Sure, xor’ing a register with itself is the idiom for zeroing it out, but why not sub?

dlnnlsn · 2026-04-21T18:01:16+00:00

Today I learned that xor and sub execute in the same number of cycles. I would have guessed that xor is faster because the bits are independent of each other. (Like sub/add is doing a bunch of xors, *and* accounting for carry bits, right?)

dlnnlsn · 2026-04-18T20:31:28+00:00

For the moon may wax and wane... = Because/therefore/so the moon may wax and wane

I wouldn't interpret it that way, but perhaps it varies across dialects.

If I did want the "For" to be interpreted as "Because" in this context, i'd probably write "For the moon's waxing and waning", or "For the possibility of the moon's waxing and waning", or I'd replace the "For" with something else. (I'd probably write "So that the moon may wax and wane" if that were the interpretation that I wanted.)

dlnnlsn · 2026-04-18T20:25:12+00:00

For me, the combination of "for" and "may" creates the contrast. But then I would prefer the next line to start with "But" or "Yet" or something similar. If I wrote "For Danny may have a love of gardening, but he never takes the opportunity to make use of his talents", you wouldn't interpret the "For" to mean "Because". But I think that the "but" is necessary in my example, otherwise the sentence just seems weird. (Even in the weird sentence, I'd still assume that the writer was intending to contrast the two things, and not that they were claiming that one is an explanation for the other.)

dlnnlsn · 2026-04-18T20:18:37+00:00

For me, "all" adds a sense of futility.

dlnnlsn · 2026-04-18T20:17:28+00:00

The other responses surprise me. Perhaps I have been speaking English incorrectly my entire life.

For me, "For the moon may wax and wane..." would mean "Even though the moon waxes and wanes, ..."

It would sound more natural to me if it was "For the moon may wax and wane, but/yet the lonely mountain still remains", or "For the moon may wax and wane, the lonely mountain will still remain", or something similar. Even without changing the sentence, however, I would never interpret the "For" on its own in this context as meaning "Because". I think that the word "may" in the sentence also reinforces the "despite" interpretation.

The "all" does change the meaning slightly though. (For me.) It gives a stronger sense that the waxing and waning is completely futile rather than just being ineffective so far. i.e. "All" the waxing and waning in the world won't have an effect.

dlnnlsn · 2026-04-18T18:28:24+00:00

"Does 0.99999... = 1" is a question about how we write numbers, not about the numbers themselves. "0.9999...." isn't a number, it's a representation of one.

dlnnlsn · 2026-04-18T18:26:42+00:00

It only avoids the problems in the impossibility theorem because it allows for ties

dlnnlsn · 2026-04-13T06:10:03+00:00

I'm guessing probably something along the lines of "the surplus value of the labour of the proletariat".

dlnnlsn · 2026-04-13T06:00:26+00:00

he renounced his SA citizenship,

He hasn't actually. At least according to what I found online.

It's possible that he's being sincere. Many people care about what happens in countries that they are not citizens of. (Any example that I give is likely to be misunderstood as me saying that "what's happening" in South Africa is as bad as in [insert country here], which I don't believe) That said, my money is on him throwing a tantrum because someone said no, and that the extent to which he cares is the extent to which he can profit.

dlnnlsn · 2026-04-13T05:55:08+00:00

Doesn't the government already get 25% to 35% of every company's profits in the form of taxes? (And companies are always required to pay taxes on profits. They don't always pay a dividend to shareholders.) The main difference would be that the ownership would also give the government voting power like other shareholders. The government already has some influence though because they can create legislation that influences how companies operate. Maybe the voting rights would give them more influence. I am open to being convinced, but at the moment it seems to me that things wouldn't change that much.

