LOL! It took me a few seconds to get the joke, but after I couldn't find a definition of "QP" anywhere, I realized you probably meant it to be "Quantum Polynomial" time, and so your QP = NP means that P = NP iff you have a quantum computer. Right? Har, har.;-)
I don't claim to be a mathematician, but it's pretty easy to show that factoring is a boolean satisfiability (SAT) problem and is generally believed to be at least NP-Hard, if not NP-complete as SAT is. Consequently, if factoring could be "solved" (ie; performed "easily" by use of quantum computing or other means) then any other NP problem could be cast in terms of a SAT problem for easy solution. That would mean P=NP, would it not?
"Now, if they can get hundreds of qbits together things will change massively."
I think the point of the article is that D-Wave Corp claims to be able to create qbits from "large" objects (ie; large enough to be fabricated using standard IC fabrication techniques), but with niobium rather than silicon. This enables them to create a quantum computer without all the hassle of having to manipulate individual atoms as the present research lab quantum computers do. From the article:
Superconductors are the only type of material that we know of where big lithographically defined devices (like really big. Like centimeter on a side big.) can be built that behave just like they were atomic-sized.
Since supercooling is required, it's highly unlikely that you or I will be able to afford one of these things any time soon (assuming it's not all marketing hype in the first place), but you can be assured the NSA and other government "intelligence" agencies will be able to afford as many as they want because of all the tribute they demand from us on pain of imprisonment, in the form of exorbitant taxation.
"what will be the advantages of paid use of their quantum computer?"
I'm sure the NSA and other government agencies have a passing interest in code breaking, which among other things means being able to factor huge numbers quickly. A quantum computer would (if it contained sufficient logic cells) be able to try all possible factors of a number at the same time, and would thus be able to factor any number almost instantaneously. It would mean the death of most common types of encryption that depend upon the difficulty of factoring as a means of insuring the privacy of data. After all, the government probably has petabytes of encrypted data from their nationwide wiretapping of telephone and Internet communications they would love to be able to decrypt quickly.
"There are light bulbs that have been running for 100 years and still going strong"
If true, then those bulbs undoubtedly generate far more heat than light. Thick filament=long life, thin filament=shorter life but better energy efficiency (ie; less heat and more light). If you're concerned about the cost of conventional light bulbs, why not buy florescent lights?
"ISP's need to inform people they have bots and if they are infecting other computers they need their internet access dropped."
In my experience, the cable installers are clueless. When I switched from DSL to Cable, the cable installers (two of them, one was a trainee) hooked up their cable to my router/hardware firewall and everything was fine. Then the senior guy asked if he could hook up their cable box directly to my computer to show the trainee how they normally do things. After booting into a spare version of the OS that I only use for maintenance (which is on a different partition than my regular OS), I let him hook his cable directly up to my computer, bypassing my router. Within about 20 seconds my antivirus program detected and reported a virus attack, although I forget the exact details because it was several years ago.
The point is that the cable installers connect their cable up to new subscribers computers without even checking their virus protection, and the naive users computers are probably infected before the installers drive away. The ISP would be far better off supplying hardware router/firewalls to their customers gratis because of the reduced traffic load from zombie computers.
"Selective breeding in crops and animals have been done for centries to maximise profits."
True, however it's rather difficult to selectively cross breed cows with spiders (ie; spider genes - as the Army is doing to produce silk cheaply for body armor), or to selectively cross breed Vegetables with scorpions (or scorpion genes); tomatoes with flounder genes; potatoes with jellyfish genes; etc, but it can be done relatively easily and quickly with genetic engineering techniques. Personally I want the freedom to choose what I swallow, sniff, and smoke without the governments "help."
''...this government, swollen and arrogant with pelf, goes butting into our business...It checks the amount of tropical oils in our snack foods, tells us what kind of gasoline we can buy for our cars and how fast we can drive them, bosses us around about retirement, education, and what's on TV; counts our noses and asks fresh questions about who's still living at home and how many bathrooms we have; decides whether the door to our office or shop should have steps or a
wheelchair ramp; decrees the sex and complexion of the people we hire there; lectures us on safe sex; dictates what we can sniff, smoke, and swallow; and waylays young men, ships them to distant places, and tells them to shoot people they don't even know.''
