Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Jersey. Show all posts

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Microsoft's Quantum Computer

English: Qubits are made up of controlled part...
English: Qubits are made up of controlled particles and the means of control (e.g. devices that trap particles and switch them from one state to another). There are 4 established qubit candidates: ion traps, quantum dots, semiconductor impurities, and superconducting circuits. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I was thinking Microsoft might take itself back to the cutting edge through taking the lead in the Natural User Interace (NUI). But I might be wrong.

Microsoft’s Quantum Computer
Since the physicist Richard Feynman first suggested the idea of a quantum computer in 1982, theorists have proved that such a machine could solve problems that would take the fastest conventional computers hundreds of millions of years or longer. Quantum computers might, for example, give researchers better tools to design novel medicines or super-efficient solar cells. They could revolutionize artificial intelligence. .........“What we’re doing is analogous to setting out to make the first transistor,” says Peter Lee, Microsoft’s head of research. “What we’re doing is analogous to setting out to make the first transistor,” says Peter Lee, Microsoft’s head of research. .... a machine made up of only hundreds of qubits could run chemistry simulations beyond the capacity of any existing supercomputer. ...... a corporation widely thought to be stuck in computing’s past may unlock its future. ...... A mathematical prodigy who entered UC Berkeley at the age of 16 and grad school two years later, Freedman was 30 when he solved a version of one of the longest-standing problems in mathematics, the PoincarĂ© conjecture. He worked it out without writing anything down, visualizing the distortion of four-dimensional shapes in his head. “I had seen my way through the argument,” Freedman recalls. When he translated that inner vision into a 95-page proof, it earned the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics. ......... he was drawn into physics in 1988 after a colleague discovered a connection between some of the math describing the topology of knots and a theory explaining certain quantum phenomena. “It was a beautiful thing,” says Freedman. He immediately saw that this connection could allow a machine governed by that same quantum physics to solve problems too hard for conventional computers. Ignorant that the concept of quantum computing already existed, he had independently reinvented it. ....... A qubit can enter a quantum state known as superposition, which effectively represents 0 and 1 at the same time. Once in a superposition state, qubits can become linked, or “entangled,” in a way that means any operation affecting one instantly changes the fate of another. Because of superposition and entanglement, a single operation in a quantum computer can execute parts of a calculation that would take many, many more operations for an equivalent number of ordinary bits. A quantum computer can essentially explore a huge number of possible computational pathways in parallel. For some types of problems, a quantum computer’s advantage over a conventional one grows exponentially with the amount of data to be crunched. ........ “They change the foundation of computer science and what we mean by what is computable.” ....... The largest number of qubits that have been operated together is just seven. ...... The conventional approach being pursued by Microsoft offers a fully programmable computer—the equivalent of a full toolbox. ...... To speed progress and set the stage for possible mass production, Microsoft has begun working with industrial companies to secure supplies of semiconductor nanowires and the superconducting electronics that would be needed to control a topological qubit. ........ At Bell Labs in New Jersey .. If he is right, Willett is farther along than anyone who is working with Microsoft. And in his series of small, careworn labs, he is now preparing to build what—if it works—will be the world’s first topological qubit. “We’re making the transition from the science to the technology now,” he says. His effort has historical echoes. Down the corridor from his labs is a glass display case with the first transistor inside, made on this site in 1947. ......... Willett sees himself as an academic colleague of the Microsoft researchers rather than a corporate competitor, and he still gets invited to Freedman’s twice-yearly symposiums that bring Microsoft collaborators and other leading physicists to Santa Barbara. But Microsoft management has been more evident at recent meetings, Willett says, and he has sometimes felt that his being from another corporation made things awkward. ....... For Microsoft to open up a practical route to quantum computing would be surprising. For the withered Bell Labs, owned by a company not even in the computing business, it would be astounding. ....... Microsoft’s leafy campus in Redmond .. In the main research building, Krysta Svore leads a dozen people working on software for computers that may never exist. The team is figuring out what the first generation of quantum computers could do for us. ....... No quantum computer is ever going to fit into your pocket, because of the way qubits need to be supercooled ...... they would be used like data centers or supercomputers to power services over the Internet, or to solve problems that allow other technologies to be improved. ....... One promising idea is to use quantum computers for superpowered chemistry simulations that could accelerate progress on major problems in areas such as health or energy. A quantum computer could simulate reality so precisely that it could replace years of plodding lab work ...... Today roughly a third of U.S. supercomputer time is dedicated to simulations for chemistry or materials science, according to the Department of Energy. ...... quantum computers can be used for machine learning ...... Recent advances in image and speech recognition have triggered a frenzy of new research in artificial intelligence. ...... the first company to build a quantum computer might gain an advantage virtually unprecedented in the history of technology. “We believe that there’s a chance to do something that could be the foundation of a whole new economy” ..... It’s as if qubit technology is in a superposition between changing the world and decohering into nothing more than a series of obscure research papers.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Ingress: State Of The Game: New York City (2)


