You might consider that this number is an average. As you know gun policies vary a lot per state. In NM, for instance, the homicide rate is around 12 per 100,000, while in MA it is around 2.0 ;
Same statistic, same page, in Europe: France: 1.1 ; Sweden: 1.0 ; Italy: 0.9; Germany: 0.8 ; Switzerland: 0.7 ; Norway: 0.6. I'll let you have a look at Iceland, Australia, etc.
Basically in the Western world, the USA stands out on this statistics too. BTW, high rates of unintentional homicide, accidents and even suicide by firearms provide perfectly justifiable arguments for gun (or at least ammunition) control.
In clinical depression, emotions are not the source of the problem, only a symptom, which is by the way not always present. Depression can manifest itself by crushing fatigue, and not so much sadness for instance. The source of the problem can be summarized somewhat incorrectly by neurotransmitter imbalance in the brain.
We will see in a few years or even less if big content providers make more or less money than before in the UK. I'm of the opinion that blocking free content leads to discontent, less visibility, and ultimately less profit, because people will not want to reward what could be construed as oppression.
Yes, quantum computer ought to be really efficient at simulating quantum phenomena. This is really useful, because simulating them on classical computers is very inefficient, and so our understanding of many physical processes should improve.
Watt is a unit of power, not energy. So the content is completely impossible to assess. Are we to assume Wh (Watt-hours) instead? 2GWh would be a significant power plant output, the equivalent of a full nuclear power plant, however is this peak capacity? This would be far less impressive as average capacity would be significantly less.
State of the art spy satellite require active optics because they look at things through the atmosphere. Not upward like a ground-based astronomy telescope, but downwards.
Theoretical Quantum computer using entanglement to perform their calculations make no claim to solve NP-hard problems. They can only solve some very specific class of problems, that are well identified but are still interesting. Integer factorisation is one of them, but factorisation is not thought to be in NP-complete, although we are not certain at this stage.
There is an old article in PNAS that says that adiabatic quantum computers are theoretically no better than classical computers at solving NP-hard problems. So even if D-Wave had a truly working adiabatic quantum computer, it is not clear that it would perform orders of magnitudes better than what we have now.
Anyway all of this is very interesting to watch, but the fact that D-Wave is so secretive is not very compatible with progress in the field.
I'm personally reasonably convinced that D-Wave's engine is novel and does offer some new ways of performing various specific calculations. The literature about it exists and is quite interesting for people interested in optimisation. However I'm not sold to the technology yet, essentially classical CPUs can perform the same type of calculation that D-Wave's computer can at the moment, at a much lower cost. This might change in the future though.
The D-Wave engine can indeed solve some specific optimisation problems by a method called adiabatic annealing. Essentially this done by encoding the problem to be solved in some initial state of the physical components of the engine, and letting it evolve without exchanging energy with the outside world (this is what adiabatic means). The evolution is done in such a way that the solution to the optimisation problem eventually appears (this is the annealing part) with some probability.
The engine definitely works, this is not disputed. However there is some debate whether the way the engine works is essentially classical or essentially quantum. At the moment the engine is not especially powerful and it is very noisy, so there is no easy way to tell. In the 3 papers cited in the Fine Article, one says this is definitely quantum because the way the system evolves does not match the way classical annealing is simulated (simulated annealing (SA) is a very popular way to solve some complex classical optimisation problems). The second paper says that it is still possible to achieve the signature observed in the first paper by purely classical means, so this is not so clear. The third papers says that this is correct, but that there is more to the signature than was reported in the first paper, and that *this* is more likely to be quantum than not.
Feel free to contradict me. At any rate, and this is not disputed, the D-Wave engine does not work in the way quantum computers are expected to work in the literature about this topic. It would not be useful to solve factorisation problems as in the Shor algorithm. Rather, it would be useful to solve some optimisation problems in a faster way than with classical or traditional CPUs or GPU. This is still very useful, although at the moment the D-Wave computer's inner working are mostly secret, not hugely fast, and noisy. So D-Wave's qbits are a bit of a misnomer. They should be called something different so as not to engender confusion, perhaps obits (optimisation bits)?
Who are you going to vote for for this to change? both Dems and Reps are in favor of spying on their own constituency, so it has become a fact of life. Setting up a new party that would implement something different is (a) too much work and (b) it wouldn't work anyway.
