An Eink display which displays a QR code: a solution in search of a problem.
Both are black and white. Both require the displayed image be static.
An Eink display which displays a QR code: a solution in search of a problem.
Both are black and white. Both require the displayed image be static.
The robot goes through the tight course as fast as possible. Beyond some speed, the ground provides insufficient traction to make turns, so probably need steering jets or rockets.
A chess player, seeking to connect with fans, takes requests for what opening to play.
Perhaps to prevent ballot stuffing, votes must be accompanied by money: an auction. But the player does not need to take the top bid. The money supplements income.
To prevent it from being an all-pay auction, the money contributed toward openings not used should be returned.
Many details remain.
For a toy computer only intended for writing small programs, an untyped programming language might be fine. Small programs don't need extravagant software engineering features.
I think Scheme is the best small, untyped language, but the many other scripting languages could be available also.
However, making available both integers and floating point seems difficult to do elegantly without an explicit type system.
In a chess variant in which stalemate is a loss, or more specifically, an extreme form of zugzwang, King and Knight can sometimes checkmate/stalemate a bare King. The longest checkmate on a 6x6 board is Mate in 33 moves, considerably longer than in any of the square board sizes 3x3 (mate in 4), 4x4 (mate in 12), 5x5 (mate in 17), 7x7 (mate in 15), 8x8 (mate in 14), 9x9 (mate in 14), 10x10 (mate in 14), 11x11 (mate in 14), 12x12 (mate in 14).
Here are the mate lengths for different rectangular and square boards of area 166 or less, in order of descending longest KNvK mate. The columns are "number of rows", "number of columns", "distance to mate". For example, a 27 by 6 rectangular board has mate in 221. There is appears to be something special about 6xN boards.
[ 27 6 221 ; 26 6 213 ; 25 6 203 ; 24 6 194 ; 55 3 186 ; 23 6 184 ; 54 3 182 ; 53 3 178 ; 33 5 177 ; 22 6 176 ; 52 3 175 ; 51 3 171 ; 32 5 170 ; 41 4 167 ; 50 3 167 ; 21 6 166 ; 31 5 165 ; 49 3 163 ; 40 4 162 ; 30 5 159 ; 48 3 159 ; 39 4 158 ; 20 6 157 ; 47 3 156 ; 29 5 154 ; 38 4 154 ; 46 3 152 ; 37 4 150 ; 45 3 148 ; 19 6 147 ; 28 5 147 ; 36 4 145 ; 44 3 144 ; 27 5 142 ; 35 4 141 ; 43 3 141 ; 18 6 139 ; 34 4 137 ; 42 3 137 ; 26 5 136 ; 33 4 133 ; 41 3 133 ; 25 5 131 ; 17 6 129 ; 40 3 129 ; 32 4 128 ; 39 3 125 ; 24 5 124 ; 31 4 124 ; 16 6 121 ; 38 3 121 ; 30 4 120 ; 23 5 119 ; 37 3 118 ; 29 4 116 ; 36 3 114 ; 22 5 113 ; 15 6 111 ; 28 4 111 ; 35 3 110 ; 21 5 108 ; 27 4 107 ; 34 3 107 ; 26 4 103 ; 33 3 103 ; 14 6 102 ; 20 5 101 ; 25 4 99 ; 32 3 99 ; 19 5 96 ; 31 3 96 ; 24 4 94 ; 13 6 93 ; 30 3 92 ; 18 5 90 ; 23 4 90 ; 29 3 88 ; 22 4 86 ; 17 5 85 ; 12 6 84 ; 28 3 84 ; 21 4 82 ; 27 3 80 ; 16 5 79 ; 20 4 77 ; 26 3 76 ; 11 6 74 ; 15 5 74 ; 19 4 73 ; 25 3 73 ; 18 4 69 ; 24 3 69 ; 14 5 68 ; 10 6 67 ; 23 3 66 ; 17 4 65 ; 13 5 63 ; 22 3 62 ; 16 4 61 ; 21 3 58 ; 12 5 57 ; 9 6 57 ; 15 4 56 ; 20 3 54 ; 14 4 53 ; 11 5 52 ; 19 3 50 ; 13 4 48 ; 8 6 48 ; 10 5 46 ; 18 3 46 ; 12 4 45 ; 17 3 43 ; 9 5 43 ; 7 6 42 ; 83 2 42 ; 11 4 41 ; 16 3 41 ; 81 2 41 ; 82 2 41 ; 79 2 40 ; 80 2 40 ; 77 2 39 ; 78 2 39 ; 15 3 38 ; 75 2 38 ; 76 2 38 ; 10 4 37 ; 73 2 37 ; 74 2 37 ; 8 5 37 ; 71 2 36 ; 72 2 36 ; 14 3 35 ; 69 2 35 ; 70 2 35 ; 67 2 34 ; 68 2 34 ; 13 3 33 ; 6 6 33 ; 65 2 33 ; 66 2 33 ; 9 4 33 ; 63 2 32 ; 64 2 32 ; 61 2 31 ; 62 2 31 ; 12 3 30 ; 59 2 30 ; 60 2 30 ; 7 5 30 ; 57 2 29 ; 58 2 29 ; 8 4 29 ; 55 2 28 ; 56 2 28 ; 11 3 27 ; 53 2 27 ; 54 2 27 ; 51 2 26 ; 52 2 26 ; 6 5 26 ; 49 2 25 ; 50 2 25 ; 7 4 25 ; 10 3 24 ; 47 2 24 ; 48 2 24 ; 45 2 23 ; 46 2 23 ; 43 2 22 ; 44 2 22 ; 41 2 21 ; 42 2 21 ; 6 4 21 ; 9 3 21 ; 39 2 20 ; 40 2 20 ; 37 2 19 ; 38 2 19 ; 35 2 18 ; 36 2 18 ; 8 3 18 ; 33 2 17 ; 34 2 17 ; 5 5 17 ; 7 3 17 ; 31 2 16 ; 32 2 16 ; 10 7 15 ; 11 7 15 ; 12 7 15 ; 13 7 15 ; 14 7 15 ; 15 7 15 ; 16 7 15 ; 17 7 15 ; 18 7 15 ; 19 7 15 ; 20 7 15 ; 21 7 15 ; 22 7 15 ; 23 7 15 ; 29 2 15 ; 30 2 15 ; 5 4 15 ; 6 3 15 ; 7 7 15 ; 8 7 15 ; 9 7 15 ; 10 10 14 ; 10 8 14 ; 10 9 14 ; 11 10 14 ; 11 11 14 ; 11 8 14 ; 11 9 14 ; 12 10 14 ; 12 11 14 ; 12 12 14 ; 12 8 14 ; 12 9 14 ; 13 10 14 ; 13 11 14 ; 13 12 14 ; 13 8 14 ; 13 9 14 ; 14 10 14 ; 14 11 14 ; 14 8 14 ; 14 9 14 ; 15 10 14 ; 15 11 14 ; 15 8 14 ; 15 9 14 ; 16 10 14 ; 16 8 14 ; 16 9 14 ; 17 8 14 ; 17 9 14 ; 18 8 14 ; 18 9 14 ; 19 8 14 ; 20 8 14 ; 27 2 14 ; 28 2 14 ; 8 8 14 ; 9 8 14 ; 9 9 14 ; 25 2 13 ; 26 2 13 ; 23 2 12 ; 24 2 12 ; 4 4 12 ; 5 3 12 ; 21 2 11 ; 22 2 11 ; 19 2 10 ; 20 2 10 ; 17 2 9 ; 18 2 9 ; 4 3 9 ; 15 2 8 ; 16 2 8 ; 13 2 7 ; 14 2 7 ; 11 2 6 ; 12 2 6 ; 10 2 5 ; 9 2 5 ; 3 3 4 ; 7 2 4 ; 8 2 4 ; 5 2 3 ; 6 2 3 ; 3 2 1 ; 4 2 1 ; 2 2 0 ]
Does Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech encourage both blacks and whites to change to achieve unity, or just whites to change? His other speeches and writings?
