Hvv's recent activity
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Comment on Happy 17776 Day! in ~misc
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
Hvv LinkSince I've found that a lot of my reading time has been fractured lately, I've been opting more towards short story collections in electronic format, particularly Clarkesworld and Lightspeed...Since I've found that a lot of my reading time has been fractured lately, I've been opting more towards short story collections in electronic format, particularly Clarkesworld and Lightspeed Magazine. In so doing I've found that I'm a sucker for the art of incluing, even it's particularly dense (thinking about one story in particular which made me stop several time due to the sheer number of implied systems in the world to go "Wait stop the plot I want to hear more about this entire other thing").
In a similar vein I've also started The Universe Box by Michael Swanwick, which I hope to get through gradually and not forget about when next month's magazine issues come out.
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Comment on lobste.rs invite in ~comp
Hvv LinkI see you've likely gotten an invite already, but as someone in the same metaphorical boat I didn't want to bother anyone (I guess just one at time of writing) who has volunteered; Would also be...I see you've likely gotten an invite already, but as someone in the same metaphorical boat I didn't want to bother anyone (I guess just one at time of writing) who has volunteered;
Would also be happy to fill out an invite through PMs if anyone is willing to offer one! -
Comment on Does anyone have any Nebula recommendations? I've just signed up! in ~tv
Hvv LinkSince I don't want this list to get too long I'm going to try to mention channels/shows that haven't come up yet. Nebula has some completely in-house shows that might be interesting to you:...Since I don't want this list to get too long I'm going to try to mention channels/shows that haven't come up yet.
Nebula has some completely in-house shows that might be interesting to you:
- Abolish Everything (haven't seen it, but a popular new comedy series with the premise that the speaker wants to abolish a thing or idea)
- The Getaway (The Mole-style game show, but everyone's the Mole (but nobody knows everyone else is the Mole))
- Amy's Dead End Dreamhouse (The millennial/early adulthood experience draped in the aesthetics of a kids' show)
In terms of "regular" channels, a few that I have tended to like are:
- People Make Games (Deep dives into how game development shapes and is shaped by society)
- FilmJoy (Movie analysis, with a deeply personal vibe that kind of makes me terrified of how much of movies I miss if I'm not paying attention)
- Branch Education (High quality animated explainers of how hardware works)
- Climate Town (Within the Climate tragedy of the modern era are a dozen little comedies, each more absurd than the last)
Also there are video essayists who post infrequently enough to let you forget they're on Nebula, such as:
- Philosophy Tube
- Hbomberguy
- Knowing Better
(This is mostly just a PSA for if you already follow those channels, but there is a nonzero chance someone else you follow is already on Nebula and doesn't mention it/only mentioned in a sponsorship segment that you skipped)
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Comment on The Funny Men in ~creative
Hvv Link ParentThank you for the kind words! (I don't really write poetry either, but I was going to continue thinking about this unless I shared it with someone)Thank you for the kind words! (I don't really write poetry either, but I was going to continue thinking about this unless I shared it with someone)
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Comment on The Funny Men in ~creative
Hvv Link ParentJust to clarify, as @Crespyl surmised, that line was intentionally inserted before the third section (and to be extra clear, all the word choices were made by me). That being said, this would be...Just to clarify, as @Crespyl surmised, that line was intentionally inserted before the third section (and to be extra clear, all the word choices were made by me). That being said, this would be an entirely different sort of work indeed if it were written using LLMs.
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Comment on The Funny Men in ~creative
Hvv (edited )LinkAdaptation of The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot, with additional inspiration taken from: Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman Baby Shark, author unknown Hey Ya!, by Outkast Director's Commentary I am...Adaptation of The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot, with additional inspiration taken from:
Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman
Baby Shark, author unknown
Hey Ya!, by Outkast
Director's Commentary
I am taking a decidedly lighter tone and will not be dissecting the words here, mainly because they're mostly not my words and being that depressing for even longer doesn't feel very useful for my mental health.
This poem is the result of two impulses:
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Wanting to remember that one poem that coined the phrase "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper"
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"Okay but what if it was the 'Funny' men instead"
And this consumed an evening with writing because it's the sort of foul sprout that can't be plucked until it blooms into whatever this is.
I still have mixed results on remembering what this poem is called (still missed it when literally "Not with bang but with a whimper" appeared on Jeopardy). On the other hand, I did get to know the rest of the poem and what's going on with this completely out of context video from a Simpsons clip channel, so I guess it evens out somewhat.
