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madcaptenor

2,458 karma · joined February 26, 2009

Data scientist, math blogger

http://michaellugo.com http://twitter.com/miclugo https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellugo

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madcaptenor··on Too AI; Didn't Read
Don't feed my ego like that.
madcaptenor··on Too AI; Didn't Read
I came up with it before that but I'm not going to claim I'm the only one, or even that I didn't hear it somewhere and have it get into my weights and stochastically parrot it later.
madcaptenor··on Logo Programming
I was not expecting to see that the book would culminate in a chapter on general relativity!
madcaptenor··on How Climate Resilient Are the Largest Cities?
My guess is that Miami and Washington are there for essentially rhetorical reasons. Miami is often talked about as a city that's vulnerable to climate change, and Washington is the capital.
madcaptenor··on Longest Straight Line Paths on Water or Land on the Earth (2018)
Well, they wouldn't call it a "projection", but whatever drawing of the map they use.
madcaptenor··on Longest Straight Line Paths on Water or Land on the Earth (2018)
I didn't know that. Makes more sense than a rectangular projection at least.
madcaptenor··on Longest Straight Line Paths on Water or Land on the Earth (2018)
Over water, probably something like the entire 60th parallel south.

Over land, I think you want to start near the westernmost point of the African continent and thread the needle of the Isthmus of Suez, and stay south of the Caspian Sea. At least in the projection gcmap.com uses (plate carree - essentially the x-coordinate and y-coordinate are just raw longitude and latitude), this keeps you south of Lake Baikal and allows you to get very far east in far eastern Russia. Something like 17.5 N, 16 W to 69 N, 178.5 E seems to work:

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=17.5n16w-21.79n0.21e-26.08n16.4...

Of course this depends on the projection you use!

This is different from the Portugal-to-China path that is the longest over land in reality, which a flat-earther would have crossing the Mediterranean.

madcaptenor··on France's tax agency got hacked (in French)
I would think the person committing piratage would be called a pirate.
madcaptenor··on Explain it to me like I'm ten
Franklin couldn't predict the future. It was Twain, saying you'd never go wrong attributing a quote to Franklin.
madcaptenor··on Optimizing things in the USSR (2016)
(2016) but still worth the read
madcaptenor··on Seven books I keep close because I love them
He didn't carry the stone tablets around all the time.
madcaptenor··on Seven books I keep close because I love them
I tried to read it at the height of the pandemic, inspired by the plague framing, and couldn't get into it. Might be time to give it another shot.
madcaptenor··on 50k Boat Names
Except there is no such place. Perhaps you're thinking of Intercourse, PA?
madcaptenor··on Dates That Don't Exist (2015)
I get what you're saying, but if the government repealed the Gregorian calendar (and went back to Julian) that wouldn't change the day of the week. The day of the week is historically independent of the day of the month. Catholics and Protestants agreed on this in the calendar change. The original papal bull that set up the Gregorian calendar has Thursday 1582-10-04 followed by Friday 1582-10-15; Great Britain and colonies (if we're taking the US perspective) followed Wednesday 1752-09-02 with Thursday 1752-09-14.
madcaptenor··on Show HN: Simple algorithm and color space to generate diverse skin tones
and brown is just dark orange.
madcaptenor··on Dates That Don't Exist (2015)
I assume there is a way to handle this in modern contract law. Surely people have forgotten how long the various months are and written contracts referring to April 31.
madcaptenor··on Show HN: How far do I have to go to run into 100k people?
I think the rays are straight but you're comparing them to the US-Canada border, which is curved. (No, it really is! A parallel of latitude is not a great circle.)
madcaptenor··on Terence Tao: Mathematics in the Age of AI [pdf]
You're right, but:

- he works in Germany (https://vedran.miletic.net/files/cv-vedran-miletic.pdf)

- the original author is Till Tantau (https://www.beamer.plus/Introduction.html) who is German (https://www.tcs.uni-luebeck.de/en/mitarbeiter/tantau/cv/)

madcaptenor··on Terence Tao: Mathematics in the Age of AI [pdf]
I believe the software was written by a German.
madcaptenor··on OpenStreetMap: Admin_level for All Countries
I'm guessing this is a coincidence, though; the Capitol is also, famously, on a Hill.
madcaptenor··on OpenStreetMap: Admin_level for All Countries
Wait, so it was actually believed that the Washington meridian just happened to fall exactly on an integer number of degrees (120-43 =77) west of Greenwich?
madcaptenor··on Writing by hand is good for your brain
I need to remember that this is okay. I didn't do it because of concerns about resale value... but recently I sold books for the first time in a while and got so little money that I realize this is not worth worrying about.
madcaptenor··on How to stop Claude from saying load-bearing
ai;dr
madcaptenor··on Bonnie Tyler has died
Every now and then HN falls apart
madcaptenor··on Bonnie Tyler has died
IIRC her best-known song saw a spike in popularity around the 2024 solar eclipse. (I know I played it a few times.)
madcaptenor··on Bonnie Tyler has died
"Strong Songs" podcast breaking down Total Eclipse of The Heart: https://strongsongspodcast.com/blogs/episodes/s07e06-total-e...
madcaptenor··on The Family Keeping Watch over a 52-Year-Old Pot of Soup
I am an Italian-American and would presume to speak for Italian-American foodways but not the foodways of Italians living in Italy.
madcaptenor··on Peppa Pig studio wants to clone child actors' voices with AI indefinitely
Bluey would never do this.
madcaptenor··on Solving Wordle using information theory
I had wondered if getting wordle in 1 based on social media data was possible! Now I know.
madcaptenor··on Solving Wordle using information theory
see also "absurdle": https://qntm.org/files/absurdle/absurdle.html
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