skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A quantum computer is a device that exploits constructive and destructive interference among exponentially many amplitudes, which are numbers that are closely related to probabilities but can be positive, negative, or even complex.

If you feel that sentence wasn't clear enough, and it would take at least a few more paragraphs to flesh it out ... well, duh, what did you expect? :-D

For a SLIGHTLY longer account, see my attempt to explain quantum computing in 35 seconds or fewer, which Maclean's magazine challenged me and others to do in response to Justin Trudeau's quantum computing explanation: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2694

When I did a piece for the New York Times, I managed to get an explanation that I was reasonably happy with into ~6 paragraphs: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/science/scott-aaronson-qu...

Given that quantum mechanics is, famously, one of the most counterintuitive things that humanity ever discovered, I don't think it's that big of an ask for people to read 6 paragraphs about QC before they decide they basically know what it's about. :-)
A few years ago they had a program in Philadelphia to do just that. Too many elderly people dying due to heat-related illnesses.
Why months of free service? It’s easy to just calculate the lost hours during the outage and compensate for that with maybe a multiple of 2x, or 5x or even 10x on the monthly bill. Multiple months of free service for an outage of a few hours just sounds like consumer greed.
Career Post-Mortem, or: How flashing teenager girls can ruin your life
I think some video games have this solved quite nicely: for an offscreen point of interest, show an indicator at the edge of the screen. That way someone knows that it's there, and they can click to jump to it (or pan all the way there if they'd like). Definitely, never take away control of the map.
Seeing talks about 2 separate fiber cuts... Lots of issues all over the US. Chicago to NY and also another cut that goes south to SC. r/sysadmin has good info
Google and Apple are not the only players in this game.

As, relevant to this story is the announcement today that Microsoft / Bing has just released 125,000,000 building footprints as open data (i.e. suitable for OpenStreetMap)

https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2018-06/microsoft-releases-125-m...
Scorching, long-duration heat wave to roast much of U.S
> I'm genuinely surprised at how many people here apparently consider that a better user experience.

Or that Google (of all companies!) hasn't rigorously tested this and found that lists work better. They convey so much more information and the whole reason you're using a map is because you don't know where stuff is, so you're going to need all that information.
I was in NYC 2 weeks ago (live in Miami). If I search for "Walgreens" the first 2 autocomplete suggestions are still locations in Brooklyn, and the third is the general text search for "walgreens". Options 4, 5 and etc onwards are local stores, but also not sorted by distance.
If the strong can't choose to shit on the weak, what's the point?
Google Maps lets you save common routes (plus detects ones you haven't yet) and pull them up quickly... like a daily commute route. Which powers the 'warning your drive to x is 10min delayed with traffic accident' stuff on Google Assistant.

The problem is that while Google Maps is very popular, it's not easy to find and use these features. I just came across is accidentally one day. Or it's possible Google asked me if I wanted to save if when it detected I do it often. It's been a while so my memory is a bit hazy on the original workflow I took.
What is your suggestion for introductory quantum computing book?
They're states but not eigenstates. It's like the difference between RGB colour and greyscale. In both cases there are infinitely many possible colours, but in greyscale they're all mixtures of two "primary" colours (black and white) whereas in RGB they're mixture of four (black, red, green and blue).

In a qubit the infinitely many superposition states are all mixtures of just two eigenstates.
A superposition is indeed a state, comprised of linear combinations of the basis states.

Further, (and anyone, please correct me where I'm wrong), the eigenfunctions (which could actually be called eigenstates) of an operator ARE the basis set, as they are orthonormal. (Right?)
And people doing roped climbing often fall and recover just fine, which is impossible to do when you...dont have a rope.

I agree that nobody should be prevented from doing risky things. But when they become "famous" I believe it reckless to disregard the feelings of their fans.
I know. The dominant paradigm has changed the definition of the vernacular. Right now the default definition of OOP is the Java and C++ way unless you explicitly state otherwise.
At least in the US when I've used it, Apple's lane guidance is pretty comparable to Google's (i.e., mostly but not always on target).

I suspect "bad data" is both a little subjective and, as I mentioned in another comment, very location dependent. It's quite possible that one of the reasons Apple is starting to build their own location data set is because relying on other providers leads hasn't worked out so well for them outside the US. (Although I suspect they're going to still be dependent on those providers for years to come.)
Yes, everyone loves to complain about the cable company but in my experience Comcast's network, technicians, and support people are the best in the business. You could not pay me to use CenturyLink, for instance.
To be fair those customers were reaching out online via Twitter.
I don’t see where it’s answered?
Being bare-footed (as opposed to wearing socks) also makes a huge difference.

