@ -51,10 +51,11 @@ Here you will find suggestions for programming projects, roughly sorted by their
3. **[gopher](gopher.md) browser**: Write interactive gopher browser -- it can be a purely [command line](cli.md) browser. It has to be able to follow links and go back at least one page. The program must include some basic help and ability to save files to disk.
4. **simple text [compression](compression.md)**: Write a program that can compress and decompress plain [ASCII](ascii.md) text files using some very simple technique like [run length encoding](rle.md) (RLE) or dictionary methods (you can even use a fixed dictionary, e.g. have a list of common English words that you will represent by some shorter symbols). You can assume input characters will only have 7bit ASCII codes, so you can compress the text also by dropping the 8th unused bit. You don't have to achieve great compression ratio (you can even enlarge some files), but you must pass the following test: take the program's source code, this article's plain text and Wikipedia main page plain text, your program must compress at least two of these to a smaller size (and of course successfully decompress them into identical files). The program must work as a [filter](filter.md), i.e. it mustn't load the whole file into memory, it has to use approximately same amount of RAM for input of any size.
5. **stupid chatbot**: Make an entertaining chatbot that can react to basic sentences like "how are you?", "are you a robot?" and so on. It must give a human-like answer to at least 20 different sentences. It has to deal with typos and text variability a little bit and has to have some kind of memory (for example it can remember the name of its chatting partner). Test the bot by having it chat with itself.
6. **arbitrary size numbers**: Make a library that allows working with arbitrary size [fixed point](fixed_point.md) [numbers](number.md), i.e. you will provide a data type in which it is possible to store a binary number with any number of bits before and after the radix point -- size of the number will only be limited by amount of RAM your program can use. Each number will dynamically allocate as much memory as it needs. Additionally implement these operations with the numbers: converting to/from the language's native numbers (with rounding), printing and/or converting the number to string, addition, subtraction, multiplication and dividing.
6. **arbitrary size [rational numbers](rational_number.md)**: Make a library that allows working with arbitrary size rational numbers, i.e. represent each number as a pair of numerator and denominator, the number will be automatically allocating itself as much memory as it needs for storing the two numbers. It mustn't waste too much memory, i.e. whenever it changes, it will try to reallocate its memory and decrease its size if possible. Size of the number will only be limited by amount of RAM your program can use. Furthermore implement these operations with the numbers: converting to/from the language's native numbers (with rounding if necessary), comparisons (equal, greater, greater or equal, smaller, smaller or equal), addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and printing and/or converting the number to string (at least decimal -- if the number has infinitely many fractional digits, just cut it somewhere).
7. **image to [ASCII art](ascii_art.md)**: Make a program that takes an RGB bitmap image and renders it with ASCII characters (i.e. prints it out to console). You can support loading the image from just one file format of your choice, possibly something simple like PPM, BMP or Farbfeld. The program must support resizing the image and it must allow to just set one dimension with keeping the aspect ratio.
8. **educational [sorting](sorting.md) visualization**: Make a program for visualizing sorting algorithms -- it may draw real graphics (either directly to the screen or by outputting animation file) or just render ASCII art graphics, but it has to clearly show what the sorting algorithm is doing, i.e. which elements are being compared, which are swapped and if it makes good sense to highlight something else (like the pivot or already sorted part of the array), you should do it. Implement at least bubble sort, insertion sort, selection sort and quick sort. Also offer benchmark mode in which all algorithms race in sorting the same array (this can be without advanced visualization, just show e.g. number of steps for each).
9. **3D model of [fractal](fractal.md)**: Make a program that outputs 3D model of either Sieprinski triangle or Koch snowflake fractal. The output shall be some simple 3D format like obj or Collada. The model can be primitive, i.e. it can be just flat shape made of triangles which don't have to really be connected, but the program must allow specifying the number of iterations of the fractal (during invocation, e.g. as a CLI flag). Check that the model is correct by opening it in some 3D editor such as Blender.
