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signpost: phf: yeah, might prompt amusing responses from certain relatives, but I wager they'd guess my motivation correctly.
dulapbot: Logged on 2022-04-11 13:27:19 asciilifeform: mangol: current angle seems to be 'let's eat eu to run usa for anuther decade'
signpost: then when done, feed you to the russians apparently.
mangol: signpost: sounds about right
mangol: do you think some of the states may secede from the union and turn into livable places once shit hits the fan on your side of the atlantic?
asciilifeform: $ticker btc usd
busybot: Current BTC price in USD: $40465.11
signpost: mangol: texas yaps about it, but I don't know that secession would make things better.
signpost: see also: ukraine. lol
signpost: in re: what happens when the nukes end up outside your shitty new republic.
asciilifeform: signpost: fwiw ukristan started w/ over9000 nukes inside
signpost: yep, gave 'em back.
asciilifeform: signpost: see, however, obv. caveat
dulapbot: (trilema) 2014-11-25 asciilifeform: have to understand, jet fighter is not really a complete machine. it is a tentacle of the larger industrial slave empire which produced and employed it.
signpost: texas isn't starting with any afaik
asciilifeform: reich inheritances dunwork so well when 'taken home' by a bantustan
signpost: yep makes sense. same would be the case here if we even had any.
asciilifeform: hence e.g. north dakota aint on the road to becoming 'nuke power'. even if reich leaves the silos as-is
asciilifeform: contents will be bought, by foreigners, for cheap pu, misc. metals, finally scrap iron. as in su.
signpost: I don't see the will to being a separate country, either.
signpost: more likely we just sit in our filth for a while.
asciilifeform: a likely historical example, e.g. uzbekistan.
asciilifeform: or perhaps azerbaijan, given tx petro fields.
asciilifeform: larger, moar important imho point, is that there aint any such thing as 'better jurisdiction' w/out taking into acct 'for whom'.
dulapbot: (trilema) 2014-03-03 asciilifeform: or mrs. thatcher's 'we need no more than 15 mil. russians. to service the pipeline.'
signpost: [35%][https://ustr.gov/map/state-benefits/tx] of texas exports go to mexico.
asciilifeform: [link][caption] plox
asciilifeform: but yes
signpost: ah damn it
signpost: been doing markdown elsewhere
asciilifeform prolly oughta make it bidirectional. has been on pheature wishlist for aeons
signpost: but finally, the comparison in military budgets between texas and mexico... differs by two orders of magnitude in mexico's favor
signpost: makes for an interesting future if texas seceded.
asciilifeform: imho comparing budgets is lulzy, given orders of magnitude variation in what the moolah actually buys in given locale
asciilifeform: (the obv. go-to example being usg's multi-1e9$ wunderwaffen which have problems w/ basic tasks such as staying afloat)
signpost: sure, can also compare population, where mexico's about 3x
signpost: and "texas military" has about 25k members
signpost: this is leaving aside the fact that most of mexico's power resides in the cartels.
asciilifeform: some unknown % of whom also 'in' 'mexican military' de-facto, aha
signpost: seems an unlikely path for history to take, but weirder things happen all the time.
asciilifeform: one mega-puzzler is what, precisely, will narco-cartel transform into w/out usg and its 'war on drugs'(tm)
signpost: I'd sooner expect a great depression to cause further devolution of power to the states.
signpost: asciilifeform: could be that's an unviable tentacle, yes
asciilifeform: viable enuff if retools to historic 'pancho villa' dynamic
asciilifeform: afaik mexico, geographically, is a quite good 'afganistan'; in the mountains, folx still speak mayan, and live moar or less in 1500s still
dulapbot: Logged on 2021-05-24 17:09:05 asciilifeform: gregorynyssa: re self-rule -- j.c. scott, 'the art of not being governed'. mandatory reading on subj.
asciilifeform: aint difficult to imagine mexicans raiding ruins of north-a. reich for tangible goods, slaves, etc.; but 'mexican empire absorbs usa' is imho projection.
