The analogy to real world entropy is striking. That's because it is real world entropy. Even if you're just thinking about such a process (in detail - with all the ones and zeroes), that's real world entropy too.
Entropy is a measure of disorder in any form, and can therefore not be 'bound' by any abstraction layer.
Hear, hear! Double blind testing is vital in a case like this, or the placebo effect might muddy the results. It is not enough to not tell the engine if it is being fitted by an actual device of this kind, or just a lookalike made from sugar - single blind testing. The people interacting with the engine must also be unaware, or it might subconsciously pick up clues from their behaviour, telling it if the device is real or not.
There is described in Nature, Vol. 409 (2001), pp. 46-52 - "A scheme for efficient quantum computation with linear optics" by Knill, Laflamme and Milburn something which is called a linear optical quantum computer. The way the word linear is mentioned in the article makes it sound like they're using some variation of this.
In that case, qubits are represented by a photon traveling down (a superposition of) either one of two paths (a dual rail). On these paths you place basic linear optical elements: phase-retardation plates, beamsplitters and mirrors. To implement logical gate, in the simplest scheme, you entangle the outcome of a passage through a combination of linear optical elements with some other photons, see which detector those photons trigger, and start from the beginning if they didn't take the right path (so it's a bit of a cheat). Essentially \hat{path}|input>|other photons>=\alpha|correct output>|other photons at correct detector>+\beta|false output>|other photons elsewhere>.
A way around this is to use as input some photons prepared into a cluster state, which is very clever but no less of a cheat.
Remember though, that voting isn't the only way to influence the outcome of an election. If someone offered you a million dollars for your vote, the sensible thing to do, is obviously to take the money and then find ten people who would sell their vote for 100.000.
I hereby define one knibble (kilo-nibble) to mean exactly 183459349724 nibbles. I have a file stored on a harddrive which weighs about one kilo, and this definition therefore makes everything very neat and simply. So much so, that demands of consistency will just have to yield. I also define one Mword (mega-word) to mean 1 word (since 'mega' is one word).
This might be confusing, and not completely uniform, but there is no ambiguity.
Seriously (well...), please finish this sentence for me. "Having KB mean 1024 bytes is very practical since 1024 is precisely the number of integers you can describe with 10 bits, and this amount of bits is frequently encountered when..."
The universe is, pretty much by definition, 'that which exists'. If it wasn't created from nothing, but from something, that something would comprise part of the universe at an earlier time. Meaning that there was no creation in this instance, just a change of state.
So what else could the universe be created from, but nothing?
I will take this opportunity to ask, concerning the localization of vi to other languages than english; is there some standard remapping you can use so common functions don't end up in difficult places. For instance, when looking through the basic help, you are supposed to press C-] to enter topics. On my keyboard this means pressing ctrl+alt gr+9. If I want to keep my right hand in its home position, I then need to press alt gr with my thumb upside-down, and I'm already a bit sore.
I guess basic commands are given simple to reach keystrokes, but localization messes this up. How do other non-english people deal with this?
Did anyone else notice that Didi Senft seemed to get censored by the producers. I could see the pitch-fork paintings on the road, but not the guy himself. Except on one occasion, where he was onscreen for half a second, before the camera moved slightly to the side.
but my point is that algorithmic randomness captures what we mean by "random" much better than statistical randomness. And algorithmic randomness is just a mathematically formal way of saying "unpredictable."
That depends on who 'we' are. I, coming from the natural sciences, would never use the word random of numerical sequences. It is the origin of those number that can be random. E.g., throwing a dice is a random event, since I cannot predict the outcome. Throwing the dice six times might yield the result {1,2,3,4,5,6}, and it is not meaningful to say that this is less random than any other result. (In fact, it's not even less probable.)
Now, people are often faced with equations with no known solutions (or known not to have solutions in a closed form) and resort to computer simulations. This means, essentially, that they compute a sequence of f(x) from a sequence of x. They then generalise their results to all x (and publish). If f(x) exhibit some pattern, it might be a genuine result, or it might be because of a pattern in x. Unfortunately, one cannot beforehand (and usually not afterhand either) know which patterns to avoid in x.
