Nostr notes by Shriram Krishnamurthi

Kids running restaurants are super cute and never get old, even ...

2026-08-06T16:40:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…k9z3
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Kids running restaurants are super cute and never get old, even if the "food" is sometimes utterly inedible—those are in some sense the most memorable! (I say as in the next room, kid is baking a cake for a neighbor to say thanks for some help he gave. Fortunately the baking is A+.)

Stepped out of my office to get some water yesterday, came back ...

2026-05-30T14:26:09Z

Stepped out of my office to get some water yesterday, came back and saw my monitor looking like this, and momentarily considered making it my theme.

Applications for the Secure Program Synthesis Fellowship by Apart ...

2026-05-21T21:27:31Z

Applications for the Secure Program Synthesis Fellowship by Apart Research are now open; you have 10 days to apply. I've listed two of my projects here; one more is heavily based on my work; and the rest are all fun too! Please feel free to share.
https://apartresearch.com/fellowships/the-secure-program-synthesis-fellowship

I'm going to try it first and see how it works out. I feel ...

2026-05-01T10:40:36Z

In reply to nevent1q…tr2d
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I'm going to try it first and see how it works out. I feel like we should be rethinking the entire structure of conferences, but I've had no luck getting people to talk about it yet. But it's much easier to do once there's a concrete example.

To make it easier esp. for junior folks (students, postdocs, jr ...

2026-05-01T00:45:32Z

To make it easier esp. for junior folks (students, postdocs, jr faculty) to talk to me, I'm trying a new thing: open office hours at conferences! Come find me at PLDI 2026, using the public calendar linked to the page below. Please feel free to reshare!
https://cs.brown.edu/people/sk/Contact/Calendar/

Good lord, I didn't write anything with him! This is as ...

2026-04-13T03:11:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…gg6v
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Good lord, I didn't *write* anything with him! This is as close as I got!

But my Erdős number happens to be 3, I think, which happens to also be my Gates (as in Bill Gates) number.

And finally, Paul Erdos (Erdős Pál) visited us and gave a talk, ...

2026-04-13T02:15:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…ycz5
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And finally, Paul Erdos (Erdős Pál) visited us and gave a talk, and kindly posed for photos. I was much better with a camera than my roommate, so he got the in-focus snap. (-: Unfortunately, this proximity did not make me any smarter, so here I am.

This, I'm realizing, is from my grunge band album cover photo ...

2026-04-13T02:14:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…9eqq
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This, I'm realizing, is from my grunge band album cover photo era. My friends John, Eric, and Jeff pose with me in front of the bas-relief sculpture of the coronation of Szent István in Esztergom. ↵

I went into a bin to find old photos I haven't looked at in ...

2026-04-13T02:14:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…3vhx
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I went into a bin to find old photos I haven't looked at in 30 years. Here's a symbolic one. The flag-with-the-hole was symbolic of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and this spot commemorates that event. It was revived after the end of the Soviet Union. I imagine some are flying it again now… ↵

So I suspect it's not easy for many outsiders to understand ...

2026-04-13T02:12:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…wrhy
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So I suspect it's not easy for many outsiders to understand Hungary. You have to view it both through the lens of its 1100 yr history, including long periods of non-independence, and through its linguistic isolation from its neighbors. And what it did under Nazis, and what was done to it by Soviets. ↵

Also, due to its singular language, Hungary had never been a ...

2026-04-13T02:08:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…vy02
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Also, due to its singular language, Hungary had never been a particularly diverse country. I remember very well how my Jewish friend and brown self would get *stared at, hard* in public places. What I saw in subsequent decades (eg, Jobbik) was a very obvious extension of what I'd experienced. ↵

So it wasn't like HU had been a proper independent democracy ...

2026-04-13T02:07:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…vr3m
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So it wasn't like HU had been a proper independent democracy that briefly lost independence. Rather, being on the Pannonian plains, it had been invaded from all directions: Mongols, Ottomans, Habsburgs, Nazis, Soviets. So it was like a fledgling trying out figure out what it *meant* to take wing. ↵

It's also important to remember that while some countries ...

