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## JournalJournal: A

A reddit comment inspired a bit of an interesting thought.

The question is. If you had a fast TM (FAST_TM) with a little bit of paper tape, and a slow TM (SLOW_TM) with a lot of paper tape, could you simulate FAST_TM on SLOW_TM? Could you trade off memory for speed to get a (close to realtime even) representation of FAST_TM on SLOW_TM?

I think this gets interesting if you ask for a SLOW_TM to have with an infinite ( |â| ) paper tape. As long as you could 'read state' into those tape cells fast enough you could have stories of state going back as far back as the FAST_TM has not been in a stable/idle state. In an idle state you could start to play catchup. Between idle state points you would be at some indeterminate point between where the last idle state was that you could play catch up, in effect you'll probably have a whole stack of possible state points(what is the computational complexity of catching up on this stack for the size of the stack STACKSIZE?). So the load % of FAST_TM would determine the average lag time between your successful modelling of it.

This suggests that you could probably get a probablistic chance of modelling the FAST_TM by just adding memory of (O(S)+O(T))t where S is the memory required to record one state, t is the time and O(T) is the amount of memory you spend transitioning from state to state. I'm guessing this would be hard to do so on cpus with little memory involved, ie there's a high constant factor, but once you're past this constant factor it gets relatively easy to do...but then again maybe it doesn't? I think the lower bounds for turing machines of certain memory capability in terms of size are very small and we haven't got a lot of proofs for them.

Now here's an idea for a new kind of machine: a FAST_TM simulated on a new kind of SLOW_TM, ie where SLOW_TM has a bounded amount of memory proportional to some % of possible outcomes. Let's call this SIM_TM_LB. SIM_TM_LB is going to have a lower busy beaver-like number than a regular TM of its size because there's a certain % of possible outcomes that cannot be simulated (that overflow the stack allowed). going to be some lower limit L 1 L(M) BB(M) that the largest program available on simulated-fast-cpu can run. Proving what that is would be interesting because as you expand M (again in relation to the load average ratio between the two, the state transition memory footprint T, and the FAST_TM state size S) you're also define a L(M) BB(M) which means you're defining a new kind of number let's say Î that seems to be related to \omega: it's \phi = \sigma_i 1/L(i). Why is Î important?

It's yet another way of looking at problems where you're dealing with something smarter than you are. It's where you're playing a game with god. Where you're having an argument with an oracle. It expresses all information that you can possibly acquire rather than what your opponent can possibly know. Or does it?

This suggest \psi s parameters are T and S. Are there any others?

Also: what happens if we start allowing stack overflows to transverse from TM to TM? This seems to build a new kind of machine, also that has potentially really weird properties.

## JournalJournal: The Stupid Fallacy1

Prerequisites :

The Stupid Fallacy (named/discovered by Chris Rileyâ) Is-A Argument from Ignorance that includes an extra component:

Instead of merely being an argument that draws a conclusion from the *lack* of knowledge on a topic (and not in a bayesian-friendly way of enumerating possibilities and going from there, either) you have

• (optional) empty platitudes that stand as non-truth functional filler in place of where premises would normally go followed by
• a statement that is so utterly wrong and against nature/reason/good sense, that it's fractally wrong, and decompressing the argument against it would overflow any reasonable wanabe bayesian's attempt at both responding and adjusting their priors.

Example:
Why don't you like GMOs?

Who knows what chemicles they put in GMOs! They're probably dangerous! Besides, God tells me to not let my precious bodily fluids become tainted by GMOs. You have to believe me because my beliefs are not subject to logical fallacies, since you and I are both christians[1].

Why is this worth keeping around?

Because it's not just ignorance. It's recursive, or close to recursive ignorance. It's ignorance that requires disproportionate amounts of cognitive surplus available to dispel. You have to basically reconstruct an entire worldview relying on evidence rather than 'feelings' or 'blind belief in what my elders said' in order to get your point across.

[1] no really.

## JournalJournal: /r/button2

If you allocated F(t) seconds of ripple credit (in HRS) for every user with flair class ( F = { (60,0) , (50, 10), (40, 20), (30,30), (20,40), (10,50), (0,0), {other,0} } ) what is your expected value of this offer?

Given there's roughly 500,000 people with a flair class you'd think it'd be a lot...but it sure seems like the overwhelming majority of the 500,000 chose to feed in '60' or 'other' and it's unclear that would change. It depends on the distribution of the random variable t, roughly corresponding to the probability distribution of these flair classes over the ~40 million users who are given this choice.

Will the offer of a reward for flair classes make it more or less likely that people would coordinate better?
How large of a reward would it have to be in order for there to be any affect whatsoever (given how diverse reddit is...this could be huge)
How would the reward affect/skew the distribution?

Edit: Upon closer inspection: looks like it isn't quite so simple: F(t) is actually (60-t)(H(60-t)H(t)) where t is a natural number {0,1,2,...}.

## JournalJournal: On DIsagreement

It seems to be begging the question to demand acceptance of the prerequisites of the requirement to agree not to disagree. These prerequisites form a model of what it means to be rational. I'm not sure if they are the best possible model, or even if they work. This includes the hypothesis that a system is only efficient if and only if it has a model of itself, and the semenatic, syntactic forms, and (trustable) media that are acceptable to each of us. So, in short - it is reasonable to expect come to agreement with rational agents except about rationality itself. There it isn't necessarily a question of whether you agree or not, but a matter of how rationality can even work. A matter of tweaking the model to allow greater truths to be perceived between multiple agents. So, the #1 way to get out of any disagreement is to look at this model, or the idea of a model in general.

## JournalJournal: 24 years later

I entered this tunnel, starting preschool in what, 1986? And here I am, at the very end of this god forsaken tunnel. All hope is lost, and yet here I am, washed up on the damned shore.

At least I'm pretty sure this time. I haven't filled out all the paperwork, but the exam is over. I thought I did anywhere between reasonably good and fantastic on the final exam -- all I need is a 14% to finish my degree (I suspect I got somewhere between probably 85+/-5%, stddev 5% or so or so.) so... I'd say I'm safely done.

But those considerations aside, it has been a long travel to get here. Where the hell am I?

## JournalJournal: Agree to disagree meme

Since no two people agree on everything (especially in political/religious matters, but not exclusively so) here's an open question for you -- what is ONE belief that you think I do not currently believe but should. I would also suggest posting this on YOUR /. journal /etc to see what responses you get.

DISCLAIMER: since I'm *asking* for these beliefs I can't really expect to be too hard on you for them. The purpose here isn't to press you on them (you have the rest of my life to convert me, if you so choose), merely to enumerate them. Although agreeing to disagree is unfriendly, in the confines of this thread it will be seen as acceptable, just to flush out some fresh ideas that I might not have considered.

## JournalJournal: I'm finally no longer bitchslapped

after what, 10 years of not being able to moderate on slashdot, I'm finally allowed moderation privileges again. Crazy. Now what to do with my mod points . . .

## JournalJournal: Poissonian Statistics & OKCupid

Statistics has never really been my strong suit, but one of the equations we used in our astronomy labs was one out of poisson statistics, that is

P(r,u) = (e^{-u})*(u^r)/r!

and P(F) = P(r,u) * Number_Of_Stars_Surveyed,

where F is the total number of stars

or, perhaps written differently,

(defun stars (T U S) (* T (* (/ (* (expt 2.71828183 (- U)) (expt U S)) (* 1.0 (! S))) 100.0)))

with

(defun ! (int) (if (eq 0 int) 1 (* int (! (- int 1)))))

This is what you should use if you have a system of magnitudes of stars that are ordered in a poisson distribution, to determine what probability you have, given 'r' discrete categories of stars(in our case, r=5) that are each in turn less likely according to the poisson distribution, what is the probability that your data set can be picked. That is to say, what is the likelyhood that your ratio U of 'number-of-stars in category N and above vs. the number of stars' came about purely by chance? At least if I'm understanding this correctly, which I'm not sure.

