http://www.quantenblog.net Hendrik Weimer's Quantenblog en-US Wed, 07 Sep 2011 06:03:44 UT 120 http://www.quantenblog.net/images/logo.png http://www.quantenblog.net Hendrik Weimer's Quantenblog http://www.quantenblog.net/physics/moores-law-quantum-computer By looking at the history of quantum computing experiments, one finds an exponential increase in the number of qubits, similar to Moore's law for classical computers. Quantum computing power doubles about every six years, with quantum computers for real applications arriving in between nine and twelve years if this trend continues. Read more Wed, 07 Sep 2011 06:03:44 UT http://www.quantenblog.net/free-software/diaspora I thought I let you know here that I've recently joined Diaspora, the privacy-enabled open source social network. I'll continue using this blog for longer posts, but short notices will rather go there. My Diaspora handle is hweimer@diasp.org. Thu, 01 Sep 2011 03:17:44 UT http://www.quantenblog.net/free-software/google-chrome-debian Google's Chrome browser has been accepted in Debian under the unbranded Chromium name. Currently, it's in the experimental distribution, but as it does not depend on other stuff from experimental, installation is not a big problem. Now I can finally get serious with Web Sockets programming! Read more Wed, 05 May 2010 19:41:59 UT http://www.quantenblog.net/misc/airspace-closure-deaths The ongoing closure of European airspace due to volcanic ash after the Eyjafjallajökull eruption may already have claimed the lives of dozens of travelers without a single plane being crashed. The problem is that travelers are forced to seek alternative transportation, which typically are less safe than flying. Read more Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:30:55 UT http://www.quantenblog.net/physics/quantum-computer-music I spent some time playing around with libquantum, the free quantum simulation library, and created two musical compositions that represent the inner workings of a quantum computer. So if you'd like to know what a quantum computer sounds like, here's your chance! Read more Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:55:05 UT http://www.quantenblog.net/physics/rydberg-quantum-simulator A universal quantum simulator would be something quite useful to have, as it allows to simulate the behavior of any quantum-mechanical system efficiently. We have been able to show that one can build such a device with strongly interacting Rydberg atoms, as reported in our paper having just appeared in Nature physics. Read more Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:20:49 UT http://www.quantenblog.net/misc/eucalyptus-plantation-brazil In recent days, you might have seen web adverts for investing into Brazilian eucalyptus plantations, even on technically oriented sites. While the investment may sound financially attractive it presumably involves several ethical hazards. Read more Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:40:49 UT http://www.quantenblog.net/free-software/openoffice-market-share The guys at Webmasterpro have published a study that analyzes the install base of various office packages among German users. While Microsoft Office comes out top (72%), open source rival OpenOffice is already installed on 21.5% of all PCs and growing. Read more Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:33:18 UT http://www.quantenblog.net/security/microsoft-malware-bailout With the economic crisis still being in full effect, Germany wants to throw government money at another industry giant. However, this time it is not an ailing car manufacturer, but the software producer Microsoft. The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) plans to team up with internet service providers (ISPs) to establish a call center helping malware-troubled Windows users. Read more Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:18:53 UT http://www.quantenblog.net/free-software/psfrag-inkscape When preparing figures for papers or other scientific content I routinely use PSfrag for inserting LaTeX commands. Sometimes I would like to edit the result with Inkscape to add some fancy stuff, but unfortunately most of the time Inkscape cannot open the created EPS file. I have written a short guide describing how to finally get it to work. Read more Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:35:10 UT