our website by 7pm London time on Thursday July 24th.

Exchange rates | The Big Mac Index | Economist.com.

According to this, the Swedish Kroner, along with other European currencies, are very much overvalued. Damn.

Wikipedia, Meet Knol

Seven months after Google began testing a service called Knol, a Wikipedia competitor, the company on Wednesday finally introduced it.

The search expert Danny Sullivan aptly describes Knol as “Like Wikipedia, With Moderation.” Articles on various topics are penned by individuals, and in many cases, experts — not collectively by the anonymous masses. Knol authors can choose to benefit from the “wisdom of the crowds” by letting others edit or supplement their articles. But those changes make it into Knol entries only with the author’s permission.

Knol, which, by the way, is short for knowledge, is making some people uneasy because it further transforms Google from a search engine that helps people find content into a site that helps people create and publish content.

Wikipedia, Meet Knol – Bits – Technology – New York Times Blog

Yum! Candy that fights cavities

Children everywhere may have scored a major coup this week in the eternal battle with parents over the consumption of candy, after new evidence found sweets made with the sugar substitute xylitol could actually reduce the risk of cavities.

But the findings are already creating some worry among leaders of Canada’s dental industry who are concerned candy companies could overstate the limited advantages of the sugar substitute to boost their products.

Although xylitol has been found to reduce the bacteria that cause cavities and tooth decay, some experts fear the evidence could dilute messages children receive about the critical importance of brushing, flossing and a proper diet.

globeandmail.com: Yum! Candy that fights cavities.

Will computers ever use DNA instead of silicon chips?

No, it won’t happen. Even the people who are working on ways to make DNA perform calculations cannot see it happening. Take Professor Andrew Ellington at the University of Texas at Austin, who said: “I think my general opinion about DNA computing is not ‘no’ but ‘Hell, no’.”

So, how come some people believe that the future of computing lies in the molecule that provides the blueprint for how living creatures are made?

It started in the 1990s when Leonard Adleman, of the University of Southern California, came up with a way to use DNA to solve one of computing’s most difficult and complex tasks: the travelling salesman problem.

This tries to find the most efficient way to visit a set of cities so that you pass through each one as few times as possible – ideally, only once. Adleman worked out that the paths between cities could be coded into DNA.

If a path between two cities matched, those DNA strands would stick to each other. Eventually, lots of strands would match up to produce a list of cities in DNA, packed into a classic double helix. Just shaking up a test tube full of those different DNA strands did the job. It was the ultimate parallel processor.

Will computers ever use DNA instead of silicon chips?.

My grade 10 science project was on DNA computing. I had to make a presentation in front of the class and no one knew what the heck I was talking about! That was about 7 years ago.

Randy Pausch, 47

PITTSBURGH – Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose “last lecture” about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, died Friday. He was 47.

University spokeswoman Anne Watzman said Pausch died early in the day at his home in Virginia, where he and his family moved last fall to be closer to his wife’s relatives.

Pausch was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September, 2006. His popular last lecture at Carnegie Mellon in September, 2007, garnered international attention and was viewed by millions on the Internet.

In it, Pausch celebrated living the life he had always dreamed of instead of concentrating on impending death.

“The lecture was for my kids, but if others are finding value in it, that is wonderful,” Pausch wrote on his website. “But rest assured; I’m hardly unique.”

globeandmail.com: Randy Pausch, 47.

A tremendous loss.

Zimbabweans battle money shortages as collectors buy hundred billion dollar notes on eBay

Amid Zimbabwe’s mind-boggling hyper inflation, a new 100 billion dollar bank note has more value as a novelty item on eBay than on the streets of the capital.

The note, launched this week, is worth enough to buy a loaf of bread _ if you can find one on Zimbabwe’s depleted store shelves. Meanwhile on eBay, the bill was on offer for nearly US$80.

Notes in the millions of dollars are useful only as toilet paper and it’s cheaper to light a fire with low denomination bills than with newspaper.

In the political and economic turmoil since disputed March 29 elections, prices have risen almost daily. Factories and businesses have shut down amid empty order books and chronic shortages of gasoline, power, water and spare parts for equipment repairs.

Zimbabweans battle money shortages as collectors buy hundred billion dollar notes on eBay – News.

I still want some of these!

Telus, Bell to switch cellphone technology: report

An iPhone from Bell Canada Inc. or Telus Corp.?

It’s possible as the two cellphone companies are about to announce a shift to network technology that is compatible with Apple Inc.’s hot-selling mobile device, according to reports that have surfaced over the past few days.

The two cellphone companies — Canada’s second- and third-largest providers, respectively, after Rogers Communications Inc. — are poised to announce a conversion from their current wireless technology and toward the more popular kind used by their rival, according to a report Monday from UBS Investment Research.

Both companies have cellphone networks that run on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, which is used by fewer than 20 per cent of the providers in the world, while Rogers uses the near-ubiquitous Global System for Mobile communications (GSM).

Bell and Telus are looking to switch to either Wideband-CDMA (WCDMA) or High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology, both of which are similar to GSM in how they transmit data, UBS said. Over the past few years, Bell and Telus have seen Rogers run away with signing up new customers, who are attracted to flashy GSM phones — including the iPhone — that are not available to CDMA carriers.

Telus, Bell to switch cellphone technology: report.

Rumors about Telus’ shift to GSM has been circulating for a while now, but it got all the more real the other day, when Telus, along with Bell and Rogers, won a huge chunk of the wireless spectrum being auctioned off by the government. So I was talking to a “source” about this a couple months ago, and basically the one of the main reason for the switch is it would allow foreigners with GSM phones to roam on their network – and of course charge them their ridicolous rates. This is something Rogers has been doing for years and has generated a lot of revenue for the company. Telus wants a piece of that action as well, especially in time for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

There is one technical issue though, that most articles fail to mention. Current GSM phones, including the iPhone, won’t be able to run on their network (unlike what CBC would lead you to believe). That is because Telus will employ a different frequency on GSM. Quand-band phones are so last year, here’s to quint-, sex- and sept-band iPhones!

In oil-rich Norway, petrol prices most expensive in Europe

OSLO (AFP) – In Norway, many motorists are up in arms over why they have to pay the highest petrol (gasoline) prices in Europe when the country is the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter and a recent tax hike has done little to cool tempers.

“It is really strange: we have lots of oil and we’re a rich country. Why do we have to pay so much?” asks Per-Arne Skjerpingstad, a 38-year-old hospital porter as he fills up the tank of his Peugeot 307 at an Oslo gas station for 750 kroner (94 euros, 148 dollars).

Diesel costs 14.23 kroner (1.78 euros, 2.82 dollars) a litre (quarter gallon) and 95 unleaded 13.84 kroner, putting it at the top of the European league, EU figures show.

And while many countries are discussing how to soften the blow of skyrocketing oil prices on consumers, Norway on July 1 increased its already heavy tax take by 0.05 kroner per litre on petrol and 0.10 kroner (0.1 euro cent, 0.2 dollar cent) on diesel.

In oil-rich Norway, petrol prices most expensive in Europe – Yahoo! News.

The ‘eight don’t asks’ of the Olympics

Posters are appearing around Beijing guiding locals about how to interact with the (few) foreigners coming for the Summer Games.

The posters instruct residents on the “eight don’t asks” when chatting with foreign guests. Here’s a rough translation, courtesy of the Peaceful Rise blog:

Don’t ask about income or expenses, don’t ask about age, don’t ask about love life or marriage, don’t ask about health, don’t ask about someone’s home or address, don’t ask about personal experience, don’t ask about religious beliefs or political views, don’t ask what someone does. 

The ‘eight don’t asks’ of the Olympics – Yahoo! News.

With No Frills or Tuition, a College Draws Notice

BEREA, Ky. — Berea College, founded 150 years ago to educate freed slaves and “poor white mountaineers,” accepts only applicants from low-income families, and it charges no tuition.

“You can literally come to Berea with nothing but what you can carry, and graduate debt free,” said Joseph P. Bagnoli Jr., the associate provost for enrollment management. “We call it the best education money can’t buy.”

Actually, what buys that education is Berea’s $1.1 billion endowment, which puts the college among the nation’s wealthiest. But unlike most well-endowed colleges, Berea has no football team, coed dorms, hot tubs or climbing walls. Instead, it has a no-frills budget, with food from the college farm, handmade furniture from the college crafts workshops, and 10-hour-a-week campus jobs for every student.

Berea’s approach provides an unusual perspective on the growing debate over whether the wealthiest universities are doing enough for the public good to warrant their tax exemption, or simply hoarding money to serve an elite few. As many elite universities scramble to recruit more low-income students, Berea’s no-tuition model has attracted increasing attention.

With No Frills or Tuition, a College Draws Notice – NYTimes.com.

Server, connectivity problems add to Apple’s MobileMe woes

A mail server crash and unexpected fiber-optic line problems are the latest in a long string of hiccups that have soured the launch of Apple’s new MobileMe internet service and recently left some subscribers without email access for as many as five straight days.

Apple’s support forums are rife with complaints from affected users, many of which are just as frustrated with the company’s poor communication over the matter as they are with the service outage itself. Several also doubt an official assessment of the scope of the problem posted to the MobileMe support site, which states that only 1 percent of subscribers have lost access to their email.

“I know at least 10 people with MobileMe and all of them have not had access to MobileMe mail since last Thursday or Friday, including me,” one subscriber told AppleInsider. “Now either it’s just a coincidence that everyone I know is in the 1 percent, or Apple is flat out lying.”

AppleInsider | Server, connectivity problems add to Apple’s MobileMe woes.

Tsk tsk. I briefly mentioned a little problem Apple was having with MobileMe web apps when they launched it last week. That was fine because users, myself included, were able to access email, calendar and contacts through other means (desktop, iPhone, etc). However, this recent issue is something else. Fortunately, I am not included in the “1%” but I know at least one person who is. Five days without email access is unacceptable!! Some use this service for business purposes. At $100/year, you would think Apple would at least have a backup server.

Woman Says She Sat In Urine-Soaked Airplane Seat

WINCHENDON, Mass. — A Winchendon woman said an airline did not help her after she sat in a urine-soaked seat on a West Palm Beach, Fla., to Boston flight on Sunday night.

“I was sitting maybe 30 seconds to minute and realized that my pants were soaked,” Jennifer Castellano said.

Castellano said she went to the lavatory to check her jeans and long sweater.

“I then realized I was saturated in urine from the smell,” she said.

Castellano said a flight attendant told her someone had gone to the bathroom in the seat during the previous flight.

“A flight attendant told me that on the previous flight a man had urinated on himself in that particular seat. And I said, ‘I’m not sitting on a three hours flight soaked in someone else’s urine. That is absolutely disgusting,'” Castellano said.

Woman Says She Sat In Urine-Soaked Airplane Seat – Boston News Story – WCVB Boston.

I would be ‘pissed’ too.

McCain ad blames Obama for rising gas prices

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain is launching a new television ad that blames Democratic rival Barack Obama for rising gasoline prices.

The ad, airing on national cable and in 11 battleground states, argues that the cost of fuel is rising because of opposition to oil drilling in the United States.

The announcer in the ad says, “Gas prices – $4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America. No to independence from foreign oil. Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?”

A photograph of Obama appears on the stage as a voiceover of a crowd chants: “Obama, Obama, Obama!”

McCain ad blames Obama for rising gas prices – Jul. 21, 2008.

You gotta be effing kidding me?!