flubert

>But then where are all of these immensely-correct fast-written programs?

Ah, the Fermi paradox of programming languages. I wonder what the appropriate terms should be for the Drake equation of language adoption? I definitely think there is a factor for users originally attracted to shiny new objects, who then discover shiny... Oooooh, Idris!

How about C?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25531871

https://github.com/vsedach/Vacietis

================

Vacietis is a C compiler for Common Lisp systems.

Vacietis works by loading C code into a Common Lisp runtime as though it were Lisp code, where it can then be compiled or evaled. The loaded C code has the same function calling convention as regular CL code and uses the same numerical representations. C memory is backed by regular Common Lisp arrays.

Vacietis comes with a libc implemented in portable Common Lisp.

Anyone know if there are technical restrictions on third-party battery packs? As in, if you don't buy the cryptographically-signed (or whatever) OEM approved battery pack, it won't work? So if you buy a used electric vehicle today, what are the odds you could buy a new, lower cost battery pack in say 5 years, when the current one reaches its end-of-life?

That seems like an interesting plot for a story. Stonepunk? It seems a sufficiently advanced society could have Antikythera type computing mechanisms ground from stone. And extravagant "wood"-working artifacts shaped by sharp stone tools (obsidian single point turning tools for your lathe?). So you could have advanced looms for textiles, etc.. And then without metals you don't have electrical conduction, but what could you do with electrostatics? And telescope and microscope optics seem in the realm of possibilities. How much of our chemistry knowledge depends on metals? Could we have genetic engineering without metals? Interesting.

Not an actual liquid piston engine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidyne_engine

https://archive.org/details/liquidpistonstir00west

All the car seats for my kids were chiefly composed of plastics. I'm sure there is quite a high factor of safety for car seat design, but there are quite a few time and temperature related failure modes for plastics (i.e. getting brittle over time as the plasticizers outgas, UV exposure, etc.).

https://www.sintef.no/globalassets/project/ffs/dokumenter/se...

https://www.amazon.com/Plastics-Failure-Guide-2E-Prevention/...

> And the worst parts of Common Lisp would be the massive, inconsistent, designed-by-committee language, CLOS, and macros.

I've always wondered what would happen if there was a CL standardization where everything was CLOS'ified in the :common-lisp package, so the #'+, #'map(can), etc. were generic functions along with a nice set of collections (dictionary, etc.). And the more specialized/efficient functions were squirreled away in a non-default package. Well that, and a bunch of other things like a different module system. SBCL seems like such a nice compiler that doesn't get the respect it deserves for being able to compile fast binaries for such a dynamic language.

I'd recommend the book/audiobook "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=why+we+sleep&ia=web

Can't thoughtful discourse begin on a topic that is wrong, discussing why it is wrong? For example, I'd love to see a critique of what is wrong with:

http://alternativephysics.org/book/GPSmythology.htm

...which makes the claim that you don't need to correct for relativistic effects for GPS to work correctly. I don't see an immediate, obvious flaw in his thinking, so I think it would be great to have as a conversation starter with someone more knowledgeable.

In fact, thinking about it more, doesn't stack overflow essentially depend on people being wrong and needing correction?

Was it a regulator paperwork hurdle? Regulations themselves? High cost of labor? No skilled labor available? High cost of warehouse/manufacturing floor space? All-of-the-above?

Some historian somewhere must have come across records of how long a chariot wheel lasted. It seems like that would have as close to a similar loading as a bicycle. 100 miles? 1,000?

>recommended against by NIST

As a layman who has too many passwords that rotate too often to keep in memory effectively, I'd like to pass this along to our IT department. Can someone post a link to the NIST best password practices?

That link was 404 for me. Maybe this will work better?

https://www.pine64.org/2020/12/02/pine-store-community-prici...

Is there a word for waiting-for-a-twist-that-never-comes? I keep thinking that the Australia Project was really a front for Manna "leveling up" and secretly turning the Terraform dwellers into Vites to further keep them easier to control and out of sight.

I wonder how communities like the Amish fit into the larger scheme of things. It seems like they've decided to ignore anything later than the 1700's technology. Are there other groups with different technology cut-off dates? If not, any theories as to why not? Do you need a religious component to keep you cohesive over the generations? I think I might be OK with regressing to a 1980's level of technology. I wonder how large of a group of people would you need to be mostly self-sufficient at various technology levels. It seems like you might need a lot of people, if you wanted to have even very old-school integrated circuits. Probably quite a bit fewer if you only had discrete transistors. It seems like sustaining at a previous level should be easier than inventing it in the first place, since the knowledge is already available. And you could siphon off a bit from the more advanced society (e.g. you can potentially use scrap materials left over from the advanced society, instead of maintaining your own mining technology, etc.). And you could still have some (lopsided) trade between the societies (anyone want a bespoke Walkman produced by a skilled 1980's artisan?). Any thoughts on the estimates below?

