2026-05-29T23:12:44Z https://yabu.me Pat https://yabu.me/npub1vquz2zegznsrz8vcmefrkfwt3t802x8998vxd4ez0c928dcc8azql3pr3x https://mastodon.sdf.org/system/accounts/avatars/113/528/616/189/257/837/original/5b11d34628ca204b.png https://mastodon.sdf.org/system/accounts/avatars/113/528/616/189/257/837/original/5b11d34628ca204b.png https://yabu.me/nevent1qqsghtattty500lkz22sghhjedculxlsyz20t9zzlvy58feny9v708qzypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5gs4mm4v In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqszvhfqfl9jkstk9fz8jjg3kqm7jy357vah2y0pulzzj2q0qxsu0jsfqsqxy'>nevent1q…sqxy</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>I had the same feeling recently (been learning Forth and using a lot of Scheme)<br/><br/>Cons = Push<br/>Cdr = Pop<br/>Quote and unquote = [ and ]<br/>Functions are lists = Words are stacks<br/>(Potentially heretical, but) parentheses are fiddly = Stack manipulation is fiddly<br/><br/>(I&#39;m sure there are many other equivalences!) 2025-12-05T18:45:13Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqszf3lpczft5upz823drz35kmmsp5trdwxdk6nq36kxmnet23u5haqzypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5g6fs9q2 Latest ThinkPad update (I should probably name her?)<br/> <img src="https://mastodon.sdf.org/system/media_attachments/files/115/543/467/383/963/220/original/d75d8c901fbd5844.jpg"> <br/> 2025-11-13T17:04:29Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqsvq99qdqypcvlqhswpumz8vs2ya9jk7r4vp8k7z5229j9dvhlj0hszypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5gqh258f <span itemprop="mentions" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a itemprop="url" href="/npub1z2cvkdv4e89xpe5v6rl93vud3fm4mxxygcr3s6xfxrf52u4k34gs8tlaft" class="bg-lavender dark:prose:text-neutral-50 dark:text-neutral-50 dark:bg-garnet px-1"><span>R E K</span> (<span class="italic">npub1z2c…laft</span>)</a></span> you might enjoy this cute bookmark I just got (from a bookshop on a boat in Leeds, called Holdfast)<br/><br/>(I decoded it with Rabbit Waves. I love the note about Japanese semaphore, I always enjoy learning about non-Latin encodings to stuff)<br/> <img src="https://mastodon.sdf.org/system/media_attachments/files/115/520/234/955/441/463/original/fda33c3693b6f443.jpg"> <br/> 2025-11-09T14:36:42Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqsqzhwtp5gqzk8xfw2qgaausdkhlhdpu2q9k5qky52f36k5rpw2gyczypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5g2u74r0 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqst4weyzdccss9c7k56ttl467mv27z079629jgpnmynkls0hjrj99crv99tx'>nevent1q…99tx</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>(Not really relevant to this thread as I used Scheme, so feel free to disregard!) <br/><br/>I did it. It works (if by &#34;works&#34; you mean a relative error of less than 0.1)<br/><br/>I also stumbled across Stirling&#39;s Approximation, which actually can be derived using Poisson and Normal distributions! So my silly idea was not completely nuts!<br/><br/>For the Poisson bit, I used Knuth&#39;s algorithm to generate random Poisson-distributed numbers, and used that to find P(X = k)<br/><br/><a href="https://patpatpat.xyz/data/scheme/badfactorial.scm">https://patpatpat.xyz/data/scheme/badfactorial.scm</a> 2025-10-16T19:30:28Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqszr2fw2caq7uaj5yffewukkunyzys8kkxqc4m4lx4kw34sune3y5qzypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5gqkp2jy In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqs9x0r6cjy07czztgkhsfrjl4xdnm328m6vxk743lavtqpsehwzhjcq5hdlu'>nevent1q…hdlu</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>this gave me a very stupid idea: the PMF of the Poisson distribution uses a factorial, therefore you could (if you were feeling suitably whimsical) calculate factorials using it<br/><br/>i.e., k! = mean^k / (e^mean * P(X = k))<br/><br/>Where P(X = k) can be found using a Poisson distribution table of your choice<br/><br/>(Needless to say, the accuracy is atrocious) 2025-10-15T19:05:07Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqsxj9vrllyzfnu80k3r3pcphq87cltqh2khu7yawzv789jdhm8n0zqzypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5get9uhh I wonder if there is an alife/automaton to simulate a crowd at a rave/gig<br/><br/>E.g.:<br/>- Urge to fill space and move to front<br/>- Constant oscillating movements in time with music<br/>- Simultaneous events (cheering, arms up, etc)<br/>- Some attractions between friends<br/>- Some enclaves of friends with a weak circle-forming urge<br/>- Ability for people to pass to exit, via the classic hand-on-shoulder method. Possibly forming a chain of people 2025-07-27T02:05:19Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqsfmsmg9gaungcljw86a2s44rnvehgm4p3ed37he08vvyezgy9he8qzypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5geqezn8 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsg6zgq3vpw8trwr0k0c26wvy8ta7n7zx0v77qx2ednhwk32vr5dscgahn0p'>nevent1q…hn0p</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>I always want there to be &#34;one correct way&#34; of doing things, but unfortunately that essentially never happens in computing (or anywhere, really)<br/><br/>I think my pure maths background leads me to want a direct indisputable line of reasoning, when in reality there are multiple paths and all of them are wrong/right (in slightly different ways)<br/><br/>So, yeah having flexibility to do both methods is probably the way to go: pragmatism over dogmatism 2025-07-13T15:17:05Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqsymlgp2zmlzy3v2vq6sz9me6khnqwlwf29tw3u56xq3jmvm7rrq0czypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5g8dg86n Length-prefixed strings (length + string) are so much nicer than null-terminated (string + 0)<br/><br/>E.g, if I want to save my string to a binary file and read it again, I know immediately how much memory to allocate for it (rather than reading it once and backtracking)<br/><br/>Also removes all the unsafe str functions, by forcing the use of the strn functions as default<br/><br/>Perhaps a big issue is that a string is now sizeof(size_t) + sizeof(char*), rather than length + 1<br/><br/>I am open to counter arguments :) 2025-07-13T08:48:42Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqsq7e6tpnzfuj77ehg4ycd7xmn3ahq3zc0m4p7lfpx80xdamrw23dgzypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5gjgv8d0 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqspafc6xgl7l7vka0wh5uj3pducvp792qvlf6r5472cdxmznlep28can93lh'>nevent1q…93lh</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Ooh that is very cool, it really shows off how great stacks are as a construct. Its quite fun that a good way of performing infix maths is just to convert it to RPN<br/><br/>Mixed-fractions, decimal/fraction conversion, and some misc functions are on the TODO list in my head. I probably also need to add variables, as currently the result is just printed out?<br/><br/>I actually just treat everything as a fraction, so there&#39;s not really a concept of separate digits. Its all just reciprocals 2025-04-03T23:39:50Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqsv6lnv6r0kuvrwm2lttxqwzsx4tudwpkdu9p59a3nmc6p4wcscr7gzypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5g7t9g8z I&#39;ve made a fraction-based calculator, for simplifying rational expressions (written in ANSI-C using vi)<br/><br/>I was aiming to merge a scientific calculator with &#34;bc&#34;, because I often need to simplify various fractions and whatnot. Quite happy with the result!<br/><br/>Uses shunting yard algorithm to evaluate the expressions, and a naive descent parser (I think?) to tokenise<br/><br/>Aside: OpenBSD&#39;s &#34;editline&#34; is very easy to use<br/><br/>Please ask any questions :)<br/><br/><a href="http://patpatpat.xyz/data/frac">http://patpatpat.xyz/data/frac</a><br/><br/>#c #bsd #unix #math<br/> <img src="https://mastodon.sdf.org/system/media_attachments/files/114/276/472/321/733/302/original/81f8c7475cc9ed07.png"> <br/> 2025-04-03T23:01:57Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqsvl72v9skuq0wukkylhd3vuqh4xkkeasz0q5qs7fjc47ud89w8lhgzypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5g5clmrw I should learn how to use mailing lists and IRC. <br/><br/>Because a.) they have cool people on them, and b.) they are so old that they are essentially immune to the enshittification wafting over the waking world.<br/><br/>My only issue with IRC is that it seems like you have to be constantly connected in order to actually keep track of a conversation? I like COMMODE on SDF because it has a nice room history (as well as a friendly TUI). Any tips are appreciated.<br/><br/>#irc #email #mailinglist 2025-03-06T19:37:33Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqsg4pzxu50jasl3mjdtz6xee49wmxy9k96t94vqtxh8952y2mp0tdszypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5gfp7d34 For reasons unbeknownst to God, I have been writing a BASIC interpreter<br/><br/>This book has been very useful. Its a really clearly written explanation of the inner workings of the BASIC interpreter for the Atari 8-bit computers. Includes all the data structures, memory layouts, language syntax, etc<br/><br/>Interestingly, it calls it a &#34;pre-compiled&#34; interpreter because it converts the user input to numerical tokens. But I guess we would call it &#34;bytecode&#34; nowadays?<br/><br/><a href="https://archive.org/details/ataribooks-the-atari-basic-source-book">https://archive.org/details/ataribooks-the-atari-basic-source-book</a><br/><br/>#atari #BASIC<br/> <img src="https://mastodon.sdf.org/system/media_attachments/files/113/755/086/678/802/616/original/0cce14ae63f99daa.png"> <br/> 2025-01-01T20:54:15Z https://yabu.me/nevent1qqswh5y78efmtk6atyhyepwpgfkwctfc9guz38x7ap6zfkd3vex05jszypsrsfgt9q2wqvganr09ywe9ew9vaagcu55asekhyflq4gahrql5gel5qy7 In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqs9e40y2pzwxwykhemquw80sltylprn45rg7ktcgugnqf4skgkw3ys02hv9k'>nevent1q…hv9k</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>I find it quite depressing to imagine a future where teachers just use AI to create courses, and students just use AI to attend courses<br/><br/>It presents learning as a means-to-an-end, and attempts to skip the difficult bits (like having to read, understand nuance, search for sources, discuss with peers). There is no short-cut to learning, the difficulty IS the learning (a quote I like is, &#34;memory is the residue of thought&#34;) 2024-11-23T09:43:45Z