The h Bar

Terry Bollinger

4:00 PM

Now?

Balarka Sen

I think I am going to participate in this AMA

Bernardo Meurer

Yep, bingo time

ACuriousMind

I guess so:

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

4:01 PM

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

@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

4:05 PM

@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

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

4:10 PM

@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

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

4:13 PM

@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

@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

4:20 PM

@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

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

4:22 PM

@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

@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

4:26 PM

@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

@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

4:31 PM

@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

@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

4:36 PM

@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

@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

4:40 PM

@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

@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

4:45 PM

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

@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

4:51 PM

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

@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

4:54 PM

@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

@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

4:57 PM

@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

:: 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

5:00 PM

@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

2

Terry Bollinger

Nice session all, and thanks to @BernardoMeurer for lots of interesting responses!

Bernardo Meurer

Speedy answers to the remaining questions on Meta:
How much value do you place in structured, formal learning, such as college, as opposed to self-learning and tinkering?

vzn

re religion + technology/ singularity/ transhumanism/ philosophy just ran across this essay this morning from a reddit link aeon.co/essays/… ... "The most avid believers in artificial intelligence are aggressively secular – yet their language is eerily religious. Why?"

Bernardo Meurer

5:03 PM

I think college has a good value because it forces you on deadlines and things like that, although I believe one learns much more by themselves than by listening to someone

ArtEze

Saludos desde Argentina.

Bernardo Meurer

nano, vim, or Emacs (or ed)?

vzn

@ACuriousMind thx for contributing to the session :)

Bernardo Meurer

Vim on the terminal

Jaime Gallego

@BernardoMeurer I recommend reading Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence and Part 1 and 2 of this Wait But Why series.

vzn

5:04 PM

@JaimeGallego just read that book within last yr, great stuff

DanielSank

I have bookmarked this AMA.

5

@ArtEze Que tal?

ACuriousMind

@DanielSank I always forget that's a feature that exists!

DanielSank

It's a good feature.

ArtEze

@DanielSank Bien, comiendo pollo.

vzn

@DanielSank also plz add it to the main post thx :)

DanielSank

5:04 PM

@ArtEze Tu lo cocinaste?

ArtEze

@DanielSank No.

Mostafa

@BernardoMeurer Last question

DanielSank

@ArtEze :)

Bernardo Meurer

@Mostafa Go for it

Mostafa

Jun 7 at 22:10, by blue

@BernardoMeurer wut? Your girlfriend is more than 30 years old ? :O (I think you're 18 :P)

Jun 7 at 22:10, by Bernardo Meurer

@blue Was, we broke up recently

Jun 7 at 22:15, by Mostafa

@BernardoMeurer I'm going to ask for more details on this, in the AMA.

Jun 7 at 22:16, by Bernardo Meurer

@Mostafa Glad to answer

Bernardo Meurer

5:06 PM

Ah, lol

Yeah, she was

What about it?

vzn

@BernardoMeurer lol aka "cougar"? o_O ... looks like you might have something else in common with Feynman! love for women :)

Bernardo Meurer

@vzn She wasn't rich enough to be a cougar I'm afraid

AccidentalFourierTransform

@BernardoMeurer amen.

Balarka Sen

I am glad I participated in this AMA by not participating.

DanielSank

@ArtEze Anoche sali bailando tango. Es lo uniquo que se sobre Argentina.

Bernardo Meurer

5:08 PM

@BalarkaSen Ah, let me get you those Kierkegaard quotes

Brace yourself

vzn

@BernardoMeurer the term/ slang refers to older women although the rich ones are even more desirable :)

Mostafa

@BernardoMeurer Why are you interested in dating older women? (aka cougars )

ArtEze

@DanielSank and drinking mate.

DanielSank

hahaha, ok

AccidentalFourierTransform

yeah, we all like to drink, mate

vzn

5:09 PM

ahem admittedly the term is not uniformly regarded as polite & would be frowned on by feminists but the recorded portion of the session is over :P

DanielSank

@AccidentalFourierTransform That's why I laughed. It's a cross-lingual pun.

