Notices by Aaron Toponce ⚛️:debian: (atoponce@fosstodon.org), page 2

Here are some published random number projects.

In 1955, the RAND corporation published a book titled "A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates".

The random number were produced via an electronic simulation of a roulette wheel attached to a computer. The results were filtered and tested before added to the large table.

The book is 400 pages each containing 50 lines of 50 digits. Columns and lines are grouped in fives and the lines are numbered 00000-19999.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1418.html

Happy Birthday #GNU #Bash.

#linux

Hopeful, but skeptical. I guess we'll never know.

#chatgpt #ai

A play in 2 acts.

@ekis As a mathematician, I want real numbers. 1/6 is a real number, but in programming languages, it's an operation instead. This triggers my OCD.

@ryanc Yeah, I guess. 1/6 is a number though just as much as 0.16666666666666666. I guess I could do:

{
"n": [0, {"/": [1, 6]}, 2]
}

And handle the operation in my code, but that's annoying.

This should be valid JSON:

{
"n": [0, 1/6, 2]
}

But alas:

"Invalid JSON!
Error: Parse error on line 2:
{ "n": [0, 1/6, 2]}
-------------^
Expecting 'EOF', '}', ',', ']', got 'undefined'"

Ugh.

#javascript #programming

@mkj @dangoodin I'm not advocating that you should use it. I'm only drawing attention to the fact that Saturnin is a symmetric block cipher designed specifically with quantum computing threats in mind. That's all.

@bosak Indeed. Everyone communicates temperatures to each other accurate to one decimal point, right? 😉

Some of us are aware that -40° Celsius is also -40° Fahrenheit. It's the only point where the two scales agree.

But did you know there are palindrome temperatures and they're very useful also!

16° Celsius = 61° Fahrenheit
28° Celsius = 82° Fahrenheit

#coffee #math

@tychotithonus @ryanc Doesn't 0x1E solve this problem as a record separator, or am I misunderstanding?

@evan This is some wild stuff! TIL.

Generative AI is garbage, exhibit 99:

#ai #math

"BSD, Lunix, Debian and Mandrake are all versions of an illegal hacker operation system, invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War. ... Torovoltos is a notorious hacker, responsible for writing many hacker programs, such as 'telnet', which is used by hackers to connect to machines on the internet without using a telephone."

#Linux #BSD

https://web.archive.org/web/20110226033326/http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html

I'm not a #NixOS user. I've never installed it. I've only seen discussion about it on Reddit. I'm vaguely familiar with its intended audience and purpose.

But this purge is wild. I mean, you can't separate politics from software. Software is inherently political strictly because the developer who is writing it has political opinions which will inevitably make it into their project.

But for the vocal minority to overwhelm a project, its founders, and core devs? Wow.

https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5819317/nixos-commits-a-purge-of-nazi-contributors-forces-abdication-of-founder

Geordi La Forge weighs in on the "tabs versus spaces" debate.

#programming

TIL Richard Stallman stole source code from Gosling EMACS, replaced the license headers with his own, and integrated it into his #GNU #EMACS. Over time he eventually replaced all the original code, but only after initially replacing the license headers first.

Why wasn't he sued? How do you sue a homeless man? What do you sue him for?

@ryanc Let me think about it.. I stuck with Diceware to pay homage to Arnold Reinhold, seeing as though it's based on his PassGen2. But it could probably use another word list.

HUZZAH! Trivium test vectors pass. Time to integrate.

Much excite.