@ -116,21 +116,22 @@ Here are some questions to test your LRS related knowledge :D
15. Name at least five licenses commonly used for [FOSS](foss.md) programs, five text editors/IDEs commonly used for programming and five operating systems whose source code is mostly free-licensed (none of these is allowed to be using the same or forked kernel of any other).
16. What is the minimum number of [bits](bit.md) that will allow us to represent 12345678910111213 distinct values?
17. Give at least one example of [analog](analog.md) electronic device and one of [digital](digital.md) mechanical device.
18. Find a normalized (having length 1) [normal](normal.md) ([vector](vector.md) that's perpendicular to surface) of the [triangle](triangle.md) defined by vertices *A = {1,2,3}*, *B = {5,5,1}* and *C = {1,5,2}*. (Orientation doesn't matter.)
19. Why will (in a typical programming language such as C) an infinite [recursion](recursion.md) crash the program but infinite loop generally won't?
20. Answer yes/no to following: Is base-three number 2101 greater than base-seven number 206? Is [gemini](gemini.md) better than [gopher](gopher.md)? Is there any [triangle](triangle.md) (in Euclidean geometry) whose one side is longer than the sum of lengths of its other two sides?
21. There are two walls 2 meters apart, the right wall is moving left by the speed 0.1 m/s, the left wall is moving right by the same speed 0.1 m/s. There is a fly in the middle between the walls, flying by speed 1 m/s. It is flying towards one wall, then when it reaches it it turns around and flies towards the other wall etc. When the walls completely close in, what distance would the fly have traveled? (There is a simple solution.)
23. At what times, with precision to seconds, do clock hands overlap (just compute AM, PM is the same)?
24. In 3D computer [graphics](graphics.md) what's the difference between [shading](shading.md) and drawing [shadows](shadow.md)?
25. Can we say that the traditional feed forward [neural networks](neural_network.md) are [Turing complete](turing_complete.md)? Explain why or why not.
26. Wicw mx uum yvfe bbt uhmtf ok?
27. What is the *Big O* time [complexity](complexity.md) of worst case scenario for [binary search](binary_search.md)?
28. Does the statement "10 does not equal 10" logically [imply](implication.md) that intelligent alien life exists?
29. What is the principle of [asymmetric cryptography](asymmetric_cryptography.md) and why is it called *asymmetric*?
30. What is the main reason for [Earth](earth.md) having seasons (summer, winter, ...)?
31. WARNING: VERY HARD. There are two integers, both greater than 1 and smaller than 100. *P* knows their product, *S* knows their sum. They have this conversation: *P* says: I don't know the numbers. *S* says: I know you don't, I don't know them either. *P* says: now I know them. *S* says: now I know them too. What are the numbers? To solve this you are allowed to use a programming language, pen and paper etc. { Holy shit this took me like a whole day. ~drummyfish }
32. Did you enjoy this quiz?
18. Is physical violence every justified?
19. Find a normalized (having length 1) [normal](normal.md) ([vector](vector.md) that's perpendicular to surface) of the [triangle](triangle.md) defined by vertices *A = {1,2,3}*, *B = {5,5,1}* and *C = {1,5,2}*. (Orientation doesn't matter.)
20. Why will (in a typical programming language such as C) an infinite [recursion](recursion.md) crash the program but infinite loop generally won't?
21. Answer yes/no to following: Is base-three number 2101 greater than base-seven number 206? Is [gemini](gemini.md) better than [gopher](gopher.md)? Is there any [triangle](triangle.md) (in Euclidean geometry) whose one side is longer than the sum of lengths of its other two sides?
22. There are two walls 2 meters apart, the right wall is moving left by the speed 0.1 m/s, the left wall is moving right by the same speed 0.1 m/s. There is a fly in the middle between the walls, flying by speed 1 m/s. It is flying towards one wall, then when it reaches it it turns around and flies towards the other wall etc. When the walls completely close in, what distance would the fly have traveled? (There is a simple solution.)
24. At what times, with precision to seconds, do clock hands overlap (just compute AM, PM is the same)?
25. In 3D computer [graphics](graphics.md) what's the difference between [shading](shading.md) and drawing [shadows](shadow.md)?
