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tr352

387 karma · joined January 28, 2015

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tr352··on Discontinued Microsoft Products
One interesting discontinued Microsoft product missing in this list is Xenix.
tr352··on Jetstar pilots forgot to lower the landing gear
Ha! I know that pilot. Indeed a very experienced man. In case anyone wonders: that airplane was fixed and flies again.
tr352··on ZedRipper: A 16-core Z80 laptop
This is a new art form. I love it.
tr352··on Mourning the End of Paper Maps
And flying.
tr352··on Gen: Probabilistic programming system with programmable inference
[shameless plug]

This might not answer your question directly, but it is perhaps useful to know that the probabilistic programming approach can also be applied in non-probabilistic (non-statistical) ways. I developed a ranked programming language, which is like a probabilistic programming language without probabilities. Instead, you state how your program normally behaves and how it may exceptionally behave. Conceptually it's very similar to probabilistic programming, but the underlying uncertainty formalism is replaced with ranking theory, which works with integer-valued degrees of surprise.

You can find an implementation of this idea (based on Scheme/Racket) here:

https://github.com/tjitze/ranked-programming

For more detailed information check the paper linked to on that page.

tr352··on A general-purpose probabilistic programming system with programmable inference
[shameless plug]

Ranked programming is like probabilistic programming but you don't use probabilities. Instead, you state how your program normally behaves and how it may exceptionally behave. Conceptually it's very similar to probabilistic programming, but the underlying uncertainty formalism is replaced with ranking theory.

You can find an implementation of this idea (based on Scheme/Racket) here:

https://github.com/tjitze/ranked-programming

For more detailed information check the paper linked to on that page.

tr352··on Racket v7.2
Currently working with DrRacket 7.2 on Mac OS X. What bugs me is that everything becomes unresponsive while executing heavy stuff or code that does not terminate. The stop/kill button usually does nothing and force-quitting the app is the only option. I tried the latest Racket-on-Chez build which seems much better in this regard, but is over-all rather sluggish. Hope this will improve.
tr352··on France might be losing its first big information war
> It's possible that the article, in itself, is a kind of propaganda (...)

No. It's just poor reasoning with a click-baity headline.

tr352··on France might be losing its first big information war
While I too worry about political influence through abuse of social media, this article doesn't prove that this actually took place.

What we see here is that there are some very dubious twitter accounts with some interactions. But are these meaningful interactions? Did any of the content reach and influence the supposed target audience? Are the communities shown in the Gephi graph real communities? These communities and their interactions could just as well be fake. When I was working on exactly this, I noticed that fake communities (i.e. sets of fake accounts all retweeting each other) are quite common.

Just look at the specific accounts mentioned (Pascal66616113 and 1Happeningnow). They have only 2 and 51 followers, respectively, and right now it's 4 and 72.

I think it's very important to detect malicious political accounts on social media and be aware of their impact. This article mentions two examples of such accounts, but doesn't prove anything about impact. The conclusion that France is losing an information war here doesn't follow.

tr352··on 5th December 1978: Acorn Computers Ltd Formed in Cambridge, UK
And the low budget Acorn Electron, a kind of stripped down and partially compatible BBC.

As I understand it, the Electron was a bit of a commercial failure. However this caused remaining stock to be dumped (at least in the Netherlands) at rock bottom prices. My primary school teacher was a big fan of them, and installed a couple of them at our primary school. I got to borrow one for a summer break (1990?). My first forays into Basic programming, as well as trying to understand German, since that was the language in which the accompanying Basic manual was written.

tr352··on How to Almost Learn Italian
You may have the patience but I do suspect that the majority of people doesn’t.

I also don’t think it is necessarily about respect or admiration. In day to day interactions, people just prefer to use the most efficient means available to understand and be understood. Like using English instead of a clumsy beginners level of Spanish.

tr352··on Paradoxes of Material Implication (1997)
Let me copy/paste my reply from the same discussion yesterday (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18531650):

There's another "solution" to this paradox: if we assert something we are guided by a set of "conversational principles". For example, asserting "X implies Y" if we know that X is false is inappropriate. If X is false, "not-X" would be the appropriate assertion.

According to this theory, there's nothing wrong with the truth-functional meaning of "X implies Y". We just need to take into account what is implied by asserting "X implies Y", rather than e.g. "not-X", or "X and Y".

