Brad McDowell

If there's a war on Christmas, it's not Happy Holidays but worshiping the power of Herod instead of the vulnerable love of a child

@AlanShipnuck Wyndham not helping.

I rest my case.

@KylePorterNS Surprised with 13 and 15 as my favorite holes that I went with 3, 6, 9... But all of those are bangers.

If you got to play ANGC, but you only had the opportunity to play six holes, which of the following would you choose?

It needs to be said… This is not just a sickness of the mind. It is also a sickness of the Spirit. Donald Trump needs Jesus. And we need every person who loves Jesus to stop acting like this is okay. It’s not okay. It is sinful, deranged, and very unChristlike. Follow Christ. Not Trump.

I promise to all professional golfers who want to attend a service I'm leading before they play in a tournament... I will never start 30 minutes late.

@NoContextTitans Dez Fitzpatrick Racey McMath

Got me thinking about a Titans all time Preseason Greatest Roster Julius Chestnut starts at RB, obviously. Who else plays?

@drakefjustin @grok explain this to me like I'm a 5th grader

Today is a monumentous day for quantum computing and cryptography. Two breakthrough papers just landed (links in next tweet). Both papers improve Shor's algorithm, infamous for cracking RSA and elliptic curve cryptography. The two results compound, optimising separate layers of the quantum stack. The results are shocking. I expect a narrative shift and a further R&D boost toward post-quantum cryptography. The first paper is by Google Quantum AI. They tackle the (logical) Shor algorithm, tailoring it to crack Bitcoin and Ethereum signatures. The algorithm runs on ~1K logical qubits for the 256-bit elliptic curve secp256k1. Due to the low circuit depth, a fast superconducting computer would recover private keys in minutes. I'm grateful to have joined as a late paper co-author, in large part for the chance to interact with experts and the alpha gleaned from internal discussions. The second paper is by a stealthy startup called Oratomic, with ex-Google and prominent Caltech faculty. Their starting point is Google's improvements to the logical quantum circuit. They then apply improvements at the physical layer, with tricks specific to neutral atom quantum computers. The result estimates that 26,000 atomic qubits are sufficient to break 256-bit elliptic curve signatures. This would be roughly a 40x improvement in physical qubit count over previous state-of-the-art. On the flip side, a single Shor run would take ~10 days due to the relatively slow speed of neutral atoms. Below are my key takeaways. As a disclaimer, I am not a quantum expert. Time is needed for the results to be properly vetted. Based on my interactions with the team, I have faith the Google Quantum AI results are conservative. The Oratomic paper is much harder for me to assess, especially because of the use of more exotic qLDPC codes. I will take it with a grain of salt until the dust settles. → q-day: My confidence in q-day by 2032 has shot up significantly. IMO there's at least a 10% chance that by 2032 a quantum computer recovers a secp256k1 ECDSA private key from an exposed public key. While a cryptographically-relevant quantum computer (CRQC) before 2030 still feels unlikely, now is undoubtedly the time to start preparing. → censorship: The Google paper uses a zero-knowledge (ZK) proof to demonstrate the algorithm's existence without leaking actual optimisations. From now on, assume state-of-the-art algorithms will be censored. There may be self-censorship for moral or commercial reasons, or because of government pressure. A blackout in academic publications would be a tell-tale sign. → cracking time: A superconducting quantum computer, the type Google is building, could crack keys in minutes. This is because the optimised quantum circuit is just 100M Toffoli gates, which is surprisingly shallow. (Toffoli gates are hard because they require production of so-called "magic states".) Toffoli gates would consume ~10 microseconds on a superconducting platform, totalling ~1,000 sec of Shor runtime. → latency optimisations: Two latency optimisations bring key cracking time to single-digit minutes. The first parallelises computation across quantum devices. The second involves feeding the pubkey to the quantum computer mid-flight, after a generic setup phase. → fast- and slow-clock: At first approximation there are two families of quantum computers. The fast-clock flavour, which includes superconducting and photonic architectures, runs at roughly 100 kHz. The slow-clock flavour, which includes trapped ion and neutral atom architectures, runs roughly 1,000x slower (~100 Hz, or ~1 week to crack a single key). → qubit count: The size-optimised variant of the algorithm runs on 1,200 logical qubits. On a superconducting computer with surface code error correction that's roughly 500K physical qubits, a 400:1 physical-to-logical ratio. The surface code is conservative, assuming only four-way nearest-neighbour grid connectivity. It was demonstrated last year by Google on a real quantum computer. → future gains: Low-hanging fruit is still being picked, with at least one of the Google optimisations resulting from a surprisingly simple observation. Interestingly, AI was not (yet!) tasked to find optimisations. This was also the first time authors such as Craig Gidney attacked elliptic curves (as opposed to RSA). Shor logical qubit count could plausibly go under 1K soonish. → error correction: The physical-to-logical ratio for superconducting computers could go under 100:1. For superconducting computers that would be mean ~100K physical qubits for a CRQC, two orders of magnitude away from state of the art. Neutral atoms quantum computers are amenable to error correcting codes other than the surface code. While much slower to run, they can bring down the physical to logical qubit ratio closer to 10:1. → Bitcoin PoW: Commercially-viable Bitcoin PoW via Grover's algorithm is not happening any time soon. We're talking decades, possibly centuries away. This observation should help focus the discussion on ECDSA and Schnorr. (Side note: as unofficial Bitcoin security researcher, I still believe Bitcoin PoW is cooked due to the dwindling security budget.) → team quality: The folks at Google Quantum AI are the real deal. Craig Gidney (@CraigGidney) is arguably the world's top quantum circuit optimisooor. Just last year he squeezed 10x out of Shor for RSA, bringing the physical qubit count down from 10M to 1M. Special thanks to the Google team for patiently answering all my newb questions with detailed, fact-based answers. I was expecting some hype, but found none.

