Posts by vnikolov@ieji.de
(DIR) Post #AyQSa8cYOw3sZvfmHw by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-09-21T05:40:34Z
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If our Universe is being simulated on a computer,some questions arise, ordered from least to most uncomfortable:How often does the maintainer release a new version of the simulation software?Does the administrator ever tweak operational parameters?Does it run on high-availability infrastructure?Do we exist in the production environment?Is the purpose of this simulation the writing of a PhD thesis?(Ha ha only serious.)#Metaphysics#Physics
(DIR) Post #AydRzu5qGpl7Z8CVto by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-09-27T09:23:37Z
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By the way, just to stake this out,this topic is also related to the topicof vouchers, gift cards, etc.Some of them are issued by merchants;some by employers;some by state institutions.They exist for a multitude of reasonsand are found both under capitalism and under socialism,both in democracies and under authoritarian regimes.@benroyce @cy @serapath @GhostOnTheHalfShell @gabbywheels @StillIRise1963
(DIR) Post #AydSO3dGSKz86ILqKW by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-09-27T09:08:17Z
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So, here is a brief story:The Neolithic Revolution begat the productive economy.The productive economy begat the division of labor.The division of labor begat trade.Trade begat money, consumerism and social stratification.The Industrial Revolution begat capitalism and socialism and boosted consumerism.Now, how to mitigate the harmful consequences of the abovewhile keeping the benefitsand not causing other harm?@serapath @cy @GhostOnTheHalfShell @gabbywheels @benroyce @StillIRise1963
(DIR) Post #AydZDpthMngKHm6xgu by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-09-27T16:04:45Z
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@JoBlakely wrote:> The Christian church worship Paul as Christ.Which Christian church of the many?@snarkweek @johncarlosbaez
(DIR) Post #AyuQVEAYmUv6aQXEFE by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-10-05T14:37:41Z
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Make software that any fool can useand only a fool will want to use it.(This is very old; I don't have an attribution.)Note that non-fools may _have_ to use such software, too.#ComputerProgramming#SoftwareEngineering
(DIR) Post #Az74nBa9T18rq28t28 by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-10-11T07:48:23Z
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Yes...And it has actually been pointed out a number of timesthat Fortran is _still_ superior to many, if not most,other programming languages for numeric computations.In a number of ways.@AmenZwa @screwlisp
(DIR) Post #Az74nDY69cghwFCH6u by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-10-11T20:38:36Z
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@AmenZwaYes.Indeed.Very true.You are right on all counts.At least Python has a lot of Lisp's nature, in my eyes, though I wouldn't undertake now a specific enumeration of these aspects of Python, in my Finite Free Time.And it's been said a long time ago that JavaScript is Lisp for the Masses (I don't know who said it first).That is obviously open to different interpretations, favorable and unfavorable...@screwlisp
(DIR) Post #AzmGPytvi5h3uSbddQ by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-10-31T11:49:29Z
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Deep PurpleSmoke on the Water(Machine Head, 1972;official music video, 2024)"To make records with a mobile,We didn't have much time."<https://youtu.be/Q2FzZSBD5LE>They drew the mobile,even a fireball, though that is an anachronism(it's from 1973).#DeepPurple#FridayMusic
(DIR) Post #AzwpNnbcAuPeH6KjsO by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-11-05T20:21:25Z
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Live a whole century, keep learning for a whole century, the Russians say.Today I Learned™ how the Bourne-again shell catches bullets carefullyaimed at my foot.I have a `bash' script, call it `baz', that post-processes textproduced by `foo-bar' (rest assured, though, that it remains withinall recognition).Doing due diligence documentation-wise, I wanted to collect an exampleof the end result into a comment in the same script.So naive, I took myself for a ride:$ foo-bar | baz | sed 's/^/### /' >> bazbash: baz: Text file busy(I expected that the shell would (try to) execute the appended lines,so I commented them Just In Time. Running this with `strace' is leftas an exercise.)PIPESTATUS was (0 141 1) and the output "softly and suddenly vanished away"...-- "For the Snark was a Boojum, you see."#BourneAgainShell#BourneShell#ComputerProgramming#Hunting#LewisCarrol#Queen#QuoteAbuse
(DIR) Post #B05YEPoreN9qqggfnk by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-11-09T09:07:38Z
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Do they still say that cameras don't lie¿Here is a BBC article on this matter as it stands today and tomorrow.I think the following is the key part of the article, but to find it you would read through almost all of it:«You'd never look at a piece of text and assume it's true just because someone wrote it down. If there's any question, you go investigate the source of the information. Videos and images used to be different, because they were harder to fake and manipulate. That's over now. The only thing that matters now is where a piece of content came from, who posted it, what the context is and whether it's been verified by a trustworthy source. The question is when (or if) we're all going to wrap our heads around that fact.»<https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20251031-the-number-one-sign-you-might-be-watching-ai-video>
(DIR) Post #B0BEWdgI1Ew8uxqf1E by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-11-12T19:06:28Z
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"JavaScript is Lisp for the masses."(I wish I knew the attribution of that.)I suppose that quote is one part truth,one part sarcasm,one part wishful thinking,one part Greenspun's Tenth,and one Fibonacci prime-th part is left as an exercise.Pardon my reply, I had a coincidental dose of JavaScript programming today and I am posting under the influence...--␠Our software doesn't have bugs,simply the users' expectationsdiffer from the way it's implemented.@richcarl @AmenZwa @screwlisp