According to my calculation,

(stars 85.0 (/ 7.0 85.0) 5) should be .0002%
(stars 85.0 (/ 27.0 85.0) 5) .2%
(stars 85.0 (/ 38.0 85.0) 5) .8%
(stars 85.0 (/ 53.0 85.0) 5) 4%
(stars 85.0 (/ 85.0 85.0) 5) 26%

That last one makes my head hurt. Under what condition could we be more certain that some order of stars was likely? 26% isn't very likely. In our lab my results for the Pleiades cluster was .002%, it should have been 4e-6%, but still... you can't seem to do much better than 26%, which isn't very likely at all. Yet looking at the graph in the wikipedia makes this at least *look* right...

Seems like I'm missing something here...what is the likelyhood that there are 53 "2 or greater" star women given a sample size of 85 given a poisson distribution? What about 85 1 or greater? How am I messing this up?

DATA
5 stars 7
4 stars 11 (- 38 11) 27 4 or greater
3 stars 15 (- 53 15) 38 3 or greater
2 stars 20 (- 85 32) 53 2 or greater
1 stars 32
(+ 7 11 15 20 32) total 85

## JournalJournal: DIY toothpaste no worky

2 parts baking soda, 1 part hydrogen peroxide.

I'm not sure if it cleaned my teeth at all, but it sure did cause me to almost immediately puke.

On the upside, if I ever need to puke I know just the thing to force me to...

## JournalJournal: PRAISE BE SERVER

I just passed my last class. I will soon have a degree. After SO MANY DAMN YEARS, I get a damn piece of paper.

## JournalJournal: Apparently, I'm ugly3

Double blind survey of around 30 fairly well randomized women of various ages of various pictures of me led me to a score of about 2/10 on plentyoffish.com, I lost some of the numbers, so no mean/mode/etc unfortunately.

I always considered myself ugly, although with my recent loss of weight I figured I'd be approaching average by now...
guess not.

Although who knows how hot you have to be to not be ugly at pof standards.

But still, you can't argue with empirical data. Maybe the side burns have got to go(although there's always the risk that out of the 30 women who did rank me, one did rank me as hot, and she may have liked them and maybe, just maybe, she's the one I'd be happiest with anyway, and by cutting them off I'd be cutting my chances with her, etc etc).

Also, I like the sean kennedy idea, of embracing your ugliness, accenting it, and building it into something meaningful. Got a deformity, accentuate it. Got a scar? Make it more visible, etc etc. So it's not like this fact is going to bring me down or anything. I've been knowingly ugly for most of my life, I can live the rest of my life this way.

It'd be nice to be able to find someone to love, and be able to keep them easier though, if my charisma roll were a little higher...

## JournalJournal: Lab test1

Over at my LJ, I describe today's job interview, and how I might have botched part of it. What would you do in such a situation?

## JournalJournal: The effective data channel capacity of the universe and S:N

Start with a 1d edge between two nodes. An abstract version of a cable between two network points. We know by Claude Shannon's results that Bitrate = Bandwidth*log10(1+S:N). Keep that one in mind.

But what if we started with a plane, instead of an edge? A wall, instead of a cable? Then we could split the plane indefinitely...oh but we can't do that! Planck distance starts becoming an issue. So ~1/1.6E-35 or 6.3E34 edges/m is the largest possible amount of cables per metre, and ~4E69 cables per square metre cross section area.

But just as information may be transmitted in waves through an approximately 1d medium, they can be sent through that cross sectional area; just each of the 4E69 cables carrying signal, that's all right? It'd be like a wave coming into a port; as long as you split the harbour into fine enough paratitions, you can transmit independently, and get data independently.

What if went a step further? And started transmitting information through volumes. Perhaps a point particle in the middle of a sphere transmitting information to or from the entire surface of that sphere. Or...backwards in time or something! Then we're talking 2.5E104/m3...but there's also planck time to consider, so the smallest resolution is pretty much defined at 2E43 Hz...and there can't really be any more than 1 bit per time in this context(a single bit is hard enough to imagine)...so we're up to 5E147 bits per cubic metre....but why would we stop there? Let's use the entire observable universe.. 8.8E26 being used this way; bingo, 4.4E174 bits per universe.

