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Comment How to guarantee quantum safety? (Score 1) 35

I have a hard time believing that a particular encryption will remain unbreakable, quantum computers or not. At the moment, we have Shor's algorithm for factoring numbers on QCs, so we should avoid relying on the hardness of factorization. How can we be sure that there won't be new algorithms in the future that break the current "post-quantum" encryption?

During my advanced math studies, I only took a rather introductory course on encryption, including stuff like Galois fields and elliptic curves. I recall my professor saying that none of the current encryption methods (besides something like the one-time pad) are proven to be safe; we just don't know any efficient methods of breaking them at the moment.

Comment Re:Let me guess (Score 1) 77

Indeed and I just found one: IQ is not measured in percent and cannot be measured in percent. It makes no sense to do so.

Why not? It's originally a quotient of two numbers multiplied by 100, just like any other percentage.

"Originally, IQ was a score obtained by dividing a person's mental age score, obtained by administering an intelligence test, by the person's chronological age, both expressed in terms of years and months. The resulting fraction (quotient) was multiplied by 100 to obtain the IQ score." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Comment Re: Winning! (Score 1) 102

The stock market is not a zero sum game. You invest in companies that have useful economic activity, and get a share of their profits as dividends.

Fair point, but there are a lot of large and influential companies that don't pay any dividends, because they invest their profits directly into growth and development. For example Nvidia.... well, they seem to pay 0.03 % of the current stock price, so essentially zero. The only economically sensible reason to invest in them is speculation; if there's some "useful economic activity" involved, the only way you'll get a piece of it is by buying low and selling high.

With cryptocurrency, the only thing you have is capital appreciation. There is no social utility. Even commodities like gold that also aren't income producing still have industrial uses, and are not purely speculative.

Cryptocurrencies have the same utility as banks, and many banks have been working on their own blockchains for years, for example JP Morgan: https://fintechmagazine.com/ar...

The stock market comparison is really just a side effect of what cryptocurrencies are all about, which is transferring money in ways that traditional banks can't do -- pseudonymously and independent of governments or businesses. Store of value and speculation is one thing, but you can't send NVDA shares (or gold, or tulips) across the globe with this kind of speed and freedom. Cryptocurrencies have value because they provide this service, you don't really pay just for the store of value.

Comment Re:dust (Score 1) 91

If you were using iron you might be able to get similar effects by inductive heating once you delivered them to the target area; you absolutely could destroy cells in the immediate proximity that way

Inductive heating of gold nanoparticles is a thing in cancer research, e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go...

Comment Re:Winning! (Score 1) 102

All money made from bitcoin was lost by someone else. The total value of winners and losers is identical. It isn't an investment where capital is used to make money. It is a legal Ponzi scheme were winners are paid for by the losers. It is just that some people don't realize they are the losers yet.

So it's just like the regular stock market.

Comment Re:Sums up the housing crisis (Score -1) 102

This is such cry-baby nonsense.

NONSENSE.

Since 2008, I have personally mentored dozens of young dudes (at no cost whatsoever, just because that's what successful people do).

I have helped poor dudes in bad neighborhoods buck up, get some side hustles, stack cash, and buy property.

You fucked yourself because you refuse to actually do someone to buy property. I don't know ANYONE, starting with even zero money, who couldn't find a nice home in just 2-3 years of saving money properly -- except the lepers in California, and fuck them anyway.

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