It is fair to say the green team right now dominates Manhattan. Only a few week back they were at 50% of the territory. Now they are past 50 and still have momentum. Columbia University is solid blue, it is home territory to the top blue agent in the city. Upper West Side is also solid blue. It is home territory to the top attack agent on the blue side. But blue is shaky everywhere else on the island. I believe the green team is approaching 60% of the island by now. That is not worrying. What is worrying is they still have momentum.

When that happens there is the spillover effect. They start pouring out into Queens, Brooklyn, New Jersey perhaps. Already Kogent is talking about New Jersey on the All COMM. Manhattan is not enough territory. They are still hungry. I don't see a slowdown on their side.

West Village has become the green Bayonne. It is home to a permanent L7 farm for the green team. Only Bayonne has many fewer agents harvesting the goodies.

Queens used to be solid blue. By now it is 50-50. Downtown Brooklyn was always fiercely contested, as it is now. But southern Brooklyn is solid blue. Staten Island continues to be JPNasty1 territory: solid blue, the most unchanged part of the city for the game.

When I had a fallout with the current organized team in the city the blue team owned 66% of the city. As long as that team will focus their energies on faction chat in engaging in personal attacks on me, the other side will keep their momentum. If they still have momentum at owning 60% of Manhattan, they still have ground to cover in Queens and Brooklyn, and New Jersey is all open to crack. Arbitrage wants to buy a subway pass, Kogent wants a pass for PATH. The East Village and West Village are no longer enough for them and they are still hungry.

New Jersey's strength came from the numerous L8 farm events that NYC agents organized there. But by now New Jersey is self sufficient. It does not need NYC agents to stay strong. But I would still worry about Kogent.

Derp by now has his own private farm. It is the most efficient farm in the city right now: small and tight.

Forest Hills in Queens is one green 30 portal L8 farm in Jackson Heights taken to burnout away from being wiped out. Astoria, Flushing and Forest Hills all depend on Jackson Heights, the top Ingress destination in the borough by now.

Bronx is 50-50 like it was months ago. Not much change there.

rmazzara has done a good job of turning Long Island over 50% blue, it used to be almost 70% green, and he is not from Long Island. That change goes unnoticed. He might be the top blue agent in the city in terms of the sheer number of hours he puts into the game. Frankly, the number of hours he puts is scary to me. Maybe he is on Niantic's payroll.

What could the blue team do? What are the options?

(1) Make a team decision to stop personal attacks on me and my new, small team.
(2) The idea of me building a team is not alarming. And it is not at cross purposes. And the credit does not go to me. There are only two global teams possible. That is just the way the game has been designed.
(3) My team - The Squad - could sit on top of the organized team that exists already. The existing team was able to go to 66% of the territory in the city. Together perhaps we can go past 70% if we do it right.

Otherwise the green team could carry this current momentum for two more months at least.
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Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Amazon, Walmart And Same Day Delivery


Amazon was going to go offline, or Walmart was going to go online, or both. The relationship between Walmart and computers is nothing new. That corporation early was one of the heaviest users of computers in its operations. I am talking 1970s.