AccidentalFourierTransform

but did you actually laugh?

or did you just typed haha?

DanielSank

@AccidentalFourierTransform Not out loud. At work.

AccidentalFourierTransform

bummer

work is the worst

vzn

@BalarkaSen @#$& lurkers :P

ACuriousMind

5:10 PM

@AccidentalFourierTransform He exhaled slightly faster than usual through his nose

Bernardo Meurer

@BalarkaSen "In a relation between two things the relation is the third term in the form of a negative unity, and the two relate to the relation, and in the relation to that relation; this is what it is from the point of view of soul for soul and body to be in relation. If, on the other hand, the relation relates to itself, then this relation is the positive third, and this is the self"

::dies::

ACuriousMind

@BernardoMeurer I relate.

Bernardo Meurer

@Mostafa I don't have a particular interest in older women, I have an interest in women whom I love and care for, and vice-versa. Whether she will be 18 or 30 is irrelevant

As we say in Brazil, "Date someone who dates you back"

4

vzn

← best relations are sexual relations :P o_O

Kristina L

I have a question really quick, how did you first hear about Linux, and what made you decide to switch?

ACuriousMind

5:12 PM

@vzn Ahem.

DanielSank

@AccidentalFourierTransform I like my job.

AccidentalFourierTransform

I like your job too

I'll give 25 bucks for it

deal?

vzn

Feb 26 at 22:38, by Kristina L

@Kaumudi.H Bernardo is the cutest nerd I know

?!? whats going on here ... youre not 30+ are you? :P

Bernardo Meurer

@BalarkaSen "The human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates to itself, or that in the relation which is its relating to itself. A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity. In short a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two terms. Looked at in this way a human being is not yet a self."

DanielSank

@AccidentalFourierTransform Nope.

Bernardo Meurer

5:15 PM

::dies again::

Balarka Sen

@BernardoMeurer Very interesting. I wonder if Kierkegaard thought of the possibility of this relation between the body and soul which relates the body to the body of the soul and soul to the soul of the body from a point of view of an entity different from either body or soul and understand the interactions of that relation with the relation of the relation we speak of.

Bernardo Meurer

@KristinaL Eh, I don't remember for certain when I first heard about it, a shame. My switch to Linux was slow, first I had an Ubuntu VM, then an Ubuntu dualboot, then an Arch dual boot and now, and for the past years, I only run Arch. I decided to switch because I got more and more used to the command line and got more extreme on my views on Free Software and opposing proprietary software

vzn

@BalarkaSen reminds me of yin+yang, thousands of year old philosophy, some of the best :)

Bernardo Meurer

@BalarkaSen These passages are from the first page of "The Sickness unto Death" by the way

A book about despair

(basically)

AccidentalFourierTransform

screw you, you damned commie

vzn

5:20 PM

@BernardoMeurer did you help heather some with her chrome os or was that all DS?

Balarka Sen

@BernardoMeurer I do not agree with this. This is a dialectical point of view of the body, as if originated as a synthesis of "thesis and antithesis"; from a Marxian point, the thesis and antithesis coexists and interacts with themselves. This interactions interact with the other interactions of being (that is to say, of existence) and self-evidently, implies that the human being is a complex object composed of contradictory material, and non-material objects interacting.

Bernardo Meurer

@vzn Back when she first got Crouton running me and DS helped her together

Most recently IDK

DanielSank

@vzn That was mostly Bernardo.

vzn

think that was quite an impressive feat getting a middle schooler to get chrome hacked, via chat room directions! great moments in chat room history :)

Kristina L

@BernardoMeurer Ah, shame. I agree with getting used to the command line, it just makes installing things a little more entertaining. Other than the relative ease for the user, why do you think Windows is proprietary malware?

Bernardo Meurer

5:22 PM

@vzn Well heather is pretty much a middle schooler on nitro and steroids

So it wasn't that hard :P

DanielSank

@heather confirm that you consume nitro and steroids.