10. **[sudoku](sudoku.md) solver**: Create a program to which the user somehow passes a sudoku puzzle (in a file, through a CLI flag, interactively... the choice is yours, but passing a new puzzle mustn't require program recompilation) and the program attempts to solve it. It must first employ some basic reasoning, at very least it has to repeatedly try the elimination method, i.e. marking a set of possible values in each empty square and then reducing these sets by crossing out values that can't be in that square because the same value is in its column/row/minisquare -- wherever only one value remains in the set, it is filled in as final; this has to be repeated until no more progress is being made. If you want, you can employ other techniques as well. After this if the puzzle is still not solved, the program will resort to [brute force](brute_force.md) which has to eventually lead to solution (even if it would take too long). If the program finds that the puzzle is unsolvable, it has to report it.
### Level 3: Hard, *Ultra Violence*
@ -77,7 +78,7 @@ Here you will find suggestions for programming projects, roughly sorted by their
4. **[Python](python.md)**: Implement the Python programming language, INCLUDING its whole standard library. Bonus points for finishing before the version you are implementing stops being supported.
5. **ruin [bitcoin](bitcoin.md)**: Make a program that can mine one bitcoin by running for at most one minute on some consumer laptop released before year 2010. Warning: this is probably unsolvable, but if you solve it you may help save the planet :P
TODO: text editor, tetris, voice synth?, snake, JPG like compression, quadratic equation, fractals, 2D raycasting, fourier transform, primes, image library, web browser, diff, MD parser, sudoku solver/generator, bytebeat, markov chain, syntax beautifier, grep, some kinda server, function plotter, raytracer, pi digits, 2D physics engine, encryption?, procedural MIDI, machine translation?, maze gen., genetic prog., language recognizer, search engine, AI?, chat ...
TODO: text editor, tetris, voice synth?, snake, JPG like compression, quadratic equation, fractals, 2D raycasting, fourier transform, primes, image library, web browser, diff, MD parser, solver/generator, bytebeat, markov chain, syntax beautifier, grep, some kinda server, function plotter, raytracer, pi digits, 2D physics engine, encryption?, procedural MIDI, machine translation?, maze gen., genetic prog., language recognizer, search engine, AI?, chat ...
@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ What following a "constantly [work in progress](wip.md)" list of subjectively se
- **Zanclean flood**: extremely huge flood that refilled the Mediterranean sea some 5 million years ago, which must have been a greatly spectacular event. Other similar mega floods are also discussed, e.g. that of the Black sea. Some of them are (often controversially) thought to be the origin of the shared great flood myth that's present in almost all old religions and cultures. A bit related interesting topic is the 20th century Atlantropa mega project that planned to partially dry the Mediterranean to gain more space for Europe.
- **[ball lightning](ball_lightning.md)**: a real weird phenomenon whose existence is not controversial (it is acknowledged to exist) but which still remains without exact scientific explanation. You can find some video of it, descriptions of eye witnesses are also quite fun to read.
- **extinct animals**: obviously everyone loves dinosaurs (BTW look up well preserved fossils of dinosaurs, some are in excellent state, we also now know for fact the skin color of some dinosaurs), but there are many underrated extincts animals, e.g. gigantopithecus, the biggest ape known to have ever existed (estimated weight up to 300 kg), which we however know almost nothing about (only teeth were found). More recently extinct species such as mammoth, dodo, saber-toothed cats, giant sloth, short-faced bear (probably the biggest bear ever) or Tasmanian tiger (which there still exists a black and white video footage of) are interesting exactly because they are closer on the timeline, people may have seen them and even depicted them somehow (e.g. cave paintings), we have may find much better preserved bodies of them and also have a bigger chance of cloning them one day or even discover them still living somewhere (has happened to several species already).
- **extinct animals**: obviously everyone loves dinosaurs (BTW look up well preserved fossils of dinosaurs, some are in excellent state, we also now know for fact the skin color of some dinosaurs), but there are many underrated extincts animals, e.g. gigantopithecus, the biggest ape known to have ever existed (estimated weight up to 300 kg), which we however know almost nothing about (only teeth were found). More recently extinct species such as mammoth, dodo, moa bird (extremely big bird), saber-toothed cats, giant sloth, short-faced bear (probably the biggest bear ever) or Tasmanian tiger (which there still exists a black and white video footage of) are interesting exactly because they are closer on the timeline, people may have seen them and even depicted them somehow (e.g. cave paintings), we have may find much better preserved bodies of them and also have a bigger chance of cloning them one day or even discover them still living somewhere (has happened to several species already).
