Hacker News: garmaine

New comment by garmaine in "[dead]"

garmaine — Tue, 04 Jan 2022 05:46:13 +0000

All of HN is rate limited in posting, no?

New comment by garmaine in "Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'"

garmaine — Tue, 04 Jan 2022 05:43:40 +0000

Ummm… I do. It’s not a hard b sound, but it is there. It sort of moves the location of the “t” sound down towards a “b.” It defiantly does not sound like “det”.

And I distinctly pronounce the “b” in “plumber” (another example in the article.

New comment by garmaine in "Ask HN: Were CS classes in top universities more difficult in the 80s than now?"

garmaine — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 23:42:33 +0000

In the 80’s? What CS classes.

New comment by garmaine in "What If Math Is a Fundamental Part of Nature, Not Something Humans Came Up With?"

garmaine — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 13:15:51 +0000

The law of the excluded middle is also known as the “sandwich theorem” because it drives directly from a physical observation. I happen to agree with the constructionists that mathematics is better formulated without it, but it is most definitely a rule derived from analogy to the physical world.

As a physicist myself, I’ll tell you that there isn’t a single one which believes that the universe doesn’t operate according to knowable rules. That’s kinda the definition of what it means to be a physicist.

New comment by garmaine in "Evergrande suspends trading of shares as it tries to raise money"

garmaine — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 07:53:53 +0000

Because the Chinese economy collapsing affects business everywhere.

New comment by garmaine in "Ask HN: What’s the origin of the phrase “Don’t feed the trolls?”"

garmaine — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 07:52:34 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Billy_Goats_Gruff

New comment by garmaine in "What If Math Is a Fundamental Part of Nature, Not Something Humans Came Up With?"

garmaine — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 07:16:52 +0000

Math is fundamentally a description of the physical world. Mathematicians don’t like to hear this because they have their own ideas about the platonic realm of math, but it is true. We can debate which logical rules or axioms to include, but fundamentally any math has to have some sort of rules for deductive reasoning, which carry over from observation about the physical world: effects have antecedents, with a causal link between the two.

Now we have gone from that to the present day when we have maths which aren’t yet found to align with physical reality. So I can see why people want to say that it is a mental construction. But still, even these abstract maths operate according to rules we derived from the physical universe.

New comment by garmaine in "What If Math Is a Fundamental Part of Nature, Not Something Humans Came Up With?"

garmaine — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 04:09:35 +0000

Well said. The headline is bonkers…

New comment by garmaine in "Tepco slow to respond to growing crisis at Fukushima plant"

garmaine — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 07:53:11 +0000

There’s not that much radiation in this water. None of those concerns would apply. They could literally just dump it into the ocean without measurable effect, which is the plan of record.

New comment by garmaine in "In 2022 a Moonrush will begin in earnest"

garmaine — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 07:50:36 +0000

It is literally two things connected by a rope. A tether-based spun spacecraft is trivial from an engineering perspective, and can have as large a radius as you need to avoid differential “gravity” effects.

New comment by garmaine in "Tepco slow to respond to growing crisis at Fukushima plant"

garmaine — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 03:07:06 +0000

Good thing there’s no Strontium-90 in this water. The only thing it contains is trace amounts of titrium. Which could be safely dumped in the ocean.

New comment by garmaine in "Tepco slow to respond to growing crisis at Fukushima plant"

garmaine — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 03:05:41 +0000

They have literally hundreds of these tanks. They were building them every few days.

Doesn’t take away from your main point though.

New comment by garmaine in "In 2022 a Moonrush will begin in earnest"

garmaine — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 02:29:55 +0000

Did you live during the Cold War? I struggle to understand why someone would want to live under that constant existential threat of nuclear annihilation.

New comment by garmaine in "In 2022 a Moonrush will begin in earnest"

garmaine — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 02:28:36 +0000

Spin the spacecraft. Done.

New comment by garmaine in "In 2022 a Moonrush will begin in earnest"

garmaine — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 02:27:11 +0000

A small factor more than aircraft in the short term. Zero in the medium term when launch companies vertically integrate propellant production based on renewables. A net positive once we start relying on non-terrestrial resources instead of poising our planet to extract metals and power.

New comment by garmaine in "Linux Kernel RNG is now Blake2 instead of SHA1 and 3x faster"

garmaine — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 20:32:48 +0000

I think I am. Thanks for the correction.

New comment by garmaine in "Ask HN: How long did it take to learn your first programming language?"

garmaine — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 10:02:00 +0000

Learning a programming language is easy. Learning software engineering takes months even just for the basics. The first time you learn to code, you’re doing both. Just hang in there: it gets easier with time.

New comment by garmaine in "Linux Kernel RNG is now Blake2 instead of SHA1 and 3x faster"

garmaine — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 07:07:46 +0000

Are you sure? I haven’t been able to buy a CPU that doesn’t have SHA2 acceleration for an number of years now.

New comment by garmaine in "Linux Kernel RNG is now Blake2 instead of SHA1 and 3x faster"

garmaine — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 23:53:15 +0000

Why is it not SHA2 which would be faster still with hardware support?

New comment by garmaine in "IRS: Stolen property must be reported as income on taxes"

garmaine — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:31:57 +0000

Journalists have a limited First Amendment right not to be forced to reveal information or confidential news sources in court. There’s a lot of caveats related to this though. It’s called “reporter’s privilege.”