[bg;EN] Детерминизъм *** Determinism

Въпросът дали във Вселената има детерминизъм е крайно нетривиален, но понякога е несъществен, например:

Подсъдим:

Трябва да ме оправдаете, защото ми беше писано да извърша това деяние.

Съдия:

А на мене ми е писано да те осъдя.

***

The problem of determinism in the Universe is highly non-trivial, but sometimes it is not essential, for example:

Defendant:

You must acquit me, because it was preordained that I should perform this act.

Judge:

And it is preordained that I should convict you.

[EN] SO Means...

Only off the top of my head, in alphabetical order:

shared object;

shift out (control character);

significant other;

source (`troff' abbreviation);

sulphur oxide.

(All known meanings must number over a hundred, I'm sure.)

[EN] "Vendor Technology Issue"

Bloody corporate speak...

And it is high time to hold software engineering to similar standards as electrical engineering and civil engineering.

What must happen before the world understands this is not a job for sloppy semi-educated people¿

BBC News post about today's American Airlines outage:

<https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cy7knk1e212t?post=asset%3A4e51ad1c-f6d6-4e5d-85f7-04ee60f75d89#post>

[bg;EN] Мета-кръгово определение *** A Meta-circular Definition

Смисълът на животът е в търсенето на този смисъл.

Както щастието е в преследването на щастие.

***

The meaning of life is in the search for this meaning.

Just like happiness is found in chasing happiness.

[EN] The Privacy of Private Keys

Every year, billions of US dollars in cryptographically constructed currencies (popularly called "cryptocurrencies") are reported stolen (2.2 billion in 2024).

It is reported that often, if not usually, this involves compromised private keys.

The conclusions are obvious; let me only point out that when information is stolen, this often remains undetected, so we may well be living in ignorance about many other cases of compromised private keys.

[bg] Усещане за освободеност

На едно (ниско) равнище на абстракция всички процеси и явления, свързани с живот, обмяна на вещества и размножаване, са „просто“ взаимодействия между електронни обвивки.

На теория квантовата физика описва тези последните на езикът на функционалният анализ, според най-добрите постижения на съвременната наука (докато не бъдат преразгледани).

Дали посоченото дотук ни кара да се усещаме освободени остава за упражнение на читателите.

_________

Разбира се, разглеждайки някакви процеси и явления, за да ги опишем и анализираме успешно, трябва да правим това на подходящо равнище на абстракция.

Така за явленията, които изучава психологията (например), дори равнището на абстракция на генетиката е прекалено ниско, да не говорим за това на физиката, независимо че явленията, които тези вторите две науки изучават, пряко обуславят първите явления.

[EN] How Much Bandwidth for Transmitting Voice?

Voice as in human speech (a.k.a. telephony).

For analog, the answer is easy: 3.4 kHz (AM, SSB).

For digital, we are currently (more or less) getting to the ultimate limit by becoming able to transcribe speech to text and then re-create at the other end the timbre of the voice automatically and in real time (compressing the text is a long solved problem).

This would require even less bandwidth than what conventional telegraphy would need (less, because of the compression), somewhere below 1 kHz (the exact value would depend on the compression ratio).

_________

Of course, there is a way to do it with even less bandwidth, by getting artificial intelligence to construct a minimal representation of the meaning and transmitting that.

There is a catch, though: what do we do if nothing is actually said, all "words, words, words" and no meaning (as diplomats and politicians do sometimes)¿

The latter reminds me of an anecdote from the European Parliament, where simultaneous translation is provided for all languages of the member countries of the European Union.

The one having the floor delivers an in joke that would be understood only by a dozen fellow university students.

The interpreter says, "The speaker is telling a joke; please, laugh."