Google Cars Self-Drive to Walmart Supermarket in Trial
July 25th, 2018Via: BBC:
Google’s sister-company Waymo has announced a trial in which its self-driving cars will ferry shoppers to and from a nearby Walmart store to pick up their groceries.
For now, the pilot is being restricted to 400-plus members of its early rider programme in Phoenix, Arizona.
Quantum Benchmark Finds and Suppresses Errors in Calculations Performed by Quantum Computers
July 24th, 2018Disclosure: I am long Quantum Resistant Ledger.
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Via: The Record:
A startup says it has solved a huge problem for quantum computers, unlocking the potential of these experimental machines to become the most disruptive technology of the 21st century.
Working out of a small office on Breithaupt Street in Kitchener, the team at Quantum Benchmark has developed software that finds and suppresses errors in the calculations performed by quantum computers, and tells users the likelihood of the answer being right or wrong.
“It is solving a problem that people have been asking about for two decades,” said chief executive officer Joseph Emerson.
This week, the startup took a quantum leap forward, announcing a deal with tech giant Google. Its True-Q software will be integrated into Google’s open source platform for building quantum algorithms. The platform, called Cirq, was launched this week.
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There are many working prototypes of quantum computers at UW and other technology centres around the world. But so far, no one has produced a practical quantum computer that can be used to solve real-world problems.
Emerson said one of the main reasons for that is nobody could detect, control and correct the errors produced by quantum computers. At least until now.
“And so we have actually provided that solution, and we have provided that solution in a very robust way, and this is based on two decades of research from my team,” said Emerson.
Few people cared about the issue when he started researching it 15 years ago, but that changed as more advanced prototypes were developed, he said, because quantum computers use atomic particles the technology is inherently fragile and prone to errors.
As bigger and more powerful quantum computers are built, the chance of error increases, Emerson said, potentially reaching a 50/50 chance that answers produced by the machines are correct. That’s the same probability as a coin toss.
“The best people in the field have been emphasizing this point, that there are errors and that spoil the recipe, so to speak,” said Emerson. “So you can use a near-term quantum computer or current quantum computer and it will give you the wrong answer.”
Google recognizes the significance of the issue, he said.
“Google is being very strategic and honest about the fact that we have to deal with this problem,” Emerson said. “They are not sweeping it under the rug, and they value the fact that we can provide tools that dramatically help with that problem.
More and More of What We Do Depends on Government Permission
July 24th, 2018Via: Reason:
Do you have permit for that? If you want to keep that permit, you’d better do as you’re told.
Increasingly, that’s the theme of modern America. More and more of what we do is dependent on permission from the government. That permission, unsurprisingly, is contingent on keeping government officials happy. Rub those officials the wrong way and they’ll strip you of permission to travel the roads, leave the country, or even make a living.
That’s not a recipe for a free country.
Why Some PhDs Are Quitting Academia for Unconventional Jobs
July 24th, 2018“Why did they accept so many of us into this program when there are no jobs?”
The answer is simple:
Universities profit handsomely from graduate student slave labor. It’s a similar model that of prison industries, where convicts are paid pennies per hour to manufacture a wide variety of products. Instead of goat cheese, or clothing, undergrads are the main product output from universities. And there’s a lot of work involved in churning millions of undergrads through the mill every year. Grad students help turn the gears of the machine, at very little cost.
This is not a recent development.
There was an underground newspaper at the university I attended that was distributed in various bathrooms around the campus. In one of the more memorable issues, high tuition fees, grad student conditions, the scam in the University bookstore, etc. were juxtaposed against the cost of the University President’s bathroom remodel and other insane and profligate wastes of money. For the cover of the issue, the ARBEIT MACHT FREI sign from Auschwitz had been photoshopped on to an image of one of the prominent entrances to the campus.
You get the point.
Anyway, this was almost 25 years ago.
Additionally, with regard to why “unconventional jobs” are popular with this demographic, a friend of mine, with a PhD in Cognitive Science, told me that mentioning a PhD on a CV for jobs outside academia indicates to employers that you have been, “Dipped in shit.”
In essence, it indicates that you’re older and have less practical experience than other people applying for the job. While it’s great that three out of the four people in the article below started their own businesses, if you’re trying to get a normal job and you have a PhD, you might want to leave that off your resume.
Via: CBC:
Canadian statistics from 2013 suggest that completion rates among PhD students range from only 50 per cent in the humanities to about 80 per cent in the health sciences. Students leave for many different reasons — the gruelling work, the isolation, the terrible job market.
According to 2011 figures from Statistics Canada, the most recent data available, fewer than one in five people with an earned doctorate have full-time teaching jobs.
Another 20 per cent teach part-time at universities, instruct full- or part-time at colleges, or hold contract-based jobs, according to the Conference Board of Canada.
Face Scanning at NYC Toll Plazas
July 23rd, 2018Via: New York Post:
Big Governor is watching you.
Facial-recognition cameras at bridge and tunnel toll plazas across the city are already scanning drivers’ visages and feeding them into databases to catch suspected criminals, Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed Friday.