phf: can't raid too far on a burro
asciilifeform: well, on 'ford', or even 'abrams'. ('while supplies last'(tm))
asciilifeform: the old empires churned out enuff hardware to last for a good, long party (as seen in e.g. ukristan)
phf: churned out enough petrol supply chain also?
asciilifeform recalls tanker scene in film 'water world'
asciilifeform: mangol: what diff do you suppose it makes, which usg oligarch owns twatter ?
mangol: none. what i'm interested in is how reich will carry out the damage control
asciilifeform: what'd be the 'damage' there ?
mangol: musk is possibly the most persistently recalcitrant rich dude. never quite gets the memo that he should stay in line
mangol: if he keeps on this course, they'll have to escalate
asciilifeform: mangol: when and re: what subj did he fail to 'stay in line' ?
mangol: has been toeing the line of acceptable opinion for years on any number of subjects
asciilifeform: mangol: that's his designated role -- 'edgy', 'tech'-flavoured oligarch
mangol: like a more liberal version of thiel?
asciilifeform: and w/ moar focus on e.g. rockets than spy biz
mangol: and thiel is kept around as controlled opposition, like a jordan peterson or ben shapiro for rich, successful people?
mangol: how do you foresee the twitter saga progressing? buyout request is dismissed without fanfare, or successful buyout + stated objective to make it a "free speech zone" is quietly forgotten?
asciilifeform: mangol: buyout (or not), then 'free speech zone'(tm) 'but not for terrorists and putler, of course'(tm), snore
mangol: that's the current status. terrorists get "fact checked" and/or suspended
asciilifeform: it's a reich platform, mangol , and operated 100% w/ reich-printed moolah. the fundamental purpose aint changing, no matter who is appointed to 'own' it
mangol: ofc, but it's hard to put up a pretense of "new and improved twitter" if it stays exactly as it is
mangol: re: focus on e.g. rockets than spy biz, spacex has launched several spy satellites. not sure whether thiel or musk has done to help spy
mangol: *done more to help
mangol: thiel's company did something for border control, though not clear if anybody at all is stopped at the border anymore
asciilifeform: the 'shit test' continues.
dulapbot: Logged on 2021-07-13 15:31:54 asciilifeform: punkman: aka 'shit test'
verisimilitude: Every edgy, rich fuck can be measured by how he acts towards China.
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: reich surrendered ~100% of its light industry to cn in '90s. no amt of pretenses from current muppets will change the result, simply comedy of generals, presidents, etc sitting in chinesium chairs, pushing chinesium buttons connected to barely-conductive cn-made cu-clad-al wiring, lol
asciilifeform: ( look on yer desk, is there even 1 non-cn manmade object on it ? )
asciilifeform: cn has 'civilized world' by both balls, and the only reason it aint obv. to some is that both cn brass and their reich muppets have 'biz as usual' deeply written into their firmware, and rarely depart from script
dulapbot: Logged on 2020-11-02 15:33:53 asciilifeform: all the current slave empires have exactly 1 strategic objective : 'business-as-usual'. ad infinitum.
asciilifeform: reich 'solved' the 'labour problem' by outsourcing both the labour and the required 'pinkertons'. long ago.
dulapbot: Logged on 2022-01-25 19:23:44 asciilifeform: lizards in usa 'solved' the 'unions problem' by getting rid of labour, creating caste of lumpens on left side of bell curve and caste of paper shufflers on right side, with the sleight-of-hand moar than sufficing to ramp down expectations of life for all of'em
shinohai: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2022-04-14#1095673 <<< Victorinox Swiss Army Knife, rostfrei even!
dulapbot: Logged on 2022-04-14 15:47:21 asciilifeform: ( look on yer desk, is there even 1 non-cn manmade object on it ? )
shinohai: to be fair i purchased this thing in like 1999 ....
verisimilitude: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2022-04-14#1095673 My books, my hard disks, and I believe my keyboard.
