Hacker News Reader

michael_dorfmanon 8192+ bit RSA keys in OS X

Or, channeling Ken Thompson: Unless the tentacles extend to the compiler you use to compile the compiler you use to compile the free software.

(Lather. Rinse. Repeat.)

michael_dorfmanon A Holiday in Honor of the Korean Writing System

> Please read about the alphabet system of Sanskrit and various modern languages that derives from Sanskrit

The Sanskrit alphabet is very elegant indeed, but Sanskrit doesn't have a writing system. None of the various scripts used to encode Sanskrit (Siddham, Lantsa, Devanagari, Kharoshti etc.) are, in my opinion, anywhere near as well-structured as the Sanskrit alphabet.

>In addition to that, sanskrit alphabets encompasses almost every possible consonant and vowel sounds that a human can generate.

That's nowhere near true; listen to some languages like Xhosa, or even a tonal language like Chinese, and try to transliterate them using Sanskrit.

>Sanskrit grammar is again another beautiful and well thought creation that is considered the best grammar to be used for scientific work.

Sanskrit grammar is highly regular, which is why it is used in some AI applications, but there's no reason to think it is "the best grammar to be used for scientific work." And, as structured as Sanskrit grammar is, it still opens itself up to ambiguities-- it is nowhere near as clean as an artificial language would be.

Sanskrit is a great language, but there's no need to oversell it.

michael_dorfmanon I was struck by lightning yesterday—and boy am I sore

I worked in an IT department of about 20, of which two employees had each been hit twice.

michael_dorfmanon Pirates playing a game dev simulator complain about piracy

It's a reference to a famous quote by Sweden's trade minister in 1999, who said "Norway is the last Soviet State"

michael_dorfmanon Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?

If a headline is phrased as a question, the answer is always "no." If the answer were "yes", they wouldn't have phrased it as a question.

michael_dorfmanon Turing

But his paper “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem” (the one that gave the world the Turing Machine) has a bug in it. In fact, it has two. The first is obvious enough that I spotted it when i read the paper for the first time. The second bug is rather more subtle (but still fixable. It’s okay, the field of computing is not build on sand).

I'd love to see the identification of these-- it seems quite perverse to mention them in a blog posting without at least a footnote giving the details.

michael_dorfmanon [dead]

See the FAQ (http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

michael_dorfmanon Printed books existed nearly 600 years before Gutenberg’s Bible

And, actually, last week was the 1144th anniversary of the printing of the oldest book for which we have a precise date:

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/05/dayintech_0511/

michael_dorfmanon Plagiarism

Someone has to explain to me exactly what we should have done differently here.

I'll give it a shot. What you should have done, in my opinion, is just provide a link alongside a one-line summary, along the lines of "Here's an article we found fascinating."

If the article you are writing is based on a single source, it's not an article-- it's a paraphrase.

We work immensely had to product original content as well as link to original sources when deserved...this case was absolutely no different.

so, which was this? It was more than a link, but it surely doesn't qualify as "original content" by any stretch of the imagination.

michael_dorfmanon A story about Miles Davis and the nature of true genius

Yes, but Bill Evans did the arrangements on Kind of Blue; he is also rumoured to have composed several of the songs (although they are credited to Miles.)

michael_dorfmanon A story about Miles Davis and the nature of true genius

No; Bill Evans and Gil Evans are two different people (and both collaborated with Miles.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Evans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Evans

michael_dorfmanon I made a game in my spare time. With your help, my game can beat Zynga.

Wow, you sure did this wrong. A post like this is going to be aggressively ignored, I imagine. If, on the other hand, you had written a solid blog post about what you've done, and what you've learned doing it, you would have likely gone to the front page, and garnered a lot of attention for yourself (and goodwill from the friendly denizens here.)

michael_dorfmanon Learn to read the source, Luke

Just glancing over at my bookshelf, how about Tanenbaum's OSDI and Knuth's MMIXware?

michael_dorfmanon Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem explained

> But if a person accepts the Church Turing Thesis, then the human brain is not doing any computation that can't be modeled by a Turing Machine. In fact, the brain is at least a Turing Machine. Gödel's limitations will apply to it.

