bitshift's recent activity
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Comment on Bomb threats made against US President-Elect Donald Trump cabinet nominees in ~society
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Comment on Recruiting help for election day posters in ~creative
bitshift Link ParentThis is good, though there might be a clearer way to phrase it. The phrase "can't find out" could be misinterpreted as "You can't risk letting your spouse find out," as opposed to the presumably...Just remember, your spouse can't find out how you voted
This is good, though there might be a clearer way to phrase it. The phrase "can't find out" could be misinterpreted as "You can't risk letting your spouse find out," as opposed to the presumably intended (and much more calming) "Your spouse is unable to find out."
Other than that issue, I love this statement. It's simple, and (unlike the provocative alternatives), it's hard to dispute. Heck, it's very nearly a nonpartisan statement! Obviously there's a partisan intent given the context of this thread, but it's not printed on the sign; I could hold that sign while claiming to be a Trump supporter, and you'd have no way of knowing for sure.
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Comment on Trans activists release 6,000 crickets on transphobic LGB Alliance conference in ~lgbt
bitshift Link ParentNot the person you're replying to, but I know what my reaction would be: to ask, "How does this help good overcome evil?" Personally, I'd be afraid that pulling a stunt to disrupt the meeting has...Not the person you're replying to, but I know what my reaction would be: to ask, "How does this help good overcome evil?"
Personally, I'd be afraid that pulling a stunt to disrupt the meeting has a lot of potential downsides without a whole lot of upside. I'm not saying they were wrong to protest, or that every action in life has to have an attached cost/benefit analysis. What I'm saying is that I'm trying to do a cost/benefit analysis because that's my habit, and I'm scratching my head trying to come up with a long-term benefit.
Maybe I'm underestimating the value of raising social awareness? Or maybe I'm overly pessimistic about propagandists twisting the stunt into an argument for the other side?
The strongest argument I can come up with for the stunt is that it sends a message—"We will not be silenced"—where doing something that could get you in trouble is an integral part of the message.
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Comment on What are your spooky, creepy or unexplained stories? in ~talk
bitshift Link ParentStrangely, I tend to be the exact opposite. I tend to be on the skeptical side, and when I experience something unexplained firsthand, my default behavior is to immediately "talk myself out of...There's a kind of cognitive dissonance that happens to people though, where they accept that other people have flawed perceptions, but they don't.
Strangely, I tend to be the exact opposite. I tend to be on the skeptical side, and when I experience something unexplained firsthand, my default behavior is to immediately "talk myself out of it." That motion I saw out of the corner of my eye? Gosh, I must be sleep deprived. That slamming sound at the other end of the house? Probably something falling off a shelf, or something like a falling broom that had been leaning against the wall, or… something, but it doesn't really matter, because it's not a ghost or a home intruder. It must have a boring explanation.
Then all that goes out the window when I read other people's stories. They actually saw a ghost? Oh wow, I wonder if my understanding of the universe is all wrong? Their father sent them a message from beyond the grave? Maybe they did, maybe they didn't… but what if they did? Think of the implications!
(Then I forget about it once the thrill of the possibility wears off.)
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Comment on I worked for Mr. Beast, he’s a fraud in ~tech
bitshift Link ParentTook me a minute and some head scratching to understand that word. In retrospect, the suffix is obvious from context (gambling → casino), but due to Wikipedia-related reasons, my immediate mental...candy-sino
Took me a minute and some head scratching to understand that word. In retrospect, the suffix is obvious from context (gambling → casino), but due to Wikipedia-related reasons, my immediate mental associations were less than helpful.
What does that say to you, because I see that the only way to make life changing amounts of money is to be lucy enough to have that money already.
Well put. It's fiction for the purpose of for-profit entertainment, but the implied message (intentional or not) is… not the worst thing a piece of media can communicate, but it's up there. It's a very seductive fiction because it offers a payoff without effort, plus it's a partial truth: a good chunk of success in life does come down to chance! (But if that's the only thing you rely on, your prospects are dim.)
I am convinced the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction is a crucial life skill—perhaps one that should be taught.
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Comment on Spaced repetition for teaching two-year olds how to read (Interview) in ~life
bitshift Link ParentI'm curious about your opinion of other early-learning projects, such as teaching babies sign language (the idea being to open up communication earlier, because signs are easier to make than...I'm curious about your opinion of other early-learning projects, such as teaching babies sign language (the idea being to open up communication earlier, because signs are easier to make than speech sounds).
