sunday_serif

For me, proof by contradiction only clicked (recently!) once I understood that logical consequence and unsatisfiability are equivalent.

Once I understood that and reframed the contradiction as a statement about unsatisfiability… I could then see directly how the positive result you get is the equivalent logical consequence.

Unfortunately, I feel like this intuition only really helps if you are pretty immersed in formal logic… otherwise it just sounds like jibberish.

I use google search only for the most trivial searches now. Something where I know almost precisely what information I want.

I use LLMs for most info now, any slightly ambiguous query really. Often times I use the LLM to figure out what source I should find, then I just use google for retrieval

When I want to “surf the web” I use kagi search (usually with small web filter) when I want to see sources written by people. This isn’t that often, but when I need it kagi is the best!

An example, the other day I wanted to make fermented hot sauce, and I couldn’t remember how much salt was needed for the fermentation. I could google and get served hundreds of crappy ad ridden recipe sites that have the answer to my question buried under five pop up videos, or I could ask an llm with one or two follow ups and have a much more pleasant experience.

Then when I decided I wanted to follow a real recipe I used kagi with small web to find a recipe page that wasn’t an ad farm.

A few more steps than google, but all and all so much better.

Completely agree!

The hard parts seems to be figuring out (1) how to cut red tape for only certain projects and (2) figuring out what red tape to keep.

Chesterton's fence and all that.

True enough, but having designed a “fantasy cpu” gives you a better frame of reference for understanding the more complex features of a cpu (privilege levels, memory segmentation, virtual addresses, cache hierarchy, etc.)

I often feel like those who haven’t done the exercise of understanding the ISA of a “fantasy cpu” have a really hard time understanding those more advanced features.

I guess all I am saying is that learning the “fantasy cpu” still has value even if everything else in the real world is more complex.

Walking before running and all that.

Writing blog posts and being ok with them not being perfect.

I often have an idea for a post that would be interesting, but then as a learn more about the topic in order to write, I start to realize how much I don’t know. At this point, the post either dies or I spend way too long learning every irrelevant detail until I feel like I know enough.

So I think the skill I am trying to learn is writing as a non-expert. Learning to write in a tone that makes it ok to not know everything. Writing in a tone that conveys my experience and understanding, but doesn’t try to be an authority on the subject.

Writing is a tough skill!

I’m working through this book now and really enjoying it!

Each chapter of the book includes a test suite to run against the code you’ve written.

In some ways, the tests in this book feel very similar to the labs in the book Computer Systems: A programmers perspective — which is high praise!

My favorite part of this book is that guides you through writing two separate interpreters for the same language.

I think it really allows you to grasp some of the more intricate and nuanced parts about building a programming language.

You can encounter all of the big ideas in the first half of the book and gain enough familiarity with them so that when you revisit them again in the second interpreter, you can actually absorb the interesting parts.

Such a phenomenal book!

Tell that to the lap swimmers.

A childhood favorite for many of us Gen-Z HN readers.