In addition this is not surprising, totally in line with what most Americans think of their own federal government (corrupt, inefficient, a sort of necessary evil and a complete circus). This will only drive people only further away from being bothered to vote next time around.
This is in fact very very bad, but ordinary citizen can only feel totally powerless against this.
Look at the right of the graph, That's 12-15 million barrels *per day* or about 5 billion per year produced every year, i.e. quite a significant proportion.
People like Swartz are trying to change the world, much in the way older generations of engineers like some famous person from a large corporation called Steve, who also did things at a younger age that would be very sternly punished now.
Did anyone teach the prosecutors to be reasonable as well? That would be a change. Right now prosecutors across the country wield unreasonable powers to threaten, harass and destroy people's life without check, which is unworthy of a democracy. Is there a review going on? Did anyone caught on that the USA has the highest imprisonment rate of any country? Is the USA really more violent and dangerous than Russia or Cuba? I don't think so.
in my opinion, the first two star wars (not even the third), i.e. episode VI and V were great because they were set in a space opera universe that was easy to understand, where actual people could make a difference. In other words the technology and stuff was there for the "O, shiny" effect but really you cared about heroes, their skills and their troubles. It was highly imaginative and fun. Plus we had Harrison Ford to save the day, everyday.
In the latter trilogy, in spite of all of its flaws (trade dispute ! Jar jar Binks !) it could have been all the same had GL spent the time to actually develop Anakin into a believable villain. Dooku and Sidious were actually pretty good but not enough to save the franchise because expended too soon. The heroes were actually OK, from episode II onwards. Mc Gregor and Portman were actually showing some pretty good acting. Anakin was OK in places only and never great.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting, thanks, mod this up!
You might consider that this number is an average. As you know gun policies vary a lot per state. In NM, for instance, the homicide rate is around 12 per 100,000, while in MA it is around 2.0 ;
This interactive map is interesting, you can draw your own conclusions.
You are not far off, homicides (excluding suicides) kill 0.7% of Americans. Various sources, including this one
With all due respect you should look up what "per 100,000" means.
Same statistic, same page, in Europe: France: 1.1 ; Sweden: 1.0 ; Italy: 0.9; Germany: 0.8 ; Switzerland: 0.7 ; Norway: 0.6. I'll let you have a look at Iceland, Australia, etc.
Basically in the Western world, the USA stands out on this statistics too. BTW, high rates of unintentional homicide, accidents and even suicide by firearms provide perfectly justifiable arguments for gun (or at least ammunition) control.
In clinical depression, emotions are not the source of the problem, only a symptom, which is by the way not always present. Depression can manifest itself by crushing fatigue, and not so much sadness for instance. The source of the problem can be summarized somewhat incorrectly by neurotransmitter imbalance in the brain.
We will see in a few years or even less if big content providers make more or less money than before in the UK. I'm of the opinion that blocking free content leads to discontent, less visibility, and ultimately less profit, because people will not want to reward what could be construed as oppression.
Yes but they produce a lot of carcinogenic micro-particles, and currently available, cost-effective filters are typically not efficient enough.
with all other parameters being equal, of course. Like reliability or efficiency.
Yes, quantum computer ought to be really efficient at simulating quantum phenomena. This is really useful, because simulating them on classical computers is very inefficient, and so our understanding of many physical processes should improve.
Unless P=NP of course, in which case they are all in the same class.
Watt is a unit of power, not energy. So the content is completely impossible to assess. Are we to assume Wh (Watt-hours) instead? 2GWh would be a significant power plant output, the equivalent of a full nuclear power plant, however is this peak capacity? This would be far less impressive as average capacity would be significantly less.
It's even worse than that. If w is the telephone apparent width, and alpha the bending angle, the screen's true width is
truewidth = alpha * (w/2)/(sin(alpha/2))
For w=2 inches and alpha = 10 degrees, truewidth = 2.00254 ; barely 0.1% better.
State of the art spy satellite require active optics because they look at things through the atmosphere. Not upward like a ground-based astronomy telescope, but downwards.
I haven't laughed on slashdot like this in years.
Theoretical Quantum computer using entanglement to perform their calculations make no claim to solve NP-hard problems. They can only solve some very specific class of problems, that are well identified but are still interesting. Integer factorisation is one of them, but factorisation is not thought to be in NP-complete, although we are not certain at this stage.
There is an old article in PNAS that says that adiabatic quantum computers are theoretically no better than classical computers at solving NP-hard problems. So even if D-Wave had a truly working adiabatic quantum computer, it is not clear that it would perform orders of magnitudes better than what we have now.
