An Old-Fashioned Bit of Matter

Looking, Like, Twelve Days Ahead

Two news items:

1. Microsoft claims to have created a new state of matter. Beyond solid, liquid and gas. Which would power a "quantum computer." Which would "leapfrog" (according to the New York Times) the quantum computer recently announced by Google. Which is something, when you think about it, because the Google version, according to the Times, "needed just five minutes to complete a calculation that most supercomputers could not finish in 10 septillion years."

2. Donald Trump has sent his Oval Office desk, the iconic Resolute one, out to be refinished after Elon Musk's little boy wiped a booger on it.

If I had a quantum computer, I might be able to calculate the combined upshot of these two revelations. But let's do the math old school: