The literal pie chart

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Quantum leap: not as far as you think

About a year ago I was going nuts over the announcement of Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, for all the wrong reasons: the advertising.

Only Apple Inc. could hang a huge promotional banner declaring 0 New Features to thunderous, and legitimate, applause. Snow Leopard was about tightening all the bolts, spending a year's engineering resources on tuning and improving the invisible core of the operating system. Normally, this kind of effort is secondary to creating new user-focused features one can advertise.

Bold, Steve.

But there was one piece ofp romo work that threw me into paroxysms of ecstasy, featured here:

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The term quantum leap has been used plenty often in ad copy throughout the decades, always evoking a sense of advancement, of scientific innovation with lasers and clean rooms and, oh yes, crystals.

http://www.youtube.com/v/cf3bRXGmkJE&hl=en&fs=1

Also a pretty cool TV show starring Count Bakula of Star Trek Enterprise fame. But they were all terribly, terribly wrong.

Erwin Schrödinger teaches us (well, not him per se, but considering I just pimped his work in the Schrödinger's Litterbox piece I thought I'd call him back) that quantum jumps are electrons transitioning from one quantum state to another within an atom thruogh a brief period of superposition.

In other words, it's an infinitessimally small change, one that can't be directly observed by mere mortals.

Like a desktop operating system which offers almost no new user-facing features.

Bingo.

Oh man, I totally want one of these next to my pool. Also, I want a pool.

Looking good, feeling fine.

I dint take nearly enough photos. I've GOT the technology in my pocket, might as well put it to good use!

Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences 1982 Vol. 38, No....

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Not your game, girl: Wing sings "Beat It" on NZ TV!

http://www.youtube.com/v/IoYrBdw-aDg&hl=en&fs=1

via youtube.com

Having known of the musical sensation Wing since before her fated South Park parody, I've always been at once smugly dismissive of her watery voice, poor pronunciation and frequent inability to keep time -- and deeply appreciative of her positivity and unbridled chutzpah.

Here she is in top form. Looking like she's been freshly beaten by her husband, still shaking, but nonetheless resplendent in her lovely dress, badass gloves and SHE-MULLET. She warbles on and off rhythm at whim!

You can't stop her! You don't have the SPINE.

Heathen City 3 proof copy arrived!

My proof copy of Heathen City 3 arrived, and it looks FANTASTIC. Behold!

(also, I'm cooking chicken tonight, don't judge me)