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It’s not becoming the users that are the decision makers. A few CTOs could make decisions based on this

I think it’s fundamentally hard to make tools like that because models can be sensitive to specifics, so dumbing them down is generally not great

Do you think there is room for a resurgence in linear optimization?

Linear programming, and even integer linear programming are pretty well solved practically speaking.

I agree with the vibes of your comment, but I have to reply to this:

> Unless you’re talking about advanced PR and market manipulation techniques to capture and retain ad revenue

Those very much _are_ the goals at those enterprises.

> making bigger breakthroughs in AI, apps, self-driving cars

Those weren’t really the topics people were interested in at the time (depending on your definition of AI).

The shoulders of giants, as they say.

As do high corporate tax rates

What are you basing such a bold prediction on?

>Which line in the FAQ are you making an analogy to?

The line about filename shenanigans being disallowed.

>A FAQ for the newsgroup is not automatically part of the rules for the challenge.

I think it’s completely clear that this FAQ was about the challenge.

>It's easy to show that in practice some bytes are more common than others (because random)

I don’t follow. Wouldn’t that be (because not random)

>uniform random strings’ K complexity is only _tightly concentrated around_ the strings’ length plus a machine-dependent constant

What is the distribution of the complexity of a string? Is there some Chernof-like bound?

And the FAQ for the bet said that if a team can’t afford to enter the playoffs then the bet is off.

But storing an index for a file of length 2^n takes only n bits, so you need that run of 0’s to be of length n+1 to win

This reminds me of a data compression scheme I came up with once:

Treat an n bit file as a polynomial over the finite field with characteristic 2. Now, there are some irreducible polynomials in this field, but many polynomials have factors of x and of (x+1). Factor the polynomial into P(x)x^n (x+1)^m. and just collect these terms, storing only P, n, and m.

One thing you can do, as the other commenter pointed out, is consider entropy of the file.

However, this restriction is too much for the purposes of this challenge. We don’t actually need a file with low entropy, in fact I claim that a weak file exists for files with entropy 8 (the maximum entropy value) - epsilon for each epsilon > 0.

What we actually need is a sufficiently large chunk in a file to have low entropy. The largeness is in absolute terms, not relative terms.

A very simple file would be taking a very large file with maximum entropy and adding 200 0’s to the end. This would not decrease the entropy of the file much, but it gives way to a compression algorithm that should be able to save ~100 bytes

I feel like if the FAQ requires not using filename shenanigans then the slight of hand was illegal the whole way.

In what sense is it a manipulation? If I have a billion in cash and spend it all on a stock, that stock price will go up; that’s not manipulation. That’s supply and demand.

>Why chose a 'return' method that is only for some investors?

The investors control the company, so they get to decide that.

I think it’s kind of up to the investors what is unfair for them.

It’s a way to return money to share holders.

> socialist thinking getting us all closer to WW3 though

I would love if you elaborated on that

Threads seems like it was designed by people who want me to be angry. Bluesky seems like it was designed by people who want me to be happy.

I notice I stay on threads longer, often thinking “people can’t possibly believe this nonsense,” and I notice that I’m angry after using it for some time. I stay on Bluesky for much shorter periods, and I often feel peaceful (even bordering on bored) after a session.

Being derivative isn’t necessarily a bad business strategy as long as you improve on whatever you’re deriving from.

> Newbie, inexperienced developers write complex code. Experienced, seasoned developers write simple code

This is a really inaccurate generalization. Maybe you could say something about excess complexity, but all problems have some level of irreducible complexity that code fundamentally had to reflect.

Unless you’re taking the stance that free speech as a concept applies only to the government, then it’s definitely not orthogonal.

Almost all moderation concerns are obviously restrictions on free speech, it’s just that for several reasons people have started to shrink “speech” into “political speech within some Overton window”

For some obvious examples of typical moderation that conflicts with pure free speech , consider amoral speech like abuse material, violent speech like threats, and economically harmful speech like fraudulent advertising or copyright violations.

Extending these to things like hate speech, bigotry, pornography, etc are all moderation choices that are not orthogonal to free speech.

I thought Netflix’s biggest advantage was the quality/salary of its engineers.

I think that every time I wait for Paramount+ to restart after its gone black in picture on picture, and yet, I’n still on Paramount+ and not Netflix, so maybe that advantage isn’t real.

Under-26yo crowd here who was late to stand up every in person day this week to confirm this tracks

Having a morning meeting is pretty normal

I’ve thought this for a while, and it’s sad because I want to reward good tech. I usually think about this while I’m waiting for paramount to load for the third time because picture in picture has gone black again when I tried to full screen .

“The Feeling of Power” is excellent and should be mandatory reading in English classes from here on out.

This is a sort of mental math trick that isn’t incredibly useful in day to day engineering. Now if they say 16,000 or something then maybe there’s an argument against them, but being able to calculate a tip on the fly isn’t really something worth selecting for imo

Many high school classes are taught in such a way that your calculator rarely helps you.