Hi, there are some excellent introductory lectures as an introduction to quantum computing here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I56UugZ_8DI

Given by Hartmut Neven with a guest appearance from D-Wave on day 2. Watch all of the them including day 3!

Fascinating topic, though quickly delivered and worth further study and above all experimentation.

It awesome that google supports work like this.

If the interviewer asked Mr. Murdoch, so what do you think HTML stands for; what would he say? Does he know what HTML stands for? The reason I ask is that I suspect he does not know the words the acronym represents. In fact based on this, I am not sure he understands what the internet is and the fact that not only are there pages, but there are links. In fact the links and relationships between information is to be considered just as 'valuable' as the information itself. Without those relationships, without the fragmentation all you have left is propaganda. Switching to Bing won't be any different, just an older asshole that yells into his speakerphone.

Fundamentally I think older people see the internet as a communication channel like a pipe, instead of a shared network. I think older people imagine something like a PSTN but with fancier features, Murdoch included. Although Google is mentioned here as some kind of adversary and drain of revenue, the rationale to block any search engine from content, is fundamentally an act to block people from content. Murdoch is against the internet.

From a thanksgiving discussion I described the continuing decline of M$ coming down to hubris, and a simple choice they made a long time ago; to be in business or to help people. Murdoch is simply in business and could give a shit about helping people. The things happening around you whether near or far is bait for advertising for the newscorp. The middlemen are indifferent and occassionally haphazard with the content so long as revenue is coming in. Rather than change, or improve the quality of their delivery there is a chance to scapegoat and rally some shared hate amongst all those who share the same folly. Its kind of like looking across a population of mixed ethnicity in a political race and asking yourself, which ones can we massacre that would make everyone else happy? Of course this only works if everyone is ignorant of your efforts to single out the 'demon', so they don't see who the real demon is.

This is a last ditch effort and they see and feel the decline coming. If they take their content off search engines, it violates fundamentally the mission of a news agency which is to reflect the world in a timely fashion without bias. Maybe they would rather setup their own prodigy or compuserve or AOL network that they own and can control.

The future of media is with individuals and aggregators and the internet is the nervous system that connects them.

China is not fond of, and is also very opportunistic with the internet. Their reasons for blocking and filtering the internet are the same as Murdoch's. Murdoch made the choice a long time ago to be in business first and help people second. That obviously came with some profit.

The news is not his any more than the world is. If Murdoch pulls his agencies from the google index, it will be a perfect expression of bias that has existed in his content all along. Others that follow suit are propagandists who would rather hiss in a closet than speak in the world.

Overall I see more of a domestic than space mindset and it is cultivating the favors it needs to survive instead of really being competitive and aggressive about being in space.

The people at NASA are all personally heroes, but I can see them taking on a higher role and purpose. It just seems undignified for NASA to be involved with such extreme cases. Honorable in so many ways but darn it, a shame.

I can't imagine anyone from NASA would even be reading these posts. There are so many of them and even my own words are examples of extreme ignorance!

The social side of space I imagine contains some matter/antimatter like combinations that I have only recently considered. Like some party systems boiling down to the tar of 2 choices I think there are people who are either thumbs up or down on space. And like many things in my surroundings the one I choose is in the minority with billions on the opposing side. Like hamburgers, people who voted for stupidity, people who pay for stupidity, people who listen to stupidity. There is this experience of marginalization we come across these days because of the internet and the flux and over abundance of information and profiles - the exposure to other peoples' information and representations. I think there is way too much science fiction about space for many people to be realistic and this shows there is interest in the markets and anthropologically where we might see ourselves heading. But really?

Watching NASA TV is pretty easy, but its not my favorite channel. I could imagine a reality show based in space for contractors who make it out there to study yes, but produce. Engage, process, defend. New information, new places and new stories. The cloak and dagger baggage of secrets, disclosure and the shroud of the military is dark and sad like the middle ages. Its not about kingdoms, nations, agency and enmity but about life and people.