2026-04-13T02:06:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…hd8r
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It's also important to remember that while some countries were regaining autonomy, Hungary has a very long history of NON-autonomy. Even the Austro-Hungarian empire was A-H in name; the real power was in Vienna. The Hungarians had a definite inferiority complex about it, knowing they were second. ↵

It was almost as if the country had gone into a deep sleep for ...

2026-04-13T02:06:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…g5ej
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It was almost as if the country had gone into a deep sleep for decades, and then blinked hard at a very bright light. Of course Hungary had always been the most "Western" of the Eastern bloc, but that was still a pale shadow of what was happening in the West. ↵

Within a period of one month, I experienced: - bomb scare at ...

2026-04-13T02:05:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…9g5w
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Within a period of *one month*, I experienced:

- bomb scare at the airport
- Pope's first visit (to a *very* Catholic country)
- Iron Maiden's first visit
- the Russian putsch (Yeltsin on the tanks), which reverberated hard in Hungary
- Unix coming East for the first time ↵

It was an amazing time. Remember how Prague was "cool"? ...

2026-04-13T02:05:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…4tfs
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It was an amazing time. Remember how Prague was "cool"? Budapest was the low-fi version of that — more real. Underground bars, street signs being changed, nobody spoke English, absolute mayhem. If it wouldn't be pretentious I'd write a small memoir of that time: ↵

I have a particular fondness for Hungary because I spent a ...

2026-04-13T02:04:51Z

I have a particular fondness for Hungary because I spent a formative time studying there. It was just after The Wall came down. I had so many encounters that conveyed a sense of hope for a bright future. I imagine the squares of Budapest feel like that again right now. ↵

Certainly picked an interesting day to walk past the Iranian ...

2026-03-01T17:03:47Z

Certainly picked an interesting day to walk past the Iranian embassy… There's not going to be a lot of quiet in Knightsbridge tonight!

View from Manhattan yesterday: the frozen Hudson, and the sun ...

2026-01-29T14:33:22Z

View from Manhattan yesterday: the frozen Hudson, and the sun setting over NJ.

Was editing and noticed that if you rotate-left "those" ...

2026-01-25T16:17:04Z

Was editing and noticed that if you rotate-left "those" you get "ethos". Was curious how many of these are in English. Big dicts have a lot of junk, and most endings in "s" are for plurals. Here's a good list of rotwords.

Thanks for the helpful auto-complete, Gmail. ...

2026-01-24T01:38:04Z

Thanks for the helpful auto-complete, Gmail.

Twice as many people die in car accidents every day. ...

2026-01-19T17:47:21Z

Twice as many people die in car accidents *every day*.

Scheme, the ur programming language, is 50 years old, as Jason ...

2026-01-17T17:50:13Z

Scheme, the ur programming language, is 50 years old, as Jason Hemann just reminded me.

That's beautiful! Hope the birds like it as much. How do you ...

2025-12-26T20:32:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…n3yl
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That's beautiful! Hope the birds like it as much.

How do you keep the squirrels out, or do you not care?

Sorry for not offering this earlier, but if you're a parent ...

2025-12-14T16:26:39Z

Sorry for not offering this earlier, but if you're a parent of a Brown student and they need help (a ride, a coffee, whatever), please email me and I'm happy to try to help.
https://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Contact/

We're all at home and doing fine, thanks for asking. (If you ...

2025-12-13T23:09:00Z

We're all at home and doing fine, thanks for asking. (If you don't know what this is in reference to, don't worry.)
https://theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-regularly-happens/

He was actually Czech (Tomáš Sträussler), which put his famous ...

2025-12-01T21:30:43Z

In reply to nevent1q…yr9g
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He was actually Czech (Tomáš Sträussler), which put his famous quote ("It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting") in perspective; he escaped as a Jewish refugee. He got to the UK via India, where his mom (appropriately) ran a Bata shoe store! Photo from Hermione Lee's biography.

