All this happened, more or less.

Our starting point is Tetlock's sacred value protection model (SVPM), which takes as its starting point an undeniable fact of political life: the tendency of like-minded souls to coalesce into communities of cobelievers dedicated to defending and advancing shared values. The SVPM posits that cobelievers seek reassurance from each other that their be liefs are not mere social conventions but rather are anchored in backstop or sacred values beyond challenge. These values can be as diverse as the causes around which human beings cluster: in pro-life communities, it would be bizarre to challenge the sacred mission of saving the unborn; in libertarian communities, it would be bizarre to challenge the sacred status of property rights ; and in scientific communities or groups relying on scientific expertise, it would be bizarre to challenge the notion that assertions about nature can be tested objectively (within a range of uncertainty) and deep truths revealed. Those foolish enough to ask why sacred values are so special - what is wrong with stem cell research or faking data or redistributive taxation? - reveal themselves to be dim-witted or ill-intentioned outsiders who just don't get it. ( Read more... )

The vampire converts quality-live blood, vitality, youth, talent-into quantity-food and time for himself. He perpetrates the most basic betrayal of the spirit, reducing all human dreams to his shit. And that's the wrongest wrong a man can be.

The Canadian company on Tuesday gave a public demonstration of Orion, its quantum computer, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. D-Wave said it is going to try to sell computing services to corporate customers in the first quarter of 2008.

Quantum computers, which researchers have experimented with for years but which haven't yet existed outside of the laboratory, are radically different than today's electronic computers. D-Wave's computer is based around a silicon chip that houses 16 "qubits," the equivalent of a storage bit in a conventional computer, connected to each other. Each qubit consists of dots of the element niobium surrounded by coils of wire.

When electrical current comes down the wire, magnetic fields are generated, which, in turn, causes the change in the state of the qubit. Because scientists understand how niobium will react to magnetic fields and calculate the exact pattern and timing of the magnetic fields created, the pattern of changes exhibited by the niobium can then be translated into an answer that humans can understand.
http://news.com.com/Start-up+demos+quantum+computer/2100-1008_3-6159152.html?tag=nefd.top

But is there a market for renting computing cycles? Sun Microsystems a few years ago opened up a server farm for hire for chemical and pharmaceutical companies. It has found few takers.