topaz0

38 ms·

631.
by topaz0 4y ago
What does "correctness" mean? It's impossible to talk about correctness without specifying what you are intending to compute. Numerical algorithms frequently have correctness conditions specified in terms of a precision (e.g.
632.
by topaz0 4y ago
I haven't read the paper, but from the blog post I get the sense that finite fields is one of the main claims of usefulness for this result. I do agree that "'correct' means different things in different contexts."
633.
by topaz0 4y ago
I think this is kind of a special case of a much more general idea: tools can be useful, but fetishizing tools is not. Note-taking is a tool, and can be useful. For example, I just referred back to some notes I wrote about a paper I am curr
634.
by topaz0 4y ago
I've never seen it ordered that way before reading the reactionary comments in this comment section.
635.
by topaz0 4y ago
> I have always seen a ruler as a discrete sequence of centimeters even if the physical object is continuous I have trouble believing this. Does this mean you think of a ruler as a tool to assign lengths (continuous) to discrete interval
636.
by topaz0 4y ago
I'm mad at myself for getting dragged into this, but. Leaving aside the fact that array indexes are not continuous in the way ruler measurements are, what does it say that you just called it the 1st inch, not the 0th?
637.
by topaz0 4y ago
Oof. I feel your pain on the indexing arguments. Thanks for the post, I found it informative.
638.
by topaz0 4y ago
It's amazing to me that the top comment on a post that has very little to do with indexing -- basically waves at the topic in passing -- is about indexing, AND that when it's pointed out that this is not a very scintillating topic
639.
by topaz0 4y ago
> Pretty much all the most popular languages have settled on zero-based indexing. Maybe true depending how you count, but there is plenty of code in languages with 1-based indexing too. My day-to-day these days is all MATLAB (1-based), e
640.
by topaz0 4y ago
1-based vs 0-based indexing is such a tired controversy.
641.
by topaz0 4y ago
That's an obfuscation from the blog post. If you read further down in the code that is mentioned, the actual computation of sin is done by a polynomial expansion in x (radians), not y (turns). The purpose of y is mainly in case x is mo
642.
by topaz0 4y ago
Only if you don't know its purpose, which is self-aggrandizement.
643.
by topaz0 4y ago
The rallying cry of the Linux desktop skeptic: "I had an issue this one time!"
644.
by topaz0 4y ago
This sounds sensible until you realize that "use the computer" on windows means to use it in the extremely restrictive way that microsoft has blessed.
645.
by topaz0 4y ago
I will use this! I wish I had known about it sooner!
646.
by topaz0 4y ago
Yes. It is literally an isotherm. Energy is added without changing the temperature.
647.
by topaz0 4y ago
That's right (well... assuming constant pressure lower than the critical pressure.)
648.
by topaz0 4y ago
"then it won't be ice anymore". Not so: the freezing point is the temperature at which ice and water are in equilibrium. If you take a bowl of ice to its freezing point it will still be entirely frozen. Then if you continue a
649.
by topaz0 4y ago
To be fair to GP, it does take some energy to heat the ice from freezer temp to 0C (or the new, depressed freezing point), part of which will come out of the ice cream. It's just that that amount of energy is very small compared to t
650.
by topaz0 4y ago
This effect should be negligible. The whole point here is that it takes way more energy to take a chunk of ice and turn it into water (at fixed temp -- namely the freezing point) than it does to heat that chunk of ice a few degrees (below t
651.
by topaz0 4y ago
Then again, Tc means different things in different fields. E.g. critical temperatures for all kinds of critical phase transitions. Note that the google search you posted above gives results for various phase transitions many of which are no
652.
by topaz0 4y ago
Or maybe profit is an addictive drug that kills the company
653.
by topaz0 4y ago
I think the point is that these concerns are largely orthogonal. Work (equiv. labor), is the time/effort that your employees are devoting to your business processes. That work can be more or less productive as you say, or some part of
654.
by topaz0 4y ago
The post was about efficiency for the user, not for the computer.
655.
by topaz0 4y ago
That's not true -- many people think advertising as practiced is abusive in its own right.
656.
by topaz0 4y ago
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but maybe it would be more relevant to ask whether I could write better software in this language than I could in other languages (taking as given good organization and model checking). I agree with your p
657.
by topaz0 4y ago
Humor has a utility of its own, even if it's not for you.
658.
by topaz0 4y ago
Always good to have many little "functions" that modify global variables lying around.
659.
by topaz0 4y ago
Maybe this is a character flaw of mine, but at that point I just thought it was serious about a terrible idea. Took me a few more sections to see that it was a joke. I did laugh though.
660.
by topaz0 4y ago
The evolve idea is very cool.

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