Even after most of my symptoms had subsided, I continued to have a hard time getting out of bed. Then I was introduced to a new morning routine (inspired by Hal Elrod's book Miracle Mornings), which involves meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and journaling. It helped me refocus my thoughts, and became a great kick-start to a better daily mindset.

I also embraced other types of self-love, like playing music during the day that would get me dancing and in a great state of mind.

During my journey, I also noticed one thing getting in the way of recovery: My mind wanted to resist my COVID-19 diagnosis. This resistance got in the way of me being able to truly rest. I would lie down, but my mind wasn't at peace, so my body wasn't relaxing. The same is probably true for a lot of people who are having a hard time accepting that we're still in a pandemic. Eckhart Tolle's thesis to life mastery is "resist nothing"that can be easier said than done, but it's especially key to facing COVID-19 with any kind of grace and acceptance.

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4 Crucial Lessons I Learned While Recovering From COVID-19 - mindbodygreen.com

Raise your hand if you ever wanted to get beamed onto the transport deck of the USS Enterprise. Maybe we havent reached the point of teleporting entire human beings yet (sorry Scotty), but what we have achieved is a huge breakthrough towards quantum internet.

Led by Caltech, a collaborative team from Fermilab, NASAs Jet Propulsion Lab, Harvard University, the University of Calgary and AT&T have now successfully teleported qubits (basic units of quantum info) across almost 14 miles of fiber optic cables with 90 percentprecision. This is because of quantum entanglement, the phenomenon in which quantum particles which are mysteriously entangled behave exactly the same even when far away from each other.

When quantum internet is finally a thing, it will make Wifi look obsolete and dial-up even more ancient than it already is. We achieved sustained, high-fidelity quantum teleportation utilizing time-bin (time-of-arrival_ qubits of light, at the telecommunication wavelength of 1.5 microns, over fiber optic cables, Panagiotis Spentzouris, Head of Quantum Science at the Fermilab Quantum Institute, told SYFY WIRE. This type of qubit is compatible with several devices that are required for the deployment of quantum networks.

What you might recognize is the fiber optic cables used in the experiment, since they are everywhere in telecommunication tech today. Lasers, electronics and optical equipment which were also used for the experiments at Caltech (CQNET) and Fermilab (FQNET) that could someday evolve into the next iteration of internet. Though this is equipment you probably also recognize, what it did for these experiments was enable them to go off without a glitch. Information traveled across the cables at warp speed with the help of semi-autonomous systems that monitored it while while managing control and synchronization of the entangled particles. The system could run for up to a week without human intervention.

So if entangled qubits are inextricably linked despite the distance between them, is there even a limit to how far information can travel? Hypothetically, they could go on forever. What limits exist in reality are not in the qubits but the effects of their surroundings. While one of the qubits containing information stays where it is, the other one has to zoom over to wherever it needs to transfer that information. It could run into obstacles on the way.

What limits the distance that information can be transmitted is loss and noise: either from the properties of the medium we use to send the information or the effects of the environment on the medium, or imperfections on the various operations we need to perform to realize the information transfer, Spentzouris, who coauthored a study recently published in PRX Qunatum, said.

To keep quantum internet running at high precision and over distances around what it was able to cover in this experiment, the quantum teleportation that powers it needs quantum memory and quantum repeaters. Quantum memory is basically the quantum version of the memory your computer and smartphone use now. Instead of storing memory as something like 100101011, it stores it in the form of qubits. To make it possible for entangled qubits to travel as far as possible, quantum repeaters make it easier for those qubits to traverse by splitting it into sections over which they are teleported.

With this system, Spentzouris and his team are planning to lay out the epic Illinois Express Quantum Network (IEQNET), which will use the same technologies that the CQNET and FQNET experiments so successfully pulled off. More tech will obviously needed to realize this sci-fi brainchild. It will combine quantum and non-quantum functions for its quantum nodes and controls. The only thing missing will be the repeaters, since they will need more development to operate over such an expanse. Spentzouris believes quantum computing itself reaches far beyond internet.

Fully distributed quantum computing includes applications include GPS, secure computation beyond anything that can be achieved now, all the way to enabling advances in designing new materials and medicine, as well basic science discoveries, he said. It will unleash the full power of quantum computing and have a profound impact on our lives.

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Beam me up: long-distance quantum teleportation has happened for the first time ever - SYFY WIRE

For mathematicians and computer scientists, 2020 was full of discipline-spanning discoveries and celebrations of creativity. Several long-standing problems yielded to sustained collaboration, sometimes answering other important questions as a happy byproduct. While some results had immediate applications, with researchers improving on the findings or incorporating them into other work, others served for now as inspiration, suggesting that progress is within reach.

Early in the year, Quanta described how five computer scientists established limits on the ability of entangled quantum computers to verify problems. As part of their work, the team also answered long-standing questions in physics and mathematics much to the surprise of the researchers who had been working on those problems. Another set of collaborations strengthened a far-reaching bridge connecting distant areas of mathematics. Known as the Langlands correspondence, the conjectured bridge offers hope of deepening our understanding of many subfields of mathematics.

This year we also explored mathematicians growing familiarity with geometric constructs, examined how computer programs are helping mathematicians with their proofs, and surveyed the current state of mathematics and its problems. But not all the news this year was welcome: the spread of COVID-19 complicated the research of working mathematicians, who increasingly rely on collaboration to push the field forward. The pandemic also claimed the life of the great mathematician John Conway about a month before we broke the news that a graduate student had solved a famous problem involving his signature knot.

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Quanta's Year in Math and Computer Science (2020) - Quanta Magazine

You won't believe you eyes when you play quantum chess, literally.

Have you ever heard of Quantum Chess? If not, we are confident you are in for a real treat.

