You may be more well-versed in the field than I am, but I don't see it. For a quantum computer you need to: 1) prepare a set of quantum states, 2) allow them to interact in a controllable manner, 3) read the result. The states must not interact with the environment throughout. Some q-bit candidates are: photons, trapped ions, trapped neutral atoms, ensembles of atoms, quantum dots, super-conducting circuits. Each has some advantages and some disadvantages but none can perform all of the steps easily while preserving the quantum state.
Some qubits can be easily written into others, some can't. The article does not suggest a protocol for reading the state of one qubit into another or even discuss prepared quantum states. If I've missed it, please enlighten me, but some experiments in quantum physics really are done without quantum computing as the goal.
You make a couple of good points. I completely agree that the slippery slope that Google has to tread carefully on is not one of censorship, but one of liability. Many people seem to think that Google has a moral imperative to objectively reflect the "reality" of the web. They don't. Anyone who feels that Google does or should act in way that is not in their best interest is going to be disappointed.
Google does what they must in each country to remain the dominant search engine. That means abide by local censorship laws, bow to public opinion and avoid becoming liable for search results. Google will always do what will funnel the most money into their coffers but so far they have been very clever to recognize that neutrality and openness can accomplish that goal very well. The debate of "should Google censor results?" hinges on only one criterion: profitability. That goal, in turn, depends on what will preserve the largest possible ad revenue while mitigating liability.
Google is not a public service, it is a publicly traded corporation.
For now, try to get service from a small ISP. They don't cap but the ISPs that they buy bandwidth from throttle in peak hours. It could be worse - I'm in the fortunate situation of being about to move from Canada to Australia, the only country that appears to have worse Internet than Canada (expensive, capped, throttled and censored.
You raise an interesting point. It had never occurred to me that a levy could be imposed on bandwidth - or P2P bandwidth by applying deep-packet inspection. It seems like a logical extension of the blank-media levy. A terrible idea, of course, but one that will probably be on draft legislation. It would have the effect of legalizing pirating by imposing a tax pirates and non-pirates alike, but someone will still think that's it's a good idea.
that's quite worrisome. I really hope that they only receive encrypted data or, at the very, very least, need some sort of secure authentication that can't be easily falsified. If you could transmit to the drones with $30 software and have them listen, I would be absolutely terrified.
It's very cool how Ubuntu has essentially forced every other distro to get up to speed on these seemingly basic features.
The "works out of the box" mindset has been around for a while in many distros before Ubuntu. What Ubuntu has done, is gotten itself packaged with netbooks, thus gaining sufficient market share to convince hardware makers to support Linux more rigorously. Furthermore, Ubuntu sacrifices out-of-the-box usability for open-source idealism (not that I have any complaint with that) so people should take that into consideration; although non-free software is easily installable from repositories.
The one thing that Ubuntu really contributed, is a huge collection of simple how-to guides for relatively complex tasks in the Linux environment. An Arch forum topic usually goes: "Help!," "Ok, did you RTFM?," "Yes," "Ok, did you download the API documentation and try to write a kernel module?," "A what?," "Go install Ubuntu." On the other hand, Ubuntu help topics will explain how to find the GUI settings menu if need be. I don't think one approach is better than the other, but I do think there is a need for distros that have communities who are willing to do some hand-holding.
Although, it would be worthwhile to point out that openSuSE doesn't favor KDE over Gnome. It has fully integrated the SuSE environment into both. As I understand it, the decision to set the default selection to KDE is quite arbitrary at this point.
I'll add that it's a fantastic distro for reasonably modern computers. Yast is a great tool, but the whole thing is a bit too heavyweight for netbooks or old PCs.
“There are probably better ways to measure wind, but it was a day well-spent,” Hut said. “I really felt the need to solder something.”
A day well-spent indeed! There's nothing like spending a day to save a few dollars by not having to buy a specialized sensor. Sounds like my Master's research; why buy good equipment when grad students can spend ages building a poor imitation of it? Still, those days are usually the most fun part of "science" and certainly afford excellent learning opportunities.
who will prosecute the suspects? A criminal trial is expensive and ends up importing criminals to whichever nation chooses to prosecute. That's the reason that the Somali pirates get turned loose. A similar situation would arise for trans-border cyber crime. Everyone would hope that someone else would prosecute.
Wait until all the data's in. I suspect this will revealed to be a coincidence; perhaps not, but I still believe that to be likely. In any case, search for D-Wave and have a read through the link I posted in my follow-up. D-Wave has made some completely incorrect statements in the past and a few out-and-out lies. Maybe they have pulled off what they claim, but there are some very valid doubts raised by the leading researchers in the field. They have certainly never proved quantum operation in a public demonstration.
From TFA:
Finally, we mention that the experiments presented here were not designed to test the quantumness
of the hardware. Results of such tests will be reported elsewhere.
Wait until those tests are published in a public forum and are analyzed by experts (not./ers) before assuming that they in any way have a quantum computer.
Sorry to reply to my own comment but I should add a link. It covers, in non technical language, the some of the objections to D-Waves claims, what kind of dubious science their people do and what is bull**** that the marketing people flat out invent. It is only one person's perspective but the guy is very, very capable of evaluating statements made by D-Wave.
I trust Google not to do anything unbelievably stupid (a bit silly perhaps, but nothing too absurd) but thinking that D-Wave can make a quantum computer is a very, very bad idea. Now it sounds like Google has been working on the algorithm side and I suspect that they're doing good work. The trouble is that D-Wave is doing the hardware. This is a company that has yet to demonstrate any success whatsoever.
They frequently release press updates saying that they have added more bits to the machine but they have never shown it to work for even a small number of bits. The physicists who developed the idea of an adiabatic quantum computer say that D-Wave seems to have misinterpreted their theory to make unrealistic claims and the whole thing is regarded as a bit of a joke in the physics community.
That said, developing the algorithms is a worthwhile thing to do so Google may not be relying on D-Wave to justify their research. I hope not. D-Wave may actually be on to something big that they haven't revealed to the scientific community, but probably not.
If only part of imeem was purchased, the revenue from the sale should have gone into paying existing debts. Once those were covered, the execs would be able to take home the remainder. If that didn't happen, the people who got the money are in trouble (assuming the artists lawyer up).
MySpace would be on the hook if all of imeem had been purchased but it wasn't. It still exists so it still owes the artists money which should be paid for out of the sale revenue. Someone at imeem still owes money.
Let's all friend each other on Facebook...the entire/. community. We will all be considered exceptionally influential and will therefore be given free stuff.
First off, I would disagree that the founding principles of the GNU project embrace the censorship of discourse regarding development. I would hope that the open source community holds itself to a higher ethical standard than Microsoft. Open source and open minds go together, that's why the movement is attractive.
My point is that if the FSF feels so under siege so as to resort to such tactics, I hope that Gnome distances itself from that blind, dogmatic pursuit of closed-mindedness. Restricting the code that gets into builds is one thing, restricting the speech that gets into community forums is another matter entirely.
If the GNU project wants to restrict the speech of it's members on GNU discussion boards regarding the merits of proprietary software, it's not worth it. Restricting the voicing of opinions is absolutely the antithesis of what we should expect from open-source communities. If someone thinks Mono or VMware is worth using, fine. Stallman seemed to be suggesting that removing a blog could be considered as punishment for voicing such an opinion; that's hardly an open and frank discussion conducted in a open community. I can't see how censorship could possibly be an appropriate course of action.
Gnome is attempting (and succeeding) in presenting itself as a viable alternative to proprietary desktops. Dogmatic insistence that it be developed in a vacuum, uninfluenced by any proprietary developments is absurd and not in the goal of developing Gnome into a truly versatile platform. Open-source software will utterly fail if it's community is not open-minded. Thankfully, that's not the case and if the GNU project wants to take Gnome down that narrow path I hope Gnome will choose to find it's own way instead.
