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Slow

michaelnotebook.com

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Re: Slow

#131

Post by aaronbrethorst »

wwweston wrote: post #120
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend checking out the Vital City NYC link i shared. It articulates some of the “specific dynamics” you’re thoughtfully, if turgidly requesting.

no more turgid than the much of the boner for building boosterism, just more notes, which may not be a bad thing if some of the scope of consideration could stand to be inflated. before I check vital city, should I anticipate that they go beyond articulating “here’s a series of public institutions that took a long time to do things“ and perhaps even into “here’s our theory of the incentives and other motivations that…

Put down the thesaurus, my dude. And yes.

Re: Slow

#132

Post by xwolfi »

travisgriggs wrote: post #107
Avicebron wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit" - Paraphrased from Elton Trueblood

Which defines why American society seems to be F'ed of late. Decades of short term rewards combined with a baby boomer population looking at their last hoorah and declining relevance. Most of the old people I interact seem to be in a state of denial about soon not being here.

Zoom out: 200 years ago they were killing each other over slavery, 400 years ago, there was no american society.

The trend is up, but they're in a local minimum :D

Re: Slow

#133

Post by hbarka »

The Sagrada Familia has been criticized as a symbol of bureaucratic inertia, some critics insinuating that the delays are deliberate for financial interests.

Re: Slow

#134

Post by gowld »

veqq wrote: post #63
lubujackson wrote: post #26

I'm reminded of the famous story of (I think) the central beam in a building at Oxford. The story goes something like: The central beam was beginning to fail and the Oxford administration knew they needed to replace it. When they went around for quotes, no one could replace the beam because it was 100 ft in length and sourced from an old growth tree. Such logs were simply unavailable to buy. To solve the issue, the s…

This is an urban legend. The college archivist covered it: http://web.archive.org/web/20020816065622/http://www.new.ox.... > In 1859, the JCR told the SCR that the roof in Hall needed repairing, which was true. > In 1862, the senior fellow was visiting College estates on `progress', i.e., an annual review of College property, which goes on to this day (performed by the Warden). Visiting forests in Akeley and Great Ho…

> It is not the case that these oaks were kept for the express purpose of replacing the Hall ceiling.

> The oaks, however, are left to grow on and eventally, after 150 years or more, they yield large pieces for major construction work such as beams, knees etc.

Splitting hairs a bit. In fact what they did was to maintain a more general solution, maintaining a supply of wood over the long term of 400 years.

Re: Slow

#135

Post by fragmede »

7373737373 wrote: post #86
tombert wrote: post #4

In my free time, I have taken to trying to prove the Collatz conjecture. People much smarter and more educated than me have failed at this quest, so I will nearly certainly fail at it, but that's not really the point in my mind. Even if I'm not the one to actually prove it, I can at least try and contribute to the body of work towards proving it. Mathematics is, more than nearly anything else, the result of generatio…

Interesting new contender for simplest to state unsolved problem: The Antihydra Does this program halt? a = 8 b = 0 while b != -1: if a % 2 == 0: b += 2 else: b -= 1 a += a//2 (// being integer division, equivalently a binary shift one to the right: >> 1) https://www.sligocki.com/2024/07/06/bb-6-2-is-hard.html https://bbchallenge.org/antihydra

Fwiw, ChatGPT is able to say that it doesn't. I wonder what other classes of programs it's able to state if it halts?

Re: Slow

#136

Post by imoverclocked »

Language itself is an interesting problem. We have texts that are ancient and some are unreadable and others are readable. I personally can't understand old variants of English while (American) English is the only language I speak.

There is so much assumed in our use of language that it can be largely unintelligible without detailed historical context. The first time I heard the term "in the car park" I chuckled at the thought of an amusement park for cars... "parking lot" only came a few thoughts later. We drive on parkways. We play in the park. We park in the lot. Lots are reading this sentence twice. Give this paragraph to a school-kid in just 100 years and it will seem like gibberish. Word.

Re: Slow

#137

Post by gowld »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #113
Timwi wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That should have been hyphenated then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest

Tangential, how do you hyphenate (((very old) growth) tree)?

This sort of thing comes up often for me. I use extended hyphenation to declare precedence: very-old--growth tree.

Re: Slow

#139

Post by gowld »

7373737373 wrote: post #86
tombert wrote: post #4

In my free time, I have taken to trying to prove the Collatz conjecture. People much smarter and more educated than me have failed at this quest, so I will nearly certainly fail at it, but that's not really the point in my mind. Even if I'm not the one to actually prove it, I can at least try and contribute to the body of work towards proving it. Mathematics is, more than nearly anything else, the result of generatio…

Interesting new contender for simplest to state unsolved problem: The Antihydra Does this program halt? a = 8 b = 0 while b != -1: if a % 2 == 0: b += 2 else: b -= 1 a += a//2 (// being integer division, equivalently a binary shift one to the right: >> 1) https://www.sligocki.com/2024/07/06/bb-6-2-is-hard.html https://bbchallenge.org/antihydra

Is that also the simplest unsolved state problem?

Re: Slow

#140

Post by dxdm »

rfrey wrote: post #117
veqq wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an urban legend. The college archivist covered it: http://web.archive.org/web/20020816065622/http://www.new.ox.... > In 1859, the JCR told the SCR that the roof in Hall needed repairing, which was true. > In 1862, the senior fellow was visiting College estates on `progress', i.e., an annual review of College property, which goes on to this day (performed by the Warden). Visiting forests in Akeley and Great Ho…

Ah yes, "exacting young man debunks charming tale with touching moral, to the benefit of nobody". A tale as old as time.

It is good to be able to recognize charming tales and other biases and influences in a narrative. Having them pointed out counteracts the readiness of people to take things at face value. Knowing that something is a tale does not have to take away from it.

I don't know what irked you about the other comment, but I think there's a positive side to it.

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