Explored in the Boondocks episode "Return of the King".
Convert some portion of a dead body into a crystalline solid. Unlike LifeGem and similar, convert both the carbon and oxygen into solid carbon dioxide. The good news is carbon and oxygen comprise most of the mass of a body. The bad news, of course, is it will need to be kept refrigerated to below -79 C or else the remains of your loved one will vaporize away.
Dry ice is typically a snow-like powder that has been compressed into pellets or blocks. Can crystals or clear blocks like water ice be formed?
Extract the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen to form a sugar crystal. Calcite CaCO3.
Would income redistribution alone be sufficient, at least in the United States, to eliminate racial and social class conflicts?
The general idea starts with the fact that currently societal mechanisms related to race or social class will punish you a lot -- most notably in employment prospects and courtship -- if you don't follow their rules, a set of rules independent from the rule of law. However, income redistribution would promise you a tolerable or comfortable life no matter how much you break such societal rules; you become beyond the reach of your group's societal punishment mechanisms, at least the severe ones. For example, income redistribution can help after loss of support from family for marrying outside of the race, religion, or social class.
We might get a hint of the answer to the original question by examining other societies, looking for instances of pairs of groups within a society with similar income levels but there is significant conflict between them. We also need to examine the severity of punishment for defecting out of your group.
Given the social safety net provided by income redistribution, optimistically there will be enough defectors that cross the social barriers (most notably for intermarriage) that the barriers will disappear, or at least diminish "enough". It may take many generations.
Pessimistically, such a social safety net will result in the complete breakdown of society with catastrophic effects. The societal rules provide order and allow trust relationships to form, and with people no longer needing to follow them, and the rule of law not having the resources to replace them, both order and trust disappear, leaving chaos.
In the short term, redistribution could increase social conflict, as antagonistic social groups, formerly kept separated by vast inequalities of power and opportunity, will meet on a level playing field.
There also is the potential problem of inflation.
Realistically, society will fight so hard against such income redistribution being implemented that it will never happen.
Identify a set of N radicals among Chinese characters (kanji) and 2^N characters which cover every possibility of presence or absence of those radicals. They may contain more radicals outside of the set.
This provides a way to encode binary information, N bits per character.
Might be better for some slots to contain more than 2 possibilities, e.g., hats.
Already done for Korean.
To maximize the difficulty of machines parsing the data, calligraphy.
To what extent are employers permitted, and able to, conceal their past pattern of firings and layoffs?
The goal is for a potential employee to gauge job security while considering a job offer. On the other end, it causes employers to acquire a reputation, which may cost them in the labor market.
Consider regulation requiring more transparency.
A potential employee probably also needs information of promotion and wage raise rate.
Enumerate and quantify the societal barriers a given person faces in achieving a fulfilling heterosexual relationship.
Similarly for homosexual.
Is there correlation indicative of a rational choice of sexual orientation to maximize utility, that is, people who face greater barriers to a fulfilling heterosexual relationship are more likely to be homosexual? If so, it would be surprising, because most people don't think they are making a choice in their sexual orientation.
If true, it suggests the structure of society influences sexual orientation. But it might be tricky to determine the mechanism of causation, or even the direction.
Give the AI agent an example of a given type of information in one setting. Tell it to go find the information for another setting.
Inspired by: I know where online to find certain municipal information for one city, but seek similar information for another city.
Is there any subset of chemistry that is interesting but quite safe even from serious mistakes?
Alternatively, maybe very rigorous safety equipment. E.g., remotely operated. Most extreme in that direction would be a video service in which a human chemist (or team) takes requests over the internet of reactions to run, and films and posts online the process.
You read something posted by a random person on the internet. You, or more likely the operator of a social network working on your behalf, does big data artificial intelligence data crunching to figure out whether you can trust that statement. Among other things it checks, because it is difficult to remain anonymous on the internet, the agent on your behalf figures out the identity of the poster, what other actions things they have said, and their reputation and trustworthiness of similar things they have said. Perhaps it does collaborative filtering to group the poster into a group of similar identities to decide whether the entire group can be trusted for statements like this.