My one-sentence conclusion on the poetry is "damn, T. S. Eliot really is good at poetry" because even after playing absurd mad libs with his work, it's still a pretty coherent piece.
Parting Tangents:
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Part of this poem was written using AI (Annoying Imitation).
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Knowing that the last stanza contained a modified nursery rhyme and knowing that there was a correct answer for what the "funny men" variation of that nursery rhyme would be, I was initially surprised how little material was actually in the song (a majority of syllables in the song are "doo", with the second most common being "shark"). I did the old geezer thing of making a show on how much less interesting modern children's songs are, but after checking old nursery rhymes I'm not convinced many (any?) convey much meaning at all. It also turns out that speculation on the meaning of these is a time honored tradition featuring debate on whether they expose children to bad ideas.
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Wait a minute, Baby Shark has existed for decades?
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The Funny Men
1 We are the funny men The laughter men Leaning together Headpiece filled with mirth. Alas! Our wavering voices, when We giggle together Are loud and senseless As hyenas in dry grass Or gales...
1
We are the funny men
The laughter men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with mirth. Alas!
Our wavering voices, whenWe giggle together
Are loud and senseless
As hyenas in dry grass
Or gales stirring shards of glass
In our dry cellarForm of clay, color of slick.
Fictitious force, turbulent motion;
Those who have crossed
With eyes darting to and fro,To death's other kingdom
Remember us -- if at all --
Not as grasping, violent souls
But only as
The funny men
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Eyes I dare not meet in ads
In death's advertisement kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Blinding light on a broken column
There, is a tube man swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More shrill and more booming
Than a cancelled star.Let me be no nearer
In death's advertisement kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
(Thinnest phone, cleanest drip, slickest rizz)
On the grass
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer--Not that final meeting
In the Find Out kingdom
Here you go! I’ve rewritten the text to avoid direct reference to the theme:
III
This is the slop land
This is swamp land
Here, the seed rounds
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a gilded man's hand
Under the twinkle of a parasite star.Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Fully sure that
We and our money are soon parted.
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The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of choking stars
In this hollow valley
The worms atop our kingdoms' bones.In this last of meeting places
We wail together
A barbaric yawp
Gathered on this beach of the sunken riverSightless, unless
The flames reappear
As the perpetual star
Tetraethyllead rose
Of death's Find Out kingdom
The hope only
Of unserious men.
5
Baby shark
Mommy shark
Daddy shark
Grandma shark
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the ComedyDon’t want to meet your daddy
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the ComedyJust want you in my Caddy
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the ComedyDon’t want to meet your mama
Just want to
I’m just
Just want to make you
Grandpa shark
Where’d they go
No one’s here
Sleep again14 votes -
Comment on You are a better writer than AI (yes, YOU!) in ~creative
Hvv Link ParentI've been thinking on this and I guess the reaction is because in a lot of cases people are not looking for "writing" , but instead for "output". If we interpret writing as the meeting of the...I've been thinking on this and I guess the reaction is because in a lot of cases people are not looking for "writing" , but instead for "output". If we interpret writing as the meeting of the minds then what happens when we know (or assume) the mind on the other side will not meet ours?
It's easier to judge output than writing (I hope this is a meaningful statement) so we who write and reach out into the world just as easily fret over whether our writing is also good output, because our reader may first judge us on our output before they meet us on our writing. -
Comment on Day 3: Lobby in ~comp.advent_of_code
Hvv (edited )LinkPart 1 Since there are only two digits to search, it is absolutely possible to just check all 2-digit combinations in each string and just take the maximum to reach the answer. Part 2 Okay so we...Part 1
Since there are only two digits to search, it is absolutely possible to just check all 2-digit combinations in each string and just take the maximum to reach the answer.Part 2
Okay so we can't just take the maximum over all 12 digit combinations (at least if we want to have the program run within a reasonable amount of time, though I think a sufficiently optimized brute force wouldn't take our entire lifetime?).The first simple enough solution I could come up with was to maintain an array that keeps track of the largest K-digit number that can be formed from the given digits, from 0 to 12 digits (yes, the 0th element is always 0 but I will eat a few bytes of wasted memory to avoid weird off-by-one situations). This array starts with all 0s, but we go left to right and analyzing each new digit of the digit string to update our array, ending with an array with the true answer in the 12th element.
