- Leland Yee IS the American dream. Like so many people across the
greatest nation on the face of God’s spinning sphere of life, Yee had a lofty
vision of a better life for himself. An ambitious California state senator who
wanted more than spending six months a year not accomplishing anything in
Sacramento, he engineered a run for mayor of San Francisco in 2011. As one
might surmise from the fact that Leland Yee has not served as mayor of San
Francisco at any point in the city’s history, he lost. In fact, Yee finished a
distant fifth and not only that, he was stuck with $70,000 in campaign debt
that he had to retire before he could mount his next run, for secretary of
state. So what’s a man to do when he dreams big, falls hard and tries to rise
up again? According to prosecutors, he tries to raise capital the old-fashioned
way, by setting up a secret arms deal that ends up as a sting operation in
which he ends up sitting across from an undercover federal agent in a coffee
shop in early March, brokering what he was told was a $2 million arms deal that
would include the purchase of shoulder-fired missiles from Islamic rebels in
the Philippines. "Do I think we can make some money? I think we can make
some money," Yee told the agent in a conversation recounted in a 137-page
arrest affidavit. "Do I think we can get the goods? I think we can get the
goods." Say this for Yee: He definitely knows how to answer rhetorical
questions he asks. Amazingly, Yee has built his career as a Democrat who stumps
for gun control and campaign finance reform. Now, he’s one of about two dozen
people charged in a sprawling racketeering case brought by the U.S. attorney's
office in San Francisco. He’s there alongside a former San Francisco school
board president and a previously-convicted Chinatown mobster dubbed
"Shrimp Boy." Yes, Shrimp Boy. You know your life has not ended up
the way you hoped when a person named Shrimp Boy is involved in any way. Yee’s
Senate colleagues have knee-jerkedly suspended him and now, the good people of
his district have no one representing them at the statehouse…….
- Count on more winter for HBO. No, some damned groundhog
didn’t spot his shadow and guarantee more chilly weather. As expected, the
premium cable network gave a big, bold green light to “Game of Thrones” and
extended the popular drama for at least two more seasons. Less than 48 hours
after the fourth season of the show premiered Sunday night and drew
the biggest audience for an HBO show since “The Sopranos” finale in 2007, HBO
inked a deal guaranteeing two more years of arguably its most popular show. The
fifth and six seasons are now guaranteed, as confirmed by none other than HBO president
Michael Lombardo. “Game of Thrones is a phenomenon like no other," Lombardo
said in a statement. "[Executive producers] David Benioff and D.B. Weiss,
along with their talented collaborators, continue to surpass themselves, and we
look forward to more of their dazzling storytelling." The timeline for the
series has always been closely linked to the books on which it is based and as
there are currently five books in the George R.R. Martin fantasy series and
Martin is working on the final two tomes, the show’s producers must be careful
not to get too far ahead of themselves. Meanwhile, Martn is reportedly weighing
a cinematic version of his tale and given the popularity of the series, it
would certainly do big business. For now, fans will be confined to the small
screen and based on the show’s soaring ratings, that won't be a problem………
- So….who wants to develop more powerful quantum
computing systems? The answer, of course, is everyone. That means we
should all be excited that researchers have created a new method for
connecting particles using a laser that places rubidium atoms along a
"lattice" of light. Their work could lead to the aforementioned quantum
computing systems. To accomplish their aim, the research team paired a "lone atom of
rubidium, a metal, with a single photon, or light particle.” That allowed the
atom and photon to switch to the quantum state of the particle. From there, it
became possible to facilitate many interactions within a small space and that
could eventually lead to powerful quantum computing possibilities. "This
is a major advance of this system," said Vladan Vuletić, a professor in
MIT's Department of Physics and Research Laboratory for Electronics (RLE), and
a co-author of the paper. "We have demonstrated basically an atom can
switch the phase of a photon. And the photon can switch the phase of an
atom." As anyone who paid attention in their advanced physics class knows,
photons can have two states of polarization and these states can be changed
through atoms. Photons can also be altered from their "ground" state
to their "excited" state this way and that can lead to them serving as
a "quantum switch" that transmits information. Put it all together,
spend billions of research dollars and you have a network that transmits
quantum information quickly and efficiently. "You can now imagine having
several atoms placed there, to make several of these devices - which are only a
few hundred nanometers thick, 1,000 times thinner than a human hair - and
couple them together to make them exchange information," Vuletić said.
With quantum computing, scientists could then do lightning-fast calculations by
taking advantage of "qubits," which are particles existing in two
places at once allowing them to contain more information. Making that happen
won't be easy, as photons rarely interact with other particles and are
notoriously difficult to manipulate. For this study, researchers worked around
that problem by using a laser to place a rubidium atom very close to the
surface of a photonic crystal cavity. They used the strong attractive force
between atoms to keep them in place, much the same way “Bachelor” producers do
with the vapid, soul-less tools who appear on their train wreck of a reality
show. And yes, reality dating shows and quantum computing do have plenty in
common………
- Buffalo Bills
linebacker Brandon Spikes is extremely positive right now. He won't be about
nine months from now, but allow him his little burst of sunshine after signing
with his new team. Spikes, who spent his first four NFL seasons with the New
England Patriots, ended last year on injured reserve after agreeing with the
team not to seek his outright release after he was late to a team meeting near
the end of the season. Spikes' agent later denied that it was a joint decision
and based on the way the middle linebacker has come out swinging since landing
in upstate New York, there is indeed more to the story. Shortly after arriving
in Buffalo, Spikes conducted a radio interview in which he was extremely
critical of his former team. Not content with the damage he did there, he
decided to light up the house that Bill Belichick built on Twitter and fired of
a series of messages in which he both promised revenge and made the
always-regrettable choice to invoke the name of indentured servitude. “Great games on
the schedule for 2014, but it's going to be like Christmas to hand the
#Patriots #PatriotsNation a
L...twice! #BILLSMAFIA,” Spikes tweeted in his first message. He then wrote
that it would be “icing on my cake to hand the #Patriots two big L's this year.
#justwatch.” His most regrettable words came when he alluded to the fact that
his four years in Foxboro felt like he was picking cotton on a farm in Georgia
150 years ago. “4 years a slave,” the final tweet read. Well, that’s what a
team gets when it places a player on season-ending injured reserve before the postseason and he believes
he’s being sidelined for other, unjustified reasons. It would be nice if
Spikes’ team had any chance of backing up his bravado, but they haven’t beaten
the Patriots since 2011 and haven’t been close in any of their past five
encounters………
- Why isn't the damn Mosquito Bay in Puerto Rico’s sister
island of Vieques lighting up? That question is being asked often and in
increasing levels of volume and panic by authorities in Puerto Rico because on
an island that thrives on tourist dollars, having a prime tourist attraction
very literally lose its luster is a blow that cannot be withstood for long. The
glowing bay attracts thousands of tourists a year, but it has gradually grown
dimmer and darker in recent weeks. It has long been one of the island’s prime
attractions and as one would expect, government officials say they are worried
about the bay's loss of bioluminescence. Department of Natural Resources
Secretary Carmen Guerrero confirmed that the government is reaching out to local
and international scientists and plans to launch an investigation to find out
why the natural light is going out of Mosquito Bay. That such an investigation
might eat up a large chunk of cash that tourism will have a difficult time
replacing doesn’t seem to be a deterrent for the powers that be. What is known
is that that the bay's waters glow thanks to microscopic plankton known as
dinoflagellates that emit light through a chemical reaction when disturbed. This
has already been a tough year for the bay, which last grew dark in early
January because of rough seas. That hasn’t been the case in recent weeks,
leaving both local and national officials officially befuddled when it comes to
the cause of the lights going out under the water…….
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