Earlier this month, May 9th, to be exact, the Godless Geek blog completed it's second year. Yes, I know the title says year one. But being that I'm all science-y and stuff, I thought it'd be clever to start with year zero...What?... Stop looking at me like that.  ANYWAY- Looking back over last year, I'm more than a little disappointed in my overall volume of output, but I'm generally pretty happy with the majority of things I did manage to put out. Plus, depending on your source for the statistics on such things, it's my understanding that the average blog is long dead by now. So if nothing else, at least I'm still here. But my goal, is to do a lot more than just maintain a minimal presence. And now that I've (hopefully) gotten all my brooding over a minor... Okay, major personal crisis out of the way, I think I can get back to doing that.

 The whole reason I started this page in the first place, was not to entertain myself or to feed some some narcissistic need for attention. Sure, I'm here in part to talk about my own interests, share my art and other projects, and, on rare occasions, little bits of my life. And yes, I'm obviously promoting a very specific and personal world view; it's called The Godless Geek Blog, for Araya's sake. What did you expect? But I started doing this, primarily, as a way to try and join the cause of promoting a greater interest in, and understanding of, science and critical thinking, while hopefully being entertaining enough in the process to trick some people into sticking around long enough to get to, all that other stuff. Which is why, looking forward, I've decided to concentrate my efforts into growing this site into something, bigger.

To that end, I have finally registered a domain name for the site, which you can now access by going to, www.godlessgeekblog.com or .net.

As you may have noticed, I also spent some time this weekend making the blog easier for you to share, if you are so inclined. So you can now share individual posts on Google plus by clicking the G + icon beneath each post -or- you can share the entire page, by clicking the same icon in the sidebar; this same function applies to all the other share buttons on the page as well. If you are on Google plus, you'll also now find a link in the sidebar to add my profile to your circles. And if you STILL like Facebook for some reason (why?), I also decided to resurrect Geekblog's Facebook page; which I would greatly appreciate you taking a moment to like since I hate Facebook, and am just looking for an excuse to kill it again. =)

And finally, there's also a very good chance that I've been toying with producing a podcast to go along with the site. So if you're into that sort of thing, keep an eye out for updates on that as well.

So weather you've been following the site for a while or this is your first visit, thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate even the most minor validation of my efforts. And if you enjoy the site, and would like to see more content from it  more often, please- share it with your friends. And be sure to let me know what you think, and what you'd like to see more/less of,  in the comments.

Thanks again, more to come shortly...

-CAINE-

As you may already be aware, for some time now the Vatican has been dealing with a bit of a "scandal".

What?...No, not THAT one.

I mean, geez, how many times must the Vatican barely acknowledge the church's long standing practice of both harboring and enabling pedophiles by shielding them from prosecution and paying victims to keep their mouths shut, before you, insensitive, immoral heathens, stop harping about it? [What sarcasm?] No, this time it's something - apparently- even more, embarrassing, scandalous, and inconvenient to admit, than the fact that the religious cult on which your city-state is built, is filthy with pedophiles and the men who love to help them get away with it.

Saturday, the Vatican charged the Pope's personal butler Paolo Gabriele, with aggravated theft, in connection with the so-called Vatileaks scandal -Ya, I know. But at least the media's not making everything a "gate" anymore- after claiming to have found him to be in possession of confidential documents. Encouragingly -where public perception of the Vatican's credibility is concerned- many seem to feel Gabriele is not actually the man behind the Vatican leaks, but, rather, a scapegoat in the organization's attempt to save face. Which seems likely, given the circumstances. Me personally, I'm still just trying to process the idea that the pope has a butler. When did he become Batman?

For those of you unfamiliar with the whole Vatileaks thing: For several months now, the Italian media has been publishing leaked letters from the Vatican concerning various conflicts, power struggles, and potential corruptions, within the church-state. As usual, the holy state has done it's best to try and minimize damage from the leaks, and challenge the validity of the claims made within them, by painting itself as the victim of an insidious plot designed to undermine the church's authority and moral standing. But that task got a lot harder this week, with the publication of; Your Holiness: The Secrete Papers of  Benedict XVI.