(DIR) Post #B0FEmlWTC5QQBq5DN2 by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-11-14T10:52:37Z
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Toto CutugnoL'italiano (1983)(The Italian)<https://youtu.be/kuwlRavKrXc>Good morning, Italy,With spaghetti al denteAnd a partisan for President...Let me sing with the guitar in hand,Let me sing a song, softly, softly,Let me sing, because I am proud of it,I am an Italian, a true Italian._________Italy is truly a land of singers.Once I stayed late at the Institute of Psychology in Rome and I heard the cleaning lady sing in the corridor.#FridayMusic
(DIR) Post #B0LcQSRPOWkP2f35xg by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-11-17T18:05:36Z
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Some thirty or forty years ago Polish writer Stanislaw Lem wrote an essay about the future of warfare.He predicted that traditional heavy weapons would become so expensive as to be useless (so expensive they would be made in too small quantities, and way too valuable to risk losing).Thus he predicted that the biggest role in warfare would be played by cheap but numerous weapons.Ten or twenty years before that Lem wrote a science fiction story called _The Invincible_.This was an extremely powerful and heavily armed Earth battle starship which was defeated on a distant planet by huge swarms of _very_ simple flying machines.BBC:From florist to drone maker: How the weapon became so mainstream<https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g3ydv2ygro>#Drones#Predictions#StanislawLem#StrengthInNumbers#Warfare
(DIR) Post #B0litKPBYjX97DAzmC by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-11-29T08:43:30Z
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Life imitates Art... again...Q: How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?A: None: we'll fix it in software.«It is understood that on around 5,100 Airbus planes, the issue can be addressed using a relatively simple software update which would typically take about three hours.However, the remaining 900 aircraft, which are older versions, will need to have onboard computers physically replaced, and will not be allowed to carry passengers again until the job has been completed.»***The other part of the quip:Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?A: None: we'll document it as intentionally left dark.From the BBC:Flights disrupted after Airbus discovers intense sun radiation could impact flight control data<https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8e9d13x2z7o>#FortuneSection6
(DIR) Post #B17dZYy3TvxwC9MQLY by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-12-10T11:31:45Z
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When a sentence begins with"I am not an expert",it should continue with a full stop and end-of-text.(Or possibly with a useful redirect.)Context: I had a close encounter with yet another social media post where the continuation consisted of a comma, the word "but", and half a dozen bogus paragraphs instead.Par for the course...
(DIR) Post #B18yZSAT3VqnIjuok4 by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-12-11T08:09:18Z
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@publiusYou may well be a de facto expert.(To myself, both the presence and the absence of a formal certificate carry little information by themselves.)Besides, and this has been said many times before, in every or almost every significant field, nobody can know everything there is to know in that field.I.e. for each expert there exists expertise that is lacking.The good experts know which things they don't know.
(DIR) Post #B19LwAKhpTVparVGqG by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-12-11T19:41:05Z
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FIND(1)...A `%' at the end of the format argument causes undefined behaviour since there is no following character. In some locales, it may hide your door keys, while in others it may remove the final page from the novel you are reading.***My first thought was that nasal daemons must have ceased to be fashionable.Then I noticed the British spelling.--␠Documentation is like sex:when it's good, it's very good;when it's bad, it's better than nothing.(an old fortune(6) cookie)
(DIR) Post #B2PtfNaUnEi24V093o by vnikolov@ieji.de
2026-01-18T11:00:51Z
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Taken from a social media post by Michel Talbot.Let me add that in this context, Operating System Programmer is akin to a hero in an ancient Greek myth.***PDP-6Digital Equipment Corporation, Maynard, Massachusetts, United States (February 26, 1964)Standing:Peter Sampson, Operating System ProgrammerLeo Gossell, Diagnostic Software ProgrammerChester Gordon Bell, PDP-6 System Designer (Creator)Alan Kotok, Operating System LeadRussell Doane, Circuit Design EngineerBill Kellicker, ProgrammerBob Reed, Hardware TechnicianGeorge Vogelsang, Draftsman.Sitting:Lydia Lowe (McKalip), Secretary to C. Gordon BellBill Colburn, PDP-6 Project EngineerKen Senior, Field Service TechnicianKen Fitzgerald, Mechanical EngineerNorman Hurst, ProgrammerHarris Hyman, Operating System ProgrammerReferences<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-6>PDP-6 System Description, DEC 1964 (4 MB) <https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp6/brochures/F-61_PDP-6_Brochure_196402.pdf>Digital Equipment Corporation PDP Tree by G.Bell, 1980 (Wall Poster) 1700×1141 <https://landley.net/history/mirror/dec/bell/DEC%20PDP_Tree_Poster_1980.jpg>#ComputerHistory#DEC#Demigods#DigitalEquipmentCorporation#PDP#PDP6
(DIR) Post #B2RLlb7K7MitNfcV9M by vnikolov@ieji.de
2026-01-19T08:59:39Z
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Why does history repeat itself?Because history is life's Teacher,and repetition is the mother of studying.(Historia magistra vitae.Repetitio mater studiorum.)
(DIR) Post #B2YMXfMT07n0YCLM1I by vnikolov@ieji.de
2026-01-22T13:01:15Z
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The Way of the Wasted Warmth.Made visible by a bit of snow.After light snowfall, the snow on the ground melts fully, or nearly so, right above the route of hot water pipes.This is in Sofia, Bulgaria (population quite a little over a million), where socialist centralization in the past built just a couple of heat plants for the whole city, and connected them with long underground hot water pipelines to consumers.So, we have been paying for heating the environment ever since.