From the "now that's cool" Department ::

A privately held company based in Burnaby, British Columbia has today unveiled the world's first job ready quantum computer. D-Wave claims their quantum computer will be a complement to conventional computers and is not intended as a replacement. Today's demonstation was at the Computer History Museum in the heart of Silicon Valley and a follow-up demonstation is scheduled in Vancouver, British Columbia later this week.

Quantum computers are capable of computation beyond the capabilities of today's - and likely tommorow's - digital computers. If everything pans out this will likely be regarded as a breakthrough tool for those involved in complex computer modelling. Medical, aerospace, nanotechnology, and earth sciences should be able to make good use of quantum computing and now there's a machine available to do some serious number crunching.

I'm sure the skeptics will be out in full force as it has been the consensus of many that quantum computers were years down the road. D-Wave appears to have harnessed the brain power required and I wish them all the success in the universe in putting any skepticism to rest.

A full account of the D-Wave news release is available here. I've also created a link to D-Wave's career oportunities page in my employment directory for any brainiacs out there up to the challenge.

::UPDATE:: February 14, 2007

There's some decent discussion on the Orion Quantum Computer at the following blogs. Geordie Rose, the CTO is a part of those discussions. Very interesting but way over my head.

• Scott Aaronson's Blog
• Dave Bacon's Quantum Pontiff

From the "What Day Is It" Department ::

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live a very long time? With advances in technology, I believe there are people 60 years old today that could conceivably live to a 150 or more years. Spare parts for worn out body components are no longer the stuff of science fiction. Things like the latest in exoskeleton assitance could even allow a 125-year-old person to be a productive member of the community and not have to rely on offspring or the spring off of offspring to provide some sort of monetary contribution to keep the blood pumping.

I would think the caring family of Cruz Hernandez was the biggest reason she was able to celebrate her 128th birthday yesterday. (Readily available exoskeleton equipment isn't that easy to come by in El Salvador.) It's somewhat ironic that El Salvador, the scene of a brutal civil war that killed tens of thousands - actually a clash between American and Cuban ideology - and the home to the most barbaric of street gangs - the Mara Salvatrucha or MS13 who kill for pleasure and not only profit - would also be home to the worlds oldest living citizen. What are the chances of that happening again anytime soon?

Anyhow..., think for a minute what it would be like to live for a very long time. I have a grandmother who is going to be 99 this summer and what keeps her going is that she still gets out and does things. She's looking forward to her 100th birthday and that's something else that keeps her going. If you don't have something to look forward to then you start dying from the inside out. I could see Gram living for another 10 or more years without TOO much difficulty.

Just thinking of all the things that could kill you is enough to avoid many of the causes of cerebral atrophy. Atrophy of any body part is generally the result of inactivity. Dodging, or otherwise avoiding becoming a victim of reckless actions by yourself or others has a sizable "luck" factor involved as it relates to survivability. You could be on your way home from work, minding your own business and some idiot running a red light on his way to pick up a lottery ticket could center punch you and your sub-compact gas saver - killing you that way - or provide you with a near miss that would be enough to stop your heart - flat lining you by way of a heart attack. 36,525 days is a long time to go without screwing up or having someone else screw up on your behalf to the detriment of your further existence.

What I wonder about is what I would do to keep myself occupied for a 150 years. There's a lot of things I would still like to accomplish but there's a ton of obstacles that are making that exceedingly difficult. One thing I'm absolutely certain of though is that sitting around watching mindless TV is not enough stimulation to keep all parts functioning in harmony. (The only TV I watch is the Discovery Channel and the Comedy Network - even some of that is somewhat mindless.)

The only thing that's been proven to give you a few extra years is reducing your calorie intake. There's not going to be any fat folks in the Sesquicentennial Club. Nope, it's going to be skinny people with bionic eyes and ears outfitted with a robust exoskeleton and a disproportionate allotment of luck that are going to make up the core membership.

Will they be the equivalent of brainiac cucarachas totally wired for survival? It's hard to say. I just can't imagine what reality TV is going to be like when that 60-year-old today turns 150 in another 90 years but I'll bet that 150-year-old won't be watching it.

From the "Happy Birthday" Department ::

Apple Computer Turns 30 Today

I finally bought a Mac the other day. Actually it was on the fifth anniversary of the launch of their highly regarded Mac OS X - pure coincidence really. After jumping in head first and being wet for a little over a week I've given a lot of thought as to why it doesn't have a lot more market share.

