i <heart> nfl: alex acosta

Welcome to Week 12: Thanksgiving Edition of NFL action! By virtue of the holiday, three games have already been played, but since BYE weeks are now over, we still have 13 matchups to complete for the remainder of the weekend. In other news, you are probably aware that the NFL can't stick to sports and it's all the NFL's fault, so the NFL may go back to keeping players stay in the locker room during the anthem. NFL Shadow Commissioner Jerry Jones as threatening to go after actual NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell 'with everything he has,' but instead is pissing off all the other owners with his 'antics' and now they're looking for a way to remove him. Also, Papa John's Pizza has apologized for blaming slumping sales on the national anthem protests. Oh vey! In lighter news, it's very appropriate that the Georgia Dome, former home of the Atlanta Falcons, was demolished the same day they played the Seahawks. However, Seahawks HC and 9-11/truther Pete Carroll must be pissed off he couldn't get a full view because the game was in Seattle. And in other Atlanta-related news, here's Chad Ochocinco busting his ass on a skateboard.

Thanksgiving: The Minnie Vikes are attempting the challenge of becoming the first team to play the Super Bowl at home, as they edged out the division rival D'town Lions. The Double J has threatened his Cowboys to play better or else, but it seems now that fans have discovered the conspiracy against them, the Cowboys can turn things around after losing to the LA Chargers, who are the only team looking to win the AFC West. Yule like that the Washington [Redacted] overcame the adversity of playing on their home turf to earn those sweet potato yams and showed the NYFG another way to fail so that these kids will be fired.

Sun 1pm (PJ Leahy's, LIC, NYC): Having barely made it out of Mexico City without any earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, the NE Pats host a Cutler-less MIA Dolphins. The Buffalo Bills still can't decide whether they like throwing 5 interceptions in a half or not, as they take on a KC Reidskins side featuring a landlocked Revis Island and interceptions thrown by QB and TE alike. After embarrassing the depleted Seattle secondary, it shouldn't be much of a puzzle for my Dirty Birds to bring those same talents to the TB Bucs defense, with everyone's favorite Harvard grad Ryan Fitzpatrick shaving during No Shave November.

4pm-ish: NO! God damn it, no! This AFC West rival game will appear on both of our TVs, featuring between the Broncos, who are a mess and just fired their OC, and the Raiders, who blow their plays before they even start. LA Rams QB Jared Goff's play calls won't even need to be lip synced as they host the NO Aints, who are missing their signature team photo celebration.

SNF: The Yinzburgh Steelers look to fumble forward against a disappearing GB Pack squadron that is looking to not get shut out again.

MNF: My beloved Ravens aim to leap to victory and coordinate a win against a Texas Houstons QB who was born to be strip-sacked.

quantum supremacy

A term that was much funnier during the previous administration, Caltech theoretical physicist John Preskill coined "quantum supremacy" to mean the point at which a quantum computer is sufficiently large and error-free that it can perform a task that cannot be calculated by the most powerful supercomputer. It's one of the milestones of the field that tends to get hyped up, and Google has been at the forefront for releasing blueprints to achieve it. Google maintains they will demonstrate quantum supremacy by the end of this year, although you can watch John Martinis, Head of Quantum Hardware at Google, push that timeline into 2018 here and here. 

That we're even talking about this in the near term seems pretty exciting, until you read that Google plans to demonstrate quantum supremacy by randomly choosing qubit operations and showing that the scrambled output is more scrambled than could be made classically (technical details here). This quantum speckle problem is analogous to a laser pointer, that is, the resulting interference from something coherent going through something chaotic, as described by the man himself John Martinis here. Still, researchers think (and hope!) that a quantum computer will demonstrate a useful result that a supercomputer cannot in the next few years.

Last month, IBM researchers simulated the quantum speckle problem with a classical computer for both 49 and 56 qubits. Or, to be more specific, their "results confirm the expected Porter-Thomas distribution as the distribution of the outcome probabilities for universal random circuits," which is exactly what Google is planning to do with a 49-qubit quantum computer. But this result means they'll need more than 56 qubits to show quantum supremacy with the speckle problem. Or they'll have to find a quantum problem for their 49-qubit computer that is immune to the "slicing" technique used by the IBM researchers. Either way, I'll put good money on quantum supremacy not being demonstrated this year.

Then, IBM announced a 50-qubit prototype device and said that a 20-qubit device will be available to clients by the end of 2017 (IBM already offers access to a 5-qubit and 16-qubit device to everyone). Qubits in these devices are arranged in a surface code lattice and reported to have an average "coherence time" of 90 microseconds, quite high for superconducting qubits. From the press release, “Clients will have online access to the computing power of the first IBM Q systems by the end of 2017, with a series of planned upgrades during 2018.” As of now, not much else is known about them, but I'm sure we'll find out more soon. For devices that operate at a hundredth of a degree above absolute zero, the race for a functional quantum computer is heating up.

[Editor's note: content was modified after the original posting]

i <heart> nfl: wilbur ross

This week's brief and unpunctual NFL outlook is brought to you by a number of pre-Prohibition cocktails consumed the previous night. Onward!

TNF: The Steelers plan to celebrate their statuesque win over the Tennessee Smurfs with some Bud Light.

