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«That feedback loop is breaking. If the visible scoreboard is dominated by teams using AI, a beginner is pushed toward using AI before they have built the instincts the AI is replacing. That is an anti-pattern. It prevents active learning, and active struggle is the bit that actually teaches you. It is also completely demotivating to put in real effort and see no visible progress because the ladder above you has been automated.»

This stands out to me, and speaks perhaps broader than the article itself? I’m sure this has been in the spotlight before, but well put for many areas I think.


I see this with beginner programming students at university. They get AI to help them with assignments, with the intention of learning, but ultimately they do not get the understanding they would have if they had done the assignment themselves. Then they are at a deficit for learning more advanced topics.

My fear is that they never get to the level they need to be at to create good software even with the help of AI. So, although an expert with AI can create great software, that is not where we end up. In stead we will have vibe coded messes by people who barely have any grasp of what is going on.


Perhaps the doctor meant for these to be lost and not found, or that the daleks was afraid of them?


I think Doctor Who was finding its feet in the Hartnell era and it was Troughton who really first defined the character to what he became later.

In the Hartnell era, the Doctor was a grandfather I think, looked old (although Hartnell was much younger than he appeared, thanks to the war etc) and seems to have been human.


This is what the internet is about, finding blogs and stumbling over pages like this with such content. Thanks!


Sounds like something I would do too. Awesomeness



Voynich manuscript next :-)


Interesting to read this article again now, after the raise of LLMs. The bot vs. bot then could perhaps be read as llm vs. llm today?

"The paradox is that this bot glut could eventually push most human interaction offline again; news (real news, that is) will be shared by talking, jobs will be found through connections, and friends will discover major life updates about one another at events and reunions. This is the best case. Another option is that we will have bot-free zones online."

"As more components of our lives become automated, we may want to give some extra thought to which of our routine human interactions are ok to reduce to a bot, and which are worth doing the old-fashioned way, with our own voices, hands, and eyes."


In the distribution of the number of steps needed to reach Kaprekar's constant (6174), I observe an unexpected distribution pattern, with three steps being the most common number of steps required. I cannot think of why this is the case. Has anyone done some though about this phenomenon?


Sorry about that. The post itself isn't relevant, it's just the plot from it I refer to.


You must post a (auto)translated version! My spider sense tell me I'll get like 30 points here. (Obviously, I can't guarantee that, only 1 upvote.) I guess even some interesting comments, and perhaps a solution.

I read it. (I studied German in Primary School. I don't remember too much, but enough to skim the texts in Norwegian.) I'm also mathematician, so it's the kind of stuff I like. My guess is modulo 9 and then some bounds should explain most of it, but life is never so easy.

If you post the (auto)tranlated version and nobody gives an answer, I promise to try to solve it. (Obviously, I can't guarantee a solution.)

(In my experience, autotranlations does 90% of the job, but you need to polish it a little and in particular ensure the technical words are the correct ones.)


Sure, here is a translated post:

Title: Distribution of the Number of Steps to Kaprekar's Constant

We are trying Kaprekar's routine.

I choose a four-digit number with at least two different digits: 2345. We find the largest possible variant 5432 and the smallest possible variant 2345 from the digits and begin the routine...

5432 - 2345 = 3087 8730 - 0378 = 8352 8532 - 2358 = 6174

We have arrived at Kaprekar's constant: 6174 after 3 steps.

This is fine. If I now do this on all possible four-digit numbers, the number of steps required before 6174 is reached is distributed as follows:

The diagram showing the distribution of steps: https://earth.hoyd.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/kaprekars_...

This distribution seems a bit strange and not entirely intuitive. I immediately feel that the distribution should have been more evenly distributed.

Perhaps not evenly, but I think that one step to 6174 should be rarer than seven steps, shouldn't it? It has to do with the calculation i guess. There are a limited number of combinations where the result is 6174 on the first attempt. It feels a bit obvious and matches the diagram above. It slowly rises towards seven steps, is that to be expected?

What I find most strange is that three steps tops all others. Why is that? Why is there such a large presence of three? What does it mean? I would very much like to find an explanation for this.


That what I understood. It's interesting. After the second step in your example, they are congruent with 3 modulo 11, but I'm not sure if it's just a coincidence...

Anyway, I think that if you copy this to a new entry in your blog and then post it here, it may get traction and hopefully an answer.


On the side, from the title I was picturing actual knitted parachutes, which isn't the first time. At work, we had a student cansat team who did just that. To everyone's surprise, it worked better than regular ones. Here is a video where she explains it.

https://www.esero.no/prosjekter/cansat/ https://vimeo.com/866239028


This is the comment I come to HN for.


Same. I’ve shifted to building looms and was intrigued by a potential fiber arts post.


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