Read on to find out more about this interesting take on a very ancient strategy game. But brace yourself, things are about to get a little "spooky".

RELATED: WINNER OF THE WORLD'S FIRST QUANTUM CHESS TOURNAMENT ANNOUNCED

Quantum Chess is a variant of the classical strategy game. It incorporates the principles of quantum physics. For example, unlike traditional chess, the piecescan be placed into a superposition of two locations, meaning that a piece can occupy more than one square.

Unlike chesspieces in the conventional game where, for example, a pawn is always a pawn, aquantum chesspiece is a superposition of "states", with each state representing a different conventional piece.

Conventional chess is a very complex game, although it is possible for computer algorithmsto beat the world's greatest chess playersby accurately determining the moves necessary to win the game at any point.

The main rationale behind the creation of Quantum Chess is to introduce an element of unpredictability into the game, and thereby place the computer and the human on a more equal footing. The game can also help "level the playing field" somewhat between human players of widely different skills and experience with chess.

Its like youre playing in a multiverse but the different boards [in different universes] are connected to each other, said Caltech physicist Spiros Michalakis during aLivestreamof a recent Quantum Chess tournament. It makes 3D chess fromStar Treklook silly.

But don't let the term intimidate you. New players to the game don't need to be experts in quantum physics a basic understanding of chess is more important actually.

While it might sound like something of a gimmick, Quantum Chess is an interesting and entertaining spin on the classic game that many find enjoyable. Unless, of course, you cannot live without knowing for sure what and where each piece is at any given time.

If that is the case, you might find this one of the most frustrating games ever created!

Quantum Chess, as you have probably already worked out, is not like any game of classical chess you have ever played. But, it is important to note that there are also several variants of Quantum Chess.

The best known is probably the one created by Chris Cantwell when he was a graduate student at theUniversity of Southern California.This variant differs from other examples by the fact that it is more "truly quantum" than others.

My initial goal was to create a version of quantum chess that was truly quantum in nature, so you get to play with the phenomenon,Cantwell said in an interview with Gizmodoback in 2016.

I didnt want it to just be a game that taught people, quantum mechanics. The idea is that by playing the game, a player will slowly develop an intuitive sense of the rules governing the quantum realm. In fact, I feel like Ive come to more intuitively understand quantum phenomena myself, just by making the game, he added.

In Cantwell's version of Quantum Chess, this superposition of pieces is indicated by a ring that details the probability that the piece can actually be found in a given square. Not only that, but when moving a piece, each action can also be governed by probability.

You can think of the pieces of the game existing on multiple boards in which their numbers are also not fixed. The board you see is a kind of overview of all of these other boards and a single move acts on other boards at the same time.

Whenever a piece moves, many calculations are made behind the scenes to determine the actual outcome, which could be completely unexpected.

That being said, moves do follow the basic rules of traditional chess, including things like castling and en passant. However, there are a few important differences:

Pieces in this version of Quantum Chess can make a series of either "quantum moves" (except for pawns) or regular chess moves. In this sense, the pieces can occupy more than one square on the multiverse of boards simultaneously.

These moves also come in a variety of "flavors".

The first is a move called a "split move". This can be performed by all non-pawn pieces and allows a piece to actually occupy two different target squares that it could traditionally reach in normal chess.

But, this can only be done if the target square is unoccupied or is occupied by pieces of the same color and type. A white knight, for example, could use this kind of move to occupy the space of another white knight.

Such a move cannot; however, be used to capture an opponent's piece.

Another interesting move is called a "merge move". This can be performed by all pieces except pawns and, like a split move, can only be performed on an unoccupied square or one occupied by a piece of the same type and color.

Using our previous example of a white knight, this would mean that two white knights could merge together on the same square. Again, this move cannot be used to capture enemy pieces.

So how do you take pieces in Quantum Chess?

Well, when two pieces of different colors meet on the same square the game makes a series of measurements.These measurements are designed to answer a specific yes or no question.

For example, the game's mechanics will look at certain squares to determine if they are occupied or not.The outcome of this can be to cause a piece's "superposition" state to "collapse".

If the superposition state collapses, then the desired move will be performed. If not, the move is not made and the player's turn ends.

Capturing is also very different in a game of Quantum Chess. When a player attempts to do this, the game will make calculations for the square where the piece is situated and for its target square, as well as any other squares in its path, to answer the question, "is the attacking piece present and can it reach the target?".

If the answer is no, it is important to note that this doesn't necessarily mean the attacking piece is not present. Nor does it mean that its path is blocked.

Another interesting concept of Quantum Chess is called "exclusion". If a moving target is occupied and is in superposition by a piece that cannot be captured by the move, it is called an exclusion move.

Again, calculations are made for the target square and any squares in the path of an allowed move by a piece in superposition. This is done to answer the same question as capturing, with similar outcomes.

Castling is also very different in Quantum Chess. This move always involves two targets, and the same measurements are made for both targets. Castling cannot be used to capture, and will always be an exclusion move.

So, you might be wondering how you actually win a game of Quantum Chess?

Just like traditional chess, the aim of the game is to capture the opponent's king. However, unlike in traditional chess, the concept of checkmate does not exist.

To win, the enemy king must no longer actually exist on the board. As any piece, including the king, exist in a state of superposition, they can either be captured or not which further complicates the issue.

The game, therefore, continues until it is known, with certainty, that a particular player has no king left. For this reason, it is possible for both players to lose their king at the same time and the game would then be considered a draw.

Another important thing to note is that each player has a set amount of time for the game. For this reason, you can also win by running an opponent's time out.

