dpiponi

dpiponi , 1 day ago to random

It's not like I had any chance of resisting when one of my favourite books is published in a fancy new hardback edition

dpiponi , 4 days ago to random

When I first came across Voigtländer's paper on speeding up free monads [1] and some of the methods that Hinze mentions [2] I was a bit bemused about why category theory had anything to say about program optimization. But now it seems obvious. Much of optimization is a lot like algebraic manipulation where you're rearranging while hoping to keep the value the same. But in particular, a really common optimization move is to write f(g(x)) as (fg)(x) where (fg) is somehow simpler (or more reusable than) than just applying g then f. Ie. associativity - which is one of the laws of category theory. I think this step also accounts for almost all of the computational reasons for using linear algebra. Eg. graphics pipelines make good use of this kind of associativity.

[1] https://janis-voigtlaender.eu/papers/AsymptoticImprovementOfComputationsOverFreeMonads.pdf
[2] https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/ralf.hinze/Kan.pdf

dpiponi , 4 days ago to random

Feeling unoptimistic about the future. Most people are fascists at heart. It's far enough from WWII that the consequences of that are forgotten. And when every country is fascist, and surrounded by hostile fascist countries, it's going to get really ugly.

pervognsen , 5 days ago to random

There's a retired couple living in my mom's apartment complex who seems to spend 12 hours every day sunbathing outside during the summer months. They did this when we were visiting last year and they're continuing the streak apparently. After you've lived in a warm climate for a while, the whole idea of sunbathing starts to seem obscene, but this is something else.

dpiponi , 7 days ago to random

I know I must be a uniquely weird individual because in decades of using tabbed web browsers I've still never wanted to close tabs to the right and I've often wanted to close tabs to the left.

dpiponi , 10 days ago to random

I hate typing practice. Seriously. I've been programming computers since before most of you were born. But I need to move on from being a two fingered typist, even if a fast one,

dpiponi , 11 days ago to random

Watching Dark Matter on Apple+. I've read the book (See https://github.com/dpiponi/TextTree) and I'm enjoying the show. But it's so implausible. He turns up at a hospital confused and next scene he's getting a CT scan. As if there aren't a dozen bureaucractic hoops to jump through first.

dpiponi , 12 days ago to random

Let me tell you about my embarrassingly stupid C++ mistake so you don't have to make it:

If X is of type std::optional<T> and Y is of type T you can assign Y to X like so:

X = Y

I sort of don't like that because X and Y are different types.

You can also write

*X = Y

which works because *X is of type T&. Now the types match.

But woe is me! Don't do the latter. If X is an empty optional then *X = Y fails silently.

It's obvious when you think about it for a moment. But when you're thinking about the bigger picture you can forget about the little things.

dpiponi , 15 days ago to random

Software is garbage. All of it. The people who write it hate you.

dpiponi , 19 days ago to random

I don't know if I hallucinated this but maybe someone recognises it:

I'm sure I once (~20 years ago) saw an arbitrary precision real number library for C or C++ that worked by picking some fixed precision and worked until it produced a result at the required precision, or, if it convinced itself it couldn't achieve that precision, did some kind of backtracking so it could redo the computation at a higher fixed precision. Somewhat analogously to how transactional memory works - and I think under the hood there may have been some unusual memory model.

Sound familiar to anyone?

dpiponi , 22 days ago to random

Annoying that the Kindle retroactively changes book covers. Such nice art for these books, except book 1 now.

dpiponi , 22 days ago to random

Here's an animation generated by simulating the 2D wave equation kicked off with a Dirac delta pulse. Periodic boundary conditions.

But let's say we want the field value to be as high as possible at a particular point in space at a chosen future moment in time...

video/mp4

dpiponi , 22 days ago to random

Feeling stupid because I can't figure out how to render an animated plot using matplotlib. But neither can ChatGPT so I'm not feeling entirely stupid.

dpiponi , 28 days ago to random

From Max Evry's "A Masterpiece in Disarray" on making Lynch's Dune. My question is this: what is a "human trampoline?"

dpiponi , 1 month ago to random

Eternally hostage to the 6 digit codes that never seem to arrive...

dpiponi , 1 month ago to random

I don't know what people mean when they say LLMs don't really understand language. The only interpretation that makes sense to me is so trivial that it can't be what's intended - that LLMs aren't people. I wish people could just be normal around this technology and stick to saying sensible things about their observations without trying to weave in their religious beliefs.

dpiponi , 1 month ago to random

Installed an IoT water flow meter but thinking it was a missed marketing opportunity for some Dune branding around the concept of water discipline.

dpiponi , 1 month ago to random

@dpiponi Can I write private DMs to myself or can you read this?

pervognsen , 1 month ago to random

What is going on here.

dpiponi , 2 months ago to random

Reading Moon is a Harsh Mistress for the first time. Best bit so far is learning a new word: dasn't. Thought it was an OCR error at first.