It's normal to focus heavily on teaching verbal communication: parents' voices from day 1, cultural excitement over first words, etc. To me, sign language and early reading just feel like extensions of that; it's socially acceptable to really, really focus on spoken language, so why not other forms of communication? At the same time, if I taught my kid sign language, I would be very aware I was doing something "weird" by cultural standards.
Definitely agree that every child is different. I started reading at 2 and it worked out well for me, but different children will become interested at different ages (and will have different levels of interest, as well). Props to you for giving your kid the opportunity to read, while being genuinely interested in whether they were interested!
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Comment on Spaced repetition for teaching two-year olds how to read (Interview) in ~life
bitshift Link ParentIt doesn't seem like an either-or situation to me. Spaced repetition has a remarkably good ratio of effort to learning, and I suspect that makes it easier to fit studying into a kid's day without...in the meantime their social and emotional development isn't being similarly pushed because those soft skills "aren't important". Similar deficiencies in motor skills are also apparent in many cases.
It doesn't seem like an either-or situation to me.
Spaced repetition has a remarkably good ratio of effort to learning, and I suspect that makes it easier to fit studying into a kid's day without exhausting their attention span or consuming all their time (the father specifically said he didn't want to be a "tiger dad"). And if there's plenty of time in the day, you could still invest time on all the things you highlighted — porque no los dos?
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Comment on Those who journal, how do you do so authentically? (How to stop “self-editing” or “censoring” yourself and your thoughts?) in ~health.mental
bitshift Link ParentI have not done this personally, but one possibility is following Beatrix Potter's example: write your journal in a secret code of your own invention (perhaps in conjunction with writing...I have not done this personally, but one possibility is following Beatrix Potter's example: write your journal in a secret code of your own invention (perhaps in conjunction with writing everything in teeny tiny scribbles, for extra security).
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Comment on Extraverted introverts, cautious risk-takers, and selfless narcissists: A demonstration of why you can’t trust data collected on MTurk in ~science
bitshift Link ParentThat's wild that there's active subversion going on, as in people putting in significant effort to cheat the system, and to cheat more effectively. I shouldn't be surprised, but I had assumed...That's wild that there's active subversion going on, as in people putting in significant effort to cheat the system, and to cheat more effectively. I shouldn't be surprised, but I had assumed cheating was more low effort, such as mashing keyboards.
You said you built apps on the platform? Were you (or your clients) in the position of "employer", then? If so, I'm curious what your approach was for combatting cheating.
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Comment on Making tough decisions: what’s your go-to approach? in ~talk
bitshift LinkI have a particular method for sleeping on tough decisions: Get some paper and write down the factors that matter to you. These can be concrete things, like "money" or "time commitment". Or they...I have a particular method for sleeping on tough decisions:
- Get some paper and write down the factors that matter to you. These can be concrete things, like "money" or "time commitment". Or they can be abstract: "satisfying my curiosity" or "gut feel". Whatever factors you value when making your decision.
- Write down your options. Should I take up knitting, ultimate frisbee, or lion taming? Tough choice.
- Use your factors to score each of your options. For example, I might give knitting 5 stars on time commitment (I can do it on the bus), 1 star on money (I have expensive taste in yarn), and 3 stars on gut feel (I kinda want to give it a try). Score the remaining options the same way.
- Add up the stars. Knitting is 5 + 1 + 3 = 9 stars. Ultimate frisbee got 3 + 5 + 4 = 12 stars. Lion taming: 2 + 4 + 1 = 7 stars.
- Put the paper away and sleep on it. The next day, score your options again. Try not to look at yesterday's answers! This time, knitting is 10 stars, frisbee is 12, and lion taming is 6.
- Do this several times. If you're in a hurry to get more data, you can do it 2-3 times per day, spread throughout the day so you have a fresh mind. You might notice scores trending in certain directions: e.g., frisbee is getting fewer stars each day you think about it.
- As soon as you have enough data, get out a scientific calculator and average each option's score. You'll want to use an exponential moving average with a base of 1.618, the golden mean— just messing with ya! Don't use the numbers. They were just a device to force you to think about the problem carefully, from all different angles. And by this point, you should already know in your heart you were meant to tame lions.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
bitshift LinkCasually working my way through Crafting Interpreters, though I'm substituting a language of my own design in place of Lox. It's a macro language for code generation. Think assembly language...Casually working my way through Crafting Interpreters, though I'm substituting a language of my own design in place of Lox. It's a macro language for code generation. Think assembly language macros: including files in the middle of other files, deduplicating repetitive code, evaluating template strings with numerical expressions, etc.
As part of designing that macro language, I've been studying languages that solve similar problems, such as actual assembly languages. My limited experience with assembler macros has been that simple things are easy, while everything else is difficult/impossible. Contrast with Tcl, which offers extreme flexibility — but don't goof up your syntax, because you'll have a heck of a time finding the issue. For my own language, I'm trying to strike a pleasant balance between these extremes.
I'm pretty far from my ultimate goal (the side project for which I'm inventing this macro language), but I'm enjoying the journey, and that's 90% of the satisfaction I'm hoping for. But I do hope to reach the destination someday! I'll have to fight perfectionist urges to get there, though. The pragmatic Rust mantra of "Keep calm and call clone" is extremely relevant here, as is the general attitude of not overcomplicating things. For example, do I really need parser errors to have line numbers? Probably not. But stuff like that is tempting.
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Comment on What's something you've been mulling over recently? in ~talk
bitshift Link ParentSorry to hear about your husband's health issues! Besides the logistical stuff like time and money, it's never fun to see someone you love suffer. It sounds like your sister's from a more...Sorry to hear about your husband's health issues! Besides the logistical stuff like time and money, it's never fun to see someone you love suffer.
It sounds like your sister's from a more conservative branch of Christianity? FWIW as a more liberal Protestant, I hope she's incorrect about some of God's aspects. I don't have satisfying answers, but the unsatisfying summary is I hope there is much more goodness and mercy out there than that, somehow.
I like your use of the word "Lovecraftian". Sometimes I ponder how wrong I might be about the universe, e.g., what if we're in a simulation, and whoever's in charge is Lovecraftian in the sense of cosmic indifference to our suffering (as opposed to an entity that inflicts harm for harm's sake). After all, I run computational stuff all the time, and I've never lost sleep over whether I've accidentally created suffering! In fact, we give strange looks to people whenever they say stuff like LLMs might have consciousness. If the hypothetical Programmer Upstairs was anything like a human programmer, it would be bad news for us.
To be clear, I don't believe we live in the Matrix — I'm fond of Maciej Cegłowski's criticism of the simulation hypothesis as "a powerful solvent for sanity." But I can't rule it out, which is kind of distressing. Ultimately, I cannot change the universe I'm in, so I try not to worry about it — it's just one of many unanswered questions, alongside such classics as, "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
bitshift Link ParentRegarding cryptography, my impression is that they've done their homework but are constrained by poor historical decisions. Off the top of my head, the big one is encrypting data using AES-CTR:...Regarding cryptography, my impression is that they've done their homework but are constrained by poor historical decisions. Off the top of my head, the big one is encrypting data using AES-CTR: this works, but it comes with extra assumptions about the rest of the system behaving well, assumptions that aren't very safe to make. And unfortunately, changing Borg's encryption algorithm is difficult to do in a backward-compatible way.
My anxiety about it is currently at an acceptably low simmer. Though if an attacker was actively modifying my cloud data in an attempt to break Borg, I'd be a lot more worried! Now I'm curious to look into how Kopia does things under the hood.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
bitshift Link ParentCoincidentally, I've also been revising my backup system — though my particular setup is a couple of Linux machines using Borg to write to rsync.net. Previously, running ad-hoc Borg commands...Coincidentally, I've also been revising my backup system — though my particular setup is a couple of Linux machines using Borg to write to rsync.net. Previously, running ad-hoc Borg commands involved copy/pasting environment variables, but now a brand-new shell script manages everything for me.
How has your experience with Kopia been? Borg has been pretty good for my use cases. The one big limitation I'm aware of is that you need Borg running on the remote end as well, so you can't easily put backups in key-value based cloud storage like S3/R2. (rsync.net has also been very good to me, and they have Borg installed on their servers, but it does limit the cloud providers I can consider.)
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Comment on Downtime due to sign up spam in ~tech
bitshift Link ParentSpeaking of Hashcash, the papers section on their website is delightful reading, specifically some of the later papers under "Related Work". There are some more recent proof-of-work schemes which...Speaking of Hashcash, the papers section on their website is delightful reading, specifically some of the later papers under "Related Work". There are some more recent proof-of-work schemes which emphasize memory-hard problems — RAM and memory bandwidth being where ASICs start to lose their advantage.
The clever bit is that these schemes can be designed to be memory-easy to verify, yet memory-hard to compute. For example, the client might have to find N different values whose hashes all have the same prefix; the client's best strategy is to generate many more than N hashes and store all of them in memory until the birthday paradox kicks in. But once the N values are found, the server's work is easy: hash those N values and make sure the prefix doesn't change.
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Comment on Tell me about your weird religious beliefs in ~humanities
bitshift Link ParentThe interesting thing to me about your thought experiment: it's the simulation hypothesis, but with unlimited recursion. Normally you'd expect each nested simulation to be "smaller" than its...The interesting thing to me about your thought experiment: it's the simulation hypothesis, but with unlimited recursion. Normally you'd expect each nested simulation to be "smaller" than its parent in some way: if not in complexity, then in terms of the storage space required by the simulation. Eventually, the recursion must end.
But if you don't need to physically evaluate the Game of Life, you can nest simulations to your heart's content. Imagine a Life pattern that implements a complete Turing machine: one property of that pattern is that it contains every possible universe that can be simulated by Turing machine, and those universes all experience existence regardless of whether you evaluate the pattern. And if your own universe is simulatable, then the pattern literally includes your own universe — not in the sense of "simulating a copy of a subset of your own universe," but in the sense of "these two mathematical objects are the same."
I can't say that I seriously believe it, but it is a lot of fun to think about.
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Comment on Why does the letter 'S' look like an 'F' in old manuscripts? in ~humanities.languages
bitshift LinkI just remembered that the Greek language has a similar thing with the letter sigma. Wikipedia gives Ὀδυσσεύς (Odysseus) as an example: the first two sigmas look like "σ", but the last sigma in a...I just remembered that the Greek language has a similar thing with the letter sigma. Wikipedia gives Ὀδυσσεύς (Odysseus) as an example: the first two sigmas look like "σ", but the last sigma in a word looks like "ς". And there's also a lunate sigma ("Ϲ", lowercase "ϲ") whose usage feels similar to long s. Wikipedia again: "In modern, edited Greek texts, the lunate sigma typically appears primarily in older typesetting."
Now I'm wondering if it's at all connected to long s, because it's a funny coincidence that both languages would have special rules for the character that produces the "sss" sound.
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Comment on Interview: Kenta Cho (Japanese indie game developer) in ~games
bitshift Link ParentFrom my point of view, "content" is just an axis along which you can measure. A haiku can be deep, but in a different way than The Little Prince is. And neither one is the "correct" deep! They're...From my point of view, "content" is just an axis along which you can measure. A haiku can be deep, but in a different way than The Little Prince is. And neither one is the "correct" deep! They're just different dimensions.
When you hear "indie game", you might think of something like Cave Story, and if that's what you expect Kenta Cho's games to be, you might be disappointed. What he writes seems to be more of a "poetry of games" — your haiku metaphor is an apt one.
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Comment on Interview: Kenta Cho (Japanese indie game developer) in ~games
bitshift LinkThis guy is quite prolific. I remember his name from years ago, when I was hunting for games to install on Debian; looks like he has ~14 packages to his name, but evidently that's far from all of...This guy is quite prolific. I remember his name from years ago, when I was hunting for games to install on Debian; looks like he has ~14 packages to his name, but evidently that's far from all of them:
In 2021 he created a total 139 games, which is one hell of a lockdown project.
Indeed. Sounds like he's invested time into his tools to be able to crank these out:
The goal of Crisp Game Lib is to enable the creation of innovative games within a three-hour timeframe.
So I presume most of these games aren't that deep in terms of content. That said, I presume he's learned something about game design in the process. Makes me want to try one of his games now.
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Comment on The US GOP doesn’t want to punish trans people—it wants to eradicate them in ~lgbt
bitshift Link ParentI don't think it will go the other way (e.g., prediction markets say the Obergefell ruling will stand), but ultimately we don't know yet, and you're not wrong to be concerned when a seriously...I don't think it will go the other way (e.g., prediction markets say the Obergefell ruling will stand), but ultimately we don't know yet, and you're not wrong to be concerned when a seriously weighty matter is at stake. My thoughts are with you, and with everyone else whose rights are threatened.
Political violence is not new, but I 100% agree that each additional instance sucks for the reason you mentioned: violence normalizes violence.
Somewhere I read a really good analogy of how our minds go wrong with this. When we think of violence, we're wired to think of good versus evil, knights slaying dragons, stuff like that. When a dragon kills one of the townsfolk, that's because the dragon is evil. And when a knight kills one of the dragons, well, the dragon had it coming. Killing the dragon solves the problem.
But in reality, violence is less like a dragon and more like Godzilla. It's not glamorous. Every day he shows up and tramples several city blocks. Some days he tramples more, some days less. Sometimes a different giant monster shows up and fights Godzilla, and even more of the city gets destroyed than usual. Your life is now all about surviving between monster attacks. That's the new normal.
And the problem is whenever people commit violence, they think they're killing an evil dragon, when they're actually waking Godzilla.