Linkee-poo Tuesday

Still slaying alligators.

"A teenager from Texas has taken quantum computing down a notch. In a paper posted online earlier this month, 18-year-old Ewin Tang proved that ordinary computers can solve an important computing problem with performance potentially comparable to that of a quantum computer." Well, it wasn't just any teenager, but that's some special eggs on people's faces (although not the two who came up with the quantum function, they just said they couldn't think of a classical algorithm that could solve it as fast). (Grokked from Sheila)

"Greenland, home to the Earth's second largest ice sheet, has lost ice at an accelerating pace in the past several decades – a nearly sixfold increase that could contribute to future sea level rise, according to a new study based on nearly a half century of data." We're boned.

"Many teens who use e-cigarettes aren’t aware they are inhaling nicotine when they vape, even though they are often taking in high levels of the addictive substance, a new study suggests." Surprise. Yeah, I've had that argument several times. Vaping is not better than smoking, all it does is reduce the risk of accidentally burning down your house.

"Whether you eat breakfast might be linked with your risk of dying early from cardiovascular disease, according to a new study." Again, correlation is not causation. "'However, the major issue is that the subjects who regularly skipped breakfast also had the most unhealthy lifestyle habits,' (Krista Varady, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois, Chicago) said. 'Specifically, these people were former smokers, heavy drinkers, physically inactive, and also had poor diet quality and low family income.'" Now, when you wake up (and go to sleep) your body gives you a dose of cortisol, which has the effect of scrubbing your blood for glucose. If it doesn't find it there, your body begins converting lean muscle protein into glucose (instead of fat process). So not eating breakfast does lead to muscle loss.

"Since it was created in late 1998, NICS has initiated some 311 million background checks, including 26 million in 2018 alone, the federal government says… The NICS system relies on state and local agencies to make the data more robust, but sometimes records can be missing or incomplete." The system is failing, as it was designed.

"The next time parking enforcement officers use chalk to mark your tires, they might be acting unconstitutionally… A federal appeals court ruled Monday that "chalking" is a violation of the Fourth Amendment."

"The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments Tuesday in a legal battle with lasting implications that could dramatically affect political representation and federal funding over the next decade. The justices are weighing whether to allow the Trump administration to add a question about U.S. citizenship status to forms for the upcoming 2020 census."

"A leader of an armed militia that has held hundreds of migrants at the border previously claimed the group was training to assassinate Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, according to court documents unsealed on Monday." Nice people.

A little bit more on the group and what's happening at the border. "The alleged leader of an armed militia group that has intercepted and detained migrant families along the southern border in New Mexico was charged with federal firearms offenses on Monday." As of posting, there wasn't a transcript, sorry. Whackaloon alert.

"When she arrived in the US, the West African girl was just five years old, but she soon was responsible for caring for a Texas couple's children, cooking, cleaning and mowing the lawn. She was abused and neglected for 16 years -- until she escaped, according to a criminal complaint against the couple." Too bad the Trump administration hasn't prioritized going after the actual criminal immigrants, like this couple.

"Two Reuters reporters, jailed after investigating the killing of several Rohingya Muslims, will remain in prison, Myanmar's highest court ruled Tuesday."

"North Korean state media has confirmed that leader Kim Jong-un will travel to Russia 'soon' for his first ever meeting with Vladimir Putin." And of course Moscow wants North Korea to keep its nukes, all the more to destabilize the US.

"President Donald Trump said Tuesday that European Union tariffs hitting Harley Davidson were “unfair,” and pledged to reciprocate after the company posted first-quarter profit that fell 26.7%… The president appeared to reverse course on Harley after calling for a boycott of the company last year amid a spat over steel. In a tweet, he said that the EU tariffs have forced the company to move U.S. jobs overseas. 'So unfair to U.S. We will Reciprocate!'" On trick pony is gonna work that one trick (even though that one trick is what got us here).

"Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday proposed eliminating the student loan debts of tens of millions of Americans and making all public colleges tuition-free, staking out an ambitious stance on one of the central policy debates of the 2020 Democratic primary." Those who are against this (coughconservativescough) are trying to stir up resentment from those of us who have paid off our loans. And am I resentful? You bet. But not at this proposal or the kids (it won't be all kids) who will benefit. I'm pissed at the Greatest Generation and the Boomers who didn't care enough about what those of us in Gen-X were going through to even consider this an option. But then, nobody really give a shit about Gen-X except Gen-Xers (there's a running meme on twitter where we show examples of how we've been erased). So fuck yea, jubilee. Oh and conservatives, you want to make it fair, make sure Social Security and Medicare are there when we need it, and maybe give us a little bump to offset the economic drag from our loan debt.