- **[UFO](ufo.md)s and aliens**: ufology is pretty fun when when you dig through the real retarded cases and ignore soyence fanatics that will stop being friends with you. Remember, you may enjoy digging into weird, suspicious cases without starting to wear tinfoil or seeing little green men behind anything; even if a UFO turns out to be a new, secret military tech or newly discovered atmospheric phenomenon and not aliens, it's still pretty damn interesting. Some cases are pretty solid, e.g. Hangzhou Xiaoshan (China) 2010 sighting of extremely weird tear in the sky which was scanning the whole city with some kind of obviously artificial light screen for a very long time, which was seen by thousands and captured on camera and video by many (e.g. https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=__9s5chdV7c) and even caused an airport to shut down -- the real nature of the thing was never explained and wasn't even much talked about (there also seems to be another simple-to-debunk cover up UFO sighting under the same keywords). The Travis Walton abduction case is also quite interesting, supported by a lot of evidence and has stood for a very long time. There are also many pretty good footages of weird UFOs, especially interesting are those captured by multiple people from different angles, which are extremely hard to fake.
- **Known but unexcavated archaeological sites**: e.g. the Qin tomb, a pyramid in China that's a resting place of a great emperor is buried underground -- historical records say the pyramid contains an unbelievable wealth, a great palace and models of cities, seas, waterways of quicksilver and traps protecting against intruders; this is believable as it is also the place where the astonishing terracota army was already excavated. However it is quite likely the pyramid won't be opened during our lifetime, we probably won't ever see it with our eyes. Also the well known pyramids and sphinx of Giza are still very mysterious -- e.g. there are holes in the great Sphinx you can clearly but about which no one ever talks -- you can see they lead somewhere inside but you never see the actual inside, they let no one in and photos are nowhere to be found. Historical places of yet unknown locations, like the hanging gardens of Babylon, are also pretty interesting.
- Oldest existing photographs, video and audio recordings.
Money is an item (physical or [virtual](virtual.md)) whose main and usually sole purpose is to carry economic value so as to be used for making payments. **Money spoils everything** and in [capitalism](capitalism.md) money is everywhere. As Richard Muller says in one of his songs: "happiness is a beautiful thing, but it can't buy you money". It is said that money is the root of all [evil](evil.md) -- it is so because money embodies a system of competition for resources, and [competition](competition.md) itself is root of all evil. Evil people are attracted by money and money is attracted by evil people. Standardized money (for example specific bank notes, coins or [cryptocurrency](crypto.md)) is called [currency](currency.md).
**Money spoils everything**, and in [capitalism](capitalism.md) money is everywhere. As Richard Muller sings: "happiness is a beautiful thing, but it can't buy you money".
Things that money can buy include happiness, [love](love.md), [sex](sex.md), family, [people](people.md), stress-free life, luxury, freedom, food, health, [education](education.md), awards, skills, authority, good looks, [law](law.md), power, fame, [rights](rights_culture.md), [anonymity](anonymity.md), safety, [science](soyence.md), [logic](logic.md), [truth](truth.md), [justice](justice.md), injustice, voters, slaves, [life](life.md), [death](death.md), [war](war.md), peace, victory, loss, information, advice, public opinion, obedience, respect, entertainment, media, countries, all physical things and more money. So does selling your soul to the devil.
Sadly capitalism forced EVERYONE to deal with money, even those who hate it. How to handle this? **Correct relationship towards money** you should have as an [LRS](lrs.md) follower:
@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ There are many terms that are very similar and can many times be used interchang
- **[computational model](computational_model.md)** vs **[model of computation](model_of_computation.md)**
- **[convolution](convolution.md)** vs **[correlation](correlation.md)**
- **[copyright](copyright.md)** vs **[patent](patent.md)** vs **[trademark](trademark.md)** vs **[intellectual property](intellectual_property.md)** vs **[moral right](moral_rights.md)** etc.