dulapbot: Logged on 2022-04-14 15:47:21 asciilifeform: ( look on yer desk, is there even 1 non-cn manmade object on it ? )
verisimilitude: According to the label, my BAT chording keyboard was designed and made in the US.
verisimilitude: ``The average Bitcoin investor is a calculating psychopath with an inflated ego, according to scientists.''
verisimilitude: Does that describe mp at all?
verisimilitude: Anyway, damn; I'm a calculating psychopath with an inflated ego, but no Bitcoin.
verisimilitude: Headlines are so blatant even the average idiot can occasionally see through them.
asciilifeform: 'Narcissists, on the other hand, are drawn to the technology because they tend to focus on the positive side of life. The researchers found that narcissists like crypto because of their great faith in the future and confidence that their own lives will improve.' << lel
crtdaydreams: asciilifeform: on ~recent~ thread re: elision and text processing; thoughts on SNOBOL?
dulapbot: (trilema) 2019-08-09 asciilifeform: re general topic of 'string munging problems' -- they are plentiful and prolly inescapable, and i suspect there could be win from reviving an item like snobol (where ~sane~ abstractions specifically for stringism, rather than seas of regexp)
dulapbot: Logged on 2022-04-11 23:22:24 verisimilitude: The logs only mention ``unicorn'' four times, and only once in the context of a mythical animal; we should discuss them more often.
crtdaydreams: incl. #t, #o
crtdaydreams: the idea of a VHLL is fairly lucrative
crtdaydreams: say throw a proggy two strings and it returns a regex that mutates string_a to be string_b
crtdaydreams: for >2 input str it does a not too dissimilar eval chain as say (cons)
crtdaydreams: then again, my idea of a VHLL is probably pretty perverse
crtdaydreams: s/VHLL/"very high level language"
phf: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/asciilifeform/2022-04-14#1095647 << i think elon musk shenanigans are entertaining
dulapbot: Logged on 2022-04-14 13:58:30 asciilifeform: mangol: what diff do you suppose it makes, which usg oligarch owns twatter ?
verisimilitude: SNOBOL interests me little, crtdaydreams.
phf: ...after all, it's not been written by me!
verisimilitude: I'm interested in methods of entirely eliminating problems such as parsing and whatnot.
verisimilitude: There's one major advantage to writing my programs alone, phf; guess what it is.
phf: hell is other people's code
verisimilitude: That's correct; I never have issues using or customizing my programs.
phf: verisimilitude: i find my programs from even couple of years ago to be unsatisfying
phf: after all, you from the past might as well be another person, and unlike some junior whose will you can bend, you from the past is most definitely an asshole
verisimilitude: That's why I try to get it right the first time.
verisimilitude: The unsatisfying aspect of CL-ECMA-48 isn't its implementation, but that it exists at all.
verisimilitude: I wrote a comprehensive solution I didn't need.
verisimilitude: However, when I gaze upon my machine code or APL, I can usually smile.
verisimilitude: The best solution is to write as little code as possible.
verisimilitude: This is also reason to rewrite programs often.
verisimilitude: Distill the knowledge into as concise a form as is useful to a human, and refine it to the point where there's increasingly less code.
dulapbot: Logged on 2022-04-14 22:32:16 phf: after all, you from the past might as well be another person, and unlike some junior whose will you can bend, you from the past is most definitely an asshole
dulapbot: Logged on 2022-03-31 19:10:44 phf: this is not some profound philosophical point god damn it. i'm saying that if you're just playing with concepts, who cares if its ada, or you wrote it in pascal on a piece of paper. or in php. but making it seem like you're writing avionics when you're writing a toy is masturbation
asciilifeform: get it right -- then won't have to 'fight with past self'.
phf: asciilifeform: that's a misrepresentation of /two/ of my possitions at once!
asciilifeform: must note tho that asciilifeform only finds 'my past self was an arse' when reads e.g. uncommented perlisms he had perpetrated, but not when e.g. ffa
asciilifeform: if write in such a way that makes 100% sense, you'll tend to find that yer 'past self' was a quite reasonable fella.
