sago

15 ms·

91.
by sago 7y ago
And here's someone following though and making them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s29YZqe9Cso
92.
by sago 7y ago
For all but the last instant of our cultural evolution, humans have been information starved. In one generation we have become a culture that has instant access to unbounded quantities‡. In the same way, over the last century or so, we beca
93.
by sago 7y ago
Culture. It's principally cultural not biological. It's perhaps clearer to say it is a decrease in fecundity rather than fertility. Worldwide experience has been that increasingly developed nations have lower average fecundity. Th
94.
by sago 7y ago
Well done for releasing something and hitting the top of HN. It looks like a clean UI, but I'm confused what we're seeing. 1. What is W for each point and how is it set? I assume something like 'weight', rather than a th
95.
by sago 7y ago
I agree. Hiding something and saying "please don't look for it," seems extraordinarily naïve of human nature. If the threat is widespread human and environmental destruction, I wonder if an additional layer of warning does no
96.
by sago 7y ago
Watts-Strogatz[0] has some characteristics that improve on pure ER. GP: Sounds like a great project. What's the application? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts%E2%80%93Strogatz_model
97.
by sago 7y ago
Interesting. I want to ask this in a way that is respectful because I'm not grandstanding, but coming to that conclusion after two undergraduate courses, based on preceding mystification, did it not occur to you that it might be your u
98.
by sago 7y ago
> This isn't really true, though. Rather, I think there are tradeoffs. One might say I stripped all nuance (etc) to make my point. I agree with your second paragraph. On your first: I have a long-standing beef with references, thoug
99.
by sago 7y ago
There is a certain degree of oxymoron in the term 'public intellectual'. Reality is complex. Terrifyingly so. The academics I have the most respect for walk a tightrope in a state of barely contained vertigo. It is very difficult
100.
by sago 7y ago
It seems a bit rough that you're getting downvotes. [Edit: The parent was grey when I wrote this]. AF447 seems like a pretty important case study for figuring out where to put the balance of trust. Along with the very final stage of Ae
101.
by sago 7y ago
Let me at least try to lift the value of humanity from being an assumption to being a rationale. Life seems to be pretty rare[1]. At least on the order of once per solar system. Nervous systems capable of thought also seem rare, based on te
102.
by sago 7y ago
Python minor versions allow things to be removed and thus 'break backwards compatibility'. There is a process for warning of upcoming deprecation then removing it after that. For modules this is documented in PEP 4 (from 2000). Si
103.
by sago 7y ago
No, but plenty of people drive brand-new, expensive, inefficient gas guzzlers. Poor folks are much more likely to buy a cheap small engine Honda than a 200 cu.in. un-aerodynamic brick. Guzzling gas is expensive. And the poorest ¼ of the wo
104.
by sago 7y ago
Given that the poorest are not disproportionately consuming the least-clean energy, I think the poverty issue is minimal. My parents smoked heavily. Even after the causal connection with lung cancer was well-established. Even though both of
105.
by sago 7y ago
To some extent you are correct, but I think you are over-egging your point. It is, of course, trivially possible to construct a program that halts. Or even to modify an arbitrary program to make it halt (a good debugging tactic when things
106.
by sago 7y ago
Heuristically. There is no reason to suspect we solve the halting problem or even any restricted variant. In fact, there is no reason to suspect we solve any problem of even modest computational complexity for anything but the tiniest d
107.
by sago 7y ago
I have implemented a bunch of UIs for games. Immediate mode sounds good, but each time the thing that has bit me has been layout. Sometimes you need to traverse the hierarchy to figure out where things will be placed. Before traversing it f
108.
by sago 7y ago
A booklet I wrote for the teachers at my wife's school, when they had to begin to teach programming concepts to little ones: http://games.oojits.com/media/pdf/programming-food-2013-12-0... It is more basic th
109.
by sago 7y ago
"Defy the known laws of physics" is thrown about a lot. But usually means "If what we are seeing is a self-contained vehicle, it exceeds reasonable assumptions about manoeuvring envelopes for known technologies." The &qu
110.
by sago 7y ago
He can't win. People bug him to find out what software he uses. He says he wrote it. People bug him to release it. And then complain it is not properly documented or is unintuitive. 'A few hacks thrown together' seems awfully
111.
by sago 7y ago
Not for individual moves, no. Top human players play so accurately, it would be almost impossible. Not to mention the fact that vast swathes of the opening are memorised computer moves. But over the course of a game there are usually one
112.
by sago 7y ago
Good information, and well put. A small quibble: you should probably almost never use tuple(), even on recent Python: >>> tuple(dict(a=1, b=2).items()) (('a', 1), ('b', 2)) >>> tuple(dict(
113.
by sago 8y ago
> (what would you call it? Bios?) I stumbled over what to call it too. I should add I have only basic experience in both ZX machines. I was a kid at the time and just learning, so my memory may be dubious. But yes that's basically m
114.
by sago 8y ago
The machine doesn't have error messages for machine code. And it would be a waste of space to code a graceful endgame state. In the larger version it changes border colour and reinitialises the board. In the smaller version, it just b
115.
by sago 8y ago
These 'minimal chess' programs trace their lineage (and mostly their rules) back to ZX Chess [0] for the ZX81, which was a significant accomplishment, and remains notable in the history of personal computing, cropping up from time
116.
by sago 8y ago
> This works to some extent, but does not account for consciousness. True, although consciousness itself is rather poorly defined. There are also other related issues like qualia. But I'm not sure it needs to 'account' for
117.
by sago 8y ago
Probably also a dumb move, since it was incidental to my point, and probably skips a crucial argument step. Oh well. I definitely agree with your last sentence. And this can be as simple as the idea, often observed, that someone 'lives
118.
by sago 8y ago
Do you mean 'god' as a synonym of theistic-religion groupthink? The idea of religious groupthink? Or the idea of groupthink in any context?
119.
by sago 8y ago
It seems rather intuitive to me. Our brain is composed of neurons. Different subsets seem to have more or less specialised functions. Any subset can be seen as it own 'thinker'. We think of them as larger units based mostly on th
120.
by sago 8y ago
I agree. I voted remain. And I signed the petition. GP's math is baffling!

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