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brianberns

1,622 karma · joined October 25, 2012

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brianberns··on Waveloop: What Fable left me
I had the same lack, so I walked myself through it from the very start: https://brianberns.github.io/01-SineWaves.html
brianberns··on The most famous transcendental numbers
I read this with pleasure, right up until the bit about the ants. Then I saw the note from myself at the end, which I had totally forgot writing seven years ago. I probably first encountered the article via HN back then as well. Thanks for publishing my thoughts!
brianberns··on Solving the NY Times "Pips" game with F#
Thanks! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who went down this rabbit hole. :)

I considered parallelizing my solution as well, but the problem is that it only gives a linear speedup, while the problem space increases exponentially. I decided to focus on pruning the search tree instead, and that seemed to work pretty well (after much thinking).

brianberns··on Particle Lenia Deluxe Edition
Particle Lenia is awesome. I did an online version that you can interact with here: https://brianberns.github.io/ParticleLenia/
brianberns··on Proofs Without Words
I made a game out of creating proofs without words: https://brianberns.github.io/Tactix/
brianberns··on OCaml's Wings for Machine Learning
Yes, I use F# with TorchSharp to do machine learning. My most recent project is a Hearts AI that is quite good. Here are some links:

* https://github.com/brianberns/Hearts

* https://github.com/brianberns/MinGptSharp

* https://github.com/brianberns/ModestGpt

* https://github.com/brianberns/DeepKuhnPoker

brianberns··on Haskelling My Python
These are indeed very similar. Thanks for the link!

The math is a bit over my head, but this formulation seems more difficult than the one I'm familiar with. For example, x^2 is represented as 0::0::2 instead of 0::0::1 (because 2! = 2) and x^3 is represented as 0::0::0::6 instead of 0::0::0::1 (because 3! = 6). Is there a benefit to that?

brianberns··on Haskelling My Python
This idea comes from a functional pearl called "Power Series, Power Serious" [0], which is well worth reading.

I implemented the same thing myself in F#. [1]

[0]: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&d...

[1]: https://github.com/brianberns/PowerSeries

brianberns··on Purely Functional Sliding Window Aggregation Algorithm
I translated this to F# for my own edification. It's more verbose, but perhaps easier to understand for non-Haskellers.

https://github.com/brianberns/AnnotatedStack

brianberns··on Using ASCII waveforms to test real-time audio code
FWIW, you might like this: https://github.com/brianberns/FYampaSynth
brianberns··on A Contamination Theory of the Obesity Epidemic
Did you read the linked paper? They consider this possibility and reject it.
brianberns··on CIA director says he is escalating efforts to solve 'Havana Syndrome'
Using media statements to sway public opinion is… a totally normal thing for organizations to do.
brianberns··on Elixir protocols vs. Clojure multimethods
To me, F# is the pragmatic functional language with the most appeal, but being on .NET maybe it’s not even niche.
brianberns··on Replit used legal threats to kill my open-source project
Unless I’m misunderstanding something, the company’s software is already open source (https://github.com/replit), so cloning it is perfectly reasonable.

If there’s any dispute here, I think it would be over the copyright to the cloned code (if it really is a clone), but the article doesn’t mention anything about that, so I suspect it isn’t actually cloned at all.

brianberns··on An incomplete list of skills senior engineers need, beyond coding
A big one I'd add: Ability to gather requirements from a non-technical user, product owner, or subject-matter expert.
brianberns··on Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
18 out of 1000 = “teeming with scams”?

It’s a real problem, but the headline is sensationalized.

brianberns··on Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces
Parsing his sentence for tiny nuances like that isn't very helpful IMHO, but I'll indulge you.

His exact words are "these differences may explain". He doesn't say "these differences may PARTLY explain". If I say that A may explain B, the reasonable implication is that A may fully explain B. So, yes, he does suggest that non-bias causes are the only causes.

Just to be clear: I don't think this makes any real difference. The reaction to his email would've been the same either way. But the fact remains that your interpretation of the quote isn't supported by the actual words he used.

brianberns··on Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces
That’s why I used the word “suggested”, which is exactly what he did, in a section prominently titled “Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech”.
brianberns··on Google removes its head of diversity after 2007 blog post surfaces
He suggested that biological differences between the sexes (rather than bias/discrimination) are the reason why women are underrepresented in the tech industry.

It’s not hard to understand why many people find this offensive.

Here’s the direct quote if you need it: “I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.”

brianberns··on Freenode IRC operators now engaging in routine abuses of power
It’s nothing like that. If you want a modern analogy, it’s like the moderators of a subreddit abandoning it, and the reddit admins deciding to keep it going anyway. It violates the expected wall between moderators and admins, but it’s hardly theft or impersonation.
brianberns··on Freenode IRC operators now engaging in routine abuses of power
Yes, I can see that it’s a technical violation of the policy. On the other hand, OP explicitly abandoned the channel and then cried “abuse” when the administrator stepped in to resuscitate it. And now this very tiny tempest in a teapot is at the top of HN for us all to gawk at.
brianberns··on Freenode IRC operators now engaging in routine abuses of power
I don’t know anything about IRC, but it seems more benign that that: the person who ran ##hntop abandoned it for another platform, so the guy who runs its sister channel, ##hnnew, recreated it, because they naturally go together. Calling this “abuse” seems like a stretch to me.
brianberns··on Before the iPhone, I worked on a few games for what were called "feature phones"
Thank you. Twitter's user experience is the worst.
brianberns··on “Shared libraries are not a good thing in general”
Does a tool that can do this exist? A “relinker”?

It’s a neat idea, but one obvious downside is the potential need to relink many executables when a shared component changes.

brianberns··on Closer to finding what became of Moses Schönfinkel, inventor of combinators
He doesn't mention it, but this is basically what we today call "SKI" combinators: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKI_combinator_calculus

* I is the identity function: Ix = x

* K is the constant function: Kxy = x

* S is a bit more complex: Sxyz = xz(yz)

brianberns··on Apple doesn't care about album cover art
Another minor beef: Rounded corners for an album cover image don't make sense, either historically or aesthetically. Just give us the full image please, Apple.
brianberns··on Down the Golang Nil Rabbit Hole
Null references: the billion dollar mistake.
brianberns··on That time Sprinklr's VP of design tried to get me fired
Of course there is, but the relevant similarity is that both cases caused a negative impact on their respective employers from actual and/or prospective customers. Employers have every right to dislike that.
brianberns··on That time Sprinklr's VP of design tried to get me fired
I fully support this lady’s “right to say dumb shit on the internet”, but if Gina Carano can be fired by Disney for her tweets, so can she (who actually wasn’t even fired). Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences.
brianberns··on An Object-Oriented Language for the '20s
F# is functional-first, but also fully supports OO. It’s a good balance for the 20’s, or any other decade.
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