Tom Stoppard has passed away! He could be too clever by half, but ...

2025-12-01T21:23:23Z

Tom Stoppard has passed away! He could be too clever by half, but at his best he was mind-altering; reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as a youth was a profound experience. And as he wrote in that play: "Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else".

My lord, to be able to write science this well. This is like the ...

2025-11-09T00:07:27Z

My lord, to be able to write science this well. This is like the opening of an econ or law paper.
From Donald Hoffman's "The Interface Theory of Perception",
https://sites.socsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/interface.pdf

Didn't expect that the thing I'd get radicalized by in ...

2025-09-28T13:47:49Z

Didn't expect that the thing I'd get radicalized by in Italy was…focaccia. I've had it in the US and never saw the appeal. But in Italy I popped into a supermarket chain's express store (not some fancy shop), got one, and…wow, I get it. Gonna keep searching for that high, now.

TIL (HT @aaroneline) that Brown has one of the "finest ...

2025-08-04T12:30:05Z

TIL (HT @aaroneline) that Brown has one of the "finest private libraries" on magic and related content, the bequest of a collector who "put himself through Brown by giving magic performances". Libraries are amazing places.
https://library.brown.edu/collatoz/info.php?id=104

Funny how Google doesn't even offer "Never" as an ...

2025-07-17T00:08:14Z

Funny how Google doesn't even offer "Never" as an option — like they just don't want to know. (This is a pop-up on a Google blog page.)

It's been bothering me for a while, so I created a Racket ...

2025-06-26T03:34:08Z

It's been bothering me for a while, so I created a Racket extension to refer to variables by position: eg,
(define hypotenuse
(lambda 2
(sqrt (+ (square $0)
(square $1)))))
Why not. What fun. No more variable name choice paralysis! 🤣
https://github.com/shriram/lambda-n

India arches (top to bottom): Humayun's Tomb (Delhi), Mysuru ...

2025-06-23T23:47:46Z

India arches (top to bottom): Humayun's Tomb (Delhi), Mysuru Palace (Mysuru), Qutub Shahi Tombs (Hyderabad).

Providence/greater-Boston-area people: check out this talk on ...

2025-03-10T13:53:38Z

Providence/greater-Boston-area people: check out this talk on March 18 (register at ICERM site) by Junehyuk Jang, a Brown professor and member of the DeepMind team. A success of neuro-symbolic reasoning!

I really wish articles like this would explain how a ...

2025-02-10T12:56:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…muma
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I really wish articles like this would explain how a "free" system intends to remain maintained, upgraded, and competitive over the coming years. What's the business model?

Making steady progress on getting rid of DEIA: Democracy, Ethics, ...

2025-02-01T17:25:03Z

Making steady progress on getting rid of DEIA: Democracy, Ethics, Institutions, and Accountability.

Zoom was a genuine improvement over its predecessors, and is ...

2025-01-07T13:59:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…uqte
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Zoom was a genuine improvement over its predecessors, and is still better than Teams, so I don't think that's fair.

Of all the UX improvements Zoom needs, they have decided to make ...

2025-01-06T19:28:28Z

Of all the UX improvements Zoom needs, they have decided to make precisely zero and instead enshittify it. Can't wait for someone to do to Zoom what Zoom did to Skype.

EDIT: You can turn this off, instructions here:
https://x.com/ajay9470/status/1876363012011180114

Last year I asked a question about the state of tracing JITs, and ...

2025-01-06T14:21:37Z

Last year I asked a question about the state of tracing JITs, and it led to a wonderful exchange. CF Bolz-Tereick (npub1yku…n4mh) has written a terrific summary that captures a lot of folk knowledge that would otherwise be lost. Thanks!
https://pypy.org/posts/2025/01/musings-tracing.html

Well, you have the right root!

2024-12-12T13:38:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…jmsg
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Well, you have the right root!