After all..., OS X relies heavily on FreeBSD, perhaps the single most significant unsung hero of the whole technology revolution - it's well thought out, reasonably secure (even more so if you go for OpenBSD), easy to understand (a ton more logical in it's layout and design than Windows, and I'm an MCSE), and the Mac OS X flavor is much easier to look at (I'm also a graphic designer). Speaking of which, the "X" graphic you see above is the "X" from a font that I'm working on - I'm calling it "Flat Broke Mountain" - while I toil away at font design here in the middle of "Oil Patch Central", those around me are pulling in obscene wages for mindless "Oil Patch Jobs". That's telling you, in a round about way, it isn't going to be a "free font".

OK..., let's get back on track here. The reason I think it hasn't caught on the way it should have is that it relies, for the most part, on proprietary hardware. If you could imagine a scenario where Mac OS X ran on exactly the same commodity hardware as Windows? Put a reasonable price on each operating system - say a hundred bucks or so - and I would suspect that Mac OS X would garner a much larger slice of the consumer operating system market than it currently does. For right now it might be a "dual boot" situation but with the advances in CPU design it could be nothing more than a "hot key" switch in a very short period of time. We're almost there right now and with the ongoing delays of Microsoft's Vista it just may be the dawn of a new era where the Mac moves beyond "niche" market.

One of these, for the moment, fictitious machines would really appeal to somebody like me and I'm assuming a lot of others. In the graphic design industry the Mac has been "thee" machine for quite some time except in the "sign making" sector of the graphic design industry where it's been the PC that has ruled. As near as I can tell, the reason for this discrepancy has been the fact that PC's where the first to have the capability to drive vinyl cutting plotters and CNC 3D routers while the Macs where tweaked to provide optimal output to paper in it's many forms.

As much as I like my new Mac Mini I still require a PC for CorelDraw X3 and the ability to send those files to my Summa vinyl cutter. I'm trying to make the total switch but Adobe Illustrator just doesn't compare to CorelDraw in ease of use or feature set - a limp apology to all you Adobe zealots out there but it's a bitter reality - Illustrator is highly overrated.

Forget all the nonesense about Macs only being good for doing graphics or that there is limited software available or any of the reasons you might come up with for not considering a Mac. I've been involved in the IT/Technology/Computer industry for the better part of fifteen years and I only wish I would have taken up a Mac many years ago. I'm pretty certain it would have had a positive impact on the love/hate relationship I've had with technology over the years.

Check back regularly, no telling what little nugget of gnarled knowledge or whimsical wisdom you're going to unearth here but it could be a 'McNugget' - and you just know those are good for you.

Note:: These headlines rotated, updated & barbecued throughout the day. Enjoy!

Hasta La L8r Señor Apple d00d - you're bad to the core!

From the "Now Hiring" Department ::

Alberta's Population Increases By More Than 25,000 In Final Quarter of 2005

OK..., here's the deal. There is a ton of work available in Alberta but there isn't much for accommodations. Now that's not really a problem in the summer cause you can always camp out. This winter was not that bad for the camping workforce but who's to say this global warming thing won't just blow over and we rapidly descend into a 100,000 year ice age. In that case you're going to wish you have a decent place to stay with enough heat to keep the water pipes from freezing.

Eh..., it could happen! Who knows when some meteorite might come screaming in from left field and center-punch a hole into the molten depths of our planet creating a mega-volcano spewing ash and flaming bolders skyward and blocking our Sun's rays for eons. It could happen before midnight or it could be a buzzillion or two years before it does. Who knows?

One thing's for certain though, it WILL happen and may be witnessed by the electro-mechanical offspring of your immediate descendents. If there's one thing the Boy Scouts teach you it's, "Be prepared!" That's why it's a good idea to pick up your rocket science patch or at least know what your escape velocity is and what's required to achieve it.

Just so you don't have to go hunting all over the place it's pretty much accepted that escape velocity is the minimum velocity you need to achieve in order to escape the gravitational pull of the earth, that is, escape the planet earth without getting sucked back.

So:

1/2 mv2 = GMm/R

Where "m" is the mass of the object, "M" is the mass of the earth, "G" is the gravitational constant, "R" is the radius of the earth, and "v" is the escape velocity. Which translates to:

v = sqrt(2GM/R)

or

v = sqrt(2gR)

Where "g" is acceleration of gravity on the earth's surface.

OK..., what this amounts to is finding something that can blast you off the surface of the earth at about 25,000 mph. Personally, I would go with a hybrid solid fuel rocket using liquid oxygen for extra oomph and nitrous oxide for the driver.

If you accelerate enough, like up there near light-speed you end up in some kind of Einsteinish Suspended Animation negating the need for food or other earthly necessities - or at least until you throttle back. I'm guessing that just slowing your ship down to where you can maneuver it into a parking spot could take an hour or two.

If you're hoping to get somewhere before time gets you though, you're going to want to find something that'll propel you at considerably more velocity than 25,000 mph. Bear in mind that with the speeds we're talking about you're going to want to know exactly where you're going because a vector change is going to eat up a lot of inter-galactic real estate before the turn is realized.