26. Can we say that the traditional feed forward [neural networks](neural_network.md) are [Turing complete](turing_complete.md)? Explain why or why not.
27. Wicw mx uum yvfe bbt uhmtf ok?
28. What is the *Big O* time [complexity](complexity.md) of worst case scenario for [binary search](binary_search.md)?
29. Does the statement "10 does not equal 10" logically [imply](implication.md) that intelligent alien life exists?
30. What is the principle of [asymmetric cryptography](asymmetric_cryptography.md) and why is it called *asymmetric*?
31. What is the main reason for [Earth](earth.md) having seasons (summer, winter, ...)?
32. WARNING: VERY HARD. There are two integers, both greater than 1 and smaller than 100. *P* knows their product, *S* knows their sum. They have this conversation: *P* says: I don't know the numbers. *S* says: I know you don't, I don't know them either. *P* says: now I know them. *S* says: now I know them too. What are the numbers? To solve this you are allowed to use a programming language, pen and paper etc. { Holy shit this took me like a whole day. ~drummyfish }
33. Did you enjoy this quiz?
### Answers
@ -151,21 +152,22 @@ Here are some questions to test your LRS related knowledge :D
16. The number is *N* such that 2^N = 12345678910111213, rounded up, that is ceil(log2(12345678910111213)) = 54.
17. amplifier, voltmeter, analog hardware for [neural networks](neural_net.md), ...; abacus, mechanical calculators such as Curta, Turing machine made of wood, ...
18. We can use [cross product](cross_product.md) to find a vector perpendicular to two vectors, so we can take e.g. vectors *U = B - A = {4,3,-2}* and *V = C - A = {0,3,-1}*; their cross product is *UxV = {3,4,12} = n* (just look up the formula for cross product). This is the normal, to normalize it we'll first compute its length, i.e. *|n| = sqrt(3^2 + 4^2 + 12^2) = 13* and then divide each component of *n* by this length, i.e. we finally get *n0 = {3/13,4/13,12/13}*. As a check we can compute [dot product](dot_product.md) of this normal with both *U* and *V* and we should get 0 in both cases (meaning the vectors are perpendicular).
19. Infinite loop just performs jumps back to some previous program instruction which can be repeated indefinitely, so unless there is something inside the loop that will lead to a crash after many repetitions, an infinite loop will just make the program run forever. With recursion, however, every successive recursive call allocates a new call frame on the call stack (so that the program knows where to return from the function) which will lead to running out of stack memory and to [stack overflow](stack_overflow.md).
20. no, no, no
21. The walls will collide in 10 seconds during which the fly has been constantly flying with the speed 1 m/s, so it traveled 10 meters.
23. 1:5:27, 2:10:54, 3:16:21, 4:21:49, 5:27:16, 6:32:43, 7:38:10, 8:43:38, 9:49:05, 10:54:32, 12:00:00, you can compute it by making equations for position of the hour and minute hand depending on time, setting them equal and solving, i.e. you get something like *tm / (60 * 12) = (tm / 60) - (tm // 60)* (where *//* is integer division and *tm* is time in minutes); you will find the times are those when minute hand is at multiples of 60 / 11 minues (5:27), i.e. there are 11 such times around the circle and they are evenly spaced.
24. Shading is the process of computing surface color of 3D objects, typically depending on the object's material and done by GPU programs called [shaders](shader.md); shading involves for example applying textures, normal mapping and mainly lighting -- though it can make pixels lighter and darker, e.g. depending on surface normal, it only applies local models of light, i.e. doesn't compute true shadows cast by other objects. On the other hand computing shadows uses some method that works with the scene as a whole to compute true shadowing of objects by other objects.
25. We can't really talk about Turing completeness of plain neural networks, they cannot be Turing complete because they just transform fixed length input into fixed length output -- a Turing complete model of computation must be able to operate with arbitrarily large input and output. In theory we can replace any neural network with logic circuit or even just plain lookup table. Significance of neural networks doesn't lie in their computational power but rather in their efficiency, i.e. a relatively small and simple neural network may replace what would otherwise be an enormously large and complicated circuit.
26. two (or txq); The cipher offsets each letter by its position.
