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3 yr. ago

  • A quantum computer doesn't just calculate every possibility simultaneously, it's much more limited. It "calculates more things at once" in some cases.

    Generally speaking, some things that are hard for a regular computer are easy quantum computers. So if an encryption algorithm is based on the difficulty of those things (e.g. RSA is based on the difficulty of factoring a semiprime number), and the thing is easy for a quantum computer (e.g. factoring a semiprime), then you could defeat the algorithm with a quantum computer.

    How do you protect yourself? You base the algorithm on something that is difficult for both a regular and quantum computer, that's what post-quantum algorithms do.

    But quantum computers have one last ace up their sleeve. There is a sure-fire algorithm (Grover's algorithm) to speed up any situation where you need to find an unknown value of a known length (in this case the secret key). To keep it simple, if to find the key a traditional computer would need N steps (because there are N possible keys), a quantum computer would need just √N, which is much less. Now, this sounds massive, and it is, but if you consider that with M bits there are 2M keys, then if you just need to check √(2M) keys, it's like using keys of M/2 bits, so to defend against this you just need to make the key twice as long.

    Lastly, as a footnote: quantum computers can be faster than regular computers, but strictly speaking, regular computers are more powerful, that is to say they can do more things. We say that traditional computers are turing-complete, which means that they can compute anything that is computable, that is not the case for quantum computers, which means that some things (even easy things) that a computer can do, cannot be done on a quantum computer. For example, there is no way to implement regular expressions in quantum computers, it's impossible. I know regex look difficult, but in computation theory they are among the easiest things a computer can do.

    Edit: one quick addition to the paragraph about Grover's algorithm. If a quantum computer really just tried all the solutions at once it would be much faster than that. It would be (may my professor forgive me for saying this) "like if it guessed the bits of the key one at a time and were right on the first try", so if you had your M bits key, you would need just M steps instead of the 2^(M/2) steps of Grover's algorithm (this is like the difference speed difference between "checking if a word is palindrome" and "calculating who will win a game of chess when using a perfect strategy"). A computer that works like that... doesn't (and probably will never) exist. But in literature they are called non-deterministic Turing machines. They would be powerful like a regular computer (not more) but unreasonably faster.

  • Ah, that's true, I had some, but they are usually lenient on syntax. The worst offender was the OOP professor that wanted a full (kinda) Java program written on paper. During COVID he switched to allowing IDEs so it could be done online and turned in easily, and since then it's always been an online exam

  • So glad I study CS and our teachers are just "here's a LaTeX template for the thesis, it will do the formatting for you". You can always use word and follow the formatting guidelines yourself, but that would be stupid

  • First guess is "the Nile" second guess is "denial" , third guess is Sinai. Also, what the hell is that, an AI catcher?

  • Depends. Generally English, unless they are "directed" to one specific person like the professor who's gonna grade it. But even then I might go with English anyway.

    Oh I also use my language when I'm leaving an important warning to myself in a config file, like "this is needed because X! don't touch it! If you touch it do Y!"

  • What kinda question is that? Mobbing the developers out of switch emulation.

    The only two options where you and ryujinx and they are both taken out, all the forks are jokes because the developers that had real abilities worked on the main projects.

  • I would say:

    • Fedora if you like a point release, which means that every 6 months you do a big update of core stuff like the desktop environment, and on Fedora everything else is always generally up to date.
    • OpenSUSE Thumbleweed if you like a rolling release, which means that you don't do big updates, everything is kept to the last version that the software repository has, this is how arch works except in Thumbleweed the repositories are updated slower than in arch and less likely to break.

    But you could also go for any more up to date debian-based distro, like Pop_OS or even Ubuntu, they might be easier for a newbie user. Fedora and OpenSUSE will be more up to date though.

    If you do use Ubuntu, don't stick to just LTS versions, use the last version available (which right now happens to be an LTS version). The "extra support" it offers is not something desktop users care about, it's outweighted by the benefits of more updated software.

  • Topperware

  • Tech Bros make a panopticon and call it a novel approach

  • I'm about to do this to this kernel driver. Certainly broken before, possibly broken after, what's the worst that could happen

  • short for "subscribable"

  • Use YouTube revanced. It's an app that patches the official YouTube apk. Basically you provide the version of the apk it requires (the patcher will tell you), select which patches you want (you can put all of them and disable what you don't need in the settings later) and if will create a new apk without ads that you can install

  • What the hell is up with that computer? You got the fastest core 2 duo paired with the slowest DDR3 ram?

  • Just use some HP calculator emulator. That way you don't have just an RPN calculator, but a full fat graphing calculator.

  • Removed

    How TeX.web is versioned since the early 90's (literal text inside)

    Jump
  • You forgot the part where TeX was created by a CS professor because he didn't like how his editor printed the formulas in his book

  • Download Firefox/ Look inside/ Still Firefox.

    Download thunderbird/ Look inside/ Older Firefox.

  • TL;DR depends on your gpu.

    Some monitors below HDMI 2.1 support the early version of freesync made by AMD, while others support a fragment of what became 2.1's VRR. The former is supported only by AMD, while the latter by both AMD and Nvidia (Pascal and upper with latest drivers). If you have the former, the monitor is probably not compatible with DP's official adaptive sync, so Nvidia won't work even on DP.

    But... Even if you have AMD, due to a bug in the driver, if you have a Polaris GPU it might not detect the vrr capability over HDMI (but will over DP). I know for sure that RDNA 2.5 cards support it, in theory it should work even for all Vega and Navi GPUs, but I haven't tested it.

  • The bottom layer is half berries

  • Yes, they do. In that case, no fingers on the E string to make an E