  - 1700's, 100's of people in your community (crude metalworking)
  - 1800's, 1000's of people in your community (machines needing more metalworking and machining skills)
  - 1900-1940, 100,000 people (radio)
  - 1940-1980, 1,000,000 people (TV, automobiles)
  - 1980-2000, 10,000,000 people (personal computer, mass air travel)

I wonder if we could grade how much better a current system is vs something like the QNX 1.44MB demo disk.

http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html

>Riemann hypothesis for example

I'll recommend reading the chapter on the Riemann Hypothesis from the book: The Millennium Problems by Keith Devlin.

https://www.amazon.com/Millennium-Problems-Greatest-Unsolved...

That has about 42 pages of prose describing the problem in layman terms. I'd think someone who tackled high school math should be able to follow it. Dr. Devlin also has a good Coursera course on an introduction to mathematics.

>lack of practical examples

Maybe check out: Geometric Algebra For Computer Science

https://geometricalgebra.org/

...there's at least a chapter on a ray tracer, if that is practical enough.

Anyone know of research on other types of these "fatigues"? I could see "advocacy fatigue" being a thing.

LibGen?

"Shannon's Measure of Information and the Thermodynamic Entropy" https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3703629

  - Entropy Demystified: The Second Law Reduced To Plain Common Sense 

(https://www.amazon.com/Entropy-Demystified-Second-Reduced-Co...)

  - A Farewell to Entropy 

(https://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Entropy-Statistical-Thermody...)

  - Discover Entropy and the Second Law 

(https://www.amazon.com/Discover-Entropy-Second-Law-Thermodyn...)

  - Entropy And The Second Law: Interpretation And Misss-Interpretationsss 

(https://www.amazon.com/Entropy-Second-Law-Interpretation-Mis...)

  - Information, Entropy, Life and the Universe 

(https://www.amazon.com/Information-Entropy-Life-Universe-Wha...)

  - Entropy: The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth 

(https://www.amazon.com/Entropy-Truth-Whole-Nothing-But/dp/98...)

  - Four Laws That Do Not Drive The Universe, The: Elements Of Thermodynamics For The Curious And Intelligent 

(https://www.amazon.com/Four-Laws-That-Drive-Universe/dp/9813...)

  - TIME'S ARROW (?): The Timeless Nature of Entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics 

(https://www.amazon.com/TIMES-ARROW-Timeless-Entropy-Thermody...)

  - Entropy for Smart Kids and their Curious Parents 

(https://www.amazon.com/Entropy-Smart-their-Curious-Parents/d...)

>has anyone formalized the idea that the second law can be interpreted as a general inability of computer programs to predict one another?

Arieh Ben Naim thinks entropy is better described by Shannon's Measure of Information. I haven't actually read any of his books, but I've been meaning to "one of these days".

http://ariehbennaim.com/books/index.html

If you haven't started investigating the "new" CGRP medications, you need to. There are several on the market now, and it is a once-a-month injection. These have been a real life-saver for me. Going from 15 headache days per month to 3. And the attacks are also less sever.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cgrp+migraine

Just to be more consistent with the rest of the prefixes, which are all (integer) powers of 1,000. And because engineering notation is a thing. And because we normally group digits by the thousands (e.g. 1,000,000). Curious if anyone has come across a mechanical drawing or electrical schematic with oddball units like cm, hN-m, or deciFarads, daOhms and the like (daPa, hH).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_notation

>Medical bankruptcies represent 62% of all personal bankruptcies.

The 62% number generally comes from: https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343%2809%2900404-5/pdf

    Table 2
    Debtor said medical bills were reason for bankruptcy  29.0%
    Medical bills >$5000 or >10% of annual family income  34.7%
    Mortgaged home to pay medical bills                    5.7%
    Medical bill problems (any of above 3)                57.1%
    Debtor or spouse lost >=2 weeks of income due         38.2%
     to illness or became completely disabled
    Debtor or spouse lost >=2 weeks of income to           6.8%
     care for ill family member
    Income loss due to illness (either of above 2)        40.3%
    Debtor said medical problem of self or spouse         32.1%
     was reason for bankruptcy
    Debtor said medical problem of other family           10.8%
    Any of above                                          62.1%

>Do you still have coverage if you get laid off?

https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/health-plans/cobra

The thing that always makes we wonder in these types of online health care discussions, is why Medicaid and Medicare are ignored. This is a genuine question, since I'm privileged enough to have a job with good health insurance, and I don't have personal experience with those programs.

> What's the problem with something concrete like kg/sqcm

kg isn't a measure of force. And the world will be a nicer place once we retire the oddball prefixes of centi, deci, deka, and hecto.

Thanks. I also found:

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/490524/evaporati...

I wonder how charge evaporates from a charged black hole? And does it do so at a rate that is different from the mass? i.e. does most of the mass evaporate away, and then the charge?