“When it reads that license plate, it reads it for scofflaws .?.?. [but] the toll is almost the least significant contribution that this electronic equipment can actually perform,” Cuomo said at a press conference outside the Queens Midtown Tunnel.
“We are now moving to facial-recognition technology, which takes it to a whole new level, where it can see the face of the person in the car and run that technology against databases.
“Because many times a person will turn their head when they see a security camera, so they are now experimenting with technology that just identifies a person by their ear, believe it or not,” he continued.
Doctors Give Patients 11 Seconds to Explain Reason for Visit Before Interrupting
July 20th, 2018Via: StudyFinds:
Ever feel like your doctor is in a rush to get you out the door when you come in for a visit? You’re not just imagining things. A new study finds physicians give a patient an average of just 11 seconds to describe their issue before cutting them off.
Researchers from the University of Florida determined that for all the waiting we do after we arrive at a medical practitioner’s office, its the doctors who seem to have the least amount of patience. The study showed that just a third of physicians give patients adequate time to explain why they’re there.
Now Is The Time to Be a Cockroach
July 20th, 2018I definitely wouldn’t count on banks and cash, as she suggests, but this is an OK article to share with your “normal” family and friends who might perceive the current economic situation as A-OK.
Once people understand that things are not A-OK, that would be a good time to explain what a bail-in is.
Via: Erica Douglas:
We are, right now, in a state of economic expansion that has lasted for 10 years. Having lived through two major downturns (2001 and 2008) as an adult, I’ve trained myself to recognize the top of the market. And though I may be wrong, I feel confident in saying we are at the top right now.
That does not mean the economy will not continue to expand. “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent,” John Maynard Keynes wisely said. Timing the market is extraordinarily difficult.
I closely watched the financial news during the last two economic expansions and contractions, and for the last 3 months I’ve seen the same indicators I saw at the top of those two expansions.
So, if we’re not at the top, the markets will certainly only get more irrational and frothy from here.
Why do I mention all of these economic indicators? Because now is the time for you to start being a cockroach.
You should irrationally focus on profitability and putting as much money into the bank (liquid cash) as possible right now. And from a personal level, you should be focused on paying down debt, not taking on new debt, and stacking as much cash as you possibly can. Get money now while the economy is at the top.
As much as you can given your time and health, take on paying gigs now. Then put that cash in the bank and keep it there. You will need it when the economy tanks, whether that’s later this year, next year, or 2-3 years from now.
New Way to Recycle Lithium-Ion Batteries
July 20th, 2018Cobalt has been a very well known choke-point in lithium based energy storage systems for many years. Tesla, for example, has been reducing its dependence on cobalt and will go cobalt free for its next generation of cells. Although, what that means, in terms of an ETA, isn’t clear. The point is that the largest manufacturer of lithium ion batteries in the world is phasing out the use of cobalt entirely.
My guess is that other companies are looking at alternatives as well.
Via: Los Angeles Times:
The promise of a global electric-vehicle transformation has a looming problem.
The cathodes in the lithium-ion batteries typically used in electric vehicles are made of metal oxides that contain cobalt, a metal found in finite supplies and concentrated in one of the globe’s more precarious countries.
But an assistant professor at UC San Diego says he has developed a way to recycle used cathodes from spent lithium-ion batteries and restore to perform as well as they did when new.
“Yes, it can work effectively,” said Zheng Chen, a 31-year-old who works as a nanoengineer at the Sustainable Power and Energy Center at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering.
The method also works on lithium cobalt oxide, which is widely used in electronic devices such as smartphones and laptops.
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The process takes degraded particles from the cathodes found in a used lithium-ion battery. The particles are then pressurized in a hot alkaline solution that contains lithium salt. Later, the particles go through a short heat-treating process called annealing, in which temperatures reach more than 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit.
After cooling, Chen’s team takes the regenerated particles and makes new cathodes. They then test the cathodes in batteries made in the lab.
The results, Chen said, have been impressive.
The new cathodes have been able to maintain the same charging time, storage capacity and battery lifetime as the originals did.
“Originally I thought we couldn’t get all this performance back, that we would lose 10% or 20%,” Chen said. “But it turns out we’re getting exactly the same performance.”
Details of the recycling method were recently published in the research journal Green Chemistry, submitted by Chen and two colleagues.
Waymo’s Autonomous Vehicles Are Driving 25,000 Miles Every Day
July 20th, 2018Via: TechCrunch:
Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that spun out to become a business under Alphabet, has driven 8 million miles on public roads using its autonomous vehicles.
Waymo CEO John Krafcik shared the company’s milestone Friday while onstage with Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval at the National Governors Association conference in Santa Fe, N.M. The figure is notable when compared to where Waymo was less than a year ago. In November, the company announced it had reached 4 million miles, meaning the company has been able to double the number of autonomous miles driven on public roads in just eight months.
Waymo’s fleet of self-driving vehicles are now logging 25,000 miles every day on public roads, Krafcik said. He later tweeted out the stats along with a graphic. Waymo has 600 self-driving Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans on the road in 25 cities.
Find the Best Second Passport for You
July 20th, 2018Via: multinational.io:
Best second passport for you based on your current nationality – sorted by increase in ease of travel/quality of life etc.
