<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: foobar_</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=foobar_</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:06:24 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=foobar_" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical notation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Clearly you are too much of a pedant to do anything useful in life, so why don't you build a time machine and interrupt your birthing process ? It should be easy ... you can build it using calculus.<p>Science is about modelling the real world. Mathematics is about modelling. Programming is "interactive" modelling. Its all about modelling accurately.<p>Clearly you are also too much of a bigot to understand that models are just models and unreadable and undecipherable models are useless and full of shit, especially those built by schizophrenics or priests.<p>> If you say no, then I challenge you to construct a useful and consistent version of calculus without formal mathematics.<p>That was how it was constructed in the first place genius. Both calculus and fourier were built for practical purposes before formalist clowns  were even alive probably. So why don't you go read the originals.<p>Formal calculus is beyond useless, its unreadable.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2020 19:19:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23931173</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23931173</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23931173</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical notation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Do the mental problems and drug addiction of a brilliant musician detract from his or her music? Do you yell "madman" at a painting by van Gogh?<p>Yes. Completely ignore the degenerates. There are many sober people who have made art and science. You should not allow mentally ill lunatics to define art, music, religion, maths or politics anymore than you will allow them to be your cab driver or spouse.<p>Clearly science is about sobriety and not schizophrenia. I guess mathematics was hijacked by schizophrenics, music and art by depressed losers. No wonder you are out of touch with reality, practicality and are defending symbols which you think have magical "powers" beyond mere convention.<p>You can also see this in physics with the string theory garbage, however unlike "pure" mathematics ... in physics people need to test experimentally.<p>> Yes, and in a sub-thread of the post you've made it clear that you doubt the usefulness of mathematics.<p>No, I said proofs were tautological and pointless and notation is useless. Formal mathematics is bullshit.<p>> On several occasions have I and others invited you to comment on very concrete mathematical constructions.<p>Your sock puppets ?<p>1. You were asking about fundamental theorem of calculus<p>This has a very geometric proof. Why would I have a problem with that ? I am all for geometry, visualization, simulation , testing ....<p>2. A number puzzle<p>I don't care for number puzzles. I will try to solve that number puzzle if you can write vietnamese jokes.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2020 16:46:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929255</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929255</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929255</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical notation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Mathematicians who think infinity is real should be treated with the same disdain as Neptune worshiping astrologers.<p>The internet makes it easy for pedantic losers to have a loud opinion. Hell I have even run in to pedantic losers who have the time to create multiple new and fake accounts and use old sock puppets to create the illusion of an audience because these friendless, loveless losers literally have no one to talk to IRL.<p>> I keep running into people like this all the time.<p>Psychological attacks, amazing! I'm guessing you are one of those deeply insecure symbol twiddlers.  Let me guess, as kid you were crap at everything, especially sports except symbol twiddling so you latched onto those praises your teacher gave you and as an adult that is the only source of your self-esteem. And you can't handle it when someone on the internet thinks abstract mathematicians are full of shit.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2020 13:08:08 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926929</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926929</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926929</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical notation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm not insane ... you are just the type of person who will defend roman numerals. Maybe you just have OCD.<p>1. Socrates is mortal<p>2. Mortals die<p>3. Socrates dies<p>Deduction is really like amazing. Holy shit we really proved  something spectacular here. I guess you would be really impressed if I used tau and sigma and defined death with vietnamese alphabet.<p>Almost the entirety of calculus was derived from problems related to physics. Volumes were calculated for doing engineering. Mathematics != Thinking. The last time I checked both logic and critical thinking were branches of philosophy.<p>All good mathematicians are physicists or engineers. Heck some even learnt maths on their own. All mediocre mathematicians write textbooks and hide behind notations. Come to think of it they remind me of OO programmers in their utter arrogant mediocrity. Most abstract mathematics is like the definition of protocols/interfaces and other platonic garbage. I suppose this debate will never end. Plato vs Aristotle, Deduction vs Induction, Analytic vs Synthetic ....</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2020 19:05:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23920438</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23920438</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23920438</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical notation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The way I see it ... Most mathematicians nowadays use mathematica or matlab or even python, proving my point. The notation is medieval ... and probably the only reason it survives is because of form factors of paper.<p>> Mathematics is a part of physics. Physics is an experimental science, a part of natural science. Mathematics is the part of physics where experiments are cheap.<p><a href="https://www.uni-muenster.de/Physik.TP/~munsteg/arnold.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.uni-muenster.de/Physik.TP/~munsteg/arnold.html</a><p>I see simulating as a part of the experiment. If the proof is wrong it wouldn't last a seconds worth of simulation. I suppose a proof in essence is a pattern or an invariant of the system ... but most proofs have really no meat to them. The notation is merely intimidating like  obfuscated code.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:34:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23915353</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23915353</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23915353</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical notation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>1 + 1 = 10</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2020 08:54:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23915158</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23915158</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23915158</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical notation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm guessing there was a physical intuition behind the theorem, if you can simulate it you will probably do something better than the proof. Now it's your turn to tell me why 1 + 1 = 2.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2020 02:49:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913448</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913448</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913448</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical notation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What I am trying to convey is writing software is better than  writing maths, just like medieval music notation vs modern notation. Programming is better than proving because most proofs are mere tautologies or artificial constraints. This is why theorem provers in code rely on term rewriting.<p>A triangle has a sum of 180 ? Well how about if you push the triangle inside out. In code you can easily run a more complex simulation which gives you all possible values of the sum ... which is why ascertaining useful facts like 180 ad-nausea is boring at best. In fact most mathematics if it can't be simulated can't exist.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2020 02:37:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913387</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913387</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913387</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical notation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>No one uses mathematical notation for practical purposes. This is just like the medival music notation which is neither practical nor what modern composers use, which is more visual in nature. Infact modernism is a rejection of medievalism.<p>I think in the future programming will force all mathematicians to code or give out simulations. Most mathematical notation was intended to be throwaway by the original authors, thats why there are so many notations. Trying to find relevance in them is a pointless exercise. Much like 80x20, tabs vs spaces ... most of the original intent is lost and what survives is guff meant for ceremonious purposes.