….IBM is about to unveil a revolutionary form of computing that could tranform the World of information. It is known as the Crystal Computer and it is a way to use pulses of light to transfer and store digital information as quantum bits. A processor so fast it is capable of running the eqivilatent of 300GHz, or about 400 Gflop/sec, that’s about 100 times faster than today’s fastest consumer microprocessors.
…. The advance is similar to the one made by Australian National University, which used two lasers to focus at a silicate crystal holding atoms of an element known as praseodymium. The element absorbed the light and stored the quantum information as quantum bits.
….IBM scientists will use a complex process to evenly distribute the rare element neodymium inside silicate crystal. The process works by transferring information onto light beams utilizing the natural “nuclear spin” of the photons in the laser beam. When a series of three lasers are beamed in sequence on the crystal, digital information stored as quantum bits are released and the quantum information is encoded on the neodymium atoms. These atoms can store massive amounts of information. Because of the laws governing quantum mechanics, particles that make up the atoms can be oriented both up and down at the same time. This unit of information is called a qubit, and can hold much more information than a standard digital bit made up of either a 1 or 0.
….The best part about this breakthrough is that it shatters Moore’s Law, which states the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits will doubled every 18 months. The Crystal computer changes the computer paradyme by taking the transitor right out of the mix, and replacing it with the atom. Processor heat and complexity will be replaced with the cool methodical spin of the atom.
….Plans are speeding ahead for a 2009 introduction date, the working name for the chip is “neoton”. Can the Crystal Computer deliver the kind of performance promised and the reliability needed to capture the PC market. Only time and Moore’s unstoppable Law will tell….. ” This is clearly the dawning of a new age in computers ”

I’m in a decent relationship right now. It’s been two months and there have been no really big arguments. She scratches my head nonstop, gives me awesome massages, and even brings me food when I’m too worn out from work to go anywhere.

Since moving out on my own, she gave me even better advice on how to do my laundry than my grandmother did.

Flashback:

“Okay Justin, here’s what grandma does..”

She then bends over to separate the clothes, accidentally farts but doesn’t notice it.

“First, you do what my school did when I was a little one. You separate the whites from the colored.”

Thanks racist grandma.

I don’t get to see my girflriend too much because I work so many hours a week that it’s almost impossible. That, mixed with her schedule, doesn’t make for much time to see her. When I do find time to see her, I fly from work to her house going 90 in a 55 MPH zone.

That being said, Monday I was speeding to her house from work. I was on a local highway and about 5 minutes from her house when the blue lights blinded my eyes from my rear-view mirror. Damn, I’ve just been pulled over.

The officer walked up to my car, asked how I was doing, then the usual “license and registration, please”. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I carry a gun for my profession and still had it strapped to my side, so I showed him my work ID and gun permit BEFORE whipping out the gun and saying:

“Here’s my gun! I’m allowed to carry one!”

Phew, won’t do that one again.

After looking over the permit, he eyeballed my crotch.

“I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the car, sir. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Either he’s a gay cop, or he has a problem with the gun.

I was asked to put my hands on the roof of the car. He pulled my 357 out of its holder.

“I’m going to hold onto this while I run your license, if you don’t mind. You can step back into the car.”

I got in and shut my door.
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I’m not the type to advertise for a product that I would not use myself. The reason I’m mentioning Shareapic is because I recently found them and absolutely love what they do. The idea behind it is this: They give you unlimited space for an unlimited amount of image uploads (Basically a better Imageshack, Photobucket, Flickr, etc..) and in return they show ads around your images. If the unlimited part isn’t enough to make you check it out, here’s something that might:

Shareapic actually pays you $0.22 for every 1,000 views your images get.

What could be better than being paid just for hosting your images on a site other than your own to save you bandwidth? I guess maybe winning the lottery (although I did watch that show on the lottery curse…) but I digress. I think Shareapic is worth honorable mention, and we host a lot of our images there too.

The only thing I don’t like about the site is that they really only give you thumbnails to display on your site. I tried including a full scale image but that didn’t work for me. I’ll keep playing with it. Let me know if anyone knows how to do that. Meanwhile, we will continue to use Shareapic to host images that we only need thumbnails for. I’m sticking to Flickr when I need full size images included on the blog.

If it sounds interesting, here is a shiny link to wet your palate:

*EDIT*

I think that once they look over my albums and verify them they will be made public, at which point I should be able to include the full images… hopefully.

It’s happened to all of us before. We legitimately call shotgun only to find it swiped out from under us by the vultures that we call acquaintances. That’s why we’ve taken the liberty of laying out a few basic ground rules that we all must follow when calling shotgun:

1. When calling shotgun, all riders of the car must be outside, and shotgun can only be called when the car is in view.
2. Riders in the car are not allowed to run to shotgun and steal it before the person who called and deserves it arrives there.
3. If a passenger must give the driver directions, they automatically overrule anyone who has called shotgun.
4. If the driver’s significant other is in the car, (s)he is automatically given shotgun, except in the case above.
5. The driver of the car only has authority to overrule a shotgun call if there is significant reason to do so. Mere bias cannot be used as an excuse.
6. If the backseat is extremely small, and one of the passengers is extremely large, then courtesy should dictate an automatic shotgun.
7. In cases of a restricted license, the driver’s legitimate family members should have first choice of shotgun. Those posing as family members should they be pulled over must ride in the back unless shotgun is available.
8. If a legitimate confrontation comes up where the rightful owner of the shotgun can not be determined then it will be decided by one round of paper rock scissors (with no shoot).
9. If the two contenders tie 5 times in a row, the rightful owner of the shotgun is to be decided by a UFC style cage match in which the first blood drawn decides the rightful owner of shotgun.

Religion wars start here:

and…. GO!

Here is yet another example of Digg failing @ life:

We’ve all heard about people running into walls while they were sleepwalking, but that’s old school. Researchers at the University of Toledo in the latest edition of the medical journal Sleep Medicine, report a case about a woman who sent emails while she was sleeping!

The 44 year ol’ woman is reported to have gone to bed around 10 PM, but got up two hours later and walked to the next room.

She then turned on the monitor, managed to connect to the internet, and even logged on to her email by typing in the correct username and password. She then dispatched three emails, all of them weirdly formatted, a mix of upper and lower case characters and odd content.

One of them read, “Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4.pm,. Bring wine and caviar only.”

Another just read, “What the…….”
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A decade is a long time.

A few days ago in the comments to “Houston, Wii have a success story“, I made a rather old-fogey remark about re-hashes of games that I’d essentially been playing since 1992 or thereabouts. This got me thinking…when I complain about developers making the same game over and over, what I’m really complaining about is the fact that they’re making games in the same genres. Do you remember the sense of anticipation when you first played Wolf3D or Dune II? It didn’t just come from what you could do within that game - it was a realization of what that particular game meant for the future…because its underlying gameplay mechanics were simple enough and yet deep enough that they moved from being differently quirky games to inspiring an entire genre of development and expansion.

With that feeling in mind, I started doing some research. It turns out that this past December marked an important anniversary in gaming; it has been 10 years since a new genre was introduced. I realize this is a fairly bold statement, and you are probably mentally preparing a retort about MMORPGs - but follow along with me for the moment and you’ll see what I mean.

There are many old genres of games, some now defunct and some holding their own, but I’m going to focus for the moment on those that developers are still releasing today. We all know that vertical scrolling shooters, interactive fiction, and maze-games were around before 1996.

Something tells me Night Driver takes place during the night because of technological constraints.

Racing Games were introduced in 1974 by Gran Trak 10. In 1976 came Night Driver, the first first person driving game.
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