In case you missed it earlier today, Virgin Galactic successfully performed
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Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Look at SpaceShipTwo's Rocket Ablaze
Depressurizer Tidies Up Your Steam Library
Windows: If you've been using Steam for a few years, chances are you have an unwieldy list of games in your library's sidebar. While you can categorize them into folders within Steam manually, Depressurizer helps automate the process.
For the app to work, you'll need the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 and a public Steam profile. When you run the application, it will find your Steam library and list all of its games. Just hit Tools > Auto-Cat to automatically assign games to different genre folders like Action, Adventure, or Casual. It might not work for all of your games, but it should take care of the lion's share, leaving you to only drag and drop a handful manually in the proper folder. Once you're done, hit Profile > Export Config File, restart Steam, and your library should be cleaned up and categorized. The app is a little buggy, and you might see quirks like UI buttons slightly cut off at the bottom of the window, but you only really need to use it once to get your library in order.
Depressurizer (Free) | Google Code via Ghacks
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Monday, 29 April 2013
NBA's Michael Jordan marries ex-model over weekend
Michael Jordan got married over the weekend, with Tiger Woods, Spike Lee and Patrick Ewing among those attending the NBA Hall of Famer's wedding in Palm Beach, Fla.
Jordan married 35-year-old former model Yvette Prieto on Saturday, manager Estee Portnoy told The Associated Press on Sunday.
The 50-year-old Jordan owns the Charlotte Bobcats.
Nearly 300 guests were present as they exchanged vows. The reception took place at a private golf club in Jupiter designed by Jack Nicklaus. Jordan owns a home near the course.
Entertainment included DJ MC Lyte, singers K'Jon, Robin Thicke and Grammy Award winner Usher and The Source, an 18-piece band.
The six-time NBA champion and Prieto met five years ago and were engaged last December.
Jordan had three children with former wife Juanita Vanoy. The couple's divorce was finalized in December 2006.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nbas-michael-jordan-marries-ex-model-over-weekend-024122152.html
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Level Global in $21.5 million SEC insider trading settlement
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Level Global Investors LP agreed to pay $21.5 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil charges that its co-founder and an analyst engaged in insider trading, in a case that caused the demise of the hedge fund firm.
The case against Level Global, which once invested $4 billion, arose from allegations that co-founder Anthony Chiasson and analyst Spyridon "Sam" Adondakis engaged in repeated illegal trading in computer maker Dell Inc and chipmaker Nvidia Corp shares in 2008 and 2009.
It is part of the broader government probe into alleged insider trading that was unveiled in 2009, and which has led to several dozen convictions and guilty pleas.
A federal jury in Manhattan convicted Chiasson on securities fraud and conspiracy counts in December, and he faces sentencing on May 13. Adondakis pleaded guilty in January 2012 and testified against his former boss.
"The insider trading at Level Global was hardly an isolated event - it occurred repeatedly, and involved multiple companies and multiple quarterly announcements," Sanjay Wadhwa, senior associate director of the SEC's regional office in New York, said in a statement.
Monday's settlement calls for Level Global to give up $10.08 million of fees linked to the alleged scheme, pay a $10.08 million fine and pay $1.35 million in interest.
Level Global neither admitted nor denied the charges, and the settlement requires court approval.
Lawyers for Level Global did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Level Global closed in 2011 after an FBI raid, and the Greenwich, Connecticut-based firm is winding down its business.
Todd Newman, a former portfolio manager at Diamondback Capital Management, was also convicted of insider trading at the same trial as Chiasson. Newman faces a May 2 sentencing, and Diamondback in December announced its own plan to close.
The SEC said its civil case against Chiasson is continuing. Adondakis has settled with the regulator.
The case is SEC v. Adondakis et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-00409.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington, D.C. and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Gary Hill and Chris Reese)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/level-global-pay-21-5-million-settle-sec-193414357.html
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Sunday, 28 April 2013
10 things you need to know today: April 28, 2013
Obama entertains at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, another ricin suspect is arrested, and more in our roundup of stories that are making news and driving opinion
1.?OBAMA CRACKS JOKES AT CORRESPONDENTS' DINNER
President Obama joked Saturday night about his plans for a radical second-term evolution from "strapping young Socialist" to retiree golfer at this year's annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, hosted by Conan O'Brien. Before showing a montage of photos of him sporting bangs styled like first lady Michelle's, Obama joked about how re-election would allow him to unleash a radical agenda. But then he showed a picture of himself golfing on a mock magazine cover of Senior Leisure. Obama closed by noting the nation's recent tragedies in Massachusetts?and Texas, praising Americans of all stripes, from first responders to local journalists for serving the public good.?[Huffington Post]
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2. OWNER OF COLLAPSED BANGLADESH BUILDING IS ARRESTED
The owner of Rana Plaza, the building that collapsed last week near Dhaka, Bangladesh, was arrested on Sunday at a border crossing with India. After the owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, was arrested, an announcement was made by loudspeaker at the site of the collapsed building, where people cheered and clapped. At least 362 people have died as a result of the Wednesday?collapse of the eight-story building that housed garment factories. It is already the deadliest tragedy to hit Bangladesh's garment industry, surpassing another deadly tragedy in November.?[New York Times]
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SEE MORE: Latest shots in the austerity debate: Krugman vs. Reinhart and Rogoff
3.?FURLOUGH ENDS, FAA RETURNS TO REGULAR STAFFING