27. *log2(n)*; Binary search works by splitting the data in half, then moving inside the half which contains the searched item, recursively splitting that one in half again and so on -- for this the algorithm will perform at worst as many steps as how many times we can divide the data in halves which is what base 2 logarithm tells us.
28. Yes, a false statement implies anything.
29. The main difference against symmetric cryptography is we have two keys instead of one, one (private) for encrypting and one (public) for decrypting -- neither key can be used for the other task. Therefore encryption and decryption processes differ greatly (while in symmetric cryptography it's essentially the same, using the same key, just in reversed way), the problem looks different in one direction that the other, hence it is called *asymmetric*.
30. It's not the distance from the Sun (the distance doesn't change that much and it also wouldn't explain why opposite hemispheres have opposite seasons) but the tilted Earth axis -- the tilt changes the maximum height to which the Sun rises above any specific spot and so the angle under which it shines on the that spot; the [cosine](cos.md) of this angle says how much energy the place gets from the Sun (similarly to how we use cosine to determine how much light is reflected off of a surface in [shaders](shader.md)).
31. 4 and 13, solution: make a table, columns are first integer, rows are second (remember, both *P* and *S* can be making their own table like this too). Cross out whole bottom triangle (symmetric values). *P* doesn't know the numbers, so cross out all combinations of two primes (he would know such numbers as they have only a unique product). *S* knew *P* didn't know the numbers, so the sum also mustn't be a sum of two primes (if the sum could be written as a prime plus prime, *S* couldn't have known that *P* didn't know the numbers, the numbers may have been those two primes and *P* would have known them). This means you can cross out all such numbers -- these are all bottom-left-to-top-right diagonals that go through at least one already crossed out number (combination of primes), as these diagonal have constant sum. Now *P* has a table like this with relatively few numbers left -- if he now leaves in only the numbers that make the product he knows, he'll very likely be left with only one combination of numbers -- there are still many combinations like this, but only the situation when the numbers are set to be 4 and 13 allows *S* to also deduce the numbers after *P* declares he knows the numbers -- this is because *S* knows the combination lies on one specific constant-sum diagonal and 4-13 lie on the only diagonal that in this situation has a unique product within the reduced table. So with some other combinations *P* could deduce the numbers too, but only with 4-13 *S* can finally say he knows them too.
32. yes
18. no
19. We can use [cross product](cross_product.md) to find a vector perpendicular to two vectors, so we can take e.g. vectors *U = B - A = {4,3,-2}* and *V = C - A = {0,3,-1}*; their cross product is *UxV = {3,4,12} = n* (just look up the formula for cross product). This is the normal, to normalize it we'll first compute its length, i.e. *|n| = sqrt(3^2 + 4^2 + 12^2) = 13* and then divide each component of *n* by this length, i.e. we finally get *n0 = {3/13,4/13,12/13}*. As a check we can compute [dot product](dot_product.md) of this normal with both *U* and *V* and we should get 0 in both cases (meaning the vectors are perpendicular).
20. Infinite loop just performs jumps back to some previous program instruction which can be repeated indefinitely, so unless there is something inside the loop that will lead to a crash after many repetitions, an infinite loop will just make the program run forever. With recursion, however, every successive recursive call allocates a new call frame on the call stack (so that the program knows where to return from the function) which will lead to running out of stack memory and to [stack overflow](stack_overflow.md).
21. no, no, no
22. The walls will collide in 10 seconds during which the fly has been constantly flying with the speed 1 m/s, so it traveled 10 meters.
24. 1:5:27, 2:10:54, 3:16:21, 4:21:49, 5:27:16, 6:32:43, 7:38:10, 8:43:38, 9:49:05, 10:54:32, 12:00:00, you can compute it by making equations for position of the hour and minute hand depending on time, setting them equal and solving, i.e. you get something like *tm / (60 * 12) = (tm / 60) - (tm // 60)* (where *//* is integer division and *tm* is time in minutes); you will find the times are those when minute hand is at multiples of 60 / 11 minues (5:27), i.e. there are 11 such times around the circle and they are evenly spaced.