Mostafa

@vzn Is there any hi-res enough image of Bernardo so that we can judge for ourselves?!

vzn

@KristinaL hi what country are you in?

Bernardo Meurer

@KristinaL Because you cannot audit the code. Windows will do sudden CPU usage spikes and you can't know why. It uses up your bandwith and you have no clue what is it doing. It collects your data without telling you so and sells it. You don't use Windows, Windows uses you.

@Mostafa Sure, give me a second

vzn

@Mostafa lol thats a question for the other gender :P ... and anyway maybe all nerds are cute sometimes :)

DanielSank

5:25 PM

@Mostafa Judge what?

Mostafa

@DanielSank His cuteness.

DanielSank

@Mostafa Sounds like something for not hbar.

(I don't want y'all getting banned)

vzn

@DanielSank depends on the mood the mods are in too, or if around :P

DanielSank

true dat

Mostafa

@DanielSank Cuteness can mean various things in various contexts.

Kristina L

5:27 PM

@BernardoMeurer "You don't use Windows, Windows uses you." Seems eerily appropriate, and quotable.

vzn

@KristinaL lol reminds me of facebook... you are the product™

Bernardo Meurer

3

AccidentalFourierTransform

Bernardo Meurer

@Mostafa Me and my mother in the Azores in April

vzn

(spking of facebook...) alternet.org/economy/five-richest-men-inequality

Jaime Gallego

5:28 PM

:P

Kristina L

@vzn I am somewhere in the country of I'd rather not say (no hostility). :) And yes, one of those statements that makes you rethink your relationship with social media.

vzn

@BernardoMeurer (impressive! but...) the lady is defn way cuter :P

Bernardo Meurer

@vzn I agree, my mother is a beautiful woman :)

vzn

@BernardoMeurer lol, got me

Mostafa

@BernardoMeurer (ʘ‿ʘ)

AccidentalFourierTransform

5:32 PM

@BernardoMeurer and I see she has no ring :: wink ::

vzn

@KristinaL so heres your chance to tell us why you think B is cute....

Bernardo Meurer

@AccidentalFourierTransform She divorced my father some 9-10 years ago. She is married but they don't use rings or anything, go figure

AccidentalFourierTransform

@vzn ehem, it was Kaumudi...

Mostafa

@DanielSank He's cute in the sense not appropriate here (not in The h-Bar's sense ;) )

vzn

@AccidentalFourierTransform actually it was Kri talking to Kau

AccidentalFourierTransform

5:34 PM

oh well

vzn

@AccidentalFourierTransform such a troublemaker :P

@KristinaL ok, so maybe narrow it down to one of the ~6-7 continents?

Mostafa

@BernardoMeurer Another random question: If you could have dinner with any of the users here, who would it be and why? (you can choose up to three people)

AccidentalFourierTransform

Bernardo Meurer

@Mostafa I'll do my pick based on the people who I'm most unlikely to have dinner with but whom I'd like, @JohnRennie @dmckee @ACuriousMind

The other people here it's likely I might have dinner with soon :P

prokaryoticeukaryote

I wish I didn't feel like an idiot after explaining original ideas

I mean, to people who know more about physics than I do

Mostafa

5:46 PM

@prokaryoticeukaryote I'm almost sure you won't if you could put it in meaningful mathematical terms.

prokaryoticeukaryote

@Mostafa That's actually what I did

Jaime Gallego

@BernardoMeurer You already solved the lodging problem?

Slereah

prokaryoticeukaryote

I went straight to the equations, but I think the problem is that I didn't make my fundamental assumptions clear

For example, I dropped an assumption we usually make, but forgot to mention that. So, that served to contribute to confusion.

Bernardo Meurer

@JaimeGallego Which problem?