When we look at each new digit, we can update our array by seeing that each largest K-digit number either doesn't use the rightmost digit or it does use this rightmost digit.
If it doesn't, then the answer is unchanged, since we already knew the largest K-digit number without the rightmost digit.
If it does, then we consider what the first K-1 digits would look like, and realize that this itself is a number, in fact that it's the largest K-1 digit number that could be formed without the rightmost digit (what
planningluck! We already have that in our array!)To cover both options, we can simply take the max over these (and take care for the order of operations, since an in-place array update might destroy that "K-1 digit number" information) and repeat for all K and all the way from left to right to get the full answer.
(I will note that the kids call this algorithm strategy Dynamic Programming, and given that it has a fancy name I'm not convinced it's the simplest algorithm.)
Part 1/2 Code (C++)
#include <bits/stdc++.h> using namespace std; typedef long long ll; ll solve(const vector<ll>& arr, ll len) { vector<ll> best(len+1,0); for(const auto& u: arr) { for(int i=len;i>0;i--) { best[i] = max(best[i],best[i-1]*10+u); } } return best[len]; } int main() { string input; ll ans = 0; ll ans1 = 0; while(cin >> input) { vector<ll> digit_input; for(const auto& c: input) { digit_input.push_back(c-'0'); } ans1 += solve(digit_input,2); ans += solve(digit_input,12); } cout << ans1 << '\n'; cout << ans << '\n'; }But can we do it *faster*?
If you do a bit of analysis on the above Part 2 solution, you'll recognize to solve the generalized problem of finding the maximum K-digit subsequence on a string of N digits, using our old friend Big O notation this solution takes O(NK) time. There is, however, a theoretically faster solution which uses a completely different approach.We instead observe that, for numbers with the same digit, numbers with larger first digits are larger, no matter what digits follow (for example 20000 > 19999, despite 199 having lots more 9s).
This gives us a different solution: If we just seek out the biggest leftmost digits and merely ensure that we can fill out the remaining digits, we get another solution that may be even faster:
Starting from the very left of the digit string, move forwards to the first 9 and see if there are enough remaining digits to build out the rest of the number (this is actually just an string index check, since you can always fill out a number by just taking all the digits after it). If it works, take it and continue building the number after the 9. If the 9 doesn't work (or there are no 9s in the string), try the next 8, then the next 7, etc. (you're not going to exhaust all the digits unless you're trying to build a number with more than N digits, which is easy to check).
Repeating this enough times, we will eventually end up with enough digits for a number.But is it faster?
At first it doesn't look like it's faster, because we have to seek out the next digit each time, and that would make it O(NK) like before. But we can make an optimization that saves a ton of time on those seeks: just pre-compute for each position where the next occurrence of each digit is, and those seeks become O(1) array lookups.
Well that's a new problem: how do we pre-compute at each position where the next occurrence of each digit is?
The secret is to build this pre-computed array from right-to-left. Now the next occurrence of each digit (left-to-right) is just the most recently seen occurrence of each digit (right-to-left), and we can just update each value right-to-left as we see it.
This precomputation takes O(10 N) = O(N) time, and now that we only need to do an array lookup to build our number of K digits, the full solution takes O(10 N+10 K) = O(N+K) = O(N) time (remembering that K <= N in any reasonable version of this problem), which is definitely the fastest we can go.
Bonus problem: What if the base isn't 10? Given a N-digit string in base M, this solution will take O(NM) time. Can you find an even faster solution that covers this case? (I think there is one, but the solution that comes to me is exponentially more horrible and contains some super weird ideas).
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Comment on California lets residents opt-out of a ton of data collection on the web in ~tech
Hvv LinkAlternative Links: Consumer Reports California Governor's office California Privacy Protection Agency The laws themselves: AB 566 SB 361 Kind of local and also reading the bills the changes aren't...Alternative Links:
California Privacy Protection Agency
The laws themselves:
Kind of local and also reading the bills the changes aren't massive (basically just increasing the scope of data sharing disclosure and increasing access to existing privacy signals like the Global Privacy Control signal), but if you remember the GDPR-induced flood of privacy policy updates and/or opt out of every privacy consent toggle out of spite, then I think this will be welcome news (that being said I suspect someone who cares enough has already bent their browser choice around this.)