Perhaps in order to protect some notion of anonymity, the social network tells you only a probability estimate of whether the statement can be trusted. However, this leads to disconcerting feeling of not knowing how the number was achieved.
Figuring how what statements can be trusted is an extremely difficult problem, but perhaps solvable. The trick we are exploiting is that the social network operator has a panopticon, gets to be Big Brother, seeing everything, providing the untrustworthy nowhere to hide. That power, normally reserved for three letter agencies in big government, has been made available to you.
People will try very hard to game the system.
We need a machine learning feedback mechanism of grading whether your trust was misplaced.
This is at odds with the social network providing you the ability to hide information, preventing it from being visible to those who would hurt you with it, which could be the social network itself when it decreases your reputation because of it.
Another remake of Taken ends with a surprise twist: the daughter is actually glad to have escaped from her conservative upbringing with its repression of sexuality, especially its repression of young women. She is now a sex worker on her own free will, able to leave whenever she wants, but she doesn't want to. This is horror: a parent's true worst nightmare.
Perhaps throughout the movie are hints at how oppressively conservatively she was raised, the life she will return to when "rescued".
Perhaps the movie hints that the kidnappers have a system of accurately identifying the kind of people who would be glad to be kidnapped, who would be glad to escape from their conservative world, and who will thus remain in the sex work field voluntarily, which is ultimately good for business.
Perhaps the movie ends with the "hero" father, disappointed in her daughter, murdering her in cold blood (but successfully framing the kidnappers).
Binomial(5,2)=10, so we imagine various ways of encoding digits this way.
Maybe 2 lit dots in a collection of 5: In a 7-segment display, or actually any depiction of Arabic numerals, we can guess at what the digit is by the total amount of light emitted; perhaps an eavesdropper only sees a "reflection" of the digit on a matte surface. In contrast, if there are always exactly 2 (out of 5) segments illuminated, and all segments are the same size, then the light output will remain constant no matter what digit is displayed.
Type a digit by pressing 2 buttons out of 5. We do have 5 fingers.
Edges of a 4-simplex.
Assume libido greatly affects the performance of sex workers. If so, and given that some sex work is "the oldest profession", there must be tremendous accumulated knowledge of what affects libido, except buried within the trade and never scientifically published. (Kind of like how science was done before the Renaissance.)
Stress probably negatively affects libido, so the professions may have very valuable knowledge of how to live a less stressful lifestyle.
A site wants to distribute content exclusively. However, someone, a user, is downloading the content and mirroring it in some censorship resistant medium. The site identifies that user by watermarking the content so each different user is identifiable, then blocks the user from accessing any more content.
Avoid the block by having a very long delay between downloading the content and uploading it to the mirror. We can do this uniformly using a cache with a FIFO replacement policy: The user downloads content and it is stored in the disk cache, which is rather normal operation. Ignore the "Valid until" metadata. (Video is not automatically cached by browsers these days, but that could be easily changed.) When the cache becomes has become full and an entry is the oldest remaining entry, so about to be overwritten, only then does the it become uploaded into the censorship-resistant mirror. With a large cache (and reliable hardware, which is a huge assumption), that delay might be years.
A delay of years is acceptable for the purpose of archiving information.
There still remains the problem of the original content provider suing the uploader for copyright violation, or the provider cutting off access years later, which the user might still care about.
Instead of inventing an alien language for some science fiction or fantasy setting, use an already existing foreign language. The advantage is that the "alien" language will have the depth and "beauty" of something that has been developed by a population over centuries, instead of a language invented on paper by one or a few writers.
The disadvantage, for those who understand the foreign language, is cognitive dissonance of, "Why do the Klingons speak (say) Estonian?" However, perhaps this disbelief can be suspended much like every other literary conceit: "Why do the Klingons look exactly like humans in different costumes?"
Perhaps to make it a little alien to those who understand the language, use a different register of the language than one would normally expect. Perhaps more formal or poetic, giving a job to perhaps one of the few writers who can write that way in an obscure foreign language. (Vaguely inspired by the non-standard register (even for its time) chosen by the authors of the King James Version of the Bible.)
Of course, if the show (etc) ever gets translated to that language, then have the aliens speak English.
You post something to social networking. The social network operator does artificial intelligence data crunching to try to keep it accessible only to those who won't use what you posted to hurt you with it.
You provide feedback for machine learning: *This person* hurt me with what I posted, or *someone* hurt me with what I posted; I don't know how they found out. For the latter, the social network operator can use the access logs of who viewed the post. People will acquire reputations, and collaborative filtering could identify people who will be bad to you before they even get a chance to.
It is hard to remain anonymous on the internet. Use this feature in reverse and lock out those who have power over you, no matter what anonymizing efforts they take.
Unfortunately, I don't see how this could be done with a distributed social network.
Hypothesize that organizations which are open only to one gender do so so that their members may do their main activity without having to worry about the harms of rape.
This hypothesis allows useful predictions about how single-gender organizations will behave.
Note well that the hypothesis is to avoid the harms of rape, not necessarily to avoid rape itself. We will elaborate on this distinction later.
The hypothesis predicts that in all-female institutions, men as guests or visitors will be subject to stringent restrictions on movement and behavior while visiting. This is because the harm of men raping women is great.
In contrast, in all-male institutions, the hypothesis predicts that women as guests will not face as many or as stringent analogous restrictions. This is because the harm of women raping men is not so great.
These predictions seem to be confirmed by policies in fraternities and in all-female residences associated with universities.
The hypothesis predicts that all-male institutions will have strict rules excluding gay men, or will resist the most strongly in repealing such rules. This is because the harm of men raping men is great.
The hypothesis predicts that, in contrast, all-female institutions will not have strict rules excluding lesbians, or will quickly repeal them. This is because the harm of women raping women is not so great.
These predictions seem to be confirmed by the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
The harm in the examples above are the harms inflicted on the victim by peers and the psychological loss of self-worth (a product of inculcation by peers) that occurs following rape: slut-shaming and gay-bashing. These harms are strongly asymmetric by gender, which explains the asymmetry of the behavior of single-gender organizations in the examples above.
Finally, the hypothesis predicts that exceptions to the general behavior of single-gender organizations described above will occur where there are exceptions to the general mechanisms of rape causing harm, perhaps subcultures in which there is less gay-bashing of men or slut-shaming of women, or the opposite. (Examples?)
If this hypothesis is true, it strongly suggests that efforts in solving the problem of rape are best directed toward decreasing the harm of rape, rather than decreasing its numerical incidence. Unfortunately, this remains a taboo topic of discussion.
Although xenophobic hate against the Amish exists in areas with high Amish population, hypothesize that the hate is tempered by the established custom of the Rumspringa, known and understood by both sides.
The custom provides an explicit and accepted mechanism for an Amish person to leave their community, and thus for intermarriage to occur, and it does occur.
The existence of this mechanism has perhaps saved the Amish from being exterminated by the all-too-common progression from xenophobic hate to genocide. Or, more pessimistically, perhaps similar groups without such a tradition did get genocided, leaving surviving only this group which does.
Can the Rumspringa serve as a model to ease other societal tensions, most notably racial tensions?
Computer systems, or generically any technology, that you only rarely interact with are candidates for having a natural language interface.
The envisioned interaction: First, the user has to invest quite a bit of initial effort getting familiar with the technology: there is no way around this; no free lunch. The natural language system does not help this first step. Time passes, and the user forgets. When the user has to interact with the technology again, the natural language system helps the user recall the previous familiarity. We are relying on an aspect of human memory that you never fully forget what you were once familiar with. A natural language interfaces eases relearning compared to the perhaps daunting, time-consuming, and unpleasant task of relearning using the original method of learning.
On one hand, this seems a much easier task than creating a natural language interface intended for a completely untrained human unfamiliar with the technology. On the other hand, because the task requires understanding human memory, and especially a particular human's memory, this seems weirdly difficult.
Simplest implementation, frequently already done: after becoming familiar with the technology, jot down some notes to yourself about how it works. When you need to work with it again, read your notes to yourself.
Create a simulation of the bureaucracy of the U.S. medical system, from the point of view of an individual interacting with the bureaucracy.
Inspired by the difficulty and confusion of signing up for insurance, with an individual needing to make decisions whose consequences are hard to understand.
Practice it. Try making wrong decisions and see how they turn out in a simulated environment.
This seems in principle doable, but I have no idea how to create such a simulation. How does one simulate a bureaucrat?
Output modes for a toy computer:
Such a toy computer can be mocked up by software running on a regular computer.
A sandbox game, perhaps a Minecraft mod, exploring different energy sources. Fossil fuel energy production: not too difficult. Nuclear fission reactor: extremely difficult. Nuclear fusion reactor: damn near impossible, at least to produce more energy than you put in.
The difficulties should mirror those seen in the real world.
Superman participates in only a few missions of the Justice League. Very slowly it is revealed why: on the remaining missions, the League is actually doing evil, despite their best intentions. Only Superman, with his near godlike abilities, realizes this, and it is actually beyond his ability to convince the rest of the League otherwise, perhaps like trying to convince a virus not to cause cancer by reasoning with it.
Or perhaps, on the remaining missions, the League is doing neither good nor harm (despite appearances); they are just wasting their energy, and Superman has better things to do, like be a good journalist.
Technology threatens to cut out the middleman. Enumerate the things the middlemen are doing to avoid that fate.
They are probably all evil, and are opportunities for regulation to prevent them from doing those things.
The Hairy Ball Theorem states that there must be at least one pole. Mapping a sphere onto a rotation of itself yields two poles, and one might conjecture there must be at least two. This is false: it can be done with just one, as illustrated on the current Wikipedia page.
Very roughly, take the two poles and mash them together, creating a single-point dipole.
Homosexuality falls squarely within the "can't even want to change" definition of identity, for many (but not all) such people. This explains the disagreement surrounding "lifestyle choice": the argument is at the wrong level.
And equivalently heterosexuality.
Is it possible for a client (not an eavesdropper) to record enough information during an HTTPS GET to be able to cryptographically prove later that the recorded information came from owner of the SSL certificate?
Essentially we want the SSL equivalent of a PGP signature over content.
Conversely, if a content provider (server) wanted to prevent such proof, yet still securely communicate, is that possible? The OTR messaging protocol accomplishes this.
A hundred years later, we still have yet to reach consensus about the cause of World War 1. Meta: why? Several possible explanations:
We don't even know what caused the 2003 Iraq War.
Similar to Enscript fonts, except this time explicitly naming the fonts that come with Ghostscript, rather than relying on the substitution table.
enscript
to use the fonts, needing to generate the font.map
file, and get enscript
to use it via the AFMPath
setting in .enscriptrc
. The procedure is given in the script. A high resolution camera, perhaps a helmet camera, is always on, constantly taking pictures, but saving them all requires a prohibitive amount of storage space.
Instead the camera detects when it is not moving, i.e., when the user is gazing at something: pointing at something staying still is the virtual shutter mechanism: take a picture now, or actually, save the picture now.
An intended side effect is that the clear images -- the good images without camera motion blur -- are the ones that get saved.
Pick one of squares of a chess board and interview a player about it. There's probably a lot to say.
Images of all the fonts built into enscript
(version 1.6.5.90-2), as rendered by ghostscript
(version 9.10~dfsg-0ubuntu10.2), using gsfonts
(version 1:8.11+urwcyr1.0.7~pre44-4.2ubuntu1). Some notes:
/var/lib/ghostscript/fonts/Fontmap
gives a mapping from Postscript name fonts to the substitute fonts used by Ghostscript. This substitution system is probably a bad idea: what if the font metrics as specified by enscript
do not agree with the font metrics of the substitute font?-X
flag) instead the default 8859-1 encoding./usr/share/enscript/afm
) suggest there are more characters than enscript
can get at.*.afm
files.