Walmart Begins Testing Same-Day Delivery In Select Markets
Northern Virginia (outside D.C.), Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and San Jose/San Francisco. .... toys, electronics, sporting goods and other gifts .... a $10 fee for an unlimited number of items, with no minimum purchase required, and is working with UPS to deliver the orders ..... it’s not the entire Walmart online catalog that’s becoming available. The eligible items will be priced the same as those in the local stores. ..... Customers can place orders up until noon in their timezone, and then choose a 4-hour windows to take delivery that same day (i.e., 4-8 pm, 5-9 pm, 6-10 pm). For returns, customers can choose to take the item back to the store, refuse delivery, or schedule the courier to retrieve the time. .... the retail giant leveraging its local stores, not distribution centers ..... customers .. said that electronics, toys, video games, movies, music, books and groceries would be those items that they wanted to order in this way the most.
Same Day Delivery is a big deal. That will allow Walmart to reach the New York City market, for example. It has stores in New Jersey that are not allowed in the city by law. But there is no stopping delivery vans.

This experiment does not feel IT intensive enough. Or UPS might not be in the picture. More or all stores would be involved. Warehouses would be involved.

$10 is not a bad price. Consider that your hourly wage for making the trip to Walmart.
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Thursday, February 23, 2012

Manick Bhan: The BhanMan Of TicketMonkey

Image representing Spotify as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBaseI met Manick at a Spotify event, my second Spotify event. I looked at his name tag and said, "That's an Indian name!" (Spotify Now Advertising On Netizen, Spotify Vision Specialist: A No Go, The Spotify CTO Talk, The Spotify Event Was Great, Sean Parker's 2009 Email To Spotify)

The guy impressed me immediately. Not all fast talkers are smart, but this one was out of the ballpark. I could tell. Immediately. He was a high energy packet. If you can deal with people, if you can make decisions on the fly, if you are a quick study, you are CEO material. This guy is.

Duke to Goldman to startup. They work out of an apartment not far from the Port Authority bus terminal, or Penn Station, for that matter. The view out the window is beautiful.

I have offered to shift the office to some garage, and put them on noodle diets. They order in lunch, good stuff.

I am always looking for projects for my tech consulting operation. And so I thought I might insert one of my techies into his operation. Other than that it was just going to be nice knowing him. He was to go on my to watch list.

TicketMonkey "Monk-A-Thon": I showed up for this. It was a nice opportunity to get to know Matt.

But Manick got me on board before he would even look at my techie. By now it looks like my tech team that I am keeping warmed up to launch my own microfinance startup later this year might play a pretty prominent role in TicketMonkey itself. We have been exploring options.

TicketMonkey hopes to take selling tickets to a whole new level. You make your name on platforms like Spotify and you make money through live performances. I think that is going to be a dominant business model for music bands. And TicketMonkey could end up to selling tickets what Yipit is to daily deals: an aggregator.

Many of the leading ticket selling sites are like malls. They show you those two things you maybe maybe might be interested in, and then they show you 100 other things as if to distract you. TicketMonkey will be a more personalized experience.

Manick, a self taught programmer, has this beautiful, beautiful landing page. The site is pre launch. He has also been doing a lot of back end work. My lead techie is about to step in and help with launch.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Super Amit, Super Swabbed

Mike Bloomberg, Amit Gupta


I showed up at the New Work City space in Chinatown on time - 9:30 PM. And I left past midnight. The people who were doing the swab thing were busy the entire time I was there.

Events: Week Of October 10

The first person I met was Nick Gray. Nick Gray! This was my first time meeting Nick Gray in person. This is quite an amazing person. At times it can feel like this dude is a mutual friend to everybody who is somebody in the New York tech ecosystem. If Nick Gray did not exist, the New York tech ecosystem might have to create one. He is one of those people.

