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Comment Price difference may not matter to everyone (Score 2) 149

by grimJester (#49039459) Attached to: Mooted: An Undersea Link From Finland To Estonia
The difference between 25 and 40 € isn't that big. Depending on where exactly you are and want to go in Helsinki/Tallinn, it may well be more convenient to take a train.

Heck, people ride the metro for nearly half an hour to get downtown for beers. If I can get to a decent Tallinn pub in less than an hour door-to-door I'd probably go now and then, depending on how late in the evening I can get back home.

For those who don't know, alcohol and restaurant food are around half the price in Tallinn compared to Helsinki.

Comment Re:Copenhagen interpretation != less complicated (Score 2) 197

by grimJester (#48635063) Attached to: Quantum Physics Just Got Less Complicated
Well, I remember Scott Aaronson saying de Broglieâ"Bohm's pilot wave theory requires exponential resources to simulate even with a quantum computer. Ergo even if it makes some things easier to understand it's not generally the most useful way to think about QM and arguably in some sense can't be the way Nature does what it does.

Comment So worst case still classically exponential, but.. (Score 1) 62

If I understand correctly, the classical version of this factoring scales with 2^n where n is the number of bits different in the two binary factors. Wouldn't there be some kind of trick to handle situations where more than half the bits are different though? IIRC this still wouldn't be the best known classical algorithm, but this seems worth some thought.

Also nice to see the whys and wherefores of quantum algorithms being better understood, but can't really say I know enough so see if this gives any more general insights.

Comment Re:Is Already Happening (Score 1) 574

by grimJester (#48507517) Attached to: Hawking Warns Strong AI Could Threaten Humanity

The time when humans are being replaced by robots is already here.

Amazon does it in warehouses, waiters are going away, manufacturing, you name it. The crux is there are a billion more people in the next ten years. There will not be enough jobs for these people. Yes, yes, we already know no one gives a damn about the bushmen in the middle of nowhere, but we are talking about Americans. This push towards a service sector economy looks great on paper but sucks in reality. Nations that are not makers are not nations for long. We are declining. Our children learn nothing in schools that will be applicable to them in a meaningful way. STEM is not taught in the US. We have common core, which is a joke designed to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator. We either start making stuff again or we fade out. Where will everyone work in a service-based economy? Fast food? These jobs are being phased out slowly, but quickly enough.

The proportion of service sector jobs increased from maybe 5% to 50% between 1800 and 1950 and is around 70% now. Your claims could have made sense two centuries ago. Having manufacturing go from 20% to 5% of jobs changes nothing.

Comment Tax credits end in 2016 (Score 4, Informative) 516

by grimJester (#48414523) Attached to: Rooftop Solar Could Reach Price Parity In the US By 2016
There's a 30% tax credit expiring in 2016. Not sure what you mean about an "idea" and being "scalable"; it's just a bank projecting in what areas photovoltaics will be worthwhile when. After 2016, you'll presumably still have new installations worthwhile in the south of the country and the area creeping northwards as prices continue going down.

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I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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