PAgent’s Progress
Link ‘o the Day
The Bloggess vs. a Clueless Marketer:
Them: We are sorry that you are passing on this valuable opportunity to help your readers. We will keep you in mind for future products which meet your requirements.
me: You will send me four dead cats in a shoebox. I will send you high-quality photos of them as marionettes.
I’ll just let you guess who wins.
German Physicists Create a “Super-Photon”
Researchers in Bonn have cooled photons to a temperature where they spontaneously condense, forming a ‘photonic Bose-Einstein condensate’.
So, what’s it good for?
This photonic Bose-Einstein condensate is a completely new source of light that has characteristics resembling lasers. But compared to lasers, they have a decisive advantage, “We are currently not capable of producing lasers that generate very short-wave light – i.e. in the UV or X-ray range,” explained Jan Klärs. “With a photonic Bose-Einstein condensate this should, however, be possible.”
It’ll be like “The Road Warrior” without the apocalypse
We’ve had quite an interesting time lately. The Wife had another kidney stone, requiring a trip to urgent care, then the emergency room, and finally short-stay surgery. That made for a long day. She ended up spending the night in the hospital for observation, leaving yours truly to be single parent for a day or two. I’m really not cut out for it.
Then, as my partner’s health improved, our cat Shadow started collapsing in mid-stride. He’s had hip problems for years, which the vet blamed on hip dysplasia, but it had gotten progressively worse. He was having more and more trouble getting up onto furniture, and often didn’t climb into a cat box before peeing. But, he was enjoying the new kittens. They would pile on top of him and engage in a three-way groomfest with purring so loud you could hear it in the next room.
Read entire article.
Let’s try ‘Israelification’ instead of Humiliation
With all the furor over the new TSA procedures (what a choice: let someone touch your junk, or let someone ogle your junk), why don’t we look at how Israel handles airport security?
Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel’s largest hub, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?
“The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport,” said Sela.
The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?
“Two benign questions. The questions aren’t important. The way people act when they answer them is,” Sela said.
Does it work? The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.
Read The ‘Israelification’ of airports: High security, little bother
Quote of the Day
“Back-ups. Oh, my god. Burning your stuff to CD or DVD is not good enough. Trust me on that. Things go wrong. Understand that Storage Will Always Fail. Always. I have a ruggedised, manly and capacious 32GB USB memory stick that can withstand fire, water, gunshots and the hairy arseteeth of Cthulhu itself — but my daughter decided she wanted to liberate one of my bags for her use, took the stick out of it and put it ’somewhere safe.’ It has never been seen again. Storage Will Always Fail.”
– Warren Ellis, on “What I Use”
I Love This Town
-
flotsam -
My Card
