Very funny to me that lecture 21 is one of the only lecture titles that doesn't reference the name of the originator.
Readit Newsfogof commented on Quantum Computation Lecture Notes (2022) math.mit.edu/~shor/435-LN... · Posted by u/ibobev
fogof commented on Egyptologist uncovers hidden messages on Paris’s iconic obelisk news.artnet.com/art-world... · Posted by u/isaacfrond
Crypto-hieroglyphic writing is a real thing: https://www.britannica.com/topic/hieroglyphic-writing/Crypto...
Such writing would give non-standard meanings to signs, or drawn them in non-standard ways, or use entirely invented signs. It would be a puzzle to work out the meaning, and I imagine most people who weren't very literate would be stumped. They certainly stumped egyptologists for a while when the first examples were discovered.
I am looking at the last image in the article, captioned "The encrypted message instructs the viewer to appease the gods with offerings". The picture shows ... a person kneeling in front of a throned figure, offering something with both hands. Is something about this message supposed to be hidden?
arXiv has nothing to gain by a PR blitz. Any academic knows what is arXiv exactly for, and there is no intention to grow user base or whatever. It's not a social media.
Not sure I agree with the comment you're responding to. But the article discusses some of their funding troubles, and the main mage of arxiv.org itself has a donate link. So I think perhaps the media presence might be motivated by a desire to fundraise (and IMO they absolutely deserve funding because of the important work they do).
fogof commented on Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon twitter.com/Free_Ross/sta... · Posted by u/Ozarkian
> But given that no-one seems to seriously dispute that he did try to pay to have the guy killed
If there was enough evidence to demonstrate that he attempted to murder someone, why wasn't he charged and convicted of it?
Also, 2 of the DEA agents involved in his investigation were convicted of fraud in relation to the case.
I do believe he probably did attempt to have someone killed, but I'm far from certain of it, and think it should have no bearing on the case if there's not enough evidence to convict him.
> If there was enough evidence to demonstrate that he attempted to murder someone, why wasn't he charged and convicted of it?
Wikipedia suggests this was because he was already sentenced to double life imprisonment. Clearly prosecutors should not waste time pursuing charges that won't really impact a criminal's status, do you disagree?
fogof commented on Tornado Cash verdict has chilling implications for industry cointelegraph.com/news/to... · Posted by u/andrewfromx
As far as the US is concerned, TC is legal. It is illegal if used to facilitate a fraud or launder its proceeds.
I don't think this is right. From the Wikipedia page:
> In August 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury blacklisted the service, making it illegal for US citizens, residents and companies to use.
I don't really understand the subject matter enough, so I apologize in advance for the meta-comment...
The author mentions that he would maybe have written this as a scientific paper:
> I tried writing a serious-looking research paper about the bug and my proposed fix, but I lost a series of pitched battles against Pytorch and biblatex, so I figured I’d just write a blog post instead. (History is written by the winners; blogs are written by…)
Honestly, thank god he didn't. This paper is so much more readable and approachable than what gets published in "serious" journals. The tone is self-effacing, it does not have an "ego" the way scientific papers tend to have. If all science read like this, and if we were "allowed" to cite research that reads like this, I think we would be much better off. This reads like a conversational, approachable textbook, not like an impenetrable wall.
Is it because I don't understand attention at a PhD level that I hold this opinion? Maybe. Could he be writing like this because he's a layman and utterly wrong about the topic, unlike those Serious Science Authors? Maybe, I don't know.
But my god, wouldn't it be nice to be allowed to write like this?
A lot of thoughts in this thread on what academic papers are or should be, let me give my own opinion as a person who tries to write papers.
Papers should be structured like fractals - that is, they should be "self-similar". The main text of the paper after the introduction should go into all the necessary details demonstrating the origins of the idea and proving that it has value. Then the introduction section should summarize all this, and take a less rigorous tone. The abstract should be a summary of the introduction. And then the title should summarize the abstract. If you really have a lot of technical work to do, maybe you can write a super long appendix and have the main body summarize that.
I myself probably spend as much time reading paper introductions as I do reading paper bodies, which means that probably 90% of the papers I read, I only read the introduction. I do this because I enjoy it more - I like new ideas, and the intros are a great way to get a lot of them. This blog post reads like a great paper introduction to me. It's easy to trick yourself into believing something is easy though, so an academic paper would have to back this up with an experiment.
Counterargument: this blogpost is worthless. You get all the way to the end and then find out he hasn't actually tried it, not even on a toy model. It's just a neat idea he thinks will work.
He says in the very first paragraph:
> I lost a series of pitched battles against Pytorch and biblatex, so I figured I’d just write a blog post instead.
So I think your accusation of his burying the lede on the lack of experiment is unwarranted.
fogof commented on “Our paying customers need X, when will you fix it?” twitter.com/maximilianhil... · Posted by u/scblzn
> it was mhils who first responded like a jerk.
What?!!
Mhils answered happy to setup a support contract if you need timely release while pointing to his email. Nothing in his answer is out of line. I think you need to seriously reset your expectations if you think that answer from someone providing free labour is in any way wrong.
What rubs me the wrong way about the mhils Github response is that it fails to answer the question that the commenter asked: Is there or is there not a target date for the next release (and if so, what is it)? It's fine to charge money to move the date up, but it seems like if you are going to make that offer, you should try to tell the person how much time they would actually be buying.
fogof commented on “Our paying customers need X, when will you fix it?” twitter.com/maximilianhil... · Posted by u/scblzn
The response was fine, in the same tone as the original request even if the first one was offensive by accident. A kind, functioning human would be puzzled at the slightly blunt response and re-evaluate the whole conversation.
They would not go to a private channel, knowing that they would get blasted for such a response in a public forum, and get even more offensive. Plus, any non-native that has an advanced enough understanding of English to use the phrase 'thinly veiled extortion' can also control the tone of their requests. No need to defend IBM here.
You can hardly say that they switched to a private channel because they knew "that they would get blasted for such a response in a public forum" when the comment they were responding to was the one that suggested the switch to email.
> power plants can generate five thousand kilograms of gold per year, per gigawatt of electricity generation