-- P.J.O'Rourke
Because two or more objects orbit around their common center of mass. One object does not orbit "around another." It's only the fact that the Sun is so massive in comparison to it's other mutually orbiting bodies (planets;-) that the pertubations of the Sun are so insignificant as to (probably?) be unmeasurable.
Sure there is, use fractions. For example, 1/3 is exact, whereas 0.3333... is not. The Maplesoft "Maple" program symbolic math program does this, and only evaluates fractions if an explicit evaluation is called for (eg; by the "evalf()" function).
Why not just set up a fake name, etc., when logging into Google? Only the government can subpoena your IP records from your ISP, and if they do that you're S.O.L. regardless. If you're lucky enough to have a static IP, use one of the domain anonymizer services.
I abandoned my Yahoo email to the Spammers a couple of years ago, and since then I've had to go delete all my accumulated Yahoo Spam because Yahoo would start complaining about my email inbox being full.
Yes we are presently living in a police state, and you'd better fasten your seat belts and hunker down because it's going to get worse before it gets better. The only thing we can do in the present environment is to keep a low profile until more people realize the danger and a resistance movement large enough to effect change can be organized - just as our founding fathers did against the dictator King George in 1776.
If a version of Windows were *fully* POSIX compliant, wouldn't it mean that all the GNU applications would be compilable on Windows, and runnable within the Windows "POSIX subsystem"(whatever that is)?
I always use an MBNA ShopSafe generated credit card number for all Internet purchases, and some telephone purchases. After installing a small unobtrusive program on your computer (Windows only, alas), you then have the capability of generating a perfectly valid and unique credit card number with an expiration date and maximum credit limit chosen by you for that particular transaction. If I want to cancel an MBNA ShopSafe credit card number (which I can do at any time), all it takes is a couple of mouse clicks.
Does anyone know of any other banks with a similar service? I'm sure there must be some, and I'd like to have a backup handy in case MBNA is merged or goes belly up, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
LOL! It took me a few seconds to get the joke, but after I couldn't find a definition of "QP" anywhere, I realized you probably meant it to be "Quantum Polynomial" time, and so your QP = NP means that P = NP iff you have a quantum computer. Right? Har, har. ;-)
I don't claim to be a mathematician, but it's pretty easy to show that factoring is a boolean satisfiability (SAT) problem and is generally believed to be at least NP-Hard, if not NP-complete as SAT is. Consequently, if factoring could be "solved" (ie; performed "easily" by use of quantum computing or other means) then any other NP problem could be cast in terms of a SAT problem for easy solution. That would mean P=NP, would it not?
I think the point of the article is that D-Wave Corp claims to be able to create qbits from "large" objects (ie; large enough to be fabricated using standard IC fabrication techniques), but with niobium rather than silicon. This enables them to create a quantum computer without all the hassle of having to manipulate individual atoms as the present research lab quantum computers do. From the article:
Since supercooling is required, it's highly unlikely that you or I will be able to afford one of these things any time soon (assuming it's not all marketing hype in the first place), but you can be assured the NSA and other government "intelligence" agencies will be able to afford as many as they want because of all the tribute they demand from us on pain of imprisonment, in the form of exorbitant taxation.
"what will be the advantages of paid use of their quantum computer?"
I'm sure the NSA and other government agencies have a passing interest in code breaking, which among other things means being able to factor huge numbers quickly. A quantum computer would (if it contained sufficient logic cells) be able to try all possible factors of a number at the same time, and would thus be able to factor any number almost instantaneously. It would mean the death of most common types of encryption that depend upon the difficulty of factoring as a means of insuring the privacy of data. After all, the government probably has petabytes of encrypted data from their nationwide wiretapping of telephone and Internet communications they would love to be able to decrypt quickly.
"There are light bulbs that have been running for 100 years and still going strong"
If true, then those bulbs undoubtedly generate far more heat than light. Thick filament=long life, thin filament=shorter life but better energy efficiency (ie; less heat and more light). If you're concerned about the cost of conventional light bulbs, why not buy florescent lights?
"ISP's need to inform people they have bots and if they are infecting other computers they need their internet access dropped."
