Top all-time · #2961
Walking Randomly
Personal blog · walkingrandomly.commathprogramming
Walking Randomly is a personal blog at walkingrandomly.com about math and programming. Since 2009, 26 different Hacker News readers have linked it 38 times, most often “Fortran Compiler for Sinclair ZX Spectrum Rediscovered After 40 Years”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Mike Croucher's blog on scientific computing, covering MATLAB, Julia, R and Octave, with benchmarks and performance comparisons such as Raspberry Pi 2 and Matlab-to-Julia porting.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Because it's more fun than getting there in a straight line.
Most-linked posts?
- Fortran Compiler for Sinclair ZX Spectrum Rediscovered After 40 Years2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-11-12
- How to enable the Linux / Bash subsystem in Windows 102 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-08-06
- How Powerful Are Microsoft Azure’s Free Jupyter Notebooks?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-05-15
What Hacker News says?
It will continue to be available, but I'm not sure what the performance increase is. There'll be a blog post on walkingrandomly.com coming in a few days - a guy who benchmarked it when it first came out. See http://www.walkingrandomly.com/?p=5220
Comment linking /?p=5220
on “Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed”Submitted How Powerful Are Microsoft Azure’s Free Jupyter Notebooks? as a story · 112 points
HN discussionthis looks like it- http://www.walkingrandomly.com/?p=6187
Comment linking /?p=6187
on “The Linux kernel hidden inside Windows 10”Submitted How to write a "GPUs are Awesome" paper as a story · 66 points
HN discussionSource downloads: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/ Windows binaries, with source code: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/octave/windows/ Earlier screenshot of the GUI, but very similar to the current version: http://www.walkingrandomly.com/images/octave/octave_GUI_38.p... The Windows binaries are partially due to commercial sponsorship. We are still selling more commercial support, and we are working on providing even more com…
Comment linking /images/octave/octave_GUI_38.png
on “GNU Octave 4.0 released with a new GUI”Submitted The rise of Python in computational science as a story · 53 points
HN discussionAs a researcher (who codes contingently) I've enjoyed for a long time the blog of Mike Croucher ( http://www.walkingrandomly.com/ ) who was Head of Scientific Applications Software Support at The University of Manchester and blogs accordingly, with interesting tips and insights on this issue. Very very recommended!
Comment linking /
on “Professors’ unprofessional programs have created a new profession”Submitted Are graphical calculators pointless? as a story · 47 points
HN discussionOne thing that is holding me back from porting my Matlab code to Julia is manual loop-unrolling. "It seems that, when using Julia, one needs to unlearn everything you’ve ever learned about vectorisation in MATLAB." [1]. Once the speed with Matlab-like syntax improves, I'll try again. [1]: http://www.walkingrandomly.com/?cat=59
Comment linking /?cat=59
on “Comparison of Matlab, R, and Julia for data analysis (2012)”Submitted Secret messages hidden inside equations as a story · 36 points
HN discussionhmm...this idea seems to have been brought up in a comment as well http://www.walkingrandomly.com/?p=2755#comment-31646
Comment linking /?p=2755
on “Parallel Random Numbers in Matlab”Submitted How to enable the Linux / Bash subsystem in Windows 10 as a story · 30 points
HN discussionSubmitted Parallel Random Numbers in Matlab as a story · 20 points
HN discussionSubmitted Making Ubuntu 12.04 useable as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted Fortran Compiler for Sinclair ZX Spectrum Rediscovered After 40 Years as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why do good software people leave academia? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Julia Language hits a new speed milestone as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Fortran Compiler for ZX Spectrum rediscovered after 40 years [April 2019] as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hypot – A Story of a ‘Simple’ Function as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How Powerful Are Microsoft's Azure Notebooks? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Mathematics in Stained Glass as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hypot – A story of a ‘simple’ function (2020) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Automation as a transfer of knowledge as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Fernando Perez speaks about IPython [video] as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Image Processing Challenge: What does the world look like through my eyes? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Optimising a correlated asset calculation on Matlab – Using the GPU via the PCT as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The smallest positive integer that Google has never heard of as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Simulating Harmonographs as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Dropbox + Condor = DropAndCompute -- High-Throughput Computing Made Easy as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted ChatGPT Loves to Delve as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
