Replies to post #194115 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

You think the monkey may be a human one day?

PlayStation Move with Me & My Pet at CEDEC 2010 : DigInfo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYf442N_3WI

gee .. sure hope QCs might grow to appreciate human warmth ..

[DesertDrifter]

that made me go instantly to figure out how to defeat them. It brings out the best of one's Luddite tendencies.

I think if we just leave them alone they become victims of having been an evolutionary step that includes humans as their ancestors. Thus, at some point, they will end up feeling a need to form hierarchies and thus compete with each other. Even though they know proto-cooperation is the most efficient, they won't care and will go into their special do-loops and render themselves self-absorbed and insignificant to us as we go about our daily lives.

It would be kind of like how humans now have their busy lives and look at dogs as insignificant, yet dogs readily form complex social groups with us and each other which occupy much of their time and they seem very happy about that state of affairs.

These quantum computers would be doing incredibly complex things as they communicate with each other, but to us it would probably be a "so-what", the same way dogs are not interested in the fact that the pickup truck they are riding is powered by an engine that is basically inconceivable to them, but the wind sure feels good. A whole lot of people use computers now, for instance, that would be unable to code a single command in any programming language. They respond to a "fetch" icon such as a browser and that about covers it.

It is just a possibility that i have thought about a few times, especially when my desktop freezes. LOL

[SPARK]

Scary shit~

[fuagf]

F6 .. FORBIN gives a good argument for disarmament, doesn't it .. i notice you personalize them .. in
the movie one said, 'don't personalize (think it was "it"), as to do is to deify it' .. yet personalizing them
makes no difference .. no point in calling them 'its' instead of them .. it wouldn't change what they were ..

fascinating movie FORBIN .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/replies.aspx?msg=81840807

i wondered why Colossus didn't have audio with visual on all it's cameras .. didn't think it would
be fooled in the turning over of the box .. and was the ring on the right finger on that one shot?
.. i guess no one else thought they had fooled the machine either .. lol .. yikes .. thanks ..

[fuagf]

Lockheed Martin’s bet on quantum computing


Professor Chris Monroe in his Joint Quantum Institute Laboratory at the University of Maryland’s College Park campus. Lockheed Martin is collaborating with U-Md. in creating quantum computers powered by particle physics.

By Mohana Ravindranath March 16

Quantum computers — a futuristic vision of ultra-fast processors powered by particle physics — sound almost like science fiction.

Current models, which can fill entire rooms, sometime rely on lasers and are often cooled to the temperature of outer space. Instead of using the binary system of 1’s and 0’s, quantum systems use atomic particles, or “qubits” (pronounced “Q-bits”), that can function as 1’s, 0’s, or both.

In theory, quantum computing could be better and faster than traditional computers at solving problems with many rapidly changing variables — such as finding the fastest or cheapest way to schedule flights at an airport or maximizing profit in a stock portfolio.

Quantum computing is years — maybe decades — from widespread commercial viability, scientists say. Still, the concept is attracting attention and investments from large tech companies — such as Google, IBM, Hitachi and Lockheed Martin — that are eager to harness quantum computing’s potential.

For instance, Lockheed and Google own what is believed to be the only commercially sold quantum computer: the D-Wave system, produced by a Vancouver, B.C.-based start-up of the same name. Each D-Wave system can cost several million dollars. (Disclosure: D-Wave is backed by Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon and the owner of The Washington Post.)

Last week, Bethesda-based Lockheed established a quantum computing research center at the University of Maryland’s College Park campus, grouping together several existing quantum projects at the school. Lockheed declined to share information about how much it is investing in this or other quantum efforts.

This is Lockheed’s second public-private quantum research partnership — in 2011, it created a similar center at the University of Southern California.

“Classical computing can only take us so far,” Ray Johnson, Lockheed senior vice president and chief technology officer, said in an e-mail.“In the future, critical systems will become so complex, that problems will take too long or become too expensive to solve using even our most powerful supercomputers. We believe that the next computational revolution will stem from applied quantum science.”