4.4E174 bits = 1 log ( 1 + S/N ) log24.4E174 = 1 + S:N log2 4.4 + log2 10E174 -1 = S:N 2.1+578+1 ~= 581 = S:N

Or if we account for time as another spacelike dimension...the age of the universe...4.4E174*4E17 ...or 1.8E192 bits per universe log2 1.8E192 = S:N + 1 ~192log2 10 + log2(1.8) -1 = S:N ~638 S:N for not only the universe, but using the entire history of the universe as some kind of space-time anteanae. Assuming this were all possible, of course.

So if your S:N is over 638dB for anything, either I screwed up or you did. How could you get that certain of anything? Actually, even if I screwed up, I'm probably not off by more than a few dB!

• the curvature of the universe? Does this help direct information?
• the unobservable universe? Are we, and everything we can detect down to the big bang skin at the edge of the observable universe merely a bubble in something unimaginably larger?
• what about the concept of S:N? If it isn't absolutely meaningful this analysis falls suspect immediately
• math/logic?
• certainty of your own existence? Maybe it's just information that must travel, must be communicated. This would solve math issues, too as reflexive statements and other axiomatic information might be self-provable, and hence would not be affected by S:N. Information about the material universe.

Other interesting things come from this too, you can measure how powerful a transmission medium is by how close it approximates this. my modem is what, -599dB from perfection? You can also measure how much information is stored within any given thing in terms of dB depending how large it is, too. I wonder if there's a way to put mass-energy into this somehow? Oh looks like there's a planck energy. But for how that'll fit in, I'll have to give some thought, and really, I should make sure what I have now is approximately correct first, anyway :)

Also, /., why don't you like my preformatted sections? Your treatment of <pre> makes baby dinojesus cry.

## JournalJournal: cuil theory

A random chat with m2tm, for your enjoyment

(11:33:10 PM) m2tm: haha, holy shit
(11:36:23 PM) tmg1: check out the cuil levels 6 & 7 comments :D
(11:38:46 PM) m2tm: haha, I like this too:
(11:38:51 PM) m2tm: Hypothesis: As Cuils increase, so does the likelihood your are actually a character in a David Lynch film.
(11:44:42 PM) tmg1: Hahahaha
(11:44:59 PM) tmg1: heh
(11:45:22 PM) m2tm: OMIGOSH
(11:45:27 PM) m2tm: It all makes sense!
(11:46:11 PM) tmg1: Hypothesis: Cuils are relative. You and I can be at different cuil levels only in relation to one another, as conscious beings
(11:48:02 PM) tmg1: Or maybe that's only true with Real cuils
(11:48:04 PM) tmg1: grn
(11:50:19 PM) m2tm: Nope, you are mistaken in questioning your point.
(11:50:23 PM) m2tm: Everything is relative.
(11:50:25 PM) m2tm: EVERYTHING.

Also, I'd imagine a Bayesian could be defined as someone who wants to minimize their apparent cuil-level between other bayesians and themselves. There could also be an 'absolute' cuil level, a level of reality compared to some standard point (say, Douglas Hofstadter or kevin bacon). Unfortunately this only works in the earlier cuils though since at later cuils even this might be used as an abstraction away from reality(this sort of thing making cuil theory somewhat of a difficult thing to define terms in).

Unfortunately, the cuil theory website has a TOS that I can't agree to(certainly while considering deviations from reality), so I won't be able to participate on their wiki.

In the meanwhile, when did /. break HTML(code/pre is don't work) AND 'plain old text'(can't see &ltpre&gt?

## JournalJournal: Open Systems Canada Limited RIP

Probably the only Linux and FLOSS based company local to Regina, Canada, Open Systems Canada ltd, has gone out of business. I never actually required their help (can't afford it as a poor student, and our needs are constantly being met without serious incident at work)--- but it's still harrowing that now there is no longer anywhere to turn in city, for those really big problems that you need paid tech support with. I guess the waters of the rising global economic crisis are finally reaching the point where it's noticeable here in lavishly wealthy tarsand country. We will miss ye.

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