Hacker News: Jun8

New comment by Jun8 in "Terrence Tao's ChatGPT Conversation about the Jacobian Conjecture Counterexample"

Jun8 — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 17:52:39 +0000

Similar to how Cypher puts it: I know this is “just” next token inference, matrix mult and just software, ie there’s no “intelligence” there BUT, looking at this convo … damn!

The fascinating this is that the LLM is not acting as a tool here AFAIk, but very much like a colleague.

I have no knowledge of the domain and have only PhD EE level math knowledge, so maybe my bar is too low.

Scott Aaronson's Trevisan Award Acceptance Speech

Jun8 — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 05:53:27 +0000

Article URL: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9881

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48715344

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by Jun8 in "They’re made out of weights"

Jun8 — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:03:13 +0000

I love this koan and what makes it even better is that is based on a true event: Minsky’s real answer was “It has them, you just k ow what they are yet”

New comment by Jun8 in "Judge rules DOGE cancellation of humanities grants was unconstitutional"

Jun8 — Fri, 08 May 2026 23:31:52 +0000

From the ruling (https://www.historians.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/291-Me...):

>The second stage of the grant termination process began on March 12, 2025, when Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh – identified in the record as members of DOGE’s “Small Agencies Team” – met with NEH leadership, including McDonald and Wolfson… Prior to joining the Trump Administration, neither Fox nor Cavanaugh had any experience in government, public grant administration, private grant administration, or reviewing humanities projects for scholarly merit… In fact, as both were in their twenties, they did not have much experience in anything at all – certainly not in anything remotely related to the humanities.

New comment by Jun8 in "The Game of Chomp"

Jun8 — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:29:53 +0000

Fascinating game, looks trivial, almost a child’s game. Yet, play a few rounds against the computer here and be humbled: https://www.math.ucla.edu/~tom/Games/chomp.html

First player should always win, yet a winning strategy is not known.

The Game of Chomp

Jun8 — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:27:24 +0000

Article URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomp

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47925343

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

Hubris

Jun8 — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:27:17 +0000

Article URL: https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/hubris

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47456891

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by Jun8 in "Math Notepad"

Jun8 — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 23:39:39 +0000

Pretty cool but handling large numbers is pretty limited: chokes on 171! Or 5^5^5.

New comment by Jun8 in "Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]"

Jun8 — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 06:26:57 +0000

I read this earlier today and was thinking: how many such mathematically gifted individuals exist I. The world at one time? Assuming there are probably 20-30 Tao-caliber people in the US and an adversarial multiplier of 0.1 (only 1 in 10 such kids are nurtured), we reach 300 for this generation, about 1 in a million.

That means in a generation there are ~ 10k such people in the world. Think about connecting them or nurturing them with AI companions.

New comment by Jun8 in "An Enslaved Gardener Transformed the Pecan into a Cash Crop"

Jun8 — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 18:58:07 +0000

Everyone’s entitled to their opinions and more than a few people have written similar ideas. However, I find this chain of thought both offensive to what being a slave meant and ignorant. If you think being a coder is the modern equivalent to being enslaved either you’ve never worked as an entry level employer in the service industry or else have forgotten your experience.

Camera that captures photos to cassette tape

Jun8 — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 17:28:21 +0000

Article URL: https://hackaday.io/project/205004-digital-analog-tape-picture-camera

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46977901

Points: 34

# Comments: 3

New comment by Jun8 in "Why is the sky blue?"

Jun8 — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 18:55:02 +0000

This was great as it went farther than Rayleigh scattering. On this topic you have to watch this fantastic undergrad physics lecture demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJG-rXBbmCc&t=1674s

New comment by Jun8 in "The Enchiridion by Epictetus"

Jun8 — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 16:24:30 +0000

Related: Sorry, but as an AT fan I couldn't resist: https://adventuretime.fandom.com/wiki/The_Enchiridion_(book)

New comment by Jun8 in "ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data"

Jun8 — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 02:40:46 +0000

They cannot receive from federally funded Medicaid but some states have programs or state-funded Medicaid programs that allow non-citizens to benefit. CA and NY do for some categories. See this example for WI: https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/medicaid/noncitizens.htm

New comment by Jun8 in "The '3.5% rule': How a small minority can change the world (2019)"

Jun8 — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 02:31:26 +0000

Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci's book Twitter and Teargas explains why, for protest movements to be successful they should have charismatic leaders and decentralized mass protest movements have a much harder time succeeding: https://www.twitterandteargas.org

New comment by Jun8 in "Beowulf's opening "What" is no interjection (2013)"

Jun8 — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 21:03:06 +0000

Related: Rumi’s Mesnevî also opens with “bishnav”, “listen” in Persian.

New comment by Jun8 in "Can you read 900 words per minute?"

Jun8 — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 20:47:52 +0000

Note that English audiobooks are typically around 150-170 wpm and fast talkers speak around 200 wpm.

Can you read 900 words per minute?

Jun8 — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 20:34:18 +0000

Article URL: https://substack.com/@jameslucasit/note/c-202186114

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46697412

Points: 3

# Comments: 6

New comment by Jun8 in "The unreasonable effectiveness of the Fourier transform"

Jun8 — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 05:39:28 +0000

Since I’m rushing to load it as fast as possible the packing is not as good as hers so some dishes are left out. Overall this leads to more loads.

New comment by Jun8 in "The unreasonable effectiveness of the Fourier transform"

Jun8 — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:29:28 +0000

A signal cannot be both time and frequency band limited. Many years ago I was amazed when I read that this fact I learned in my undergraduate is equivalent to the Uncertainty Principle!

On a more mundane note: my wife and I always argue whose method of loading the dishwasher is better: she goes slow and meticulously while I do it fast. It occurred to me we were optimizing for frequency and time domains, respectively, ie I was minimizing time so spent while she was minimizing number of washes :-)