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wnoise

2,841 karma · joined September 4, 2010

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wnoise··on The legal rule that computers are presumed to be operating correctly (2022) [pdf]
It is the formula for an exponentially weighted moving average.

Which is not appropriate here...

wnoise··on Why can't my mom email me?
> when the mechanisms used to ensure privacy actually work most of the time.

Privacy was indeed preserved -- at the cost of communication.

wnoise··on Doom Captcha (2021)
They of course the minimum out of the set of the real roots.
wnoise··on LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some stored knowledge
No, they were trying to figure out if they had isolated where facts like that were represented.
wnoise··on Sweden Is a NATO Member
This is widely believed, and of course Ukrainians prefer no article, and I'm happy to accede to their preferences, just as with their preferred transliteration of Kyiv.

But the theory that this has any impact on how English speakers view sovereignty is also completely bunk. While English does indeed use "the" for some geographical regions and features (but not universally; English rarely is so simple), in international contexts and sub-regions, that's swamped by more salient examples. Look right there at your use of "the" USSR. We don't talk about "the Scotland" and "the England" as part of "United Kingdom", nor about "the California" and "the Texas" as purely internal regions of "United States", but quite the reverse, reserving. In keeping with groups of smaller units, there's also the EU. There are also many examples of full names that include qualifying adjectives that take "the" -- i.e. the Central African Republic, the Dominican Republic, and historically the Czech Republic (now Czechia is preferred, of course).

There are also, of course, countries named after geographical features that traditionally do have the definite article, but this is rarely taken as a slight against their sovereignty or an accusation that they're not a real country: the Ivory Coast, The Netherlands, many, many island nations.

And why would the Russians even think to use articles to make this distinction? Neither language even has a definite article! There is a history of using different prepositions in these languages ("in" vs "on", roughly) which does have this suggestion, but it really doesn't parallel English usage of articles.

wnoise··on Sweden Is a NATO Member
You're assuming a symmetry that doesn't exist.
wnoise··on SI Units for Request Rate
In exactly the same way that a torque measured in newton-meters can as easily be measured in joules.
wnoise··on My favourite Git commit (2019)
Can you elaborate how?
wnoise··on My favourite Git commit (2019)
Why code is needed is different than why change is needed.
wnoise··on My favourite Git commit (2019)
The git history will last longer than the platform hosting the PR.
wnoise··on Rue de l'Avenir
I don't understand why moving walkways aren't called slidewalks.
wnoise··on There Once Was an Empire
Ignorance motivated by financial interests is a type of malice.
wnoise··on Intuitive guide to convolution
I'm not! Averages should normalize the weights. But there are plenty of reasons to define convolutions where neither signal is normalized.
wnoise··on Intuitive guide to convolution
Averages are normalized. Convolutions only are if they integrate to 1.
wnoise··on Intuitive guide to convolution
Weighted sum, sure. (Average is normalized).

But it's not just one sum, but a _collection_ of weighted sums, and those have a particular order for reasons.

wnoise··on AirJet makes a MacBook Air perform like a MacBook Pro
What about the FingerWorks TouchStream? sigh
wnoise··on We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO
It is quite common. Still not cool.
wnoise··on Bacteria store memories and pass them on for generations
The planarian result was probably insufficiently sterilizing the maze, and following previous scent-trails.
wnoise··on Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
It's covered with a vague line that would also cover merely having a disagreement with.
wnoise··on Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
They are not on the board of a company. They're on the board of a non-profit that controls a company.
wnoise··on Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
That's literally not the job of this board.
wnoise··on Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
Did you miss the part where it says "value-aligned"? One's that aren't value-aligned are not subject to that clause.
wnoise··on Before Altman’s ouster, OpenAI’s board was divided and feuding
The non-profit OpenAI has no stockholders.
wnoise··on Why TSA's Implementation of Facial Recognition Is More Dangerous Than You Think
Which means a second factor is needed -- and we already have IDs.
wnoise··on OpenAI's Murati Aims to Re-Hire Altman, Brockman After Exits
> take everyone with him

That's always the assumption people are going with, but is it true?

wnoise··on How Git cherry-pick and revert use 3-way merge
How else would it?
wnoise··on What process created this X11 window?
The more on-point sarcasm is, the harder it is to distinguish from the actual proponents' views.
wnoise··on On medieval cats
Well, silphium did everything else, so maybe it was also a flea repellent?
wnoise··on What I learned getting acquired by Google
For something like active-shooter training, location specific details could matter. A generic training isn't the same thing.
wnoise··on Light can make water evaporate without heat
Temperature
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