Syzygies

47 ms·

511.
by Syzygies 6y ago
> 25 × 10^6 is, roughly, what separates us from orangutans: 12 million years to our common ancestor on the phylogenetic tree and then 12 million years back by another branch of the tree to the present day orangutans. > But are there t
512.
by Syzygies 6y ago
For rendering images you may want to look at ordered dithering, based on a paper by Bryce Bayer (my father). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordered_dithering At higher resolutions there are better methods, so this is no
513.
by Syzygies 6y ago
On a Mac, Findspot supports fuzzy directory search, either as a key sequence or via the command line (my alias is "c"). https://gumroad.com/l/findspot I experiment with many forms of automation and stick with
514.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Yes. My Haskell code includes all signatures, even for functions defined inside functions.
515.
by Syzygies 6y ago
The C-like syntax is a bit depressing. There is a syntax debate I respect. While I prefer austere syntax, deeper thinkers like Bill Joy note that programmer productivity increases with more information on screen at once. Syntax that improve
516.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Yes. The rabbit hole that took for me was writing my own firmware using QMK. Make every key close to home row a tap/hold key accessing either modifier keys or extra layers. My fingers finally travel much less (the apparent promise of D
517.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Lay philosophy posing as mathematics. I doubt he understands Kurt Gödel's work. (Most mathematicians don't, either.)
518.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Yes. Compression and recognition are two sides of the same coin. A serious compression algorithm adapted to hand-drawn notes would evolve a spatial model for the background, and be forced to spawn subprocesses for highlighted background. No
519.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Yes. Pandemic professor here, often grading take-home exams. The hardest to look at have uneven illumination, making removing the background dependent on position. I've thought often of writing something like this code. For my own writ
520.
by Syzygies 6y ago
> I believe this is frequently considered a design mistake in Haskell. More accurately, there's an impedance mismatch with how many people use strings. Text is a better fit for them. The Haskell implementation is not purely function
521.
by Syzygies 6y ago
The previous US president used the word "disgust" frequently in tirades. This seemed to resonate with his supporters. I must live in a bubble. I don't experience the emotion of disgust. I don't know people who experience
522.
by Syzygies 6y ago
One can copy ligatures between fonts: https://github.com/ToxicFrog/Ligaturizer That would remove my primary objection to Input. Seeing a broken arrow -> is ground glass in my eye; other font subtleties are a sign to
523.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Wow. They don't pay you enough.
524.
by Syzygies 6y ago
SOLID acronym: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLID As a pure mathematician, whenever I find myself reading an acronym-heavy paper I know I'm in the wrong part of town.
525.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Sage is a remarkable project. For Grobner bases it relies on the Singular computer algebra system. I cringe every time I'm at a talk where someone credits Sage when they should have cited Singular. It's hard work writing a system
526.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Yes! This is the nature of our species. We externalize thought. Calculators make people dumber. A slide rule is like a trombone; you slide to your best guess, then listen to the sound and home in on the note. An abacus trains the mind to no
527.
by Syzygies 6y ago
> Going back to the 1940s, researchers have exposed spiders to caffeine, amphetamines, LSD and other drugs, attracting plenty of media attention along the way. Unsurprisingly, these spiders make addled, irregular webs. Huh. Photos of the
528.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Actually, electricity is so easy to understand that mathematicians are thrilled when they get to use electricity as a metaphor to gain insights into more abstract systems. The poster child for this approach would be the spectacular book: Pr
529.
by Syzygies 6y ago
> Some people just need a little acute upregulation of neuroplasticity to break out of their funk. That's the best sentence I've read all year on HN.
530.
by Syzygies 6y ago
We're near a visual turning point. Conventional math notation coevolved with prevailing display technologies, from cold type to early serial computer interactions. It took a generation for people to learn to chat on a phone, and a gene
531.
by Syzygies 6y ago
The way I recall this game, habitual players need fresh meat to pretend to befriend, then screw over. Perhaps this isn't how it's played at the top. Like Wall Street, you see other people making money through pure genius, so you c
532.
by Syzygies 6y ago
I also have a Topre keyboard, the Leopold FC660C, with a Hasu FC660C Controller supporting QMK firmware. The 12 keys closest to my non-pinky fingers are all tap/hold, so for example my hands don't move for control sequences. Alter
533.
by Syzygies 6y ago
This is parallel to the question of vitamin D and COVID. There's a strong correlation between vitamin D deficiency and COVID mortality, yet taking vitamin D doesn't help. Conjecturally, it's the genetic cause of vitamin D def
534.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Persi is also one my absolute favorite mathematicians. I had the good fortune to write "Trailing the dovetail shuffle to its lair" (Seven shuffles suffice) with him.
535.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Twenty years ago I bought two core memory planes (1960's, $6K new) for $50 each. Gave one to my dad, kept the other. Astonished these hadn't inflated like art work.
536.
by Syzygies 6y ago
One thought "design pattern" I pay attention to is respecting multiple modes. For example, language learning tends to focus on single-phase progress. In practice, a tourist such as myself, bad at many languages, will study before
537.
by Syzygies 6y ago
After a decade-long respite from three flaky Kinesis Advantage keyboards (they must have modernized by now) and a several year foray into the Dvorak layout, I went way down the mechanical keyboard rabbit hole last year. After some beginner
538.
by Syzygies 6y ago
I gave up on three Kinesis Advantage keyboards in 2006, after they all started dropping key-up events on modifier keys. I then took one apart. Primitive, dated USB hardware, and nothing about the company read that they were eager to moderni
539.
by Syzygies 6y ago
Yes, my understanding is that it would take a mistake in the process to introduce a toxin. The tanks are dedicated to argon over their lifetimes, though they do have a complicated chain of custody. For food-grade argon they do check for saf
540.
by Syzygies 6y ago
In the Pentagon "War Room" scene, the walls are lined with backlit code transparencies, and Nash infers they're lattitudes and longitudes. The Art department was creating one slide at a time in Adobe Illustrator, and people c

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