How you play Quantum Chess depends on the variant of the game you are playing. We have already covered the rules of one variant above, and that game can be played throughQuantum Realm Games. But another version created byAlice Wismath at theSchool of Computing at Queen's University in Californiahas some slightly different rules.

You can try that game for yourself here.

In her version, each player has sixteen pieces. These pieces are in a quantum state of superposition of two types: a primary and a secondary type.

They are also in an unknown (quantum) type or a known (classical) type.When a piece is "touched" it collapses into its classical state and has an equal probability of becoming either a primary or secondary type. The king, however, is an exception, and is always in a classical state.

Each player has one king and its position is always known.

All other pieces are assigned the following primary piece types: left rook, left bishop, left knight, queen, right knight, right bishop, right rook, and pawns one through eight. Secondary piece types are then randomly assigned from this same list of piece types so that each type occurs exactly twice in the player's pieces.

Each piece is created at the start of each game and superpositions are not changed throughout the game. Pieces also start as they would in regular chess, on the first two rows, according to their primary piece type with all, except the king, in a state of superposition.

Once a quantum state piece is touched (i.e. chosen to move), it collapses into one of its two predetermined states, and this state is suddenly revealed to both players.

This can mean that a pawn in the front row can suddenly become a white knight once the piece has been "touched". You won't know until the piece's quantum state collapses.

Quantum Chess boards are the same as regular chess boards except that when a piece lands on a white square it remains in its classical state. When pieces land on black squares, however, they undergo a quantum transformation and regain, if lost, their quantum superposition.

This means that a previously "revealed" pawn can also suddenly transform into a queen if that was one of its predetermined primary or secondary types. A very interesting concept indeed.

To play the game, each player chooses a piece to move and must move it. If the quantum piece collapses into a piece type with no possible moves, then the player's move is over.

Pieces in classical states with no possible moves cannot be chosen. All pieces move as they would in classical chess with some of the following exceptions:

Pieces can also be captured as normal, and quantum pieces collapse from their superposition state and are removed from play.

If a player touches a quantum piece that collapses into a state that puts the opponent's king in check, their move is over. The opponent, however, is not required to get out of check in such circumstances.

Pawns that reach the opposite side of the board can be promoted to aqueen, bishop, rook, or knight, regardless of the number of pieces of that type already in the game. Also, if a piece in the quantum state on the far row is touched and revealed to be a pawn, it is promoted, but the promotion takes up the turn. The superimposed piece type is not affected.

To win the game, each player must capture the enemy's king, as a checkmate does not happen in Quantum Chess. For this reason, kings can actually move into a position that would normally be considered check.

Games are considered a draw if both opponents are left with only their king in play or 100 consecutive moves have been made with no captures or pawn movements by either player.

It was recently announced that the world's first Quantum Chess tournament had been won by Aleksander Kubica, a postdoctoral fellow at Canada's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and Institute for Quantum Computing. The tournament was held on the 9th of December 2020 at the Q2B 2020 conference.

The tournament games are timed, and Kubica managed to beat his opponent, Google's Doug Strain, by letting him run out of time. This currently makes Kubica officially the best Quantum Chess player in the world.

Not a bad way to see out one of the worst years in living memory.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap.

If you like the sound of playing Quantum Chess, why not check out either of the versions we have discussed above in this article. Who knows, you might get proficient enough to challenge Kubica for the title in the not too distant future?

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What the Hell Is Quantum Chess? | IE - Interesting Engineering

Princeton University has discussed plans to create an additional campus across Lake Carnegie a campus that would potentially create an innovation center that could attract companies seeking the next great technological advancement. (More on that later.)

President Chris Eisgruber is just as excited to talk about the schools commitment to a different kind of expansion: One that would increase the number of low-income and first-generation students attending the nations premier university.

Its just such a passion for me, he said. One of the things Im proudest of is that we have become a national leader in terms of attracting students from low-income backgrounds and graduating them and seeing them go off and do spectacular things, with, I hope, many of them staying here in the state of New Jersey.

As we continue to look to elevate and nurture talent, it will be important to what Princeton University is doing going forward.

Going forward is a relative phrase these days. Princeton like all universities and much of society is eager to just return to the way it was. Few parts of society were as impacted as greatly by COVID-19 as higher education.

Princeton will bring its students back to campus next semester and do it with a rigorous testing system, while school officials await the day when everyone will be vaccinated. But, even then, Eisgruber knows the school will be different.

While the COVID-19 pandemic impacted how students learn, the murder of George Floyd led to a reexamination of how everyone thinks about racial equity and equality. At Princeton, that meant another look at the racist views of one of its former presidents, Woodrow Wilson, and the removal of his name from a number of prominent places.

Eisgruber discussed all of this and more in a recent chat for the Interview Issue, our annual year-end give-and-take with some of the most inspiring and intriguing people around the state.

Heres a look at the conversation, edited for space and clarity.

ROI-NJ: We have to start with COVID-19. Give us an overview of how that has impacted Princeton?

Chris Eisgruber: Education depends on engagement and personal interaction; thats what we try to provide. Thats the key to teaching that really inspires. But, the same kind of engagement and intimacy thats so valuable to education is also what spreads this virus. So, weve had the problem that the thing that is at our core of education has suddenly become dangerous in the midst of this pandemic, and weve had to adapt to that.

We made the tough decision to go online in the fall, and Ive been so impressed by the way our staff and our students and our faculty have worked together to find possibilities for making online education real and meaningful. And then, weve been working hard to find ways to bring back people to campus and do it safely. Im grateful to lots of people around this campus and to our alumni, who made it possible for us to set up a testing laboratory on the campus, so we can test our students twice a week, every week, even if the entire population looks asymptomatic.

