qubex

17 ms·

271.
by qubex 3y ago
When they demonstrated on-desktop widgets the other day, I thought to myself “there goes Konfabulator/Dashboard 2.0”, and then I thought to myself “you’re old enough to remember that and to be caustically cynical”.
272.
by qubex 3y ago
I’m saying that these properties are derived from equally ultimately unrealistic scenarios. I’m honestly quite surprised that people are chiming in with their ‘opinions’ on proven mathematical facts.
273.
by qubex 3y ago
The point is that discrete computers can exactly and trivially emulate each other. The inability to emulate an analog computer by a digital or analog computer kind of is the whole point.
274.
by qubex 3y ago
These are assumptions. If you think the assumption of continuity is ridiculous, note that the definition of universal Turing machines requires an infinitely long tape (infinite memory), which of course conflicts with the finite memory of an
275.
by qubex 3y ago
As a concept, analog computers rely upon an assumption of continuity.
276.
by qubex 3y ago
Exactly! For analog computers, every single ‘run’ is different!
277.
by qubex 3y ago
The concept of perfectly accurate emulation lies at the core of formal definitions of computing such as Turing’s seminal “Turing Machine” introduced in “On Computable Numbers” way back in 1936.
278.
by qubex 3y ago
Simulation is about mimicking another device or system. Emulation is about setting up a system that is logically indistinguishable from another irrespective of its implementation substrate and details thereof. A thing is successfully ‘emula
279.
by qubex 3y ago
‘Emulation’ means something very specific. What you are speaking of is “simulation to an arbitrary degree of precision”, as I mentioned.
280.
by qubex 3y ago
A digital computer cannot emulate an analog computer: it can only simulate it to an arbitrary level of precision. That’s the whole point.
281.
by qubex 3y ago
I started with OPL on a Pison Series 3 (“no bloody A, B, C, or D!”) with 128 kbytes of storage — unlimited potential but limited resources… my first project was to code up something that looked like John Connor’s ATM-cracking program from T
282.
by qubex 3y ago
I think you’re confusing computational irreducibility and the halting problem.
283.
by qubex 3y ago
History is written by the drives, the literate, whatever side they’re on. Those who are on the side of the victorious get exhaled in the immediate aftermath, but the writings of the defeated re-emerge in due course. The illiterate leave no
284.
by qubex 3y ago
Of course they don’t know whether they’re string theorists! Nobody knows whether theorists are made of strings or not! That’s the whole point of lacking experimental verification! </humour>
285.
by qubex 3y ago
You’ve just defined gravitational collapse. The real question is: is the volume infinitely compressible or is there something that would eventually oppose enough counterforce to halt the collapse?
286.
by qubex 3y ago
Precisely — whatever ‘us’ is inferred to be, we’d have to be able to breathe whatever atmosphere we are immersed in. There’s selection bias at work here.
287.
by qubex 3y ago
Even the title is absurd: the atmosphere didn’t become breathable — life evolved to breathe the atmosphere.
288.
by qubex 3y ago
There’s a good discussion of this in one of my favourite books: William Gary Flake’s The Computational Beauty of Nature (1998).
289.
by qubex 3y ago
It’s ‘1234’.
290.
by qubex 3y ago
What amazes me most is that his proposed solution very much reminds me of Jaynes’ bicameral mind.
291.
by qubex 3y ago
What course did you take, and where, if I may be so intrusive… you did mention to “reach out” if interested! I also arrived at being fascinated by the concept by ideas of sustainability and “getting away from it all”.
292.
by qubex 3y ago
Permaculture is one of the ideas that fascinates me most.
293.
by qubex 3y ago
Mathematica really stands out. Hahaha.
294.
by qubex 3y ago
Mathematica on NeXT ♥ Oh the memories that brings back!
295.
by qubex 3y ago
The Architecture of Symbolic Computers is one of my favourite computer science texts ever.
296.
by qubex 3y ago
BeOS had pretty much no concept of users and process segmentation. Basically anybody who can enter a password has unrestricted access to everything and all programs can run with equal privileges, à la DOS/Amiga/macOS_classic/
297.
by qubex 3y ago
I think that was the GPU’s heatsink in an AGP2X slot. I was probably an ATI Rage Fury or whatever it was called at this point. I wasn’t very ‘into’ optimal airflow: early days. The PCI card was probably a PCI soundblaster: AWE32 or somethin
298.
by qubex 3y ago
Here’s a photo of my motherboard with the processors mounted in their slots: https://imgur.com/a/2fI8qNs
299.
by qubex 3y ago
Yep, the slot-based PIIIs (that were Slot 1 just like the earlier PIIs).
300.
by qubex 3y ago
As a BeOS main-driver from the mid-1990s, I absolutely adore this. BeOS was just a dream to use back in 1997-1999. The performance was absolutely spectacular (by the end I was running it on a dual PIII-450MHz, a very rare high-end configura

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