AMA - Bernardo Meurer 2017-06-13 – Conversation in The h Bar

ACuriousMind

Jun 13, 2017 16:00

Hi and welcome to today's AMA with @BernardoMeurer, a student of computer engineering. The introductory meta post with some questions is here, but feel free to ask new questions at any time. Please keep discussion completely unrelated to the AMA out of the room until it ends.

Bernardo Meurer

Hello everyone! It's a pleasure to see so many of you here!

Terry Bollinger

Greetings Bernardo!

AccidentalFourierTransform

I participated.

Bernardo Meurer

So, who wants to break the ice and ask the first question?

Terry Bollinger

Bernardo, what do you think about the current status of commercial quantum computing?

vzn

Jun 13, 2017 16:02

@BernardoMeurer maybe go with the questions in the meta post 1st :)

Bernardo Meurer

@vzn Sure, just post them here for me

The Dark Side

Hey @BernardoMeurer, I don't know much about the technical details of your expertise, so i'll post a softer one, I'm very curious about the Zizek mention in the meta post. What's that story?

^ Maybe a question for later.

Bernardo Meurer

@TerryBollinger Currently I think it's just not good enough. QC has not delivered on it's promises yet but I think we are very close to the day when it does, indeed, show it's full potential. I honestly don't know enough about the dealings of D-Wave to know just exactly what are they selling. I think we're on the turning point for QC, and I'm waiting on the edge of my seat for the next results from the Martinis lab (who were allegedly doing a showdown against a supercomputer later this year)

Terry Bollinger

@BernardoMeurer sounds very reasonable, I'm similarly unsure about it. Lots of work, but will it pan out, or get "fusion is the power of the future"-ish?...

Bernardo Meurer

@TheDarkSide Well, the Zizek story is one of the biggest coincidences I've had in my life. I have always like him quite a lot, and had read his work from an early age. Last year, when I moved to Lisbon from Rio, I met a Slovenian girl, and we started dating. Turns out she sort of knew Zizek and that's how the story unfolded. I still have to actually go to Slovenia to meet him, alas since we've broken off it might be trickier.

ACuriousMind

Jun 13, 2017 16:08

Maybe let's go with the highest-voted question from the meta thread: How did you get interested in physics and to hang around in the h bar when your main focus seems to be computer engineering and programming?

Bernardo Meurer

@TerryBollinger I believe very strongly in the fusion of classical and quantum computer. I think we'll see QC's implemented as co-processors and interfaced with ISA extensions. Much like when SSE/SIMD instructions came. The same way we got FPU's we'll some day have an analogous thing for QC's I believe

bolbteppa

@BernardoMeurer How well versed ae you on building a computer up from nothing (theoretically of course) via the layers of abstraction theembeddedguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/… (in other words, do you vaguely see how doing things in C/C++ translates through the layers of abstraction down to atoms in a plug socket)? [I don't, harder than string theory to make sense of this :\ ]

@BernardoMeurer Do you think Zizek actually says anything (apart from his movies analysing other movie clips, which are awesome)

Sid

@Bernado How do you compare C, C++ and Python as programming languages?

(Is that a good enough question?)

Terry Bollinger

@BernardoMeurer Good points! I've found that integration of diverse methods almost always is more powerful.

Bernardo Meurer

@ACuriousMind @AccidentalFourierTransform This question is actually really nice. I first came to the h-bar with a stupid question about Uncertainty and an observer in a universe with more dimensions than ours. It was a truly bizarre thing that I had thought in the bus. I was pointed here by @DanielSank, and him and ACM were really nice and patient in explaining me my misconceptions and so on.

So I sticked around because I felt welcome. Later on having @dmckee and @JohnRennie, two absolute C wizards made me like the hbar more and more

AccidentalFourierTransform

Jun 13, 2017 16:12

and of course there's me

Alex

My question was removed for some reason...

ACuriousMind

@Alex Please go to the other room for things unrelated to the AMA.

Alex

@ACuriousMind Okay sorry.

Bernardo Meurer

@bolbteppa I'm well versed in how computers work up to the transistor level, but to be honest that is useless most of the time. Not once in my life the solution to a C bug involved knowing the architecture of a flip-flop or a NAND gate, and so on. I think I have a firm grasp of everything that happens in a simpler architecture (such as MIPS), including interrupts, IO, and so on

Terry Bollinger

Bernardo, I'm also a fan of free and open software. Do you have any observations about the relationship between free software and, say, physics research?

