svat

40 ms·

451.
by svat 3y ago
Most dictionaries list only the standard form PROPRIETARY, so it is arguable whether a word list should contain "PROPRIETORY": although Merriam-Webster and Wiktionary (unlike most dictionaries) list it as an alternative spelling,
452.
by svat 3y ago
That video is actually great! The last time this formula came up, I added some references to the Wikipedia article (current version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Formula_for_prime... about the "worth
453.
by svat 3y ago
Wow this is a great optimization! You're under-selling it :) It changes the memory requirement from O(π(n)) to O(π(√n)), e.g. after processing numbers up to 100, the internal state in the OP's algorithm is: q = 101 D = {
454.
by svat 3y ago
This adds two things over the OP's initial version, both mentioned in the post: wheel factorization (with 30), and the "linear probing" to avoid lists. It's possible to keep improving (up to a point) by using e.g. wheel
455.
by svat 3y ago
This is really elegant! To make the explanation more concrete, here's a snapshot of the algorithm's state (the dict D) after it has processed numbers up to 10 (inclusive): 12: [3, 2] 25: [5] 49: [7] So each prime
456.
by svat 3y ago
I guess “studying” would be a good word: it's close enough to “reading”, while also having an educational connotation and no expectation of being a linear process. Although I'd encourage everyone to consider “reading” already as n
457.
by svat 3y ago
Yes. (As in both: yes I agree with your way of getting to know a codebase, and yes you misunderstand what at least some people mean by "read code".) See the "Code Is Not Literature" 2014 blog post that was discussed here
458.
by svat 3y ago
Wordle programs often start with a similar bug in their (similar) scoring function. Apart from tracking positions and consuming them as you suggested, there's also another approach to writing the scoring function, suggested by Knuth&#x
459.
by svat 3y ago
The Knuth approach said to be implemented in this post is described in: > The computer as Master Mind. Journal of Recreational Mathematics 9 (1976), pp. 1–6. Reprinted with an addendum as Chapter 25 of Selected Papers on Fun and Games
460.
by svat 3y ago
For the continued-fraction convergents, instead of Mathematica, here's a web page of mine that does the same thing: https://shreevatsa.net/fraction/best (try it with the 3.213432 from the post, and a large limit f
461.
by svat 3y ago
A great companion read to this piece, diving deeper into one of the anecdotes mentioned, is "Reading Programs with Donald Knuth" (2018) by Dylan Lederle-Ensign: http://www.dlederle.com/2018/11/25/rea
462.
by svat 3y ago
Software that does not run in the browser can do even worse things (that are not possible in a browser): it could access (and upload) arbitrary files other than just the PDF file(s) you gave it access to, it could set up things that stay ru
463.
by svat 3y ago
Big fan of the idea of offline in-browser tools: works on any device, and "installing" the program is as simple as visiting a webpage or opening the saved HTML file. This one uses WebAssembly, but even that isn't necessary: I
464.
by svat 3y ago
Indeed, Knuth writes in TAOCP Vol 4A (in section "7.1.3. Bitwise Tricks and Techniques", previously pre-fascicle 1a: https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/fasc1a.ps.gz ): > Early machine designers provided fullwor
465.
by svat 3y ago
That the curvatures are integers is proved (noticed by Soddy in 1936 as "a fairly straightforward consequence of Descartes’ equation", as the article mentions), and a lot more is also proved about the integers' distribution;
466.
by svat 3y ago
> other areas like number theory … In case you didn't notice: the article is about a discovery in number theory. The primary mathematician in this story (search the article for "Stange is a number theorist…"), the ones re
467.
by svat 3y ago
> There was a study a while back A couple of posts about how poor that paper was: • https://lemire.me/blog/2015/01/14/knauff-and-nejasmic-recomm... • https://blog.cr.yp.to/20201206-m
468.
by svat 3y ago
Good joke :-) This is already very tangential, but just for the benefit of anyone who may miss the humour and take the above comment seriously: - re “couldn't afford professional typesetting”: Knuth was happy when Addison–Wesley approa
469.
by svat 3y ago
He means both. From his 1974 Turing lecture ("Computer Programming as an Art" http://www.paulgraham.com/knuth.html ): > To summarize: We have seen that computer programming is an art, because it applies accumula
470.
by svat 3y ago
`pdfinfo` on the file says: Creator: Acrobat PDFMaker 23 for Word Producer: Adobe PDF Library 23.3.247; modified using iText® 7.1.6 ©2000-2019 iText Group NV (Administrative Office of the United States Courts; licen
471.
by svat 3y ago
Stirling's approximation carried out to more terms gives: b = n/e + ln(2πn)/2e + (3(ln(2πn))^2 + 2)/(24en) + o(1/n) which becomes a good approximation for large n: https://colab.research.google.c
472.
by svat 3y ago
I was thinking of this again this weekend, after spending a couple of hours reading some literate programs again, in light of Knuth's recent (via https://twitter.com/ksmeel/status/1661890306370072576 ) note h
473.
by svat 3y ago
I missed this conversation earlier, but see my response to that post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29871047 (also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30762055 ) — in short, literate program
474.
by svat 3y ago
The story, as a dialogue: Knuth: I've come up with an idea I like, called literate programming, and a system called WEB. I wrote TeX in WEB. Bentley: I took a look, and I love it! But TeX is 600 pages long; could you give me a WEB e
475.
by svat 3y ago
Nice post. Blog posts on TeX's internals are rare; see also Graham Douglas's posts on his blog ( http://www.readytext.co.uk/?cat=14 ) and on Overleaf: https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/A
476.
by svat 4y ago
Run `texdoc errorlog`, or visit http://mirrors.ctan.org/info/knuth-pdf/errata/errorlog.pdf — published as Chapter 11 ("The error log of TeX") of the book (collection of papers) Literate Programming
477.
by svat 4y ago
I ran into some videos on this channel (Dr Geoff Lindsey) a few weeks ago, and they are really good IMO. If you glance at the video thumbnails they appear like low-quality clickbait, but the content inside is solid linguistics and very info
478.
by svat 4y ago
This is from long ago (1989+), but I read it recently: "A Carnatic Music Primer" by P. Sriram ( https://sanskritdocuments.org/english/carnatic.pdf / http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/~sriram/k
479.
by svat 4y ago
All disagreements are about "weights", and it's instructive to ponder what this one is about. IMO giving people a process/documentation does help to some extent, so the dichotomy the author presents here is between tho
480.
by svat 4y ago
I see your confusion. The thing is that “trigonometric proof” is not a well-defined mathematical object (even in this HN thread, you can see a lot of discussion about whether the trigonometry is really essential to the proof, ways to remove

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