Fascinating insight and history on the life of the "irascible genius" Charles Babbage. If only he had a better machinist.

Courmayeur is in Val d'Aosta and the valdostani speak their patois, which is close to French.

I don't think Valdostano is so close to French or Italian.
Perhaps it is but I don't understand anything of it.
Example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quhJ3DRbjlo
Apparantly Valdostano is also spoken on the French side of the border to Italy and even in Switzerland.
Well, Even in my small country there are dialects that I have problem to understand.
And the Sami language... Then I'm totally lost:)

Alpine World Cup has started again. Ladies Giant Slalom in Sölden.
1 Tessa Worley FRA
2 Federica Brignone ITA
3 Mikaela Shiffrin USA

GP Moto Australia
1 Maverick Vinales Yamaha
2 Andrea Iannone Suzuki
3 Andrea Dovizioso Ducati
GC
1 Marc Marquez Honda 296
2 Andrea Dovizioso Ducati 210
3 Valentino Rossi Yamaha 195

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No men giant slalom at Soelden, Austria, for bad weather conditions.

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GP Mexico
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull
2 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari
3 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari
4 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes World Champion

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The recent storm in Italy has destroyed much of the Paneveggio forest in the Dolomiti where Stradivari used to go to get the wood for his violins and violas. The tree he used was abete rosso, which I believe is a kind of spruce bu I don't know the exact English term. A forester said it will take two hundred years for the trees to grow again.
Tullio

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It´s called Norway Spruce in English.
Abete rosso grows here as well. We call them rödgran. Literally translated to Red Spruce.
I wonder why you and we call them red:)
They can get very old. Old Tjikko is 9500 years old.

Today I finished my course on Quantum Computing by the Delft Technical University and took the final tests. My final average grade is 62%. which means I can ask for a diploma and pay for it (about 50 euros). Monday there will be a meeting in Geneva on the use of Quantum computing in High Energy Physics and it will be streamed.
Tullio

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Congratz Tullio.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Great Tullio:)
Next step is of course learn to program a real QC.
Is it possible? Yes. IBM have the tools needed that you can install on your own computer and from my understanding the code can be even be executed on a real QC.
https://www.research.ibm.com/ibm-q/learn/what-is-quantum-computing/
I have tried this checking a x Gate. It is the quantum equivalent of the NOT gate for classical computers.
https://quantumexperience.ng.bluemix.net/qx/editor

include "qelib1.inc";
qreg q[1];
creg c[1];

x q[0];
measure q[0] -> c[0];

The result was as expected. 100% of all the probabilities was correct:)
Note that you use both quantum and classic registers to store data.

The only problem I have is a webcam photo. EDX wants a photo of me and of an identity document (e.g. a driving license) to certify my identity. My only webcam is on a HP laptop and when I send a photo they say it is blurry. I thought that bureaucracy was an Italian invention but the American version is worse. I paid the fee via my credit card and it was accepted. What do they want more?
Tullio

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GP Moto Malaysia
1 Marc Marquez Honda
2 Alex Rins Suzuki
3 Johann Zarco Yamaha
Valentino Rossi was leading the race but fell

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I just received a new HP PC of the Omen kind with a Ryzen CPU, a GTX 1060 GPU board and a 500 W power supply. Of course it runs Windows 10. I am curious to see what it can do. It cost me 900 euros.On the former Windows 10 PC I am watching the CERN workshop on quantum computers and I shall watch it to the end,then change the machine.
Tullio
It has a 125 GB solid state disk, plus a 1 TB hard disk,no DVD writer notwithstanding its online brochure (?) and connects to the modem at 270 Mbit/s. I found the DVD writer. It is in a vertical position, contrarily to usage.
I made a backup copy of the OS on the 1 TB hard disk. Of course no DVD with the OS was in the package.And no manual whatsoever.

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Robert Battiston, a physicist, was demoted from his position as head of the Italian Space Agency by a Minister because he had not the proper political party association and will be substituted by a general. Roberto cooperated with Samuel Ting to install the AMS-02 experiment on the International Space Station. The scientific merits of his successor are unknown.
Tullio

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My new HP desktop with a 4 core RYZEN 5 1400 CPU runs 8 SETI@home CPU tasks and one GPU task on its GTX 1060 board. The A10-6700 I had before, sold as 4 cores but that the Windows 10 Task Manager classified as 2 cores and 4 logical processors, used to run 2 CPU tasks and one GPU task.
Tullio
I have installed the latest nVidia driver, 416.34 via Geforce.
It is running 4 Einstein@home tasks and 4 climatepredictio.net tasks.
The Oman Command center allows me to see the CPU temperature,the GPU temperature and memory usage, besides GPU usage and CPU usage. Very neat.
All climateprediction.net tasks crashed save 2 but they gave me credits via the trickle mechanism.

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GP Brazil
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull
3 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari
Merceders gains also the builders title. Verstappen fights with Ocon after the race.

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Ciao Tullio.
Ho un problema con le unità, in questo caso le unità per la viscosità.
Sto sviluppando un sistema informatico che gestisce molto la viscosità concetto e sto cercando di capire quale sia l'unità più comune utilizzata in Europa.
Forse puoi aiutarmi.
Cosa è più comune? centiStoke (cSt) o mm²/s (SI unità)

Ho dimenticato che è la viscosità cinematica.

Frankly I don't know. I had to consult Wikipedia and it says that the SI unit is so big that it is rarely used. Then one should use centiStokes.

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Mikaela Schiffrin won the WC Slalom race today in the premier in Levi, Finland.
Well, perhaps not a surprise.
I think she now has 44 wins over all. And she is only 23:)
Watch out Ingemar Stenmark.