- **[currency](currency.md)** vs **[money](money.md)**
- **[crossplatform/multiplatform](multiplatform.md)** vs **[portable](portability.md)**
- **[cryptography](cryptography.md)** vs **[security](security.md)**
- **[data](data.md)** vs **[information](information.md)** vs **[entropy](entropy.md)** vs **[signal](signal.md)**
Real numbers are all [numbers](number.md) found on the infinite, continuous one dimensional number line, they often represent what we generally just mean by the term "number" and include for example [zero](zero.md), [pi](pi.md) or -39/11. The [set](set.md) or real numbers includes all [whole numbers](integer.md) as well as all [rational numbers](rational_number.md) (fractions with integer nominator and denominator), but in addition contains infinitely many "special" numbers such as [pi](pi.md), [e](e.md) or [square root](sqrt.md) of 2, numbers that are mathematically very interesting because they for example produce infinitely many digits in our traditional number notation without showing any obvious patterns. However it has to be noted real numbers still do NOT include for example [infinity](infinity.md) or [complex numbers](complex_number.md) (kind of "2D extension" of real numbers) such as [i](i.md). Real numbers really represent a **[continuum](continous.md)**, between any two numbers that are not the same there is always infinitely many real numbers that have no gaps in between -- this leads to the fact that not only is there infinitely many real numbers, but there is **[uncountably many](uncountable.md)** of them, i.e. simply put there is "more than traditional infinity" of real numbers. [Mathematically](math.md) the set of real numbers and operations with them form a structure called a *[field](field.md)* (so you'll often hear the term "field of real numbers").
Real numbers are all [numbers](number.md) found on the infinite, continuous one dimensional number line, they often represent what we generally just mean by the term "number" and include for example [zero](zero.md), [pi](pi.md) or -39/11. The [set](set.md) or real numbers includes all [whole numbers](integer.md) as well as all [rational numbers](rational_number.md) (fractions with integer numerator and denominator), but in addition contains infinitely many "special" numbers such as [pi](pi.md), [e](e.md) or [square root](sqrt.md) of 2, numbers that are mathematically very interesting because they for example produce infinitely many digits in our traditional number notation without showing any obvious patterns. However it has to be noted real numbers still do NOT include for example [infinity](infinity.md) or [complex numbers](complex_number.md) (kind of "2D extension" of real numbers) such as [i](i.md). Real numbers really represent a **[continuum](continous.md)**, between any two numbers that are not the same there is always infinitely many real numbers that have no gaps in between -- this leads to the fact that not only is there infinitely many real numbers, but there is **[uncountably many](uncountable.md)** of them, i.e. simply put there is "more than traditional infinity" of real numbers. [Mathematically](math.md) the set of real numbers and operations with them form a structure called a *[field](field.md)* (so you'll often hear the term "field of real numbers").
WATCH OUT: even though in programming we sometimes encounter [data types](data_type.md) named *real*, they usually don't represent true real numbers! In [programming](programming.md) we mostly only [approximate](approximation.md) real numbers with [floating](float.md) or [fixed](fixed_point.md) point numbers, which really are only rational numbers -- this is practically always [good enough](good_enough.md), we don't ever need an exact value of pi, a few decimal digits of accuracy is enough to an engineer, but to a mathematician real numbers represent a completely new, different world with some fundamental differences, which even a mere programmer should be at least aware of. Real numbers are tied to questions of the continuum, infinitely big and infinitely small, and they can really eventually lead to deep philosophical debates.
@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ TODO: history?
## The Greater, Uncountable Infinity Of Reals
Compared to the basic sets of numbers, such as [natural](natural_number.md) and [rational numbers](rational_number.md), real numbers are special because **there are [uncountably](uncountable.md) many** of them, i.e not just [infinitely](infinity.md) many; in a sense the infinity representing how many real numbers there are is a **"bigger infinity"** than that representing the size (better said [cardinality](cardinality.md)) of sets of for example natural and rational numbers (which are still infinite, but only *countably* infinite); even if we consider just real numbers between 0 and 1, there is still kind of "more" of them than there are e.g. all possible fractions (with integer nominator and denominator). At first it looks like fractions and real numbers are kind of the same, but this is not true, fractions are still kind of sparse, [discrete](discrete.md), even though we can use fractions to infinitely divide the number line, there will always be kind of "gaps" between them; on the other hand real numbers are TRULY continuous in nature: there are infinitely many "special" numbers among real numbers, such as [pi](pi.md) and [e](e.md) (but most just without any special name, e.g. [square root](sqrt.md) of 2), that can never be written as a fraction of integers or as a number with finite decimal expansion (which is really the same thing as being a fraction), i.e. some real numbers we can approximately write down in decimal expansion (i.e. like 1.23456...) but never finish as their decimal expansion goes on forever and lacks any simple pattern. This is what gives rise to the fact that there are many more real numbers than integers and fractions -- due to this possibility of having "infinitely many arbitrary digits after the decimal point" **we cannot produce an ordered list of real numbers**, i.e. we cannot create a system that would say "this is the first real number, this is the second, this is third, ..." in a way that would eventually list out all the real numbers. I.e. we cannot establish a 1:1 mapping between natural numbers and real numbers, something that IS possible with integers and fractions (though with fractions it's less obvious), even considering things like negative numbers, we can order integers e.g. like: 0, 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3, .... With real numbers this is impossible, so we say the infinite size of the set of real numbers is uncountable.
Compared to the basic sets of numbers, such as [natural](natural_number.md) and [rational numbers](rational_number.md), real numbers are special because **there are [uncountably](uncountable.md) many** of them, i.e not just [infinitely](infinity.md) many; in a sense the infinity representing how many real numbers there are is a **"bigger infinity"** than that representing the size (better said [cardinality](cardinality.md)) of sets of for example natural and rational numbers (which are still infinite, but only *countably* infinite); even if we consider just real numbers between 0 and 1, there is still kind of "more" of them than there are e.g. all possible fractions (with integer numerator and denominator). At first it looks like fractions and real numbers are kind of the same, but this is not true, fractions are still kind of sparse, [discrete](discrete.md), even though we can use fractions to infinitely divide the number line, there will always be kind of "gaps" between them; on the other hand real numbers are TRULY continuous in nature: there are infinitely many "special" numbers among real numbers, such as [pi](pi.md) and [e](e.md) (but most just without any special name, e.g. [square root](sqrt.md) of 2), that can never be written as a fraction of integers or as a number with finite decimal expansion (which is really the same thing as being a fraction), i.e. some real numbers we can approximately write down in decimal expansion (i.e. like 1.23456...) but never finish as their decimal expansion goes on forever and lacks any simple pattern. This is what gives rise to the fact that there are many more real numbers than integers and fractions -- due to this possibility of having "infinitely many arbitrary digits after the decimal point" **we cannot produce an ordered list of real numbers**, i.e. we cannot create a system that would say "this is the first real number, this is the second, this is third, ..." in a way that would eventually list out all the real numbers. I.e. we cannot establish a 1:1 mapping between natural numbers and real numbers, something that IS possible with integers and fractions (though with fractions it's less obvious), even considering things like negative numbers, we can order integers e.g. like: 0, 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3, .... With real numbers this is impossible, so we say the infinite size of the set of real numbers is uncountable.
At first this is usually confusing and hard to comprehend, keep in mind we are dealing with [infinities](infinity.md) here and so intuition fails us, what we mean by "size" of an infinite set is better called a [cardinality](cardinality.md) because this is not really a size as we understand it with finite sets, it's a kind of generalization of it that allows us to examine infinity, but as we start dealing with infinities we have to be careful as things we usually take for granted may no longer hold -- for example here we may have a superset of a set of numbers (e.g. all integers, including negative ones, is a superset of natural numbers, which exclude negative numbers) with both sets having the same "size"/cardinality, i.e. something that with finite sets can't happen. With infinities we cannot measure size with counting elements -- there are always infinitely many -- but we can try with making mappings between the sets, which does tell us new things. But we are still in a different realm where our traditional language doesn't work and at best we sometimes have only "close enough" terms for things we encounter there.
