qntm's Blog, page 3
June 24, 2016
Write Like A Programmer
Blog » I program computers and I also write. There is more than one way to program, but there are a few good practices in programming which have analogous good practices in writing. Here is how you write like a programmer.
The following is not necessarily advice.
First, write with purpose. Do not write just because. Don't write because you love writing, because you love reading your own writing, because you love other people reading your writing or because you love feedback. Instead, write because you have an objective. Your text is supposed to achieve something. Write because you want your writing to accomplish something, because you want your writing to have an effect on the reader.
In fact, flip those two things around in the phrase, in order to make the emphasis clearer: First, develop an objective. Discover that there is a story you want to tell, a particular piece of information you need to share, an emotional instant that you want others to experience, a particular reference wor...
The following is not necessarily advice.
First, write with purpose. Do not write just because. Don't write because you love writing, because you love reading your own writing, because you love other people reading your writing or because you love feedback. Instead, write because you have an objective. Your text is supposed to achieve something. Write because you want your writing to accomplish something, because you want your writing to have an effect on the reader.
In fact, flip those two things around in the phrase, in order to make the emphasis clearer: First, develop an objective. Discover that there is a story you want to tell, a particular piece of information you need to share, an emotional instant that you want others to experience, a particular reference wor...
June 23, 2016
Taxonomy of teleportation models
Blog » Teleportation is when a physical object travels from one place to another without passing through the intervening space.
Teleportation is, at least to a first-order approximation, fictitious. However, when it does appear in fiction, it frequently has some kind of logical underpinning, and it becomes interesting to break down those various models. In fact we come up with a sort of taxonomical tree.
Wormholery
The subject travels through some sort of "exotic matter tunnel", "Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen bridge", "folded space" etc. etc., reaching a distant location through what essentially amounts to a shortcut. Examples: Stargate, Portal.
This is not teleportation. Although it is true that the subject did not travel through most of "the intervening space", there are numerous physical routes between locations in the real universe; a wormhole in the usual sense is nothing more than regular space, highly distorted or contorted or warped or compressed to present one route which is much shorter ...
Teleportation is, at least to a first-order approximation, fictitious. However, when it does appear in fiction, it frequently has some kind of logical underpinning, and it becomes interesting to break down those various models. In fact we come up with a sort of taxonomical tree.
Wormholery
The subject travels through some sort of "exotic matter tunnel", "Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen bridge", "folded space" etc. etc., reaching a distant location through what essentially amounts to a shortcut. Examples: Stargate, Portal.
This is not teleportation. Although it is true that the subject did not travel through most of "the intervening space", there are numerous physical routes between locations in the real universe; a wormhole in the usual sense is nothing more than regular space, highly distorted or contorted or warped or compressed to present one route which is much shorter ...
March 17, 2016
Chronological cut
Fine Structure extras, appendices, feedback » Fine Structure is noted for its highly nonlinear, not to say garbled, presentation.
As part of work on an end-to-end rewrite of the story, I assembled a chronological listing of the chapters, which you may find makes more sense.
Read from top to bottom.
Unbelievable scenes
On Digital Extremities
Taphophobia
Amber
Indistinguishable from magic
Paper universe
Power Of Two
Two killed in "transporter accident"
Worth Dying For / Jim Akker
The Four-Dimensional Man
Failure Mode
Exponents
2048
The Story So Far
Sundown
Fight Scene / Freak Tornado
Fight Scene / Capekiller
Leaving The Real World
Oul's Egg / halfway homes, catacombs, twilight zones
Oul's Egg / The artifact was completely impenetrable to all forms of matter except living human flesh
Die
least significant bits
'Verse Chorus
Worth Dying For / Seph Baird
Worth Dying For / Mike Murphy
this was supposed to be a parable about the power of the imagination
There Was No Leak
The Chaotician
this is not over and...
As part of work on an end-to-end rewrite of the story, I assembled a chronological listing of the chapters, which you may find makes more sense.
Read from top to bottom.