Sun 1pm: Down to their last RB, who is probably actually a WR, the GB Pack and QB Jim from The Office will try not to quit as host my beloved Ravens and their complete inability to recover an onside kick. Jax Jags QB Blake Bortles advises DeShone Kizer of the Browns to “Try to throw it to your team as much as possible.”

4pm-ish: Only streakers are finding the end zone for the Bills, as they visit an LA Chargers side that can't even run out the clock without fumbling.

SNF: Dallas Cowboys owner The Double J looks to attract new fans to the game by drunkenly making racially insensitive jokes to distract from the absence of their star running back, who was suspended, un-suspended, suspended, un-suspended, suspended, un-suspended, and suspended again and now accepts suspension as they host the Philadelphia Eagles.

MNF: My Dirty Birds, with a D-Line featuring Dak Prescott's daddy, visit an unexamined Seattle Seahawks squadron reeling from injuries with a loss of both CB Richard Sherman and Safety Kam Chancellor.

i <heart> nfl: sonny perdue

No time to discuss which NFL owners appeared in the Paradise Papers this week because we're running late. Onto the games!

TNF: In a game that should be illegal, the Seattle Seahawks dispatched division rival Zony Cards yet lost CB Richard Sherman for the season to a ruptured Achilles.

Sun 1pm: Just like the fans that need to get drunk or high to watch the Browns, the players apparently do as well, as they unstrategically fuck up on the field and off and look to be rocked and socked by the D'town Lions. While he may want to eat that W with all the voracity of crab legs stolen from the local Publix, Tampa Bay QB Jameis Winston will be joining suspended WR Mike Evans on the bench while his throwing shoulder heals as they face a NY J-E-T-S squadron that will dance to anything. The Colts very public ruining of franchise QB Andrew Luck is apparently just inside his head as they face a conditioned Yinzburgh Steelers offense that has a license to drive.

4pm-ish: There's no time to contemplate dropping it like it's hot against a division rival last week, as my frustrated Dirty Birds look to rebound against a Cowboys without their star suspended, unsuspended, suspended, unsuspended, suspended, unsuspended, but now suspended again RB and with an owner who is totally fucking around with the NFL Commissioner. There are literally no words for how bad the NYF Giants have been under the soon-to-be-ending stewardship of HC Ben McAdoo, as they seek to rid themselves of Manningface and are underdogs against a winless Niners team.


SNF: The NE Pats bring #fakenews of conflict between HC Bill Belichick and Tom Brady's personal snake oil salesmen Alex Guerrero to Denver to face a still-bad Brock Osweiler and his Broncos.

MNF: Panthers QB Cam Newton aims to steer right into that iceberg as they face the notoriously inconsistent MIA Fins in primetime.

i <heart> nfl: ryan zinke

Welcome to another week of NFL in our stupid world! Indicative of the Great Unravelling, Papa Johns (the official pizza of the alt-right) owner John Schnatter made headlines earlier this week for blaming slumping pizza sales on the NFL anthem protests. Or was it really a Jerry Jones ploy to deflect from his abandoned rap career!? We may never know. What we do know, however, is so mind-numblingly dumb that Papa Johns released a statement yesterday discouraging racists from buying their pizza. This is 2017 America, friends! In other news, former Niners QB and instigator of current protests C-Kaep has filed a collusion case against the NFL and, *oh snap*, the phones and email of NFL Commissioner and some team owners are to be turned over. Along those same lines, after Texas Houstons owner Bob McNair stated last week in reference to the anthem protests, “We can't have the inmates running the prison,” nearly the entire side kneeled. I'm tired of thinking about this... onto the games!



TNF: You hate Thursday Night Football like everyone else, in which the N-Y-J-E-S-T danced themselves to victory against a Bills franchise that is maybe not good, but at least getting better with the acquisition of WR Kelvin Benjamin.

Sun 1pm (PJ Leahy's, LIC, NYC): After spectating a Dirty Birds 10-second runoff victory #irl (in which the spike was intercepted), the Falcons visit their favorite fan in Panthers QB Cam Newton. The TB Bucs bring the same old Jameis Winston to the Hotel Katrina. The Eagles, enhanced by picking up RB Jay Ajayi from MIA, look to charge the mound against a Denver Broncos squadron that continues to pursue the failed Brock Osweiler experiment because it's not as bad as Trevor Siemian. The equal parts sad and confused Colts have shut down QB Andrew Luck and will fire up the Brisket, as they host divisional rival Texas Houstons who will also be without their really impressive starting QB for the remainder of the season, but look to wreck everything just the same.

4pm-ish: The Seattle Seahawks and QB Pete Carroll plan to fumble forward as they host the other team from Washington. The Dallas Cowboys and owner The Double J aim to not overreact in a tough home game against the KC Reidskins, but can at least can rely on the services of suspended, unsuspended, suspended, unsuspended, and suspended, but now unsuspended again star RB Zeke Elliot.

SNF: The Oakland Las Vegas Raiders visit the nonsensical MIA Fins and emergency kicker Ndamukong Suh.

MNF: With all of the sexual assault accusations currently flying around, will the GB Pack continue to get so friendly with their players as they host division rival D'town Lions.