Anyway all of this is very interesting to watch, but the fact that D-Wave is so secretive is not very compatible with progress in the field.
I'm personally reasonably convinced that D-Wave's engine is novel and does offer some new ways of performing various specific calculations. The literature about it exists and is quite interesting for people interested in optimisation. However I'm not sold to the technology yet, essentially classical CPUs can perform the same type of calculation that D-Wave's computer can at the moment, at a much lower cost. This might change in the future though.
The D-Wave engine can indeed solve some specific optimisation problems by a method called adiabatic annealing. Essentially this done by encoding the problem to be solved in some initial state of the physical components of the engine, and letting it evolve without exchanging energy with the outside world (this is what adiabatic means). The evolution is done in such a way that the solution to the optimisation problem eventually appears (this is the annealing part) with some probability.
The engine definitely works, this is not disputed. However there is some debate whether the way the engine works is essentially classical or essentially quantum. At the moment the engine is not especially powerful and it is very noisy, so there is no easy way to tell. In the 3 papers cited in the Fine Article, one says this is definitely quantum because the way the system evolves does not match the way classical annealing is simulated (simulated annealing (SA) is a very popular way to solve some complex classical optimisation problems). The second paper says that it is still possible to achieve the signature observed in the first paper by purely classical means, so this is not so clear. The third papers says that this is correct, but that there is more to the signature than was reported in the first paper, and that *this* is more likely to be quantum than not.
Feel free to contradict me. At any rate, and this is not disputed, the D-Wave engine does not work in the way quantum computers are expected to work in the literature about this topic. It would not be useful to solve factorisation problems as in the Shor algorithm. Rather, it would be useful to solve some optimisation problems in a faster way than with classical or traditional CPUs or GPU. This is still very useful, although at the moment the D-Wave computer's inner working are mostly secret, not hugely fast, and noisy. So D-Wave's qbits are a bit of a misnomer. They should be called something different so as not to engender confusion, perhaps obits (optimisation bits)?
I hope this make sense to you.
Who are you going to vote for for this to change? both Dems and Reps are in favor of spying on their own constituency, so it has become a fact of life. Setting up a new party that would implement something different is (a) too much work and (b) it wouldn't work anyway.
In addition this is not surprising, totally in line with what most Americans think of their own federal government (corrupt, inefficient, a sort of necessary evil and a complete circus). This will only drive people only further away from being bothered to vote next time around.
This is in fact very very bad, but ordinary citizen can only feel totally powerless against this.
Given that the NIF cheats by not accounting for the laser inefficiencies, by the same token, breakeven was achieved by the Japanese J-60 tokamak in 1998.
86*10^6 barrel * 365 = 30 * 10^9 ; however the China post article mentions 300 * 10^9 barrels as recoverable. That's 10 years of supply, not 1.
This is perhaps not so bad news, I don't know.
And manipulates people into thinking that they must buy a diamond-equipped ring when becoming engaged. And that this ring may never be sold again.
Look at the right of the graph, That's 12-15 million barrels *per day* or about 5 billion per year produced every year, i.e. quite a significant proportion.
People like Swartz are trying to change the world, much in the way older generations of engineers like some famous person from a large corporation called Steve, who also did things at a younger age that would be very sternly punished now.
Did anyone teach the prosecutors to be reasonable as well? That would be a change. Right now prosecutors across the country wield unreasonable powers to threaten, harass and destroy people's life without check, which is unworthy of a democracy. Is there a review going on? Did anyone caught on that the USA has the highest imprisonment rate of any country? Is the USA really more violent and dangerous than Russia or Cuba? I don't think so.
in my opinion, the first two star wars (not even the third), i.e. episode VI and V were great because they were set in a space opera universe that was easy to understand, where actual people could make a difference. In other words the technology and stuff was there for the "O, shiny" effect but really you cared about heroes, their skills and their troubles. It was highly imaginative and fun. Plus we had Harrison Ford to save the day, everyday.
In the latter trilogy, in spite of all of its flaws (trade dispute ! Jar jar Binks !) it could have been all the same had GL spent the time to actually develop Anakin into a believable villain. Dooku and Sidious were actually pretty good but not enough to save the franchise because expended too soon. The heroes were actually OK, from episode II onwards. Mc Gregor and Portman were actually showing some pretty good acting. Anakin was OK in places only and never great.