godsmokescrack's comments

On: Ask HN: Quantum Computation, Computers and Programming

[godsmokescrack]

Standard textbook: Isaac Chuang and Michael Nielsen, "Quantum Computation and Quantum Information"

More mathy: A. Yu. Kitaev, A. H. Shen, M. N. Vyalyi, "Classical and Quantum Computation"

A killer app: Peter Shor, "Polynomial-Time Algorithms for Prime Factorization and Discrete Logarithms on a Quantum Computer"

Some course notes: https://math.mit.edu/~shor/435-LN/

[rramadass → godsmokescrack]

These are the two books i had zeroed in on before asking here.

However, how approachable is the "Classical and Quantum Computation" book? Mathematics is fine as long as it is accessible. Also how good is the explanation of analogy/comparison between concepts from "Classical Computation" vs. "Quantum Computation"? I believe this is the best way to learn this subject and hence am quite interested to know more about how this book does it.

On: YouTube Removes Windows 11 Bypass Tutorials, Claims 'Risk of Physical Harm'

[godsmokescrack]

Governments (we the people in general) have the right and duty to regulate corporations, non-human entities which exist at our regulatory pleasure. The US and the EU could easily rip Google/MS/Apple to pieces if they wanted to. Hit some other media conglomerates while they're at it. Vote or something.

On: Ask HN: Has anyone else been unemployed for over two years?

[godsmokescrack]

I think I'd rather die. Go get a shitty job, temp job, remind yourself what life is actually like for everyone else.

[tedk-42 → godsmokescrack]

I can't help but feel like a lot of commenters would benefit from such things.

Working in an Amazon warehouse for example, being a labourer of some kind (removalist for example). It really is a luxury to sit in front of a keyboard and monitor and think and solve problems and get paid for it.

I've been in my current job for 6 years but I'm on leave at the moment and look to take a few months off next year caring for our newborn.

On: Karatsuba Matrix Multiplication and Its Efficient Hardware Implementations

[godsmokescrack]

The basic idea of reducing 4 multiplications to 3 multiplications

(ax + b)(cx + d) = acx^2 + [(a + b)(c + d) - ac - bd]x + bd

holds pretty generally; there isn't any new math or algorithm here that I can see. Their own complexity analysis (eqns. 7 and 8) shows this performs about the same as using Karatsuba multiplication on the entries of the matrices (instead of on the matrices themselves).

[arcastroe → godsmokescrack]

> this performs about the same as using Karatsuba multiplication on the entries of the matrices (instead of on the matrices themselves).

If it offers improvements in both, why wouldn't one do it in both?

On: Jane Street's Figgie card game

[godsmokescrack]

I'd rather play with cards as well.

You can easily set up the cards with two honest Players. Player 1 sorts and makes four piles S-C--H-D. Player 1 looks away, Player 2 puts 8/12 markers randomly on either the first two piles or the last two piles, then randomizes the piles (so Player 1 gets no information from the order).

The hard part is how to do the trading with real cards. You would have to structure/limit the trading a lot instead of the free-for-all that seems to be going on.