Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | nivertech's commentslogin

The Soviet computer industry had only two secrets:

1. how far behind the West it was, and

2. that there were no other secrets


This Soviet project developed two Russian-language PLs: Robic[1] and Rapira[2]. Robic was similar to Logo, but unlike Logo, which had only one actor - a turtle, Robik had several: a Train, an Ant, a Painter, and so on

Rapira was more like SETL + Python. It was a dynamic interpreted PL with a rich set of compound data types, such as sets, records (associative arrays), and so on. Compared to the contemporary BASIC, it was ADVANCED

Like Logo, Robik was used to teach programming to kindergarthen-age children, while Rapira was aimed at high school students

---

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robic / https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%BA

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapira / https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%80...


In my school we had a Logo-like PL where you controlled a kangaroo and a more complex one where you сontrolled a robot arm with an internal stack that worked on a rectangular array of items. I remember the robot blowing up when you triggered a logical error like going out of bounds or a stack over/underflow.

UPD: The PLs were called "Roo&Robby" and written by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Sapir before he emigrated to the US.


Even if you have an insurable interest, moral hazard may arise - acting recklessly or other abuse, while knowing you are insured/covered. Somewhat similar to friendly fraud in retail/ecommerce.

Insurance normally has fine print about those things. Life insurance doesn't pay out for suicide. Fire insurance doesn't pay out if you intentionally burn your house down (the fire department also will investigate because even though it is their job they don't like risking their life fighting fires)

You can get insurance without the above provisions, but it will cost a lot more. Once in a while someone manages to collect on a claim for loss of their expensive cigars after they smoke them - but this is rare and usually not worth the cost.


> Life insurance doesn't pay out for suicide.

This may vary by country, it isn't a subject I'm particularly familiar with, but at least in the UK that isn't true - many, I think most, life insurance policies here do pay out for suicide. There's just a period of years between the start of the policy and when suicide starts to be covered, to prevent people who are planning on killing themselves from being able to take out insurance just before doing so.


some life insurance policies pay out for suicide after an initial exclusion period. this is often six or twelve months. insurers can include it because suicide claims are relatively uncommon.

if there is evidence that someone took out the policy with the intention of creating a claim then the insurer may treat it as fraud and decline it.


AI talk is turning into Silicon Valley pseudo-math slang. Priors, exponentials, latent space

You get lines like “no priors” or “embracing exponentials” that sound smart but mostly signal status

Same move as N Taleb and “convexity.” A real idea turned into a generic intellectual flex


> slow is smooth, smooth is fast



The Five Levels: From spicy autocomplete to the dark factory

https://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2026/01/the-five-levels-from...

January 23, 2026

72 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46739117

There are several other similar posts/videos. Steve Yegge also talks about it.


Don't forget the techniques, tactics, and procedures: https://factory.strongdm.ai


FP2 spec:

  00 -> 0.0
  01 -> 1.0
  10 -> Inf
  11 -> NaN
or

  00 -> 0.0
  01 -> 1.0
  10 -> Inf
  11 -> -Inf


  00 -> 0.0
  01 ->-0.0
  10 -> Inf
  11 -> -Inf


  00 ->  0.0
  01 -> +1.0
  10 ->  NaN
  11 -> -1.0
Arithmetic:

  0.0 + x = x
  NaN + x = NaN
  +1.0 + -1.0 = 0.0
  +1.0 + +1.0 = NaN
  -1.0 + -1.0 = NaN
  
  -0.0 = 0.0
  -(+1.0) = -1.0
  -(-1.0) = +1.0
  -NaN = NaN
  
  x - y = x + (-y)
  
  NaN * x = NaN
  +1.0 * x = x
  -1.0 * x = -x
  0.0 * 0.0 = 0.0
  
  /0.0 = NaN
  /+1.0 = +1.0
  /-1.0 = -1.0
  /NaN = NaN
  
  x / y = x * (/y)
More interestingly, how to implement in logic gates. Addition with a 2's complement full adder and NaN detector. Negation with a 2's complement negation circuit. Reciprocal with a 0.0 detector.

Multiplication with a unique logic circuit (use a Karnaugh map):

  (ab * cd) = (a&~b | c&~d | ~a&b&c | a&~c&d)(b & d)


What about comparison operators?


I'll use custom notation =? ≤≥? <? ≤? for comparison to distinguish from = < ≤.

  x =? x = True
  Otherwise, a =? b = False
  
  NaN ≤≥? NaN = False
  Otherwise, a ≤≥? b = a =? b
  
  -1.0 <? 0.0 = True
  -1.0 <? +1.0 = True
  0.0 <? +1.0 = True
  Otherwise, a <? b = False
  
  a >? b = b <? a
  a ≤? b = (a <? b | a ≤≥? b)
  a ≥? b = (a >? b | a ≤≥? b)
In logic gates: For =?, bitwise equality. For ≤≥?, bitwise equality and a NaN detector. For <?, use:

  ab <? cd = a&b&~c | ~a&~b&~c&d
I separate =? from ≤≥?. =? compares value, while ≤≥? compares order. NaN has no ordering, so it compares false. IEEE float only uses ≤≥? and names it ==.


It's better to first show truth tables, then K-maps, and only then logical formulas.

But the main question is: does this FP2 have any real applications? Maybe it could be useful when only one operand is FP2? Especially for vectorized math.


I'm just having fun. I wrote out the full truth tables and Karnaugh maps on paper, but I trust that you get the idea and can recreate it yourself. (Or, I can write a more detailed blog post, if you'd find that interesting.)

If I had to guess, we could use this for a very compact output of the sign function. [-Inf,0) maps to -1.0, 0 maps to 0.0, (0,Inf] maps to +1.0, and NaN maps to NaN. I don't know what application would need the sign function, though. I haven't needed it yet in my programming experience.


I guess my first car's four speed box was a bit like a FP2 float. Lever forward/back, right/left -> 3.65, 2.15, 1.42, 1.00 ratios.


The number of traditional public companies has been cut in half.

The number of alternative public and semi-public companies went up exponentially (Reg CF/Reg A, crypto ICOs).

After reaching some thresholds a Reg A company can become public and even trade on OTC markets.


Windows (arm 64), but no official Linux (x86) support?

There is only unofficial build:

Claude Desktop for Debian-based Linux distributions

https://github.com/aaddrick/claude-desktop-debian


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

Search: