Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | more rhokstar's comments login

"Across many of the proposed breaks in the poem, we see that these measures are homogeneous," said Krieger. "So as far as the actual text of Beowulf is concerned, it doesn't act as though there is supposed to be a major stylistic change at these breaks. The absence of major stylistic shifts is an argument for unity."

I'm imaging this methodology applied across many other literary works. So many insights can be generated throughout the ages!


And have been! Careful attention to stylistic features has allowed us to get a pretty good idea of the chronological groupings of Plato's dialogues, for example, which helps us understand things like how his views evolved over time. That's a typical sort of use of stylometry.


What if they had style guidelines like software engineers do?


Have they applied this to Homer? That was another one I understood was supposedly multiple authors.


Yes they have. The authors write:

"Like Beowulf, the Greek epics Iliad and Odyssey have also generated much debate about their authorship and composition. Conventionally attributed to a single author—Homer—both works nevertheless clearly originate in a long oral tradition and show signs of considerable evolution in the course of their transmission history, including the possible influence of written versions[37,38]. Since the two Homeric epics have numerous features in common, we hypothesized that they might also have a similar pattern of sense-pauses. However, as shown in Fig. 2a, the Odyssey has a higher proportion of intraline sense-pauses relative to the Iliad. This difference suggests a slight change of compositional practice between the two Greek poems, whether due to a single poet’s stylistic evolution or natural variation across the oral tradition. "


Homer's a bit of an unusual case. The Illiad was the first written work produced after a long dark age (or close to it; I'm not sure where the consensus is right now on whether Hesiod came earlier), so Homer was drawing on a few centuries of pent-up oral tradition from a culture that had itinerant hostorian-poets. As such, he probably didn't compose all his own verses but could well have been the first to write them down. I'm not sure how effective the technique referred to in the article (stylometry) would be at teasing apart the distinction between composer-of-verse and author-of-lines.


What about Shakespeare, doesn't he have one of the most extensive authorship research? The article quickly mentions that an older analysis mistakenly attributed someone's poem to Shakespeare, to me, that only adds to the mystery of the authorship question.


Very, very true! By proclaiming "Can’t Be Hacked" is an invite to the world.


This will be very good for the code. Attacking it will only make it stronger.


Correct. Also claiming that it's mildly secure is also inviting hackers. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.


There must be something in between right? Like... "secure"? Claiming "hacker-proof" isn't just an invitation, it's a challenge. Nothing triggers people like telling them something is %-proof.

The mathematical proof might be 100% solid and hacker proof. The implementation will probably never be.


> The mathematical proof might be 100% solid and hacker proof. The implementation will probably never be.

I agree, I see a few ways that it could go wrong:

- Code is proven correct against the specification, but specification is wrong/buggy

- source code is correct/secure, but compiler is overzealous and botch the securities guarantees.


- someone just outright botches the implementation. Heartbleed wound up in OpenSSL for years before anyone noticed.


"Our very strength incites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict breeds catastrophe."


Oracle Unbreakable* Linux

*for certain definitions of 'unbreakable'


Since the introduction of cameras used at intersections to penalize stop light violators (made famous by a former mayor who ran a red light while getting a blow job from his mistress), San Diego has always been experimenting with surveillance technology especially thereafter. Those intersection cameras have been minimized from county wide implementation at its height.

Being a border city and a major military hub for the Navy and Marines, surveillance technology being developed by businesses here have been a response to these types of organizations' needs and challenges.

I could see backlash as this surveillance tech permeates the county and extreme edge cases are brought to the surface to be used as weapons for curbing implementation.


It's not just border cities. I came back from a business trip to Memphis and were shocked to see blue lights blinking on top of street light poles [0] almost everywhere specially in poorer areas, they are cameras recording audio and video 24/7 installed by the city to deter potential crime.

[0] https://www.toledoblade.com/image/2014/06/06/1140x_a10-7_cTC...


>"Being a border city and a major military hub for the Navy and Marines, surveillance technology being developed by businesses here have been a response to these types of organizations' needs and challenges."

The border already has border security and military bases already have existing security. What specific "needs" and "challenges" does San Diego currently have that are not fulfilled by those existing systems and requires the deployment of all pervasive surveillance throughout the entire city?


The constant need to do a task cheaper and faster.


> "Those intersection cameras..."

Fun fact: Intersection cameras have been proven to cause more accidents, as more people slam on their brakes to avoid a ticket then coast through the light.


That sounds exactly like an urban myth along the same lines as 'seatbelts kill more people than they save'. Has it ever been proved?

Worth also noting that rear-end crashes are generally less dangerous than t-bones. For similar reasons, roundabouts can be preferable to standard crossroads even if they result in a higher number of collisions.


"That sounds exactly like an urban myth along the same lines as 'seatbelts kill more people than they save'. Has it ever been proved?"

I hope you will look further into this - you may be interested to learn (I was) that a nearly perfect intervention for red lights being "run" is to lengthen the yellow signal.

It costs nothing and works as well, or better, than red light cameras - and with none of the artificial, unexpected driving behaviors that can cause rear-end accidents.

http://saferstreetsla.org/679/case-studies-longer-yellow-lig...

https://www.motorists.org/issues/red-light-cameras/yellow-li...


Yellows have been shortened on purpose to raise revenues from tickets. If cities cared about accidents and congestion, we'd have less lights and more traffic circles, but that means less tickets and more thought and effort than lowering the yellow light time.


See https://www.motorists.org/issues/red-light-cameras/increase-... for various sources showing that red light cameras increase the number of accidents. Within The Netherlands there is a restriction on where such cameras can be placed due to this effect; basically the number of current accidents has to be pretty high.


Fun fact. Anticipated behavior is less likely to cause harm, whatever it is. If someone anticipates that you'll fire a gun at them, they'll have a much better reaction than someone who has a gun fired at them without that anticipation.


In California it is legal to be in an intersection on red as long as you entered it on green or yellow. The slam-on-the-brakes effect should at least be smaller than in states where being in the intersection on red for any reason is an offense.


Which mayor was this?


Fascinating although deadly... prions persist through fire, radiation, and other sterilization methods. Yikes!


Prions aren't even living. Prions don't do what they do to survive. It isn't like cancer which is somehow, very ironically, trying to survive. They are a simple mistake, a ghost in the machine of the programming of life. That somehow makes prions the scariest thing there is to me: the lack of a reason.


>the lack of a reason

then be scared of life itself


The existence of prions is a dead certain proof that creationists are full of bs. Prions are a fluke of nature that jams our biochemical machinery. The immune system in the eyes is down-regulated as a form of innate protection because uncontrolled inflammation could be devastation on the eyesight, so it's not that surprising that these suckers could hide out there.


Strange that they aren't neutralized by denaturing in heat.


I'm looking up Prions: apparently they don't have DNA or RNA at all. Which makes their "killing point" far higher than any DNA or RNA-based organism.

IE: it will require higher temperatures than our food can safely get to to sanitize a Prion.


Why is that? Any molecule can be destroyed in a way?


Yes. But we want sanitization procedures that DON'T destroy our food as we cook it.

The general idea is that we cook our food to kill stuff, then we eat our food. But if our food is destroyed before its sanitized (ie: a Prion which can survive to 270C+), then the sanitization method simply won't work.


As we're watching Sam Altman on Startups, a group of 4 or 5 people (including myself) have been doing collaborative note taking on Google Docs. Its fun to do! Maybe this is something the devs can bake into their platform as a feature...


I noticed the models are loading JSON. I'm guessing GLTF2.0?


We know about GLTF but are not (yet) using it in production. Main reason for this is that our scene description is a bit more complex that the GLTF format currently allows.


More competition drives innovation.


Seems like a Pinterest and SketchFab hybrid.


Walmart Labs also has a campus in Carlsbad, California. I've seen the Walmart crew in some JS and React meetups.


Sunnyvale, Carlsbad, Bangalore, Bentonville, and that place in New Jersey. We're all one org.


Absolutely agree. I've bought 10 Anker products and to this day still operate and function as intended. Best price to value products.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: