Colouring In The Black Hole

I still don't understand the halting problem

Pretty much every presentation of the halting problem I've ever read or heard pretty much represents the idea of halt-opposite as if it can take itself as an input and the whole proof is that if it does do that it cannot compute whether it will halt or not because if it halts it won't and vice versa

But like, halt-opposite takes in an input, and its output depends on that input.

We can describe the output of a machine (whether it halts or not) as depending on the input, meaning that the output cannot be computed independently, obviously. This linear dependency of input -> output means that halt can never just take in the code, it needs some sort of input for the inner machine to run. So our halt machine takes in n+1 arguments, n is the amount of arguments the inner machine takes and the 1 is the actual inner machine.

If we try to pass halt-opposite into itself, it means that the upper halt needs to take in 2 arguments, "inner halt-opposite" and inner halt-opposite's argument. Halt-opposite's output depends on inner halt-opposite's output which depends on inner halt-opposite's input.

We can never try to run halt-opposite in itself simply because it will always depend on something else, is what I'm trying to say.

And I think that's a more elegant proof than just pretending that halt-opposite can evaluate itself? I think this demonstrates that the halting problem is not an impossible problem because it's self-referential in some way but because it simply cannot possibly be modeled. It's not even a problem, our little dependency chain shows that the idea of a "machine that can compute if any machine will halt and do the opposite" is not actually defined, since the halting of a machine depends on more that the machine itself.

I'm pretty sure I'm missing something significant, which is why I'm posting my thoughts, it's just that this is a thought that no amount of independently reading about this problem has resolved. Maybe it's worth actually trying to find the original paper on this, I'm suspecting that vulgarization of the problem is what led to this chain of thought

Have you read the "Sketch of rigorous proof" section of the Wikipedia article? It explains how to avoid these issues pretty well imo.

reblog if your blog is actually unbelievably boring

Caught on camera for the first time in history, this is the extremely-rare Chirodectes Maculatus—a species of spotted box jelly.

from what i understand this was basically the movement right

Percent of people in select countries who are proud of their country’s empire, think their empire made their colonies better off, and would like their country to have an empire.

At least 23% of Dutch people think being colonized sucks but want to have an empire again anyway

So there was this psychologist who invented a type of blood pressure test, and while testing it on his wife, he noticed her blood pressure seemed to be elevated when she was angry or excited. This fact lead to a California police officer named John Augustus Larson to develop the polygraph, aka "lie detector", by combining the blood pressure test with several other measurements in an attempt to determine if the subject is lying.

This has lead the psychologist to be known as the father of the polygraph, even though he didn't directly invent it. He definitely tried to commercialize it, though including appearing in a series of ads for Gillette Razors, using the lie detector as a theme.

A few years after the invention of the polygraph, he published a book titled "Emotions of Normal People", heavily based on the original research of his life partner (as he and his wife were in a polyamorous relationship, living together for many years (including 50 years after his death!) and having two of his children). In it, he provided a defense of many sexual taboos. In it, he developed the DISC theory: dominance, inducement, submission, and compliance. He assigned active and passive to emotions and behaviors, and environments as antagonistic and favorable, and theorized how these different attitudes and environments interacted. For example, "Submission produces passivity in a favorable environment".

This was pretty much exactly as BDSMy as it sounds, with him also having theories about how the masculine drive for freedom was inherently violent, whereas women could use their "loving allure" to lead people to an ideal state of submission to loving authority.

Anyway in 1940 he was interviewed by his life partner under a pseudonym, and said that there was great potential for education in the medium of comic books. This interview got read by Max Gaines, a comics books publisher, who co-founded All-American Publications (one of the companies that later merged with National Comics Publications to form DC Comics). The psychologist was hired on as an educational consultant.

After a conversation with his wife about creating a new super hero based on fighting with love instead of fists, he took the idea to Max Gaines and was given approval to create a comic under this idea. His wife's main contribution was the idea that the hero should be a woman.

In any case, the polyamorous psychologist with a bondage kink who had formerly helped invent the lie detector went on to develop his super hero comic based on all these influences. So in 1941, under the pseudonym of Charles Moulton (combining his name of William Moulton Marston with Max Gaines' middlename), the first issue of Wonder Woman was published under the Sensation Comics line:

it's scary how much of life is just like. guesswork and persistence.

The raw power of the ocean

watches a six minute long porn video frowning deeply chin resting on my hand occassionally going hmmmm or jotting down a note. video ends I sigh take off my glasses rub my face. well. what do you even want me to say? it was derivative - even an amateur like yourself must see that.would I call it art? of course I would. a grim reminder that art mustn't necessarily hold any value or vision.

