Top all-time · #11763
I've got the byte on my side
Personal blog · latkin.org/blog · on HN as latkinprogrammingmath
I've got the byte on my side is a personal blog at latkin.org about programming and math. Since 2015, 6 different Hacker News readers have linked it 19 times, most often “Non-transitive Grime Dice, via Mathematica”. The last post was in 2018, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link latkin.org posts on floating-point arithmetic, especially Muller's Recurrence, as a reference for round-off errors. Other linked topics include F#, COBOL and non-transitive dice.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Non-transitive Grime Dice, via Mathematica2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-01-16
- When the Scala compiler doesn't help2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-05-03
What Hacker News says?
Yeah, it's a good feature. It's been done carefully -- there's room to do more of this kind of upcast conversion in the future -- but there's also a danger of creating code that behaves weirdly, too. See here for some of the dangers in Scala 2: https://latkin.org/blog/2017/05/02/when-the-scala-compiler-d...
Comment linking /blog/2017/05/02/when-the-scala-compiler-doesnt-help/
on “What I wish I knew when learning F#”Submitted Git for Windows accidentally creates NTFS alternate data streams as a story · 349 points
HN discussionYou can purchase a set of non-transitive dice here: https://mathsgear.co.uk/products/non-transitive-grime-dice (I am not affiliated in any way with this store) These particular ones are fun because the winning order reverses if you double the count of dice. i.e. A beats B beats C beats A, but 2 As lose to 2 Bs lose to 2 Cs lose to 2 As. I wrote up a blog a while back that explores the various possibilities and chain…
Comment linking /blog/2015/01/16/non-transitive-grime-dice-via-mathematica/
on “Nontransitive dice”Submitted Non-transitive Grime Dice, via Mathematica as a story · 28 points
HN discussionThat's how I learned about COBOL's behavior. I was on a consulting gig with some COBOL programmers that had been sent to a learn-java-in-21-days course. When I arrived I found they had used float for money, because they didn't know any better. We eventually switched over to BigDecimal, but not until the staff were convinced by continuing problems with the results. Now I just talk about Muller's Recurrence https://sc…
Comment linking /blog/2014/11/22/mullers-recurrence-roundoff-gone-wrong/
on “An Apology to COBOL: Maybe Old Technology Isn’t the Real Problem”Submitted Null-checking considerations in F# – it's harder than you think as a story · 26 points
HN discussionHere's a REALLY weird one: https://latkin.org/blog/2014/11/22/mullers-recurrence-roundo...
Comment linking /blog/2014/11/22/mullers-recurrence-roundoff-gone-wrong/
on “Floats Are Weird”Submitted A simple benchmark of various math operations as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSee also https://0.30000000000000004.com/ https://scipython.com/blog/mullers-recurrence/ https://latkin.org/blog/2014/11/22/mullers-recurrence-roundo...
Comment linking /blog/2014/11/22/mullers-recurrence-roundoff-gone-wrong/
on “IEEE 754 round-off errors”Submitted When the Scala compiler doesn't help as a story · 4 points
HN discussionYes, the pairwise comparisons form a similar pattern as shown in the top-right pentagram in http://latkin.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/cycles12.p... (each die beats two others and loses to two others, in pairwise comparisons)
Comment linking /blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/cycles12.png
on “Non-transitive Grime Dice, via Mathematica”Submitted When the Scala compiler doesn't help as a story · 2 points
HN discussionHere is what may surprise some people. Here is an expectation table (i.e. just averages): | :olive | :magenta | :blue | :yellow | :red | |--------+----------+-------+---------+-------| | 4.167 | 4.333 | 4.5 | 4.667 | 4.833 | Generated by this Clojure code (`exp` means expectation): (print-table (order-keys-by exp dice) [(exp dice)]) I'm surprised that the two (very good!) articles ([1] and [2]) I've read did not poi…
Comment linking /blog/2015/01/16/non-transitive-grime-dice-via-mathematica/
on “Non-transitive Grime Dice, via Mathematica”Submitted Poestmortem as a story · 1 points
HN discussionMuller's Recurrence is my favorite example of floating point weirdness. See https://scipython.com/blog/mullers-recurrence/ and https://latkin.org/blog/2014/11/22/mullers-recurrence-roundo...
Comment linking /blog/2014/11/22/mullers-recurrence-roundoff-gone-wrong/
on “Examples of Floating Point Problems”Submitted Better TeX math typesetting in Hugo as a story · 1 points
HN discussionOn the subject of math: https://latkin.org/blog/2014/11/22/mullers-recurrence-roundo...
Comment linking /blog/2014/11/22/mullers-recurrence-roundoff-gone-wrong/
on “Why some people think 2+2=5 and why they're right (2021)”Submitted Curious behavior when de-duplicating a collection in PowerShell as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Today ought to be Phi day as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
