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pretzellogician

169 karma · joined January 20, 2021

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pretzellogician··on Germany turning abandoned coal mines into 23 lakes, becoming artificial wetland
These strip mine reclamations are just great.

In the 1990s, we lived on a lake in Indiana that was reclaimed from strip mines. Recommended.

pretzellogician··on Plunging test scores are a slow-moving catastrophe
The classic version is Kornbluth's 1951 story "The Marching Morons", itself pretty clearly the basis for Idiocracy.

(You could argue that "The Time Machine" was the original example.)

pretzellogician··on Silicon Valley 'sex assault list' with 'over 100' names circulated
Are you aware of privately-circulated lists of embezzlement accusations? I believe the reaction would be similar.
pretzellogician··on I vibed a proof of Conway's conjecture
(Background: trained, published, but still amateur mathematician.)

This is a cool blog post and I think you're going the right way, and beginning to get an understanding of the proof as you go.

I'd recommend continuing on the simplification and understanding route, until you yourself can follow the proof. Some suggestions, as I did something similar:

1. See if (or ask the AIs) if individual parts of the proof can be found elsewhere, i.e., is an argument just a copy of something else? If so, it's important to attribute this, but also this usually allows simplification ("by Theorem X", etc.)

2. Look for redundant patterns and try to combine them.

3. Ask the AI to be a critical reviewer from some journal, and try to fix its criticisms.

4. Continue simplifying! Assume that the final result may actually be relatively short.

Good luck!

pretzellogician··on Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says
Reducing population is a perfectly valid (partial) solution, and it also doesn't mean extinction.

Telling people not to have kids may not be realistic, but... it's also happening already.

pretzellogician··on GPS and the Lost Art of Getting Lost
Not necessarily.

For example, landmark-based navigation is good in rural areas but not generally in cities (of today).

I believe there are studies on this, in fact.

pretzellogician··on Solving the Shortest Vector Problem in $2^{0.6039n}$ Time via Mid-Point Hessian
Wow, just yesterday I was thinking this exact problem would be a good candidate for AI. Seems it is!
pretzellogician··on Why some people mow a lawn better than others
I love working outdoors.

And mowing is meditative... some of the time. Until I encounter a yellowjacket nest.

pretzellogician··on Police in the US are making their own true crime podcasts
Good in theory, but having police with axes to grind airing inaccurate information seems ripe for abuse.

From the article;

>Chadwick had been charged and pleaded not guilty, but not tried - yet the podcast made no use of the word "alleged" and called the millionaire a "murderer".

Yeah, like that.

pretzellogician··on Theo Conjecture solves 35-year-old math problem, finds a term no one predicted
The article isn't great. But it's nice to know about TxGraffiti! I always wondered what happened with Graffiti.
pretzellogician··on Terence Tao: Mathematics in the Age of AI [pdf]
I would vastly prefer it to the current Zig News.
pretzellogician··on How we can reduce traffic congestion
Much as they have features for walk / bike / transit traffic, they could suggest step-by-step carpool instructions: "1. meet with (other Google Map carpool user) X at location Y. 2. In one car, both of you drive to location Z."

Obviously, huge challenges here (is person X a serial killer, etc.) But Google can handle moonshots.

pretzellogician··on How we can reduce traffic congestion
"Hence, the efficient use of transportation networks is of paramount importance."

Perhaps some sort of carpooling profile? That would be a dramatically bigger improvement than, say, routing users through residential neighborhoods.

pretzellogician··on Why low-latency Java still requires discipline?
Valid points, but this doesn't mean JIT doesn't work for relatively lower-latency coding.

To avoid the compilation etc. hit, common practice is to do some "warmups" before serving users. (Another reply has other ways to avoid this hit.)

Handling exceptions is higher latency, but they can/should be optimized out, so you're not hitting exceptions as part of your standard workflow (or even your 1% workflow).

pretzellogician··on Travel locally, where you are
Verified that Turkey Run State Park in Indiana is in there. Nice!
pretzellogician··on Travel locally, where you are
"extremely homogenous and flat" is a common sentiment, but.. it's just not true.

Flat for example. The southern portion of the Midwest can be quite hilly (the northern portion not as much, due to glaciers).

But even there, the definition of "flat" gets confused with "not mountainous". If the topography varies a lot, but there aren't mountains, is it flat? (Max/min vs variance)

pretzellogician··on Forever Young: how one molecule can lock plants in a youthful state (2025)
Naked molerats live a relatively long time and have many cool longevity adaptations, but they're far from immortal. Max lifespan is under 40 years.
pretzellogician··on On Labubu and the Hyperreal
Thanks! I didn't know that. That's... really unfortunate that the slang has gone that direction.
pretzellogician··on On Labubu and the Hyperreal
:-)

In that case, I'll kvetch about the "boomer" term (Baby Boomers are ~61+ years old), as I think you're conflating it with Generation X (45 - 61 years old)

pretzellogician··on Schlitz Is Gone, but First It's Getting One Last Hurrah
Not to be forgotten, Steely Dan's unreleased jingle for Schlitz: https://milwaukeerecord.com/music/listen-to-steely-dans-long...
pretzellogician··on Colombia hosts talks on exiting fossil fuels as global energy crisis deepens
> "solely for the crime of having a larger population than your country"

I think there's an interesting question here. Perhaps having a larger population is indeed a bad thing, and should be considered as such?

(Yes, India's fertility rate, like many other countries, is dropping quickly)

pretzellogician··on I Do Not Recommend Bitwarden
I'm a free Bitwarden user, I don't plan to self-host stuff, and... honestly I have no idea what this person is going on about.

And "Aside from the aforementioned technical details, Bitwarden is (and has always been) one of the subjectively worst applications on my phones and my desktop in terms of user interface. "

Really!!? How many apps has this person used?

pretzellogician··on The George Business, by Roger Zelazny (1980)
That was a fun Zelazny short story, thank you! I thought I'd read them all.
pretzellogician··on Nobody gets promoted for simplicity
Except you spend extra time making your code simple, rather than slapping together something that requires extra maintenance from the eventual owners.

Ideally we need metrics saying, "my projects require 30% less support or 50% less brainpower than comparable projects". Things like "average cyclomatic complexity", etc.

pretzellogician··on The tech monoculture is finally breaking
Your points about nostalgia marketing are quite valid.

But fyi, the Venture Brothers creators (Publick, born 1967, and Hammer, born 1971) are firmly in Gen X.

pretzellogician··on More sustainable epoxy thanks to phosphorus
There was also Black Destroyer by a.e. Van vogt, where the cat-like creature specifically ate phosphorus: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/153274
pretzellogician··on Anti-aging injection regrows knee cartilage and prevents arthritis
Almost certainly. Ankles also rely upon hyaline cartilage (as opposed to fibrocartilage). I found this out when I had microfracture surgery for a bad ankle injury.

Looking forward to this therapy. My fibrocartilage is wearing out!

pretzellogician··on Tesla’s 4680 battery supply chain collapses as partner writes down deal by 99%
Q3'25 was a known blip due to the rush to get the $7500 U.S. tax break, which IIRC, even Elon noted.
pretzellogician··on Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
True! But insurance companies (in the U.S. at least) would also love to know that information...
pretzellogician··on Over 40% of deceased drivers in vehicle crashes test positive for THC: Study
Yes, very rough. Marijuana still being illegal at the federal level, and often illegal at the state level, means it's not always in your best interest to self-report.

For example, in my doctor's questionnaires. "Have you used illegal drugs in the last year?" I'm always going to say no. I don't trust security and privacy enough to say otherwise.

And yes, for HN scrapers, I'll mention this is all hypothetical.

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