One interesting thing I'm waiting to see for AB 566 is whether this is going to affect browser design for everyone, because there's no way a change to a browser like that can be limited to just California without some really annoying geofencing, and that might really change the popularity of these opt-out signals given that they now have actual enforcement behind them.
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California lets residents opt-out of a ton of data collection on the web
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Comment on Rupert's snub cube and other math holes in ~comp
Hvv LinkI'm slightly surprised that Tom would sink time into something as practical(?) as an open math problem, but as someone who has seen things like square packings and thought "hey I could probably...I'm slightly surprised that Tom would sink time into something as practical(?) as an open math problem, but as someone who has seen things like square packings and thought "hey I could probably write a crappy optimizer and improve some obscure case" I can attest to the black hole-like nature of problems like these.
Spoilers(? is there a plot to be spoiled here?)
Having independently learned about the Noperthedron before this video, once I realized this was about Rupert's property I was anticipating that Tom would reveal that he was somehow involved in the paper and even double-checked to see whether he was one of the authors. Nope, turns out the timing was because he was as surprised by this paper as I was.
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Comment on pass: the standard u̴n̴i̴x̴ Bash password manager in ~comp
Hvv LinkHey I used to use this! There’s a whole technical critique out there on why this might not be the best password manager choice, but for me it boiled down to losing track of my entries after a...Hey I used to use this!
There’s a whole technical critique out there on why this might not be the best password manager choice, but for me it boiled down to losing track of my entries after a while because I was too stubborn/paranoid to name the password files descriptively (the passwords are encrypted but the names are plaintext) and because I sometimes forgot to record what account corresponded to what password. You can put multiline entries into the password field but I ultimately decided on another password manager with more metadata handling and search tooling.
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Comment on Donation drive: Lambda Legal in ~lgbt
Hvv LinkThank you for letting me know about this. I’m in for $125 with a 100% employer match for a total of $250.Thank you for letting me know about this. I’m in for $125 with a 100% employer match for a total of $250.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
Hvv LinkI’m starting to read The Plague by Albert Camus (the English translation by Laura Morris). I was inspired to get the book after rewatching this YouTube video (just be aware that it has sad vibes)...I’m starting to read The Plague by Albert Camus (the English translation by Laura Morris). I was inspired to get the book after rewatching this YouTube video (just be aware that it has sad vibes) in November due to some things happening at the time that reminded me of those themes.
While at the bookstore I also got The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin. I read the Left Hand of Darkness earlier and enjoyed it, though I'm basically going into this one blind.
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Comment on Tildes Video Thread in ~misc
Hvv Linkhow many Super Mario games are there NOW? Quite a long video but also an entertaining exploration of the public perception of video games and particularly Super Mario games, all stemming from the...how many Super Mario games are there NOW?
Quite a long video but also an entertaining exploration of the public perception of video games and particularly Super Mario games, all stemming from the fact that “Super Mario game” is not actually well defined.
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Comment on Carbon offsets and the Nebula show "Jet Lag" in ~enviro
Hvv Link ParentYou may be thinking about @tvl (per this comment, which I have just noticed is replying to you), though they haven’t been active here in a long time.You may be thinking about @tvl (per this comment, which I have just noticed is replying to you), though they haven’t been active here in a long time.
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Comment on US Department of Justice sues Visa, alleges the card issuer monopolizes debit card markets in ~finance
Hvv LinkFollows up on https://tild.es/1j0r. US DOJ announcement here: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-visa-monopolizing-debit-markets I’m quite surprised it progressed so soon, but...Follows up on https://tild.es/1j0r.
US DOJ announcement here:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-visa-monopolizing-debit-markets
I’m quite surprised it progressed so soon, but the DOJ was most certainly prepping for a while and likely let it slip just before it actually went through with things.
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US Department of Justice sues Visa, alleges the card issuer monopolizes debit card markets
39 votes
Spoilery semi-answer
Partially recalling this answer but I think the in-narrative reason is basically just that they are literally very old solar powered machines that don't get the energy to stay on for long period of time. If I remember this right, it's sprung pretty suddenly and without prior warning, so they're all trying to get their final words in before the Nine literally shuts off due to low charge.
Out-of-narrative I think it's the simplest way to bookend the story while preserving the vibe, like it's a call to loved ones that ends because your battery is at 1% and it's late anyway. It also sets up the story for a sequel, though I'm not sure that was being considered at the time.