No, a true quantum computer will not necessarily solve NP-complete (NPC) problems efficiently. Quantum algorithms like Grover’s provide quadratic speedups, but this is insufficient to turn exponential-time solutions into polynomial-time ones. While quantum computers excel in specific tasks (e.g., Shor’s algorithm for factoring), there’s no evidence they can solve all NP-complete problems efficiently.
Current complexity theory suggests that , the class of problems solvable by quantum computers, does not encompass . Quantum computers may aid in approximations or heuristics for NPC problems but won’t fundamentally resolve them in polynomial time unless , which remains unlikely.
Factoring. Reversing ECC operations. Decrypting all the data thought to be safely stored at rest in any non quantum resistant storage.
I do think ai algorithms could be built that quantum gates could be fast at, but I don’t have any ideas off the top of my head this morning. If you think of AI training as searching the space of computational complexity and quantum algorithms as accessing a superposition of search states I would guess there’s an intersection. Google thinks so too - the lab is called quantum ai.
It is unknown whether quantum computing makes NP-complete problems easier to solve. There is a complexity class for problems that can be solved "efficiently" on using quantum computing, called BQP. How BQP and NP are related is unknown. In particular, if an NP-complete problem was shown to be solvable efficiently with Quantum Computing (and thus in BQP), this open (and hard) research question would be solved (or at least half of it).
Note that BQP is not "efficient" in a real-word fashion, but for theoretical study of Quantum computing, it's a good first guess
AFAIK, which is not much, I believe it is problems that you can turn in to a cycle. Right now we pull out answers from quantum computers at random, but typically do not know what the inputs were that got that answer. But if you can get the answers from the quantum computer to be cyclical you can use that symmetry to get all the information you need.
This kind of pricing strategy makes me think we're gonna have a pretty rough time once AGI arrives making any money. (I.e. no 'too cheap to meter' and basically all the rich getting richer.)
In most of the Nordics a significant portion of the population would easily die after around 12-24 hours of no power for large parts of the year. It's very goddamned cold up here.
Old and young children, especially those living in cities or apartments would be in real trouble if heating cut out. They might not own enough thick blankets, and do not have alternative ways of heating their home.
It's just so weird. Everyone has a blanket on their bed. If not that, a thick comforter type thing.
You can actually put on more than one shirt too. If it's super cold, you can put on more than one pair of pants. You can put on more than one pair of socks.
If you're strange and your bed doesn't have blankets, you can put clothes over your bed. Most people have 5 to 10 pairs of pants, and a dozen shirts, a few sweaters. Put those on when awake + your winter coat. Put those clothes on the bed when sleeping. Works like a charm.
“Most people are prepared” is a great situation. Regardless, we still see folks in vulnerable situations die when the power goes out in extreme heat or cold. The minority that aren’t or can’t be prepared are the ones that need these guides most.
Heat is typically a problem, you can only take off so many clothes.
Cold typically isn't when at home. That why I have this reaction. You can just put on more and more clothes. There are ways to keep warm. Most deaths from cold are outside, where there are no supplies.
It's cold here in Scandinavia. Nighttime temperatures are below freezing for half a year in a good chunk of the land. Winters are in general cold for a significant part of the population, three days without heating would be a serious danger if you don't know how to keep your home (relatively) warm in an emergency. When outside temperatures are around -15C, a house with no power can easily get cold enough to risk hypothermia. And in the winter, -30C is perfectly ordinary.
I struggle to think of a way of keeping an entire house or apartment warm without power.
Is there an actual solution recommended by the respective governments for this or was the problem reformulated into keeping one or more persons warm instead?
Home design helps. I'm in a very old earth bermed home and even if the temperature outside is -25F (-31.3C) the coldest it gets if I don't have the heat on is about 42F (5.5C) and that's just because my windows are really old and the door weather strip is decomposing. If I throw a few logs in the wood stove it can get too hot. I doubt there are many earth bermed apartments however. I would probably just put on my snow pants, jacket, hat. Snow rated clothing make a big difference. That is what I would stock up on along with other layers underneath. If I had to sleep outside I would add a tarp, a lot of rocks and some paracord. Not saying it would be fun.
