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cl3misch

2,577 karma · joined December 29, 2019

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cl3misch··on DumPy: NumPy except it's OK if you're dum
How does this compare to xarray, which also introduces named axes on numpy arrays?

https://github.com/pydata/xarray

cl3misch··on DumPy: NumPy except it's OK if you're dum
I could never understand why people use dstack, hstack and the like. I think plain np.stack and specifying the axis explicitely is easier to write and to read.

For transposes, np.einsum can be easier to read as it let's you use (single character, admittedly) axis specifiers to "name" them.

cl3misch··on Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive' (2018)
I think the multiplicative midpoint (i.e geometric mean) is more sensible for such a large range, which gives 10k. Still not as bad!
cl3misch··on More-itertools: More Python routines beyond itertools
As mentioned in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43769486
cl3misch··on Advanced Python Features
Care to elaborate? Where is the complexity hidden?
cl3misch··on 100 Years to Solve an Integral (2020)
Neither in (German) high school nor in the many math courses of a physics B.Sc. have I ever used the secant function. I am surprised the article does not explain it in the beginning. I assume for other people it must be a common function?
cl3misch··on Kermit: A typeface for kids
Apparently it's only available in MS Office:

> The basic styles of Kermit (Regular, Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic) are available today in Office, with the remaining 38 styles arriving in early May.

...from the last paragraph of the linked article.

cl3misch··on Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice
> there is no evaluation of the truth value of any statement at any point

You could argue that the attention part of the network is some form of truth validation of the next predicted token? But indeed, the current chat interfaces don't change their previous text output retroactively.

Still, I am not really convinced. If we assume a human can reason, what does "evaluation of the truth value" mean? Thinking about something? This is still performed with our implicit mental model of the world, coming from shadows on a cave's wall, right?

cl3misch··on Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice
> It's also immediately clear to me when I look at the architecture of transformers that reasoning is not in the cards.

I'm not saying that's incorrect, but thb that's exactly the tautology I was talking about!

cl3misch··on Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice
Are you not reasoning on lossy abstractions?

I'm still not on board with the (seemingly prevalent) notion that LLM's can't reason. What's reasoning, anyway? I'm not actively advocating for any side, but the arguments against reasoning always felt very tautological to me.

cl3misch··on Github scam investigation: Thousands of “mods” and “cracks” stealing data
According to other comments stating how responsive Discord is to reports, it might be better to not delete these webhooks but instead report the connected users/servers.
cl3misch··on Show HN: Breakout with a roguelite/vampire survivor twist
Wow, very addictive loop! I instantly played a couple of rounds.

Fyi, the perk to self-destruct the last block didn't seem to work.

cl3misch··on Show HN: NumPy+Jax Except with Named Axes
If this idea sounds interesting, you might want to look at xarray for a more established project: https://github.com/pydata/xarray

It's focused on indexing and lacks the batching idea, though. Combining named axes and vmap is a great move!

But tbh I'm turned off by the repo not being a Python package more than I'd like to admit. Reading

> Download it and put it in your working directory.

when skimming a project makes me think it's immature. Which definitely is not the case here!

cl3misch··on The average CPU performance of PCs and notebooks fell for the first time
The computers don't get slower, and light Linux distros should still work fine.

But what matters is the software you're using, and that will be modern software (mostly). Modern browsers visiting JS-heavy websites, or a heavier office suite than 15 years ago.

And if this is the context, then computers must get slower over time, right?

cl3misch··on How to GIF (2025 Edition)
I stumbled over that 19% in the article. Maybe in practice you wouldn't want to convert a GIF to lossless webp, but original video to lossy webp? And then the lossy webp would be slighly smaller than the GIF with far superior quality?
cl3misch··on Decorator JITs: Python as a DSL
In JAX you can: https://jax.readthedocs.io/en/latest/debugging/print_breakpo...
cl3misch··on Science YouTuber physicsgirl (Dianna Cowern) stands for the first time in 2 yrs
What is the connection between Long Covid and Terry Davis?
cl3misch··on The number pi has an evil twin
> I'm not enough of a cultural relativist to believe there's a civilization that cares more about the shape ∞ than the shape ◯.

Maybe these are "logarithmic" beings, as opposed to us "linear" beings? The lemniscate is based on geometric mean, which is basically multiplicative mean and/or mean in log-space -- as opposed to the additive mean in linear space.

If we assume we are linear beings good at intuitive addition but somewhat bad at intuitive multiplication, there could exist beings which live in log-space and whose minds are based on multiplication. Their circle would be the lemniscate.

cl3misch··on Keeping a Changelog at Work (2020)
Is it? I hear that thrown around a lot but I doubt it's easy. Maybe people are confusing it will a swirly filter, which isn't destructive and can be reversed easily?

I know that there's strong prior knowledge but the pixelation is destructive so the problem is very ill-posed.

cl3misch··on KlongPy: High-Performance Array Programming in Python
If you like high-performance array programming a la "numpy with JIT" I suggest looking at JAX. It's very suitable for general numeric computing (not just ML) and a very mature ecosystem.

https://github.com/jax-ml/jax

cl3misch··on Bananas: Cross-Platform screen sharing made simple
Sure, but somebody will have to host the website for the "web browser based person"? Even though the audio/video traffic will be P2P, there has to be some interface in the browser?

I keep wondering whether this browser interface would be possible on a static website with all code running client-side.

cl3misch··on Bananas: Cross-Platform screen sharing made simple
> the receiving user could view my screen from their web browser

How would this be possible "without the need for an account or any server infrastructure" claimed by this project?

cl3misch··on Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
"Nonlinear dynamics and Chaos" by Steven Strogatz.

It's the only textbook I really read during my university education (sad to admit). Even though I consider it a textbook and not pop-sci, it's incredibly approachable and teaches a framework about dynamical systems which was completely missing from all other courses I took.

Sounds like a humble brag. But it being the only book I managed to read really makes it stick out for me!

cl3misch··on Stolen Ferrari worth $575,000 was found by tracking the owner's AirPods
Are Airpods better for tracking third parties (thieves) because they don't beep?
cl3misch··on BorgBackup 2.0 supports Rclone – over 70 cloud providers in addition to SSH
I managed to find the source for my statement:

https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/faq.html#can-i-c...

It is not "heavily" discouraged. But you have to pay extra attention to perform a clean copy of the borg repo's files, and ideally check both instances regularly for integrity. I would assume it's easy to forget validating the "cold storage" copy of your borg repo in practice.

cl3misch··on BorgBackup 2.0 supports Rclone – over 70 cloud providers in addition to SSH
I think this is heavily discouraged? Instead you should have multiple separate borg repos to minimize risk of misconfiguration and data corruption.
cl3misch··on Pooltool: A sandbox billiards game that emphasizes realistic physics
Is this post in any way motivated by the recent post about physics of colliding balls? ;-)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41669747

cl3misch··on Map with public fruit trees
It was a legal term.

For non-Germans: it's a (now colloquial) term for stealing in low quantities and out of direct necessity for your own/your family's survival. In that it alleviates the "base motives" part of the crime.

cl3misch··on Forget ChatGPT: why researchers now run small AIs on their laptops
They could be refering to the "action button" on the newer Pro phones, which replaced the silent switcher.
cl3misch··on Diffusion Illusions: Hiding Images in Plain Sight
I just saw it in the new Matt Parker video and was about to submit it here :-)
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