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Hasnain says:

“Tiny code contests have historically focused on the source code. What makes that problematic is how it incentivizes obfuscation. On the other hand, optimizing for binary size usually results in the source code becoming more elegant. In order to make program files tinier, one must choose data structures and design patterns that are harmonious with the way computers work. Doing that requires us to better understand the nature of the problem.”

Posted on 2024-08-03T21:38:46+0000

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How to Build Anything Extremely Quickly - Learn How To Learn

Do "outline speedrunning": Recursively outline an MVP, speedrun filling it in, and only then go back and perfect. This is a ~10x speed up over the 'loading-bar' style (more on that below) Don't just read this article and move on. Go out and do this for the very next thing you make so y

Click to view the original at learnhowtolearn.org

Hasnain says:

Can confirm.

“"It is fascinating to see historical figures’ legacy records convey crucial scientific implications to modern scientists even centuries later," said co-author Sabrina Bechet of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. "I doubt if they could have imagined their records would benefit the scientific community much later, well after their deaths. We still have a lot to learn from these historical figures, apart from the history of science itself. In the case of Kepler, we are standing on the shoulders of a scientific giant."”

Posted on 2024-08-03T21:02:52+0000

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Hasnain says:

“"It is fascinating to see historical figures’ legacy records convey crucial scientific implications to modern scientists even centuries later," said co-author Sabrina Bechet of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. "I doubt if they could have imagined their records would benefit the scientific community much later, well after their deaths. We still have a lot to learn from these historical figures, apart from the history of science itself. In the case of Kepler, we are standing on the shoulders of a scientific giant."”

Posted on 2024-08-03T20:58:39+0000

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"We ran out of columns" - The best, worst codebase

When I started programming as a kid, I didn't know people were paid to program. Even as I graduated high school, I assumed that the world of "professional development" looked quite different from the code I wrote in my spare time. When I lucked my way into my first software job, I quickly learned ju...

Click to view the original at jimmyhmiller.github.io

Hasnain says:

“Why was Justin able to do this? Because this codebase had no master plan. There was no overarching design the system had to fit into. No expected format for APIs. No documented design system. No architectural review board making sure things were coherent. The app was a complete and utter mess. No one could ever fix it, so no one tried to. What did we do instead? We carved out our own little world of sanity.

This monolithic app, due to sheer necessity, had grown to be a microcosm of nice, small apps around its edges. Each person, when tasked with improving some part of that app, would inevitably give up untangling that web, and find some nice little corner to build new things. And then slowly update links to point to their nice new stuff, orphaning the old.

This may sound like a mess to you. But it was remarkably enjoyable to work in. Gone were the concerns of code duplication. Gone were the concerns of consistency. Gone were the concerns of extensibility. Code was written to serve a use, to touch as little of the area around it as possible, and to be easily replaceable. Our code was decoupled, because coupling it was simply harder.”

Posted on 2024-08-03T20:52:52+0000

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How an Elon Musk PAC is using voter data to help Trump beat Harris in 2024 election

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he created America PAC, which collects data in swing states key to the 2024 election between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

Click to view the original at cnbc.com

Hasnain says:

Isn’t this voter fraud?

“If they agree to submit all that, the system still does not steer them to a voter registration page. Instead, it shows them a “thank you” page.

So that person who wanted help registering to vote? In the end, they got no help at all registering. But they did hand over priceless personal data to a political operation.”

Posted on 2024-08-02T15:19:04+0000

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Hasnain says:

“That process involved several surprising steps, including “what’s in my mind the most important idea, which still seems a bit magical to me,” Maynard said. At one point, there was a seemingly obvious step they should have taken to simplify their sum. Instead, they left it in its longer and more complicated form. “We do something that at first sight looks completely stupid. We just refuse to do the standard simplification,” Maynard said. “And this gives up a lot. It means that now we can’t get any easy bound for this sum.”

But in the long run, this turned out to be an advantageous move. “In chess you call it a gambit, where you sacrifice a piece to get a better position on the board,” Maynard said. Guth likened it to playing with a Rubik’s Cube; sometimes you have to undo previous moves and make everything look worse before finding a way to get more colors in the right place.”

Posted on 2024-08-02T05:37:50+0000

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Hasnain says:

“The Plague Tale games are a fun and fairly unique mix of survival horror, puzzle solving, and stealth gameplay that is all reliant on the core tech of the not-so-intelligent rats. The same system as described throughout this video was adopted in both A Plague Tale Innocence and Requiem, with the rats in the sequel being more deadly. The rats at better at reacting to light, more likely to attack on the fringes of light sources and can even climb up walls or operate on multiple floors. But as stated, the most impressive element is how they're optimised, now with 300,000 rats being able to pathfind at once. And it's through one simple yet effective piece of AI tech, that the game’s design goals are realised.”

Posted on 2024-08-01T05:37:30+0000

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Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Israeli airstrike in Iran, group says

Haniyeh died during a raid on his residence in Tehran after participating in the inauguration ceremony of new President Masoud Pezeshkian, the group said.

Click to view the original at nbcnews.com

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How Biden’s Court Reform Proposals Could Work—if the Court Would Let Them

The president’s trio of reforms marks a worthy first step, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough to reverse the right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court.

Click to view the original at thenation.com

Hasnain says:

“I believe these proposals are a necessary part of our long journey toward court reform. The country, I think, needs to see the Democrats try this, pass something, and then watch in horror as the conservative extremists overturn these laws before the ink dries on the legislation.

Biden’s proposals are worthy ideas. When the Supreme Court rejects them, maybe people will be ready for the ideas that will actually bring the court to heel.”

Posted on 2024-07-30T18:36:13+0000

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I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God Is a Big Responsibility @ Things Of Interest

Tim, raincoat on, about to leave for the weekend, was completely flummoxed by the question. He froze in place, one foot out of the door, and considered the offer. And then considered how seriously he was meant to consider the offer. Obviously, he thought to himself, he wanted a bar of gold. Who woul...

Click to view the original at qntm.org

Hasnain says:

Gotta love sci-fi shorts

“Officially, publicly, to anybody outside of the smallest inner circle, it was a quantum computing project. But to describe it as "quantum computing" was a mind-boggling understatement. There were already quantum computers. They were just computers. They were just faster.”

Posted on 2024-07-30T05:10:16+0000