"Oh my God, Oh my God, it's Nick Gray!" I said. He was out on the sidewalk eagerly waiting for people to show. The venue was one floor up. This dude was so feeling it.

Nick Gray: Bollywood Moves (2)
Nick Gray: Bollywood Moves
Brooklyn Loves Bollywood
BollyBrook Says Hello

I was born Indian. Nick Gray chose to be Indian. We are both Indian through and through.

He was in a somber mood. I tried to cheer him up.

"It is good to see you too, Paramendra," he said simply.

The Huffington Post: Help Amit Gupta: $30,000 Reward Offered For Bone Marrow Match

This whole thing has been an amazing social media success story. But it has also shown social media can be an echo chamber.

There are enough brown folks in New York City and in New Jersey to find a match for Amit Gupta. And there are enough mass based Desi/South Asian organizations in New York City and New Jersey to push the number into thousands, tens of thousands.

The tech crowd is only managing hundreds, and that is not good enough. But it is managing to raise thousands of dollars, and that is great.

The swab thing is so, so super easy.

How much time do we got? It is a race against time, right? It is time to go past social media. Keep using it, but now use it primarily to raise money. I guess there are costs involved to do the swab thing.

Now we have to treat it like a political campaign. We have to start making phone calls. We have to start knocking on doors in the right neighborhoods. We have to reach out to mass based South Asian organizations in the region. They might not know Amit, but they don't have to. Every person who swabs and is not a match is a potential match to some other member of the South Asian community down the line. That not Amit angle is the one we have to push now.

Raise money among the tech, social media, smartphone crowd. Reach out to the non digital, non social media, non smartphone crowd for a potential match. We should be able to organize some events by next weekend.

I want to reach out to people like Nick Gray and Tony Bacigalupo to see if I can get a little more involved.

It can not be all that hard. Google up "South Asian organizations in New York City, New Jersey" and start building a list of people to call up, office holders of the top organizations.

If there was a match somewhere in the tech/digital crowd, we would have found it already. It is time to reach out to the true grassroots. We are not it.

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Using Political Contacts To Beat The Immigration Beast

Official presidential portrait of Barack Obama...Image via WikipediaMy friend Jiwan who I am crashing with for now in Sunnyside convinced me yesterday that I need to go the political route to get sorted my immigration mess.

"If the most powerful person on earth can take your help, why can't you take the help of that most powerful person?"

Seeking 10 Minutes Of The Senator's Time For Personal Reasons
(To: Linda at Senator Bill Perkins' office)

Hi Bill.

I have been in an immigration mess since late 2005. A no name State Senator in New Jersey just helped another Nepali get a green card in a month, and the story circulated and a close friend of mine has been urging me to approach you to get the same done for me. If you are in a position to help, I'd much appreciate. I'd remember till the last dog dies, like Bill Clinton said in 1992.

I came to America in the fall of 1996 on a student visa to the top
liberal arts college in the South where I got myself elected student
body president within six months of landing. I finished school in May
2001. After a year I was on OPT, Optional Practical Training. .....
a green card...... Believe it or not I did not renew the card. My
lawyer says I had the option to. I was working days, nights and weekends
for the democracy movement in Nepal at the time, the only Nepali in
America doing full time work to that end. I was not much thinking about me.

I was Barack Obama's first full time volunteer in NYC like you were
the first elected official in the city to endorse him. That was good
work. The day the national primary ended in 2008 they had me
disappear, machine politics at its most effective! They had me inside
for six months. Obama won. I was out a few days later. My first
immigration court date after that was in Chicago. There were two court
dates in 2009. The last one was in June, last month, that got
postponed indefinitely. This political asylum thing has been dragging
on like a bad dream. The three court dates have been about giving me a
new court date, that's it.

I am under the impression you have the option to use some political
levers at your disposal to get my original green card renewed,
backdated to the fall of 2005 when it should have been renewed. If
that can happen enough time will have lapsed that I would by now
qualify for a citizenship.

Once I have the paperwork I can start functioning at full capacity. I
am a tech entrepreneur who wants to go into microfinance in a big way.
http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2011/02/googlefacebook-of-microfinance.html
I can do for the Arab world what I did for Nepal in 2006. This wave of
democracy, done right, could hit all of the Arab world, all of Africa,
maybe Russia, maybe China. But right now I feel like my hands and feet
have been tied and I have been thrown into a corner. Such waste. And
there is the no small matter of Obama 2012. In many ways 2012 is more
important than 2008.

My alien number is ___________.

For now I request to meet you in person for 10 minutes.

Thanks.
Paramendra.
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Monday, February 21, 2011

Rootlessness And The City

New York City SerenadeImage by joiseyshowaa via FlickrI was born in India. I grew up in Nepal next door. I came to America for college. When I was applying for colleges while in Nepal, I did not have a favorite college in mind. I liked all sorts of colleges. Every prospectus I picked up I absolutely fell in love with. Now I realize what I was really applying for back then was to get into New York City. People who go to all those colleges all end up in New York City.

I have something akin to a PhD in race relations. There is the conscious level of the mind, the subconscious level, and there's deeper stuff. Racial identity can inhabit the mind at several levels. That's what makes a white guy high school drop out detain the top movie star in India for an hour at the New Jersey airport. Your name is Khan? You must be a terrorist.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A Cross Hudson Subway Would Be Nice

Satellite view of Manhattan.Image via Wikipedia
Bloomberg: Christie Says New York Must Pay First to Add Cross-Hudson Subway Link: a subway link between Secaucus and Manhattan ... a proposed $8.7 billion commuter-rail tunnel linking Newark to New York ..... The conduit was projected to double rush-hour train capacity between the two cities. ..... an alternative, to extend the city’s No. 7 subway line under the Hudson River to northern New Jersey. ..... alternative, projected to cost about $5.3 billion, is better
I never understood why New Jersey needed to be a separate state, or at least northern New Jersey. I think we should let go of upstate and take over northern New Jersey and carve out a state of New York Metro.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

The Al Qaeda, Internet, Globalization

During a Sensitive Site Exploitation (SSE) mis...Image via Wikipedia
When a comment I leave at Fred Wilson's blog gets too long, to me that is indication I need to be writing a reply blog post, like just happened.

Fred Wilson: Nations And Networks

This post totally speaks to me. I think of the number 1.25 billion out of 6.7 billion people online the way Fred perhaps thinks about web services, his domain expertise. As someone who grew up in the Global South, I think of Internet Access - Internet as in broadband with full size keyboard - as the voting right for this century. This is the Internet Century.

Fred Wilson's Gift To Me

When I started reading this post, I was thinking of Brad's post (that I read when it came out) before I had finished the first sentence.

The Al Qaeda is not a state, it is not even an organization any more. The Al Qaeda embodies two big trends - the Internet and Globalization - the way not even Kiva does. Bush went after Saddam instead of Bin Laden because, well, if the medicine I have is for cough (the nation state as an enemy), I am going after cough viruses, the facts be damned, don't tell me the diagnosis is for AIDS.

Fred and I might not be the best people to talk of security issues, but there are plenty of cyber security issues. Maybe that is worth a post. For all its promises, the Internet is just the newest platform for the age old fight between good and evil.

Brad Burnham: Web Services As Governments
Scott Shane, New York Times: Wars Fought And Wars Googled

On the War On Terror, I do have very clear thoughts, unlike Fred. One, it is the same scale as the Cold War. Two, it will only conclude once all Arab countries have been turned into democracies. Three, there's the swamp part, and there is the mosquitoes part. I am not going to argue let the mosquitoes be, but I think draining the swamp is the real battle. The best way to introduce democracy to a country is the way we did it in Nepal in April 2006, through a mass movement. People who are not worried the mullahs in Iran might get pissed off if you impose sanctions talk like they are worried the mullahs might get pissed off if they give total support to the protesters in Iran. Beats me.