Wife [doing NYT puzzle]: I need a 6-letter word beginning with ...

2024-12-12T00:15:05Z

Wife [doing NYT puzzle]: I need a 6-letter word beginning with OO.

Me [having prepared for this moment for a Very Long Time]: OOPSLA!!!!!!

(Yes, I do know the word: ad49aea7bca6ba469c245a7faf84d7f4cbb04cf30d6485b3cb4ef86297401fb8. Don't say it, people might still be doing it.)

Sometimes it takes me 22 years (+ one evening) to write a blog ...

2024-12-02T03:19:18Z

Sometimes it takes me 22 years (+ one evening) to write a blog post. Here are my thoughts on "homoiconicity" and, as an alternative, "bicameral syntax". (Warning: 4000 words.)
https://parentheticallyspeaking.org/articles/bicameral-not-homoiconic/

A while ago I had a Twitter thread encouraging people to write ...

2024-11-03T21:24:01Z

A while ago I had a Twitter thread encouraging people to write more books. neeldhara (npub1xv0…tl3w) urged me to turn it into a proper blog post, and I just have: "You Too Can Write a Book!"

https://parentheticallyspeaking.org/articles/write-a-book/

Pretty certain the single most surprising thing I've learned ...

2024-10-18T02:02:38Z

Pretty certain the single most surprising thing I've learned in the recent past is that the VIKINGS got to BAGHDAD and repeatedly attacked CONSTANTINOPLE. (They used the Volga&Dnieper.) Not a word about it in my entire education! Here's a brief history:
https://www.history.com/news/globetrotting-vikings-the-quest-for-constantinople

An absolutely WILD story where almost every paragraph is ...

2024-10-11T14:40:49Z

An absolutely WILD story where almost every paragraph is quotable. Eg, Walgreens spends $184K/month just to power 5400 defunct machines. The machines contain COOLANTS! Each of our "conveniences" hide so much complexity; this opens the (red)box on one.
https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/redbox-vending-machine-kiosk-dvd-movies-4e285ee8?mod=hp_featst_pos5

At this point it's obvious that the Nobel for Literature is ...

2024-10-09T12:09:56Z

At this point it's obvious that the Nobel for Literature is going to ChatGPT.

I ride so I can snack. But I don't ride enough whereas I ...

2024-09-24T11:36:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…3xqd
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I ride so I can snack. But I don't ride enough whereas I definitely snack enough. <-;

But also seems like a good opportunity to sell products by the ...

2024-09-24T11:31:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…mpmq
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But also seems like a good opportunity to sell products by the kind of people whose advertising props up these kinds of magazines? I feel like I've also read my share of "*most* riders don't ride hard enough to need any of this fancy stuff".

1/ Recently got access to Google's Illuminate, which ...

2024-09-20T12:23:24Z

1/ Recently got access to Google's Illuminate, which AI-generates a ~6min "podcast"-format summary of a research paper. To test it, I gave it 5 of my own recent papers. This thread summarizes the evaluation: ↵

How is this "disruptive"?

2024-09-16T11:52:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…xzu5
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How is this "disruptive"?

My colleague Amy Greenwald just sent me this talk slide. It's ...

2024-08-14T14:26:39Z

My colleague Amy Greenwald just sent me this talk slide. It's from Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, an *economist*.

We have so won.

(I mean, I have *thoughts* about this content and his course slides, but also… We have so won.)

Wessex Inst of Tech has sent me unsolicited commercial email ...

2024-08-10T01:01:59Z

Wessex Inst of Tech has sent me unsolicited commercial email about their conferences. I will not comment on their quality, but simply encourage everyone to read these classic Wessex papers, which includes maybe the greatest graphics paper ever written.
https://users.cg.tuwien.ac.at/wp/videa-paper.html

After having taken the time to learn to say Eyjafjallajökull ...

2024-07-31T15:43:04Z

After having taken the time to learn to say Eyjafjallajökull correctly, I'm annoyed that Iceland is shoving a new volcano on our menus.