We are working to de-densify, so that, in our housing system, well be able to have students one per room. Weve established a culture of masking and social distancing. So, Im confident that we can bring back students in the spring and bring them back safely. But Im among the many people who are looking forward to the day when we can get everybody vaccinated and we can go back to the in-person elements that add so much more to our education.

ROI: We have to think that virtual learning will continue in some fashion. How could that work?

CE: I think it will vary from institution to institution. I do think, for all of us, this will give us additional arrows in our quiver. The obvious place is in terms of guest speakers or when students are studying abroad or when a faculty member has to travel someplace. Its one thing when everything has to be on Zoom all the time. Its another if you suddenly realize, OK, distance doesnt have to be a barrier.

I still think in-person instruction will be the dominant mode of delivery, but, yes, you will still see (some virtual instruction) where we cant deliver the in-person experience.

ROI: Lets move to other big event of 2020, the killing of George Floyd and the long overdue discussion of racial equity, opportunity and justice that came about. The issue, of course, was reflected at Princeton in the removal of Woodrow Wilsons name from a number of key spots. Talk about how Princeton attempted to address all of these issues.

CE: I think we and other colleges and universities have a responsibility to be sites for honest confrontation with the right and wrongs of history and for conversations about very difficult subjects. And, obviously, race is a very hard subject to talk about in the United States and to talk about on our college campus. And we havent always done well with that.

Weve had to wrestle with Woodrow Wilsons legacy. I will say, personally, that, when I took office, I wasnt aware that he had resegregated the federal civil service. We talked about him on this campus in a way that didnt recognize that or acknowledge it. And I think that has been part of this problem of indifference thats held us back as a country and as a university as we reach for our highest aspirations.

ROI: How do we address this?

CE: This moment remains a moment of great challenge. These issues are so hard, and the problems have been so longstanding, but it also is a moment of opportunity for us. I think there is a greater and wider recognition of the need to do more affirmatively, even more than weve done. I know the state of New Jersey has been a leader in a lot of things. This university has tried to be a leader on a lot of things, but we need to do even more in order to reach our highest aspirations.

I assign a book to the incoming students every year. This year, it was a book by the historian Jill Lepore called This America: The Case for the Nation, which tries to tell the story of both the great triumphs and aspirations, but also the story of the failures. And she starts, to that end, with this quotation from W.E.B. Du Bois, which I now find myself quoting again and again to our students and alumni. In 1935, W.E.B. Du Bois said: Nations reel and stagger on their way. They make hideous mistakes. They commit frightful wrongs. They do great and beautiful things, and shall we not best guide humanity by telling the truth about all this so far as the truth is ascertainable?

And thats what I think we have tried to hold ourselves to do. And it is incredibly hard. And depending on who the audience is, they may hear or want to hear only one side of this. I think we have to tell it all, and thats the challenge.

Oswald Veblen. He was a mathematician here in the early 20th century. And he basically transformed the math and physics departments in this university and helped to start the Institute for Advanced Study. Hes not well known, but he should be. He realized early on what was happening in Nazi Germany and helped to bring over a number of Jewish refugees who otherwise would have perished. I think hes one of the unsung heroes. He just stands for so many things, from academic excellence to being a great citizen of the university to being somebody who helps the refugee in a time of need. So, he gets my vote.

Its humanity: One of the things that I love about New Jersey is that the people are real and theyre not pretentious.

One of the things were really going to want after this pandemic is to bring back the restaurants that have been badly affected. Thats going to matter to attracting young talent and keeping it here. One thing that stands in the way of aspiring chefs that might want to start interesting places that are cool and attractive to young people are the states liquor laws in particular, the difficulty that restaurants have in getting licenses in the state. I think it puts us at a real competitive disadvantage, by comparison to New York and Pennsylvania. So, Im going to put in a plug for our restaurant industry on that, and for the importance of having cool places that attract young people.

ROI: This challenge reaches all areas of the university. Sometimes in good ways. Princeton has had some successes in fundraising this year one was a gift from Mellody Hobson, a businesswomen, philanthropist and alumna that will have significance beyond the dollars and cents. Talk about her gift.

CE: Fundamentally, the process of fundraising at Princeton is about a desire of our friends and our alumni to pay it forward to future generations to do things that will make a difference at the university and beyond it. What we want to do right now, as we think about our current capital campaign, is to enable more students from more backgrounds to make a difference for the better in the world. And I think that message continues to resonate with our alumni.

One of our happiest moments during this difficult year was when we were able to announce the gift that will create Mellody Hobson College on the site where Wilson College was previously located. And I know, for many of our alumni and many of our students, the idea that they would be able to identify with an alum like Mellody Hobson, with her story of coming from Chicago as a first-generation Black student to Princeton University, then going on to this career of extraordinary national significance, means a lot. I think its a symbol for us. Its a symbol for students who will make a difference later in their lives. And its a symbol for higher education.

ROI: We are a business journal at heart. So, lets talk about how the university is connected to the business community in the state.

CE: Increasing Princetons connection to the New Jersey economic environment is important for us and the state of New Jersey because of its connections to our teaching and research mission. This is a change from the days when Albert Einstein was kind of the paradigmatic Princeton professor, thinking thoughts to win Nobel Prizes, but thoughts that didnt have immediate application in the business world. Nowadays, my top researchers, some of them who get whispered about in terms of winning Nobel Prizes, say their research is going to be better if they have more connection to the applied world, because theyre going to learn more about which problems need their attention, or where the really interesting issues are. And they want their research to have an application to the world.