Less than a week after furloughs began that idled air traffic controllers and delayed flights, the FAA will return to normal staffing levels by Sunday evening. The move comes after Congress voted to let the FAA move money around in its budget ? a quick response that came after several days of travel delays that were either caused by or worsened by the furloughs. The FAA is taking action despite the fact that the legislation has not yet been signed by President Obama. A?typo ? a missing "s" ? exists in the Senate version of the bill, but not the House version. The Senate is expected to correct the error Tuesday.?[NPR]
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4.?ANOTHER RICIN SUSPECT IS ARRESTED IN MISSISSIPPI
FBI agents arrested J. Everett Dutschke, a Mississippi man, Saturday in connection with sending?ricin-laced letters to government officials.?Dutschke, of Tupelo, Miss., was charged with possessing a toxin for use as a weapon, among other charges, the U.S. attorney's office said.?The arrest follows a tumultuous week in which the man initially charged, Paul Kevin Curtis, an Elvis impersonator who had quarreled with Dutschke, was released. Dutschke is a martial-arts instructor, rock musician and failed political candidate.?[Wall Street Journal]
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SEE MORE: 10 things you need to know today: April 27, 2013
5.?TWO SHOT OUTSIDE ITALIAN PM'S OFFICE
Two Italian police officers were wounded Sunday when a gunman shot at officers outside the prime minister's office in Rome. The gunman, a 49-year-old man from Calabria, Italy, fired five shots at police before being taken into custody. The officers didn't suffer life-threatening wounds, and the shooter was also hospitalized, though unwounded. Enrico Letta was being sworn in as prime minister at the time at the president's palace a short distance away. Police said the man's motive was unclear.?[CNN]
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6. CHERTOFF?DESCRIBES TRICKY SYRIAN CHEMICAL WEAPON?SITUATION
Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledged Sunday that President Obama is in a difficult situation when it comes to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons on Syrian rebels. "Putting aside the question of exactly what we do, once we announce there's a red line, if we don't take it seriously, then we are discrediting ourselves not only in Syria, but in Iran, North Korea, and all around the world," Chertoff said on CNN's State of the Union. Former Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns agreed and said the need for concrete evidence is necessary to avoid another situation like U.S. involvement in Iraq.?[Politico]
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SEE MORE: Are $100,000 cancer drugs unethical?
7.?JAPANESE AIRLINE RESUMES BOEING FLIGHTS
ANA, the Japanese launch customer for Boeing's 787, flew its first Dreamliner in more than three months on Sunday to test reinforced batteries installed by Boeing. The successful flight was the second by an airline since aviation regulators on Friday gave permission for 787 operations to restart after batteries on two of them overheated in mid-January. On Saturday,?Ethiopian Airlines became the world's first carrier to resume flying Dreamliner?jets since the global fleet was grounded.?[Reuters]
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8.?BLACK VOTER TURNOUT HIT HIGH IN 2012 ELECTION
America's blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and, by most measures, surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home. Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Mitt Romney would have won narrowly, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press.?[Washington Post]
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SEE MORE: The week in words
9.?WWII IWO JIMA FLAG PROVIDER DIES
Alan Wood, a World War II veteran credited with providing the flag in the famous flag-raising on Iwo Jima, has died at the age of 90. Wood died April 18 of natural causes at his Sierra Madre home, his son Steven Wood said Saturday. Wood was a 22-year-old Navy officer when five Marines and a Navy Corpsman later raised his flag in a stirring moment captured by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.?[USA Today]
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10.?ZACH BRAFF RAISES $2 MILLION FOR NEW MOVIE
Another day, another celebrity-backed movie fundraiser on Kickstarter. Just three days after Zach Braff posted his Garden State follow-up on Kickstarter, Wish I Was Here has already hit its $2 million fundraising goal. One particularly deep-pocketed Braff supporter made a $10,000 donation, earning the most prized reward: Being a cast member in Wish I Was Here, which involves speaking a line of dialogue written by Braff.?[Entertainment Weekly]
SEE MORE: Is gun control primed for a huge comeback?
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94% Room 237
All Critics (108) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (102) | Rotten (7) | DVD (1)
There's enough real evidence supporting the theory that Kubrick was a genius, and that's pretty entertaining all by itself.
It's about the human need for stuff to make sense - especially overpowering emotional experiences - and the tendency for some people to take that sense-making to extremes.
The results can range from enlightening - Kubrick did like to mess with things - to embarrassing. But it's never dull. "Room 237" shines.
You don't have to buy any of the nutty theories in Room 237 to appreciate what director Rodney Ascher has accomplished.
It's nuts, in the best possible way.
Their imaginings are not far removed from the deconstuctionist gobbledygook that has hammerlocked academic film and literary scholarship. But here at least the gobbledygook is entertaining.
Termitic film nerds could chow down for years on the wood chips.
You know when "Room 237? starts getting really scary? When the people in the film start making sense.
Kubrick fans and movie geeks will want to check this film out as soon as possible
Kubrick fans will take 'Shining' to 'Room 237.'
The credibility of these theories ranges from faintly plausible to frankly ridiculous, but Ascher isn't interested in judging them; his movie is more about the joys of deconstruction and the special kind of obsession that movies can inspire.
Some of the interpretations seem more of a stretch than others but all are entertainingly presented by director Rodney Ascher. (The movie) serves as a testament to Stanley Kubrick's cinematic mastery.
As fascinating as it is frustrating
It is nice to see a doc that makes you smile instead of making you angry. Anyone who is a fan of Stanley Kubrick will eat this up.
Powered by a deep and abiding affection for both The Shining and Kubrick in general, Room 237 is an amuse-bouche of remix culture.
Room 237 is an extended riff of the "Paul is dead" variety. But, you know what? Sometimes a guy moving a table in the background is just a guy moving a table in the background.
A diverting excursion for lovers of Kubrick's films...even if, at over a hundred minutes, it does go on a bit long.
A fascinating doc that will get both film geeks and conspiracy theorists alike drooling, it all but guarantees you'll never watch The Shining quite the same way again.
Confounding, eye-opening, and often hilarious.