Same with disjunction: "X or Y" is true if we know that X is true. However, if we assert "X or Y", it is implied that we're not certain that X is true, otherwise we would have used "X", which is the simplest way to convey what that fact.

This is known as Grice's Pragmatic Defence of Truth-Functionality.

tr352··on Paradoxes of Material Implication (1997)
There's another "solution" to this paradox: if we assert something we are guided by a set of "conversational principles". For example, asserting "X implies Y" if we know that X is false is inappropriate. If X is false, "not-X" would be the appropriate assertion.

According to this theory, there's nothing wrong with the truth-functional meaning of "X implies Y". We just need to take into account what is implied by asserting "X implies Y", rather than e.g. "not-X", or "X and Y".

Same with disjunction: "X or Y" is true if we know that X is true. However, if we assert "X or Y", it is implied that we're not certain that X is true, otherwise we would have used "X", which is the simplest way to convey what that fact.

This is known as Grice's Pragmatic Defence of Truth-Functionality.

tr352··on Alchian–Allen effect
You're right, I meant the exact opposite: an even exchange is good if you're ahead, bad when you're behind.
tr352··on Alchian–Allen effect
Yes you're right, I meant the exact opposite.
tr352··on Alchian–Allen effect
Similar to an even exchange in chess. If you’re behind it’s a good deal, if you’re ahead it’s bad. Of course evaluating value taking into account positions (and thus determining whether an exchange is really “even”) is not straightforward.
tr352··on The Source History of Cat
I think we have to distinguish computer science from engineering here. Computer science is a branch of mathematics, where theories are developed and results are obtained that in principle remain valid for ever. Think of theories of computation and complexity theory, but also logic, probability and so on.

Indeed, the observation that some Unix utilities have their roots in the seventies misses the point in this regard. I'd say this is a testament to the success of the unix approach or whatever you want to call it. It's not really about computer science.

tr352··on Armistice Day: November 11, 1918 to November 11, 2018
True but arguably due to very specific favourable circumstances for the RU side. This stands in stark contrast with the ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine. Like WW1, this is a war of attrition, but perhaps less intense.
tr352··on The Slide Rule
True. ASA still makes them but I suppose the only reason they're still made is that it's been considered standard classroom equipment for the past 70 years, combined with the well known universal dislike for change in the aviation world. I don't know anyone who kept using the E6B after getting licensed.
tr352··on The Slide Rule
I got familiar with a slide rule when I studied for my pilot's license, through the "E6B flight computer"[1]. This is essentially a slide rule for specialised calculations (knots-km/h, gallons-litres, density altitude, etc). The E6B is still a mandatory piece of equipment for student pilots but generally regarded as outdated, even by instructors.

As an early millennial I'd never ran into this 17th century marvel called slide rule. When I asked the instructor how it works (rather than how to use it) he answered along the lines of "don't ask, it just does".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E6B

tr352··on The Art of Prolog, Second Edition
Answer set programming [1] may be what you're looking for.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_set_programming

tr352··on The Art of Prolog, Second Edition
Uncalled for. Yes you can implement brute force search very conveniently in Prolog but there's obviously much more to it. You can dismiss ML in a similar way: It's fine as long as you know that it's just glorified curve fitting.
tr352··on Italy bridge: Genoa motorway collapse kills at least 22
I know, I've lived in NL most my life. Must remember Poe's law next time.
tr352··on Italy bridge: Genoa motorway collapse kills at least 22
What about the Netherlands, with 20% of the population living below sea level, waiting for the day the dike breaks?
tr352··on Turbo Button
Yes these jumpers resided on the display board.
tr352··on Turbo Button
Only the cleverest of people figured out they could run their PCs on turbo full-time.
tr352··on Turbo Button
> In almost all cases the display wasn't a measure of the speed, but the two "fast" and "slow" display options were set by jumpers on the motherboard

Ah yes, I remember changing those jumpers to get that display show the correct speed, after overclocking my "CyrixInstead" 486.

tr352··on Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (1944)
This is still (after 74 years) a hugely popular book among student pilots to understand the basics of fling. Technically, very little has changed over all those years. Popular training and GA aircraft like the Cessna 152/172 are built and powered in the exact same way as back then.
tr352··on Chip Hall of Fame: Zilog Z80 Microprocessor (2017)
Arguably the biggest "brand" connected to the Z80 was CP/M[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M

tr352··on Emulating the AT&T 3B2 Computer
Or to ask users to "dolt" [1].

[1] https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

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