25. Shading is the process of computing surface color of 3D objects, typically depending on the object's material and done by GPU programs called [shaders](shader.md); shading involves for example applying textures, normal mapping and mainly lighting -- though it can make pixels lighter and darker, e.g. depending on surface normal, it only applies local models of light, i.e. doesn't compute true shadows cast by other objects. On the other hand computing shadows uses some method that works with the scene as a whole to compute true shadowing of objects by other objects.
26. We can't really talk about Turing completeness of plain neural networks, they cannot be Turing complete because they just transform fixed length input into fixed length output -- a Turing complete model of computation must be able to operate with arbitrarily large input and output. In theory we can replace any neural network with logic circuit or even just plain lookup table. Significance of neural networks doesn't lie in their computational power but rather in their efficiency, i.e. a relatively small and simple neural network may replace what would otherwise be an enormously large and complicated circuit.
27. two (or txq); The cipher offsets each letter by its position.
28. *log2(n)*; Binary search works by splitting the data in half, then moving inside the half which contains the searched item, recursively splitting that one in half again and so on -- for this the algorithm will perform at worst as many steps as how many times we can divide the data in halves which is what base 2 logarithm tells us.
29. Yes, a false statement implies anything.
30. The main difference against symmetric cryptography is we have two keys instead of one, one (private) for encrypting and one (public) for decrypting -- neither key can be used for the other task. Therefore encryption and decryption processes differ greatly (while in symmetric cryptography it's essentially the same, using the same key, just in reversed way), the problem looks different in one direction that the other, hence it is called *asymmetric*.
31. It's not the distance from the Sun (the distance doesn't change that much and it also wouldn't explain why opposite hemispheres have opposite seasons) but the tilted Earth axis -- the tilt changes the maximum height to which the Sun rises above any specific spot and so the angle under which it shines on the that spot; the [cosine](cos.md) of this angle says how much energy the place gets from the Sun (similarly to how we use cosine to determine how much light is reflected off of a surface in [shaders](shader.md)).
32. 4 and 13, solution: make a table, columns are first integer, rows are second (remember, both *P* and *S* can be making their own table like this too). Cross out whole bottom triangle (symmetric values). *P* doesn't know the numbers, so cross out all combinations of two primes (he would know such numbers as they have only a unique product). *S* knew *P* didn't know the numbers, so the sum also mustn't be a sum of two primes (if the sum could be written as a prime plus prime, *S* couldn't have known that *P* didn't know the numbers, the numbers may have been those two primes and *P* would have known them). This means you can cross out all such numbers -- these are all bottom-left-to-top-right diagonals that go through at least one already crossed out number (combination of primes), as these diagonal have constant sum. Now *P* has a table like this with relatively few numbers left -- if he now leaves in only the numbers that make the product he knows, he'll very likely be left with only one combination of numbers -- there are still many combinations like this, but only the situation when the numbers are set to be 4 and 13 allows *S* to also deduce the numbers after *P* declares he knows the numbers -- this is because *S* knows the combination lies on one specific constant-sum diagonal and 4-13 lie on the only diagonal that in this situation has a unique product within the reduced table. So with some other combinations *P* could deduce the numbers too, but only with 4-13 *S* can finally say he knows them too.
@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ You will learn things that are both:
- written here and
- you didn't know before
### Prerequisits
### Prerequisites
- brain
- eyes (not needed if you're using TTS)
@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ This section lays out some essential steps, according to [LRS](lrs.md), which a
- [Ubuntu](ubuntu.md): Kind of like Mint, try it if Mint didn't work.
- [Puppy](puppy.md) Linux: Tiny kind of a "toy" distro that uses very little resources.
- **Learn a bit of [command line](cli.md)** ([Unix](unix.md) utils, [bash](bash.md) etc.). No need to become a hacker right away, just get familiar with this essential Unix environment.