I suspect that Ascher's intention was to dynamize an academic exercise, but these constant, sundry inserts render the tone as corny and glib as a VH1 special.
No quotes approved yet for Room 237. Logged in users can submit quotes.
Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/room_237_2012/
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Rolling Stones to play small LA club ahead of tour
FILE - This Dec. 15, 2012 file photo shows lead singer Mick Jagger, left, and Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones during a performance at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. The band is expected to release information on their upcoming tour on Wednesday, April 3, 2013. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
FILE - This Dec. 15, 2012 file photo shows lead singer Mick Jagger, left, and Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones during a performance at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. The band is expected to release information on their upcoming tour on Wednesday, April 3, 2013. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Surprise!
Before they kick off their "50 and Counting" tour, the Rolling Stones are playing a warm-up date at a small Los Angeles club.
The band is set to perform Saturday night at the Echoplex before a sold-out crowd that will be miniscule compared to the thousands who are set to see them launch their tour May 3 at the Staples Center.
Tickets were sold for $20 each ? a fraction of what tickets to the tour will cost.
Hundreds of fans lined up outside the El Rey Theatre earlier Saturday for a chance at the tickets. They were dispensed through a confusing lottery system that led to much of the crowd departing even though show tickets were made available to lottery ticket holders.
Buyers were limited to one ticket, and were required to show a government-issued ID, pay with cash, wear a wristband with their name on it and be photographed. Their names will be verified at the venue, which has a capacity of about 700. Cameras and smartphones will not be allowed inside.
Rumors of the spontaneous show spread across social networks this week after the band teased the appearance on their Twitter accounts. The dance-pop band New Build, which was originally scheduled to play the Echoplex on Saturday, was first to leak details about the show.
"Our gig got shifted b/c the Rolling Stones are playing Echoplex," the band posted Friday on Twitter. They joked that they're looking forward to "having it out" with the Rolling Stones.
The Rolling Stones performed a few dates together in London, Brooklyn, N.Y., and Newark, N.J., last winter, but didn't announce a tour until earlier this month. They will play 17 dates in the United States but said they may add more down the line.
The lowest price for tickets to the show at the Staples Center, which has a capacity of about 20,000, is $250.
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Online:
http://www.rollingstones.com
___
Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang
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Markets subdued ahead of US growth figures
LONDON (AP) ? The mood in financial markets was subdued Friday after a surprisingly big fall in Japanese prices and ahead of the first estimate of first-quarter economic growth in the U.S.
At the end of what's been a largely positive week, investors are gearing up for the growth figures. Despite a run of disappointing U.S. economic news, investors are relatively hopeful that the world's largest economy will post annualized growth of a little over 3 percent, well up on the previous quarter's 0.4 percent rate.
"Given the gains seen this week, an element of caution appears to be creeping into investor's mindset after a week of predominantly poor economic data," said Michael Hewson, senior market analyst at CMC Markets.
In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.7 percent to 6,400 while Germany's DAX fell the same rate to 7,784. The CAC-40 in France was 1.2 percent lower at 3,794.
Wall Street was poised for a lower opening with both Dow futures and the broader S&P 500 futures down 0.2 percent. How they will actually though will likely hinge on those GDP figures which are due for release an hour before the bell.
The dollar's fortunes over the day will likely hinge on the GDP figures too. Ahead of the release, the euro was up 0.1 percent at $1.3013.
Friday's session has also been dented by the news that prices in Japan are falling at their fastest rate in two years ? deflation is considered a bad thing as it can weigh on economic activity by giving consumers the incentive to hold off make purchases and by keeping a lid on wages. It also raises the relative value of a country's debt and for a country like Japan that's another problem.
The news that consumer prices in Japan fell by 0.9 percent in the year to March highlighted the scale of the challenge facing the Bank of Japan, which has been tasked to get inflation of 2 percent. In its attempt to do so, it announced a massive monetary stimulus package this month. It did not announce any new measures after its latest meeting Friday.
The prospect of more money in Japan has hit the yen hard to the likely benefit of the country's powerhouse exporters. And that's one reason why Tokyo's Nikkei 225 stock index has performed so strongly over the past few weeks.
However, the fall in prices weighed on Japanese stocks and gave the Asian session a soft tone. The Nikkei, which in the morning hit its highest intraday level in five years at 13,983.87, fell 0.3 percent to close at 13,884.13. The yen, however, clawed back some ground after the BoJ announcement of unchanged policies. The dollar was 0.8 percent lower at 98.59 yen.
"I think if there is anything to take from today's BoJ policy meeting it is the fact that the BoJ believes it has made all the announcements necessary in order to achieve its more aggressive inflation target," said Derek Halpenny, European head of global markets research at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.7 percent to 22,547.71 while South Korea's Kospi fell 0.4 percent at 1,944.56. Benchmarks in mainland China and India fell.
Benchmark oil for June delivery was down 62 cents to $93.02 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $2.21 to close at $93.64 on the Nymex on Thursday.
In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3027 from $1.3002 late Thursday in New York. The dollar fell to 98.72 yen from 99.31 yen.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/markets-subdued-ahead-us-growth-figures-095800274--finance.html
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Saturday, 27 April 2013
Alleged 9/11 airplane part to be examined
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The Reference Frame: Democritus on the QM operating system
This reading report will be much more favorable than the previous one, one on minds and machines.
Chapters 5, 6, 7 etc. are dedicated to the classes of problems that may be solved in a reasonable time. They are full of arguments showing that if one type of a problem may be solved [at all AND/OR with some limitations on time AND/OR with some limitations on memory AND/OR with some probability of success AND/OR with some secret hints etc.], then another type of a problem may be solved at all.