Source: Living in South East Asia for years.
It's on the second page where the episodes are. And it's only for HN crowd anyway, as I said, the proper launch of the show is still a bit off :)
Thanks for doing this AMA, Scott. My question is: Could I ever get a job in quantum computing (or related) being 100% completely self-taught?
This drives me bananas with Waze. Even with its option to decrease the number of left turns, there seems to be no concept of "prefer left turns onto multi-lane roads at controlled intersections."
I thought mathematics couldn't be patented, or are visualization methods exempt?
When I started out in ML I was really keen to learn about the most 'mathsy' approaches out there.

I think with hindsight, it's great to have a broad spectrum of methods available to you, but if you focus too much on methods at the hard-math end of the spectrum just for the sake of an intellectual challenge, you can end up fixated on an exotic solution looking for a problem while the rest of the field moves on, rather than doing useful engineering people care about.

Maybe you find a niche where something exotic really helps, maybe you don't -- maybe for research this is a risk worth taking. But just something to keep in mind.

IMO: breadth is good. Mathematical maturity helps. If one sticks around one finds uses for interesting maths eventually, but not worth trying to force it.

Another avenue for people who want to use some hardcore math: try and use it to find some good theory around why things which work well, work well. Not an easy task either by any means.
Wonder how taking down network would affect the outcome of the midterms -- inducing chaos? sure; favoring one party than the other, not so sure.
Your houses are also made of tracing paper, which don't retain any heat, and have air con. Our houses are made of brick and insulation and are practically giant heatsinks. Being 23-25C inside and outside and absolutely no way to cool off is hell.
I think fan on the face helps not only with feeling cooler but with actually removing heat from the body. I read somewhere that there is a quirk in human circulatory system that makes blood that go to the brain go through face first to cool it down. This is probably some adaptation to long distance running. I imagine that there might be some additional adaptation that increase efficiency of face as a radiator.
thats seems counter intuitive. why?

oh, sorry, I was reading peoples comments about map. both for iteration and recursion, the compiler (and it author) has to think pretty hard. with higher order functions it just says 'great'
Tinder finally encrypted everyone’s photos – The Verge
And to take a parallel into the business world, usually you'd pay extra for lines with higher SLAs, and I bet most consumers wouldn't bother.
I love things with substance. Those are where the beauty of human intelligence and execution lies.

However, hype does solve the most difficult part of sales process: customer's willingness to pay. And it solves it way beyond perfect. After 15 years learning in the market, it's the mindset I found I need to learn and adapt to. I don't like the feeling of being dragging to most likely opposite directions. But sales seems more important to a lot of market participants.
Imagine telling future generations "We could have stopped it, but it was too stressful, so we played video games."

People died fighting to end slavery. People died fighting for an 8 hour work day. People died fighting to oppose Hitler. You are just as strong as those people.

No matter how bleak it seems, do not give up. Write, Complain, Vote.

Edit: Why the downvotes? Ok, maybe I'm being too tough. OP, you should know that it's OK to feel sad. Everyone replying to this comment wants you to know that you're not alone, and we hope you can find your way out of a dark place. Please take care of yourself.

Is it because of the last sentence? I'm not saying only do those three things.

Or is it because I mentioned hitler. Sorry, I was thinking of my Grandpa. He fought in WW2, and whenever I feel like scared, I think of him because he was a brave person.
Good catch - it's because it was the third one I made, but will actually be the eight one in the series! But it doesn't matter really, as all episodes are self contained and can be listened in any order (I would recommend starting with number 1 though as it's intended to be the gateway episode)
> The luminiferous ether was a falsifiable theory

But it effectively wasn't for the first 150 years of it's existence. The theory originated in 1720 and it wasn't disproven until 1887. It took that long for someone to come up with a conclusive experiment. Nevertheless, for those 150 years the luminiferous ether theory was widely held, shaped the field of physics, and the research had to go into finding an experiment to test the theory.

Similarly, the idea that atoms might do things when high energy particles hit them was all theory until Wilson's cloud chamber became the first particle detector and suddenly physicists could see what these particles were doing when they hit things.

> The problem is...you can even define what it means for the universe to be a simulation.

You're confusing something that hasn't been done with something that can't be done. Indeed, what they're trying to do is exactly trying to define criteria to test that the universe is a simulation. It's the first day of school and you're complaining that Newton doesn't have his Principia and Gilbert doesn't have his De Magnete.

Theories often predate the knowledge of how to test them. This isn't weird.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Yayınlanma Tarihi Ve Ön Sipariş
If this is true shouldn’t we see the maximum lifespan increasing as population has doubled several times?
What city/country was this, out of curiosity? (I'm not disbelieving you, I'd just like to know where Apple Maps may be trying to murder me.)
> Your comment is completely disconnected from reality. If you look hard enough, you’d probably be able to find a couple of minor examples to point at, but intolerance and suppression of speech has become mainstream liberal politics.

There was a recent CATO study on exactly this question [1].