Cameron Boozer's jersey had a slight tear at the end of the game 😂

ELITE 8!!!!

@redkacheek @TGL He won because he arrived. Without crashing.

@TheRealPJClark What a perfectly Mets start 😁

Let’s go Mets.

I'm old enough to remember when #mlb #openingday didn't have player intros with hip hop dancers on cabs and players coming out if trolleys. Somehow we survived @netflix

@KylePorterNS P Cup playing captain?????

Brandt Snedeker in the last five seasons. Top 10s: 3 Missed cuts: 53 Co-leads Valspar. Sure.

@JustinRayGolf Too early to talk about him picking himself for P Cup???????????????

Today was the 1,505th official PGA Tour round in Brandt Snedeker's career. His 21 putts today tie his fewest ever in a round.

@DukeNBA There is no way this is a shooting foul. To be shooting, he had to be fouled after 4 steps.

@KVanValkenburg @fried_egg_golf Whose win would make for the biggest story now that Rory has won? - Scottie goes 3 for 4 majors and 3 for last 5 Masters, ties Koepka at 5 total - Ludvig or Tommy breaks through - Justin Thomas back to major form - Rose avenges playoff loss - Xander now 1 short of Career major

Firing up a pre-Masters mailbag for @fried_egg_golf. Got a question — however dumb or weird — you want answered? Fire away here or send me an email at kvv@thefriedegg.com

@MikeHerndonSk1 Should the Ravens get to wear Colts throwbacks? Makes no sense. The only thing that's different in this scenario is how big mad the Houston fans are. Also the Titans were the Tennessee Oilers for 2 seasons.

@KylePorterNS Then birdied the next! Gotta enjoy the ride.

🤌🤌🤌🤌🤌

@JasonSobelGolf Spieth is Spiething. Drive on #2 hit the trees and ricocheted back. Still made 49 footer for birdie.

Jordan Spieth finished T-4 in his first Players Championship back in 2014. Since then? Only one top-40 in 10 starts. So of course, he’s doing this today:

@DPJHodges @ariehkovler

Again, US servicemen and women are fighting and dying. And this is being distributed from the official White House account.

@TGL World number 3, 4, and 5 is a tough matchup for anyone.

Thru 3