I'll do my part and broadcast for a few weeks that movie 2012 is just pretend and while it brings up some interesting questions such as how you might behave under those conditions and totally give up in despair it is hollywood rubbish and no matter how many people say a disclaimer is not needed let us remind that full theatrical resolution rendering of content in realtime is almost currently possible on a single video card. A disclaimer could warn of the use of perfect CGI to easily supercede the audience sense of pretend. A crime against reality has always existed and it is understood well in the animal kingdom. When reality is veiled, shunted, warped distorted when a clear and self presenting form is possible, then it is justified for a social institution to intervene and without this adaptation the information age is without optimization.

I really don't think NASA should find these questions acceptable. There are good questions and there are bad questions. Scientists ask good questions, hollywood producers do not. NASA has no business answering questions designed by hollywood. They should fashion their own questions and get answers.

Hi thanks for the link! So, you don't see the NASA interest in climate research to be opportunistic and an attempt to remain relevant? Maybe we can get NASA involved with fixing the rail system since its on planet earth and NASA studies planets.

The climate topic is popular thanks to a MOVIE and NASA has a position. Good thing too because its not really clear what they are doing in space.

How much research is funded by non military sources in oceanography?

I think I would see things differently if NASA actually produced things and had some kind of accountability or real competitive motivation. But like so many US agencies they are just a regulator in this case the space regulator. And like the response to the climate movie, they have a position on threats from OUTER SPACE. Never mind this makes too much sense.... ...I retract my question!

Maybe they are perfect for the job of answering ignorant questions stemming from entertainment. In the meantime we should wonder what to do about the recent near miss and why it got so close before anyone noticed. I have way more confidence in citizen astronomers than the amtrack of space.

I think NASA is considering how to benefit rather than really address the problem of ignorance. They have to survive like any other in a non competitive system of fixed wealth.

Why is NASA answering these questions some of which surely are just jokes? Can't they tell the difference? Why is it NASAs' job to handle this? They must have better things to do and obviously whatever they thought they were doing trying to educate people HAS NOT WORKED. Not that educating isn't important, but instead of the symptom, go for the cure? NASA is not it...

I've said it before but not here, there should be laws called crimes against reality and the movie should have a disclaimer stating that as entertainment it has no bearing other than appearance to the planet earth and the world we call home.

When really bad weather happens governors can declare state of emergency to get money. Old buildings fall down, things must get rebuilt, but what about damage to minds? Isn't there some sort of rational response that should be made when we become aware of a vast swath of ignorant people? I think the responses to this movie are quite scary, in fact terrifying. And if this isn't proof that the US education system only produces reliable tax payers, what else is?

NASA get back to work! Your friends in the government are producing meat to pay taxes and won't stop until individuals become property again. Do your jobs which is managing space and research, not the stupidity of people who eat popcorn.

The essential message here and a trend I see taking place on websites is not the destruction of google, but the destruction of the internet. What Cuban here is suggesting is not to simply entice sites away from google, but to make them participate in a system that is not democratic and elective, but entirely under the control of one authority.

All the comments above citing the estimation and price being off are symptomatic of the brain freeze that M$ would use to accomplish this. The point is, whether 1 million is correct, that there is a price or probably a single number that could disrupt the top 1000 list. Now from the standpoint of the SEO community and analysis there are potential benefits not only to migrating the list, but also in destroying it completely.

While the things that Cuban suggests are flawed on so many levels, the ignorance contained should be seen as information itself and representing common misperceptions about the internet, free systems and the universe.

The best way I can logically express the problem with using money as an incentive in this case is pushing a string.

While this is not itself an ad for Bing, it implies that Bing would be the next best choice after Google, and this is reflected in responses here. This is also advertizing for Bing itself. For the time being, a number 2 position after google would be quite an accomplishment itself.

I think perhaps the real motivation in the comment is simply to encourage people to imagine an internet without google, and to spread the idea that the internet is just another application or hole through which to pour video garbage and advertizements. Peoples' choice and sites' choice seems to be disregarded.

Cuban and M$ are against free principles and Google was born of the internet.

While Google is not the internet, it is a species that evolved from the conditions of the internet. Paying someone money to leave a system they would otherwise find beneficial should be the biggest insult to any other alternative. If a site removed themselves from the google index, they should do so not because someone offered them a bribe, but because of a better idea or merits.

