Nostr notes by Mark Reid

OH: “What is it about DNS that people find so difficult? It’s ...

2026-03-25T23:20:08Z

OH: “What is it about DNS that people find so difficult? It’s just cache invalidation and naming things.”

Not yet! I have a rough idea how to add that and hope to get it ...

2026-02-14T20:31:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…2kkw
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Not yet! I have a rough idea how to add that and hope to get it working later today. Hopefully it won’t add too many more bytes.

The urge to golf uxn programs while writing them is pretty hard to resist. I think it’s another reason it’s been taking me so long. :)

I haven’t counted exactly but I think that’s around 75 or so ...

2026-02-14T09:34:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…5n3e
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I haven’t counted exactly but I think that’s around 75 or so bytes for the algorithm. The whole test program is 307 bytes so I could easily fit it in this toot if I wanted to. :)

Finally had a small win with my learning of #uxn programming and ...

2026-02-14T09:29:26Z

Finally had a small win with my learning of #uxn programming and got a basic version of Bresenham's line algorithm working! I'm sure there are better ways to do it but I'm just happy it's working right now.

This is my first proper go at learning a stack language so around 80% of my time was just figuring out and debugging little idioms and macros to do basic arithmetic.

I vaguely remember teaching this algorithm as a tutor for a computer graphics course in 1998 so it's been fun to revisit it.

Nothing in particular, just looking for some small examples, ...

2026-01-27T21:19:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…c4e9
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Nothing in particular, just looking for some small examples, mainly to try to understand how the screen device works. The Mandelbrot and cube examples from the old repo looked interesting.

Is there a forum or repo where a collection of example programs can be found?

(Obviously I can get them from an earlier commit in the uxn repo but I’m guessing there’s a better place now?)

One thing I haven’t been able to find again yet is all the ...

2026-01-27T20:48:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…aq95
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One thing I haven’t been able to find again yet is all the example programs that used to be in the original uxn repo. Did they move somewhere else?

TIL that there is a very nice, free PDF book called “Conway’s ...

2025-12-03T22:37:30Z

TIL that there is a very nice, free PDF book called “Conway’s Game of Life: Mathematics and Construction” that systematically introduces common structures and patterns and discusses how to reason about their behaviour.

It’s beautifully typeset with tons of diagrams. Well worth a look.

https://conwaylife.com/book/conway_life_book.pdf

Isn’t it just because phi is a solution to x^2 + x - 1 = 0? ...

2025-10-14T21:54:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…v2zf
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Isn’t it just because phi is a solution to x^2 + x - 1 = 0?

Circle: y^2 = 1 - x^2
Quadratic: y = x^2

So y^2 = 1 - y giving the result.

Yeah, Gary’s great. Really hope his message cuts through and ...

2025-08-26T23:04:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…tp5d
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Yeah, Gary’s great. Really hope his message cuts through and gains traction.

Was reminded of the time we took the kids snowshoeing and camping ...

2025-07-16T22:51:44Z

Was reminded of the time we took the kids snowshoeing and camping up around Mt. Kosciusko for a few nights a couple of years ago.

#snow #alpine #camping #adventure #hiking

That’s solid advice. For what it’s worth, it was my ...

2025-05-12T08:31:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…aljg
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That’s solid advice. For what it’s worth, it was my cardiologist who originally pointed me to the 2020 journal article a few years ago (not the New Scientist piece).

It surveys various prior studies across a range of cardiac ...

2025-05-12T08:28:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…zegx
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It surveys various prior studies across a range of cardiac disease. My broad takeaway (again, not as an expert) was that there is a small increased risk factor with very vigorous exercise but this seemed to be strongly attenuated if the person exercised regularly.

In the cases where people did die of a heart issue during a vigorous activity, it seems it was more often someone who tried the activity after being mostly sedentary.

In case you missed it, the 2020 study is quite broad and readable ...

2025-05-12T08:28:16Z

In reply to nevent1q…ca2c
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In case you missed it, the 2020 study is quite broad and readable if you have any background in reading scientific papers (I’m not in medicine but found it a worthwhile read): https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000749

Counterpoint: exercising and increasing your VO2 max reduces your ...

2025-05-12T04:05:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…9rm5
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Counterpoint: exercising and increasing your VO2 max reduces your *all cause* mortality by *5x*, which is wild. There’s a great discussion in this video (aimed at cyclists, not runners, but the point still applies): https://youtu.be/eMMf9inNSkw?si=Ig5dQtfAcCcKWtnw

Analysis of the 2018 study with this result: https://peterattiamd.com/how-does-vo2-max-correlate-with-longevity/

(If your main point was that that was a terrible press release ...

2025-05-04T10:43:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…4f4z
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(If your main point was that that was a terrible press release then I agree 100%)

Full disclosure: I studied with Prof. Wildberger in the 3rd year ...

2025-05-04T10:31:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…muwd
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Full disclosure: I studied with Prof. Wildberger in the 3rd year of my undergrad degree 30 years ago. He definitely has some strange ideas (especially on his YouTube channel) but he had a very solid grasp of combinatorics and number theory when he taught it.

I think it is a little unfair to try to infer the contents of the ...

2025-05-04T10:27:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…3v2v
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I think it is a little unfair to try to infer the contents of the paper from the extremely broad and simplified picture in the lay press release when the paper is freely available and linked to from the article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00029890.2025.2460966

I skimmed the paper and wasn’t able to make much sense of it but it does seem rigorous enough to engage with on its own terms rather than the version in the press release.

I did a bit of Javascript hacking this weekend with the excellent ...

2025-03-30T01:52:23Z

I did a bit of Javascript hacking this weekend with the excellent `two.js` 2D drawing library to try to create an animated version of a diagram I came up with a while ago about modes and the circle of fifths.

Thanks to both katch wreck (npub1ru7…hxlg) and John Carlos Baez (npub1nf4…nqe4) for separate discussions here that got me thinking about this.

Animation and explanation is here: https://mark.reid.name/modes/

#musictheory #javascript

I had a similar change of interest several years back when I ...

2025-03-06T02:06:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…49c9
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I had a similar change of interest several years back when I started running regularly. Found some great books and other resources on technique, training plans, nutrition, physiology, psychology. Paid close attention to various fitness and form stats I could record. It was a fun and rewarding process though the feedback cycle is way less immediate than coding (on the order of weeks/months).

I’m much more relaxed about it now but that intense period set me up well.

✅ First trail ultramarathon Definitely not my strongest run (a ...

2024-11-28T23:21:44Z

✅ First trail ultramarathon

Definitely not my strongest run (a recently injured Achilles had me mostly “speed hiking”) but I was very happy to have finished the Kosci50 under the cutoff time.

I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do the final 15km loop after the final checkpoint as it was 650m of climbing over 11km then 650m descent over 4km. I took it very slowly but was surprised I was able to run the last 1.5km.

#trailrunning #ultrarunning #kosci50 #running #mountains