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smburdick

Re:Simple hard way to conjugate Japanese verbs on Sunday June 21, 2026 @09:06PM (#48624348)
Calling it concatenation is a little misleading.

Japanese is known as an agglutinative language [0], and how verbs are conjugated also has a lot to do with politeness, as well as local dialects. That's why you can turn on an anime and hardly understand it, even after a couple years of study.

I got to the third year college level in my own Japanese studies, and at that point, memorizing kanji was starting to compete with my computer science studies, so I had to drop it. I got to travel to Japan and live with host families (we kind of settled on a Japanese/English pidgin), so I don't regret the experience.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutinative_language

Re:Adobe Photoshop Source Code (2013) on Wednesday May 15, 2024 @01:25PM (#40369850)
John Knoll was the FX lead for the Star Wars prequels, and went on to direct Rogue One.

The behind the scenes documentaries for the prequels have aged well: https://youtu.be/da8s9m4zEpo?si=5y5gHUMxztwVzMny

Re:Immersive Math on Saturday May 11, 2024 @04:19PM (#40330401)
My undergrad math professor created one of the first fully online linear algebra texts: http://linear.ups.edu/html/fcla.html It's integrated with Sage, a Python library for studying (among other things) number theory. Another prof at the same university also wrote his own linear book, using a lot more illustrations, but as a traditional textbook.

I see this book as a solid evolution in both directions. Nicely done!

Show HN: Topological Quantum Error Correction (TQEC)

https://github.com/QCHackers/tqec

TQEC supports scalable quantum computing through design automation tools.We are an international team led by Dr. Austin Fowler at Google. All of our work is open source and many of us are active researchers as well. One of our main goals is to make quantum computing more accessible to the computer science community.

( Read More... | no comments | on HN )
Re:Google Scholar PDF Reader on Thursday March 21, 2024 @07:14PM (#39785579)
I’m typing this comment on an iPad ;-) Which I love using for marking up papers and other documents for quick feedback. But doing research is another story.
Re:Google Scholar PDF Reader on Wednesday March 20, 2024 @10:14PM (#39774268)
For me, reading papers requires deep focus. I have to have it physically printed out if I'm going to really read the whole thing.
Re:Google's Threat Model for Post-Quantum Cryptography on Monday March 11, 2024 @07:25PM (#39674357)
From [1]:

> We implemented the algorithm on IBM quantum processors using only 5 qubits

Last December, a team based out of Harvard demonstrated the ability to scale up to 48 logical qubits: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.03982

It has been shown that, to factor an integer with n bits, Shor's algorithm requires ~2n logical qubits: https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0205095.pdf

Reminds me of those old-timey propeller planes, and gyrocopters.
Re:Clean your codebase with basic information theory on Sunday February 18, 2024 @10:32PM (#39426011)
This is what a minifier does, and those go even further to rename variables.

Another thing that should be pruned away entirely are data files, including all constant strings within the code, since humans should avoid those when focusing on algorithms

At that point you pretty much have a highly compressed version of what you'd find in CLRS or any other algorithmic text.

Re:Paying people to work on open source is good on Friday February 16, 2024 @04:14PM (#39403065)
This is why grants are really important. That usually means deliverables in a specific timeframe. To me, that elevates open source from a full-time hobby to a job.
This is why I use a tablet. Lets me do math formulas quickly, and can view the notes wherever as long as it updates to wi-fi.
Re:Aho – a Git implementation in Awk on Saturday February 10, 2024 @01:17PM (#39328736)
Alongside Brian Kernighan, the "K" in K&R C, and much more Unix lore.
Re:Aho – a Git implementation in Awk on Saturday February 10, 2024 @01:16PM (#39328723)
Does that excerpt start with an if-else sequence?
Not sure if they do, have reached out.

Ask HN: Online services/apps (or books) for an intermediate Japanese learner?

I've had up to the mid-college junior level of instruction, but that was almost a decade ago, and I'm participating in a conversation group. I'm looking for good resources to pick up from. I know about the Toriba book, and I don't particularly like Duolingo.I'm working through this book right now, which is helpful, but I'd benefit from additional materials:...