@ -26,11 +26,11 @@ Here is a **[proof](proof.md)** by contradiction of not being able to create an
Now however we can consider a number *X* whose digits are `not(R1_1)`, `not(R2_2)`, `not(R3_3)`, `not(R4_4)` etc., i.e. the number is obtained by taking the table's diagonal and inverting all the digits (1s to 0s and vice versa). We can see number *X* is not present in the table because it is different from every other number in the table -- with any number *RN* it will differ AT LEAST by the *N*th bit. By this we arrive at the contradiction with the original claim that we have an ordered list of ALL real numbers, therefore such list cannot exist.
Another **cool view of real numbers** is this: imagine fractions (rational numbers) in fact sitting on a 2D grid, having coordinates given by their denominator and nominator, e.g. number 3/2 sits at [2,3], i.e. has *x* coordinate 2 and *y* coordinate 3. We are standing at point [0,0] and so every number projects to our field of view, i.e. to an angle from -90 degrees to 90 degrees (with these extremes representing minus and plus infinity, looking straight forward we see [zero](zero.md)). Notice that for example numbers 2/3 and 4/6 exactly overlap from out point of view, as they represent the same value:
Another **cool view of real numbers** is this: imagine fractions (rational numbers) in fact sitting on a 2D grid, having coordinates given by their denominator and numerator, e.g. number 3/2 sits at [2,3], i.e. has *x* coordinate 2 and *y* coordinate 3. We are standing at point [0,0] and so every number projects to our field of view, i.e. to an angle from -90 degrees to 90 degrees (with these extremes representing minus and plus infinity, looking straight forward we see [zero](zero.md)). Notice that for example numbers 2/3 and 4/6 exactly overlap from out point of view, as they represent the same value:
{ I did my own peer review of this article and give it 10/10. ~drummyfish }
Soyence is [business](business.md), [propaganda](propaganda.md) and [politics](politics.md) trying to pass as [science](science.md), nowadays promoted typically by [pseudoleftists](pseudoleft.md), [pseudoskeptics](pseudoskepticism.md), [capitalists](capitalism.md) and [corporations](corporation.md). It is what in the [21st century](21st_century.md) has taken on the role that's historically been played by the church: that of establishing and maintaining orthodoxy for the control of mass population -- this time it is so called "science" or "rationality" that's used as the tool instead of [God](god.md) and religion, however the results are the same. Soyence is not about listening to what science says, it is about listetning to what *"reputable scientists"* say, and of course not questioning them; soyence is what the typical reddit [atheist](atheism.md) or [tiktok](tiktok.md) [feminist](feminism.md) believes science is or what Neil De Grass Tyson tells you science is. While science is about collecting facts and drawing conclusions, soyence is about setting conclusions and finding or fabricating facts that support them. One red flag to watch out in relation to soyence is a great weight put on **reputation** -- in true science reputation plays no role, only results do; reputation and its great value for one's acceptance is rather part of [politics](politics.md) (and maybe show business). Notice for example how in the past it was more common to hear "science has found X" (as in "logic itself shows this fact") rather than "scientists have found X", which is more common nowadays -- mentally we have shifted to separate people to "scientists", those who "know" and dictate what's true, and non-scientists, those who don't know and must just listen. Soyence calls itself the one and only science^TM and [gatekeeps](gatekeeping.md) the term by calling unpopular science (such as that regarding human [race](race.md), questioning official versions of [historical](history.md) events or safety of big pharma [vaccines](vaccine.md)) "[pseudoscience](pseudoscience.md)" and "[conspiracy theories](conspiracy_theory.md)". Soyence itself is pseudoscience but it has an official status, approval of [state](state.md), strong connection to [politics](politics.md), it is mainstream, popular, controlled by those in power, [censored](censorship.md) ("moderated") and intentionally misleading. Soyence can be encountered in much of [academia](academia.md), on [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md) and in other popular/mainstream media such as TV "documentaries" and [YouTube](youtube.md). A soyence supporter wrongfully believes that reason wouldn't allow such a large scale mass population manipulation (despite this happening over and over throughout history) -- people at large aren't reasonable and reason [cannot](yes_they_can.md) beat [propaganda](propaganda.md).
