cdwhite

9 ms·

31.
by cdwhite 12y ago
I want a good "what does a LISP programmer need to know about WL?" :-)---or, rather, a nice, conversational tutorial, a "WL for Lisp programmers" that discusses not just the things you need to know, but the underlying
32.
by cdwhite 12y ago
> probably incorrect use of = instead of := Oh, man, that bit me so many times, especially when it had to interact with some kind of scoping trick. I read that tutorial (or the equivalent from before the WL), and never really got good in
33.
by cdwhite 12y ago
> Can you give an example of bonkers-ness? Maybe :-)---this was a year and a half ago, or more. I do remember spending a fair amount of time trying to wrap my head around the implications of the difference between `f[x] = x^2` and `f[x_]
34.
by cdwhite 12y ago
I found that "just using it as a lisp" was a huge pain: the fact that Mathematica is, as you say, "actually a rule rewriting engine" kept causing it to behave in ways that looked absolutely bonkers if you were trying to
35.
by cdwhite 12y ago
This is it. In high school statistics, I tried to use my dad's HP-48g, which I dearly loved (in large part thanks to RPL---this was fairly soon after I discovered Scheme and dc). This didn't really work: the teacher would explain
36.
by cdwhite 12y ago
Yeah, and this is why I'm very careful about recording the versions I use for a calculation (version number and/or commit for the language, library version numbers, and commit for my code). The thing is, that's not your first
37.
by cdwhite 12y ago
Also, when you're writing scientific code (Monte Carlo simulations, for example, or disordered systems), the folk wisdom is that you must to keep track of what seed you used. I've never had to use these records myself, but I can i
38.
by cdwhite 12y ago
Auger/augur has been giving me way too much amusement over the last few weeks :-).
39.
by cdwhite 12y ago
Not necessarily. The OED actually gives the hyphenated form for the colloquiallism, and cites William James: "I am going to settle down to the composition of another small book, more original and ground-breaking than anything I have ye
40.
The Stegosaurus Tail: When “The Long Tail” Grows Spikes(fortressofdoors.com)
1 points by cdwhite 12y ago|0 comments
41.
by cdwhite 12y ago
Lars Doucet's http://www.fortressofdoors.com/follow-your-dreams-or-maybe-d... seems relevant. His company made a reasonably successful indie game ("Defender's Quest"); this article talks through his ambi
42.
by cdwhite 12y ago
So I've been using Mnemosyne for a few months for physics. (I started it as a quals study-aid, after reading gwern's article.) I've found that two types of card work well: 1. Frequently (in physics) you can find a core skelet
43.
by cdwhite 12y ago
... yeah. Oops. Guess that reading's out.
44.
by cdwhite 12y ago
So I read this as "within 15 minutes, land up to 60 miles downwind of the generator is obscured."
45.
by cdwhite 12y ago
I thoroughly enjoyed /The Physics of Wall Street/, but I found that it was heavier on the "physics" than on the "Wall Street". It depends on what you're looking for. If you want accessible, non-mathematica
46.
Very Serious Superbugs in Imported Seafood(wired.com)
3 points by cdwhite 12y ago|0 comments
47.
by cdwhite 12y ago
Funny you should ask. I spent a while a few years ago messing around with csound, synthesizing Bach chorales in a number of tuning systems. You could tell a difference, IIRC, even with kind-of-unpleasant synthesized tones. I'd have to
48.
The Meme Hustler
1 points by cdwhite 13y ago|1 comments
49.
Cows might fly(aeon.co)
2 points by cdwhite 13y ago|0 comments
50.
Skunk Works Reveals SR-71 Successor Plan(aviationweek.com)
1 points by cdwhite 13y ago|0 comments
51.
Coach Fitz's Management Theory (2004)(nytimes.com)
3 points by cdwhite 13y ago|0 comments
52.
by cdwhite 13y ago
Done.
53.
by cdwhite 13y ago
Your description of "a scholarly text analysis company focused on in-depth & intricate understanding of what Judao-Christian authors meant" really piques my curiosity---I associate that sort of thing with academia (seminaries
54.
by cdwhite 13y ago
Perhaps "you lose your job and decide that your WoW bill is a non-essential expense, and make the one-time, non-trivial-to-reverse decision to cut it, which is much easier than every fifteen minutes crushing the urge to start playing.&
55.
by cdwhite 13y ago
So I was always told that (as beambot points out) the number of credits was based on lecture time, and moreover that you should expect to spend 2-3 times as much time outside of lectures as you did inside. So your generic 3-credit course (n
56.
by cdwhite 13y ago
In a strict sense they are, I think: A[1, 2:6] could writtenas an S-expression---something like (getindex A 1 (range 2 6)), maybe, but it is not in itself an S-expression. (I think: I'm relying on Wikipedia for the precise definition o
57.
by cdwhite 13y ago
To expand upon this: I love Lisp, but good array syntax is tremendously helpful when you're doing scientific programming (at least of a certain stripe). You want to be able to do things like A[1, 2:6] to get elements two through six of
58.
by cdwhite 13y ago
Actually, people are all the time now going the other direction (or proposing to): they use cold atoms to simulate setups from condensed matter. The general idea is that you can use lasers to site the atoms on a lattice, and then tune the i
59.
Even More Formulas for Shapes From Filled Algebraic Curves to the Twitter Bird(blog.wolfram.com)
3 points by cdwhite 13y ago|0 comments
60.
by cdwhite 13y ago
This sort of stuff doesn't require the politicians in question to change their minds. Think of it as a two-fold selection effect. First, the candidate who already holds views of which the defense industry approves, receives campaig

More ›