One example of that, which really connects directly back to Einstein, is around quantum computing. We have an initiative in quantum computing. Some of our faculty are associated with a multiuniversity partnership that has a lot of government funding behind it. The Plasma Physics Laboratory is working on expanding into the area of nanochip technology. This is applying some of the most theoretical and worldly ideas that Einstein thought about. It is now the critical technology in terms of the next advances in computing. We would love to see all of that happen right here in central New Jersey. If we could be recognized as the place to go when it comes to quantum computing, thats going to be really good for the intellectual environment around Princeton University and really good for the state of New Jersey.

I think weve got the edge in terms of having the talent and the fundamentals here. And I think there are a number of other areas, like what were doing in bioengineering, what were doing in computer science. So, weve been really pleased that the New Jersey business community seems to have responded well to that. Its been a priority for Gov. (Phil) Murphys administration. And we hope that these initiatives will continue to grow.

ROI: Like the Princeton campus. This takes us back to an expansion across the lake.

CE: We want to expand gradually, because we want to make sure that were preserving the character of a Princeton education. So, one of the things were doing as were building these two new residential colleges is making sure that, as we start renovating some of our existing space, we will have the capacity to expand down the line.

We have land across the lake that is as large as our current campus. And part of what we have started to do is to put in place a general development plan for that land. Our belief is that the campus, as it develops over time, can be an important site for innovation and entrepreneurship. And part of what were thinking about is that the campus should develop with a character on the other side of the lake that provides a home to joint ventures of a sort that we cant quite imagine yet.

The example that I always give folks is, back in the 80s, Microsoft came to Cambridge University in England and said, Were interested in doing something jointly with your computer science department. And Cambridge, which has a lot of similarities to Princeton, was able to say Yes, because they had the equivalent of our land across the lake and they were ready to go and they were able to green-light it.

We want to be able to do that in New Jersey. If we get the right kind of project that advances our mission, and that could be good here for the innovation ecosystem, we want to be able to say, Yes, and that is one of the reasons why we are moving forward with planning for that.

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The Interview Issue: Eisgruber is trying to reshape the meaning of a Princeton education even as his school, and higher ed as a whole, grapples with...

Bitcoin evangelist and influencer Andreas Antonopoulos says Satoshi Nakamotos massive Bitcoin trove will be an easy target for quantum computers.

In a Bitcoin HARDTalk interview, Antonopoulos says that investors should keep a close watch on Nakamotos BTC fortune. If the dormant coins start moving, Antonopoulos says it is likely not the doing of the anonymous Bitcoin creator.

Especially with some of the early keys, they are pay-to-public keys, the public keys are visible and the money is sitting in them.

Therefore, a quantum computer, its first target, its juiciest target, its easiest to attack target is the Satoshi stash. How do we know if a quantum computer exists that can break ECDSA (elliptic curve digital algorithm). Simple, Satoshis coins start moving, and in fact at some point after a decade or so it might actually be the more likely explanation.

So you see the coins moving and youre like Did Satoshi come back from the dead? or Did a quantum computer emerge that can break [ECDSA keys]? As the years go by, I start leaning more towards, Okay, it appears a quantum computer has emerged that can do this, but I think were still a decade away from that.

However, the movement of Satoshis huge BTC stash is not a nail in the coffin for the leading cryptocurrency, says Antonopoulos.

It would cause a massive amount of volatility in the space by injecting an enormous amount of liquidity on the supply side of Bitcoin, but it would also once and for all resolve the question This is characteristic of markets which is, Sell the rumor, buy the fact

If something starts happening that is unexpected the market reacts badly, but as soon as that becomes expected, you get the opposite reaction. The markets go, Oh well, I guess Satoshis coins moved. Bitcoin didnt die completely, its price dipped. Well, now Bitcoin at whatever price its priced in now is a Bitcoin in which Satoshis coins have moved and are therefore part of the supply and priced in. Therefore, its future is now certain. That is no longer hanging over it

Sometimes having the bad news confirmed leads to a rally in the markets because you went from uncertainty to confirmation even though whats been confirmed is bad news.

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Satoshis Bitcoin Fortune Will Be Easiest Batch for Quantum Computers to Hack, Says Andreas Antonopoulos - The Daily Hodl

This ETF has an annual return of 12.9% since inception, but over the 10 years since Dec. 1, 2010, it has posted an average annual return of 20.5%. If you invested $10,000 10 years ago at this time, you'd now have about $99,000 -- investing $100 per month. Depending on where your kid goes to college, that could pay for all four years of tuition at some state schools, and at least a year or two at most private institutions.

Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results, as the disclaimer says, and the last 10 years have been historically strong for the IT sector.

The sector has also been among the strongest through the pandemic as technology has been central to adapting to social distancing protocols. While some companies saw their stocks rise too high, too fast and could see a snapback, in the long term, the sector is going to continue to lead the market over the next decade. While the pandemic will hopefully be a thing of the past in 2021, many of the protocols will remain as part of a new normal, driven by technology. That's not to mention all the new emerging technologies we'll see, such as artificial intelligence (AI), further transform the way we communicate.

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$10,000 Invested in This ETF Could Send Your Kids to College - Tulsa World

An Office of Personnel Management proposal to link layoffs to performance ratings was unexpected. If the ratings were valid, it would make sense but ratings have little credibility. Jacque Simon, speaking for the American Federation of Government Employees, was correct in saying, Theres nothing objective about performance ratings. Simons opposition is understandable; the proposal appears to be intentionally antagonistic. In the absence of badly needed changes in the way performance is managed, the proposal is not tenable.

The proposed rule does serve to highlight what is possibly governments weakest talent management practice. In other sectors, policies focus on the high performers. Thats true as well in sports and entertainment. It's common in other endeavors as well. Individuals aspire to be recognized. In contrast, governments management philosophy makes it more important to admonish poor performers.