- **Free yourself technologically**, i.e. make yourself depend as little as possible on capitalist technology; this step if crucial, you can't really live well or achieve anything while being a slave. This includes firstly leaving proprietary platforms such as [Facebook](facebook.md), [Google](google.md)'s platforms such as [YouTube](youtube.md), [reddit](reddit.md) etc. Also stop being dependent on proprietary programs ([MS](microsoft.md) office, [photoshop](photoshop.md) etc.), and proprietary consumer devices such as a [smartphone](smartphone.md). Again, it's impossible to free yourself 100% immediately, go slowly and try to get more freedom even if you can't achieve 100% freedom. This means either stop using harmful software/services/devices and engaging in bad habits (social media etc.) or at least minimize their use, and/or use more freedom-friendly alternatives such as different [search engines](search_engine.md) (e.g. [searx](searx.md), ...), a [dumbphone](dumbphone.md) or at least [free](free_software.md) OS smartphone rather than capitalist [smartphone](smartphone.md), freedom friendly laptop (e.g. an old [thinkpad](thinkpad.md)) rather than iShit or consumerist gayming PC, start using **[FOSS](foss.md) programs**, e.g. [GIMP](gimp.md) instead of Photoshop, [LibreOffice](libreoffice.md) instead of MS Office etc, [invidious](invidious.md) or [Peertube](peertube.md) instead of [YouTube](youtube.md) etc. Remember, it is best if you can stop using something altogether, the second best thing is to stop being dependent on a single entity, try to use a decentralized and/or [suckless](suckless.md) [FOSS](foss.md) alternative but do not try to just mimic your old habits in the FOSS world, you have to learn new ways of computing (for example start using multiple search engines instead of relying on one, it's not good to just drop-in replace one search engine for another). Avoid falling to traps of shit like [distrohopping](distrohopping.md), this just enslaves you in a different way.
- **Free yourself technologically**, i.e. make yourself depend as little as possible on capitalist technology; this step if crucial, you can't really live well or achieve anything while being a slave. This includes firstly leaving proprietary platforms such as [Facebook](facebook.md), [Google](google.md)'s platforms such as [YouTube](youtube.md), [reddit](reddit.md) etc. Also stop being dependent on proprietary programs ([MS](microsoft.md) office, [photoshop](photoshop.md) etc.), and proprietary consumer devices such as a [smartphone](smartphone.md). Again, it's impossible to free yourself 100% immediately, go slowly and try to get more freedom even if you can't achieve 100% freedom. This means either stop using harmful software/services/devices and engaging in bad habits (social media etc.) or at least minimize their use, and/or use more freedom-friendly alternatives such as different [search engines](search_engine.md) (e.g. [searx](searx.md), ...), a [dumbphone](dumbphone.md) or at least [free](free_software.md) OS smartphone rather than capitalist [smartphone](smartphone.md), freedom friendly laptop (e.g. an old [thinkpad](thinkpad.md)) rather than iShit or consumerist gayming PC, start using **[FOSS](foss.md) programs**, e.g. [GIMP](gimp.md) instead of Photoshop, [LibreOffice](libreoffice.md) instead of MS Office etc, [invidious](invidious.md) or [Peertube](peertube.md) instead of [YouTube](youtube.md) etc. If you are addicted to some modern AAA game like [World of Warcraft](wow.md), then satisfaction of your need for entertainment requires latest [modern](modern.md) powerful PC, paying game subscription, paid operating system, expensive GPU, fast Internet connection... if as a first step you transition to something like [Minetest](minetest.md), suddenly you can do with any old computer with an old integrated GPU, running a FOSS operating system, you'll suddenly be able to play on computers that people will give your for free; better yet if you eventually transition to chess or text adventures, any calculator or perhaps pen and paper will satisfy your need of entertainment, your freedom will increase greatly. Remember, it is best if you can stop using something altogether, the second best thing is to stop being dependent on a single entity, try to use a decentralized and/or [suckless](suckless.md) [FOSS](foss.md) alternative but do not try to just mimic your old proprietary habits in the FOSS world, you have to learn new ways of computing (for example start using multiple search engines instead of relying on one, it's not good to just drop-in replace one search engine for another). Avoid falling to traps of shit like [distrohopping](distrohopping.md), this just enslaves you in a different way.
- If you want to program [LRS](lrs.md), **learn [C](c.md)** (see the [tutorial](c_tutorial.md)). Also learn a bit of [POSIX shell](posix_shell.md) and maybe some mainstream [scripting](script.md) language (can be even a bloated one like [Python](python.md)). Learn about [licensing](license.md) and [version control](vcs.md) ([git](git.md)). As you advance, start studying deeper topics such as [history](history.md) or [hacker culture](hacking.md) etc.