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 22 Jul 2020 02:18:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913295</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913295</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23913295</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "The Common Lisp Condition System – Upcoming Book"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>`UNWIND-PROTECT` thats cool!<p>What I meant with the promises was, If you could pass three closures ... like success, error, restart could you get some kinda condition system ?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 15:02:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23846142</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23846142</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23846142</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "The Common Lisp Condition System – Upcoming Book"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Congrats on the book!<p>If you are just going to use `TAGBODY` and `GO` to implement this ... in a goto based languages like C I don't think you would be needing a condition system. In C a nested function can also jump into a parents goto label. No one probably uses it, but just saying!<p>Also how similar is this to promises in javascript ?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2020 14:56:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23846054</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23846054</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23846054</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "I Know What You Download on BitTorrent"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I believe in reform. 1 year exclusive copyright / patent at most and author always holds the copyright. Its ironic that the movie with the biggest budget is a pirate movie ;)<p><a href="https://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/the-pirate-party-on-copyright-reform/" rel="nofollow">https://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/the-pirate-party-on-...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2020 15:57:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23833430</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23833430</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23833430</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "I Know What You Download on BitTorrent"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> So what ?<p>I too can ignore every big budget predictable cliche and say so what. Lets ignore the successes of alternatives.<p>Is Kanye West and Britney Spears the best you can do with millions of dollars ? I'll stick to punk and EDM ... no thanks.<p>> I’m a huge fan of indy media but, because of that, I pay for it, and I don’t like it when people freeload.<p>Is copyright / patents the only way to finance and get money back ?<p>Absolutely not. Thats the argument I am making.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:28:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23830639</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23830639</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23830639</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "I Know What You Download on BitTorrent"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>How about scene by scene commentary for cats on a youtube video. Sports have this and you can watch old sports matches on youtube. Right now youtube would block it and my use case extends the fair use by quite a mark. You have to understand that under DRM even seeing the movie with family and friends is illegal.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:44:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23830075</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23830075</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23830075</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "I Know What You Download on BitTorrent"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The number of CEOs who think printing money is a good idea might make you wonder if they even know anything about money. Polluting air costs less money why not do it ?<p>80% movies don't need the 100 million dollar budget and I'm pretty sure Johnny Deepp would be happy to release Edward Scissorhands to the public domain.<p>Most big movies make their money by single day screenings and releasing movies at different dates in different regions with market buzz.<p>> If we take away the option of artificial scarcity then an entire highly trained professional class will be out of work.<p>Interestingly your argument fails for porn. Its about 1/4th the size of hollywood.<p>How about publishers own the copyright and creators own the copyright instead of commoditising a copyright artefact ?<p>I assure you musicians can survive and Depp can do some theatre. Most EDM is essentially copyright free, especially techno. 1 year of exclusivity is fine. Fuck NDAs.<p>These days the cost of production has gone down so I think you will see more indie media taking advantage of that. The average budget for a reasonable movie is less than 5 million, heck even 500k dollars going by kickstarter funded movies.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 14 Jul 2020 08:33:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23829730</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23829730</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23829730</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Laziness Impatience Hubris"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Diligence, Patience, and Humility<p><a href="https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/open-sources/1565925823/ch11.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/open-sources/1565925823...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2020 23:01:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23826625</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23826625</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23826625</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "I Know What You Download on BitTorrent"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The idea "exclusive monopolies" and transferable intellectual property rights for perpetuity is bullshit.<p>The blunt fact of the matter is - A majority of the movies would gain more by giving it away to the public domain because most movies fail. Radio did not kill Art. Internet is the new radio.<p>The same is true even for software. 80% of business fail. It would not matter if they gave their code away.  GPL based business have made billions, i'n not even talking about open source and have more users than some of the biggest "startups".<p>Among the minority that made it "big" copyright contributed maybe 5% to the success. IP allows big companies to bully creators, lie to consumers and bully independent companies that they perceive as threats.<p>In Music, Code, Science ... openness has lead to more innovation. Movies and Games present an interesting case. They have plenty of upfront costs. Games have already embraced some notions of the freemium mode. It would be really interesting if 100 million dollar movie is entirely funded by the people. There is nothing stopping that from happening. Copyright, Patents should last at-most 1 year.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2020 22:48:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23826504</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23826504</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23826504</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "The Future of Online Identity Is Decentralized"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Is it possible to add proofs for phone, credit card ?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 12 Jul 2020 15:58:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23812275</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23812275</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23812275</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Beware of Being “Right”"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't think the author is trying to destroy anything. Even in maths you find people taking extremely arrogant positions on things. Newton vs Leibnitz, Intuitionism vs Logic ... If any the author is warning how passion overrides reason and the biochemical approach is quite empirical.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 11 Jul 2020 21:52:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806410</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806410</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806410</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by foobar_ in "Beware of Being “Right”"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I found the argument to be profound as opposed to being manipulative. The amphetamine effect is something you can observe after a few drinks of coffee. Alcohol obviously and even sugar (diabetes) shows these changes in human cognition and common expressions like frenzy / pumped seem to line up. Love has been known to show psychotic qualities. It is important to revisit things with a sober mind as opposed to frenzy of a fight.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 11 Jul 2020 21:12:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806039</link><dc:creator>foobar_</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806039</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806039</guid></item></channel></rss>