Sponge delays the overwriting of the input file, so its not trying to read and write quinedb at the same time.

(FirstName, LastName) is probably not a very good UNIQUE KEY.

The numbers are correct, but it was written in an odd way. Grovers algorithm gives a speedup of sqrt(n), so the exponent gets halved.

Not sure if I'm labouring under basic misconception here (or if you're trolling). First, you note that BPP <= P/poly. Secondly, you note that it is hard to prove P = BPP, but this is not necessary, all we need is the trivial P <= BPP. Then P <= P/poly < NP (if the author is correct).

1. BPP <= P/poly was proven by L. Adleman.

2. I never said that P = BPP was hard to prove. I only brought up BPP because its derandomization, despite being limited to subexponential nondeterministic time, would still imply a lower bound of super polynomial circuit size (which could be the exponential lower bound presented by the author). The author is using this exponential lower bound (circuits) to immediately conclude that P != NP:

"The proof of Theorem 6.1 is now complete. We have: Corollary 6.5 P 6= NP"

Note: Theorem 6.1 is the lower bound

Perhaps Bret Victor's ideas are comparable to something like formal methods: few doubt their enormous power, but the difficulty is in the extreme effort one needs to implement them in a project. It is tempting to believe that the level of instrumentation that Bret proposes could be achieved automatically, just as it was once dreamed that formal methods could be fully automatic. But experience with formal methods has shown us that while some of their promise can be implemented by automatic tools, and this is valuable, to realize their full potential for a complex project requires substantial effort, non-reusable effort.