... when I took the EdX's CS191x Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Computation course.

This is actually a requirement for such a simulator as all unitary QM transformations are reversible.

It's kind of ironic that Google released this project given that they are at the same time heavily betting on D-Wave with a radically different approach to QM than the Gate based model.

The D-Wave founder Geordie Rose is know for disparaging the Quantum Gate based model as completely impractical, and in turn other QC researchers have been very critical of his approach to the matter. Spawning a contentious controversy almost as old as the Canadian start-up itself.

Duh, do I actually have to include 'per capita' when making comparison between the US and Canada?

C'mon. /. has dumbed down, but some things should go without saying.

Don't think they are required to pay if somebody gets hold of your gun because you didn't safeguard it properly and then goes on a rampage, or if you shoot somebody while cleaning you gun.

That's the kind of damage I would like to see covered.

There are still plenty of injuries, and I wager more ammo is shot legally then while committing a crime. So as an accessory to crime guns may not have such much over on cars (after all criminals like to have fast get-away cars).

Incidentally the number one cause of gun deaths is suicides. Life insurances don't pay in that case, a dedicated gun insurance could be regulated so that they'll have to pay for clean-up and funeral.

They should also be required to pay if an insured stolen gun was used to commit a crime.

Used to live in the US but now in Canada, here we have about the same amount of guns but none of these ridiculous 1st and 2nd amendment contortions.

Far less gun crimes up here, but an insurance would still be sensible governance as it'll reinforce good gun safety practices (the guys who know how to handle a gun will receive lower premiums).

It is so refreshing that up here in Canada you can discuss these issues without getting ideological about it.

BTW an insurance for speech would be really cheap, because there simply aren't that many fools who yell fire in a crowded room. Yet, if you do you are in fact liable for the ensuing damages.

And that's exactly the way it should be.

To have guns insured just like cars are, so that gun owners will always have enough funds to cover any damages that may ensue from mishandling the weapon.

If gun insurance coverage was mandatory then there'd be the right framework for a proper marketplace dynamics.

Out of curiosity, can you do math in your dreams?

I never tried that when I still had the ability, and later found that dreams that involve math were some of my worst.

They aren't exactly nightmares, but I sometimes had dreams were I am circling some equations and I want to solve them, and are pretty certain I could easily enough when awake, but in my dream no matter how hard I try, I just cannot work them.

These kind of dreams always left me utterly exhausted.

"I'm of a mind that dreaming is a useful sandbox, and I need not disturb it."

There's just not enough hard science around this to say either way. Don't think that lucid dreaming has been researched much at all. Back then I didn't know of anybody else who could do that, and feared people would think I was nuts if I said that I was able to control my dreams (a fear probably heightened by teenage anxiety).

At any rate from what I remember I could still immerse in my dreams and let them role, only to step in and take control when they became scary.

But sometimes I very much directed them, such as when tasking myself with finding answers to arbitrary questions in my dreams.

Yes, it was stupid.

Then again it was at the age that should be list in the dictionary next to 'stupid'.

Nowadays I hardly remember my dreams anymore.

"I worked hard to develop my lucidity. How did you lose it?"

Was taken things too far, experimented with meditation techniques and thought it should be possible to get the same extra sensory state that some drugs induce.

Problem is, what I did not take into account, is that drugs add an external control. They leave your system and your neural state is (mostly) re-set.

Messed myself up quite a bit, and really panicked when I realized it. Experienced some nasty sensory overload. Fortunately wasn't really all that hard to put myself back together, but the experience left me raw. Ever since no more lucid dreams ...

Of course all this was three decades ago don't even remember how old I was, 14 maybe 15.

... I was a teenager. Was really pretty cool. Especially being able to fly everywhere.

From the article

"Padgett dislikes the concept of infinity, because he sees every shape as a finite construction of smaller and smaller units that approach what physicists refer to as the Planck length."

An astounding ability indeed, given that the Planck length is so many orders of magnitude smaller than visible light, in fact it can't even been studied by our most powerful accelerators.

As it is in fact the theoretically smallest length scale possible it will actually never be 'seen', no matter how banged up the brain.

Good suggestion. Too bad that your idea probably makes way too much sense to ever be adopted by any politician :-)

The process has major advantages. It uses an inherently safe reactor design and is net energy positive.

Don't understand why there is only on place on earth where this is seriously investigated and scaled up.