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alimw

469 karma · joined October 17, 2015

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alimw··on Lean proved this program correct; then I found a bug
I think this must be wrong. If the kernel is free of bugs then it's not going to pass a proof of false no matter what the Lean compiler gets up to.
alimw··on I'd had several careers but no degree – then I became a palaeontologist at 62
Even in the West, the vast majority of us are stuck in the same rut as you are. Somehow some people make more of their lives. It looks incomprehensible, of course, to those of us who can't manage it!
alimw··on Homo Ignorans: Deliberately Choosing Not to Know
Does the paper really claim that every one of us has this tendency to the same degree?
alimw··on UK flat prices fall after sharp drop in London
> Last year we had "homicide rate lower than any other UK city"

Ah but as GP so astutely observed, an awful lot of murders go unreported. They saw it on Twitter/read it in the Telegraph/heard it on Talk. It certainly explains how all the foxes are so well nourished.

alimw··on Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes"
And yet... TFA
alimw··on Ask HN: What to teach my kid if AI does math and CS?
I have tried and failed to get an LLM to make any useful contribution to my project in real-world mathematics. So maybe don't believe the hype. I suppose it's possible that at some point they will be more capable than humans, but it's by no means assured.

On the other hand, as was noted before the AI rush and before the recent political turmoil (but they will only have exacerbated it), the value of capital increasingly outweighs the value of labour. So if you want to have grandkids you might want to make money using your own skills while it's still possible.

You haven't said why you are home-schooling?

alimw··on Proving (literally) that ChatGPT isn't conscious
> The analogical form of the English expression "what it is like" is misleading. It does not mean "what (in our experience) it resembles," but rather "how it is for the subject himself."

Nagel "What is it like to be a bat?"

alimw··on Overdose deaths are falling in America because of a 'supply shock': study
You've only told us that you're scared of being mugged by dealers! That doesn't even count as anecdotal evidence that it's likely.
alimw··on Venezuela's interim government says it is united behind Maduro
Every government aims to stay in control whether or not lynchings are on the horizon. Your comment would be more informative if you explained why they might feel that striking an attitude uncooperative with the US will help to achieve that.
alimw··on Norman Foster's steroidal new skyscraper is an affront to the New York skyline
Norman Foster is the architect not the critic! His firm is based in London and does its stuff all over the world.
alimw··on Norman Foster's steroidal new skyscraper is an affront to the New York skyline
The country doesn’t have much to do with it. Norman Forster travels all over.
alimw··on Some Junk Theorems in Lean
The proof is actually of their equivalence as propositions. This is only possible because the binary digits are represented as Bools, and a Bool b can be coerced to the proposition that b = true.
alimw··on Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
This is what I read in your comment: that Trump "forced NATO to increase military spending to 5% of GDP". Are you talking about the US there? No, tautologically, you are talking about those parts of NATO that Trump forced to increase military spending to 5% of GDP. So what is controversial about my observation that you used the term NATO to stand for a NATO without the US?

My point was that by doing so you yourself add weight (a very little weight) to the thesis of the grandparent that, at least in people's perceptions, the US has left NATO. It wasn't just a nitpick, but at the same time I did not intend to join this side or that side in some mad argument that is playing out in your mind. I freely admit that at this point I am not reading all your output.

alimw··on Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
Oops I guess if this is as much sense as you can make then there wasn't much point in my trying to parse your comment in the first place.
alimw··on Some Epstein file redactions are being undone
You literally just used NATO for a grouping that does not include the US.
alimw··on People with personality disorders often use language differently
Illustration of Simpson's paradox:

                      personality disorder w. negative language   no disorder w. negative language
  total                                992    75%                         945    25%
but actually

                      personality disorder w. negative language   no disorder w. negative language
  had a rough time in life             909    80%                          79    80%
  had a decent time                     83    20%                         866    20%
(Figures made up.)
alimw··on Coffee linked to slower biological ageing among those with severe mental illness
> I only did a postgraduate degree

This confuses me. Aren't all the best degrees postgraduate degrees?

alimw··on A small group of women changed the UK law on deepfake porn
Clicking around on TV the other day I caught a Channel 4 show celebrating sexually explicit fanfiction about minor celebs (in the programme acted out by puppets). I suppose one would argue that these types of effort are qualitatively different but without having thought too hard about it I don’t see the logical necessity.
alimw··on Computer Science and Game Theory: A Conversation – Timothy Roughgarden [video]
Thanks! But unwatchable on that link because of all the ads. Try https://www.ias.edu/video/computer-science-and-game-theory-c... instead.
alimw··on Maybe that's not liquid water on Mars after all
I think I read somewhere that we have so far stayed away from regions that could support life in order to reduce the risk of contamination? I hope that future missions will be as responsible but there's the danger they won't be.
alimw··on Superman Comic Found in Attic Sold for $9.12M
Someone or something wrote in the earlier press release [1]:

> For the youngest of the three brothers, this Christmas discovery is more than “just a comic book.”

> “This isn’t simply a story about old paper and ink,” he says. “This was never just about a collectible. This is a testament to memory, family and the unexpected ways the past finds its way back to us.”

> Comics, the youngest brother says, “became a treasured refuge” for his mother and uncle in their cramped childhood apartment where luxuries were few.

> “But they had each other and a shared love for comic books,” he says.

> As adults, his mother and uncle determined to pass along their treasured comics to her sons, as the uncle was a lifelong bachelor with no children of his own.

> “Until then, she carefully tucked the box away, deep into the recess of the attic, hidden but safe,” he says. “But as the years unfolded, life brought about a series of losses and changes. The demands of everyday survival took center stage, and the box of comics, once set aside with care and intention, was forgotten. Until last Christmas.”

[1] https://www.ha.com/heritage-auctions-press-releases-and-news...

alimw··on Garbage collection is useful
Is it possible that by knowing less about garbage collection in Java this person might have arrived at the same solution earlier? After all his initial construction of a tracing garbage collector was wasted effort.
alimw··on Brexit reduced UK GDP by 6-8%, investments by 12-18% [pdf]
It should be possible to complain about the downsides of a political action without being called entitled.
alimw··on Elon Musk stoking a civil war in England isn't good for Tesla's sales there
In the UK at least, talk of civil war by right-wingers is intended not to put fear into their friends but to excite them. As they envisage, it's they who will be starting it.

Yes that will act to consolidate a voting bloc for Musk's allies. If it were additionally to cause chaos that would be a bonus. Right-wingers in the US love nothing more than to point to a situation in a foreign country as a warning of the perils of leftism. Usually they just make shit up but of course it's better not to have to.

alimw··on Elon Musk stoking a civil war in England isn't good for Tesla's sales there
What do you think Musk is trying to do here? His purpose is not coolly to assess the probability of a certain outcome (nobody asked him to do that!) but rather to make that outcome more probable.
alimw··on What do we do if SETI is successful?
Is this as well as inventing a superintelligent AI? Too much.
alimw··on OpenAI researcher announced GPT-5 math breakthrough that never happened
You must know better humans than I do.
alimw··on Claude can sometimes prove it
You're using an LLM to translate Lean to Python? Care to tell us more?

If you want to prove stuff about programs then Lean is a very capable tool. But it's intended that you write the program itself in Lean and not in some other language.

I guess if you ask an LLM nicely it will attempt to translate a program that has already been written in Lean to one in Python, but why would you want to do that? I doubt it will run any faster.

alimw··on Europe is breaking its reliance on American science
If your weapons can stop working according the whim of America, that would be seriously subpar.
alimw··on Peep Show is the most realistic portrayal of evil I have seen (2020)
Today I learned the adjective "elite-coded". Also "autological".
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