Differently Sane
'Normal' is a statistical average. There may be such a thing as a normal person, but I haven't met him yet.
My comments on books, games, guns, science, politics, and whatnot.
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Proof of pilot wave theory
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
How to update file types in Linux Mint
(The "x-" follows an established pattern for programming source code.)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"><mime-type type="text/x-odin"><comment>Odin source file</comment><generic-icon name="OdinO"/><glob pattern="*.odin"/></mime-type></mime-info>
The "glob pattern" line is where you associate the file extension. "*.odin" means any file ending with ".odin".
Place various sized versions of the icon you want to use in the various size folders in: /usr/share/icons/theme-name/mimetypes. In my case, that's /usr/share/icons/Mint-Y/mimetypes. Make sure the icons are all named the same as the whatever you use in the generic-icon-name line above. .png files seem to work well, but make sure you create a large one, and then scale it down to the various sizes (16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 128 pixels).
Once you've done all that, open a terminal in the /usr/share/mime/packages folder and type (replace x-odin with your file name):
sudo xdg-mime install --mode system x-odin.xml
sudo update-mime-database /usr/share/mime
Sunday, October 13, 2024
Space-X did it!
Saturday, October 12, 2024
The four types of programming languages
There are four types of programming languages. I'm not talking about the religious differences between object oriented, procedural, and functional languages. I'm talking about something more fundamental - syntactic structure. The vast majority of computer languages (excepting esoteric or very primitive ones) fall into the four camps of ALGOL, LISP, APL, and Forth/Joy. These differ based on how you read and understand the code.
Note: Examples are not necessarily valid code in these languages.
ALGOL: Left to right (left or right associative based on what makes sense, usually), prefix (except infix operators like '+' and '*'), inside out. These are the procedural languages most programmers are familiar with.
command(arg1)
command(arg1, arg2)
command(arg1, arg2, arg3)
command-a(arg1a, command-b(arg1b, arg2b), arg3a)
add(1, 2 * 3)
if (3 > 2) then {print("true")} else {print("false")}
LISP: Left to right (no associativity), prefix (always), inside out.
(command arg1)
(command arg1 arg2)
(command arg1 arg2 arg3)
(command-a arg1a (command-b arg1b arg2b) arg3a)
(add 1 (* 2 3))
(if (> 3 2) (print "true") (print "false"))
APL: Left to right (right associative), prefix or infix, inside out. It's easier to read right to left.
command1 arg1
arg1 command1 arg2
there are no 3 or more argument commands in APL
arg1a command-a arg1b command-b arg2b
1 add 2 x 3 this is the same as 1 add (2 x 3)
3 > 2 ⍳ ⎕ ← "true" ⋄ "false" I got this from an AI prompt. APL is weird.
Forth / Joy: Left to right (usually no associativity), postfix (usually, unless it's immediate, which looks like prefix or infix).
arg1 command
arg1 arg2 command
arg1 arg2 arg3 command
arg1a arg1b arg2b command-b arg3a command-a
2 3 * 1 add
Forth: 3 2 > if "true" print else "false" print then
Joy: 3 2 > ["true" print] ["false" print] ifte
The ALGOL (procedural) family of languages make regular use of syntactic sugar to make reading the code easier. The annoying-to-learn syntax is what makes it more readable, and programmers spend much more time reading code than writing it. That's part of why they have mostly conquered the programming world, despite the niche technical superiority of the other language styles.
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
What is woo-hoo?
Scientific woo-hoo is the propagation of nonsense. It is the belief in magic, draped in the robes of science. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics has done more harm to science than even the global warming cash and power grab.
Woo-hoo is the belief that particles don't have properties until a scientist measures them. They really believe this, because they have been carefully trained, for generations, to not think. (Don't believe me? Look up the history of rogue waves in the ocean. Despite sailors knowing about them for millennia, they "didn't exist" until scientists finally documented one hitting an oil platform in 1995.)
Woo-hoo is the belief that math is more real than reality, that models are more important than observation, that the map really is the territory, that doctrine is more important than thought.
Woo-hoo is the belief that a particle in a superposition is actually in multiple states and multiple places at the same time.
Woo-hoo is the belief that in a double split experiment, a single photon splits itself into multiple existences, some traveling slower than the speed of light while others travel faster, so it can interfere with itself along the way to the detector.
Woo-hoo is the belief that entangled particles don't have properties until a scientist measures one of them, then the other instantaneously becomes something as well. This is the belief that if you flip a coin and see heads on top, the bottom suddenly and magically becomes tails. The belief that if you take a pair of shoes, randomly place them in separate boxes, and mail one box to China, that box will suddenly and magically contain a left shoe the instant you open the other box and find it contains the right shoe.
Woo-hoo is the ongoing experiments to see if a particle quantum tunneling through a barrier teleports or moves faster than light. The reality is so much more simple. The particle tunneling its way out of a barrier does so because at that random instant, the barrier isn't there. A tunnel momentarily opens up through sheer Brownian chance. The particles and fields comprising the barrier have randomly moved and changed in such a way that the barrier is no longer a barrier at that particular time and place. If you shake a box of ping pong balls long enough, while looking through a pair of holes on opposite sides of the box, there will eventually come a moment when you can see clearly through the box because all the balls are randomly not in the way.
Woo-hoo is believing that black holes really are singularities of infinite density, with alternate universes inside them.
Woo-hoo is actually believing the 'many worlds' hypothesis is in any way scientific.
Woo-hoo is the uncritical belief that Bell's theorem disproves local realism, despite Bell's inequality being obviously based on a strawman argument. (Bell "proves" that triangle waves are not identical to sine waves, that straight lines are not curves. The fact that nobody ever suggested they were somehow seldom gets mentioned, and those who do quickly lose their jobs and voices in the industry. Pour encourager les autres.)
Woo-hoo is the unquestioning belief that the expansion rate of the universe randomly changes over time, never asking how or why. So many questions left unasked - how would the rate change everywhere, evenly, at the same time? If this is a real effect, and I am by no means assured it is (there are a lot of adjustments made to observational data), then it is the most definite proof of the existence of God I have ever seen.
Woo-hoo is strangling science through magical thinking.
Sunday, September 29, 2024
Spacetime, again
The basic principles of spacetime: