Uh, no, not exactly. Quantum computers can do something called “Shor’s Algorithm”, which is a very fast (faster than discrete computers) way of factoring large numbers into their prime factors. This could be used to break public-key encryption because public-key encryption relies on this process (factoring large…

No. If the pad is never reused, the only way to crack a one-time pad is to have your own copy of the pad. That requires James Bond-style copying of secret documents in embassy safes, not fancy computers.

This. This exactly. Spectator sports are a thing because those sports are fun to watch, even if you’ve never played them yourself. “E-sports” seem to appeal only to people who play the same games competitively. That’s a pretty tiny audience.

It’s actually a wicked deconstruction of the whole “sexy robot lady” idea. I had the same reservations with this film and was surprised and pleased.

Once you’ve made your shopping selection... get off my lawn, youngster. 30? Hah. You ain’t seen a thing yet.

Madeleine, I know you aren’t trying to make me feel old. But you make me feel old. Very old. Really really really fucking old.

But it was. What else were you going to run on your Zilog Z-80?

And I found my new desktop wallpaper. Thank you.

I used to PVP in the BC/Lich King era. It was really challenging and a lot of fun, but it also required an insane amount of grinding to keep your edge, and, as a real-ass adult there was a certain feeling of futility in competing against people who apparently had absolutely no responsibilities in life and could…

Oh look, an Independent Thinker. Please, tell me about how you do not even own a television!

Right, and the chances that you grew up in Western civilization (and are now employed in journalism, no less) but managed to remain completely ignorant of major works within popular culture, are approximately the same as the odds of surviving a direct assault on an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Yeah, you didn’t get it.

The “Killing Star” scenario scares the shit out of me, quite frankly, and until we know that the answer to the Fermi Paradox isn’t some sort of pre-emptive destruction along those lines, we should proceed as though it is.

Nice Gretzky-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off on the cover there.

Except, in one important respect, it is different: if the project succeeds, investors make money. Kickstarter backers get a shiny tchotchke and a pat on the head.

I understand that this will not be a popular opinion here, but:

I don’t think anyone mentioned the stack ranking — years after every other big tech company wrote the practice off as cruel and detrimental to morale, Yahoo management instituted a quarterly graded-on-a-curve performance review system, where every manager had to identify one or more workers as “deficient” even if she…

Ding, ding, give the man (woman, person, choose as appropriate) a cigar.

I chose a third option — I just kept on telecommuting until they fired me for it. (It took two years!)

Well, I was born and raised in Canada and, as an adult, moved to the United States. If nothing else it provides a ringside seat for the Fall of Empire.