This leaves a network of classes of algorithmic problems that are not known to coincide. This network is a result of simplifications resulting from some known proofs ? proofs demonstrating the equivalence of some classes etc. ? which have been taken into account. There's a lot of mathematical arguments that I have only partially verified but it seems clear that they have no good reason to be wrong because the researchers doing them aren't stupid (they're rather rigorous mathematicians) and there aren't any real subtleties that would require some "special kinds of intelligence" behind conventional math skills and rigor.
As an introduction to complexity, it's a wonderful resource. But I don't plan to memorize all the things that are known about the classes and particular problems and algorithms; instead, I know a good source where some basic things may be found if needed. ;-)
The last pre-quantum chapter is dedicated to cryptography. You learn about various simple and hard codes; functions that are easy to compute but hard to invert; various proofs that various coding systems may be cracked in one way or another, with or without some extra information, with or without a quantum computer.
One of the holy grails of the chapter is the explanation of the RSA algorithm. You want to send some information ? e.g. your credit card number ? somewhere ? e.g. to amazon.com (by the way, the company just decided to build its 1st-2nd largest European logistical center in Czechia, not Poland; the other one is in Germany) so that no one except for amazon.com may decode it. How is it done? Amazon.com picks random large prime integers \(p,q\) which may be done quickly and computes \(N=pq\). It sends just \(N\) to you. You don't know \(p,q\) yourself. Your computer computes \(x^3\mod N\) where \(x\leq N-1\) is an integer representing your secret message (or credit card number).
It's probably impossible to efficiently revert this exponentiation i.e. to compute the cubic root modulo \(N\) directly. It's also impossible to quickly enough find factors \(p,q\) of the composite number \(N\). It's probably impossible to compute \(x\) out of \(N\) and \(x^3\mod N\) even indirectly ? such a task probably can't be done without the impossible tasks in the previous two sentences. However, amazon.com knows \(p,q\) as well and with this extra knowledge, it may calculate \(x\). For technical reasons, \(p-1\) and \(q-1\) shouldn't be multiples of three. Safe. Probably. Only you and amazon.com can know \(x\): you know it because you used it to calculate \(x^3\mod N\); amazon.com knows it because it's the only server that knows \(p,q\) which is probably needed to compute the cubic root.
There is a lot of stuff of this kind in the book and if you're interested in cryptography, the book is recommended to you. However, I want to say a few words about
The quantum mechanics operating system
There are lots of the "discrete bias" in the book; I will mention it again below. But I was impressed by Scott Aaronson's first approach to quantum mechanics because it largely agrees with mine ? and some detailed uniqueness claims and arguments supporting them are almost exactly equivalent to my text arguing that quantum mechanics can't be any different.
So Aaronson says that the conventional undergraduate approach to teaching of quantum mechanics deals with lots of technicalities like differential equations and ends up viewing the new conceptual framework as an ultimate mystery. He takes a different approach ? quantum mechanics is presented as a new generalization of the probability theory.
It is correctly said that there are just three frameworks that are worth considering: classical deterministic systems; classical probabilistic systems; and quantum mechanics. Arguments are given why quantum mechanics has to be based on squaring the (absolute values of the) amplitudes; why the complex numbers are the only right, "Goldilocks", number system for quantum mechanics (their being algebraically closed is also mentioned, much like the natural counting linked to the fact that complex representations of groups are the default ones); why operators have to be linear, and so on.
Some of the arguments are literally the same as mine. For example, the reason why the probabilities are given by the second power is explained by the fact that only for the exponents \(p=1\) and \(p=2\), one may find some unitary-like transformations of the probability amplitude vectors that preserve the norm and that are nontrivial i.e. more complicated than permutations with sign flips.
The unitary matrices are cleverly presented as the quantum answer to the stochastic matrices in classical physics. There isn't any other comparably interesting and nontrivial class of matrices with similar properties which is a part of the reason why classical and quantum physics are the only two frameworks to deal with probabilities in physics.
Of course, this introductory quantum chapter also discusses the cloning no-go theorem, tensor products, entangled states, and similarly basic notions, along with the quantum teleportation and even quantum money and other less rudimentary concepts in applied quantum physics (including references to some papers by Aaronson himself).
I don't really believe that there will be a single person who doesn't know quantum mechanics in advance but who will learn it from the book ? the introduction to quantum mechanics in this chapter is arguably too concise ? but I do think that it could be helpful to reorganize the teaching of quantum mechanics along these lines.
At the beginning, the author also says that quantum mechanics (the general postulates etc.) is "somewhere in between maths and physics in the hierarchy of scientific disciplines that continue with chemistry and biology". It's more physical than just maths and the ordinary probability theory in maths; but it's less physical than particular physical theories. It's an operating system on which particular physical models run as applications. I couldn't agree more.
Aaronson's computer-science bias only begins to emerge ? at least I hope so ? when he discusses what the actual applications are. So he apparently believes that all the applications, including those defining the fundamental laws of physics, should be of discrete nature which ain't the case. The quantum mechanical operating system perfectly allows the observables with continuous spectra and some operators of this kind are always needed to define the physical laws for the adults.
His flawed perception that bits, and not nats, are physically natural units of information and entropy is also imprinted in at least one characteristic error. The book doesn't avoid mathematical formulae and they're largely accurate. However, he applies the prime number theorem incorrectly to compute how many prime numbers with at most \(N\) bits are there. What do you think the result asymptotically is, including the right prefactors of order one? ;-)
Such annoying prefactors have to occur everywhere simply because \(2\) is an unnatural base for exponentials and logarithms much like a bit (and qubit) is an unnatural unit of information and entropy. But I am learning how to sharply separate these misconceptions of folks like Aaronson from the "operating system"-level of knowledge (including the quantum one) that they apparently understand correctly.
