I don’t really have the mathematics to understand this, but it sounds pretty exciting.

The Fourier transform is one of the most fundamental concepts in the information sciences. It’s a method for representing an irregular signal — such as the voltage fluctuations in the wire that connects an MP3 player to a loudspeaker — as a combination of pure frequencies. It’s universal in signal processing, but it can also be used to compress image and audio files, solve differential equations and price stock options, among other things.

A group of MIT researchers will present a new algorithm that, in a large range of practically important cases, improves on the fast Fourier transform. Under some circumstances, the improvement can be dramatic — a tenfold increase in speed. The new algorithm could be particularly useful for image compression, enabling, say, smartphones to wirelessly transmit large video files without draining their batteries or consuming their monthly bandwidth allotments.

Clearly, God must hate America. There’s no other logical explanation.

2011–through its entirety–was record-setting for extreme precipitation in the U.S. dating back 100 years. Jeff Masters at Wunderground was the first to blog about this and offered the evidence…. To me, as striking as the fraction of the country affected by these extremes was the close proximity between the downpours and the desiccation.

Every once in a while, you have to look at a new discovery and think, “Man, that is utterly fucking impossible.”

Researchers at I.B.M. have stored and retrieved digital 1s and 0s from an array of just 12 atoms, pushing the boundaries of the magnetic storage of information to the edge of what is possible.

Just once, it would be nice to have a Republican front-runner who isn’t a sociopath.

Romney talks about paying for health insurance as if it were the same as getting a pedicure, hiring an escort or getting the fancy wax at a car wash. It’s a luxury service being provided to him, and he doesn’t like it, he can take his business elsewhere. Romney’s is the language of a man who has never wanted for anything, never worried about where his next paycheck would come from, never worried about going bankrupt if he got sick.

Excellent essay by MG Siegler detailing how Android has failed to live up to its original promise. I don’t know if the original plan was ever possible, but there’s no question in my mind that this model is better for consumers and technological development than the one we have now.

Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Google set off to help in this goal, then stabbed us all in the back and went the complete other way, to the side of the carriers. And because they smiled the entire time they were doing it and fed us this “open” bullshit, we thanked them for it. We’re still thanking them for it!

Women. In lingerie. Playing football.

Intel gets caught with their pants down on a CES demo, showing a movie instead of a live game. This is one reason why I’m very interested by the OnLive gaming model, which virtualizes gaming servers and turns your computer into a thin gaming client: not only does it make the speed of your graphic chip irrelevant, but it does the same for your OS. PlayStation gaming on an Android tablet? No problem.

Brilliant.

11. Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.

http://occupywriters.com/works/by-lemony-snicket

We have gone so far in recent years toward routinizing the once-rare requirement for a 60-vote Senate “supermajority” into an obstacle for every nomination and every bill that our leading newspaper can say that a measure “fails” when it gets more Yes than No votes.

So how about a headline that says plainly what happened:

“Obama’s Job Bill
Blocked by GOP in
Procedural Move”

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/a-modest-proposal-call-obstruction-what-it-is/246528/

As faculty members at the University of Pennsylvania, we wish to express our solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement now underway in our city and elsewhere.

This movement expresses widespread anger with the economic and political disenfranchisement of the great majority of the American people. Occupy Wall Street is protesting a system that provides increasingly few opportunities for the majority — the 99 percent — while generating vast profits for a tiny minority. Along with the demonstrators, we are demanding an end to the extreme inequalities that structure our society.

http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2011/10/ your_voice_occupy_wall_street_solidarity_statement/

This confuses me.

Someone at OKCupid has a sense of humor.

Last Online: Online now!
Ethnicity: Other
Height: —
Body Type: Curvy
Diet: Mostly anything
Smokes: No
Drinks: Socially
Drugs: Never
Religion: —
Sign: Virgo but it doesn’t matter
Education: Dropped out of space camp
Job: Hospitality / Travel
Income: —
Children: Dislikes children
Pets: Likes cats
Speaks: English (Poorly)

My self-summary
I am a large tropical storm system characterized by high winds and numerous thunderstorms.

ESFJ

What I’m doing with my life
Just kind of blowing my way up the eastern seaboard; it’s like I go to Wellesley.

I’m really good at
Inspiring contagious idiocy: Hurricanepocalypse 2011, #GhettoHurricaneNames, etc.

The first things people usually notice about me
100 mph winds.

Favorite books, movies, shows, music, and food
Books
The Perfect Storm

Movies
Armageddon, Twister, The Day After Tomorrow

Music
Sounds of Nature: Tranquility, Vol. 2

Shows
The Wire

The six things I could never do without
A maritime tropical air mass
Evaporation
Condensation
The Tropopause
A large low-pressure center
Densely populated urban zones

I spend a lot of time thinking about
Finding the right guy to settle down to start a family. Just kidding: death, flooding, mayhem, panic, property loss, and is it possible for me to pick up a shark from the ocean and hurl it at Michele Bachmann?

On a typical Friday night I am
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

The most private thing I’m willing to admit
I play rough.

I’m looking for
Everybody
Ages 18-99
Near me
For new friends

I’m apparently a week behind on this meme, but hey, so is most of my readership.

As of press time, Thurman had formally requested permission for “one little air strike” on Houston.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/us-general-jealous-that-syrian-army-allowed-to-att,20826/?mobile=true

It may sound like a scam, but it’s actually pretty legit. Clever “rewards travelers” have figured out a way to get airline miles by purchasing money, because the U.S. Mint sells $1 Presidential Coins, at cost and by the roll. Since the Mint also offers free shipping for orders over $500 (coins are heavy), some have even managed to get huge amounts of miles for what technically equals zero dollars spent.

http://lifehacker.com/5812114/get-extra-frequent-flyer-miles-by-using-a-credit-card-to-buy-1-coins-straight-from-the-us-mint

Excellent summary of how the rising tide lifts only a few boats.

Land of the free, home of the brave.

A 59-year-old man has been jailed in Gastonia, N.C., on charges of larceny after allegedly robbing an RBC Bank for $1 so he could get health care in prison. Richard James Verone handed a female teller a note demanding the money and claiming that he had a gun, according to the police report.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/nc-man-allegedly-robs-bank-health-care-jail/story?id=13887040

Now the series descends into all of the reasons I was dreading watching these early episodes (synopsis). The women are fearful screamers; Ian is the man of action. The Cro-Magnon are all superstitious savages, without even rudimentary cultural knowledge about carrying water or healing injuries. Sure, we’re a thousand centuries away from germ theory, but any mammal instinctively knows how to clean a wound.

The sole bright spot of the episode is the portrayal of the Doctor, because he’s so unlike any incarnation I’ve seen since. Hartnell doesn’t just look old, he is old. I unconsciously expected him and Ian to do a Picard and Riker, but Hartnell’s Doctor is more like Picard when he’s on the dream planet after he’s aged to ninety. It’s an interesting direction to take your titular character. At least he becomes a bit more useful in the opening minutes of The Firemaker, showing rudimentary skills with anthropology and introducing CSI-Lascaux techniques to the tribe.

By this time, I was just waiting for the episode to end. Wikipedia tells me the next episode introduces the Daleks, so I’m hoping this will hold my attention better than the first series did. Strong opening, but downhill from there.

Rating system: 5 stars: a classic 4 stars: still worth watching 3 stars: alright, nothing special 2 stars: checking my watch 1 star: Jesus, when will it end?

Fantastic six minute video on how much we don’t know about the universe, and why that is so damn cool. From the ever-excellent PhD Comics.

Dark Matters from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

If I ever have to be electrocuted, this is how I’d like to go.