Sorry about that, really got off on a tangent there.

Check back regularly, no telling what little nugget of gnarled knowledge or whimsical wisdom you're going to unearth here but it could be an 'Interstellar Nugget' - hitting even a tiny one of these at 25,000 mph can really ruin your day.

Note:: These headlines rotated, updated & barbecued throughout the day. Enjoy!

Hasta La L8r Señor Rocket Scientist Wannabe

Hand Picked Headline News
    - Served Fresh Daily -

Privacy ::
The "E-Commerce Times" Commentary

Decent commentary from a Toronto E-Lawyer who also does the Laws of Dot Com site.

Privacy ::
"Lacombe Globe" Story on the Keystroke Logging Incident

It's a sad day when libraries decide to spy on their employees!

Privacy ::
"Red Deer Advocate" Coverage on the Parkland Regional Library Keystroke Logging Fiasco

Ladies and gentleman, your tax dollars at work!

Privacy ::
Another Take On the Use of Keystroke Loggers in the Workplace

I just can't help but agree with this guy!

Privacy ::
A Primer on Keystroke Loggers

Do you sleep well at night?

A couple of weeks ago the Privacy Commissioner for the Province of Alberta published his ruling on the use of keystroke logging software for employee performance monitoring.(PDF) His decision clearly indicated that keystroke logging software was excessive, intrusive, invasive, and indiscriminate in the information it gathers. Curiously, Parkland Regional Library's flawed logic attempts to defend keystroke logging as an objective measure of employee performance. For anybody interested on why this is flawed logic I would suggest a scan of the comments on Slashdot concerning this matter.

Anyhow..., the Privacy Commissioner for the Province of Alberta ruled that the information collected by way of the STARR keystroke logger was stored in a secure manner. Unfortunately, a wee bit of research into this matter would have clearly shown that the information gathered was, in fact, stored as "clear text" html files easily viewed by anyone with a web browser contrary to what's been reported. That would be just about anyone with a computer hooked to the Internet these days. As far as this genre of software is concerned I would have to say that the IOPUS STARR product is amateurish at best and if nothing else, sleazy.

The deployment of the STARR software on the Parkland Regional Library network was poorly implemented and completely unnecessary. Curiously, software I provided for Parkland Regional Library network in the form of the Request Tracker trouble ticketing software provided PRL with everything they needed to monitor employee productivity and much more. Unfortunately, inept management completely missed the opportunity to exploit Request Tracker for 'Human Resource' purposes. This is clearly an example where IT staff have no business whatsoever dabbling in 'human resources' matters.

Check back regularly, no telling what little nugget of gnarled knowledge or whimsical wisdom you're going to unearth here but it could be a 'Breaking News Nugget' - and you can say you saw it here first. Others will just have to wait for the rest to catch up.

Note:: These headlines rotated, updated & barbecued throughout the day. Enjoy!

Hasta La L8r Señor Headline Hunter

Well..., the Privacy Commissioner for the Province of Alberta has recently come out with a ruling against the use of 'keystroke logging software' in the workplace. The director of Parkland Regional Library, Patricia Silver, has responded to CBC Radio and the Globe and Mail newspaper suggesting my productivity, or lack thereof, was the motive for installing a 'keystroke logger' on my workstation. This leaves me with little choice but to refute these preposterous allegations.

As the Privacy Commissioner rightly concluded there were other less intrusive and invasive means to monitor productivity without resorting to the indiscriminate use of 'keystroke logging' software. As a matter of fact, I provided Parkland Regional Library with just such a way of evaluating productivity in the form of the highly regarded trouble ticketing software,Request Tracker.

All help desk problems were dumped into a MySQL database where simple queries would be more than sufficient to determine who worked on what problem, what was done to resolve the situation, and how long it took. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that Parkland Regional Library would pursue 'productivity' as justification for the installation of 'keystroke logging' software in light of the fact they had the perfect way of gauging productivity by exploiting software I provided them with. Go ahead and make your own conclusions as to their motive.

If you want a little more background information into this whole affair feel free to check out a few things I have put up online regarding this matter. Note the times and dates on the various documents.

Before closing I would just like to thank a couple of folks that urged me to pursue this matter for the sake of worker privacy everywhere. Thanks go to Michael Geist, privacy expert at the University of Ottawa, for the prodding, Philippa Lawson, Executive Director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), for the encouragement and April Brousseau for a very well done research memo that was very helpful in reaching the decision I finally obtained from the Privacy Commissioner. And I guess a final thank you would have to go to Frank Work, the Privacy Commissioner for the Province of Alberta for putting me at ease as I represented myself at the inquiry and for offering his personal parking stall when I couldn't find parking.