Bernardo Meurer

Jun 13, 2017 16:16

@Sid Well, C is very raw, hard to use for the most part, and incredibly powerful. Once you master pointers it's truly magical. C++ builds on that by adding some fluff that makes the language far more pleasant. Some people (Torvalds) don't like C++ though, I will however say that usually I'll use C++ instead of C just to save time. Python is just a joy to code in, it's simple and powerful, and fast enough. I think it's a great beginners language and that you can do almost anything in it

ACuriousMind

@BernardoMeurer Ah, let's field a question from @KyleKanos: What is it about airports that you enjoy so much that you included it in the meta post?

Bernardo Meurer

@TerryBollinger It bothers me the amount of work done in proprietary malware such as Mathematica or Matlab. I think people should always try to use Octave and OS or Free alternatives. However I feel like more and more physicists move to free themselves from the shackles of proprietary software. They write their thesis in LaTeX, put source on GitHub, use GNUPlot or python for their graphs, and so on. It's getting better, physicists are open minded when it comes to software I think

Terry Bollinger

@BernardoMeurer and there is a LOT of power in free software!

Balarka Sen

@BernardoMeurer Since you are into programming, are you familiar with the mathematical field of type theory, and the fairly recent interaction of it with homotopy theory, culminating the field of "homotopy type theory"? A soft-question: What are your opinions on the existential themes prominent in the work of Kierkegaard? (which I am not too familiar with, admittedly)

Bernardo Meurer

@ACuriousMind I honestly cannot explain it, but I just LOVE airports, really. I buy the longer flights with the most stops to see more airports. I just like seeing the people I guess. I always end up meeting someone. Last time coming to Lisbon I made a stop in Heathrow, horrible airport, but ended up meeting two great Canadians and we played cards for hours on end. I really like these in-the-moment friendships one makes

@TerryBollinger Yes! Truly!

AccidentalFourierTransform

Jun 13, 2017 16:21

tbh, there is no free alternative to mathematica...

SBM

@BernardoMeurer This might be a opinionated question; FOSS is awesome, but as with all things it could be made better; how do you think that can be done?

Jaime Gallego

@Bernardo Amateur radio is quite a mix of electronics, programming, and physics. Do you have any interest in the field? Any project you carried out?

Bernardo Meurer

@BalarkaSen I don't know much Type Theory, although I should. All I can give you is recently I'e done some reading on Sum Types and I am in love with them, really awesome concept. I hope to learn more about type theory soon, if I transfer to CS

Terry Bollinger

@BalarkaSen "existential themes prominent in the work of Kierkegaard" is a SOFT question??

2

Bernardo Meurer

@BalarkaSen The first this I must say about Kierkegaard is that he is a horrible writer, even if he had nice ideas, he presents them in ways so confusing that it makes the reading a pain. Sort of like Hegel. I mostly just like him because of his views on subjectivity and truth

vzn

Jun 13, 2017 16:24

@BernardoMeurer aka "people watching" ... also possible somewhat in cyber chat :)

Bernardo Meurer

@SBM Contributors contributors contributors! FOSS lacks people actually willing to do work. There's too much forking and not enough contribution. We need to learn how to work as a community better, it has been improving, but there's still work to be done

vzn

@BernardoMeurer some were asking in your meta post about whether you care about physics. have noticed significant philosophy discussion in this chat over the months, maybe some crosspollination there. maybe turning around that question, why should anyone care about philosophy?

David Z

@BernardoMeurer I presume you mean "forking" in the sense of creating a separate line of development independent from the original, and not in the Github sense?

AccidentalFourierTransform

thanks

Balarka Sen

@Bernardo Fair enough. I read about Types from the "HoTT book" (maybe check it out someday), and I mostly think about the Curry-Howard correspondence when I think about them (eg sum types are logical conjunction - aka "and" - to me). How are these relevant in computer science? As a "formal logic of coding", or actually used in practical purposes? This might be a naive question.

I see. I have heard that complaint about writing style made about Kant.

ACuriousMind

Jun 13, 2017 16:27

@BernardoMeurer I'll field another one from your not-father KyleKanos: Why Portugal for University? (great academics, chance to get away from home, etc) What other universities did you apply and/or look at?

Bernardo Meurer

@JaimeGallego After my parents divorced my mother dated a guy for a few years whose father was very into radios, and I got to spend quite some time with him because I was interested in electronics at the time (~12 years old). I remember tuning in to distant Asian stations on AM frequencies and listening to them speak, and being fascinated by it, with all the distance and so on. That never evolved to anything though. Recently I did some work with GPS and geolocation for tracking packages.

@vzn I won't say people should care about anything, because I'm not sure it's my place to do such. For an answer to that, however I must indicate the reading of Schopenhauer's great dialogue on Philosophy and Religion. Just to close off, I think philosophy asks important questions sometimes, and those deserve thought and reflection.

