All Me, All the Time, Yuck!

Because, of course, you’ve all been wondering about goings on in my life. Of couse you have, that’s why you’re wasting your time reading blogs on the intertubes, no?

  • Look, I’m a small part physicist! Which part has yet to be determined.
  • Please, please, do not let bacn catch on. (Thanks to Brian for pointing me to this link.)
  • Anyone else going to AQIS 2007 on United Flight 0885, SFO to KIX, 12:30pm Sep 1? Over eleven hours in an airplane sounds like fun doesn’t it?
  • The two trips I took this summer, to Panama and to Orcas Island, have both coincided with resignations from the Bush white house (Gonzales and Rove.) If anyone wants to get rid of Dick Cheney, they might consider sending me on a trip 🙂
  • The tomatos have grown tall, a mole is attacking our yard, the puppy ate a pillow and dug many holes, the wine needs to be bottle before I leave for Japan, and I broke the toilet trying to fix the thing I broke when I was trying to fix that other thing which broke. Yes, life at Villa Sophia is good.

11 Replies to “All Me, All the Time, Yuck!”

  1. Hey Dave! I’m on flight 885, but I’m traveling on Friday, August 31 (arriving Saturday afternoon). I decided to add in a jet lag day.

  2. Dave,
    In the article you co-authored with Debbie Leung, you say:
    “It is important to realize that a quantum computer is no more an analog computer than a classical digital computer that uses randomness. That the transition from probabilities to amplitudes leads to speedups is not, intrinsically, a result of moving to an analog model with complex numbers, but to a model where real probabilities are replaced by complex amplitudes. Why this simple change leads to speedups in computation is one of the deep mysteries of quantum computing.”
    Perhaps you could post your speculations about this question. What could cause the speed up?

  3. Hey Michael,
    That is the million dollar question, of course.
    I have many silly speculations about this, but none that I really believe. My favorite has to do with representation theory of groups. Maybe I’ll write a post about that. Actually I was going to mention this in my talk at AQIS, so that should be good motivation for me to clarify this handwaving idea and write a post. More soon!

  4. Jim: drats! Usually jet lag hits me a few days after I arrive. If the trip is short enough I’m usually okay. Unfortunately my talk is a few days after I arrive, doh! Hopefully I will be coherent.

  5. We miss you guys – haven’t seen you in ages.
    Is your co-author Debbie Leung a fellow Tech grad? I think there was a girl in my class with that name?

  6. Welcome to home ownership. At least you only have a mole. The skunks in our neighborhood like to make these shallow ruts in our yard. Some sort of mating thing I think (since, oddly, they ignore the garden). Just wait until you need a new roof and a new furnace (does it ever really get cold in Seattle?). And salt air is a b-tch on paint. Well, at least we own a dog and not a cat. Between the coyotes and the fishers, cats are endangered around here. Now if only my apples would attract some deer or moose this year…

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