Nearly 2/3rds of Republican-identifying respondents believe NFL players should be fired if they don't stand for the pledge.

Over half of the Republican-identifying respondents believe that burning flags should be illegal, that an executive should be fired for flag burning, and also that flag burner's citizenship should be revoked.

None of this is particularly surprising! You expect to find that many Republicans oppose flag burning.

However, you don't expect to hear that Democrats support rolling back free speech protections. The data support this shift toward illiberalism on the left. And you even point out that this shift happened in your original post!

The rise of illiberalism on the left is concerning, but again, nowhere have I claimed that the American left is a bastion of free speech warriors.

My claim is that we do commonly see conservatives going after people for expressing themselves.

And the empirical data demonstrate it's not just "a small minority" of conservatives who feel that's justified. It's a majority. Sometimes a very large one.

So. If you want to complain about illiberal leftists, I'll nod along all day. And you'll notice that this claim was not the portion of your post I took issue with, because I don't disagree. I took issue with your claim that:

> you don’t see conservatives going around trying to “no platform” people

because they do, and the data very clearly indicates that the majority of Republicans believe it's justified.

And, once again, to be very clear, there is no implied assertion anywhere that leftists do not do the same thing.

> I think you must live in a pretty opaque bubble.

Either I'm not the one in a bubble or else someone should tell CATO their methodology is flawed ;-)

[1] https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/survey-reports/...
To quote CharlesW's comment below,

>If you think beyond video, Pokémon's AR was a home run.

>My kids know where Pokémon are most likely to live. They know where the gyms are. Their reality has definitely been augmented.
try changing your DNS.
I got mine working after switching to the Level3 DNS server IPs : 209.244.0.3 & 209.244.0.4

Listed here : https://www.lifewire.com/free-and-public-dns-servers-2626062

Seems like the list is legit but do verify.
Reducing overall turnout is very specific-party-favoring in the US.
Solar-powered attic fans might help (the southern exposure would let them generate plenty of power). Light-blocking shades on the outside of the south-facing / west-facing windows likely would help, too.
As much as I despise these companies, I wouldn't jump to that conclusion just yet. This would be an arrogant and very stupid move, even for Comcast. Doing something like this intentionally is just asking for legal ramifications. I think if they were to test fast-lane features they wouldn't do so by blacking out a huge percentage of their customer base.
I wish they were smarter to search in your current location.
> claimed lifespans, of 197 and 256 years

Ah! Clearly the human age register is only 8 bits and when it overflowed his body crashed.

Try to plan ahead a little better when designing human 2.0 God!
How's that quantum supremacy coming along? I heard it was supposed to take a year. And it's been a year.

Also, are you planning to write another book at some point?
> This is exactly the stuff where Google is very hard to beat

... because Google/Android abuses peoples privacy by following them everywhere, which gives them an advantage/much more data.

"Google admits it tracked user location data even when the setting was turned off" :
https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16684818/google-location...
Humans can get hooked to anything that triggers a 'feel good' response, be it gorging on food, drugs, gambling or even exercising.

With all the grinding, long hours and stressful situations "modern life" puts us through, it's not difficult to see how people more and more just want to hit the 'instant gratification' button instead of actually getting better by working their underlying issues.... there is simply no time for downtime and relaxation anymore, everyone is just too busy doing "actual important stuff", which is a sad matter of affairs.
Will the power of 2^72 complex numbers working for me cause gravitational collapse? Has anyone calculated holographic bound limitations on quantum computers?
If a map is correct 95% of the time, then one in twenty leads most people to feel like its "always" broken. Edge cases are so frequent that I think it's impossible to get right without a "team on the ground," which it sounds like Apple had finally accepted.
I'll just point to this https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3 which was posted as an answer to a similar question I had on a previous discussion about a blog post of his.
Kotlin syntax:

"1 2 3".split(' ').map { it.toInt() }
Do you think modern PhDs overspecialize?
I own several Echo devices and programmability of Alexa devices just baffles me.

There is still no way for a skill to read notifications. For example - I want to write a calendar notification app which unifies all calendar events across several sources and there is just no way to do it. It is of course disabled in the name of privacy which I can understand - but I don't understand how I can't enable this for a device that I own from an app I write.

Similarly - I was considering getting an Echo Show for keeping a persistent view of my todo list and upcoming things on Echo show. I looked at writing skills for Echo show. Something that should be a webapp that just renders a particular source or something similar. But nope - It just looks hard or impossible.
‘We have the nerds and the hippies’: how Eindhoven became innovation city
Just merge the hydrogens and accelerate the other stuff as ions out the back.
I have not found that T-Mobile has enough coverage to be useful. That is, a mile or two from the center of a city, there seemed to be no reception for me. I am skeptical that Sprint is any better based on what I've heard from others. And I think Verizon requires different phones, so I feel for practical purposes I am locked in to AT&T.
Well, good thing we had our scheduled maintenance last night.
Any papers or books to get started with this?
I'm in ML but not on the DL hype train - disappointed by its limits.
Try it in China and see what happens!
Is it legal to use data from data leaks?
So, to what degree, if any, am I allowed to use data that is leaked or stolen?

