andrewla

57 ms·

841.
by andrewla 4y ago
Some basic research I think indicates we can rule out the standardization of units of measurement; there were no serious attempts at this in the timeframe in question. Hard to say about the lathe; as the article notes, Wilkinson's work
842.
by andrewla 4y ago
This is a great thesis because it can be falsified. The contention you are making is that between 1640 and 1690 the standardization of units of measurement and the invention of the lathe meant that Kalthoff (say) could not produce a viable
843.
by andrewla 4y ago
In this particular article, we're looking at the window between ~1640 and ~1690. A fifty year interval is a pretty long time in human terms. But it is fairly narrow in technological terms. Steel production did not change significantly
844.
by andrewla 4y ago
This article is very specifically not talking about locomotive steam engines, but the early, even pre-Newcomen, pre-Watt, low-pressure steam engines developed by Thomas Savery in the 1690s.
845.
by andrewla 4y ago
The article specifically talks about the availability of precision engineering in the concluding section, and attempts to rule it out. Not that the rebuttal is conclusive; I tend to think that you are closer to being correct than the author
846.
The Argo Project: A network of ~4k robotic floats collecting oceanic data(argo.ucsd.edu)
1 points by andrewla 4y ago|0 comments
847.
by andrewla 4y ago
We should stop failing to measure economic productivity, but instead of switching to failing to measure well-being we should just stop fetishizing the idea of measuring macroeconomic or sociological phenomena. The economic metric treadmill
848.
by andrewla 4y ago
Can we back up a second? An "everything app" is not a well-defined thing. Projecting whatever fears you have about the threat to liberal democracy onto the blank slate of an "everything app" says much more about you as a
849.
by andrewla 4y ago
This article is disturbing on many levels. The sound bite that the US has a problem with maternity healthcare is ingrained, but this makes me take a second look. First is that we report maternal mortality even when not directly associated w
850.
by andrewla 4y ago
I've been a Neovim user since inception -- I love the sane default configuration, the pruning away of old and obsolete "compatible" mode things, and the async and terminal support were killer features. When LSP support landed
851.
by andrewla 4y ago
We don't have to give up on infinite sets, but instead think of them as limiting processes instead of a complete object. Basically sacrifice the notion of "set" as a realized object. Just like sqrt(2) is not a rational number
852.
by andrewla 4y ago
It seems like there are pathological counterexamples. If you're player three, and player one chooses 1 always, and player two chooses 2 always, then the player using this strategy can never win. Player 2 wins with probability .45 (only
853.
by andrewla 4y ago
> Interestingly computable numbers don't go to infinity: Computable numbers are an unbounded set, so in that sense they do go to infinity, just like the natural numbers go to infinity. They just aren't uncountable. Others and m
854.
by andrewla 4y ago
The Cantor conception of "infinity" is bad and should be retired. It's a pure naval-gazing exercise that has set back practical mathematics significantly. The notion of the "continuum" is fundamentally flawed. Intui
855.
by andrewla 4y ago
I hate that I was baited into taking a closer look at this rather than just sticking with my trite dismissal. I did locate a preprint of the paper [1], but have not yet looked at it to determine if any of my above criticisms hold water. Non
856.
by andrewla 4y ago
I note in my other reply in this thread that they do describe some of the methodology (although I have not yet located a copy of the paper itself) appears to be address this. They looked at the mental health (as measured by self-reported su
857.
by andrewla 4y ago
Unfortunately I was not able to locate a preprint for the paper itself, so we only have this article summarizing. First I'll say that without preregistration of the methodology, there's a lot that is immediately suspicious. > T
858.
by andrewla 4y ago
As with all studies in the social sciences, one of two principles apply. First, if the conclusions are counterintuitive or unexpected, then when you look closer, you will find that the methodology is garbage and that it does not support the
859.
by andrewla 4y ago
I agree that this is the problem that we are effectively trying to solve. The problem with the feather analogy is that there's an initial condition problem that is basically unresolvable. Replicating them in such a way that the result
860.
by andrewla 4y ago
> (Of course, and I suppose this is your point, quantum computers with a sufficient numbers of qubits to prove supremacy in factorization do not yet exist.) That is sort of the point, but not quite. We do not have general-purpose quantum
861.
by andrewla 4y ago
> But if Google were using 10 more qubits, then that classical algorithm would have failed That's a big maybe -- the paper that describes the classical algorithm indicates that they achieved significantly higher fidelity than that r
862.
by andrewla 4y ago
I think this is a likely outcome, and it's a reason why we should be continuing research into so-called "post-quantum" cryptosystems. Where there exists a low-cost quantum computing algorithm, it seems possible that there is
863.
by andrewla 4y ago
> Let’s remember that it took Google 53 qubits to create an application that could accomplish a supercomputer function. If we want to explore new applications that go beyond today’s supercomputers, we’ll need to see system sizes that are
864.
by andrewla 4y ago
This disentangling continues to entangle the most salient aspect of this -- the definition of a qubit itself. Claiming a device with hundreds of qubits exists is a stretch because we have modified the target. Current generation of QC's
865.
by andrewla 4y ago
Chess definitely needs a shakeup, but it's unclear where it can come from. Chess960 (Fischer Random) has never really taken off. Maybe what we need is to run it like duplicate bridge -- have tournaments where you face off against an o
866.
by andrewla 4y ago
And that's the thing -- all the fancy gymnastics the article uses to derive the cost of running the network based on power utilization and power costs is irrelevant. The Bitcoin network pays 238,500 BTC annually for its maintenance, pl
867.
by andrewla 4y ago
There is one other cryptocurrency use for these mining rigs, and that is to compromise existing chains. Now that there is a great deal of excess capacity, presumably it would be possible to attack smaller chains in an attempt to glean some
868.
by andrewla 4y ago
Do you have a source on this claim of misrepresentation? I thought that at the time of the publication, there was no reason for the Google team to believe that their estimate of the classical difficulty was incorrect. The initial IBM respon
869.
Ordinary computers can beat Google’s quantum computer after all(gilkalai.wordpress.com)
4 points by andrewla 4y ago|3 comments
870.
by andrewla 4y ago
Boy do I not agree with the substance of this article. I agree that yes, preregistration is not a panacea that will fix the reproducibility crisis or whatever. But the problem that it is solving is not to improve the quality of studies that

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