Quantum computers
Chapter 10 finally jumps at the inevitable union of computation and quantum mechanics, quantum computation. My intro to quantum computation is here. Sadly, one of several promising quantum computers that exist on Earth, one inside a diamond, was eaten by an 80-year-old grandma yesterday.
The author marvels that only in the 1990s, people started to ask which problems may be feasibly solved by computers allowed by Nature's being quantum mechanical. I also find it amazing that this branch of computer science wasn't born earlier.
He talks about the Hadamard gate etc. (replacing the universal NAND gate of classical computers), reasons why quantum computers may do everything that classical (even classical probabilistic) computers can do, and so on.
There are interesting two sections at the end of the chapter in which Aaronson debunks the super-naive "quantum computer as exponentially parallel classical computer" meme and the related misconceptions promoted largely by David Deutsch that quantum computation "proves the many worlds interpretation". Scott doesn't say as much as I did e.g. in this criticism of the many worlds but he does say certain things, for example that MWI can't say what is the preferred basis into which the world "splits" (it also can't say when and how etc. and the very claim that it does irreversibly split is wrong because at least in principle, there's always a nonzero chance of "reinterference").
The related idea that the "quantum computation is a massively parallel classical computation" is flawed and this big blunder may be illuminated in many ways. First of all, it's not true that the streams in the "massively parallel set of classical calculations within a quantum computer" are independent. Quite on the contrary, the result announced by a quantum computer depends on interference i.e. "collaboration" between these streams or "different histories".
Moreover, the textbook example of a problem you may want to massively speed up ? the search of something in a database ? can't be exponentially sped up by a quantum computer. Instead, Grover's algorithm only provides us with a power-law speedup. In fact, it's been proved before the algorithm was found that a faster quantum algorithm than the power ultimately realized by Grover's algorithm can't exist! As always, any attempt to sell quantum mechanics as some "kind of a classical theory" (whether it's parallel or not, whether it has hidden variables or not, whatever are its preferred observables etc.) may ultimately be proven deeply misguided. Quantum mechanics isn't classical, stupid.
Aaronson also extends his collection of classes of problems waiting for algorithms with classes that allow some/complete solution using a quantum computer. He reinterprets Feynman's path integral as the proof that one class belongs to another. That's what Feynman got his Nobel prize for, we learn. It's an amusing attempt of a computer scientist to "devour physics" but at least historically, it's completely wrong because Feynman shared their Nobel prize for QED, an application of his computational methods (including the path integral), not for the path integral itself (although his Nobel lecture essentially was mostly about the path integral).
Moreover, Aaronson only presented one particular application of Feynman's path integrals. Any physically meaningful question about a quantum system may be answered using Feynman's path integral which makes it kind of silly to associate this method with some "very special problems".
Source: http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/04/democritus-on-qm-operating-system.html
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Google buys startup that summarizes online content
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Google has bought Wavii, a Seattle startup behind an application that condenses online content for time-pressed Web surfers.
Both companies confirmed the deal Friday. As with most of its acquisitions, Google isn't disclosing how much it paid for Wavii.
Wavii's technology grasps the context of language so it can summarize the main points in news stories and other content.
Although Wavii's app is shutting down, CEO Adrian Aoun says the startup's technology will be used in other Google products.
Google Inc., which is based in Mountain, View, Calif., declined to discuss its plans for Wavii. The natural-language technology could be useful for Google's Knowledge Graph, an 11-month-old feature that summarizes information in boxes that appear alongside some of Google's search results.
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Congress approves bill to end delays in flights
A United Airlines jet departs in view of the air traffic control tower at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Seattle. A day after flight delays plagued much of the U.S., air travel is smoother Tuesday. But the government is warning passengers that the situation can change by the hour as it runs the nation's air traffic control system with a smaller staff. Airlines and members of Congress urged the Federal Aviation Administration to find other ways to make mandatory budget cuts besides furloughing controllers. While delays haven't been terrible yet, the airlines are worried about the long-term impact late flights will have on their budgets and on fliers. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
A United Airlines jet departs in view of the air traffic control tower at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in Seattle. A day after flight delays plagued much of the U.S., air travel is smoother Tuesday. But the government is warning passengers that the situation can change by the hour as it runs the nation's air traffic control system with a smaller staff. Airlines and members of Congress urged the Federal Aviation Administration to find other ways to make mandatory budget cuts besides furloughing controllers. While delays haven't been terrible yet, the airlines are worried about the long-term impact late flights will have on their budgets and on fliers. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Congress hurried to approve legislation Friday that will end the furloughs of air traffic controllers that have delayed hundreds of flights daily, infuriating travelers and causing political headaches for lawmakers.
The House approved the measure on a 361-41 vote, a day after the Senate agreed to the bill. Friday's vote came as lawmakers prepared to leave town for a weeklong spring recess, a break that would have been less pleasant if they were confronted by constituents upset over travel delays.
Republicans accused the Obama administration of purposely furloughing controllers to pressure Congress to replace $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts ? known as the sequester ? that took effect last month at government agencies.
"The administration has played shameful politics with the sequester at the cost of hard-working American families," said Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa.
The White House and Democrats have argued that by law, the administration has little room to decide where the cuts fall. They want Congress to work on legislation lifting all of the cuts, which lawmakers noted have also caused reductions in Head Start preschool programs, benefits for the long-term unemployed and medical research.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said the president would sign the new bill, but he added, "The problem is this is just a Band-Aid solution."
During House debate, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had a similar complaint.
"How can we sit there and say, 'Four million Meals on Wheels for seniors, gone, but that's not important. Over 70,000 children off Head Start, but that's not important," Pelosi said.
The Federal Aviation Administration has furloughed the controllers as part of the government-wide reductions. The bill would let the FAA use up to $253 million from airport improvement and other accounts to end the furloughs through the Sept. 30 end of the federal fiscal year.
