Brian Hayes

Here are a bunch of blogs from my RSS reader that I think are worth reading. Some of them haven't updated in a while, but the archives may be worth a look anyway.

* Blogs with a math focus:

http://blog.sigfpe.com

http://bit-player.org

http://mathr.co.uk/blog/

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/

* Blogs with a programming languages focus:

https://existentialtype.wordpress.com

https://bluishcoder.co.nz

http://blog.ezyang.com

http://akkartik.name

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org

http://mrale.ph

* Blogs with a UI design focus:

http://www.brandonwalkin.com/blog/

http://ignorethecode.net/blog/

http://interuserface.net

* Blogs with a graphics / 3D rendering focus:

http://c0de517e.blogspot.com

http://diaryofagraphicsprogrammer.blogspot.com

https://directtovideo.wordpress.com

http://graphicrants.blogspot.com

http://www.reedbeta.com

http://www.realtimerendering.com/blog/

https://blog.demofox.org

http://eelpi.gotdns.org/blog.wiki.html

* Other interesting / more general programming blogs (many of these have a "systems" focus):

http://danluu.com

http://ewontfix.com

http://chneukirchen.org/blog/

http://neverworkintheory.org

http://apenwarr.ca/log/

https://www.snellman.net/blog/

https://www.pvk.ca

http://psy-lob-saw.blogspot.com

https://randomascii.wordpress.com

http://fastcompression.blogspot.com

https://fgiesen.wordpress.com

http://blog.plover.com

http://chneukirchen.org/trivium/

http://rachelbythebay.com/w/

Oh! I remembered more details about it if it helps. It has to do with e being the "most efficient" numbering base. The reason e is the "most efficient" has to do with wanting to minimize both the size of the alphabet of symbols as well as the number of digits in an average computation. If you allow for a non-integer base, and a non-integer number of digits, the optimum base is e. e rounds to 3. ;-)

Now, full disclosure, I'm not entirely sure I believe in this, I'm just citing sources but check these out:

http://bit-player.org/wp-content/extras/bph-publications/AmSci-2001-11-Hayes-ternary.pdf
https://hackaday.com/2016/12/16/building-the-first-ternary-microprocessor/

Also, Don Knuth likes balanced ternary, and, well, I guess that counts for something.

(again, personally I have no idea if I think it's nonsense or not)

The existing ways of putting math on the web are all already here too, and have been for a long time. Apart from the old way of generating images by running TeX (still used by Wikipedia, for instance), both of the most common libraries used for typesetting (MathJax and KaTeX) can produce either HTML+CSS or SVG which are well-supported by browsers, and both of them (KaTeX since the beginning, and MathJax since version 3.0) can be run server-side so that no JavaScript needs to run on the user's browser. And regardless of whether or when the "native in-browser" rendering of MathML becomes good enough and widespread enough, the "native in-browser" rendering of HTML+CSS and SVG will continue to exist and be well-supported. (See the last section of http://bit-player.org/2020/mathjax-turns-3-0 for some interesting conclusions.)

Somewhere down tonight's ternary rabbit hole I found this wonderful Scientific American article, Third Base[0]:

The Jewel in the Triple Crown

“Perhaps the prettiest number system of all,” writes Donald E. Knuth in The Art of Computer Programming, “is the balanced ternary notation.” As in ordinary ternary numbers, the digits of a balanced ternary numeral are coefficients of powers of 3, but instead of coming from the set {0, 1, 2}, the digits are –1, 0 and 1. They are “balanced” because they are arranged symmetrically about zero. For notational convenience the negative digits are usually written with a vinculum, or overbar, instead of a prefixed minus sign.

[0] (pdf) http://bit-player.org/wp-content/extras/bph-publications/AmSci-2001-11-Hayes-ternary.pdf

After some digging, it is "Mathematical Recreations: A Subway Named Turing", Scientific American (September): 104,106-107 by Ian Steward which can be read at http://dev.whydomath.org/Reading_Room_Material/ian_stewart/CommutersandComputers.pdf (the key memory points that confirms it is the conversational mode and the passage "And I swear there's a sign just along the tunnel that reads 'flip-flop 7743A/91.'"

Though A.K. Dewdney did write on a similar topic - Dewdney, A. K. 1987. Algopuzzles: wherein trains of thought follow algorithmic tracks to solutions. Scientific American 256(6):128–130.

and http://bit-player.org/wp-content/extras/bph-publications/AmSci-2007-03-Hayes-trains.pdf is a some other interesting puzzles on the subject.

For the lazy, the blog post that accompanies it (2012):

http://bit-player.org/2012/world3-the-public-beta

The source code:

https://github.com/bit-player/limits

I haven't read "The Limits of Growth" but I assume it's from a "peak oil" perspective, predicting societal collapse once oil runs out. I think it's pretty clear we're past idea now, with solar energy and other renewable being deployed globally because of the exponentially decreasing economic costs.

One thing I do find interesting is the cyclic nature of the booms and busts of population growth predicted by the model. Even if the assumptions of the model are invalid (short term finite supply of energy) it still might explain some gross level behavior.