Published by journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, Your Holiness, is filled with even more leaked documents and letters from within the Vatican city walls, including some directed to Cap'n pointy-hat himself. And following the book's publication, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, head of the Vatican Bank, opted to step down from his position, due to information in the book regarding his mismanagement of said financial institution.

As for the feelings of the man in the silly hat on the subject. Pope Palpatine didn't actually address the scandal or his butler's arrest directly in today's pentecost Sunday address. But he did have the following to say: 

Translation: It's getting way harder for us control information, and people are starting to actually question what the Vatican, as well as the church, say and do, rather than blindly following whatever I say out of fear- and that makes pope-y all sad and junk.

We can only hope he's right, and the current level of distrust surrounding his silly little country spreads to his religion and grows, and grows, until finally- no one cares what he, his alleged country, or his church, has to say about anything, anymore.


-CAINE-

VIA: www.telegraph.co.uk (and various others)

One of the most astonishing and confusing properties of the quantum world is the phenomena of quantum entanglement. Through this effect, it's possible for two individual particles to become linked to one another and act as single system, regardless of the distance between them.

Say, for instance, you managed to entangle a couple of particles, A and B. Even if particle A were residing quietly inside an accelerator here on Earth, while particle B was busy floating along through space on the other side of the galaxy, this entangled pair would still act as a single system. If one were to then try and observe particle A - thus causing a shift in it's quantum state through the mere act of observation, and the joy of  the uncertainty principal, quantum superposition, and all that - particle B, would instantaneously adopt the same quantum state.

Now, I'm not going to pretend to understand exactly how quantum entanglement manages to happen in the first place, or how scientists manage to deliberately produce the effect for experimentation, because, I don't- in my defense, neither does anyone else. But the phenomena of quantum entanglement is one that's been known to, and studied by, quantum physicists, for quite some time. And while it's easy to imagine a whole host of spectacular Sci-fi applications for the effect (some of which might also become a reality someday), currently, one of the most promising, real world application for entanglement, is in the field of data transfer, processing, and communications.

Enter, the Qubit. Which is the quantum analog to the the digital bit.

Now then, if I've done a fair job of explaining the concept of entanglement to you, you'll understand why the word teleporting appears in quotation marks in the title of this entry. Because when a group of scientists from China recently managed to set a new record for quantum "teleportation" by successfully transferring information between 1100 photons, across 97 km of free-space, they didn't actually teleport anything. Rather, they managed to successfully entangle and effect one group of particles, by manipulating another, across a previously unachievable distance. In other words, they were able to transfer data (qubits), from one place to another, without actually transferring anything at all. Which is kind of what makes Quantum entanglement such an attractive means of communication and data transfer in the first place. Since there's literally nothing to intercept, eaves dropping on this form of quantum communication,  would be nearly impossible. I say nearly, because, I can easily imagine some clever person finding a way to entangle a set of particles of their own, in order to intercept transmissions. But that too is just my own bit of speculative science fiction, at this point.

One of the (many) current problems and limitations of this particular method of quantum transfer, and why this groups achievement is a significant one - aside from just being cool as hell- is that entangling particles is understandably difficult. So the entanglements currently being created, are easily broken and interfered with. Which is why the previous record for such a transfer, which was also set by a group from China, in 2010, was just 16 km,.Which still seems an impressive feat, by my standards. But if the results of experiments like these can be reproduced, and the entanglements themselves can be made more stable. I think communications through quantum "telepotation", might actually be a reality, someday. Though certainly not anytime soon.

As for actual the actual teleportation of complex matter, which is what we all think of when we read the word... Sorry, but I still don't see it happening.

But that's a discussion for a different day.

-CAINE-

VIA: Wired Science -And- phys.org

For those of you who are unfamiliar with towel day.. Just turn around, and quietly walk away. I'll just pretend I never saw you here. Or you could just go here: towelday.org

Now, so long, and thanks for all the fish.

-CAINE-