Soyence is [business](business.md), [propaganda](propaganda.md) and [politics](politics.md) trying to pass as [science](science.md), nowadays promoted typically by [pseudoleftists](pseudoleft.md), [pseudoskeptics](pseudoskepticism.md), [capitalists](capitalism.md) and [corporations](corporation.md). It is what in the [21st century](21st_century.md) has taken on the role that's historically been played by the church: that of establishing and maintaining orthodoxy for the control of mass population -- this time it is so called "science" or "rationality" that's used as the tool instead of [God](god.md) and religion, however the results are the same. Soyence is not about listening to what science says, it is about listetning to what *"reputable scientists"* say, and of course not questioning them; soyence is what the typical reddit [atheist](atheism.md) or [tiktok](tiktok.md) [feminist](feminism.md) believes science is or what Neil De Grass Tyson tells you science is. While science is about collecting facts and drawing conclusions, soyence is about setting conclusions and finding or fabricating facts that support them. One red flag to watch out in relation to soyence is a great weight put on **reputation** -- in true science reputation plays no role, only results do; reputation and its great value for one's acceptance is rather part of [politics](politics.md) (and maybe show business). Notice for example how in the past it was more common to hear "science has found X" (as in "logic itself shows this fact") rather than "scientists have found X", which is more common nowadays -- mentally we have shifted to separate people to "scientists", those who "know" and dictate what's true, and non-scientists, those who don't know and must just listen. Soyence calls itself the one and only science^TM and [gatekeeps](gatekeeping.md) the term by calling unpopular science (such as that regarding human [race](race.md), questioning official versions of [historical](history.md) events or safety of big pharma [vaccines](vaccine.md)) "[pseudoscience](pseudoscience.md)" and "[conspiracy theories](conspiracy_theory.md)". Soyence itself is pseudoscience but it has an official status, approval of [state](state.md), strong connection to [politics](politics.md), it is mainstream, popular, controlled by those in power, [censored](censorship.md) ("moderated") and intentionally misleading. Soyence can be encountered in much of [academia](academia.md), on [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md) and in other popular/mainstream media such as TV "documentaries" and [YouTube](youtube.md). A soyence supporter wrongfully believes that reason wouldn't allow such a large scale mass population manipulation (despite this happening over and over throughout history) -- people at large aren't reasonable and reason [cannot](yes_they_can.md) beat [propaganda](propaganda.md); only the highest naivety could make you believe that politics will follow science -- it's the other way around, and always has been.
Compared to good old [fun](fun.mf) pseudosciences such as [astrology](astrology.md) and [flat Earth](flat_earth.md), soyence is extra sneaky by purposefully trying to blend in with real science, i.e. within a certain truly scientific field, such as biology, there is a soyentific [cancer](cancer.md) mixed in by activists, corporations and state, that may be hard to separate for common folk and many times even for pros. This is extremely [harmful](harmful.md) as in the eyes of retarded people (basically everyone) the neighboring legit science gives credibility to propaganda bullshit. There is a tendency to think we somehow magically live in a time that's fundamentally different from other times in history in which it is now a pretty clear and uncontroversial fact that the name of science was abused hard by propaganda, almost everyone easily accepts that historically politically constructed lies were presented as confirmed by science, but somehow people refuse to believe it could be the case nowadays. In times of Nazism there was no doubt about race being a completely scientific term and that Jews were scientifically confirmed to be the inferior race -- nowadays in times when anti Nazis have won and politics is based on denying existence of race somehow scientists start to magically find evidence that no such thing as race has ever existed -- how convenient! And just in case you wanted to check if it's actually true, you'll be labeled a racist and you won't find job ever again.
@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ Here are some potentially entertaining ways of trolling (they'll be written from
- **Seizure troll**: when in some kind of lecture where the students are allowed laptops (typically in a compsci uni) I take a seat somewhere in the front row, near the lecturer, open my laptop and start a program that just rapidly flashes wild colors in fullscreen -- I leave it like that for the whole lecture so that everyone sitting behind me is forced to watch the flashing and can get an epileptic seizure. For educational purposes code for such a program can be written in a few lines of browser [JavaScript](javascript.md) (it may coincidentally possibly even be found in that JavaScript article).