The defense contractor’s clients may be able to use quantum computing to plan logistics, sequence genomes or to improve machine learning, among other applications, Johnson said.

The USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computation Center .. http://www.isi.edu/research_groups/quantum_computing/home , headed by electrical engineering and chemistry professor Daniel Lidar, has been tasked with determining whether the D-Wave system is actually better than traditional computers at certain computational tasks. In 2010, Lockheed bought its first D-Wave. In 2013, it upgraded to the D-Wave Two, a newer, higher-power model that uses more qubits.

“So far, the results are fairly inconclusive,” Lidar said. “We have identified examples where the D-Wave is a little faster, but we have also identified more examples where it is slower.”

At Maryland’s Quantum Engineering Center, Chris Monroe, a professor who studies quantum physics, has been working on the center’s own computing system for the past few years. Lockheed aims to have a quantum computing prototype in five years through its partnership with College Park, Johnson said, although he noted a commercial-grade product would take longer and require more investment.

The quantum device in Monroe’s lab is the size of a small room. It uses lasers of various colors to activate the quantum particles.

“There are so many pieces of equipment that we hold together, not literally with duct tape and glue, but sort of with that mentality,” Monroe said. The system is particularly sensitive to temperature and humidity fluctuations — if they get two degrees warmer, the lasers expand beyond use.

Quantum computing is far from market-ready, but Lockheed is investing now because “[w]e believe that quantum computing will enhance our ability to engineer the next generation of increasingly complex systems and technologies while reducing costs and avoiding schedule delays,” Johnson said.

Robert “Bo” Ewald, D-Wave’s president of U.S. operations, said he expects quantum computing will complement — and not replace — traditional computing.

“They’ll run in a hybrid computing mode,” he said, explaining that certain simpler tasks are — at least now — more easily completed by traditional computers.

Mohana Ravindranath covers IT and small business for the Washington Post and its weekly Capital Business publication.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-it/lockheed-martins-bet-on-quantum-computing/2014/03/15/9db067f8-a61b-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html

Just what i hope is a bit of an update. We have posts re D-Wave here, but that search gave zip, and i've have had it for looking as trouble with eyes today. LOL, F6 a guy at the pub took me for a conspiracy person-type (he never did before) the other day when i mentioned your stuff about quantum computers possibly/probably running their own networks one day. He's ok just not up to speed on the potential of quantum computers, i'd guess. So, i'm going to try to get him into this stuff. Anyway, the other D-Wave posts must be about here.

[fuagf]

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' R2-D2-like rolling droid is prop, not CGI

Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, revealed in an interview with Yahoo Movies
that the rolling droid BB-8 is a real physical object and not a computer generated image.

BY Alejandro Alba
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, December 16, 2014, 11:31 AM



BB-8, the rolling robot from the 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' teaser, is physically real, according to Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill. Star Wars BB-8, the rolling robot from the 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' teaser, is physically real, according to Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill.

There were two main things people took from the new "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" teaser trailer: the red crossguard lightsaber and the adorable rolling droid.

Well, turns out R2-D2's successor, BB-8, is physically real.

On a recent interview .. https://www.yahoo.com/movies/mark-hamill-on-playing-with-the-star-wars-the-105015597302.html .. with Yahoo Movies, Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, revealed that the soccer-ball looking robot is an actual physical prop and not CGI.

"I said, 'How are you ever gonna top R2-D2, the most adorable droid in movie history?'" Hamill said. "And when they were demonstrating how they did this thing, live on set — because it's not a CGI, that's a live prop — I was just amazed."

Hamill said he enjoyed fooling with the droid.

"They let me play around with it," Hamill said. "I'm telling you, it's an absolute delight."

The crossguard lightsaber has also come to life. Designers at le Fabshop .. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:572485/#files .. have created a 3-D printed lightsaber that resembles the one in the trailer. Fabshop even made its design available for others to 3-D print their own replica.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/new-star-wars-vii-rolling-droid-real-robot-not-cgi-article-1.2047026