The Trump administration is correct in emphasizing policies intended to make agencies more results-oriented and to hold employees accountable. Its hard to argue with the goal. However, the proposed policy would have triggered a different reaction if agencies had invested earlier in best practices and training for managing employee performance.

The proposal has been effectively nullified by the pandemic. The reason is reflected in a 2019 memo from OPMs then Acting Director Margaret Weichert to the heads of executive departments and agencies. The memorandum reads like a how-to booklet: let employees know what they need to accomplish and the standards that will be used to evaluate their performance. The message is clear: goal setting is top-down. In contrast, the lesson from high performance workplaces is that goal setting should be a collaborative process. Then employees see their goals as fair and are invested in them.

The Pandemic Made Change Essential

One of the few positives to come out of the pandemic is that it triggered a need for agencies to rethink the way employee performance is managed. Working miles apart changes supervisor/subordinate working relationships and prompts both to adopt new behaviors. It should be seen as an opportunity for agencies to shift to proven practices. As the pandemic comes to an end, agencies should invest in defining a work management strategy for the new normal.

Throughout history, psychometricians focused on appraisal forms and improving the validity of ratings. They failed. Now remote work arrangements, lack of trust, intermittent communication, and new technology are making everyone unsure and uncomfortable. New answers are available.

The problems are not unique to government. Employers in every sector are searching for better answers. Articles have appeared in surprising publications like Vanity Fair (Microsofts Lost Decade). In management journals, articles discussing new approaches have appeared frequently.

Its Not a Simple Problem

Completing performance appraisals has been time consuming but painless for supervisorsas long as the ratings are consistent with employee expectations. Its the old Lake Wobegon phenomenon where all the children are above average. The annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey confirms employees believe their personal rating is accurateits others that are inflated! Its a problem that can be solved.

A largely unrecognized aspect of the problem in government is that performance has been addressed by two distinct groups of practitioners with minimal overlap. At the highest levels, there are experts who focus on agency mission and vision statements, strategic planning and goals, evidence-based decision making, and reporting systems. There is also a separate group of experts who focus on employee performance. Each group has its own technology concerns, laws and regulations, academic researchers, and consulting firms. The future needs to integrate the best thinking of both groups.

The nations problems and threats are becoming more complex, requiring deeper expertise. The pandemic has given new emphasis to front line knowledge and capabilities. Employees at all levels need to see how their goals are connected to agency goals.

An essential change is redefining how employee performance is evaluated. The most common practice is relying on individual performance goals combined with job-relevant competencies. Each year employees gain from experience and benefit from training and coaching. As they grow, they need to commit to new, higher level goals. Supervisors play a key role. Year-end appraisals need to document each employees strengths and weaknesses. Thats very different than rating everyone on generic performance dimensions.

Here the past truly is prologue. The highest hurdle will be changing learned behaviors and habits. Training is essential but building commitment to a new way of managing will require leadership and the help of change management facilitators.

Gallups research shows the daily interactions between managers and staff are key to employee engagement and to high performance. The companys Q12 survey results confirm the importance of managers. However, in government, the role of managers has been virtually ignored. Redefining and emphasizing supervisory practices proven to be effective in remote work settings is now essential.

Governments Purpose Should Be an Advantage

A thread prominent in discussions of high performance is the importance of creating a purpose-driven organization. Organizations that emphasize service, address difficult societal problems and/or build productive relationships with other organizationsin other words, governmentshould be exemplars. Purpose is the reason many employees opted for government careers. Emphasizing an agencys purpose gives employees a sense of meaning and value; it's motivational.

Purpose-driven organizations benefit when the societal value of agency accomplishments is emphasized in recruiting, onboarding, training and in organization/team meetings. Accomplishments should be featured in internal and external communications. It has to be convincing but that should not be a problem in government organizations.

This new focus on purpose reflects what is important to Millennials and Gen Z workers entering the workforce. They look for something more than the pay and benefits. Looking back, it's consistent with statements like the Jack Kennedy inaugural line: ask what you can do for your country.

A practical example is the importance of serving customers. Too often government agencies are close to the bottom of lists comparing customer satisfaction measures with industry. That should be an easy problem to address. It would be straightforward to highlight stories of how federal agencies like Veterans Affairs benefited their customers. Hospitals, for example, communicate emotionally charged patient stories. A simple but powerful practice would be to videotape people discussing how a federal agency helped them.

Recognizing accomplishments would help to overcome that compliance culture. Internal communications highlighting how an employee or team solved difficult problems would influence others to do the same. Employees naturally want to be valued and recognized. It would benefit everyone.

Current Best Practice Thinking

If there is one overriding answer in the understanding of high performance, its the importance of gaining employee commitment to what needs to be accomplished. In the right work environment, employees will work hard, go home exhausted but look forward to returning the next day. They enjoy the challenge and the chance to contribute to their organizations success. They may complain to co-workers but their job satisfaction is high. There are many situations where thats proven to be true across government.

The goal in managing and evaluating performance should be to support and encourage a performance culture. A fundamental change gaining broad acceptance is emphasizing ongoing feedback and coaching by managers. Coaching skills are now essential for effective supervision. Its a radical change from the old, do-as-your-told approach to supervision.

A related argument gaining acceptance is that in this era of change it's natural for performance plans and goals to need adjustment as the year unfolds. It's consistent with the argument for making organizations more agile and responsive. Adjustments and accomplishments need real time documentation.

A third trend is to solicit feedback on performance from customers, co-workers and subordinates. The buzzword is crowdsourcing. In a collaborative environment, relevant others are in the best position to observe an individuals strengths and weaknesses.

Metrics of course play a central role but the data need to be available locally to guide front line decision making. Thats ongoing throughout the year. Simply reporting performance data to senior management adds little value.

