Odd Stuff (Part 1)

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The Garden State Parkway on the moon?

Never seen so many fake tree towers as I did recently on the NJ Parkway / Turnpike.

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It’s where the Yiddish comes from!

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Ewwww

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When you tell Chrome to wipe private data about you, it spares two websites from the purge: Google.com, YouTube

Updated Google exempts its own websites from Chrome’s automatic data-scrubbing feature, allowing the ads giant to potentially track you even when you’ve told it not to.

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Toshiba to sell off-the-shelf quantum key distribution kit, eventually offer it as-a-service

Toshiba has said it is ready to start selling a commercial quantum key distribution (QKD) product, and will eventually move to offer QKD as-a-service.

Quantum key distribution, according to Tosh, involves “encoding each bit of the key upon a single photon (particle of light) transmitted, for example through an ordinary optical fiber. As any attempt to read the photons alters their encoding, this allows the secrecy of each key to be tested and guaranteed.”

Thus what’s on offer is not quantum computing or anything like that; it’s a means for encoding information. Tosh’s techies have published papers here and here if you’re interested in the physics involved.

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Let’s check in with that 30,000-job $10bn Trump-Foxconn Wisconsin plant. Wow, way worse than we’d imagined

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Or WTOP

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Thanks for the WTOP link, that works.

I read this as establishing a baseline for the usual amount (and pattern) of background radiation, so they can notice any changes before and on the big day.
I also wonder whether you could mess up the data with a couple of lorries carrying artificial fertilizer.

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Used to do this by vehicle in Chicago years ago. We built up a fairly detailed multi-spectral radiation map of Chicago as a background measurement should a dirty bomb event happen.

The Harold Washington library is a statistically significant radiation hotspot because of the amount of Potassium 40 in the granite used in its construction.

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It seems to me that if you need a device to do encryption, that increases the chance of backdoors rather than decreases it. Am I wrong?

Aw, I was expecting a really big marble! :pouting_woman:t4:

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Is this story “odd” enough to post in this thread? 2020 has set such a high bar.

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They managed to clean up everything around Stagg Field?

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At least the Manhattan project knew how much stuff they lugged in for their test.

Believe it or not there is a Superfund site downtown Chicago in the Streeterville area. Used to be a factory there that made lamp mantles and they dumped thorium everywhere. At least it’s mostly buried.

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