Iran: The World Has Wasted A Year

This tussle also reminds me of the capitalism-communism tussle, and you have to go all the way back to Lenin. When that dude did his 1917 thing, America had not seen FDR yet. FDR had to reinvent both democracy and capitalism to prepare the country for a fight with communism. A pre-FDR America could not have beat communism. Some synthesis happened.

Similarly the War On Terror will conclude through two types of transformations. One, all Arab countries end up being democracies. Two, America ends up a non-racist country. I know that is a loaded term for many people, but I am using it on purpose. A country where calling someone - Obama - a Muslim is passed on as calling him a name like happened in 2008 is still a racist country. If four Muslim young men in New Jersey were to talk violence in the privacy of their apartment, they are a cell, and will be thoroughly dealt with, but the Republican nominee competing against Harry Reid in Nevada is openly calling for violence, and I don't see law enforcement people getting excited about that. Is that a double standard or is that a double standard?

Time: Why Harry Reid's Chances Are Improving in Nevada
She has a permit to carry a concealed .44 Magnum and brags about bringing it to campaign events. But her passion also leads her to make troublesome statements: "The nation is arming," she said last month. "What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways. That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?"
I have lost count of how many times I have been subjected to a dirty look or an outright dirty Q&A by some law enforcement officer this past decade, and I am not even Arab. The day 9/11 happened, I was in a small town in Kentucky. The locals called the cops on ME!

Timothy McVeigh was a motherfucker before he was a terrorist. That makes you a motherfucker. That is the angle I like to come from. So much for racial profiling.



America had its 9/11, India had its 11/9. But that 11/9 would be 9/11 because in India they put the number for the month second. The Islamists' tussle is with democracy itself, and India is the biggest pot.
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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Damien Mallen In Town


Damien was my running mate when I ran for student government president at Berea College in the Spring of 1997 in less than six months of landing as an international student. We won. He won by a wider margin than me. I won by three votes. Eight people had run against me. This foreigner freshman, he just got here, he thinks he is going to be student government president? Everybody who had been somebody in the student government for the three years prior ran.

That election victory and the dot com experience a year later - I was a founding member of a dot com headquartered in Philly, it went down two years later - stand out as memories from that phase of my life.

Damien had lived in Vermont and Maryland before he went to Berea. He still has family in New Jersey. On his mother's side - he is English, German, Czech, Polish - he draws his ancestry all the way to someone who was a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, or so he claimed Tuesday evening over beer.

So yesterday I took him to Jackson Heights - we had momo, and randomly bumped into a Nepali friend of mine, Somnath Ghimire, who runs the local Nepali TV program; then to Rudy's near Times Square for beer. We had two pitchers of Rudy's Blonde.

"The worst beer I ever had," he said.

Tuesday evening we met at Union Square, and we walked up Broadway, cut through the Upper West Side, and then took a right turn north of Central Park, then up Malcolm X Boulevard through Harlem from where we could see the Yankee's Stadium. That might have been a good 130 blocks of walking. Along the way we stopped for pizza at 41st and 9th at a place that reminds me of Dell and Walmart.

Damien is one of my early, small investors into my round one.

I am meeting Damien again for lunch in a few hours. We are going to have street food. It is because street food makes you street smart.

He lives and works in Lexington, KY, where I lived for six months after college. He works for a mapping software company. He is in town to take classes for a few days in the financial district downtown, work related.

Tuesday evening in front of his hotel right next to the Empire State Building he pulled out his NYC tourist map: this is his seventh time in the city. He was going to show me the nearest train station.

"I live here," I protested.

I want this guy on my team in about a year and a half, two years. Another person from that phase of my life I want on my team is Kristi Fundu. In the recent weeks, he has already been instrumental in this shift in vision, or rather a rearrangement of it: The IC Vision: Sequencing The Components. Kristi has a tech company in Macedonia. He does ISP stuff. A few weeks back I had a 700 plus lines Gchat session with him, longest ever with anyone.

My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher
Spamming Om Malik

@kristifundu



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