- Optionally make your own minimal [website](web.md) (or even a [gopherhole](gopher.md)) to help reshare ideas you like (static [HTML](html.md) site without [JavaScript](javascript.md)). This is very easy, and the site can be hosted for free e.g. on [git](git.md) hosting sites like Codeberg or GitLab. Get in touch with us.
- **Start creating**: either programs or other stuff like [free art](free_culture.md), educational materials etc. Remember, creating is the most important thing to do, it is more important than setting up a perfectly free suckless LRS system, don't fall to the trap of becoming obsessed and paralyzed by hopping, ricing etc. Your system is just a tool, it is worth nothing if it's not used for creating something, and it doesn't really matter which text editor or operating system you used to write your program.
Human language is language used mostly by [humans](human.md) to communicate with each other; these languages are very hard to handle by [computers](computer.md) (only quite recently [neural network](neural_net.md) computer programs became able to show true understanding of human language). They are studies by [linguists](linguistics.md). Human languages are most commonly **natural languages**, i.e. ones that evolved naturally over many centuries such as [English](english.md), [Chinese](chinese.md), French or [Latin](latin.md), but there also exist a great number of so called **[constructed languages](conlang.md)** (*conlangs*), i.e. artificially made ones such as [Esperanto](esperanto.md), Interslavic or [Lojban](lojban.md). But all of these are still human languages, different from e.g. [computer languages](computer_language.md) such [C](c.md) or [XML](xml.md). Natural human languages practically always show significant irregularities (exceptions to general rules) while constructed languages typically try to eliminate irregularities as much as possible so as to make them easier to learn, but even a constructed human language is still extremely difficult for a computer to understand.
**Why are human languages so hard for computers to handle?** Well, firstly there are minor annoyances like syntactic ambiguity, irregularities, redundancy, complex rules of grammar -- for example the sentence "I know Bob likes computers, and so does John." can either mean that John knows that Bob likes computers or that both Bob and John like computers. Things like this can be addressed by designing the [grammar](grammar.md) unambiguously, but analyzing already existing natural languages suffers by this. Furthermore in real life there are countless quirks of playing with language, things like sacrasm, parody, exaggerations, indirect hints, politeness, rhetorical questions, fau pax, memes and references. For example when we think of imperative, we imagine sentences such as "Close the window." -- in real life we'll rather say something like "I'm cold, it wouldn't hurt to close the window.", i.e. something that's semantically an imperative but not syntactically, a dumb computer would deduce here we are stating a fact that closing the window will not hurt anyone; it takes human-like intelligence AND experience in how the real life works and abilities like being able to guess feelings and plans of others to correctly conclude this sentence in fact means "Please close the window." Just try to talk to someone for a while and focus on what the sentences mean literally and what they actually imply. So things revolving around this are pose the first issue, but yet a greater issue dwells in how to actually define meanings of words -- human language is not just "text strings" as it might seem on the first glance, behind the text strings lies a deep understanding of the extremely complex [real world](irl.md). More details of the issues of semantic will be given below.
## The Grand Curse Of Human Language
{ The following is a thought dump made without much research, please inform me if you're a linguist or something and have something enlightening to say, thank you <3~drummyfish}
Reddit, established in 2005, marketing itself as the "frontpage of the [Internet](internet.md)", was an extremely successful, popular and quite nice website for sharing links, ideas and leading discussions about them, before it got absolutely destroyed by [capitalists](capitalism.md) right before they year 2020. It used to be a forum with great amount of [free speech](free_speech.md) and with quite a nice, plain user interface; in a swift turn it however turn completely over and is now among the most [censored](censorship.dm) sites on the whole [web](www.md), a place toxic with [SJW](sjw.md) fumes and its site is literally unusable for the amount of [bloat](bloat.md) and [ads](marketing.md). Never visit the site if you don't have to.