> If I had to sleep outside I would add a tarp […]
Outside you need to add something to insulate you from heat loss to the ground or it is colder than you would want.
Instead of rocks (I’m sure that was a joke), add closed cell insulation, like polystyrene. Five cm of that beneath you, and you will sleep warm and toasty.
Not a joke at all. If the tarp is big enough, fold it into a half tent and put rocks at each end, then cover them in snow to create a mini-wall and hold the tarp in place from wind. The tarp itself needs to point up-wind to block it. It will block the wind and new snow. If wearing the right snow clothing the only killer is wind. The snow below the tarp will be fine, again if wearing the right snow clothing. Adding layers above the tarp is great if it's an option. I was just basing that on what can be easily carried in a ruck-sack as I assume the only people sleeping outside can't afford lodging. That insulation roll can be rolled up and attached under the ruck-sack if it is small enough and/or flexible enough.
[Edit] For completeness sake, if they are homeless and do not have good snow clothing then the first thing they should be doing is begging, borrowing or stealing their way onto a train heading towards the equator.
You can't keep it warm but you can conserve heat as much as possible. You're supposed to add extra insulation by covering the windows with blankets, pick a space in the house where everyone will be and additionally insulate that main space from the rest of the house, use candles as it's safe to.
Our houses are generally quite well insulated due to the climate. Government preparedness info says a modern house (~15 years old) can go four full days in -20C weather before inside temperatures drop to 5C. A typical 70s row house would drop to that after 48 hours but a 70s brick house can drop that low after just 24 hours. So depending on your house and location, the specific plan for a 3-day outage can range from "you'll be fine as long as you have blankets" to "you need a fireplace or other heater with fuel for at least a few hours a day".
In Canada, things called "storms" sometimes knock out power lines. The result is no power!
I've been without power for days in the cold, and have been compelled to put on my coat... inside! Most Canadians do this, rather than trying to keep an entire house warm at -40C.
It's really a non issue.
Worried?
* Buy a few large candles. Just one provides a lot of warmth if you cup your hands around it.
* Eat more. You need 2x your calories when it is cold. Food means life in the cold.
I don't know about houses but I've camped a while in those temperatures and with heavy down sleeping bags, suits and insulated boots it's fine. I never really felt cold.
Thats not exactly how it works. The proof of work algorithm makes sense and works by using electricity as an input and Bitcoin as the output.
You can say energy generation companies are "getting rich" off Bitcoin but that ignores the fact that a lot of Bitcoin hashing is done using surplus or very low cost electricity.
You could try a straw man and say "early investors" are making bank but most of us have sold and traded along the way, only the already wealthy could hold from the early 2000s until today.
I can't really makes heads or tails of your comment, how do you think Bitcoin works?
The Twitter bot situation only seems to have got worse since they shut down free API access. LLM engagement farming bots everywhere in replies, hordes of scam bots replying if you use certain keywords, porn bots following and DMing everyone non-stop...
Evidently the people running the bots don't really care whether or not you give them an API to work with.
I think that coincided with them removing phone number verification for accounts. Probably due to my browser looking unusual (content blocker, linux user-agent string, other addons) any time I set up a new account and used it for a few minutes a few years ago, it'd lock the account and redirect every logged in page to one demanding SMS verification to unlock the account.
I would usually get support to manually unlock it after a few days by emailing them and mentioning why I didn't want to give them a phone number. Now the process only involves solving captchas. (and maybe some hidden waiting)
Check out bluesky's "labeling services", I think it will be a very simple matter to crowdsource lists of obvious bots and prevent their having any reach. You can create bots that make as many posts as you want, but bots aren't entitled to being included in any feed. It comes down to the posts that the relay choose to aggregate, and what the appview chooses to display according to user preferences.
One of the nice things that make Bluesky different is that there isn't really a single central algorithm that everyone is forced to use. This combined with the many novel moderations tools like feeds and labellers mean it's pretty trivial to filter out entire categories of spam/botting.
As an example my feed is completely free of US politics, allowing me to curate an experience where I can go to enjoy myself instead of constantly being exposed to ragebait.