The best bet is the wrap-towel-around-head-and-the-bugblatter-beast-wo n't-eat-you strategy; to use sequences with as little pattern as possible. Sequences with high 'algorithmic randomness', in your terminology. Note that, using numbers from a random source is no guarantee, see above, (though low-pattern sequences are much less likely with a sensible setup). It would also not be a problem if the numbers are known from the outset. So, it is not the randomness we seek, but the patternlessness. The name pseudo-random pops up here, and it misses the point entirely. They are not the least bit random, and if they were we wouldn't necessarily be better off.
One source of confusion is that the situation being studied is usually random itself. In fact, what is calculated are various distribution functions - these assign probabilities to outcomes - and they are perfectly deterministic.
I meant from a UScentric standpoint. Not that I'm an american; but the passage I responded to implied that it is often favorable and (therefore) right for the US to start a war, and I wanted to challenge that the former claim. I think I was a bit too agitated to make my point .
As for entering WW2, that was easily right, though I'm not sure it was really favorable or avoidable.
Foreign policies are almost necessarily interventionalist, even the most hands-off of foreign policies must sometimes be interventionalist (e.g., President Clinton), and such manuevers are easy targets for the opposition party.
Please describe to me one instance of foreign intervention, the necessity of which has never been in dispute.
I'm not sure I follow. If Blowfish is a trustworthy link in the chain of steps comprising QKP, why not just use that on it's own? Or, better yet, if you have the chance to securely meet and exchange secrets for blowfish, why not just exchange one-time pads?
Actually, the big problem with quantum key distribution is that, while it allows for the possibility of the quantum channel being compromised - so that the eavesdropper can intercept the photons and send out new ones - it fails to consider that the classical channel may be compromised to the same degree.
Of course, presently encryption based on prime numbers could be used to secure the classical channel, but that makes the quantum channel superfluous anyway. QKP is intented for when Shor's algorithm is implementable in practice, so that classical encryption fails - but it still depends upon it.
The way the camera pans into the stadium as the announcers start talking all nascar-ish. I had managed to hold out hope until then, but that killed it dead.
The main problem overall with the prequels, is that there is not a single character you can like - no Han Solo. Anakin is going to be evil and he's about as deep as a puddle; the Jedi are all conceited; Padmé is ok I suppose but she gets reduced to being a childmaker and victim; Shmi is... yuck; and so on.
Sure, christians seem to speak more calmly and they don't have unruly beards. However, they certainly aren't above promoting disproportionate violence in response to insults or injury. They just phrase it better - or so it seems to other christians.
Without going into modern day politics - consider that the nazis were(/are) christians.
I believe we should be evaluated not by how much we donate, but by what we have left after the donation. Then, I could be considered as a _big_ donator!
Don't forget to take into account the actual effect of the donation.
It is very common that only the size of donation is regarded, sometimes in relative terms, and sometimes absolute. But there is no guarantee a big sum of money will do _any_ good. Just as there is no guarantee that walking into a store and leaving a pile of money on the floor will result in something worthwhile being delivered to your home.
In fact, if you can't be bothered to carefully follow up on how that money is used, you shouldn't donate it all. In many cases it does more harm than good. You need to choose between charities as ruthlessy as you would in buisness.
Gates has done this very well, at least in Africa. And he deserves this award a great deal more than Bono, whose contribution is to resist the very change which is statistically known to reduce poverty; the freeing of markets.
I think might be because pilots want to avoid crashing
into areas where there's people. Over large cities, this
means aiming for lakes or rivers, as these are the only
empty places.
Also, most people will take flights across oceans at some
point, and then the information will be potentially relevant. And the more times you've heard the procedures, the
higher the chance that you listened once.
I think the anwser for education is to require a Ed.D instead of a Ph.D to teach the first four years of college. Let the Ph.D's do research. Just because they are expert in their field does not mean they know how to convey that information to others.
The thing about higher education, universities at least, is that you are supposed to take responsibility for you own education. You're not taught, you study. What you propose, is to turn college into an extended high-school.
And while the Ph.D's might not be great pedagogs, the fact that they are experts in their field ensures that they know more than you do. It's hard to teach without meeting that requirement.
Slashdot Mirror
I can benchpress less than twice the mass of the earth.
The analogy to real world entropy is striking.
That's because it is real world entropy. Even if you're just thinking
about such a process (in detail - with all the ones and zeroes), that's
real world entropy too.