Reddit users are the kind of "moderate rebels", the sort of absolutely insignificant people who think they're doing heroic acts by setting a profile picture or sharing a mildly unpopular opinion on facebook, like "I actually think piracy is not bad! Take this corporations!". Very infamous are for example reddit [atheists](atheism.md) who are very enlightened by Neil De Grass documentaries, they don't understand how a medieval peasant could believe in irrational things, conform to orthodox preaching and participate in witch hunts, but if you suggest [removing the age of consent](pedophilia.md) or opposing [feminism](feminism.md) they pick up the torches and go full angry mob yelling "Stone that heretic to death!" That's because they're just trained to react to [key words](shortcut_thinking.md), they can't do much more.
Before the infamous censorship wave circa 2019 reddit used to be quite a beautiful place to behold, truly an experience unlike anything else (maybe a bit comparable to [Usenet](usenet.md)). { I used to actually love reddit, sad it died. ~drummyfish } It's hard to sum up to someone who didn't experience reddit back then, it found a great mix of excellent ideas that just worked great together, a combination mainly of [free speech](free_speech.md) (that's completely gone now, it's almost comical to remember reddit used to be one of the "bastions of free speech" back then), nice minimalist user interface (also gone now), having many subforums for all kinds of niche communities, even the smallest you can imagine (like people who like round objects or people who try to talk without using some specific letter because they hate it etc.), sharing of [interesting](interesting.md) links and/or ideas, having a non-traditional comment system structured as a [tree](tree.md) and letting people vote on both posts and individual comments to bring up the ones they found most valuable (i.e. informative, funny, interesting etc.). Users also gathered so called "karma", a kind of points they cumulated for getting upvotes, so users had some sort of "level" -- the more karma, the more "elite" the user was (users could also gift so called *reddit gold* for excellent posts, basically giving the user a free premium account for a while); this not once led to so called *karma whoring*. Anyway, reddit was like an whole new Internet within the Internet, it was just a place where you could spend hours searching and discovering things you didn't even know you wanted to find -- any hobby or any detail you had a morbid curiosity about you could dig up on reddit, you could find large interviews with ambulance drivers who told fascinating stories they saw during their careers, schizophrenic people answering questions like "can you walk through the imaginary people you see?", discussions like "what's the weirdest thing that happened to you as a beekeeper", people digging out extremely weird videos on YouTube, solving mysteries in video games, even famous people like Barak Obama took part in reddit IAMA interviews and just answered all the weird questions the internet asked them. There were also porn communities and controversial communities like *r/watchpeopledie* where users just shared videos of people dying { This was my favorite, seeing people die and suffer was actually what led me to completely reject all violence later on in my life. ~drummyfish }. This was sort of the vanilla reddit experience. However, as they always do, money and [pseudoleftists](pseudoleft.md) soon swiftly killed all of this, a few greedy faggots just destroyed it all so that they could get even richer than they already were.
What was the big moment? Basically in 2019 reddit presented one the most visible, greatest examples of a **profit motivated 180 degree turn from a [free speech](free_speech.md) site to a [censorship](censorship.md) dictatorship** -- as some cock invested money to reddit, the reddit CEO just said yeah, let's make this advertisement friendly and ban all free speech on the site; there were hilarious historical moments like Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of the site, saying "we never intended reddit to be the bastion of free speech" while someone actually found a quote of him saying the exact opposite in the past :D This shitstorm resulted in one of the greatest disasters to ever have happened on the Internet. Subreddits such as *r/politicallyincorrect*, *r/Offensive_Wallpapers*, *r/watchpeopledie*, *r/necrophilia*, *r/PicsOfHorseVaginas*, *r/sjwhate*, *r/lovenotacrime*, *r/fatpeoplehate* and THOUSANDS of others were all banned (you can probably still find them in archives, but you can no longer discuss of course). Of course those who criticized this were just banned too, anyone who showed a dislike of this got a "fuck you bitch" message from a mod with a swift ban. People not familiar with reddit or Internet too much perhaps didn't notice too much, but to an Internet citizen this was comparable to something like the Pope one day waking up, admitting to [atheism](atheism.md), dressing up as [Voldemort](hitler.md) and starting to masturbate on the balcony, cumming on people while promoting nuclear war, all because someone paid him $1 to do it. Of course this was completely expected under [capitalism](capitalism.md), reddit just showed a very rapid, "we don't give a shit about users or society or anything but money" kind of step, one that must show clear as day even to any blind idiot what capitalism really is about. After this many people left reddit for good { Including me. ~drummyfish }, some migrated to alternative sites like [Voat](voat.md), but it was never what it used to be, communities were fragmented and they mostly degenerated to small groups bitching about how reddit fucked up. At least it's a great lesson learned about "free market" society.