@DavidZ Yes, exactly. You have project A, I want to implement functionality X, I fork your project rename it and then implement the changes without ever merging back/ doing a PR

So, also in the GH sense of the word, but mostly about forks not being merged or turned into PR's

Terry Bollinger

@BernardoMeurer good point about the need for more FOSS contributors. Even just a few truly dedicated contributors on a topic can make a huge difference.

vzn

@BernardoMeurer fyi reminds me of a physicist who had some history with radios cs.cmu.edu/~pattis/misc/feynman.pdf "he fixes radios by thinking" / feynman ... do you have any favorite physicists/ heroes you admire, and why?

Jaime Gallego

@BernardoMeurer That raises the (also in meta) question: how did this love for computers and electronics get started?

Bernardo Meurer

@BalarkaSen Sum types are the best! I recently had to use them in a Rust code I've been working on. I had a function that returned, on error, a type X. This function was being called by another function that returned, on error, type Y, which meant I couldn't unify the errors. So I created a sum type Z of X and Y, and bingo!

@TerryBollinger I recently got one random RedHat guy contributing to a project of mine and the difference is amazing!

@BalarkaSen Later I can quote you some Kierkegaard that will make your brain swirl, he really is a bad writer

Terry Bollinger

Jun 13, 2017 16:33

@BernardoMeurer OK, I've GOT to look more closely at Rust, my son has encouraged me but I've not gotten around to it.

Bernardo Meurer

@ACuriousMind That's a long story. Fundamentally because I wanted to leave Brazil because the country is falling apart and Portugal is cheap. I got accepted to good schools in the US but did not have money to go there, so I had to settle for here. I am, however, unhappy here and am looking to transfer soon

vzn

@BernardoMeurer so you seem unusual getting interested in (advanced!) philosophy at a relatively young age, did you have some influence or inspiration for that?

@BernardoMeurer sorry to hear Portugal is not (entirely) to your liking, is it something about the school or something else?

Terry Bollinger

@BernardoMeurer Philosophy and physics: If quantum mechanics can be defined as the physics of events for which a final history has not yet been determined (it can), how can one not have at least some interest in philosophy and how to interpret reality?

Bernardo Meurer

@vzn I have only two pictures of people on my room, they are framed and one is on my desk, the other by my bed. On my desk is a picture of Alan Turing, by my bed a picture of Tsiolkovsky. I admire them both, very deeply, because of the devotion they had to their work. Tsiolkovsky specially deserves praise here, I recommend a quick read of his Wikipedia page. I also always liked Bohr, but do not have a picture of him yet

Emilio Pisanty

@BernardoMeurer Any thoughts on The Imitation Game?

DanielSank

Jun 13, 2017 16:38

@BernardoMeurer My goodness, that's kind of moving.

Balarka Sen

@Bernardo Aha, nice explanation. Thanks a lot. (Dank, ping me later with some of those quotes)

Bernardo Meurer

@JaimeGallego It was a two part process:
I: My grandfather was a hoarder of electronic components. He's a lawyer, and doesn't know anything about EE or anything of the kind, but he loved storing any components he found or got from stuff. When I was about 6 or so I started playing with those, I didn't really build anything, just connecting the pieces and so on. Sometimes I'd plug it to the wall and it'd go up in smokes and I had fun with that. That's when I started thinking about electronics

vzn

@BernardoMeurer lol reminds me of grapes in a microwave :P

Terry Bollinger

@BernardoMeurer, just curious: Is there any fact or aspect of physics that particularly struck or impressed you after you got involved with this group?

Bernardo Meurer

II: We had an old 486 at my home when I was a kid, dial-up connection and all. It was my father's, and I wasn't allowed to use it. I was fascinated by it and how it worked, it really made me think about it all the time. It became kind of a life-long mission to understand how every bit of that computer worked, and now I mostly do :).

Later we got a computer running Windows XP (woohoo) and by then I started getting interested in Software, because I needed to hack into it to play my Lego Star Wars game. It was great fun, both the game, and the trying to hack into the computer

@vzn Not really, my father is a lawyer, and we don't have much in common, so we always discuss philosophy and teology nowadays when we're together, since it's pretty much the only thing we both know about at all. But this only started after I already knew some philosophy

vzn

Jun 13, 2017 16:44

@Bernardo plz descr your visit to DS/ martinis lab (Santa Barbara) at some point :) ... did you get to see the equipment? did DS scrawl on a whiteboard? :)

DanielSank

-_-

Bernardo Meurer

@vzn The school, yeah. It's an evil system made to fail you. All my classes have an insane workload, and usually the material in class has nothing to do with what is on the exams. We, for example, do Calc I, II, and III in just Analysis I and II, and it's insane. It makes me depressed and quite honestly you end up feeling like a moron because everything is so unnecessarily hard

DanielSank

Of course I scrawled on the whiteboard.

