After-Orts #43

This NYT article made my day; wishing you the same!
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/us/man-runs-eastern-seaboard-hamster-wheel.html


- interesting historical background on infrastructure in the US -
“All America’s hard-surfaced roads in 1900, laid end to end, would not have stretched from New York to Boston, or 215 miles.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/11/is-america-today-even-capable-performing-great-building-feats/


There is no happiness in life; there is only a mirage of it on the horizon.
So, uh, you know,… cherish that.
     -- Vladimir Putin, at the press conference at the end of the US-Russia Summit, June 2021
(thanks to BJ for passing this along)
The quote may have roots in Tolstoy:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskLiteraryStudies/comments/o549o5/where_does_putins_quote_theres_no_happiness_in/


A quantum computer in China recently took minutes to complete a calculation that would have taken a supercomputer of comparable size two billion years.
     — Sharon Aschaiek, Navigating the Risks of Quantum Computing, Ryerson University Magazine, Summer 2021