Jaime Gallego

5:52 PM

Finding somewhere to stay in BCN

ACuriousMind

@BernardoMeurer <3

Bernardo Meurer

@JaimeGallego Ah, that is on hold for the next couple weeks, solving some other stuff

@ACuriousMind <3

@AccidentalFourierTransform @EmilioPisanty Do you have a couch I can sleep on

Jaime Gallego

Two couches actually

I do not have much $$$ to spare in hotels

AccidentalFourierTransform

@BernardoMeurer dude Im leaving Barcelona

my master is over

Bernardo Meurer

@AccidentalFourierTransform Nooo

AccidentalFourierTransform

5:59 PM

ill be here for one more week

Bernardo Meurer

When?

AccidentalFourierTransform

maybe two

Bernardo Meurer

God dammit you spaniard

AccidentalFourierTransform

I want to enjoy the beach

but then Ill be gone

Bernardo Meurer

Where are you going to?

AccidentalFourierTransform

5:59 PM

Ill stay with my parents for the summer

and then I dont know

Bernardo Meurer

Can I stay with them too?

I need parents

AccidentalFourierTransform

(my parents live in Madrid)

Mithrandir24601

@AccidentalFourierTransform Are you looking for PhDs?

AccidentalFourierTransform

yes

but its unlikely that I will get a scholarship

Mithrandir24601

:(

AccidentalFourierTransform

6:01 PM

so I dont know what to do :-(

Bernardo Meurer

@AccidentalFourierTransform You got one extra kidney

And I assume so does your mother and father

AccidentalFourierTransform

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Mostafa

@AccidentalFourierTransform I thought Barcelona is your native city...

AccidentalFourierTransform

@Mostafa nah, Im here for the master

im from Madrid

Mostafa

@AccidentalFourierTransform Great!! I hate Barcelona (the footbal team)

AccidentalFourierTransform

6:05 PM

oh. football. :-/

DanielSank

@AccidentalFourierTransform What happened ot that person's face?

AccidentalFourierTransform

Apr 19 at 20:37, by AccidentalFourierTransform

@BernardoMeurer dude you look like Andy from modern family ಠ_ಠ

vzn

@Mithrandir24601 still up for a spkr session? :)

Mithrandir24601

@vzn I guess so...

Mostafa

@AccidentalFourierTransform I suggest instead of following the suggestions by @ACuriousMind and reading conformal field theory and string theory in the summer, follow my advice and study (and learn) stuff like statistics, machine learning, data sceince, etc. and get a job in the tech industry.

AccidentalFourierTransform

6:09 PM

@Mostafa who are you? my mother?

vzn

@Mithrandir24601 ok cool we have the speaker post on meta, did you see BMs etc? is that ok with you?

AccidentalFourierTransform

that's exactly what she says

Mithrandir24601

@vzn Yeah, I saw that and yeah, that's fine with me :) When would it be?

vzn

@Mithrandir24601 looks like we dont have regular mtgs (topics) scheduled any more so you could pick 2 wks or 4wks...?

Jaime Gallego

@BernardoMeurer Oh don't worry, I'll drug him, sell his organs on the dark web, and then split the winnings :)

ACuriousMind

6:10 PM

@Mithrandir24601 In principle at a time of your choosing, although I guess we shouldn't spend two standard chat sessions in a row on an AMA, so not in exactly 14 days ;)

Mithrandir24601

@vzn Can we leave it a bit longer than that? - I don't really know why, but I want to have my PhD topic/area chosen by the AMA

vzn

@Mithrandir24601 ok lets leave it open/ unscheduled/ TBD, may ping you again at some pt or vice versa etc

Mostafa

(published today (here)[stackoverflow.blog/2017/06/12/… )

vzn

@Emilio that leaves you for next spkr session, yours for the taking, in 2wks, 4wks etc...?

Jaime Gallego

@Accidental Watch out for strangers on the street with chloroform bottles.

AccidentalFourierTransform

6:14 PM

ಠ_ಠ

Mithrandir24601

@vzn Sure, although I'm hoping to have the PhD topic chosen by the end of July

vzn

@Mithrandir24601 let me know if you chg your mind, (iirc?) didnt you do a masters thesis? that alone is plenty to talk about...

Mithrandir24601

@vzn I did, but still, if only so I don't have to answer questions about what area(s) of physics I'm interested into looking into further with vague non-committal responses

Mostafa

@ACuriousMind why my links NEVER work here??? I'm pissed off right now

Mithrandir24601

@Mostafa because you got the brackets the wrong way round :P

vzn

6:17 PM

@Mithrandir24601 ok anyway 4+ wks is a long time to wait :| but am sure it will be good :)

ACuriousMind

@Mithrandir24601 @Mostafa That. :P

Mithrandir24601

it's '[...](...)', not '(...)[...]' :P

Mostafa

(>ლ)

Mithrandir24601

@vzn If Emilio's happy to go before me, I definitely don't have a problem with that

vzn

@Mithrandir24601 ok

Mostafa

6:25 PM

(removed)

Emilio Pisanty

6:42 PM

@vzn two weeks better than four

Folks, does anyone get weird scrollbars in the middle of the header here arxiv.org/abs/1610.10000 or here arxiv.org/abs/1703.11000 ?

AccidentalFourierTransform

yes lol

Avantgarde

me too

vzn

@EmilioPisanty ok next mtg is tue jun 27. 1600Z. there is no other agenda by DZ. ok with you?

Emilio Pisanty

@vzn sure

vzn

@EmilioPisanty awesome! lets do it! plz post to meta when you feel ready. no less than within 1wk or so (to give some advance notice time). plz cite your phd thesis (url), intend to ask some questions on that... cant wait :)

Mostafa

6:47 PM

@AccidentalFourierTransform Yeah at least you won't have to pay any money for protection ;)

Emilio Pisanty

@vzn sure

AccidentalFourierTransform

@Mostafa premarital sex is a sin

vzn

@AccidentalFourierTransform what about you maybe a spkr session someday? cant remember if asked you...

AccidentalFourierTransform

@vzn I dont really want to disclose my real identity

Im a very famous physicist

Mostafa

@AccidentalFourierTransform I totally agree; but my point doesn't have anything to do with premarital

vzn

6:50 PM

@AccidentalFourierTransform lol very funny. not serious right? anyway others have done it pseudonymously there is precedent for that.

AccidentalFourierTransform

well, in order to remain anonymous, I cant share details about myself

e.g., my master's thesis, etc

so I dont know what I could talk about

vzn

@AccidentalFourierTransform if you dont want to share much at all then maybe it wont work out, but youre very active on the site & think talking about some personal stuff in general is fine... lets talk about some more sometime, gotta run right now

AccidentalFourierTransform

k bye

Emilio Pisanty

seriously, though

anybody else see these?

AccidentalFourierTransform

yes

ACuriousMind

6:54 PM

@EmilioPisanty yes

Mostafa

@EmilioPisanty The scrollbar? I do

Emilio Pisanty

@ACuriousMind weird

so those are specifically the first eprint with ID at or above 10,000 and at or above 11,000

but weirldy enough I don't see them e.g. for arxiv.org/abs/1703.11001

for people who don't see them

Mostafa

@EmilioPisanty That seems to be because of this *Semantic Scholar search bar not the eprint ID.

Emilio Pisanty

@Mostafa huh

so maybe it's tied to the category?

huh, seems so

arxiv.org/abs/1703.11008 does the same

oh well

AccidentalFourierTransform

7:24 PM

@BySymmetry You are a true physicist. — High GPA 1 hour ago

vzn

8:09 PM

@AccidentalFourierTransform anyway you clearly have a huge enthusiasm/ knowledge for physics, cyberspace, chatting, mtg ppl etc & thats most of the dynamic of a desirable spkr... so do you not want to get into any personal areas at all?

in theory salon, yesterday, by vzn

Google Plans to Demonstrate the Supremacy of Quantum Computing / IEEE

Bernardo Meurer

8:30 PM

Folks I am moving to California!

Avantgarde

Nice. When can we expect to see you on your new movie?

