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ccleve

4,019 karma · joined April 20, 2012

You can reach me at ccleve[delete this]land at diesel[delete this too]point dot com.
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ccleve··on Mathematicians still don't know the fastest way to multiply numbers
Once the longer number starts repeating digits, then it's not n^2 anymore. Multiplies get replaced with lookups. And we're only counting the multiplies. That's all they counted in the article. Not the adds, not the shifts.
ccleve··on Mathematicians still don't know the fastest way to multiply numbers
No, that's taken into account.
ccleve··on Mathematicians still don't know the fastest way to multiply numbers
Ok, maybe I don't understand the problem, but it seems obvious that it should never be greater than O(min(n1, n2) * 10), where n1 and n2 are the lengths in digits of each argument, and assuming we are multiplying decimal numbers.

Take the first digit of the longer number. Multiply it by the shorter number and store the result. Take the second digit of the longer number. If it matches the first digit, do a lookup of the last result and use that, else multiply and store. Repeat.

There will be a maximum of 10 * (length of the shorter number) multiplies, because there are only 10 unique digits. After that every operation is a lookup.

You could even do a tiny optimization by skipping the multiplication for the zero digit.

Worst case, the two numbers are the same length, in which case it's O(n/2 * 10), which is a heck of a lot better than O(n log n).

What am I missing here?

EDIT to respond to the comments: in the article, they are only counting the number of multiplies in the O() value. They are not including the adds.

ccleve··on Stop using grey text (2025)
For an opposing view, https://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
ccleve··on Tell HN: GitHub Having Issues
I'm wondering how many millions in developer productivity are being lost every minute.
ccleve··on Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
It's not clear to me whether Anthropic's limitations are technical or merely contractual. Is Anthropic actually putting the limitations in their prompts, so that the model would refuse to answer a question on how to do certain things?

If so, that's a major problem. If the military is using it in some mission critical way, they can't be fighting the model to get something done. No such limitations would ever be acceptable.

If the limitations are contractual, then there is some room for negotiation.

ccleve··on Voxtral Transcribe 2
This looks great, but it's not clear to me how to use it for a practical task. I need to transcribe about 10 years worth of monthly meetings. These are government hearings with a variety of speakers. All the videos are on YouTube. What's the most practical and cost-effective way to get reasonably accurate transcripts?
ccleve··on Greenland is a beautiful nightmare
Thanks. That's exactly the right thing to say.
ccleve··on Greenland is a beautiful nightmare
This area has a lot of hills.
ccleve··on Greenland is a beautiful nightmare
yes, quite a bit
ccleve··on Greenland is a beautiful nightmare
Irked me too. I'm running for state representative in House District 9, which covers much of that area. The district is drop dead gorgeous and it's growing rapidly. There's a lot here.
ccleve··on Haydex: From Zero to 178.6B rows a second in 30 days
178 billion? That's nothing. I did trillions just this morning. I went to the grocery store and picked an item off the shelf, effectively filtering out the trillions of other products that I could have picked but didn't.

They did not process 178 billion rows per second. They did a search that found something in a large data set by eliminating the parts of the data set that could not have contained the item. Same way I did by picking one grocery store and going straight to the shelf.

ccleve··on “Bypassing” specialization in Rust
The performance hit you take for doing dynamic dispatch is real and measurable. It's a no-go if you're in a performance sensitive part of your app.
ccleve··on The time bomb in the tax code that's fueling mass tech layoffs
They do pay taxes. They each pay personal income tax on their $100k.
ccleve··on You Don't Need Re-Ranking: Understanding the Superlinked Vector Layer
Is there a paper or some other explanation of what they're doing under the hood?
ccleve··on Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional
The issue in this case is being tested in other cases. It's about the "third party doctrine", the theory that the fourth amendment does not cover our information if it is in the possession of a third party.

https://nclalegal.org/press_release/ncla-asks-supreme-court-...

I blogged about this some time ago: https://ccleve.com/p/a-privacy-amendment

ccleve··on How to win an argument with a toddler
Oddly, I thought this discussion would be about actual toddlers.

There is a way to win an argument with a toddler. You find out what's bothering them, usually something emotional, and you validate it. "Yes! It's fun to stay up late! Yes! You don't want to eat your vegetables!" Once they feel heard, you've got a shot at getting them to do what you want.

That's a good way to win an argument with a non-toddler as well. Acknowledge that what they want is legitimate (if it is). Concede points of agreement. Talk about shared goals. Only then talk about a different path to the solution.

ccleve··on Let's Ban Billboards
How do you place a value on aesthetics? Or driver distraction? Or the irritation I feel when I see 50 billboards for cannabis every time I drive down the road near my house?
ccleve··on The $5000 Compression Challenge (2001)
I know very little about this, but a little googling suggests that the measure you're looking for is entropy, which has a mathematical definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)
ccleve··on The $5000 Compression Challenge (2001)
I wonder if it would have been possible to win the challenge legitimately?

If a randomly-generated file happened to contain some redundancy through sheer chance, you could hand-craft a compressor to take advantage of it. This compressor would not work in general for random data, but it could work for this one particular case.

It's a bet worth taking, because the payoff, 50:1 ($5,000 to $100), is pretty good. Play the game 50 times and you might get a file you could compress.

The challenge, then, would be for the person offering the bet to generate a really random file that contained no such redundancy. That might not be easy.

ccleve··on Amazon won't accept written communication
Yup, this works. I did not think to click "Digital Services" because this has nothing to do with digital services. But it does get you to the chat.
ccleve··on Amazon won't accept written communication
Not sure why this got downvoted. This actually worked. Sure, I shouldn't have to negotiate with a bot, but it did get me to a human just now. (Or maybe a really convincing bot).
ccleve··on Amazon won't accept written communication
Sure, but it's a hassle because you've got to go to the post office and fill out a return receipt requested form, otherwise the letter could just go into a black hole. Plus, who knows how many weeks it would take to get a response?
ccleve··on Amazon won't accept written communication
How do I get to live chat? If I search for "customer service", click the link, and keep clicking "Help with something else", I get circular links that go nowhere.
ccleve··on Amazon won't accept written communication
So far as I can tell, support chat doesn't exist.
ccleve··on Amazon won't accept written communication
In this case, the local police department would be more appropriate, but I'd like to give Amazon the chance to make this right on their own. They sure don't make it easy.
ccleve··on Ask HN: How to deal with a serious mental health breakdown?
Sudden onset mental health problems can have a physical cause. It's very important he have a thorough medical evaluation.

Find the best place that you can to do the eval, and absolutely insist that they do a very detailed workup. A lot of doctors are dismissive of mental health issues. Find a good neurologist, and then push, push, push to get this done.

If you make it happen, you'll be the best friend he could ever have.

ccleve··on All political ads running on Google in the US
This really interesting, but I think they have an odd idea of transparency.

I searched for some ads for a congressional race in 2018, obviously inactive, and they were all there, but I couldn't view them because: "This content was removed because the disclaimer didn’t follow our policy for ads about social issues, elections or politics."

For what conceivable reason would they block historical ads, ads that actually ran in the past but are no longer active? Those ads probably didn't meet the disclaimer rules because the rules were different back in 2018.

ccleve··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2024)
ParentNet | Full Stack Engineer | Remote | Contract to start, leading to full-time work

ParentNet is a very early-stage startup that aims to provide parents within a school with a communications platform to talk among themselves. The goal is to give parents a tool to find out what's going on and to organize themselves. This is by parents, for parents.

ParentNet will likely be a not-for-profit, governed primarily by those who believe in parent's rights. Funding is available for this project.

Development has not yet started, which means you'll have a role in picking the tools to do the job. You must be familiar with developing database apps in either Java or Python.

You will work closely with the founder (me) to get the app built. I'm a developer myself, but do not have the hours available to get this done. We'll make technical decisions together.

Email me if you agree with the core mission, and you have the hours available to make this happen. Send me a link to your past work and your LinkedIn. chris at ccleve dot com

ccleve··on Some Florida cities are living off red light cameras
Came here to say exactly this. Revenues from cameras should go to the general fund at the state level. At the local level, cameras should be used to improve safety and for no other purpose. Government should not profit from the bad behavior of its citizens.
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