arakyd

7 ms·

1.
by arakyd 17y ago
Yeah, he says that Lisp is too hard for the common man, and then sort of implies that this is because it doesn't use ALGOL derived syntax. I don't think that's the issue. It's not Mort who's fallen in love with ALGOL syntax, it's the CS gra
2.
by arakyd 17y ago
In this case your better off just reading Norvig's original presentation.
3.
by arakyd 17y ago
The thing about OOP is that it is described as way to make programming easier because objects are so "intuitive," and the examples for this are all toy simulations with naive object "models." What the post describes, and what everyone who a
4.
by arakyd 17y ago
My favorite book of this type is Thinking Forth , available online at http://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/ . You will get a large dose of the Forth mindset, but it's mostly higher level design tips and not as specific to Forth as, for e
5.
by arakyd 17y ago
Is that Charley the Charley Shattuck mentioned in the 7/21 entry at http://www.ultratechnology.com/blog.htm ? Looks like he's still working with Chuck. Lucky guy. The best thing about Forth is that it's the distilled result of decades of i
6.
by arakyd 17y ago
Second the idea that a lot of statisticians don't know what they're doing. The first mistake is to make things easier by glossing over, or mangling, the mathematical details. Many statistics textbooks do this, and the only real protection i
7.
by arakyd 17y ago
There's something a little strange about the idea that a company/product becomes real when it appears in a movie (or in the research/advertising for a movie). Isn't it the other way around? Cool clip though.
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by arakyd 17y ago
It's not a fundamental difference, it's a consequence of the fact that hardware people are at the bottom of a very big stack and have a massive financial incentive to be as solid and predictable as possible. Higher up the stack everyone pre
9.
by arakyd 17y ago
Yeah, I tend to say "computer science" when I mean "theoretical computer science." To me there is a clear split between the stuff that's math/logic and the rest of it which I'm happy to lump under the catch-all of engineering (and don't fee
10.
by arakyd 17y ago
It's not "different strokes," it's a change of perspective causing massive confusion all 'round. Computer science isn't a knock-off approximation of mathematics, it's a subfield of mathematics. Programming, which is what the post is talking
11.
by arakyd 17y ago
Actually the whole av8n.com site is a great resource for anyone interested in learning more about physics. One of the reasons why I linked it ;).
12.
by arakyd 17y ago
The "nice little tear-down" is in the book review mentioned, but not linked, by the parent ( http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/07/unscientific_amer... ). Apparently these guys aren't very fond of PZ, and he isn't very fond of them eit
13.
by arakyd 17y ago
It's true that the usual explanation with the Bernoulli effect is wrong, but the idea that the Coanda effect is important for normal flight is also wrong. The relationship between wing camber, angle of attack, and lift is a little more comp
14.
by arakyd 17y ago
I don't understand your analogy. Is the Wizard of Oz repulsed because he thinks the illusion is bad, or because he knows how it's made? Would "This is the worst hunk-a-junk implementation of an illusion I've ever seen?" be an accurate inter
15.
by arakyd 17y ago
All religious traditions take guidance from more than just holy books (many religions do not even have holy books), and the idea (or assumption) that laypeople can determine religious truth by reading the holy book themselves is pretty much
16.
by arakyd 17y ago
What about if nearly everyone is worse off? Putting the burden of responsibility on the actor is fine, but Swoopo is not in the same category as Starbucks and EA, and claiming that everyone participating in a capitalist economy does so at
17.
by arakyd 17y ago
Yeah but that doesn't explain why one would write a brainfuck interpreter in brainfuck . Day 163: Project complete. Strength nearly gone. Must.. complete... evaluation.... Data structures, godawful... string handling, non-existent... writ
18.
by arakyd 17y ago
Considerably less fun to toy around with now that the only way to get a non completely crippled version is to pay megabucks (or work at a company that develops in it). If I'm wrong, please please clue me in...
19.
by arakyd 17y ago
Or like extruding peacock feathers for any animal that doesn't have peacock feathers.
20.
by arakyd 17y ago
Both of our posts would be funnier if the project was anything other than vaporware.
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by arakyd 17y ago
From the RTI website, a presentation they supposedly gave to the Army War College Strategic Studies Institute in April: A code of moral behavior for intelligent robots will be developed. Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws are insufficient (especi
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by arakyd 17y ago
They cite their sources - just follow the trail a few more steps. http://www.robotictechnologyinc.com/index.php/EATR : At the sixth (System of Systems) level, which has not yet been implemented, the 4D/RCS serves as an overarching intelli
23.
by arakyd 17y ago
If not realizing that 95% of your consumer loans (not just 95% of mortgages) are sub-prime mortgages, and then keeping them on the books because of what amounts to a pure gamble on housing prices isn't turning a blind eye to risk, I don't k
24.
by arakyd 17y ago
It sounds pretty good when you focus on the payoff, gloss the probability of success (as if the difference between 77% and 0.002% is negligible, or either estimate is anything other than pure speculation), and ignore the costs entirely.
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by arakyd 17y ago
Sorry, it would be more accurate to restrict that to "Based on the above FAQs and other discussions on Overcoming Bias and Less Wrong, cryonics advocates don't seem...." From http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/CryoFAQ.html#_VQ_ : What is the
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by arakyd 17y ago
Actually those FAQs do not challenge the central point of that blog post, which is that reasonable people can have wildly different estimates of the likelihood of successful preservation and reconstruction, and that most people judge it too
27.
by arakyd 17y ago
The things which are lost with physical death are in constant flux, so they are constantly being lost anyway. Actually, no. When the Great Flux fluxes and the flux that is you goes away, it is not exactly the same thing as when the flux t
28.
by arakyd 17y ago
Tell me why you're not just another dude with a cause who wants to tell other people how to spend their money, because that's what you sound like. Not to be combative, and I want to live for a thousand years as much as the next guy, but thi
29.
by arakyd 17y ago
A lot of very intelligent people notwithstanding, the burden of proof is still on those who claim that the first person to live for a thousand years is sixty years old today. Even De Grey is sensible enough to realize that he's going to hav
30.
by arakyd 17y ago
It's funny you say that, because I watched that this weekend, and liked it so much that I got a bunch of his movies. I enjoyed one or two more, then realized that they're all the same: guy gets married, guy is unsatisfied, guy cheats on his

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