Is the project poorly managed now? Do you have inside information?

No, we really do have working quantum computers in the lab right now. They are fully capable of running Shor's algorithm. It's just that they can factor at most a number like 15.

In many cities around the world, taxis are heavily regulated. Among these regulations are a fixed number of license plates, and the costs of these plates (or equivalent medallions, etc). This means that in many instances there aren't enough taxis to go around because these numbers were fixed a long time ago and may not be have been updated to meet demand. This benefits most the taxi operators and to some extent the drivers themselves because a high demand drives the price of the fare up. Also a business with low competition is always more comfortable to run. Customers hate it but are used to this situation.

Now Uber and others have sought to change the game, first by ignoring regulation and getting self-employed people to drive their own car to ferry people around. This is very good to some extent because taxi business in a lot of places is over-regulated and does not meet demand. Also the Uber et al have a nice online presence and at this stage at least do provide a useful service, so why not.

However, Uber fares are not cheap, this is not "sharing", this is a business. The self-employed individuals driving the cars may be putting themselves at risk: with their rides, the regulatory authorities, in case of accident, with other regulated taxi drivers, etc. We are still in a "honeymoon" period but this is sure to end. Uber has become much to big to be ignored, and so will soon have to fight for its own existence, in a lot of places all at once. I'm not sure their (huge) valuation will be enough.

Dear Troll,

You are wrong and you know it, but please continue.

Exactly. Thank you. Right now Snowden is innocent under the law.

Actually there would be a trial, where you, the murderer shooter, would be first assumed innocent of any crime. Then facts would be brought up to ascertain whether or not you were allowed to invoke self defense when you shot that murderer.

In Snowden's case, this is completely hopeless. Everybody has their media-hammered opinion that he is guilty. And since he ran away, everybody is convinced he is a coward too and does not even deserve a second glance. This opinion is everywhere in this discussion.

Nothing is illegal for the NSA then. The law is a human construction, it is deeply flawed, not a hallowed text. In this case there should be some checks and balances over what the NSA is allowed to do and how they go about doing it. There isn't, and Snowden was right to expose that fact. One can express some pride at the extent and depth at which the NSA has been able to spy on foreign people (including friends and allies), one can also be frightened.

Jury nullification almost never happen, and in this case the jury would be carefully selected to completely exclude this remote possibility. Like it or now, your attitude summarizes a lot of what we hear about Snowden. Almost no one on the radio, newspaper, etc says anything about the crimes that Snowden has uncovered, and that will go unpunished, because, you know, everything is about Snowden.

The best option for Snowden is to hide and wait for the American people to realize he was right all along, and a true hero like Ellsberg, and certainly not submit himself to some kangaroo court. If that never happens, the American people deserve their fate.

Almost no one like heroes that disturb the comfortable status quo.

That's it. Enough said, thank you.

Yes you can, if you can reproduce the binary from an audited compiler, which is exactly what has been done in the case of TrueCrypt. BTW this is Ken Thompson's backdoor, not DRR.

Why are you untreated? Anxiety and depression can be treated fairly effectively. It doesn't cure you but it does allow you to function better.

There is no guarantee that someone who's been very smart *and* lucky at starting a Next Big Thing company will be any good at picking out a winner among all the overvalued internet companies coming out now.

With all due respect, you got your degree 10 years ago (obviously). Now try this same trick now, as tuition have risen another 50% since you went to college, and when unemployment has risen as well. Also cost of living has gone up, but not salaries.

I see now young graduate taking anywhere between 6 months to to 2 years before getting their first job after their master's degree. 10 years ago it wasn't like that.

How about the syntax for specifying model?.

R has some pretty unique graphing packages. Nothing that I know of matches the way you can do 2D and 3D plots in R. Not Python, not Gnuplot, not Julia, not Matlab, not Excel, not Mathematica, nothing.