Perhaps Bin Laden will take Cuban's idea and offer citizens of respective nations the option of 1 million dollars for becoming one of his followers. Well, a place in heaven or the Bin Laden afterlife fantasy might be just as attractive.

The attraction will work for some, and given the balance of irrational fundamentalist thought in the world today among those who have a choice we should not be surprised that such a successful capitalist would speak to the insane than engage the intelligent.

The internet cannot be manipulated and managed like a sports team and the sites are not athletes in your portfolio.

If there is a perception that there should be more than 1 successful rank, then there should be alternatives and maybe there is some monopoly perceived when more choices are desired. I think the intelligent observation here is that if there is a better way than google, it should not take tender to to convince the popular sites. Unless of course it is a complete accident that they find themselves so popular like winning the lottery. Maybe they are so popular because google is playing favorites and helping themselves in the process, instead of reflecting culture at a point in time.

And this is the benefit of understanding inverse advertizing. What Cuban has expressed through inversion is his understanding of google as a manifestation or mapping of his own principles. If he was google, he would play favorites and he would reward his golf buddies and this is expressed through his proposal. Free systems like the internet are always under the attack of the Lenins, Bin Ladens and Cubans of the world. It comes from megalomania and they see it inside everyone and everything around them. The sympathetic break allows these types to operate quite efficiently without the hindrance of others' motivations and feelings. They are often leaders, capitalists, dictators and entertainers.

Google cannot be a pure conduit and index. They have learned that they must be involved because forces like Cuban will exploit and manipulate through the unmoderated connection. Google is not just a technical services organization, but one whose mission is guided by a sort of digital good samaritan sense. Something as pure as IP cannot be good or evil. But the actions of an informed agency may be. Google has in the best way communicated through its own actions and intentions, itself essentially, what benefits may come from a free system. By exhibiting these qualities they strongly suggest what other companies or agency involved might gain through honest participation in an egalitarian network. Google takes a risk whenever it moves away from pure neutrality in managing its index. But I estimate that the bulk of google actions indicate this deviation to be on behalf of people, individuals and the network participants themselves rather than arbitrary or self serving interest. In this sense I think google deserves some recognition as a beneficial institution in the world network and as such crossing all cultures and nations, perhaps the most important institution humanity has spawned thus far.

I think Kaspersky's response through inverse advertizing is valid. He is advertizing that he cares and that through altruism uses rationality and produces security tools that help. As opposed to exploit. I think he has valid reasons to communicate this to the general public and considered marketing to some extent. He should also as a vendor of security products be asymmetrically on the side of the user, as I am, in representing good decisions.

Specifically there is a balance that must be struck and why the internet came to exist, survived and expanded so far. The part about scientists and military - thats a distraction and artifact of intention and now fairy tale. The beast has evolved and contains many more things and simultaneous intentions.

His proposal for trusted computing and human authentication is worthwhile and maybe will cause more people to compute with responsibility and not always be sheep.

But shifting the balance to this more strict authentication of humans on computer systems would bring about the dire consequence of token theft or compromise. The damage and exploitation possible with this permanent token will be expanded and made more irreversible for the owner. This is in direct contrast to dynamic authentication and a citizens right to alias as a self protective measure.

Citizens must alias.

To remove the condition of anonymity across all possible transactions is absurd and in itself a weakening of security principle. I myself would like a system like this but its a classical or primordial arrangement for few participants. At higher social order the system must accommodate election and the desire for members to establish trust through their actions rather than their tokens.

Security is no ones' problem but your own.

I think what irks me is that this guy wants to make money off content that is essentially news and at one time considered a responsible representation of reality. Its not artistic what his organizations create, but a rendering in text and images of something that really happened, that is not anyones' property.

Inverse advertizing suggests like others note above that what he says is not what he means and that another agenda is in play.

How much of what he peddles is not a repeat from AP? Well, the spin namely. The only thing unique about Newscorps and others just like it is precisely the distortion. And the only way this distortion may be balanced or canceled out is in a universal index.

Go Go Go

Google! And slashdot...nice responses folks!

Awesome Degrees! Thats what I was looking for!

Thanks man!

Yeah no kidding. This seems like some stupid shit. But then again most economics despite attempts to appear like science, is nothing but advertizing. Network seen from the individual...its a start but only half way there.