Bernardo Meurer

@EmilioPisanty I think it makes Turing a super-hero he was not. The work done at Bletchley Park was not done solely by him, and the other scientists there were some sort of idiots who couldn't grasp his genius. I feel like the movie shows it like that, and it's just not true. I like, however, the movie showing him as a homossexual, and the impact that his castration had on his life. Shame on you England!

DanielSank

@BernardoMeurer You got into programming because of a game? That seems like a very common pattern.

I also became interested in computers because I wanted to make a game.

Did you ever get the game working?

Bernardo Meurer

Jun 13, 2017 16:48

@vzn Their lab is really dope, back when I visited the UCSB lab I had a good time. Not much else to say though. Daniel bought me a burrito and it was the first time I had a burrito. All going well I'll soon have more chances to go check the lab out :)

I did, however, see a Quantum Computer and I wanted to cry really hard but I held myself

Now that I know Dan if I go there I'll cry every time

DanielSank

The burrito was al pastor.

Bernardo Meurer

@DanielSank Well, to try and get to use the computer to play the game, rather than because of some interest in the game's inner workings. Although, to be fair, I only truly got into programming when I made a quadratic-equation solving program to cheat on my maths homework ca. 9th grade

DanielSank

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Bernardo Meurer

@vzn More questions from the Meta post?

@DanielSank Exactly

vzn

@BernardoMeurer lol ok "cry" about what? can you descr that emotion more? awe?

ACuriousMind

Jun 13, 2017 16:52

@BernardoMeurer Okay, let's hear Kyle again: What sports do you watch most frequently? What sports did you play growing up?

Bernardo Meurer

@TerryBollinger Almost missed your question :). Yes, the ability physicists have to work on abstraction. DS (for the most part) taught me how to not use numbers when solving problems, and I see this a lot in discussions here. Also, this "intuition" people talk so much about in physics amazes me

Terry Bollinger

@BernardoMeurer interesting!

Bernardo Meurer

@vzn I get very emotional when I see new technology, I don't know why. I just feel so lucky to be alive to see something so tremendous work, and then I think of the possibility of working on it, and being part of it's creation. These things move me always.

@ACuriousMind I mostly watch whatever my friends are watching :^). I like watching sports, I just don't care for the score keeping and so on. As I kid I did Judo for many years, then Swimming, then Tennis, then I got hit by a car and ever since I do biking as my sport

vzn

@BernardoMeurer :) guess for some of us religion and technology get mixed up in some ways (in a new modern era where religion is fading)... reminds me a bit of the idea of the singularity & "transhumanists" etc... any thoughts on all that?

Terry Bollinger

@BernardoMeurer Feynman very much understood the joy of discovery in science, and argued in his writings about the beauty of it.

The Dark Side

Jun 13, 2017 16:56

@BernardoMeurer "Got hit by a car"?

Bernardo Meurer

@vzn I have no clue what singularity & transhumanists are. About religion, once again, Schopenhauer's dialogue (linked in a previous message) is great. TL;DR: I think religion is necessary as folk-metaphysics.

DanielSank

@BernardoMeurer I would like to ask: You get emotional when you see new technology. Is there any relation between this and your feelings about living things?

The Dark Side

@DanielSank lol

DanielSank

I'm not kidding.

Bernardo Meurer

@TerryBollinger There's something truly beautiful about discovery, I cannot explain the feeling I get about it

@TheDarkSide Yes, ripped all the ligaments in my right ankle, couldn't walk for 6 months, a whole mess

As soon as I could stand I went to Germany and hurt my foot again while drunk :^)

The Dark Side

Jun 13, 2017 16:59

:: Gulp ::

@DanielSank Of course, but my imagination went wild when I tried to correlate the two. :P

Terry Bollinger

@BernardoMeurer for some reason, as a young kid (~10) reading that viruses took over your cells and forced them to make more viruses struck me as one of the most amazing things I'd ever heard of. I still remember the awe I felt that life could be so complex and unexpected in how it works. So... I know the feeling...

vzn

ok all thats 1hr & thought it all went great, time flies when youre having fun :) would be great to hear everyones feedback, thx again BM, everyone is free to stick around

Bernardo Meurer

@DanielSank I don't think so, I'm not very emotional with people or animals, apart from romance/love, that always screws me up. The feeling I get when faced with discovery is really different than anything else, I truly cannot put it in words

DanielSank

ok, thanks

Bernardo Meurer

Many questions today! Thanks everyone! This was tremendous fun

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AMA - Bernardo Meurer 2017-06-13

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