A cartographer ranked nine xkcd map projections[1]. He reverse engineered several and remade them with R.
[1] https://geospatialstuff.com/posts/2025/05/16/xkcd-bad-projec...
905 karma · joined July 20, 2014
[1] https://geospatialstuff.com/posts/2025/05/16/xkcd-bad-projec...
> i want to learn python and/or programming and am considering looking at the copyparty source code in that occasion
> do not
McCord began by reviewing the current scripted and templated Phoenix code generator. He then showed how a tool-invoking LLM agent could be implemented in one screen of Elixir code. The bulk of his talk demonstrated generating apps with the Phoenix.new tool. It was interesting to see the tool generate development plan and begin coding to implement the plan.
I was fascinated to hear McCord explain and critique the LLM agent as it generated a Phoenix app.
"[It's] going to come up with a plan for our app and codify that into a Markdown file."
"Now it's going to take our high-level plan and make it into an expanded plan for us and itself."
"You can say, 'I changed the plan; execute the plan.'"
"We just recursed in the server and we did a req post. It's doing a req post right now and the tokens are coming back!"
"The agent just invoked a tool, which is 'I'm going to create a file.'"
"Hopefully it does a 'surgical modify tool,' which makes it not have to modify the whole file."
"A run-time error! Oh, no! Live coding is terrible. Oh, wait. It knows I need to add some missing functions here."
"You would be like, 'Oh, no, the page broke. What happened? I'm going to look at this error.' We just send that thing back to the chat completions endpoint and magic comes out and fixes the error."
"It didn't change a web file. We should fix that."
"This is an issue that humans hit; Steff and I need to fix that."
"It added the input at the bottom. That's not ideal."
"The agent decided to idle here. ... The way I implemented this is everything the agent responds with is a tool call and it has an idle tool and that's what it invokes when it is done."
In January 1979, Byte Magazine's Language Forum contained the article, "IPS, An Unorthodox High Level Language."[1] The article described IPS, a language based on Forth, but with the word names translated to German. Thus, Forth's SWAP became VERT, short for vertauschen. The intriguing article concluded with a reference to Charles Moore's 1974 paper, "FORTH, a New Way to Program a Minicomputer,"[2] which was discussed on HN in 2022.[3]
I had recently assembled a Quest Electronics Super Elf computer[4] with an expanded memory size of 4 KB. The IPS article mentioned implementations under 6 KB for 8080, 6502, and RCA COSMAC microprocessors, so I thought Forth might fit. The Super Elf included an 1861 video display controller chip, with a resolution of 64 x 128 pixels (big pixels!). I designed a font of 3 x 5 pixel characters to provide 21 lines of 16 characters. Good luck distinguishing M, N, H, U, and W without some context. I bought a (possibly surplus) keyboard from Radio Shack and screwed it onto a wedge of wood to achieve a usable typing angle.
Moore's paper described about 75 Forth words. I wrote them on index cards and jotted down Forth definitions or RCA 1802 assembly code. I wrote an 1802 assembler in Fortran to ease the conversion into 1802 machine code. I still have the printouts and punch cards in storage.
Development proceeded slowly. During a break at work, I would punch my assembly code for a few Forth words, run the assembler, and bring home the printout. That night I would load previous work into the Super Elf from cassette tape, key in the new words (and changes) via the Super Elf's hex keypad, and save back to another cassette tape. Then I would test the new Forth words and note any changes needed on the printout. Lather, rinse, and repeat until, at last, it all worked.
The finished Forth system consumed a little more than 3 KB of the 4 KB of memory. User programs, data, and Forth stacks occupied the remaining memory. The R key stuck. The @ symbol was a 3 x 5 pixel blob (this is the very important Forth memory fetch operator). But it worked!
I demonstrated the system at the local personal computer club--spun off from the local ham radio club. Based on their enthusiasm, I advanced to developing tinyForth[5] for the TRS-80, a story for another day.
[1] https://archive.org/details/BYTE-MAGAZINE-COMPLETE/197901_By...
[2] https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1974A%2526AS...15..4...
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33134663
[4] https://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/super_elf.html
[5] https://archive.org/details/80-microcomputing-magazine-1980-...
In 1921, the steel mainmast on the six-masted schooner Edward J. Lawrence was bent as the vessel was being towed under the bridge at high tide. [2]
In 1935, the first three of four steel masts were bent as the Hamburg-American freighter Tirpitz passed northward under the bridge during an "abnormally high tide." [3]
In 1986, a radar was knocked out of commission when the South Korean freighter Hai Soo scraped the bridge while heading south. [4]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/nyregion/brooklyn-bridge-...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/1921/02/04/archives/ship-bends-mast-...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/1935/10/03/archives/masts-of-freight...
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/1986/04/11/nyregion/new-york-day-by-...
[1] https://forum.devtalk.com/t/how-to-run-deepseek-on-your-mac-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Anvil_bibliography...
TLDR: Too late to be included in the bi-millenium vault, a Smithsonian researcher discovers an audio recording accidentally inscribed on a c. 1280 pot by a pointy tool cutting a decorative spiral. After listening to the banal conversation recorded on the pot, the researcher wonders about the contents of the vault to be opened in a thousand years: “What makes you think we’ve done any better?”
The book's blurb claims it "... traces how the Kelly formula sparked controversy even as it made fortunes at race tracks, casinos, and trading desks. It reveals the dark side of this alluring scheme, which is founded on exploiting an insider’s edge."
The book is light on math and strong on stories about and interviews with people using the Kelly criterion.
[1] https://www.carnegielibrary.org/staff-picks/thursday-next-se...
> Here are the questions, verbatim, and composed before I had any idea of what any of the answers might be:
The funds were intended to be loaned to aspiring tradesmen, who would repay their loans with interest over ten years. The two cities would receive some of the funds for public works after 100 years and the balance after 200 years. Both cities failed to manage the funds as Franklin intended.
From Meyer's book, I learned more about Benjamin Franklin's life, about the challenges of fund management, and about the difficulty of controlling events from beyond the grave.
[1] https://www.harpercollins.com/products/benjamin-franklins-la...
[1] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/robot-writes-engineers...
[2] https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/I-Forced-a-Bot-to-Wri...
Autumn: Vendémiaire (vintage), Brumaire (winter cold), and Frimaire (frost)
Winter: Nivôse (snowy), Pluviôse (rainy), and Ventôse (windy)
Spring: Germinal (germination), Floréal (flower), and Prairial (meadow)
Summer: Messidor (harvest), Thermidor (summer heat), and Fructidor (fruit)
In Britain, a contemporary wit mocked the Republican Calendar by calling the months: Wheezy, Sneezy, and Freezy; Slippy, Drippy, and Nippy; Showery, Flowery, and Bowery; Hoppy, Croppy, and Poppy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar