triggercut (u/triggercut)

triggercut commented on 1D Conway's Life glider found, 3.7B cells long conwaylife.com/forums/vie... · Posted by u/nooks

7373737373 · 23 days ago

Two of the most fascinating open questions about the Game of Life are in my opinion:

1. What is the behavior of Conway's Game of Life when the initial position is random? Paraphrasing Boris Bukh's comment on the post linked below, the Game of Life supports self-replication and is Turing-complete, and therefore can support arbitrarily intelligent programs. So, will a random initial position (tend to) be filled with super-intelligent life forms, or will the chaos reign?

There exist uncountably infinitely many particular initial configurations out of which a random one may be drawn, which makes this more difficult (a particular infinite grid configuration can be represented as the binary digits (fractional part) of a real number, spiraling outwards from a given center coordinate cell: 0.0000... represents an empty infinite grid, 0.1111... a fully alive infinite grid).

https://mathoverflow.net/questions/132402/conways-game-of-li...

2. Relatedly, does a superstable configuration exist? One that continues to exist despite any possible external interference pattern on its border? Perhaps even an expanding one?

https://mathoverflow.net/questions/132687/is-there-any-super...

triggercut · 22 days ago

3. Could it generate it's own GoL forum asking these very questions?

triggercut commented on Tips for stroke-surviving software engineers blog.j11y.io/2025-10-29_s... · Posted by u/padolsey

cl3misch · 2 months ago

This advice could be translated 1:1 to ADHD (at least in my experience). You have to be very mindful with your attention and energy levels.

I'm wondering if some underlying mechanism in the brain is similar between having ADHD and having suffered a stroke. Or maybe it's just the conscious effort how to handle the symptoms that's similar.

triggercut · 2 months ago

My father recently had a stroke, we both have ADHD, his is untreated. Since the stroke, most of his impacts have been cognitive, not muscular and most of his cognitive issues relate to worsening executive functioning across all executive functions, but particularly exacerbating the worst issues attributed to ADHD.

As you would know ADHD is a problem with regulation, not capacity however with this stroke it appears that his capacity has fundamentally changed and is further impacted by the dysregulation.

It's still early, and we haven't seen the specialist yet but I'm taking this hypothesis to them and (if I remember to) will update/edit here with their response.

triggercut commented on Ask HN: What is the most expensive off-the-shelf software you have seen? · Posted by u/fire_lake

triggercut · a year ago

I was a CAD manager for various multi-disciplinary engineering firms in my early career, I can attest to some of the accounts regarding various CAD systems already mentioned.

One not mentioned that comes to mind is E-tap, used by electrical engineers. Well into the five figure territory once all the various bells and whistles were added.

However the most expensive software I ever saw in the wild was some little known simulation platform for a mathematician running predictive models (it also did this with 3D graphics, so both senses of the term) on mine/rail/port operational scenarios. That was into low six figures a seat and five in annual maintenance.

triggercut commented on Ask HN: What is the most expensive off-the-shelf software you have seen? · Posted by u/fire_lake

beezlebroxxxxxx · a year ago

Ansys can also be very expensive. Although it also seems very variable. I've heard of smaller shops paying between $7k and $30k/year.

triggercut · a year ago

I've seen fully loaded Ansys go for over $30k but yearly maintenance would have been maybe $15k, however this was over 10 years ago.

... And let's not forget the the $30k workstation needed to run it too.

triggercut commented on Australian Digital ID Bill to be passed without debate aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_... · Posted by u/pureheartlover

flerovium · 2 years ago

They won't make digital ID mandatory yet; the point is to make it as inconvenient as possible not to have a digital ID. It's likely you won't be able to do your taxes online without signing up for it. Then you won't be able to receive certain government services. Businesses will be able to use it, starting with banks.[1] It's just about making it more and more inconvenient until you're forced to use it because some service you can't do without requires it.

The Netherlands has some respect for digital privacy. In Australia, it won't be hard for the Americans to access this data. The point of data privacy isn't just about not giving up information. If a particular agency needs a piece of data, you don't want every other government agency to have access to it. A digital ID makes it convenient to aggregate everything.

Australia has tried this many times. They even satirized it in the TV Show "Utopia" (Episode "Mission Creeps")

[1] https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/banks-auspost-win-early...

triggercut · 2 years ago

That's not it at all. In fact, in most of your stated cases it's the opposite. If you read the bill and understood governance of the scheme and the technology underpinning it, you would see that it actually addresses some of the very fears you are projecting onto it.

triggercut commented on Australian Digital ID Bill to be passed without debate aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_... · Posted by u/pureheartlover

skrebbel · 2 years ago

It’s unclear to me whether this is similar to a passport or just a login system for government websites. Seems like the latter, right? If yes, then I don’t understand the downside.

For context, here in NL we’ve had such a system for some time (“DigID”) and as a citizen I find it infinitely better than the mess we had before. I don’t think that it gives government agencies access to information about me that they didn’t already have.

triggercut · 2 years ago

There's a system that already exists in Australia (TDIF) based on OAuth and OIDC, but it's not legislated and lacks regulatory oversight. This uplifts and codifies this to a federal level and adds some additional governance and oversight in a similar way to the Consumer Data Right (CDR).

