sn41

75 ms·

811.
by sn41 8y ago
Bourgain's paper on monotone expanders is the most difficult paper I have tried to read, since it has some implications on open questions in computational complexity. Spoiler alert: I have still not understood it.
812.
by sn41 8y ago
It is detailed in the article itself. Cantor wanted to say what classes of sets of discontinuities are allowed such that we can still represent a function with a trigonometric series. Cantor's approach immediately led to what are now
813.
by sn41 8y ago
A very nice article. It covers the connection of Fourier series to the initial attempts in Set Theory, something that is not often mentioned. As far as I know, at least three major notions of "largeness" came out of the attempts t
814.
by sn41 8y ago
I found the concept of affinity used for bunching messages to be a new concept. The other concepts are not surprising, they are the typical engineering solutions used. One thing I am curious about: how does it compare to how the old postal
815.
by sn41 8y ago
Type-two theory has a huge disadvantage: it elevates the type of all operations by a level. For example, real numbers become functions. Hence addition becomes a type 2 functional. Integration becomes type 3. It is very hard to reason about
816.
by sn41 8y ago
I understand floating point representation, but beyond that, it is a bit murky. I find floating point arithmetic to be very hard to really implement. For example, a basic question I have involves scaling: suppose I want to perform an operat
817.
by sn41 8y ago
GNU Emacs works better for me, since I use darkroom mode and fullscreen. It looks nice, and is useful to focus.
818.
by sn41 8y ago
A significant percentage of people are living comfortably up to an age of 70 or more even in the poor nations. I think this focus on marginal effects is not going to cut it any longer. How about focusing on air pollution, which is the likel
819.
by sn41 8y ago
In adults, there's also the excessive indulgence in caffeinated drinks like coffee, and energy drinks which masks sleep deprivation.
820.
by sn41 8y ago
I just didn't find headspace to be effective on a long term. One simple mindfulness exercise I did find useful is noting, especially observing when you change posture. After the initial promise however, I found that the effects did
821.
by sn41 8y ago
Precisely. As a language, probably Smalltalk is the forebear of Java. And Smalltalk is hardly forgotten.
822.
by sn41 8y ago
This is great news. I hope other universities follow suit.
823.
by sn41 8y ago
Another activity that I have heard as slowing down mental decline is dancing: https://blog.frontiersin.org/2017/08/29/dancing-can-reverse-... Regardless of this dubious study, I will continue to solve crosswo
824.
by sn41 8y ago
Since no one has mentioned it so far, I recommend the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. This year, I finished (numbers in Discworld order, annotated by the series): 9. Eric [Rincewind] 10. Moving Pictures [Independent] 12. Witches Abroad
825.
by sn41 8y ago
I want to implement an "Evil Tetris" which somehow figures out the least favourable piece at any given time, and deals it out next. I have a feeling that classic Tetris is already doing it..
826.
by sn41 8y ago
To me, "Solyaris" by Andrei Tarkovsky comes close, even though the sweep is much more limited when compared to 2001. And let's also not forget the greatest sci-fi movie never made, Jodorowski's attempt at "Dune&quot
827.
by sn41 8y ago
> classic cargo culting: instead of adopting the important parts, they adopt the visible parts. This is the most succinct description of cargo cutting I have come across. Thanks, will use it :)
828.
by sn41 8y ago
I now understand the contribution of the Bohm-Jacopini paper [1] towards structured programming. It should be as well-known as Dijkstra's "Goto considered harmful". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struc
829.
by sn41 8y ago
Why is there such a complaint? Anonymity is a privilege of the author, isn't it? There are authors who remain anonymous even to this day, one I know is B. Traven, the author of the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The precise authorship
830.
by sn41 8y ago
This may work, I should try this. Can current smartphone resolution decide the elevation difference between the first and the second floors of a building?
831.
by sn41 8y ago
Yes, this is the current solution. I am a bit dissatisfied that it is not a "uniform" address scheme. It would be nice if an app can guide you to the exact store on the exact floor based on one location code.
832.
by sn41 8y ago
I have asked this question to a member of the Google maps team, and have not gotten a precise answer. Is there some scheme which can distinguish between floors of a building? This is very useful, for example, store locations inside malls. T
833.
by sn41 8y ago
Yes, the software giant du jour. I bet Amazon is next. Somehow Twitter does not seem to be all that talked about in a negative light.
834.
by sn41 8y ago
The title does not stand scrutiny - I guess what he wants to ask is something like : Is the media narrative of a crisis at Facebook substantiated? Which would be a candidate for Betteridge's law, depending on the answer.
835.
by sn41 8y ago
> probably the only risque mathematical term Not a term, but there's the "Hairy Ball Theorem": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem
836.
by sn41 8y ago
I am thinking of buying a vertical mouse due to mild pain in my right wrist. But I have found that using the mouse with your weaker arm (left, in my case) for 2-3 days alleviates the pain for a while. Of course, when I am travelling, I use
837.
by sn41 8y ago
One of the great pioneers of AI, Joseph Weizenbaum, foresaw some of this: Here's a quote from an interview [1]: " if it had not been for the computer...they [the banks] might have had to decentralize, or they might have had to reo
838.
by sn41 8y ago
Straight-A ness is a very subtle slippery slope. You start off by being normal. Then you do well in a few difficult courses, and people start telling you - you might be the first straight A student in a long time. And despite yourself, you
839.
by sn41 8y ago
Hmm. I wanted to offer a course based on Idris this time around, and found that I would have to cover a lot of Haskell to get to the main parts of Idris. As I was about to teach this semester, somebody pointed out the new book "The Lit
840.
by sn41 8y ago
I played Myst and Riven at a time when the internet connectivity was very poor, so there were no tips or game guides to help. Got frustrated, me and my friend started playing it as a duo in our spare times, and we would compare notes afterw

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