Category Archives: Extralusionary Intelligence

What If Papers Had APIs?

Posted on March 27, 2015 by dabacon

API is an abbreviation that stands for “Application Program Interface.” Roughly speaking an API is a specification of a software component in terms of the operations one can perform with that component. For example, a common kind of an API … Continue reading →

Posted in Extralusionary Intelligence, Science 2.0, The Loony Bin Called Academia | 13 Comments

Quantum computers can work in principle

Posted on March 19, 2014 by sflammia

Gil Kalai has just posted on his blog a series of videos of his lectures entitled “why quantum computers cannot work.” For those of us that have followed Gil’s position on this issue over the years, the content of the videos … Continue reading →

Posted in Extralusionary Intelligence, Quantum Computing | 20 Comments

Two Cultures in One of the Cultures

Posted on January 26, 2014 by dabacon

A long time ago in a mental universe far far away I gave a talk to a theory seminar about quantum algorithms. An excerpt from the abstract: Quantum computers can outperform their classical brethren at a variety of algorithmic tasks….[yadda … Continue reading →

Posted in Extralusionary Intelligence, Off The Deep End, Quantum Computing | 3 Comments

Error correcting aliens

Posted on January 2, 2014 by dabacon

Happy New Year! To celebrate let’s talk about error correcting codes and….aliens. The universe, as many have noted, is kind of like a computer. Or at least our best description of the universe is given by equations that prescribe how … Continue reading →

Posted in Astrobiology, Computer Science, Extralusionary Intelligence, Off The Deep End | 10 Comments

Why I Left Academia

Posted on September 22, 2013 by dabacon

TLDR: scroll here for the pretty interactive picture. Over two years ago I abandoned my post at the University of Washington as a assistant research professor studying quantum computing and started a new career as a software developer for Google. … Continue reading →

Posted in Extralusionary Intelligence, Go Ahead, Waste Your Time, Off The Deep End, Programming, Self: Meet Center. Center: Meet Self., The Loony Bin Called Academia | 12 Comments

Correcting Untruths

Posted on January 12, 2012 by sflammia

We here at the Quantum Pontiff value truth in all its forms: theorems, lemmas, statistical inference, and hard experimental data, to name just a few. So I feel compelled to highlight the following. In his column on the New York … Continue reading →

Posted in Extralusionary Intelligence, Society | 8 Comments

What are the odds?

Posted on November 9, 2011 by sflammia

Let’s multiply together a bunch of numbers which are less than one and see how small they get! If that sounds like fun, then you’ll love this sleek new infographic (of which the above is just the teaser) posted this morning at … Continue reading →

Posted in Extralusionary Intelligence, Mathematics Basterdizations, Nitpicker's Paradiso, Off The Deep End | 15 Comments

Look Ma, I'm a Financial Journalist!

Posted on March 7, 2011 by dabacon

In this Saturday’s New York Times, in an article titled The Chasm Between Consumers and the Fed, I found the most amazing chart: Of course I am not a financial journalist, so I have absolutely no understanding of the gigantic … Continue reading →

Posted in $$$, Extralusionary Intelligence, Funny Ha Ha, Nitpicker's Paradiso, Off The Deep End | 5 Comments

A Mathematical Definition of News?

Posted on December 14, 2010 by dabacon

Lately I’ve been thinking about the news. Mostly this involves me shouting obscenities at the radio or the internet for wasting my time with news items the depth of which couldn’t drown an ant and whose factual status makes fairy … Continue reading →