It's Authentication/Identity. But really it's a federated system of consent where you can allow one authoritative holder of some information about you to transmit it to another. Simple E.g. omitting many details but say some federal government agency (A) wants my driver's licence number. because I use the same identity for both (A) and my state department of transport (B) I can tell (B) it's ok to send it to (A). (A) and (B) are both in the "network" which is governed by a central Register (R) and verifies each to each other so they can securely share data over standardized channels. The central register does not get involved beyond legitimising (A) and (B) to each other. The benefit is for a lot of cases the specific information stays with the relevant party, you just consent to when one needs to borrow some from another.

triggercut commented on A 2024 plea for lean software spectrum.ieee.org/lean-so... · Posted by u/pseudolus

Sohcahtoa82 · 2 years ago

In a sane world, this would be satire, but I really can't tell these days.

Have people taken "Function-as-a-Service" too literally and done the equivalent of moving "is_even" into an AWS Lambda? Or maybe have a dedicated "is_even" nano-service with its own Kubernetes cluster?

triggercut · 2 years ago

You might hate/enjoy this then: https://andreasjhkarlsson.github.io/jekyll/update/2023/12/27...

triggercut commented on Why thinking hard makes us feel tired nature.com/articles/d4158... · Posted by u/rzk

hereme888 · 2 years ago

It depends. Raising those neurotransmitters (dopamine > norepinephrine > serotonin) is a matter of balance.

If a person already has good levels and healthy receptors, and they suddenly raise them too much, it just makes people obsessive and actually not focus well on the important task at hand.

It's a double-edged sword, always with warnings and side-effects.

triggercut · 2 years ago

When I first started taking stimulants for ADHD and was trying to get the right dose I was confused because nothing was happening at first but finally reached a tipping point where it was working, but it was like a more intense version of my normal hyper-focus I would get at 8pm after "warming up" for 12 hours, after a couple of days it settled in between where I get the easy ability to switch attention without getting annoyed, or not realizing.

triggercut commented on Show HN: how I built the largest open database of Australian law umarbutler.com/how-i-buil... · Posted by u/ubutler

ubutler · 2 years ago

> A particular case I have is where there is a draft bill put out for industry/community consultation. Quickly diffing the releases is the goal but for now usually relies on one (preferably two) subject matter experts to read the whole thing top to bottom to build an understanding. I don't think these would be available via the means you've secured. They are usually hosted on a relevant government entities website as PDFs

It's possible that they're in my database. I have included the as made version of all bills on the Federal Register of Legislation. However, if they haven't had a first reading yet, then probably not.

For processing PDFs, I recommend using `pdfplumber`, which is what I used to build the Corpus. Happy to discuss further if you'd like.

> One last question/comment, have you considered adding some additional reference info like the federal list of entities?

Do mean adding additional metadata? At the moment, I've kept the number of metadata attributes as low as possible. Every attribute added equates to more work to keep it standardised across all the jurisdictions and document types. My plan is to slowly add more attributes as I have time. I'd really like to associate a date with documents but even that is a hurdle. I have to decide what date should be the date of a document (is it the time it was issued, the time it was published, the time it came into force, the time the latest version was issued, etc... and what happens when a document doesn't have a date? should I extract it from its citation? how do I preserve time zone information? etc...).

triggercut · 2 years ago

I've used a number of pdf libraries in python and C# over the years, none have worked reliably as needed (that's just pdf I guess), but haven't used pdfplumber, I'll be sure to give it a go, thanks for the suggestion.

Yes, additional metadata. Totally understand it adds in a lot of complexity but could help for fine-tuning an LLM.

With regards to dates, not a lawyer, but for Federal I would go with "Start Date", it's always the day following the End Date of the previous comp. The Date of Assent (well the year at least) is in the title, but also the first start date. The registration date can be either before or after the start date depending. [1][2]

The tricky part is when sections have different commencement dates that are detailed in the text. I don't know anywhere that is easily accessible. And, if you think about it, usually the most important information for say businesses being regulated.

I wouldn't worry with timezone per say, it's relative to each particular state.[3] i.e. why polling closes in a federal election at 6pm in each state rather than coordinated with ACT.

[1] Section 12 of the Legislation Act 2003 https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2023C00213

[2] Sections 4 Acts Interpretation Act 1901 https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2023C00213

[3] Sections 37 Acts Interpretation Act 1901 https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2023C00213

triggercut commented on Show HN: how I built the largest open database of Australian law umarbutler.com/how-i-buil... · Posted by u/ubutler

ubutler · 2 years ago

> Fantastic work here! I was griping to my team just last night how painful developing a chunking strategy for Australian Legislation is that while there's (generally) layout consistency within a piece of legislation, that's not true across pieces of legislation... so I can imagine the pain of trying to collate legislation across jurisdictions.

Absolutely, there's a lack of consistency even within the same jurisdiction and document type. It only gets worse once you want to add multiple jurisdictions and different types of documents. My best strategy so far has been to use recursive chunking where you begin chunking at the largest section of newlines. Ideally though you want some form of semantic chunking where you already know what parts of the document represent Parts, Divisions, Schedules, Sections, Sub-sections, etc...

> I've reach out via your LinkedIn profile - would be great if there was an opportunity to collaborate.

Great! Always happy to connect.

triggercut · 2 years ago

Yes, this. I've been trying to find a general way to automatically semantically chunk various legislation for a while now. Partly so as to diff various versions/amendments, but also to graph connections to other referenced legislation.

Most of the time I end up having to just take half an hour to manually regex and format plain text.

A particular case I have is where there is a draft bill put out for industry/community consultation. Quickly diffing the releases is the goal but for now usually relies on one (preferably two) subject matter experts to read the whole thing top to bottom to build an understanding. I don't think these would be available via the means you've secured. They are usually hosted on a relevant government entities website as PDFs

One last question/comment, have you considered adding some additional reference info like the federal list of entities?[1]

[1] https://www.finance.gov.au/government/managing-commonwealth-...