In combination, best practice thinking shifts the focus from the appraisal forms to helping managers become comfortable and proficient in their new role. They need the training and organizational support to transition to a new way of managing. Tennessee made a commitment to reform and invested three years in training and coaching to prepare managers.

The final trend is eliminating those five and seven level rating scales, along with pass/fail ratings. Organizations need to identify and recognize their best performers as well as the few unsatisfactory performers. The majority of employees70% to 80% or moreare performing as expected. The new rating scales have only three levels. That simplifies the supervisors role and enhances rating validity.

A simple reward strategy is supplementing step increases with cash awards for employees rated at the highest level. That proved to be successful in the Government Accountability Offices strategy to reward the best performers.

As an added step to confirm the ratings, managers can be required to explain and justify the high and low ratings to a committee of peers. It assures the ratings are warranted and reinforces the recognition.

Will OPM be Ready to Help?

The answer, unfortunately, is no. Early statements suggest the Biden administration will be supportive of rebuilding the workforce. That's badly needed. The last four years have taken a toll on federal employees. However, OPMs role as the civil service police has not won friends. HR executives in the Great Places to Work play an integral role in sustaining high performance. Hopefully, Biden will select an OPM director with experience reinvigorating organizations. Government needs to redefine how it utilizes its greatest asset.

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It's Time to Rethink Employee Performance Management - GovExec.com

There will be no massive crowds, but plenty of music will still be on tap for New Years Eve in Times Square. Using a combination of television and streaming, the show will go on despite the pandemic restrictions against huge gatherings.

Times Square Alliance andCountdown Entertainment, the co-organizers of Times Square New Years Eve, today announced that singer-songwriterAndraDay willheadline the live, commercial-free webcast and TV pool feed.

Day will perform her Grammy Award-nominated single Rise Up, as well as her song Forever Mine. Day will also continue the New Years Eve tradition of singing John Lennons Imagine just before the Ball Drop Celebration to count down the final seconds to the new year.

The co-organizers of the event said the official Times Square New Years Eve event lineup will feature live performances by Gloria Gaynor, Pitbull, Anitta, Jennifer Lopez, Billy Porter, Cyndi Lauper, Jimmie Allen, Machine Gun Kelly, The Waffle Crew,andUSOShow Troupe,as well as an array of special activities and appearances that will happen throughout the evening.

The six-hour, live commercial-free webcast will begin at 6:00 PM ET with the lighting and raising of the New Years Eve Ball atop One Times Square. The webcast will include musical performances by AndraDay, Gloria Gaynor, Anitta, Pitbull, the USO Show Troupe,andThe Waffle Crew.

Jamestown, owner of One Times Square, home of the iconic Ball Drop Celebration, has created a virtual New Years Eve experience.Everyone can start the festivities today and enter a virtual world of Time Square filled with games, music, and art.

Then, on December 31st, viewers can tune in for a live broadcast where they can choose from multiple camera feeds to direct their own New Years Eve show. Plus, viewers will also get a chance to see other celebrations from around the globe, and hear messages from local leaders and people from dozens of cities from around the world.

Visitwww.VNYE.comfor more information and download theNYE appto join thelivecelebration on New Years Eve.

Times Square 2021 LIVE performances on the Planet Fitness and Countdown Stages:

For 116 years, Times Square has been the center of worldwide attention on New Years Eve, ever since the owners of One Times Square began in 1904 to conduct rooftop celebrations to greet the New Year. The first Ball Lowering celebration occurred in 1907, and this tradition is now a universal symbol of welcoming the New Year.

Actor and TV personality Jonathan Bennett, star of the Hallmark Holiday film The Christmas Houseand Mean Girls,and host of the Food Networks Halloween Wars and Holiday Wars,will return to the celebration as Times Square New Years Eve Host.

The 12th annual webcast will cover the action and festivities in Times Square, beginning with the Ball Raising at 6 p.m. ET, plus live musical performances, hourly countdowns, behind-the-scenes stories, and star-studded interviews as anticipation builds towards the midnight countdown and the famous Ball Drop. The custom-designed embeddable video provides viewers with a full Times Square New Years Eve experience.

All participants will remain masked at all times except when performing and will adhere to distancing regulations throughout the production site. Additionally, all Special Guest families, who are included in the capacity limits for the production, will be staged within their personal household safety areas to ensure proper distance from other participants.

How to Watch

The Times Square 2021 Webcast will begin at 6 PM ET on December 31, 2020 and end at 12:15 a.m. ET on January 1, 2021. The show will be streamed live on multiple websites, including TimesSquareNYC.org,NewYearsEve.nyc,Livestream.com/2021,andTimesSquareBall.net.

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New Years Eve Will Still Rock In Times Square, Even Without A Live Audience - Deadline

At Christmas time last year, the only cloud on Boris Johnsons horizon was how he was going to pay for a winter break with Carrie on Mustique. The answer, rather typically, was that someone else would pick up the tab. The opposition later raised a complaint, but few Tories begrudged their leader his getaway in the Caribbean. He had just delivered a stonking election victory, their best since Margaret Thatcher was at her zenith. He was, in the words of one senior Tory, lord of all he surveys. Celebratory Christmas receptions at Number 10 were pungent with the scent of hubris.

Being a student of the classics, the prime minister should have known that the gods will punish arrogance. Nemesis came in the shape of an invisible microbe. The pandemic has tested the mettle of leaders around the planet, but among the mature democracies few were as singularly ill-equipped to handle a crisis of this nature and magnitude as Britains prime minister. He has looked good only when benchmarked against Donald Trump.