Unbelievable scenes
On Digital Extremities
Taphophobia
Amber
Indistinguishable from magic
Paper universe
Power Of Two
Two killed in "transporter accident"
Worth Dying For / Jim Akker
The Four-Dimensional Man
Failure Mode
Exponents
2048
The Story So Far
Sundown
Fight Scene / Freak Tornado
Fight Scene / Capekiller
Leaving The Real World
Oul's Egg / halfway homes, catacombs, twilight zones
Oul's Egg / The artifact was completely impenetrable to all forms of matter except living human flesh
Die
least significant bits
'Verse Chorus
Worth Dying For / Seph Baird
Worth Dying For / Mike Murphy
this was supposed to be a parable about the power of the imagination
There Was No Leak
The Chaotician
this is not over and...
October 4, 2015
Gödel's incompleteness theorems
Blog » For every mathematical statement S, exactly one of the following two claims is true:
1. S can be proven
2. S cannot be proven
Every statement S has a negation which is also a statement:
~S
So, furthermore, for every statement S exactly one of the following two claims is also true:
A. ~S can be proven
B. ~S cannot be proven
(To put it another way, we might also say:
A. S can be disproven, or
B. S cannot be disproven)
Putting these together, for every statement S exactly one of the following four claims is true:
1A. S can be proven and ~S can be proven
1B. S can be proven and ~S cannot be proven
2A. S cannot be proven and ~S can be proven
2B. S cannot be proven and ~S cannot be proven
Case 1B uncontroversially indicates that S is "true" and case 2A uncontroversially indicates that S is "false". These cases are relatively straightforward and can be put aside.
If case 1A holds, both S and ~S can be proven. Thanks to something called the principle of explosion...
1. S can be proven
2. S cannot be proven
Every statement S has a negation which is also a statement:
~S
So, furthermore, for every statement S exactly one of the following two claims is also true:
A. ~S can be proven
B. ~S cannot be proven
(To put it another way, we might also say:
A. S can be disproven, or
B. S cannot be disproven)
Putting these together, for every statement S exactly one of the following four claims is true:
1A. S can be proven and ~S can be proven
1B. S can be proven and ~S cannot be proven
2A. S cannot be proven and ~S can be proven
2B. S cannot be proven and ~S cannot be proven
Case 1B uncontroversially indicates that S is "true" and case 2A uncontroversially indicates that S is "false". These cases are relatively straightforward and can be put aside.
If case 1A holds, both S and ~S can be proven. Thanks to something called the principle of explosion...
To destroy the Earth
Blog »
Be privileged.
Be lucky. Be rich. Be powerful. Be good-looking. Be intelligent, smart and wise, but more importantly educated-- suggested fields of undergraduate study are biology, anthropology and politics. Contrary to popular suggestions, I do not advise you to drop out. Network. Be charismatic. Meet people. Know people. Remember names. Make contacts. Act. Do favours. Be or become powerful. Have parents who can help you with all of these things, who are lucky, rich, smart and powerful themselves. Be successful, by every definition of "successful". You don't need to be self-made. You can climb there over the stabbed backs of others, it doesn't matter. Just be made.
Almost all of this is dumb luck. You can read as many Successmanship books as you want and work every extra hour of every day you're given, and still not get any of the things listed in the above paragraph. Billions of people other than you already do. It's much easier to just be born on the top rung.
Be driven, ...
Be privileged.
Be lucky. Be rich. Be powerful. Be good-looking. Be intelligent, smart and wise, but more importantly educated-- suggested fields of undergraduate study are biology, anthropology and politics. Contrary to popular suggestions, I do not advise you to drop out. Network. Be charismatic. Meet people. Know people. Remember names. Make contacts. Act. Do favours. Be or become powerful. Have parents who can help you with all of these things, who are lucky, rich, smart and powerful themselves. Be successful, by every definition of "successful". You don't need to be self-made. You can climb there over the stabbed backs of others, it doesn't matter. Just be made.
Almost all of this is dumb luck. You can read as many Successmanship books as you want and work every extra hour of every day you're given, and still not get any of the things listed in the above paragraph. Billions of people other than you already do. It's much easier to just be born on the top rung.
Be driven, ...
April 11, 2015
Ranking the Bond film titles
Blog » Not the films. Their titles.
In a world where the production process for the biggest new films is essentially live-streamed in its entirety, the title is what comes first, and comes under harsh analysis before anything else, even the earliest teasers. With this in mind, I intend to rank the Bond films' titles according to how good they are as titles of Bond films.
For the purposes of this article I have tried to deliberately blot out everything I know about the content or quality of any specific James Bond film. I am considering each film by their title alone. This listing is subjective and I don't know yet what criteria I'll consider most significant. Read on to find out.
The rankings
"Octopussy"
No better place to start than the bottom of the barrel.
How does it get worse? I'm really asking. What titles were rejected in favour of this one? What's the target audience supposed to be thinking? "Well, I love octopuses, and I love juvenile, cack-handed portmanteaux! I'm in!
...
In a world where the production process for the biggest new films is essentially live-streamed in its entirety, the title is what comes first, and comes under harsh analysis before anything else, even the earliest teasers. With this in mind, I intend to rank the Bond films' titles according to how good they are as titles of Bond films.
For the purposes of this article I have tried to deliberately blot out everything I know about the content or quality of any specific James Bond film. I am considering each film by their title alone. This listing is subjective and I don't know yet what criteria I'll consider most significant. Read on to find out.
The rankings
"Octopussy"
No better place to start than the bottom of the barrel.
How does it get worse? I'm really asking. What titles were rejected in favour of this one? What's the target audience supposed to be thinking? "Well, I love octopuses, and I love juvenile, cack-handed portmanteaux! I'm in!
...
March 6, 2015
If Deckard's a replicant
Blog » then:
Whose is the unicorn dream?
Deckard is an original creation. None of his memories are his own, they were given to him. Someone, some human, must have had the unicorn dream before he did, and then it was implanted in replicant Deckard.
Who?
*
"It doesn't make any difference [...], it's completely hypothetical."
If Deckard's a replicant, who knows Deckard's a replicant? Who's part of this conspiracy?
Let's start with Bryant. It looks like Bryant is on some kind of established terms with Deckard. "I need you, Deck. I need the old blade runner," and dang it feels strange to write that noun phrase out in lower case. Bryant and Deckard are not on friendly terms at all, adversarial, but they clearly have some years of shared history. Could it be that all of this just a charade by Bryant? Is he acting the part of a long-term "friend"? Is he being subtle? Is it in character for this replicant-hating police captain to work cheerfully with, and provide sensitive information to, a known r...
Whose is the unicorn dream?
Deckard is an original creation. None of his memories are his own, they were given to him. Someone, some human, must have had the unicorn dream before he did, and then it was implanted in replicant Deckard.
Who?
*
"It doesn't make any difference [...], it's completely hypothetical."
If Deckard's a replicant, who knows Deckard's a replicant? Who's part of this conspiracy?
Let's start with Bryant. It looks like Bryant is on some kind of established terms with Deckard. "I need you, Deck. I need the old blade runner," and dang it feels strange to write that noun phrase out in lower case. Bryant and Deckard are not on friendly terms at all, adversarial, but they clearly have some years of shared history. Could it be that all of this just a charade by Bryant? Is he acting the part of a long-term "friend"? Is he being subtle? Is it in character for this replicant-hating police captain to work cheerfully with, and provide sensitive information to, a known r...
March 3, 2015
Time travel in Braid
Blog »
I bought Braid on the promise of lavish visuals and neat puzzles with temporal mechanics, and on this basis I was rewarded. I found some frustration with the controls, which I eventually traced to dodgy keyboard drivers - the game wouldn't register the up or down arrows while I was holding Shift, making it impossible to rewind at high speed. Since I wasn't even aware that you could rewind at high speed, this made one particular puzzle impossible until I eventually caved, broke a long-standing personal rule and looked the answer up online. The game itself, though, is joyous. It's old, I guess, which means either you've played it already or you haven't and never intend to. In the event that you've never played it and can be swayed, I suggest you check it out. Well-judged puzzle difficulty, extraordinary visuals, super desktop wallpaper material, cool new gameplay mechanics, and I discovered some good new music as well. Most of the music in this game is by Jami Sieber, check her out.
