theoh

103 ms·

901.
by theoh 10y ago
A little cynically, one could say that a lot of "life" is about seeing someone exploiting a niche, and imitating them. Unprincipled, yes.
902.
by theoh 10y ago
Downvotes for you, apparently! Shut up and calculate, as they say in QM...
903.
by theoh 10y ago
Hmmm. Maybe I'm just used to the convincing generality of the similarity argument (from Euclid, via Polya): https://math.berkeley.edu/~giventh/papers/eu.pdf But also, we can't trust geometrical diagrams:
904.
by theoh 10y ago
It's familiar from hands-on science museums to see a particular case of the Pythagorean theorem illustrated concretely with diagrams or liquid on a rotating plexiglass panel... But surely those aren't proofs, just illustrations. A
905.
by theoh 10y ago
In 2000, I don't think many open source X clients (typically Linux stuff) used xshm. Not using X any more, I can't really comment on the current scene. But apart from things like MAME and vlc, what app needs it? And web browsers,
906.
by theoh 10y ago
On that note, in the case of this kind of system, the possibility of a false positive (so a commit fails, but shouldn't) there's always the option of adding a salt or a NOP of some kind to the file being committed so as to alter i
907.
by theoh 10y ago
If you take the example of something like a Crittall steel-framed single-glazed window, a classic of the 1930s, there's just no way to fit double-glazing into the frames without destroying the appearance. The problem of thermal bridgin
908.
by theoh 10y ago
Sounds like a combination of commercial optimization (aka race-to-the-bottom) at one end of the market with William Morris-esque fetishization of solidity and sensible/traditional design at the other end.
909.
by theoh 10y ago
I didn't ask the original question.
910.
by theoh 10y ago
Yeah, fair point. That'll be a function of the fact that Haskell has tended to prioritize the concerns and problems of writing the compiler. Complex transformations of data structures are part of the compilation activity too, but they&
911.
by theoh 10y ago
The Functional Pearls series, of which you are probably aware, seems to be full of idiomatic and brilliant Haskell techniques. It's not an application but it's a flowering of expression, of a sort... https://wiki.haskel
912.
by theoh 10y ago
Is there anything actually interesting about what they do, though? Converting markup is not a complex task.
913.
by theoh 10y ago
Sure there's creativity in writing a Chuck Close filter, or a Monet filter, or a van Gogh filter: they're all conceivable and likely to become popular. The problem is that it's not polite and indeed somewhat aggressive to put
914.
by theoh 10y ago
What Close actually wrote: "Even if your motives are not bad, I still do not want my work trivialized. I must fight you because if I know of your project, and do nothing to exercise my legal rights, that will put me in a position where
915.
by theoh 10y ago
They have a nested structure, is all I meant by "linked list". I know Haskell can deal with infinite streams (e.g. by generating the values with corecursion) but the basic "singly-linked" character remains. They aren&#x2
916.
by theoh 10y ago
Essentially, the desirable and real elegance of recursion is the thing that got fused with the slightly simplistic notion of a linked list in the minds of the language designers, then?
917.
by theoh 10y ago
You might appreciate the film Crossroads by the artist Bruce Conner. It's a montage of unmanipulated high-speed film of a nuclear test at Bikini Atoll. The soundtrack is synthesized, partly realistic noises, partly minimalist drone m
918.
by theoh 10y ago
I'm in the field (recent MA in art). Colour theory, beyond the important concept of complementaries, is very unscientific. I'm not aware of any credible, rigorous scientific findings about colour and emotion that are actually used
919.
by theoh 10y ago
It's only within a cultural context that it seems odd to liken a less famous writer to a more famous one. For an outsider it would be unremarkable and possibly helpful. I think the feeling about comparing yourself with Hemingway, or H
920.
by theoh 10y ago
But similarity is a symmetric thing, like the relation "close to". So X is similar to Y implies Y is similar to X. And if the biological knowledge is a more recent discovery that the engineering knowledge...
921.
by theoh 10y ago
This is a good story, and it's worth noting that Feynman reiterated the idea of building a repertoire of techniques or problems in several different ways. Here are two: The way to excel in physics, according to Feynman, was to have sev
922.
by theoh 10y ago
I'll accept the who/whom complaint. As another poster has said, your point 2 is not a universally agreed rule. See http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001874.h... Your point 3 is to
923.
by theoh 10y ago
Yes, both problems can be solved by the same sampling technique, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_ray_tracing In theory, upping the resolution will also remove the need for spatial anti-aliasing, though i
924.
by theoh 10y ago
I think that counts as analog, because the hands of the clocks are a continously variable indication. Even if they move in increments of 90 degrees, what's happening in the clock involves measurement, not just counting. That makes it a
925.
by theoh 10y ago
Isn't it just missing one comma? (I suppose "whom" should be "who")
926.
by theoh 10y ago
Understanding base-2 numbers (and other bases) is another good idea, though it's more suitable for a ten year old. Game: represent numbers using progressively more exotic representations: Base 10 Base 5 Base 2 Unary Then Fibonacci base
927.
by theoh 10y ago
Is qualia meaningless to you because you are a stubborn follower of Daniel Dennett, or are you open to being convinced that the word refers to something?
928.
by theoh 10y ago
The available pressure at 700m underwater is considerable. There's no equivalent reservoir of high-pressure fluid on the surface (the atmosphere is at a much lower pressure, obviously). (The pressure difference in submarines is notably
929.
by theoh 10y ago
When designing anything, "be the user". There is no more important skill for a designer. Even creating graphic beauty or a clear data visualization fall into this category--it's your own aesthetic or intellectual judgement yo
930.
by theoh 10y ago
Hmmm, I missed that wrinkle. My grasp of this slightly unusual topic is not 100% reliable, and so I'm now wondering whether the cardinality of the set you describe is different from the cardinality of the set of all possible floating p

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