Otherama

Good evening ladies and gentlemen and all the ships at see. Tonight we are going to take a view, slightly jaundiced perhaps, on some recent news from nowhere. That means a look at Microsoft's foray into the world of quantum computing ... a snippet on a new approach to computer science funding in academia, some commentary of the appearance of container architectures in the big data world, a brief Twitter wrap up of the Thanksgiving football, and some music! Peace! - Dave Goldenway.

1. Our first stop is Microsoft Research. 


Microsoft has garnered two top boffins as it ‘doubles down’ on a quantum computing bet that is unique in a field a-full with uniqueness. At the heart of the Microsoft effort is an approach known as topological quantum computing – it is a different path than others are taking.

Among the topological qubit researchers now joining the company are Charles Marcus of the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen and Leo Kouwenhoven, a distinguished professor at Delft University of Technology.

The news was covered in the New York Times by the redoubtable John Markhoff in the provocatively named “Microsoft spends big to build quantum computer out of science fiction.”


A topological quantum computer is one that does not use the incumbent trapped quantum particle approach. Instead the topological type (according to Wikipedia): “Employs two-dimensional quasiparticles called anyons, whose world lines pass around one another to form braids in a three-dimensional spacetime (i.e., one temporal plus two spatial dimensions). These braids form the logic gates that make up the computer.” 

The Wikiepedia citation goes on to suggest that the topological approach is more stable and, one might guess, in need of less error correction. (Ed Note Hope we don't have to make a correction!)



Among members of the Redmond, Wash.-giant’s research team are principals who in conversation indicate they are looking to the first days of the transistor to inform their approach to the qubit. 

2. Hedger with time on hands bets he can improve boffin computing - Retired billionaire hedge fund manager James H. Simons will fund a research institute to apply advanced computing techniques to scientific problems.

A New York Times story by Kenneth Chang, says Simons feels he has identified a weakness in academia, where science students in research so often turn to computer programming only because it is necessary to their research. 

As they move up or out of their profession their software tool creations go too. No V.2.'s 

The software that derives from the “Flatiron Institute’s” efforts will be made available for all scientists, it is said. Up first: Computational biology. Big data analytics seems to be a special focus. 

I am not sure about the premise. So many great programmers started as students in the sciences! So much in high performance computing was driven by academic scientist too. 

Many of the recent advances in big data have happened beyond the ken of science and academia, it’s true. But Spark? Machine learning? Well, much of that work came out of the academy. Would it be good to have a new effort that served as a new hub for advances in scientific computation? Yes. This will be an interesting development to watch. – Jack Vaughan




3. Our next stop is the big auto show. The Essen Auto show opens to the general public tomorrow but excitement precedes the unveiling as word has emerged of a Mini Manor Moris with true John Cooper accoutrement. MINI Launches New Line Of JCW Accessories In Essen - The new line of JCW accessories covers aerodynamics, cockpit design, suspension tweaks, and Brembo brakes! What is more our Italian sources tell us Alla Saatchi Gallery di Londra è stata presentata la supercar cinese “full electric”: ha 1 megaWatt di potenza, 313 km orari di velocità massima, un’accelerazione 0-200 km/h in 7"1 e 427 chilometri di autonomia..






4.On to  some lower brow high tech we turn to Jack Vaughan who tells us the software architecture of big data is not sitting still. But it is getting more 'micro'. 

He writes:

Today, we are seeing a general onslaught of real-time analytics applications that combine different framework pieces. Spark, Kafka and Cassandra are among the most common, but there are many more that comprise the streaming big data pipeline. Containers and microservices are finding favor over monolithic architectures for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that it is a complex task getting these pieces to work together, as well as to make changes and updates to them once they are working.

Click here to read the rest of the story


5.But now Jack Lescoulie gives us a report on the big Thanksgiving games. Jack! Come in, Jack!

6. Let's close out with James Hunter and the James Hunter 6 on a roof top somewhere in the world.