Entropy is a measure of disorder in any form, and can therefore not be
'bound' by any abstraction layer.
Hear, hear! Double blind testing is vital in a case like this, or the placebo effect might muddy the results. It is not enough to not tell the engine if it is being fitted by an actual device of this kind, or just a lookalike made from sugar - single blind testing. The people interacting with the engine must also be unaware, or it might subconsciously pick up clues from their behaviour, telling it if the device is real or not.
Well, then he should have a look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalized_extreme_value_distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_value_theory
There is described in Nature, Vol. 409 (2001), pp. 46-52 - "A scheme for efficient quantum computation with linear optics" by Knill, Laflamme and Milburn something which is called a linear optical quantum computer. The way the word linear is mentioned in the article makes it sound like they're using some variation of this.
In that case, qubits are represented by a photon traveling down (a superposition of) either one of two paths (a dual rail). On these paths you place basic linear optical elements: phase-retardation plates, beamsplitters and mirrors. To implement logical gate, in the simplest scheme, you entangle the outcome of a passage through a combination of linear optical elements with some other photons, see which detector those photons trigger, and start from the beginning if they didn't take the right path (so it's a bit of a cheat). Essentially \hat{path}|input>|other photons>=\alpha|correct output>|other photons at correct detector>+\beta|false output>|other photons elsewhere>.
A way around this is to use as input some photons prepared into a cluster state, which is very clever but no less of a cheat.
Remember though, that voting isn't the only way to influence the outcome of an election. If someone offered you a million dollars for your vote, the sensible thing to do, is obviously to take the money and then find ten people who would sell their vote for 100.000.
Taking an Ipod is another thing.
I hereby define one knibble (kilo-nibble) to mean exactly 183459349724 nibbles. I have a file
stored on a harddrive which weighs about one kilo, and this definition therefore makes everything very neat and simply. So much so, that demands of consistency will just have to yield. I also define one Mword (mega-word) to mean 1 word (since 'mega' is one word).
This might be confusing, and not completely uniform, but there is no ambiguity.
Seriously (well...), please finish this sentence for me. "Having KB mean 1024 bytes is very practical since 1024 is precisely the number of integers you can describe with 10 bits, and this amount of bits is frequently encountered when..."
Was this guy's name Tyler Durdan?
The universe is, pretty much by definition, 'that which exists'. If it wasn't created from nothing, but from something, that something would comprise part of the universe at an earlier time. Meaning that there was no creation in this instance, just a change of state.
So what else could the universe be created from, but nothing?
I will take this opportunity to ask, concerning the localization of vi to other languages than english; is there some standard remapping you can use so common functions don't end up in difficult places. For instance, when looking through the basic help, you are supposed to press C-] to enter topics. On my keyboard this means pressing ctrl+alt gr+9. If I want to keep my right hand in its home position, I then need to press alt gr with my thumb upside-down, and I'm already a bit sore.
I guess basic commands are given simple to reach keystrokes, but localization messes this up. How do other non-english people deal with this?
Did anyone else notice that Didi Senft seemed to get censored by the producers. I could see the pitch-fork paintings on the road, but not the guy himself. Except on one occasion, where he was onscreen for half a second, before the camera moved slightly to the side.
Maybe he isn't high-tech enough?
Why does the swedish chef keep mispronouncing swedish words?
but my point is that algorithmic randomness captures what we mean by "random" much better than statistical randomness. And algorithmic randomness is just a mathematically formal way of saying "unpredictable."
o n't-eat-you strategy; to use sequences with as little pattern as possible. Sequences with high 'algorithmic randomness', in your terminology.
That depends on who 'we' are. I, coming from the natural sciences, would never use the word random of numerical sequences. It is the origin of those number that can be random. E.g., throwing a dice is a random event, since I cannot predict the outcome. Throwing the dice six times might yield the result {1,2,3,4,5,6}, and it is not meaningful to say that this is less random than any other result. (In fact, it's not even less probable.)
Now, people are often faced with equations with no known solutions (or known not to have solutions in a closed form) and resort to computer simulations. This means, essentially, that they compute a sequence of f(x) from a sequence of x. They then generalise their results to all x (and publish). If f(x) exhibit some pattern, it might be a genuine result, or it might be because of a pattern in x. Unfortunately, one cannot beforehand (and usually not afterhand either) know which patterns to avoid in x.