( Read More... | 2 comments | 3 points | on HN )
Re:Readthedocs-Sphinx-Search breaks for older releases on Tuesday January 16, 2024 @08:03PM (#39021661)
Not a huge issue to fix (just needs to be upgraded) but it broke deployments to two open source projects I work on over the past couple days.

Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. Idk.

Re:Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998) on Monday January 15, 2024 @07:04PM (#39007742)
How can AI be unethical? There's eigen-values everywhere!
Re:Wokwi – Simulate IoT Projects in the Browser on Monday January 15, 2024 @04:51PM (#39006527)
+1. Looks fantastic!
Re:Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998) on Monday January 15, 2024 @04:42PM (#39006464)
As a software developer with some tutoring/TA experience, I'm concerned about whether the next generation of devs will actually be able to code, if all they had to do was use a Copilot to complete their assignments, especially at the freshman/sophomore level. They'd be automating themselves out of usefulness at that point.

Then again, we've had similar conversations about "iPad kids." As an iPad (along with everything else) user, I find it's not a bad approximation of a laptop -- you do have a filesystem, for example, and apps continue to be more fully-featured (in an Apple-approved way, of course).

I use copilot myself, but mostly as a smart autocomplete for setting variables or other minor things that consume time better spent contextualizing through problem solving and interacting with teammates. It's not a substitute for being an engineer.

Re:Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998) on Monday January 15, 2024 @04:35PM (#39006399)
I resent Gladwell to this day, possibly because I was assigned to read him in high school. He is quoted too much -- the 10,000 hours thing is just a meme at this point, for me anyway.
Re:Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998) on Monday January 15, 2024 @04:29PM (#39006341)
+1. What are the fundamentals of CS? Algorithms?
Re:Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years (1998) on Monday January 15, 2024 @02:55PM (#39005303)
I am at times more of a book learner, but find that attitude is often more helpful for non-CS disciplines that change slower (eg, math/physics).

A recent negative book example for me is the Quantum Programming book from O'Reilly. I found that it did not discuss quantum circuits in a detail that helped me really understand what I was doing -- though I suppose that is a conceit of quantum computing. Perhaps I will return to it later (I am working through Nielsen/Chuang now, which is very theoretical, but explains things very clearly)

My policy is that a book is nothing more than a learning tool, which a hobby project can also be (perhaps more effectively due to the experience gained).

Then again, knowledge is power, and books are great at pointing you in the right direction -- assuming you found the right one for your needs, of course.

I know some people who won't open a book unless they know they can read the whole thing, which I think is a ludicrous attitude.

I did just order O'Reilly's Generative Deep Learning book, and am hoping to get something out of that, and if I only retain a handful of snippets to use in my career, that is profitable for me.

The least I can count on is that it will look nice on my shelf.

Re:The Quantum Computing House of Cards on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @12:11AM (#38922585)
I think there are some good arguments, but it doesn't take into account the leaps and bounds made in error correction lately.

The most common conceit is that coming up with new algorithms is hard, but he (by his own admission) only briefly touches on quantum simulation, along with the numerous implications to security that we know of.

Many said deep learning was impossible at scale, and now we take it for granted. I think when there are actual programmers being taught quantum computing from when they are students, they will have the intuition and motivation to develop novel algorithms.

Re:Orb Farm on Friday May 19, 2023 @12:33PM (#36003826)
You should deepfake Leonard Nemoy's voice for the characters. ;-)
Re:Exploring the Gameboy Memory Bank Controller (2020) on Sunday April 09, 2023 @08:45PM (#35507953)
> When developing a game, it was and still is important to consider the size of the final product (unless you’re Call of Duty).

:-)

Re:The Cambrian Period of AI on Thursday March 30, 2023 @01:57PM (#35376656)
I don't see a way to leave feedback right away on your page. To solicit more feedback, you might consider linking your email address/contact page in the article itself, or have an anon. comment section on your blog itself. (I realize you have your obfuscated email in the "about" section, but you might provide a simpler mechanism if you have time)

Happy blogging!

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