The only thing that objectively matters is the output. I would go to the boss and ask directly if he feels that the work of you and the department in general is of poor quality. If he feels it is, be open to discuss strategies to improve that may, or may not, be turning down the music.
Mostly likely he will say that the work is fine but thinks it would still improve without music. You can then point out that if the quality is good, he has no basis to make the assertion that music is detrimental and that you feel such action on his part would affect morale, and hence quality, negatively.
But the unexcited electromagnetic quantum field sure doesn't. It would have to be excited to carry momentum, either by real macroscopic fields or real particles (photons).
The paper is a one-author publication in a non-peer-reviewed journal and doesn't seem to be published anywhere else. The author's affiliation is an applied R&D institute not an academic institute with a strong theoretical background. I'm not saying that discredits it, but it certainly means that it should be taken with a grain of salt. I would suggest that anyone who wants to assess the merits should read through some of the references (which are good publications) and see if the present article appears plausible. Even without any technical expertise, the abstracts could probably provide a feel for the state of the art.
I couldn't be bothered to do that reading myself, but I would suggest that any momentum transfer to the vacuum would involve the production of real particles from the zero-point fluctuations. Conservation of momentum demands that there would be something carrying momentum in the opposite direction of the spacecraft and, by definition, it can't be an unexcited quantum field. There would have to be excitations of the field to carry the momentum (real particles).
Most of it doesn't go out of it's way to point out that it doesn't care what happens in my province. I gave you the benefit of doubt and assumed you must be playing up the Quebec-Ontario feud rather than just being an arbitrary a**. (As a side note, I of course have nothing against Ontario. It's a wonderful province.)
Depends on where in Quebec. Downtown Montreal is completely bilingual in any case so English works just fine. Anywhere else in the province, however, it's a nice gesture to greet people in French; it would be impolite to assume that they speak English although they probably do. Besides, it's not Americans (or generally English Canadians) that some people here dislike, it's Ontario.
Slashdot Mirror
You may be more well-versed in the field than I am, but I don't see it. For a quantum computer you need to: 1) prepare a set of quantum states, 2) allow them to interact in a controllable manner, 3) read the result. The states must not interact with the environment throughout. Some q-bit candidates are: photons, trapped ions, trapped neutral atoms, ensembles of atoms, quantum dots, super-conducting circuits. Each has some advantages and some disadvantages but none can perform all of the steps easily while preserving the quantum state.
Some qubits can be easily written into others, some can't. The article does not suggest a protocol for reading the state of one qubit into another or even discuss prepared quantum states. If I've missed it, please enlighten me, but some experiments in quantum physics really are done without quantum computing as the goal.
You make a couple of good points. I completely agree that the slippery slope that Google has to tread carefully on is not one of censorship, but one of liability. Many people seem to think that Google has a moral imperative to objectively reflect the "reality" of the web. They don't. Anyone who feels that Google does or should act in way that is not in their best interest is going to be disappointed.
Google does what they must in each country to remain the dominant search engine. That means abide by local censorship laws, bow to public opinion and avoid becoming liable for search results. Google will always do what will funnel the most money into their coffers but so far they have been very clever to recognize that neutrality and openness can accomplish that goal very well. The debate of "should Google censor results?" hinges on only one criterion: profitability. That goal, in turn, depends on what will preserve the largest possible ad revenue while mitigating liability.
Google is not a public service, it is a publicly traded corporation.
For now, try to get service from a small ISP. They don't cap but the ISPs that they buy bandwidth from throttle in peak hours. It could be worse - I'm in the fortunate situation of being about to move from Canada to Australia, the only country that appears to have worse Internet than Canada (expensive, capped, throttled and censored.
You raise an interesting point. It had never occurred to me that a levy could be imposed on bandwidth - or P2P bandwidth by applying deep-packet inspection. It seems like a logical extension of the blank-media levy. A terrible idea, of course, but one that will probably be on draft legislation. It would have the effect of legalizing pirating by imposing a tax pirates and non-pirates alike, but someone will still think that's it's a good idea.
that's quite worrisome. I really hope that they only receive encrypted data or, at the very, very least, need some sort of secure authentication that can't be easily falsified. If you could transmit to the drones with $30 software and have them listen, I would be absolutely terrified.