The best bet is the wrap-towel-around-head-and-the-bugblatter-beast-w
Note that, using numbers from a random source is no guarantee, see above, (though low-pattern sequences are much less likely with a sensible setup). It would also not be a problem if the numbers are known from the outset. So, it is not the randomness we seek, but the patternlessness. The name pseudo-random pops up here, and it misses the point entirely. They are not the least bit random, and if they were we wouldn't necessarily be better off.
One source of confusion is that the situation being studied is usually random itself. In fact, what is calculated are various distribution functions - these assign probabilities to outcomes - and they are perfectly deterministic.
I meant from a UScentric standpoint. Not that I'm an american; but the passage I responded to implied that it is often favorable and (therefore) right for the US to start a war, and I wanted to challenge that the former claim. I think I was a bit too agitated to make my point .
As for entering WW2, that was easily right, though I'm not sure it was really favorable or avoidable.
Foreign policies are almost necessarily interventionalist, even the most hands-off of foreign policies must sometimes be interventionalist (e.g., President Clinton), and such manuevers are easy targets for the opposition party.
Please describe to me one instance of foreign intervention, the necessity of which has never been in dispute.
Actually, I can think of an even worse idea: 101 episodes.
Well,
We have clearly reached the end of my insight into cryptography. I would like to thank you for taking the time to answer.
I'm not sure I follow. If Blowfish is a trustworthy link in the chain of steps comprising QKP, why not just use that on it's own? Or, better yet, if you have the chance to securely meet and exchange secrets for blowfish, why not just exchange one-time pads?
Actually, the big problem with quantum key distribution is that, while it allows for the possibility of the quantum channel being compromised - so that the eavesdropper can intercept the photons and send out new ones - it fails to consider that the classical channel may be compromised to the same degree.
Of course, presently encryption based on prime numbers could be used to secure the classical channel, but that makes the quantum channel superfluous anyway. QKP is intented for when Shor's algorithm is implementable in practice, so that classical encryption fails - but it still depends upon it.
The way the camera pans into the stadium as the announcers start talking all nascar-ish. I had managed to hold out hope until then, but that killed it dead.
The main problem overall with the prequels, is that there is not a single character you can like - no Han Solo. Anakin is going to be evil and he's about as deep as a puddle; the Jedi are all conceited; Padmé is ok I suppose but she gets reduced to being a childmaker and victim; Shmi is... yuck; and so on.
Sure, christians seem to speak more calmly and they don't have unruly beards. However, they certainly aren't above promoting disproportionate violence in response to insults or injury. They just phrase it better - or so it seems to other christians.
Without going into modern day politics - consider that the nazis were(/are) christians.
Picasso was a grumpy realist (sur realist).
I believe we should be evaluated not by how much we donate, but by what we have left after the donation. Then, I could be considered as a _big_ donator!
Don't forget to take into account the actual effect of the donation.
It is very common that only the size of donation is regarded, sometimes in relative terms, and sometimes absolute. But there is no guarantee a big sum of money will do _any_ good. Just as there is no guarantee that walking into a store and leaving a pile of money on the floor will result in something worthwhile being delivered to your home.
In fact, if you can't be bothered to carefully follow up on how that money is used, you shouldn't donate it all. In many cases it does more harm than good. You need to choose between charities as ruthlessy as you would in buisness.
Gates has done this very well, at least in Africa. And he deserves this award a great deal more than Bono, whose contribution is to resist the very change which is statistically known to reduce poverty; the freeing of markets.
I think might be because pilots want to avoid crashing into areas where there's people. Over large cities, this means aiming for lakes or rivers, as these are the only empty places.
Also, most people will take flights across oceans at some point, and then the information will be potentially relevant. And the more times you've heard the procedures, the higher the chance that you listened once.
I think the anwser for education is to require a Ed.D instead of a Ph.D to teach the first four years of college. Let the Ph.D's do research. Just because they are expert in their field does not mean they know how to convey that information to others.
The thing about higher education, universities at least, is that you are supposed to take responsibility for you own education. You're not taught, you study. What you propose, is to turn college into an extended high-school.
And while the Ph.D's might not be great pedagogs, the fact that they are experts in their field ensures that they know more than you do. It's hard to teach without meeting that requirement.