Month: January 2009

Stanford Writes In World’s Smallest Letters

This is an electron wave quantum hologram displaying the initials “SU” of Stanford University. The yellow area is a copper surface. The holes in the copper are molecules of carbon monoxide. Constantly moving electrons on the surface of the copper bounce off the carbon monoxide molecules in predictable ways. With their dual wave/particle properties, the electron waves in the purple area create inference patterns that can store readable information, in this case, SU. To store information, the researchers arrange the molecule in specific patterns with a scanning tunneling microscope.

So?

But in this experiment we’ve stored some 35 bits per electron to encode each letter. And we write the letters so small that the bits that comprise them are subatomic in size. So one bit per atom is no longer the limit for information density. There’s a grand new horizon below that, in the subatomic regime. Indeed, there’s even more room at the bottom than we ever imagined.“

Oh.

Source: sciencedaily.com

A single and same voice for the whole thousand voiced multiple?

fiatluxemburg:

Three things have happened, in a blink of history’s eye: (1) a single medium, the Web, has come to dominate the storage and supply of information, (2) a single search engine, Google, has come to dominate the navigation of that medium, and (3) a single information source, Wikipedia, has come to dominate the results served up by that search engine. Even if you adore the Web, Google, and Wikipedia – and I admit there’s much to adore – you have to wonder if the transformation of the Net from a radically heterogeneous information source to a radically homogeneous one is a good thing. Is culture best served by an information triumvirate?

All this means is that things haven’t changed much since the 19th century? I think that for most of the twentieth century, the one set of books most homes relied on for “facts” would have been an encyclopeida, the same way that people in the 17th century, if they had books, would have had two for sure: a Bible, and Pilgrim’s Progress.

But, in addition to this, it offers dynamic updating , infinite length, and distributed input (diversification of what rises to the level of interest/inclusion). In other words, Wikipedia is the library. It wins because it is the most generically useful, and because people use it to check facts. Also, it condense information into the length people looking for facts need, i.e., shorter.

Abundant information easily accessed

Disturbing conclusions regarding food

fiatluxemburg:

absalomabsalom:

fiatluxemburg:

And so I ask you all, is there a rule against simply eating hummus with a spoon? If so, why? If not I may just eat entire vessels (the saller size ones) of hummus as I eat single-serving yogurt units.

By definition, getting what you want is unbearable; it is both frightening, because it makes life seem unnecessary (“let’s just stop right here!”), and disorienting, because it throws our whole economy of desire into disarray (eventually, hummus won’t be so great… but there’s nothing as good as hummus!).

What is it about this sort of explanation that requires parenthetical illustration by exclamation? I’m serious, it seems a pretty constant theme.

I understand what you’re saying, there is a certain structure to these types of ennunciations (see here). But one must understand how hard it is to talk seriously about the voices in one’s head telling you to eat stone-ground mustard–all of it–straight from the jar…with a spoon (see here). Parentheses provide a space for the voices, as it were.