These are my recent Pinboard.in links:
- “Many quantum computing algorithms are described at a high level of abstraction, using logical operations that can be quite complex. However, on a realistic scalable quantum computer, these logical operations would have to be compiled down to a small set of elementary gates which then have to be performed in a fault-tolerant manner. We present an algorithm for computing depth-optimal decompositions of logical operations, leveraging a {it meet-in-the-middle} technique to provide a significant speed-up over simple brute force algorithms. As an illustration of our method, we present a decomposition of the Toffoli gate over the set of Clifford and $T$-gates. This elementary gate set arises, e.g., from fault-tolerant computing over the Steane code or the surface code. Our decomposition achieves a total $T$-depth of 3, thereby providing a 40% reduction over the previously best known decomposition for the Toffoli gate.”
quantum-computing algorithms ontological-refactoring nudge-targets Presentation Zen: Videos to help you rethink education, learning, & school
A number of videos, including an excellent RSA animation of Ken Robinson’s famous TED talk on education. Something important in this—not so much the content (which I suspect Dewey would have nodded about) but because these are accumulating, and more and more elites are claiming things need to be transformed.
education creativity pedagogy academic-culture public-policyNo Longer No Sense of an Ending | Contents Magazine
“What I’m suggesting is that we create an instrument which will, from the user’s perspective, seamlessly interleave new content in with the old, until the old can be supplanted completely. This piece of scaffolding would enable us to deploy disparate elements of new content and functionality as they become ready, instead of waiting for a mythical state of completion. Of course, you can still have your launch, but with most of the new content and functionality already online, it will rightfully be more PR party-times than nail-biting terror.”
wantProbabilistic Graphical Models | Coursera
“In this class, you will learn the basics of the PGM representation and how to construct them, using both human knowledge and machine learning techniques.”
graphical-models statistics machine-learning online-education- “I have communicated with Wikip(m)edia over the apparent systematic relicensing and relabeling of their content into “SpringerImages”. It’s fair to say that the individuals I have heard from are seriously upset. The action is clearly a breach of copyright and therefore illegal in most jurisdictions.”
copyright publishers academic-culture intellectual-property licensing if-it’s-on-the-internet-it’s-free The inventor who had exactly the wrong name — The Henry Ford Blog
“Mechanical television is based on the premise that a spinning disk can scan an image to be sent by radio, which can then be received by another spinning disk synchronized to the first. Hollis Baird produced televisions as the Baird Receiver Company from 1925–8, after which he founded a company with A.M. Morgan and Butler Perry called the Shortwave and Television Laboratory. Shortwave and Television sold radios and mechanical televisions and, beginning in April 1929, operated Boston’s second experimental television station, W1WX (later known as W1XAV,) which transmitted 60-line mechanical television images, including a speech by Boston’s mayor in 1931.”
nanohistory technology invention contingency history localGenetic Programming Benchmarks Main/Home Page
“There seems to be a consensus that many GP benchmarks are too much like toy problems, that problems where we expect to find the optimum in most runs are unrealistic, and that new standard benchmarks are needed. Quite a few senior researchers contributed ideas and comments. This page is intended to track the issue and provide a repository for existing and new benchmarks.”
genetic-programming benchmarking pragmatism-it-ain’tA 100-Day Journey into the Emerging Creative Economy — EMERGENT CITIES
“There is promise on that front — I’ve already found several imaginative people who seem to believe in themselves, as well as in me. All of them seem to be sensitive to the multitude of non-monetary flows that exist in a truly human economy, and ready to engage to some degree on a new economic path similar to mine. My dearest hope is to end up embedded in a creative network — an Emergent City! — where thick value is flying fast in all directions, including into and out from the commons, as a matter of daily routine. Where work feels right most of the time, and can be made right when it feels wrong.”
disintermediation-in-action worklife parallel-economies seb-paquet the-made-world- “However, the report cautions, it is nearly impossible for individuals to become lone fractional scholars. For fractional scholarship to be feasible, institutions must step forward to provide affiliations and resources, aggregate grant support and management, and establish research communities that allow scholars to interact online and in person. The institutions would benefit from the affiliation with scholars, who would spend all of their funded time on research, operating at a much lower cost than a typical university professor can.”
coscience disintermediation-targets academic-culture Mavenlink Infographic: The New Independent Workforce — Column Five Media
“Many workers today do not work for organizations on a permanent basis. These independent workers, both solopreneurs and independent service firms, known collectively as the contingent workforce, are present in many different fields. But who are they? We examine this unique section of the labor force in this infographic with Mavenlink.”
coworking freelancers demographics economics worklife infographic- “And like it or not, Apple and Amazon are stirring up more interest, even among intellectuals, than most academic critiques of capitalism. Is that just because we are all a bunch of brainwashed idiots locked in on our own trivial conveniences? Hardly. It’s because these companies are also doing something exciting that addresses where consciousness really is today, and which it didn’t know that it wanted. Did I know in advance that my brain would catch fire as soon as I had a smartphone and a tablet computer? Not at all. I initially thought both of these things were consumerist pseudo-needs, just like the academic Left still does. But I was wrong, and so were they. To have the right electronic device in your hands can sharpen your brain as much as the discovery of an important new author. We should of course be aware of how the relatively cheap availability of such products leads to explosions, lung disease, and suicides among Chinese factory workers, and it’s a terrible failure of imagination if we close our ears to such reports. But it is also a grievous failure of imagination to be always on the side of the critics and the grumblers. Life has to be optimistic, or it becomes merely reactive. And I really fear that the Left is becoming the permanent homeland of the critics and the grumblers. The Left has its moments (Egypt for sure). But we should not commit the taxonomic fallacy of holding that to grumble is always a more profound political act than to put all the books of the world on an easily accessible website.”
via:flatware philosophy interview object-oriented-philosophy cultural-dynamics How Microbes Can Build Electric Grids: Scientific American
“When the scientists examined the cells in the growing communities closely, they found nanoparticles of magnetite on the surface of cells and, in some cases, grains of the iron mineral connecting microbial pairs. They observed, in other words, a basic, biological electric grid and one that, because of its size, offers very little resistance to the flow of electrons.”
microbiology bacterial-world they-laughed-when-i-suggested-this-years-ago