In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, the available funds can be used for other FAA operations, including preventing the closure of small airport towers around the country. The FAA had said it would shut the facilities to meet its share of the spending cuts.
The FAA said there had been at least 863 flights delayed on Wednesday "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough."
Administration officials participated in the negotiations that led to the deal and evidently registered no objections.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a key participant in the talks, said the legislation would "prevent what otherwise would have been intolerable delays in the air travel system, inconveniencing travelers and hurting the economy."
Senate approval Thursday night followed several hours of pressure-filled, closed-door negotiations, and came after most senators had departed the Capitol on the assumption that the talks had fallen short.
For the White House and Senate Democrats, the discussions on legislation relating to one relatively small slice of the $85 billion in spending cuts marked a shift in position in a long-running struggle with Republicans over budget issues. Similarly, the turn of events marked at least modest vindication of a decision by the House GOP last winter to finesse some budget struggles in order to focus public attention on the across-the-board cuts in hopes they would gain leverage over President Barack Obama.
The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union that represents FAA employees, reported a number of incidents it said were due to the furloughs.
In one case, it said several flights headed for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York were diverted on Wednesday when a piece of equipment failed. "While the policy for this equipment is immediate restoral, due to sequestration and furloughs it was changed to next-day restoral," the union said.
The airlines, too, had pressed Congress to restore the FAA to full staffing.
In an interview Wednesday, Robert Isom, chief operations officer of US Airways, said, "In the airline business, you try to eliminate uncertainty. Some factors you can't control, like weather. It (the FAA issue) is worse than the weather."
In a shift, first the White House and then senior Democratic lawmakers signaled a willingness in the past two days to support legislation that alleviates the budget crunch at the FAA, while leaving the balance of the $85 billion to remain in effect.
Obama favors a comprehensive agreement that replaces the entire $85 billion in across-the-board cuts as part of a broader deficit-reduction deal that includes higher taxes and spending cuts.
Officials estimate it would cost slightly more than $200 million to restore air traffic controllers to full staffing, and an additional $50 million to keep open smaller air traffic towers around the country that the FAA has proposed closing.
___
Associated Press writers Joan Lowy, Henry C. Jackson and Alan Fram in Washington and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.
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Nothing spurs the Senate like personal frustration
>>> on this vote, the yeas are 361, the nays are 41, zero recorded as present. two-thirds being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed.
>> nothing gets lawmakers to act more quickly than when it gets personal. their own flight plans today and complaints from business travelers and lobbyists. this morning, house members overwhelmingly passed the senate fix to faa furloughs. caused by the sequester that they authorized it in the first place. 10% across the board. joining me, nbc capitol hill correspondent luke russert and nbc political producer, casey hunt both from the hill. luke you've watched this for years and so has casey . have you ever seen them act more quickly to get something done?
>> no. it is rather striking andrea, we often talk about here on capitol hill how painful it is for congress to move any substantial piece of legislation to get anything done. in this case when they were facing on average an hour, hour and a half delays to go back to their home districts, they moved pretty quickly. republicans so far taking credit for this. saying their #, boemflightdelays would push this forward. i think you're seeing here in washington , d.c., one criticism that goes against this congress, they're out for themselves, that politicians don't understand us, they don't care about the general public -- in this case you can sort of see a literal example. there's other cuts that have gone forward here with the sequester, cuts to head start that you've mentioned, other types of programs that maybe folks don't necessarily feel as directly as a flight delay. but what we saw here in washington just now, was that if you get in the way of a member of congress going home to their home district on time, they're going to speak up and move with lightning speed. if they get phone calls from small businesses, people that make donations that say, hey, we can't conduct business this way because we're missing our flights and they're delayed, they're going to move with speed. it's sort of a really interesting insight into how washington works.
>> and casey , i'm trying to figure out what this recess is all about. i know it's not memorial day yet. and it's, we're past easter and passover. so what's the deal with the week off?
>> it's just how they do things around here and they don't like to sacrifice that time. and it is really the reason why they moved so fast on this. they knew they were going to have to get out of town and it was an acknowledgement of how politically difficult this problem was becoming. parts of the reason they did it so quickly is this congress really doesn't act unless it's clear that not acting is the political liability. and that's exactly what happened here. if they had left town and we had spent another week and a half with hundreds of delayed flights, business travelers not getting where they needed to be and congress themselves getting home, you wouldn't have seen this kind of action. this was something that was really thrown together even at 5:00 yesterday afternoon. senate aides were telling me that they didn't have a deal. and by 9:00, they had passed it with very little mention, kind of under the radar.
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Friday, 26 April 2013
Sprint posts narrower loss, weak subscriber numbers
(Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp, an acquisition target of both Japan's SoftBank Corp and Dish Network Corp, on Wednesday posted a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss, but its customer growth suffered as its Nextel network winds down.
While Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. mobile service provider, recorded higher-than-expected revenue, it said the Nextel network shutdown was also stunting growth in its remaining network because large business customers were leaving.
Sprint added 12,000 customers to its network, compared with the average estimate of almost 198,000 from five analysts contacted by Reuters. Their expectations ranged from 110,000 to 275,000 net additions.
The company's top priority was to convince Nextel customers to move to the Sprint network ahead of the final shutdown at the end of this quarter. Some Nextel business clients also canceled subscriptions to Sprint's remaining network, Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse told analysts on a conference call.
Including the Nextel network defections, Sprint lost 560,000 subscribers, compared with the analysts' average estimate of a loss of almost 525,000.
By contrast, top U.S. mobile provider Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, added 677,000 subscribers in the quarter, and second-ranked AT&T Inc added 296,000.
Macquarie analyst Kevin Smithen said Sprint was also facing tough competition from a new marketing push by smaller rival T-Mobile USA, a Deutsche Telekom unit.
"The AT&T and Sprint results confirm that T-Mobile USA has been taking share in the last few months," Smithen said.
However, he said he was impressed that Sprint's first-quarter loss narrowed to $643 million, or 21 cents per share, from $863 million, or 29 cents per share, a year earlier. Analysts expected a loss of 33 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Smithen said Sprint was reducing costs faster than expected from the wind-down of the Nextel network, which is based on an older technology called iDen.
Sprint's revenue rose to $8.79 billion from $8.73 billion. Analysts had expected $8.71 billion.
The company now expects 2013 adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization to reach the high end of its previously announced target of between $5.2 billion and $5.5 billion, excluding costs of closing strategic transactions.
Sprint's board is evaluating a $25.5 billion acquisition offer from No. 2 U.S. satellite TV service Dish, which has challenged the company's October agreement to sell 70 percent of itself to SoftBank for $20.1 billion.
During a conference call with analysts, Sprint did not comment on the Dish offer but said the SoftBank deal could close as soon as July 1.
Sprint shares were up 0.3 percent at $7.12 in early trading. At Tuesday's close, the stock had risen 14 percent since Dish announced its unsolicited bid on April 12 as investors bet that SoftBank might sweeten its offer.
(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe, Gerald E. McCormick and Lisa Von Ahn)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sprint-posts-increase-quarterly-revenue-111713705--sector.html
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Who Actually Uses Math at Work?
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Thursday, 25 April 2013
Shooting Challenge: Color Splash
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Remedial Adulthood: Why 90 percent of self-help is useless
Wow. There's a title with some chutzpah. Here I am, writing what is essentially a self-help blog about becoming a real adult, and I've just asserted that most self-help doesn't do any good. Where do I get off saying that? And what, if anything, makes this blog different?
Let's take those questions one at a time, shall we?
I'm hardly the first person to notice -- nor will I be the last -- that self-help has become a huge and very lucrative industry. Considering the vast quantities of self-help books, movies, blogs (ehem), magazines, seminars, etc. at our disposal, every living person on earth ought to be an expert at everything by now. Yet people continue to buy books, attend seminars and pick up self-hypnosis kits with one goal in mind: becoming better than they are today. It's almost as though some people are addicted to the idea of self-improvement.
The question is, after shooting up their self-help fix, do these people actually see any improvement in their selves?
David Wong of Cracked.com has written a clever (if somewhat profane) article that cuts to the heart of this problem: How 'The Karate Kid' Ruined The Modern World. Way too many of us think of skills to be mastered as though they were a 30-second training montage from an action film. In real life, the effort you must expend to master a skill is measured in months or years -- but in entertainment it's always edited down to a quick montage because, hey, watching people practice stuff is boring. Yet the brevity of these montages subtly encourages us to think we can become experts in less time than it takes to talk about it -- and later, we curl up and wail like infants when we find out that gaining expertise in a discipline requires a much bigger investment of time and effort.
We tend to read self-help books with the unconscious belief that reading is all that's required for us to enjoy the promised success, rather than actually getting off our duffs and doing what the books say to do. Worse, many of the people who write self-help materials deliberately exploit this widespread belief that success is simple. (Think about titles like The 4-Hour Workweek, Think and Grow Rich, and 59 Seconds: Think A Little, Change A Lot. They all point to the idea that personal change is easy and fast.) Even the media hop on board, perpetuating myths such as the "overnight success" of a suddenly-popular artist or band (ignoring the years of effort in obscurity that artist or band endured before making it big) or the idea that "natural talents" like Mozart emerged from the womb ready to write The Marriage of Figaro (hint: he didn't).
Here's a simple rule of thumb regarding success. If someone is making wheelbarrow-loads of cash doing something, you can pretty much count on one or both of these being true:
- It required a combination of significant time, effort and talent to get there.
- Something illegal is going on.
OK, so you get it. It's not enough to know your stuff. No amount of reading self-help materials is going to do you any good unless you actually get up and DO. IT.
So why is this blog different from other self-help?
Well, for one thing, because I'm telling you outright: Don't just read this blog for pleasure, GET OFF YOUR LAZY BUTT AND DO THIS STUFF. When I write an entry on this blog -- say, an article on the basics of personal hygiene -- here's the behavior I expect from you, the reader:
- Read carefully. Smile at the snark, if it pleases you (and I hope it does).
- Review the points of the article to make sure you remember what you read.
- ACTUALLY TAKE A FREAKING BATH.
Look, I don't expect you to master all this stuff next week. Becoming an adult takes time and effort. But I do expect you to pick an article, read it, and PRACTICE IT until the effort pays off and the skill becomes second nature to you. Otherwise, if you don't bother to do anything with the information you learn here, this blog becomes part of the useless 90 percent of self-help materials, rather than the 10 percent that actually helps people effect change for the better.
But remember this: only your efforts determine which materials make up that useful 10 percent.
Act wisely, won't you?
Source: http://remedialadulthood.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-90-percent-of-self-help-is-useless.html
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AP Sources: Kenseth's engine fails inspection
Matt Kenseth (20) celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., Sunday, April 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
Matt Kenseth (20) celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., Sunday, April 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
Sprint Cup Series driver Matt Kenseth (20) leads the field as the green flag drops to start a NASCAR Sprint Cup series race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., Sunday, April 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? Matt Kenseth's race-winning car from Kansas failed inspection at NASCAR's Research and Development Center, The Associated Press has learned.
NASCAR officials were discussing Wednesday what penalties to levy against Kenseth and Joe Gibbs Racing, multiple people familiar with the inspection told the AP on the condition of anonymity because no decision has been made.
