And it’s a bit of a mystery as to why not. There’s no obvious reason why, but things seem to divide neatly between low-dimensional polynomials (practical to compute) and exponentials (impractical)
December 23, 2025 at 7:39 AM
And it’s a bit of a mystery as to why not. There’s no obvious reason why, but things seem to divide neatly between low-dimensional polynomials (practical to compute) and exponentials (impractical)
We divide problems into those that can be solved in polynomial time (e.g. x^2, x^3) and those that require exponential time (2^x). The first are tractable, i.e. can be solved quickly. A problem solvable in x^1000 wouldn’t be tractable, but for some reason those don’t seem to come up in real problems
December 23, 2025 at 7:38 AM
We divide problems into those that can be solved in polynomial time (e.g. x^2, x^3) and those that require exponential time (2^x). The first are tractable, i.e. can be solved quickly. A problem solvable in x^1000 wouldn’t be tractable, but for some reason those don’t seem to come up in real problems
OK! I am not a mathematician but found plain old ChatGPT to be shockingly good at correctly explaining undergraduate-level maths and physics problems, and there are now plenty of examples of LLMs solving problems that are beyond me and definitely outside the training data.
December 20, 2025 at 8:16 AM
OK! I am not a mathematician but found plain old ChatGPT to be shockingly good at correctly explaining undergraduate-level maths and physics problems, and there are now plenty of examples of LLMs solving problems that are beyond me and definitely outside the training data.
Also, FWIW and contra OP, current LLMs are unreasonably good at solving difficult maths problems.
December 19, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Also, FWIW and contra OP, current LLMs are unreasonably good at solving difficult maths problems.
I think there is a very large difference between asking ChatGPT to do something and building a specialised tool which uses LLMs as an important component. The tools which are transforming software engineering are the latter and I frankly don't buy that indexing isn't a similarly tractable problem.
December 19, 2025 at 3:41 PM
I think there is a very large difference between asking ChatGPT to do something and building a specialised tool which uses LLMs as an important component. The tools which are transforming software engineering are the latter and I frankly don't buy that indexing isn't a similarly tractable problem.
App Store pricing started out way too low because of the initial association with the cost of a song on iTunes — so there was never a premium tier and the low-cost stuff went FTP, which is poison. Also Apple encouraged it; some obscenely large slice of their services revenue is Candy Crush IAPs.
December 17, 2025 at 4:38 PM
App Store pricing started out way too low because of the initial association with the cost of a song on iTunes — so there was never a premium tier and the low-cost stuff went FTP, which is poison. Also Apple encouraged it; some obscenely large slice of their services revenue is Candy Crush IAPs.
yeah, I think my main ask of something like claude code is to have more control and information about what's going on, especially with the subagents. I want to be able to selectively prune the past, toggle abilities and permissions etc. But no idea how to make it not-overwhelming to a human.
December 9, 2025 at 8:12 PM
yeah, I think my main ask of something like claude code is to have more control and information about what's going on, especially with the subagents. I want to be able to selectively prune the past, toggle abilities and permissions etc. But no idea how to make it not-overwhelming to a human.
I'm really looking forward to the day when we collectively realise that in the field of context management, "append to chat log" is only one of many possible approaches. No idea what else is out there but it feels like a large possibility space to me
December 9, 2025 at 8:00 PM
I'm really looking forward to the day when we collectively realise that in the field of context management, "append to chat log" is only one of many possible approaches. No idea what else is out there but it feels like a large possibility space to me
That’s true, but it’s not where their power comes from. Rather the opposite
December 5, 2025 at 10:45 PM
That’s true, but it’s not where their power comes from. Rather the opposite
I tend to think of SWE as a version of “labour aristocracy” for this reason. One of the few ways we are actually similar to engineers of yore is our social position within the firm. We’re not its owners exactly, but something like ownership accrues to the only people who know how to make it function
December 5, 2025 at 10:04 PM
I tend to think of SWE as a version of “labour aristocracy” for this reason. One of the few ways we are actually similar to engineers of yore is our social position within the firm. We’re not its owners exactly, but something like ownership accrues to the only people who know how to make it function
Sadly I think this is not possible because 1800 is the only 19thc year whose digits add up to 9
December 4, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Sadly I think this is not possible because 1800 is the only 19thc year whose digits add up to 9
Honestly if you asked me “how many people would guess the correct URL and bother to try to access it in this half an hour window” I would answer “a small number” with not much more confidence than that. I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me it was 3 or 3000
December 2, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Honestly if you asked me “how many people would guess the correct URL and bother to try to access it in this half an hour window” I would answer “a small number” with not much more confidence than that. I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me it was 3 or 3000
If their analytics are really not set up to record requests which hit cache and the default cache time is 10 minutes, 32 hits in half an hour is too many. Also I’d be really surprised if whatever analytics package WP-engine uses did not take this into account
December 2, 2025 at 10:25 AM
If their analytics are really not set up to record requests which hit cache and the default cache time is 10 minutes, 32 hits in half an hour is too many. Also I’d be really surprised if whatever analytics package WP-engine uses did not take this into account
Do you know about Sid Meier’s CPU Bach?
November 21, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Do you know about Sid Meier’s CPU Bach?
Reposted
L + Ratio + Send + Sync + Sized + Unpin
November 8, 2025 at 5:10 PM
L + Ratio + Send + Sync + Sized + Unpin
I think this might be the author half-remembering something about the Heisenberg-Schroedinger rivalry, where the elegance of waves vs the (at the time) unfamiliar-to-most-physicists clunkiness of linalg was a point of contention
November 8, 2025 at 9:20 AM
I think this might be the author half-remembering something about the Heisenberg-Schroedinger rivalry, where the elegance of waves vs the (at the time) unfamiliar-to-most-physicists clunkiness of linalg was a point of contention
Recommend this if you haven't read it: www.penguin.co.uk/books/294612...
Farewell to the Horse
The relationship between horses and humans is an ancient, profound and complex one. For millennia horses provided the strength and speed that humans lacked. How we travelled, farmed and fought was d...
www.penguin.co.uk
October 10, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Recommend this if you haven't read it: www.penguin.co.uk/books/294612...
To be honest I just assume these things are fiction or a joke.
September 4, 2025 at 8:46 PM
To be honest I just assume these things are fiction or a joke.
Evan gave an interview last year where he was pretty vague but suggested he had been working on extending Elm to the backend: youtu.be/0SUM4869ODc
Elm & The Future of Open Source (with Evan Czaplicki)
YouTube video by Developer Voices
youtu.be
August 19, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Evan gave an interview last year where he was pretty vague but suggested he had been working on extending Elm to the backend: youtu.be/0SUM4869ODc
Without his notes!
August 12, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Without his notes!
Including for Americans; it provided the preconditions for US dominance of the continent
August 5, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Including for Americans; it provided the preconditions for US dominance of the continent
Speed/cost of generating the reply. Google are achieving an absolutely astonishing feat here in getting it to work at all, with a terrible end result
August 3, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Speed/cost of generating the reply. Google are achieving an absolutely astonishing feat here in getting it to work at all, with a terrible end result
Rod Humble’s Stavka-OKH is essentially that, if you’ve not come across it before: www.rodvik.com/rodgames/STA...
STAVKA-OKH
www.rodvik.com
July 11, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Rod Humble’s Stavka-OKH is essentially that, if you’ve not come across it before: www.rodvik.com/rodgames/STA...