yarg

52 ms·

631.
by yarg 4y ago
Fractaloid would be a more accurate description. True fractals are self-similar regardless of scale.
632.
by yarg 4y ago
Sadly no. I've been depressed for over 20 years - this was the kick in the arse that I needed to spiral down into oblivion.
633.
by yarg 4y ago
I do wonder at the extent to which I am the manifestation of a charicature of the burnt-out developer.
634.
by yarg 4y ago
If Google wanted to avoid antitrust scutiny, perhaps they could stop using licensing terms that prohibit vendors from forking a linux distribution.
635.
by yarg 4y ago
No need for the condescension; I didn't imagine myself to be building some ivory citadel - I was working to ensure that changes required from a business perspective could be quickly and cleanly integrated without impacting the stabilit
636.
by yarg 4y ago
I was the main developer on the single most critical deployment tool in the company. My departure would've been less than ideal. Either way, the company's haemorrhaged talent (now including long term CEO and long term CTO) and the
637.
by yarg 4y ago
I worked in an environment where a senior architect got to veto every major effort that I publically made to improve the structure and maintainability of the software. At some point I got so pissed off about this that I started assigning co
638.
by yarg 4y ago
It kinda depends on what's being done. There are a lot of physical systems that are capable of damaging themselves if they operate in an unconstrained manner - so the limitations are software defined. Look, for example, at what Stuxnet
639.
by yarg 4y ago
I may have added too many nines, but the point stands.
640.
by yarg 4y ago
I suspect that the less evolved and less efficient replicators would not fare well against older and more robust forms - especially once those forms develop the ability to hunt and direct their food. Basically, in an emergent adversarial en
641.
by yarg 4y ago
It'll be a Poisson distribution. If the spread is too wide then the chance of spatiotemporally cohabiting civilizations of distinct origins will be diminishingly small. But I don't actually think that the planetary parameters that
642.
by yarg 4y ago
Any non infinitessimal probability leads to certainty given enough time. Consider it in terms of reactions per second - take the likelyhood of non-formation of replicators (call it 99.999999999% - because it actually does not matter), to th
643.
by yarg 4y ago
Just once for the initial self-replicators would be my guess. Not in a cell, but in porous rock around the hydrothermal vents (at the bottom of the ocean). Given the exponentialish 'population' growth of chemical soup, coupled wit
644.
by yarg 4y ago
Do we really need to bring the invisible sky-wizard into this? Also, the fact that you think a being of unfathomable complexity can just be, but everything else needs a source is rather silly. (The other possibility being infinite regressio
645.
by yarg 4y ago
OK, let's look at earth's oceanic heat vents. A chemical soup and enough porous rocks down at the bottom of the ocean to operate as reactors powering endothermic reactions. These are spread across the entire surface of the earth.
646.
by yarg 4y ago
I'm starting to think that given enough time and space any context in which self replicating structures can occur will give rise to some form of life (as a statistical inevitability). (I've probably been reading too much sci-fi.)
647.
by yarg 4y ago
It's still there, hug of death?
648.
by yarg 4y ago
> So, “ignoring the new line and just assuming it was the same width as a space” is correct behaviour. That's not true? If it's a newline following whitespace then it should be ignored; the width should be calculated as zero, n
649.
by yarg 4y ago
No - you can't square the circle, but you can get the square-root of 2. Choose a corner and truncate, measure the edge length using a compass, and use that to draw the rest of the owl. You can do it, but you end up with horizontal and
650.
by yarg 4y ago
Throw a compass into the mix and you'll get close enough. But you like, fall off the grid man.
651.
by yarg 4y ago
Sure, but if you want an octagon of a specific edge length then that won't help you. Or if you want the largest octagon that fits in a given circle (octagon of a given radius).
652.
by yarg 4y ago
In a similar vein, people claim it's impossible to draw a heptagon with a straight edge and ruler. Sure, but good luck pulling of a perfect octagon either, given the limitations of pen and paper. And there's a perfectly good appro
653.
by yarg 4y ago
Dude, this isn't a cloud that looks like a dinosaur. It's a low complexity integral whose value matches pi/8 to 41 decimal places. Of course it's not a coincidence.
654.
by yarg 4y ago
It's not that astounding. The simple truth is that customers are not valuable enough to warrant human interaction. Cheap and scalable server time? No problem. Communication with actual people? Not unless there's an exodus of custo
655.
by yarg 4y ago
Selfish, combative, and manipulative - are you confusing us with sociopaths? I don't see disagreeable people as more selfish, just less willing to compromise on what they think are bad ideas. Combative? Not quite, we're talking di
656.
by yarg 4y ago
I think it's beyond being a cop out; I suspect that some of the things that he's dismissing might be gravitationally relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31630528
657.
by yarg 4y ago
Phage therapy seems like it's gonna become increasingly important (we've been using static munitions against increasingly dynamic enemies for far too long). Keyhole and robotic surgeries (already advancing rapidly) are going to be
658.
by yarg 4y ago
There's knowledge and then there's understanding. Understanding is far more useful, but (I think) less valued. Knowledge can be gamed, you can know things that simply aren't true. Understanding can be used not only to extract
659.
by yarg 4y ago
Not with modern codecs, but there's probably a random seed somewhere that'll get you close enough. Noise detection could be useful, if you can get noise that's close enough, it'd be a more than adequate substitute. It&#x
660.
by yarg 4y ago
Honestly, I think people in wheelchairs have more important shit to worry about. Fucked bodies - but they have to be tough as nails mentally. (And stop doing scrum.)

More ›