Despite popular misconceptions, quantum computers have advanced dramatically since factoring 15 in 2001, yet no machine has factored 21, reports quantum researcher Craig Gidney. The surprising barrier is raw circuit complexity: the best known circuit for factoring-21 requires 2,405 entangling gates, roughly 115 times more than the 21 gates used for 15. This explosion stems from 15’s special arithmetic properties, many multiplications by 1, free initial steps, and cheap circular-shift tricks; those vanish for 21. Gidney emphasizes progress continues apace in error correction and scalable architectures. “The fact that it’s two orders of magnitude more expensive is shocking,” Gidney notes, yet sees the gap as evidence of honest scaling challenges, not stagnation. Once overcome, these same techniques will unlock Shor’s algorithm at meaningful scales, promising new computational challenges for existing technologies like Bitcoin.
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Writer Nat Eliason has penned an article on cancelling his family’s traditional health insurance, which had reached nearly $3,000 per month for a family of five, and switching to CrowdHealth, a crowdfunding-based alternative that costs his household just $695 monthly. In a detailed personal account, Eliason explains how CrowdHealth pools contributions from healthy members to cover medical bills, negotiates cash-pay discounts, and maintains low overhead by excluding smokers, the severely overweight, and recent preexisting conditions. “I’ve spent somewhere around $100,000–$150,000 on health insurance… losing tens of thousands of dollars a year for effectively nothing,” he writes, arguing the savings now free capital for investments while still providing rapid reimbursement for unexpected events. Eliason highlights CrowdHealth’s published transparency, showing a September denial rate of only 2.67%, and sees the move as both financially liberating and a vote for market-driven healthcare reform.
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Jamaica’s first native Bitcoin wallet, Flash, has emerged as a critical lifeline following Hurricane Melissa’s devastation last month. Created by developer Jabari Ennis, the Lightning Network-based app enabled rapid fundraising, swiftly converted into water purification tablets, diapers, rice, and beans for affected communities in Westmoreland and beyond. “Using bitcoin, we have been able to activate volunteers on the ground from day one,” Ennis told Forbes contributor Frank Corva. By bypassing paralyzed traditional banking rails, Flash demonstrated peer-to-peer financial infrastructure that outpaced conventional aid channels. Ennis emphasized the broader implications: “Melissa devastated Jamaica’s infrastructure and paralyzed the banking system, so bitcoin has become a money of last resort regarding aid. This is what it’s like to see a resilient and open monetary network in action.”
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In a provocative essay, psychologist Adam Mastroianni challenges the conventional wisdom that passion means perpetual bliss, arguing that genuine love for work feels mostly like productive annoyance. Drawing on candid reflections from Nobel laureates, athletes, and everyday professionals, he contends that the right career is one that repeatedly irritates you in ways you feel compelled to fix. “My job pisses me off, but in an enchanting way,” he writes, likening the sensation to enjoying a peaty whiskey that burns yet draws you back. True fulfillment, Mastroianni suggests, arises not from frictionless joy but from an endless cycle of vexation and correction, an infinite, renewable motivation that keeps accomplished people engaged despite constant frustration. By reframing annoyance as the engine of greatness, the piece offers young people a more realistic path to meaningful work and lasting commitment.
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