asciilifeform: this may be the bulk of why, logically, to do it (typically to expect that others will actually read yer proggy is overoptimistic.)
verisimilitude: Furthermore, I'm already an asshole, so why should I care about my past self being one?
phf: what i said to verisimilitude was mostly a humorous nag, i was trying to imply that he's not growing as a programmer. but the other part of it is that of course if you're writing gems that nobody uses, then you're neither tested by the elements, nor are you tested by your users. worse there's no reason to grow except in your own hubris "this thing of mine is perfect, only overshadowed in perfection by the next thing i wrote!"
verisimilitude: Yes, that's the point.
verisimilitude: The only user who matters is I.
asciilifeform: phf: can't speak for erryone, but asciilifeform (in civilian life) writes primarily for own use (and later read), to build on, etc
verisimilitude: Notice, phf, I don't give a fuck about ``the elements'' when my software be proven correct. Get out of that sour science mindset.
asciilifeform: phf: perhaps similarly to how folx write diaries
phf: major element to program design is how well it withstands change, otherwise all designs are equal, guided only by subtleties of the writer's taste or lakc of thereof
asciilifeform: not errything is subject to 'need to withstand change'
verisimilitude: Furthermore, I'm clearly ``growing as a programmer''.
verisimilitude: No, remember asciilifeform, that comment about making the value of pi easy to change, in case that ever be needed?
asciilifeform: phf: to take the humblest possible 'kitchen' example, asciilifeform doesn't expect to change fw for e.g. this either this yr or 20y from nao
dulapbot: Logged on 2021-07-09 11:43:58 asciilifeform: thestringpuller: arduinism is used for quick&dirty things, like this kvm remote.
asciilifeform: ^ item powered up for 1.5y+ nao and used coupla 100x/day without any apparent defect. tho admittedly very simple, but is both 'iron' and 'softs' in 1 box
asciilifeform expected that at least a button would give out; but nope, a++, beryllium copper contacts
asciilifeform: or take e.g. fg; i've 1 that has been powered for almost 6y and worx same nao as when new.
verisimilitude: I agree, phf, it's not enough for software to work, but it should work well; I never explicitly included ease of change in that, however.
asciilifeform: 'need to change' in software is necessarily a consequence of defect. (even if 'new problem', if correctly designed soft -- no need to change it, simply change the 'glue')
verisimilitude: Even then, I like how my tabular programming style handles change. If I must add an exception, just add the exception verbatim to the table of exceptions and be done with it.
phf: asciilifeform: where do you place ffa? specifically the part where it couldn't be used at the particular task it was set out to be applied to
phf: i mean it's clearly a lovely piece of engineering, on one hand, but on the hand it was never placed in production, because ^
phf: *on the other
asciilifeform: phf: tooslow for rsaing packets (as described in pedantic detail by asciilifeform) but in fact currently using for gpg sig verification locally, and eventually will package as proper replacement for gpg both-ways
asciilifeform: where it dun much matter that an operation takes entire 0.4sec
phf: asciilifeform: oh i understand that, i'm more saying is the tooslow a defect?
asciilifeform: (in fact ffa's modexp is faster, in avg. case, than gmp's.)
asciilifeform: phf: it isn't asciilifeform's place, in fact, to answer this. elementarily, if there's actually an algo asciilifeform failed to derive that'd permit hammingweight-indep. 4096bit modexp on pc in e.g. 0.004s -- then the discoverer will have the right to laff at asciilifeform and say 'it was defective'
asciilifeform: part of asciilifeform's orig. aim was to determine what the op in question intrinsically costs on pc. (hypothetically one could shave some of the cost w/ further asmism, but won't change significantly, bvt's innerloop optimizations i suspect are ~exhaustive there)
asciilifeform: hypothetically there may exist undiscovered algos (for that matter, even ones that'd nail rsa, lol. then can go back and say that entire class of rsatrons -- 'defective', straight to stoke furnace then)
asciilifeform: the q of 'what's a defect' is imho interesting and i suspect diff folx will give variant answers.
asciilifeform: obv. 'bug' in the conventional sense qualifies. but say you laboured under the notion that you used the optimal possible algo for $problem, and then new one found.
verisimilitude: I'd rather we be in the state where the uninteresting defects no longer exist, before getting philosophical.
asciilifeform: asciilifeform's pov is that a lethal -- or otherwise crippling 'surprise' -- constitutes a defect. whether in form of 'bug' or 'hey bro turns out p==np, wagner, cyanide'.