The engine, which is supplied by Toyota Racing Development out of Costa Mesa, Calif., failed because one of the eight connecting rods did not meet the minimum weight requirement. While it could be a quality control issue that did not provide Kenseth any advantage, NASCAR would still hold JGR and the No. 20 team responsible.
Penalties could include a loss of points for Kenseth, a fine for crew chief Jason Ratcliff and suspensions of six weeks or more for Ratcliff and other members of the JGR organization.
The failed inspection comes on the heels of NASCAR penalizing Penske Racing for using parts it said were unapproved in the rear suspension of its cars at Texas. NASCAR docked 25 points each from defending champion Brad Keselowski and teammate Joey Logano, fined the crew chiefs $100,000 each and suspended seven Penske employees for six races.
Penske Racing's appeal is scheduled for May 1.
NASCAR is far stricter about engine infractions and severely punished the last violator, Carl Long, who was found to have an illegal engine at the 2009 All-Star Race. Long was docked 200 points ? which would be about 50 points under the current points system ? fined $200,000 and suspended 12 races.
His suspension was reduced to eight races on appeal, but Long is unable to pay the fine and can't work in the Sprint Cup garage until he settles his debt with NASCAR.
Kenseth drove the No. 20 Toyota to his second win of the season Sunday in Kansas, where he held off Kasey Kahne of Hendrick Motorsports in the closing laps. It is standard procedure for the race winning engine to go back to Concord for a thorough inspection.
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Wednesday, 24 April 2013
European rate cut hopes shore up markets
LONDON (AP) ? Growing hopes that the European Central Bank will cut interest rates next month shored up markets Tuesday despite more evidence that the Chinese economy is slowing down.
After a disappointing trading session in Asia, investors, particularly in Europe, have turned increasingly confident that the ECB will decide to cut its main interest rate to a record low of 0.50 percent at its meeting next Thursday.
The latest bout of speculation over the ECB came after a survey into manufacturing conditions among the 17 European Union countries that use the euro disappointed. The PMI survey from Markit fell another 0.3 points in April to 46.5 ? anything below 50 indicates a contraction.
Despite confirmation of the recessionary conditions in the eurozone as a whole, investors piled back into stocks despite the subdued start to the day.
"This is now going to prompt talk again of an ECB rate cut, given that Bundesbank head, Jens Weidmann, conceded recently that a rate cut would be considered if we see further worsening in the economic data," said Craig Erlam, market analyst at Alpari. The Bundesbank is Germany's central bank.
In Europe, Germany's DAX rallied 2.1 percent to 7,638 while the CAC-40 in France was up 3 percent at 3,761. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was 1.8 percent higher at 6,392.
The market optimism helped lower interest rates on government bonds for financially weak countries like Italy and Spain.
Wall Street opened strongly too, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 0.7 percent at 14,677, while the broader S&P 500 index rose the same rate to 1,573.
A raft of earnings helped shore up the U.S. open. DuPont, the chemical maker, reported first-quarter profits that more than doubled as its agricultural unit did brisk business. Travelers insurance and Coach soared after strong reports.
The main point of interest on the earnings front will be when Apple reports after the markets close. The company has seen its share price take a battering over the past few months amid mounting concerns over its product line and tough competition.
"There will also be a lot of interest in the outlook for Apple, with the current share price reflecting the pessimism surrounding the company, compared to last year," said Alpari's Erlam.
Earlier, Chinese shares underperformed after a downbeat manufacturing survey renewed concerns over the world's second-largest economy.
A preliminary survey by HSBC Corp. found that China's manufacturing growth slowed in April, in a further sign that the economy is slowing.
HSBC's monthly purchasing managers' index ? a gauge of business activity ? fell to a worse-than-expected 50.5 from March's 51.6 on a 100-point scale. That means it's growing but only just ? anything below 50 would have signaled a contraction in activity.
"Just as in 2012, Chinese growth is failing to live up to the market's high expectations," said Rebecca O'Keeffe, head of investment at Interactive Investor.
The survey hit Chinese shares particularly hard, with the country's Shanghai Composite Index tumbling 2.6 percent to 2,184.54 and the Shenzhen Composite Index falling 2.7 percent to 923.42. Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 1.1 percent to 21,806.61.
Elsewhere in Asia, Japan's benchmark Nikkei index slipped as the yen gained ground against the dollar. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo fell 0.3 percent to close at 13,529.65.
By late afternoon London time, the dollar had recovered, and was trading flat at 99.32 yen. However it was rising against the euro, which was trading 0.3 percent lower at $1.3019.
Oil prices were also depressed following the disappointing economic data, with the benchmark New York rate down $1.08 at $88.11 a barrel.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/european-rate-cut-hopes-shore-markets-140529624--finance.html
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Lloyds' sale of bank branches to Co-op collapses - report
(Reuters) - Lloyds Banking Group's planned sale of over 600 bank branches to the Co-operative Group has collapsed after the latter decided it could not proceed with the 750-million-pound deal, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the situation.
The deal was meant to lift the Co-op's share of Britain's bank branch network to 10 percent from less than 4 percent and equip it to take on the country's "Big Four" lenders - HSBC, Barclays Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds itself.
Both Lloyds and the Co-op were unavailable to comment on the report.
The Financial Times said the cancellation of the deal, the terms of which were originally struck last summer, is set to be announced as early as Wednesday. (http://link.reuters.com/heb67t)
Lloyds said last month that it was preparing for a stock market listing of the branches as a fall-back in case the deal with the Co-op fell through.
As a condition of receiving state aid during the 2008 financial crisis, Lloyds is obligated to sell the 630 branches -- known as the Verde network -- by the end of the year.
However, bankers are sceptical that the divestment of the whole business could be completed by the year's end, the Financial Times said.
(Reporting by Richa Naidu in Bangalore; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lloyds-sale-bank-branches-co-op-collapses-report-005223714--sector.html
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