Fitting an elephant with four non-zero parameters
In the paper "Fitting an Elephant with Four non-Zero Parameters," authors Dian Jin and Junze Yuan address Enrico Fermi\'s criticism of Dyson\'s model, which humorously references Johnny von Neumann\'s quip about mathematically modeling an elephant. The authors acknowledge that previous attempts to fit an elephant with four parameters have been unsatisfactory due to a lack of a well-defined problem. This paper aims to define the problem clearly and present a new attempt at fitting an elephant using these parameters.
Show HN: I built a Jeopardy game maker with buzzer support
Buzzinga.io is the world\'s best Jeopardy game maker, ideal for game nights, classrooms, corporate trainings, and social events, with no registration required to play. It features built-in buzzer support using phones or physical buttons, automatic score keeping, and effortless host controls. The platform is highly customizable, allowing for the creation of categories and clues using text, audio, images, and video.
Musical Notation for Modular Synthesizers
The article explores the challenges and potential methods of notating music for modular synthesizers, highlighting the complexity and variability involved in recreating patches due to the numerous controls and random elements in these instruments. It discusses historical and modern approaches to electronic music notation, including graphic notation, block schematics, and customized patch sheets while emphasizing the limited effectiveness of conventional staff notation for this purpose. Ultimately, the piece suggests that while formal notation for modular synths has its uses, particularly for work preservation, the inherent ephemerality of modular performances often makes such notation less critical for many artists.
On Building Systems That Will Fail (1991)
Fernando J. Corbató\'s Turing Lecture titled "On Building Systems That Will Fail" explores the inherent challenges and inevitabilities of ambitious system design, especially in complex computer systems. He draws from his experience with time-sharing systems like CTSS and Multics, emphasizing that ambitious projects are prone to unforeseen errors and failures due to their complexity and the constant evolution of technology. Corbató concludes by advocating for simplicity, robust design, and the anticipation of failure in order to better manage and mitigate these inevitable issues.
Building and scaling Notion\'s data lake
In the last three years, Notion’s data volume has expanded 10x due to user and content growth, necessitating the development of a scalable in-house data lake architecture. This involved transitioning from a sharded Postgres database model to a complex setup using Kafka, Apache Hudi, Spark, and S3 to efficiently manage and process their update-heavy data workload. The new infrastructure significantly reduced costs, improved data ingestion times, and supported the successful rollout of Notion AI features.
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