402. If you aren’t hungry enough to eat an apple, you aren’t hungry.
Meanwhile, the ant whose escape from the sugar bowl had been witnessed by Mary at the pre-wedding dinner was struggling to return the sugar he had collected to his colony. Everywhere he turned, his path was blocked by puddles, the same puddles which had previously dampened the hem of Lisa’s wedding dress, although of course the ant didn’t know anything about that, being not only peripheral to proceedings and not an official guest at the function, but an ant.
Elsewhere, the builder who had been subcontracted to remodel the stables of the stately home in which Lisa’s wedding was taking place was preparing to tuck into a well-earned packed lunch. Being on the other side of the estate from the wedding party, he was unaware that the ham he had in his sandwiches was roughly the same colour as the centre of the chicken breasts currently being served to the wedding guests and would remain unaware of the events unfolding in the dining hall even as several aunts hurled and retched into the dahlias.
Back at PDC last year, we talked to Steve Sinofsky about this; Windows adds UI capabilities and then Microsoft software fails to use it properly, resulting in an inconsistent experience and leading one to question why Microsoft even bothers adding new features and guidelines if they’re not going to be used. He told us at the time that the reason for this is that within Microsoft, the software that sets the UI standard isn’t Windows, but rather Office; if the Office team’s UI rules don’t match up with Windows’ UI rules, then the Office team prevails.
Algae, not asteroids, were the key to the end of the dinosaurs, say two Clemson University researchers. Geologist James W. Castle and ecotoxicologist John H. Rodgers have published findings that toxin-producing algae were a deadly factor in mass extinctions millions of years ago.
Every system has two sets of rules: The rules as they are intended or commonly perceived, and the actual rules (“reality”). In most complex systems, the gap between these two sets of rules is huge. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of the truth, and discover the actual rules of a system. Once the actual rules are known, it may be possible to perform “miracles” — things which violate the perceived rules. Hacking is most commonly associated with computers, and people who break into or otherwise subvert computer systems are often called hackers. Although this terminology is occasionally disputed, I think it is essentially correct — these hackers are discovering the actual rules of the computer systems (e.g. buffer overflows), and using them to circumvent the intended rules of the system (typically access controls). The same is true of the hackers who break DRM or other systems of control.
What really happened to Bear and Lehman is that an economic drought temporarily left the hyenas without any more middle-class victims — and so they started eating each other, using the exact same schemes they had been using for years to fleece the rest of the country. And in the forensic footprint left by those kills, we can see for the first time exactly how the scam worked — and how completely even the government regulators who are supposed to protect us have given up trying to stop it.
But here’s the thing. Today, in many parts of the world, the human being most likely to cause your violent death is: you. Yes. You are the person most likely to kill yourself violently and on purpose. Suicide rates have risen dramatically over the past 50 years. Worldwide, deaths from suicide now outnumber deaths from war and homicide together: the World Health Organization estimates that each year around one million people — predominantly men — kill themselves. The true number is probably higher, because for many countries there is no data. In some countries, suicide is now among the top ten causes of death. For the young, worldwide, it’s in the top five.
Backed by private Swiss funding, his scheme will be implemented beginning on November 12, 2009, when the First Bank of Antimatter opens in San Francisco’s Monadnock Building, the location of Modernism Gallery. The bank will serve as a hub for antimatter transactions worldwide, eventually financing the building of antimatter infrastructure and providing the public with a full range of investment opportunities. “But our first order of business will be printing money,” says Mr. Keats. “Cash is the foundation of any economy, and an anti-economy is no exception.” Issued in three convenient denominations, ranging from 10,000 positrons to 1,000,000 positrons, and initially trading at an exchange rate of $10 to $1,000, the anti-money will be backed by antimatter stored in the bank’s vault. Because matter and antimatter annihilate each other on contact, antimatter positrons will be continuously produced on location by decay of the radioactive isotope potassium-40.