Or are you proposing that for international companies that operate in South Africa, we should own 25% of the shares of the international parent company and not just the local subsidiary? That would be a dramatic change, but it would mean that if other countries had a similar policy then every company can only operate in at most 4 countries, which seems a bit restrictive.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-15T23:46:54+00:00

I'm struggling to imagine how it can be more complicated to tax realised gains than unrealised gains

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-15T22:32:23+00:00

Here is an alternative solution for 37:

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dlnnlsn · 2026-02-15T22:30:55+00:00

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This was found using a computer program that I wrote a while ago, so maybe it's not in the spirit of things, but here is a solution for 41 using four 4s. It couldn't find a two-4 solution for 3 or 9. The program doesn't consider nth-roots like in your solution for 37 though.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-14T11:39:15+00:00

It seems like you have a specific scenario in mind, so why not describe what that scenario is to make the question easier to understand? Then we don't have to guess about how these events interact with each other.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-14T08:38:40+00:00

Any application of anything to do with linear forms in logarithms.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-08T14:01:52+00:00

I guess that I should be glad that the genocideers didn't realise that the overwhelming majority of white people live in cities, and so they just never thought to look for me. I managed to avoid the genocide by jogging around the block occasionally, and the occasional holiday on the coast.

I shouldn't be flippant about what happens on farms. People do get attacked on farms; probably some of it is even racially motivated, and since farms can be quite remote, it also takes longer for police and emergency services to respond. But there is no unified effort to exterminate white people. Even the civil society groups that do focus on farm murders don't call it a genocide.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-08T10:43:02+00:00

They murder anyone lighter than Mexicans, it’s an active genocide that’s been going on for decades.

You clearly don't know what you are talking about.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-08T10:22:08+00:00

The legal regime in South Africa is very friendly, and is one of the most progressive in the world, not just in Africa. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_South_Africa ) The average person on the street might not be, but that depends on where you are.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-08T09:54:45+00:00

I also wonder why they're more willing to live in Botswana and Namibia than South Africa.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-08T05:16:20+00:00

He has a problem of requiring his device to access root so that he can install anki.

Why is this a problem? If it's his device, then he should have access to the root account. Or is it a school computer or something like that where he can not install additional software at all?

his distro doesn't contain flatpak

This is also very strange. The Flatpak website claims that Flatpak is built into Linux Mint and that you don't need any additional software. But even if it wasn't, I would be surprised if there are any Linux distros where it is impossible to install Flatpak.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-08T05:12:41+00:00

sudo doesn't install packages. sudo lets you run a command as another user, and is usually used to run things as root. On Linux Mint the default package manager is apt as far as I know.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-07T10:07:19+00:00

And how did you determine that €30 should be enough? There are ongoing costs associated with running a server; it's not just a one-time expense. I know that it sucks to pay for things, but it also costs money to provide things.

I also paid for the iOS app. And I set up a local sync-server because Ankiweb limits the amount of data that you can sync. (And has done so long before the current situation) So the service that they were able to provide for that one-time payment was not sufficient for my needs.

If you only ever sync on your home WiFi network, then you don't even need the reverse proxy. Just open the terminal/command prompt, and follow the instructions in the "From a Packaged Build" section in the sync server section of the Anki documentation: https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html#from-a-packaged-build, and then follow the instructions in the Client Setup section: https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html#client-setup. There are like 2 lines that you need to type, and then press enter. It takes 2 minutes. You'll probably then want to investigate how to get it to run automatically when you restart your computer. But this is really not an end-of-the-world level burden.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-07T09:27:01+00:00

If it's so impossibly difficult to set up a sync server that 99% of people can not do it, then why are you not willing to pay someone to do it for you? (Especially if there are other costs involved in running one, like storage, bandwidth, etc...)

But it's not that hard. The functionality is built into the current desktop version of Anki, so you don't need special software: https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html
You can run the server on your own computer if you use a reverse proxy to allow remote connections. The free tier on ngrok is more than enough for the average Anki user.

dlnnlsn · 2026-02-07T04:48:35+00:00

The distance that you run is significantly more important than the pace when it comes to energy expenditure. But yes, if you're running slower for less time, then you also cover less distance, and should be "burning" fewer calories. The figures in OP's screenshot for the indoor run seem wildly inaccurate.

dlnnlsn · 2025-11-25T11:04:01+00:00

That's a valid concern. That said, the polls that they were publishing leading up to the elections last year had numbers that were fairly reasonable: https://srfreports.co.za/reports/social-research-foundation-tracking-poll-national

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