I a...
I bought Braid on the promise of lavish visuals and neat puzzles with temporal mechanics, and on this basis I was rewarded. I found some frustration with the controls, which I eventually traced to dodgy keyboard drivers - the game wouldn't register the up or down arrows while I was holding Shift, making it impossible to rewind at high speed. Since I wasn't even aware that you could rewind at high speed, this made one particular puzzle impossible until I eventually caved, broke a long-standing personal rule and looked the answer up online. The game itself, though, is joyous. It's old, I guess, which means either you've played it already or you haven't and never intend to. In the event that you've never played it and can be swayed, I suggest you check it out. Well-judged puzzle difficulty, extraordinary visuals, super desktop wallpaper material, cool new gameplay mechanics, and I discovered some good new music as well. Most of the music in this game is by Jami Sieber, check her out.
I a...
January 16, 2015
So you want to abolish time zones
Blog » Laudable!
Let's take a look at some of the changes that arise from this, through a simple case study: making an international phone call to a relative.
Before abolishing time zones
I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?
Google tells me it is currently 4:25am there.
It's probably best not to call right now.
After abolishing time zones
I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?
It's 4:25am there, same as it is here, of course! Same as it is in New York, Bangalore and Hawaii, at the South Pole and on the Moon.
Although... the terms "a.m." and "p.m." (ante meridian and post meridian) are strongly deprecated now, along with "noon", "midday" and "midnight", because they are now either meaningless or ambiguous. In much of the world, 12:00 is nowhere near the middle of the solar day, if it's even during the solar day. Likewise, 00:00 is nowhere near the middle of the solar night.
Worse, in much of the world, there is still a "7 in the morni...
Let's take a look at some of the changes that arise from this, through a simple case study: making an international phone call to a relative.
Before abolishing time zones
I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?
Google tells me it is currently 4:25am there.
It's probably best not to call right now.
After abolishing time zones
I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?
It's 4:25am there, same as it is here, of course! Same as it is in New York, Bangalore and Hawaii, at the South Pole and on the Moon.
Although... the terms "a.m." and "p.m." (ante meridian and post meridian) are strongly deprecated now, along with "noon", "midday" and "midnight", because they are now either meaningless or ambiguous. In much of the world, 12:00 is nowhere near the middle of the solar day, if it's even during the solar day. Likewise, 00:00 is nowhere near the middle of the solar night.
Worse, in much of the world, there is still a "7 in the morni...
January 7, 2015
Time travel in Back To The Future
Blog » This turned out to be a long one.
Back To The Future is one of two films, along with Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, which forms the bedrock of what most people of my generation understand about time travel. Back To The Future is so iconic that its model of time travel forms a kind of universal canon. Even people who've not seen it seem to have picked the rules up through osmosis. And why shouldn't they? This is the gold standard of time travel stories, ranking up there with the very best of popular science fiction.
This model of time travel is so widely known, in fact, that it can be safely used as the basis for many further time travel stories, with a relatively minimal amount of explanation. And it frequently is. Back To The Future's model almost seems to be the default model of time travel in most time travel fiction, and certainly there's a wide collection of stories whose models can be understood well by comparing them qualitatively with this one. How could there not be? Ho...
Back To The Future is one of two films, along with Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, which forms the bedrock of what most people of my generation understand about time travel. Back To The Future is so iconic that its model of time travel forms a kind of universal canon. Even people who've not seen it seem to have picked the rules up through osmosis. And why shouldn't they? This is the gold standard of time travel stories, ranking up there with the very best of popular science fiction.
This model of time travel is so widely known, in fact, that it can be safely used as the basis for many further time travel stories, with a relatively minimal amount of explanation. And it frequently is. Back To The Future's model almost seems to be the default model of time travel in most time travel fiction, and certainly there's a wide collection of stories whose models can be understood well by comparing them qualitatively with this one. How could there not be? Ho...