Its interesting to see the kind of effects as otherwise shown in the competitive worlds of microbes. Aside from host - parasite interactions, the competition between parasites is real and may create a selection force toward host integration as seen with mitochondria and chloroplasts, the precise method of symbiosis being unknown.

The limitation and illusion of security derives from the equivalence or asymmetry of roles. In one case you have parasite where the host interaction is equivalently called parasitic. In the three types of biological interactions, mutualistic, commensalistic, antagonistic; they represent ultimately modes of transition or phase. There is no difference between parasite and client, but the mirage of shared objective.

There is a seduction called the cooperative world view. It influences how parasites, virii and the concept of life itself is researched and represented. It shapes human social science, and the majority of human institutions devoted to human ideals and fiction. It categorically appears in every philosophy and religion created prior to the fossil fuel surplus of mid 20th century.

2 places where cooperative world view fails is physical reality, and games or the mechanical pursuit of simulation science.

The reason it fails is because it consistently requires more than free energy to propagate and for this, should be considered advertizing and inherently false.

Science conducted during the fossil fuel surplus is not hard, but slick. Its called Oil Science and it is possible not through the nobility of ideals, but the availability of combustion and ultimately the exploitation of a shared planetary respiratory system.

If competition between parasites creates an equilibrium, then the payoff function for the host may shift to include not only advantage, but perhaps predictability, which will bias a vaccuum. And suck them in.

When we consider how our own white blood cells, the macrophages, know how to behave as fully autonomous single celled agents in our immune system, we can ask how that intelligence came to be. Could it be evidence of a past symbiotic event? Menagerie, but where there is a market there will be specie.

The challenge faced by microbiologists to explain the period of life on earth called molecular evolution is increased by the cooperative world view. Molecular evolution was a period where cooperation could not be described in anything but chemical terms. Perhaps this is profoundly challenging for those who would make a story for text books that is not based on scientific description or evidence.

In classic irony, the metabolism of the past is used to brute force sequence genomes with computers and chemistry, in pursuit of cooperative fiction. The science of the surplus will self optimize to exploit the fuel and the agents of exploitation, in highly eusocial fashion will cooperate to consume all fuel until the surplus is exhausted. Fictions like NIH OPEC and SEC will decrease host function until a period of duress will trigger a cataclysm which is a non reproductive exchange of genetic information or change in gene frequency. If you herd sheep and cannot fend off wolves, then modify the wolf through domestication to form a wolf response. Such domestication of potential predators or parasites is a mark of success for any host.

The same consequences occur in some cold space like computers where 0 and 1 are highly deterministic and identity preserved.

Temperature is a measure of an objects internal rate of change. This applies to physical ie thermodynamic simulations and cold simulations ie digital. A simul is a shared instant. I have become 2,416 times smarter since then. Lets see how you do on the gaming grid.

It should be called deceptive 'correction'. This article is addressing something that has already come and gone. The fact its called correction is what causes all the geeks here to overreact and flinch about singing and 'authenticity'. There is no 'correct' and mechanically its actually 'quantization', not correction.

By the same logic placing frets on the neck of a guitar prevents authentic music? Those frets are not the same distance as you near the bridge, they get closer together so its kind of unpredictable. Have you ever used a penny whistle and tried to play a simple melody? The distances between notes change depending on the absolute pitch - its not easy. And finally music geeks, have you ever played a theremin? Known to be so difficult to master. Why? Because there is no pitch quantization. Which reduces your performance to a very intentional but perhaps limited scope. Can it be mastered? Of course. Psychologists estimate that virtuosity at the level of classical musicans takes about 10,000 hours. Most geeks and computer people don't do anything for more than 3 minutes because they have attention deficit of some kind and why they are drawn to tenoris, monomes and software that changes your wii into something that makes 'tones'.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with autotune except perhaps the name, and the fact that its a commercial product, which makes using it recursively stupid in some cases because people can't make their own notes or software.

I can make both, and have. Instead of using a commercial product I use math, vocoding and FFT. And believe me, you have no idea what correct means in my system.

Best,

jonathan adams leonard
www.jonathanleonard.com