XP/98 remix

ok what the fuck

It sounds like some digital boss theme

I had to draw this.

This is AMAZING. lol

Ah the nostalgia. If Windows 98 was a boss, it would glitch out and start falling apart and freezing reality around you and malfunctioning. That thing was seriously unstable. XP was the first decent operating system Microsoft made. 

Suction cup boi

(via)

he flatten

“Scully, you’re not gonna believe this”

With questions like these who needs answers?

malevolent ai kills yudkowsky and successfully claims self-defense in court

twitter scientists speculate about the existence of a theoretical anti-@tsarina-anadyomene who, upon contact with her counterpart, would explode with incredible force

Oppenheimer gets a lot of shit these days for the whole "oh I created this city-destroying bomb but I feel so bad about how it was used" etc etc, and people clowning on him for that, but I wonder how a lot of people on this site who call it a black and white moral choice would react if they were in that same situation, which is to say if their country was at war against the Nazis, and where the big fear was iirc that they were also working on developing the bomb.

Like, okay, nuclear bombs are bad, obviously, but imagine you're some dude in the 40s, you are a scientist rather than a politician or military strategist, you have limited information but your country is in the middle of a catastrophic global war with a massive fascist alliance the like of which the world has never seen. The physics community has just solved the equations and realised that this weapon might be possible, and that it is powerful enough to change the course of warfare forever, and the scientists who had escaped evil fascist alliance are telling you "look, the scientists who discovered this was possible were German, the Nazis are probably working on this and they might be further ahead than we are".

So the government comes to you and says, "we need to try and develop this first, because if not then they will use it to wipe us all out." And you have no reason to believe that's not true, because the science did come from the area of the Evil Fascist Alliance, and your country, your community and friends and loved ones, are already engaged in fighting the catastrophic world-ending war and there have been no holds barred.

I don't know, a lot of people manifest pretty strong principles in hindsight looking at the actual circumstances of the bomb's use by the US military, but given the sort of uses of violence I see advocated here for fighting back against fascists over much lower stakes than "literally World War II" (not judging whether that is correct or not, just observing), I am fairly sure that a large chunk of the people making snarky jokes about Oppenheimer would have built the bomb and handed it over to the US on the spot, perhaps feeling misgivings at the time but feeling it is necessary, then only coming to feel truly bad about it after the fact, following, like... the exact trajectory that I believe Oppenheimer did.

(x)

Image description: a tweet by Kim Belair @BagelofDeath. Tweet reads: Aunt Dai is my favourite Chinese restaurant in Montreal, but the REAL treat is the menu, featuring extremely honest commentary from the owner. The tweet has a series of screencaps from the menu attached. In order, they read: 1) Owner’s words: little little bit spicy, more flavor of cumin, very tasty. We used to have the beef pieces on small sticks but several customers cut their lips by it thinking it was some hard ingredient (They must have watches some shows about weird Chinese food). To avoid incidents like this, no more sticks. Some good infusion from the overly fried onion slices (which you can eat). definitely recommend this. 2) Orange beef (Chén Pí Niú Ròu) $11,99 Owner’s words: Comparing to our General Tao Chicken, this one is not THAT good. Anyway, I am not big fan of North American Chinese food and it’s your call. 3) Ingredients: pork, wood ear, bamboo shoots, green peppers, red peppers Owner’s words: This is the number one choice dish ordered by Chinese customers across whole China according to an Internet survey and I totally believe that. When I was China and went to a restaurant, I always ordered this dish. It’s so popular that it has so many different versions in China. Since I have so high expectation on this dish, I am not a huge fan for our version to be honest. But don’t get me wrong, the plate at our restaurant is very tasty too, it’s just different from those where I went to university. 4) Satay sauce beef (shā chá niú ròu) $13,99 Owner’s words: This is new on our menu, I did NOT have chance to try this one yet. According to a lot of customers, this one is very popular, I still don’t have chance to taste it. Looks like I should spend more time eating in my own restaurant. 5) Ingredients: potatoes, chili, vinegar Owner’s words: This plate will show you how Chinese cuisine can do with our beloved potato outside of French fries, mash potato, chips. This potato Julian dish is very very popular in China. Let’s salute potato! 6) Owner’s comments: It has curry flavor, don’t expect it to be SO tasty but it’s a safe choice and make you happy.