tgflynn

67 ms·

631.
by tgflynn 7y ago
Yes, but there's pretty strong evidence that something is going on that doesn't fit most rational people's model of reality. What that something is could range from extraterrestrial visitors to highly classified government p
632.
by tgflynn 7y ago
I think the fact that 13 years passed between the Nimitz incident and it's public disclosure makes it highly unlikely that it was an intentional disinformation campaign.
633.
by tgflynn 7y ago
> It was KG who first pitched Robert Bigelow on building a pseudoscientific device to communicate with Bigelow’s dead son. Who is KG ? - Kit Green ? Do you have a source for this statement ?
634.
by tgflynn 7y ago
I wonder how certain it is that either General Stapp or Elizondo had visibility into all SAP's, including the unacknowledged ones. Even if they knew about everything DoD was doing, what about the CIA, which has been known to have its o
635.
by tgflynn 7y ago
I'm not sure what exactly they're including in the operating costs. If they include salaries for researchers, meteorologists, programmers, etc. I could definitely see it hit a billion over 10 years. But then it would seem a bit
636.
by tgflynn 7y ago
If the goal of the remote location is access to stable renewable energy wouldn't a South European location make more sense ?
637.
by tgflynn 7y ago
I'm surprised to see a supercomputer cross the 1 billion pound/euro/dollar mark. Previous recent supercomputers seem to have cost in the low nine figures. I realize the price tag includes a decade of operation but that still
638.
by tgflynn 7y ago
It appears some people haven't understood my comment so I will attempt to explain it more fully. First let me be clear that this comment only relates to the parent's statement "A program could also be implemented in a safe la
639.
by tgflynn 7y ago
I've seen a couple of different definitions, but the most restrictive appears to be that RCE means the ability to execute arbitrary code on a remote host ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary_code_execution ).
640.
by tgflynn 7y ago
> A program could also be implemented in a safe language where the defined semantics rule out RCE. It doesn't seem like such a language would be very useful, unless you mean a language developed specifically for a particular applica
641.
by tgflynn 7y ago
I don't think sentient is the right word to use here. Cat's are probably sentient, but they won't be building Dyson Swarms any time soon. On the other hand a non-sentient artificial super-intelligence might well be able to b
642.
by tgflynn 7y ago
> The only way we would find something is if they pointed a VERY powerful noise source directly at us, or us at them. Do you mean we could detect ordinary technological EM radiation if we pointed a sufficiently high-gain antenna at the t
643.
by tgflynn 7y ago
It seems like a robot that builds robots would be one example. Another would be a program that writes programs. There's a word for that: metaprogramming and people do it all the time.
644.
by tgflynn 7y ago
There's no hard evidence that it was an actual physical (massive) object. There is evidence (mostly testimonial) that it was visible to radar, infrared and visible light sensors and the human eye. Is there anything that has those char
645.
by tgflynn 7y ago
I think getting good at debugging software problems is a skill much of which should transfer well to just about any technical problem. The key is to be clear about what you really know, what you only think, or assume, you know and what you
646.
by tgflynn 7y ago
There's one simple metric for SETI progress that I would like to see and have always had trouble finding. What is the radius within which SETI can exclude the existence of a civilization currently using Earth-like electromagnetic commu
647.
by tgflynn 7y ago
I'm aware of one somewhat similar case. When I learned French (as a non native speaker) I was told that capital letters are not accented. Later when I lived in France I found out that while this is common practice, it is neither univer
648.
by tgflynn 7y ago
I find it a bit surprising that a culture with so much Buddhist influence should place so much emphasis on preservation since Buddhism emphasizes the transitory nature of all things.
649.
by tgflynn 7y ago
Somehow your post seems like the opposite case of the comment you're referring to. The parent comment points out some inaccuracies, that while annoying, don't really change the basic point of the original statement. Whereas your
650.
by tgflynn 7y ago
I don't know if that would be so unimaginable. The pyramid of Giza is taller than many skyscrapers.
651.
by tgflynn 7y ago
There are a lot of nuances here, but overall I think you make a good point. On the one hand the idea for nuclear fission was still fairly far off in 1912, since even in the 30's many physicists were still skeptical that radioactive ene
652.
by tgflynn 7y ago
Perhaps. The feeling I get with Julia is that the devs are sort of making it up as they go along. I don't mean just making up the language (which of course they're doing), but making up whole new approaches to programming that a
653.
by tgflynn 7y ago
Yes, but delegation requires a lot of extra code to get what you have for free in a class based language. And yes I know you can probably write macros to handle much of that but having to use meta-programming to get what other languages gi
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by tgflynn 7y ago
It will complain, but typically only at run time.
655.
by tgflynn 7y ago
Yes, but in Julia the problem is that inheritance isn't allowed from concrete types. So this example in Julia would mean that A is an abstract type whose objects can contain no data. So you have to figure out a way to implement funct
656.
by tgflynn 7y ago
The thing about software is that the "one true way" changes every 2 or 3 years. A few decades ago inheritance was considered a key software design principle, then it was abused by many (especially Java programmers, I think), just
657.
by tgflynn 7y ago
> I know people who have build hugely complex production systems in perl that are still running today 20 years later. Sure, but there aren't many programmers who would want to maintain such a system.
658.
by tgflynn 7y ago
> multiple dispatch, which is strictly more powerful. In a language that supports classes I can have class B inherit from class A and automatically provide all of class A's functionality without adding a single extra line of code.
659.
by tgflynn 7y ago
Julia is a language I really wanted to like, and to a certain extent I do. However after spending some time working with it and hanging out on the Discourse channels (they certainly have a very friendly and open community, which I think is
660.
by tgflynn 7y ago
Like the comment above yours says there are algorithms for SSP that are polynomial in the target value of the sum. For values on the order of something someone would buy with a credit card I think they should be practical. See: https:&#x2

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