- **[Eco](eco.md) whoring troll**: I take a bag of plastic trash, go to the forest, find some nice, clean place, take a thumbs up selfie photo with it, dump the trash in there, take another photo, then post the photos in reverse order to Twitter with something like "today I worked tirelessly to clean this garbage dump, for our children!", get a million eco likes for literally dumping plastic trash in a forest.
- **Stack overtroll**: I love to perform this troll on sites like programming advice subreddits where wannabe [soydevs](soydev.md) try to roleplay as authorities on programming -- these deserve to be trolled the most :D This gets me banned every time but it's totally worth it, I use this to leave social network sites with style once I get bored with them. I make a piece of code that looks like some noob attempt at making a game, but it's secretly an [obfuscated](obfuscation.md) code that when run does something nasty like delete all files on the computer, create one trillion subdirectories or set goatse as a wallpaper (bloat languages like [Python](python.md) are actually great for this as they can do nasty stuff like execute a dynamically constructed string and they can also download stuff from the Internet and basically do anything they like). Then I post it with a question "hello fellow programmers, I am trying to make my first game but my code doesn't work, can u help me plz?" If the code is well made, i.e. not trivial and quite hard to understand just by looking at it, chances are the first thing people are gonna do is simply copy paste the code and run it -- that's why I prefer to make the code completely destroy the computer so that the guy has to take at least a few hours to reinstall the system to be able to warn others it's a troll. Whenever some comment pops up saying it's a trap, I immediately downvote it and report it for hate speech (I also use puppet accounts here to spam the downvotes because I'll get banned anyway). The good things about this is that I actually teach people about muh [security](security.md), those who step on this mine will never run a random code from the Internet again.
- **The racist gayming streamtroll**: As a famous [vidya](game.md) streamer I love to do this to cause lulz, if done right I just cause drama and won't even get banned. I pick some convenient game, for example GTA or Obvlivion or something, then I just play the game, audience is watching, the catch is that I'll be making slightly racist or sexist choices in the gameplay, for example when driving between mission if I run over pedestrians, I'll only be killing black ones :D I will never buy anything from a black NPC or woman, I will never steal a black car and will prefer taking only white cars I can and so on. BUT... I won't be open about it of course! And I'll be denying it if someone starts to notice, in turn blaming him for being racist for making such observations. I can make this very subtle, for example I'll sometimes run over a white pedestrian too, but I'll keep the ratio biased towards black in such a way that it's noticeable but that it leaves them scratching their heads if it's intentional or not :'D Now if the chat starts to make drama out of it, I'll just say they're paranoid, I'll even do whatever they want me to to make them believe it's not intentional... and then I start slowly doing it again :'D Now this is funny because they can prove you nothing, and it's hilarious if you get reports and some mod literally has to go watch your streams and count the ratio of blacks versus whites you run over LMAO. Nice thing is also that if someone accuses you of racism, mod reviews it and says unconclusive, you can just ban the accuser for trolling, further scaring people from stepping in, at which point you can start being slightly more racist in the gameplay and so on, see how long you can balance on this fine line :D
- **Troll the troll**: Advanced mastery of trolling allows one to troll other less experienced trolls -- an encounter of two trolls can be quite fun and educational. Imagine for example troll A setting up the above mentioned *stack overtroll* bait -- troll B, an experienced player of the game, notices the bait, but of course he doesn't bring this up -- no, he pretends to take the bait and responds with something like "wait a minute, let me run the code". Troll A is happy because he thinks he won, but then troll B responds: "yeah, here on line X you got this wrong, here is the correct code...". Troll A is now confused, he's unsure if he's been spotted or if troll B simply skipped running the code, troll B is now in advantage of controlling the game -- a best result here is if troll B actually somehow gets troll A to run the "fixed" code which however breaks his computer; here troll B succeeded in deflecting the troll back and catching OP into his own trap -- this kind of outcome is the best you can wish for and a showcase of true trolling mastery.
- **Creative [Wikipedia](wikipedia.md) vandalism**: for example funny redirects or categorizations (put [Bill Gates](bill_gates.md) to "famous homosexuals" category or something), also consider vandalizing other wikis that usually don't have as much protection.