Check back regularly, no telling what little nugget of gnarled knowledge or whimsical wisdom you're going to unearth here but it could be a 'Vindication Nugget', one of the most cherished of all nuggets.

Hasta La L8r Señor Snoop

Yesterday I ran the headline about the robot pharmacist that ran amok at the UCFS Medical Center in San Francisco. Well anyhow, it's been difficult to keep the humour up when the basement's flooding and the Sheep River here in Okotoks is spilling over it's banks. I did get a chuckle out of the robot story but today I heard one that easily topped it.

There is a new and exclusive apartment building here in Okotoks that boasts underground parking (now underwater parking), and a view of the Rocky Mountains and the Sheep River Valley from the third floor suites. Apparently the elevator, much like the robot pharmacist, decided to take off on a tangent and do it's own thing. Now I'm pretty certain that your average elevator would be quite low on the evolutionary scale in comparison to your average pill dispensing robot so I was somewhat surprised by what this elevator was attempting to do.

Noticing that the underground parkade was now an underwater parkade, the elevator went autonomous and proceeded to bail out the basement. Without direction or coaching from any superior entity, it plunged into the murky depths of the underwater parkade and slid open it's doors. After taking on a full load of water the doors closed and the elevator headed upstairs to relieve itself. It's reported that second and third floor tenants where completely baffled by the surging tide coming down the hallways and under their doors, eventually crossing their rooms and cascading over their balconies.

It's alleged this rogue behaviour continued for a lengthy period before someone managed to get a couple of synapses firing in sequence thereby facilitating a call to the power company to have the juice cut to the maverick elevator. Unlike your average pill pushing psycho robot, you don't just sneak up on an elevator and jerk out it's battery pack to neutralize it. These things use some pretty serious voltage that tends not to mix real well with water and amateur elevator vigilantes.

Anyhow..., I'm going to cut this a bit short as my printer is giving me a mighty funny look and my cell phone is starting to lip me off. Not a good sign!

Check back regularly, no telling what little nugget of gnarled knowledge or whimsical wisdom you're going to unearth here but it could be a 'Mechanized Nugget' deposited by some psycho, pill pushing robot or wing nut elevator.

Hasta La L8r Señor Elevator Repair Guy

It's being reported by C|net that Sun plans on announcing the release of Solaris as open source software on June 14th. The strategy appears to be an effort to fend off Red Hat, IBM, and Microsoft by engaging developers to take a look under the hood to see what makes it tick. The author says, "Sun plans to publish extensive documentation to let programmers build the operating system from scratch and understand its inner workings." It appears that Sun has been working hard to make sure that Solaris can be built using GCC but will also allow the free use of it's own compiler.

According to the opensolaris.org site, Solaris will be realeased under the OSI-approved Common Development and Dsistribution License (CDDL). The release is expected to include over 1600 patents and millions of development hours worth of code. This being Sun's contribution to the open source community.

I for one look forward to seeing what they have to offer. They seem to have a decent grip on making Solaris run fine on multi-processor systems, something Linux has had mixed results with. I'm sure all the techno-pundits will be beaking off over the next few days and if I get a chance I hope to be able to tune in. Being in the middle of a huge move makes that a somewhat remote possibility though.

Anyhow..., I find this a significant move on Sun's part and one worth keeping an eye on.

Check back regularly, no telling what little nugget of gnarled knowledge or whimsical wisdom you're going to unearth here but it could be a 'Sun nugget', and it just might shine real bright.

Hasta La L8r Señor Sun Tanner

Yesterday I ran across an article that I found quite interesting if you're into the OS (Operating System) Wars. OSNews is running a story about an interview with a couple of Harvard professors using formal economic modelling to predict a result of the competition between Linux and MS Windows.

Pankaj Ghemawat and Ramon Casadesus-Masanell are very thorough in their academic analysis of the competitive dynamics involved. The interview is an enlightening read and brought up many points that I would have never considered - not surprising considering my limited grasp of economics. An interesting concept put forward in the interview is the theory that piracy could benefit Microsoft by expanding it's installed base and, at the same time displacing the installed base of Linux. Ubiquity being the key factor here.

Numerous variables are considered with their economic modelling and the results are intriguing to say the least. FUD (Fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is considered as a variable and the final result is an eye-opener. Overall a very interesting interview and well worth the five or ten minutes it takes to give the story a read.

Anyhow..., that's what you get on a slow news day!

Check back regularly, no telling what little nugget of gnarled knowledge or whimsical wisdom you're going to unearth here but it could be a 'Linux nugget', they leave skid marks in the shorts of Microsoft executives.

Hasta La L8r Señor MS Zealot