Monday, February 19, 2018

Trump and quantum computing

Scott Aaronson gripes about an article gushing about the coming quantum computers:
Would you agree that the Washington Post has been a leader in investigative journalism exposing Trump’s malfeasance? Do you, like me, consider them one of the most important venues on earth for people to be able to trust right now? How does it happen that the Washington Post publishes a quantum computing piece filled with errors that would embarrass a high-school student doing a term project (and we won’t even count the reference to Stephen “Hawkings” — that’s a freebie)?
No, the coverage of President Trump has been much more biased and misleading.

The author commented on Scott's blog, giving reputable sources for all the wild quantum computing claims. Scott has quit talking to the press. What do you expect from journalists, if all the experts are talking nonsense?

It could be worse, and NewScientist reported:
Quantum computer could have predicted Trump’s surprise election
Predicting the outcome of a general election is a challenge. But combining quantum computing with neural network technology could improve forecasts, according to a new study that used just such a network to model the 2016 US presidential elections.
The article is paywalled, so I don't know how bad it is.

The press promoted string theory, when all the big-shot professors said that it was the secret to the fundamental workings of the universe. Now they have moved onto quantum computing, and other topics.

A comment refers to this:
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the Newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case (Murray Gell-Mann), physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the Journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
Yes, and complaining about "fake news" inevitably leads to discussions of bogus stories in the Wash. Post, NY Times, and CNN.

4 comments:

  1. Yeah, the Trump coverage makes him sound like a conservative. He's anything but. The Fed is dumping $600 billion of securities at the same time Trump is going to dump $1.2 trillion of debt into the bond market. This is at the end of the current business cycle! World central banks will be following and reducing their $20 trillion welfare program to big finance. Watch the 10-year go to 3.5% or 4.5% with current stock P/Es. Trump is borrowing tax cuts from one sector of the economy to give it to business that could borrow at zero rates for a decade. All they have done is buybacks, M&A, leverage recaps and buyouts. They will slowly trickle some repatriated profits back into the U.S. to pump up their earnings numbers and the corporate tax is a stupid, regressive, double taxation but lowering it won't do wonders to pay for his spending. The defense budget is twice what it was before 9/11 and his increase is more than 2x the entire GDP of North Korea. $13 billion boondoggle carriers aside, we have stupid wars going on all across the world bleeding our budget situation. Healthcare is a socialist mess of public and private insurance companies writing blank checks and pushing it to a fifth of GDP (and they are happy inflation is returning to 5% in the sector, ROFL). Payroll taxes are not even invested to get a low-risk market return and not a single thing meaningful is done about entitlements. They can't even means test them. The budget projections are for no recession until 2027. The man is doing exactly what the Simpsons predicted: he is bankrupting the government. I think David Stockman is right about him. He's the orange swan Ronald McDonald clown show. The GOP just blew off the budget caps and they won't ever return.

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    1. "Finally, in addition to what we first pointed out over two years ago, namely that all net debt issuance in the 21st century has been used to pay for stock buybacks..."
      Source

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  2. I like gold. Governments can't print it, it doesn't rust, in good times you can use it for jewelry or building computers, and in bad times it doesn't depreciate to zero, and actually becomes more valuable as people realize their fiat currency literally isn't what it used to be five minutes ago.

    Stocks are gambling. Yes it can be profitable, but by the rules of the game, someone has to lose.

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    1. Gold has not been a good investment lately. It barely went up when the DOW dropped about 2000 points recently. It was $1,895 in 2011 but is now trading at $1,344. Gold depends on how much is being mined, sold by central banks or being sold as paper. I had the same bet as Peter Thiel. My quote 6 months ago from a video I posted on the crazy XIV short positions: "VIX hit record intraday low of 9.12! A return of volatility could pay off huge." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5W4o7UnhLE

      "But in the latest filings from Thiel Macro, it appears Thiel changed his mind in the latter half of last year and reversed his position into a massive bet on volatility jumping... While he maintained a small $6.5mm VXX Put position (short-volatility bet), he added a massive $244mm SVXY Put position (long-volatility bet)." https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-16/peter-thiel-makes-killing-massive-vol-spike-bet

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