Mithrandir24601

@Avantgarde I think he wants to go to Google to witness the beginnings of quantum computers becoming actually useful :P

to be honest, I can't blame you if that's the case, @BernardoMeurer

Bernardo Meurer

@Mithrandir24601 It is the case

Avantgarde

Have fun there

Danu

@AccidentalFourierTransform So wha's it about?

Mithrandir24601

8:36 PM

I'm just waiting for the moment when one of our lecturers walks into the office and says that Google's got a big announcement to make at some specific time in the near future, but can't say what it is, even though we already know (in this hopefully to be true hypothetical future), just like one of our lecturers did with the discovery of gravitational waves...

Avantgarde

Google should set up a physics department

vzn

@Mithrandir24601 its exciting but honestly, google is working more on CS/ engr breakthrus than physics breakthrus... think any of their big announcements will be at trade shows like Jobs... & actually lately am nervous that theyre (mostly Martinis!) overpromising at this pt :|

ACuriousMind

@Avantgarde Uh...I'm pretty sure @DanielSank would call where he works Google's "physics department", so they already have one.

Avantgarde

I should've clarified. I meant an HEP theory group.

vzn

re google, another massive acquisition/ data point that recently didnt pan out, boston dynamics themerkle.com/… ... another, NEST

dmckee

8:49 PM

Many pop-sci and science fiction authors like to explain tidal forces in terms of orbital mechanics, and many of them do a really good job of it with everything they say correct.

ACuriousMind

@Avantgarde Yes. Yes, that is something you should have clarified, since implicitly equating one subfield of physics with the whole of physics tends to make most people from different subfields angry.

@dmckee "poop-sci" is one of the better typos I've seen in a while ;)

dmckee

And I still hate those explanations because they leave people with the incorrect impression that goinging-aroundness is necessary to tidal forces.

@ACuriousMind Oops. I didn't meant that, but it is funny.

vzn

@ACuriousMind lol was figuring it wasnt a typo. 1st time have seen that myself. eeks

dmckee

@vzn No I appreciate pop-sci even when and while I take issue with some of the short cuts they use.

vzn

@dmckee yes there is clearly a love-hate relationship going on with scientists wrt pop sci, regard myself in the group myself... but have seen some serious h8rs on here at times :|

Mithrandir24601

8:52 PM

@vzn Well... Quantum computing is a mixture of physics, computer science and engineering, depending on the exact area... So, I sort of agree with you. He's possibly over-promising, but (in the UK, for a university, at least) it takes a few months for a chip to go through fab most of the time, so saying 'by the end of the year' suggests that they've got (or are at least working on and not too far from finishing) the design of the chip and are at least thinking about fab, so, I'm hopeful :)

Mostafa

@vzn We already know enough from @AccidentalFourierTransform to find him if we want: a theoretical physics graduate student from Madrid who wears super slim fit pants, is very bad at following orders and got his Master's degree from a university in Barcelona.

vzn

@Mithrandir24601 hes got a lot of excellent work/ infrastructure but trying to beat classical computers seems very premature to me... seems even if your qbits work perfectly (very high fidelity, coherence etc, what theyre gunning for) its not really known that it would "beat" classical computing.

AccidentalFourierTransform

@Danu something with turquoise

vzn

@AccidentalFourierTransform 60m on turquoise. dunno about that :P

AccidentalFourierTransform

@Mostafa ha, you would never find me: I rarely wear pants

Mithrandir24601

8:59 PM

@vzn This is where it gets complicated - what do you mean by 'beat'? Can a classical computer simulate a 49 qubit quantum computer for any arbitrary algorithm? Not yet. Can a classical computer do something that a specific algorithm running on a 49 qubit quantum computer can do in a comparable time? For at least a number of algorithms, yes.

There are things that D-Wave can do way faster than a classical computer simulating quantum methods, but that doesn't mean that there exists something that D-Wave can do faster than the fastest classical algorithm. But it gets more complicated - 'faster' $\neq$ 'better'...

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