I wrote a long piece on the history of subtitles: https://blog.vrypan.net/features/the-history-of-subtitles/
QA engineers will be in high demand for the next 5 years.
Mythos and similar tools are not a threat to incumbents. They turn system attacking and hardening into a token war, and any Apple, Microsoft or Google can spend more on tokens than any attacker.
letter to the editor, 1995
"Satoshi's coins" is the canary in the coal mine of quantum computing.
I was trying to build a PRNG based on cellular automata rules. I had the illusion that a few clever ideas, and some empirical knowledge would be enough.
Nothing could be further than this, when it comes to random number generators. Smart people with deep and broad knowledge have been studying the field for centuries, you can't just show up and expect you will build something better, or even decently good, just like this.
But during the last 10 days that I've (obsessively) been on this journey I've learned so much. (ChatGPT and Claude have allowed me to learn and experiment at a pace that would be unimaginable a year ago.)
Yesterday I started reading again (last time I tried, I stopped after the second chapter or so) Wolfram's "New Kind of Science". It will take me some time, but there are so many concepts and ideas I've long been fascinated about, but never went to the depths Wolfram goes.
On the side, I'm studying a 1984 paper, on "Algebraic Properties of Cellular Automata" now. Algebras were one of my favorite topics when I was studying math, and I feel lucky to have the tools, to (try to) understand it: https://content.wolfram.com/sw-publications/2020/07/algebraic-properties-cellular-automata.pdf
(It's sad that so few people get to learn what Mathematics really are: a tool to describe and study concepts that often push the boundaries of our minds.)
Unusual book #2. This is a really weird one.
The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex, hand-written in an unknown script referred to as Voynichese.
The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438). Stylistic analysis has indicated the manuscript may have been composed in Italy during the Italian Renaissance. The origins, authorship, and purpose of the manuscript are still debated, but currently scholars lack the translation(s) and context needed to either properly entertain or eliminate any of the possibilities.
Hypotheses range from a script for a natural language or constructed language, an unreadable code, cypher, or other form of cryptography, or perhaps a hoax, reference work (i.e. folkloric index or compendium), glossolalia or work of fiction (e.g. science fantasy or mythopoeia, metafiction, speculative fiction).
The Codex Borgia also known as Codex Borgianus, Manuscrit de Veletri and Codex Yohualli Ehecatl, is a pre-Columbian Middle American pictorial manuscript from Central Mexico featuring calendrical and ritual content, dating from the 16th century.
It is considered to be among the most important sources for the study of Central Mexican gods, ritual, divination, calendar, religion and iconography.
It is one of only a handful of pre-Columbian Mexican codices that were not destroyed during the conquest in the 16th century.
Great gift for anyone interested in Mexican art.
A Commodore 64 was my Christmas present in 1985. It was my first computer, and I will never be able to express the feeling of opening the box, and connecting it to the living room TV.
Commodore 64 Ultimate is an amazing resurrection of the original C64. https://www.commodore.net/
Check out this video for a hands-on look at the hardware, the keyboard, the ports, the internals, the Ultimate 64 Elite-II it’s based on, and how it performs with real software, disks and peripherals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PnWDSQZLtY
I was talking with a generative art collector and realized that over the past years I've built a number of things that are not easy to find, and even when found, they are not presented the way I want them to be.
Well, here is this Sunday's project: https://art.vrypan.net/
@delronde My first 1/1 sale!
I want you to concentrate, study the can, and the attached text, and tell me what this product is NOT.
Tomorrow we will use what we learned today, to study web3.