Obviously, it's wrong to sell stolen information or exploit it to harm other people. It's also wrong to release personally identifiable information that could harm an individual.

However, wouldn't it be reasonable to use the stolen info to say, use the dataset to get aggregate statistics, and figure out how many migrants there were in a metropolitan area? Couldn't this be used in the public interest?

If this is not reasonable, here's a list of questions:

- Why isn't this reasonable?
- When the NYTimes releases emails from leakers or hackers, why is it reasonable? It doesn't seem like anyone goes to jail for this.
Please come back with an update after trying this. There are also ways to identify you without using local storage (ie browser/device/network fingerprinting) but I doubt they use it officially.
This is the curse of Home Depot, which doesn't stock much, if any, metric. I was recently in a Home Depot where an Asian woman was trying to get some fasteners to repair some piece of metric restaurant equipment, and wasn't aware how backwards the US is on metric standardization.

The US needs to go hard metric. That means metric fasteners and components. The rest of the world does not have inch tools. This hurts exports. The 95% of the population that can't use any tool beyond a screwdriver can still talk of inches and miles, but physical stuff needs to go metric. Autos, aircraft, and DoD switched decades ago. It's mainly building components that are still inch.
This is great and all, but for example, we still don't have Apple Pay in my country (Netherlands, Europe.)

So when will we get this improved Maps, in 5+ years just like Apple Pay?
I think it's too early in the field, and there's too much basic research still to be done, to talk usefully about a "Moore's Law." For godsakes, we're not even sure yet whether superconducting qubits or trapped ions or something else (or a hybrid) will be the way forward!

Yes, you can make plots of the number of qubits, coherence times, etc. as a function of year -- and if you listen to talks by John Martinis, Chris Monroe, or the other leading experimentalists, you'll often see such plots. But at the very least, you need to look at both dimensions (qubits and coherence time) -- not just at "number of qubits," which will be severely misleading! And even if you do, there are very few data points to use for extrapolation, since it's really only within the last ~6-7 years that people have even gotten qubits to work well in isolation, let alone scaling them up. So it's really hard to extrapolate.

Like, I'm hopeful that within the next decade, we'll have systems with a few hundred qubits that will be good enough to do some useful tasks that are classically intractable (such as quantum simulation), though they certainly won't be threatening public-key crypto yet. But I'm not sure even about that. And I'd prefer to see what happens with this before speculating about the timescale for the next step, of building a full universal QC (the kind that would break our existing public-key cryptosystems)!
Attributing a nationwide outage to a "feature test" seems like it's more flippant.
The people writing these articles are astoundingly ignorant yet think themselves geniuses. How is it that they don't understand no one is willing to pay a premium or sell at a discount for assets who have parity in value? They are confounded that the data (USDT and USD have parity in value) doesn't fit their narrative (USDT doesn't have value) and so look for Procustean methods to fit it: No it's not that the broader market is in agreement that there's value parity, there's something afoot. This is Geocentric and Heliocentric: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_Revolution#/media/F...
I'm just sharing how many times I've heard management dismiss issues raised by subordinates.

Let's hear you explain away Apple maps' 2012 snafu where they f-ed it up so badly that they dropped the NYC subway stops. Was that "not as easy as it sounded" to keep the product features that worked fine in a previous release? Could they just "hit the back button" and use the old maps that, you know, worked ?

The problem is with arrogant product managers that don't give 2 fucks about the UX. "Oh they don't need the subway stops, I mean come on, we have a release schedule to make or I won't get my bonus!" "Their time is ok to waste, they can just hit the back button!"
They could beat Google maps for me if they make it cross platform and simplify the interface.

Google maps is dense. Sometimes that's necessary. But it's too dense. Especially for a navigator.

Something between Waze and Maps would be a sweet spot for me.

I know a few of their data scientists--they have a good and talented crew working at it. I look forward to seeing what they accomplish.
The study failed its primary endpoint.
We place super high importance on access to choices for yourself, not for others. rich people and businesses are on a higher tier as well.
The USPS (at least in my neighborhood) does a far better job than Amazon+OnTrac?
Do you ever still do exercises? What's the last thing you learned that other people might have learned as students?
First rule of HN groupthink is don't acknowledge HN groupthink. Just downvote anyone who's different.
But the government shouldn't be able to run postal services! Socialism something, something, Venezuela, uga buga!
Carputer – 7″ Touch Screen Android
Well this study would appear to disagree with that, given that oxytoxin treatment was a failure.
One person.
Reverse Engineering Cognition
or the ink could change color based on temperature/light exposure