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: is 1 of the points asciilifeform was trying to make. i.e. let's get to the point where a surprise gotta be at least approaching to 'p==np' variety.
verisimilitude: Yet my concerns with ``What if this unlikely event occurs.'' are laughed at.
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: is entirely legit to discuss unlikely events if a) they're pertinent to $system b) you've a grip on the actual statistics of their occurrence
asciilifeform: 'eats a neutron' -- qualifies, in some contexts. 'eats an asteroid' -- normally not
phf: asciilifeform: i think defect is reasoned by user, and then you're in the counterparty problem. verisimilitude eliminates counetrparty, therefore his reasoning is monadic. "if you want you want your program's to be to verisimilitude's liking, then follow his advice", but nothing else
asciilifeform: phf: ultimately is impossible, elementarily, to guaranteedly satisfy other people and 'to eternity'
phf: asciilifeform: that's a reductio ad absurdum, your favorite rhetoric device :)
asciilifeform: but ~is~ possible to correctly and permanently implement a mechanism that you fully understand, such that for so long as you live won't need to reopen the case.
verisimilitude: That's usually called getting it right the first time.
asciilifeform: verisimilitude: i can't recall at any pt 'getting right the first time'
phf: counterparty for ffa is a more complicated question, because it has painful history. i'm not particularly satisfied with "only a genius greater than mine can judge me". tool was supposed to solve specific problem, which was providing bedrock for networked tmsr tooling.
verisimilitude: Or, at least getting it right at all.
asciilifeform: phf: e.g. giffard's dirigible was also 'for specific problem', similarly.
asciilifeform: often happens that a necessary $part , no matter how much you want, simply aint avail.
asciilifeform: and the $machine then has to wait. unfortunately, equally often, until long after init. attempter is dead.
asciilifeform: ( in giffard's case, if recall -- the petrol engine. steam dun give the pwr/mass ratio req'd for a useful dirigible )
asciilifeform: the contention, phf, wasn't re 'genius may judge' but re whether given $problem in fact solvable under the given constraints, w/ avail. means.
asciilifeform: and that asciilifeform's answer aint provably final, someone could easily find an order-of-magnitude improvement, analogous to barrett's but 'over9000x', which'd 100% overturn asciilifeform's verdict.
asciilifeform: has nought to do w/ 'who gets to judge'.
asciilifeform: crtdaydreams: do you have an ideological problem with reading the history of a $redditbullshit in the logs before posting about one ?
asciilifeform: crtdaydreams: e.g.
asciilifeform: let's also discuss 'post-martian crypto'. y'know, such that'll be used after martians land.
crtdaydreams: ffs did you even read?
crtdaydreams: not supposed to be "crypto made with quantum computers" and whatnot, just supposed to be perceptively unable to crack in $n cycles
crtdaydreams: ofc if the above issues you mention w/ RSA and algorithmic cracking opposed to just brute-force then sure.
asciilifeform: crtdaydreams: read, when orig. posted. has 0 to do with 'in $n cycles', but w/ shor's algo & variants. on the entirely imaginary apparatus advertised as 'quantum computer' (originally a joke paper by r.feynman, nao a multi-$1e9 reich grantsmanship game, reminiscent of 'hot fusion')
asciilifeform: crtdaydreams: the 'qc' memeplex was adapted by nsa & friends to 'fud' actual working crypto (rsa) and peddle questionable and baroquely complicated 'replacements'
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