In my experience, the cable installers are clueless. When I switched from DSL to Cable, the cable installers (two of them, one was a trainee) hooked up their cable to my router/hardware firewall and everything was fine. Then the senior guy asked if he could hook up their cable box directly to my computer to show the trainee how they normally do things. After booting into a spare version of the OS that I only use for maintenance (which is on a different partition than my regular OS), I let him hook his cable directly up to my computer, bypassing my router. Within about 20 seconds my antivirus program detected and reported a virus attack, although I forget the exact details because it was several years ago.
The point is that the cable installers connect their cable up to new subscribers computers without even checking their virus protection, and the naive users computers are probably infected before the installers drive away. The ISP would be far better off supplying hardware router/firewalls to their customers gratis because of the reduced traffic load from zombie computers.
True, however it's rather difficult to selectively cross breed cows with spiders (ie; spider genes - as the Army is doing to produce silk cheaply for body armor), or to selectively cross breed Vegetables with scorpions (or scorpion genes); tomatoes with flounder genes; potatoes with jellyfish genes; etc, but it can be done relatively easily and quickly with genetic engineering techniques. Personally I want the freedom to choose what I swallow, sniff, and smoke without the governments "help."
Thanks for the checklist. In addition to memorizing the items, I'll be carrying the list in my wallet and posting it prominently by the front door.
"If what you are saying is that the USA has gotten so fascistic that people dare not refuse unlawful orders out of fear of the government,..."
Please purchase a copy of "America: Freedom to Fascism" when it comes out on DVD, because the theatrical releases are few and far between.
"everything that orbits around another entity"
;-) that the pertubations of the Sun are so insignificant as to (probably?) be unmeasurable.
Because two or more objects orbit around their common center of mass. One object does not orbit "around another." It's only the fact that the Sun is so massive in comparison to it's other mutually orbiting bodies (planets
http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/
"No, there's nothing you can do about it."
Sure there is, use fractions. For example, 1/3 is exact, whereas 0.3333... is not.
The Maplesoft "Maple" program symbolic math program does this, and only evaluates fractions if an explicit evaluation is called for (eg; by the "evalf()" function).
Why not just set up a fake name, etc., when logging into Google? Only the government can subpoena your IP records from your ISP, and if they do that you're S.O.L. regardless. If you're lucky enough to have a static IP, use one of the domain anonymizer services.
I abandoned my Yahoo email to the Spammers a couple of years ago, and since then I've had to go delete all my accumulated Yahoo Spam because Yahoo would start complaining about my email inbox being full.
An ant walking on a sphere could walk forever and never reach the "end."
Yes we are presently living in a police state, and you'd better fasten your seat belts and hunker down because it's going to get worse before it gets better. The only thing we can do in the present environment is to keep a low profile until more people realize the danger and a resistance movement large enough to effect change can be organized - just as our founding fathers did against the dictator King George in 1776.
See also:
http://ron.dotson.net/gov/govkills.htm
"And if we're on the topic, does anyone know where I can find a fiscally conservative and socially neutral party?"
http://www.lp.org/article_85.shtml
Freedom of movement has been found to be a basic human right by the US Supreme Court. For the exact citation see:
U nited_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement#
I would rather have a historian predict the future than a self-appointed "Futurist."
;-)
On the other hand, their proposed "technological singularity" has served well as the theme of a great many science fiction novels.
How about a 2004 movie called "Napoleon Dynamite"?
"And you all sit idly by"
And what exactly are you doing about it? Timothy McVeigh didn't "sit idly by" and they executed him. So what would you recommend?
If a version of Windows were *fully* POSIX compliant, wouldn't it mean that all the GNU applications would be compilable on Windows, and runnable within the Windows "POSIX subsystem"(whatever that is)?
"New technology links people over greater distances, but cuts into face-to-face meeting time, the researchers said."
Personally I think "face-to-face" meetings are highly overrated. It's much easier to "walk away" from someone on the net than it is in real life.
I always use an MBNA ShopSafe generated credit card number for all Internet purchases, and some telephone purchases. After installing a small unobtrusive program on your computer (Windows only, alas), you then have the capability of generating a perfectly valid and unique credit card number with an expiration date and maximum credit limit chosen by you for that particular transaction. If I want to cancel an MBNA ShopSafe credit card number (which I can do at any time), all it takes is a couple of mouse clicks.
Does anyone know of any other banks with a similar service? I'm sure there must be some, and I'd like to have a backup handy in case MBNA is merged or goes belly up, etc.
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me.