The coronavirus crisis could not have been more cunningly engineered to expose Mr Johnsons flaws. He was made prime minister not because anyone thought that he was a cool and decisive head with the leadership skills and moral seriousness required to handle the gravest public health emergency in a century. He was put there because he was a successful representative of the entertainer branch of populist leadership that prospered in the pre-virus era. We elected him to be a good times prime minister, comments one senior Tory. His curse is to be prime minister in bad times.

Few of his strengths as a politician have been of much utility in this emergency. All of his weaknesses have been searingly exposed. A man who spent his career ducking responsibility was suddenly confronted with a challenge that could not be run from, though that didnt stop him vanishing at the outset when he went missing from critical meetings. In the coronavirus, he met an opponent impervious to glib slogans and empty promises. Here was a disease posing hideous and inescapable dilemmas that confounded the have your cake and eat it philosophy by which he had lived his life.

Not that he didnt try to do that anyway. At the time of the first national lockdown, when one of many lives versus livelihoods arguments was boiling within government, I attempted to discover which side the prime minister was taking. One witness to these internal debates told me: Boris being Boris, he wants to end all the restrictions and get the economy fired up again without a single life lost. He cant have that, of course.

The wrong criticism of his performance is to say that he has made mistakes. Confronted with a novel disease for which the country was unprepared, any prime minister would have made errors. The correct criticism is that he has failed to learn from his mistakes and egregiously repeated them. There is a pattern from the prevarication over ordering the first lockdown, to the bout of indecision over the second, to last nights sudden cancellation of Christmas relaxations and imposition of a Yuletide lockdown on London and the southeast.

The pattern is one of resisting taking the necessary steps at the time when they would have been most effective and then being compelled to implement them late and with more damaging effect. Even Tories concede that their governments record is at the bottom end of the international league table. Britain has suffered the double-whammy of having one of the highest death levels per million of population while enduring the most severe hit to the economy among the G7 club of prosperous states. One former Tory cabinet minister remarks: Theres bound to be a public inquiry. We will be held to account for the fact that our deaths are higher and our recession is deeper. This senior Conservative adds the coda: Boris will tell the inquiry that he was chairman of the board and it was his people who failed him.

That sounds right. From supply failures of essential equipment to the summer exams debacle to the care homes scandal, another pattern of the crisis has been attempts to swerve culpability for all the things that have gone wrong by blaming anyone else but ministers. Power without responsibility has been their credo. Six senior civil servants, among them the cabinet secretary, have been sacked or pushed out this year. Not a single minister has resigned. Yet few dispute that Mr Johnson appointed one of the weakest cabinets in modern history. Given his lack of dedication to detail and the hard grind of delivering competent government, he needed a capable cabinet. Feebly fearful of having any substantial figures around the top table who might challenge him, he instead surrounded himself with a cabinet characterised by Tory MPs as lightweight, talentless, loyalist duds and nodding dogs.

The only explanation for the extraordinary survival of the serially blundering Gavin Williamson as education secretary is that he exists so that the rest of them can say: Well, at least no one can call me the most useless member of the cabinet. Another persistent pattern during this plague year has been to over-promise and under-deliver. We were going to have a fantastic this and a world-beating that and a moon-shot the other. We would have settled for a test, trace and isolate programme that worked. This was accompanied by a compulsion to claim the virus was about to be beaten. Way back in mid-March, he breezily proclaimed that we can send coronavirus packing before suggesting we can turn the tide within the next 12 weeks.

Optimism can be a positive trait in a politician, but wishful thinking is a fatal characteristic in an epidemic. So is deceptive messaging to the public. In the summer, Mr Johnson foolishly tied himself to a guarantee that Britain would enjoy a significant return to normality by Christmas, a promise that his scientific advisers conspicuously declined to endorse at the time and which was dramatically proved completely false last night. That misjudgment, like all the other ones, flows from his personality. Just below the surface of his performative face lurks an insecure character who trusts no one and yearns to be loved by everyone. He hates being the bearer of bad news and tough choices. One of the many women in his life, Petronella Wyatt, once excused his mendacity on the grounds that he will do anything to avoid an argument, which leads to a degree of duplicity.

Yet the successful handling of this crisis demanded a capacity to confront people with things they wouldnt want to hear and sufficient reserves of trust to persuade them to act in ways theyd rather not. His most effective personal performance was in the video he released after his own self-described mugging by the virus when he paid tribute to the NHS as the beating heart of the nation. Even then he failed to start a proper conversation with either his party or the country about the tradeoffs involved in getting through this kind of emergency. Though he became prime minister because his party rated him as their best communicator, he has persistently struggled to find the right tone when addressing the nation.

Anyone familiar with his biography knows he is a libertarian Tory who used to earn a living as a columnist by fulminating against the nanny state. In some ways, this has served him well. It has been obvious that he has imposed curbs on behaviour with extreme reluctance. This has not stopped rightwing Tories from railing against restrictions, but it probably meant that he got less pushback from the public than a Labour prime minister might have done. Yet there has been a profound problem with a prime minister who never gives the impression that he fully believes in his guidance to the nation. Even when he has life-preserving advice to dispense, he hasnt been able to shake the habit of trying to disguise grave tidings in comedic gift wrap. Remember squashing the sombrero or Operation Last Gasp? Now, it is the invocation to have yourself a merry little Christmas.

With his party disenchanted and voters disapproving, this Yuletide wont be accompanied by hubristic partying at Number 10. The prime ministers hopes of a revival of his reputation in 2021 now rest on a successful vaccination programme. In the new year, says one senior Tory, we will need bouncy old Boris back to cheer us up that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The light will have to be exceedingly bright to wipe away all the memories of how long and dark, stumbling and flailing has been the nations journey through the tunnel.

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With his sudden U-turn over Christmas, Boris Johnson caps a year of debacles - The Guardian