It's very cool how Ubuntu has essentially forced every other distro to get up to speed on these seemingly basic features.
The "works out of the box" mindset has been around for a while in many distros before Ubuntu. What Ubuntu has done, is gotten itself packaged with netbooks, thus gaining sufficient market share to convince hardware makers to support Linux more rigorously. Furthermore, Ubuntu sacrifices out-of-the-box usability for open-source idealism (not that I have any complaint with that) so people should take that into consideration; although non-free software is easily installable from repositories.
The one thing that Ubuntu really contributed, is a huge collection of simple how-to guides for relatively complex tasks in the Linux environment. An Arch forum topic usually goes: "Help!," "Ok, did you RTFM?," "Yes," "Ok, did you download the API documentation and try to write a kernel module?," "A what?," "Go install Ubuntu." On the other hand, Ubuntu help topics will explain how to find the GUI settings menu if need be. I don't think one approach is better than the other, but I do think there is a need for distros that have communities who are willing to do some hand-holding.
Although, it would be worthwhile to point out that openSuSE doesn't favor KDE over Gnome. It has fully integrated the SuSE environment into both. As I understand it, the decision to set the default selection to KDE is quite arbitrary at this point.
I'll add that it's a fantastic distro for reasonably modern computers. Yast is a great tool, but the whole thing is a bit too heavyweight for netbooks or old PCs.
“There are probably better ways to measure wind, but it was a day well-spent,” Hut said. “I really felt the need to solder something.”
A day well-spent indeed! There's nothing like spending a day to save a few dollars by not having to buy a specialized sensor. Sounds like my Master's research; why buy good equipment when grad students can spend ages building a poor imitation of it? Still, those days are usually the most fun part of "science" and certainly afford excellent learning opportunities.
who will prosecute the suspects? A criminal trial is expensive and ends up importing criminals to whichever nation chooses to prosecute. That's the reason that the Somali pirates get turned loose. A similar situation would arise for trans-border cyber crime. Everyone would hope that someone else would prosecute.
Wait until all the data's in. I suspect this will revealed to be a coincidence; perhaps not, but I still believe that to be likely. In any case, search for D-Wave and have a read through the link I posted in my follow-up. D-Wave has made some completely incorrect statements in the past and a few out-and-out lies. Maybe they have pulled off what they claim, but there are some very valid doubts raised by the leading researchers in the field. They have certainly never proved quantum operation in a public demonstration.
From TFA:
Finally, we mention that the experiments presented here were not designed to test the quantumness of the hardware. Results of such tests will be reported elsewhere.
Wait until those tests are published in a public forum and are analyzed by experts (not ./ers) before assuming that they in any way have a quantum computer.
Sorry to reply to my own comment but I should add a link. It covers, in non technical language, the some of the objections to D-Waves claims, what kind of dubious science their people do and what is bull**** that the marketing people flat out invent. It is only one person's perspective but the guy is very, very capable of evaluating statements made by D-Wave.
I trust Google not to do anything unbelievably stupid (a bit silly perhaps, but nothing too absurd) but thinking that D-Wave can make a quantum computer is a very, very bad idea. Now it sounds like Google has been working on the algorithm side and I suspect that they're doing good work. The trouble is that D-Wave is doing the hardware. This is a company that has yet to demonstrate any success whatsoever.
They frequently release press updates saying that they have added more bits to the machine but they have never shown it to work for even a small number of bits. The physicists who developed the idea of an adiabatic quantum computer say that D-Wave seems to have misinterpreted their theory to make unrealistic claims and the whole thing is regarded as a bit of a joke in the physics community.
That said, developing the algorithms is a worthwhile thing to do so Google may not be relying on D-Wave to justify their research. I hope not. D-Wave may actually be on to something big that they haven't revealed to the scientific community, but probably not.
...and the guys from imeem got theirs.
If only part of imeem was purchased, the revenue from the sale should have gone into paying existing debts. Once those were covered, the execs would be able to take home the remainder. If that didn't happen, the people who got the money are in trouble (assuming the artists lawyer up).
MySpace would be on the hook if all of imeem had been purchased but it wasn't. It still exists so it still owes the artists money which should be paid for out of the sale revenue. Someone at imeem still owes money.
Until someone writes a Firefox add-on that will let me (physically) fly, I will continue to be disappointed.
Let's all friend each other on Facebook...the entire /. community. We will all be considered exceptionally influential and will therefore be given free stuff.
First off, I would disagree that the founding principles of the GNU project embrace the censorship of discourse regarding development. I would hope that the open source community holds itself to a higher ethical standard than Microsoft. Open source and open minds go together, that's why the movement is attractive.
My point is that if the FSF feels so under siege so as to resort to such tactics, I hope that Gnome distances itself from that blind, dogmatic pursuit of closed-mindedness. Restricting the code that gets into builds is one thing, restricting the speech that gets into community forums is another matter entirely.
If the GNU project wants to restrict the speech of it's members on GNU discussion boards regarding the merits of proprietary software, it's not worth it. Restricting the voicing of opinions is absolutely the antithesis of what we should expect from open-source communities. If someone thinks Mono or VMware is worth using, fine. Stallman seemed to be suggesting that removing a blog could be considered as punishment for voicing such an opinion; that's hardly an open and frank discussion conducted in a open community. I can't see how censorship could possibly be an appropriate course of action.
Gnome is attempting (and succeeding) in presenting itself as a viable alternative to proprietary desktops. Dogmatic insistence that it be developed in a vacuum, uninfluenced by any proprietary developments is absurd and not in the goal of developing Gnome into a truly versatile platform. Open-source software will utterly fail if it's community is not open-minded. Thankfully, that's not the case and if the GNU project wants to take Gnome down that narrow path I hope Gnome will choose to find it's own way instead.
The only thing that objectively matters is the output. I would go to the boss and ask directly if he feels that the work of you and the department in general is of poor quality. If he feels it is, be open to discuss strategies to improve that may, or may not, be turning down the music.
Mostly likely he will say that the work is fine but thinks it would still improve without music. You can then point out that if the quality is good, he has no basis to make the assertion that music is detrimental and that you feel such action on his part would affect morale, and hence quality, negatively.
But the unexcited electromagnetic quantum field sure doesn't. It would have to be excited to carry momentum, either by real macroscopic fields or real particles (photons).
The paper is a one-author publication in a non-peer-reviewed journal and doesn't seem to be published anywhere else. The author's affiliation is an applied R&D institute not an academic institute with a strong theoretical background. I'm not saying that discredits it, but it certainly means that it should be taken with a grain of salt. I would suggest that anyone who wants to assess the merits should read through some of the references (which are good publications) and see if the present article appears plausible. Even without any technical expertise, the abstracts could probably provide a feel for the state of the art.
I couldn't be bothered to do that reading myself, but I would suggest that any momentum transfer to the vacuum would involve the production of real particles from the zero-point fluctuations. Conservation of momentum demands that there would be something carrying momentum in the opposite direction of the spacecraft and, by definition, it can't be an unexcited quantum field. There would have to be excitations of the field to carry the momentum (real particles).
Well if that's your argument...I agree with you :p
There’s a whole big world outside your borders
Most of it doesn't go out of it's way to point out that it doesn't care what happens in my province. I gave you the benefit of doubt and assumed you must be playing up the Quebec-Ontario feud rather than just being an arbitrary a**. (As a side note, I of course have nothing against Ontario. It's a wonderful province.)
Depends on where in Quebec. Downtown Montreal is completely bilingual in any case so English works just fine. Anywhere else in the province, however, it's a nice gesture to greet people in French; it would be impolite to assume that they speak English although they probably do. Besides, it's not Americans (or generally English Canadians) that some people here dislike, it's Ontario.
Ah ha! Someone from Ontario! Stay off our roads!
If your argument is that internet porn is no worse than porn magazines, you are very wrong.