That's not the case. If one accepts the Church Turing Thesis, then those functions the brain performs on effectively calculable functions can be performed on a Turing Machine. The brain is at least a Turing Machine, but may be greatly more than one, and Gödel's limitations will only apply to that portion doing calculations. The brain may very well be doing a great deal more than simple computation.

Thus, when you write I argue that the mind is a program that runs on that Turing machine, you're leaping off into wild speculation.

michael_dorfmanon Self-contained, Internet-less Wikipedia machine.

> Again and again, this topic keeps coming up and the surprising truth is: paper is the answer. Don't discount it.

Paper is good, but clay tablets FTW.

michael_dorfmanon Tacocopter - Flying Robots Deliver Tacos To You

I know of someone (here in Norway) trying to build up a business doing precisely this (filming things, such as snowboard and ski events) via a remote-controlled helicopter.

It sounds like a cool project.

michael_dorfmanon Ask HN: Surgery for RSI injuries? Running out of options...

Have you spoken to a physical therapist?

There's quite a bit of space on the spectrum between "trying things on your own" and "surgery".

michael_dorfmanon 5 Graph Databases to Consider

Actually, this article is about 5 Graph DBMS's.

If you are (like me) more interested in looking for Graph Databases to consider, it looks like Knuth's "Stanford GraphBase" is still the go-to source.

michael_dorfmanon George Dyson's continued downplaying of British computing efforts is tiresome

The mythmaking around the early history of computing is fascinating (and maddening) to watch. In the rush to create compelling narratives around a few selected heroes, the complexities and the contributions of the many are too often shunted aside.

michael_dorfmanon [dead]

Looks like you've been hellbanned.

If I had to guess, I'd say it was because of too many submissions getting flagged.

michael_dorfmanon Standing invitation: if you want to talk software, I want to talk to you

That's a wonderful offer, Patrick. Your generosity (with your time and knowledge) is, as always, inspiring.

michael_dorfmanon A neat way to fold a sheet of paper

I found the link here:http://www.cartesia.org/geodoc/icc2005/pdf/oral/TEMA3/Sessio..., and the map-folding concept described there is pretty sweet.

michael_dorfmanon Notifications are Evil

The decision about when to be notified or not, and what's important vs. unimportant, should be your decision, not your computer's.

But isn't that the status quo?

I can't think of any piece of software I use that doesn't give me a fairly easy way to temporarily turn off the notifications. I don't want to get notified by Facebook? No problem, I shut it down. Don't want to be interrupted by my telephone? I put it in silent mode. Etc., etc.

michael_dorfmanon How a big movie studio (unfairly) forced a student to give up his senior thesis

Not according to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry

(Note: I am not a lawyer.)

michael_dorfmanon Crypto shocker: four of every 1,000 public keys provide no security

Wow, what a terrible headline. Even by the usual linkbait standards, this is egregious.

michael_dorfmanon How a big movie studio (unfairly) forced a student to give up his senior thesis

The technical term is "barratry", and it is illegal in some jurisdictions, but not all.

michael_dorfmanon Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management

If the employer has a policy against discussing compensation, they are in violation of the law. Full stop.

Companies not complying with labor laws should be avoided, for your own protection.

It's that simple.

michael_dorfmanon Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management

Whether or not it is a good idea to do so is not the point. The point is that it is against the law for the company to prohibit those discussion (as the company in the OP did). Companies that have policies in violation of labor laws are probably not the best places to be working.

michael_dorfmanon Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management

I think you are misunderstanding the point. The NLRA grants you the right to discuss your wages with your co-workers. Companies are not allowed to prohibit this, and more people should be made aware of their rights under the NLRA.

michael_dorfmanon A "Moneyball" statician predicted Jeremy Lin's success 2 years ago

Wouldn't it be more noteworthy if we weren't able to find one analyst who predicted Lin? With the number of amateur analysts, and the number of players, you'd think that its likely there's a web page somewhere plugging every prospect.