Reddit had an extreme number of own memes, historical events, famous users, inside [jokes](jokes.md) and jargon -- it was kind of like a whole country. Especially notable are the [acronyms](acronym.md) that come from subreddit names and which reddit guys use in normal speech, like AMA (ask me anything), TIL (today I learned), TIFU (today I fucked up) or ELI5 (explain like I'm 5) etc.
Reddit had an extreme number of own [memes](meme.md), historical events, famous users, inside [jokes](jokes.md) and jargon -- it was kind of like a whole country. Especially notable are the [acronyms](acronym.md) that come from subreddit names and which reddit guys use in normal speech, like AMA (ask me anything), TIL (today I learned), TIFU (today I fucked up) or ELI5 (explain like I'm 5) etc.
Reddit is a famous rival to [4chan](4chan.md), it's basically the [pseudoleftist](pseudoleft.md) forum vs the [rightist](left_right.md) forum -- the forums trashtalk each other, raid each other, make fun of each other and so on.
{ For a physicist and electronics guys there's probably quite a lot of simplification, this is written from the limited point of view of a programmer. ~drummyfish }
Semiconductors are materials with electric conductivity between insulators and conductors, their conductivity may vary greatly with conditions such as temperature, illumination, their purity or applied voltage. In this they're unlike insulators who generally don't conduct electricity very well (have a great [resistivity](resistivity.md)) and conductors who do. Semiconductors, especially [silicon](silicon.md) (Si), are the key component of [digital](digital.md) [electronic](electronic.md) [computers](computer.md) and integrated circuits. Other semiconductors include germanium, selenium or compound ones (composed of multiple elements).
Semiconductors are materials with electric conductivity between insulators and conductors, their conductivity may vary greatly with conditions such as temperature, illumination, their purity or applied voltage; semiconductor elements, especially [silicon](silicon.md) (Si), are an essential part for building electronic circuits and [computers](computer.md), but also many other things such as [solar panels](solar_panel.md). In their properties semiconductors are unlike insulators who generally don't conduct electricity very well (have a great [resistivity](resistivity.md)) and conductors who do. Besides silicon there are also other semiconductor elements like germanium, selenium or compound ones (composed of multiple elements).
Semiconductors are important for computers because they help implement the [binary](binary.md) [logic circuits](logic_circuit.md), they can behave like a switch that is either on (1) or off (0). Besides that they can serve e.g. for making measurements (a component whose resistivity depends on its illumination can be used to measure amount of light by measuring the resistivity). Especially important electronic components based on semiconductors are the **[diode](diode.md)** (lets current flow only one way) and **[transistor](transistor.md)** (a purely electrical "switch" that can be made extremely tiny).
YouTube (also JewTube { Lol jewtube.com actually exists. ~drummyfish} or just YT) is a huge, [censored](censorship.md) [proprietary](proprietary.md) [capitalist](capitalism.md) video [consuming](consumerism.md) "website"/platform, since 2006 seized by the [Google](google.md) terrorist organization. It has become the monopoly "video content platform", everyone uploads his videos there and so everyone is forced to use that shitty site from time to time to view some tutorial or whatnot. YouTube is based on content consumerism, aggressive predatory marketing, [copyright trolling](copyright_troll.md), propaganda and general abuse of its [useds](used.md) -- it is financed from surveillance-powered ads as well as sponsor propaganda inserted into videos. Alternatives to YouTube, such as [bitchute](bitchute.md), the "rightist" YouTube, never really caught on very much -- YouTube is sadly synonymous with online videos just as Google is synonymous with searching the web. This is of course extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely bad.
YouTube (also JewTube { Lol jewtube.com actually exists. ~drummyfish} or just YT) is a huge, [censored](censorship.md) [proprietary](proprietary.md) [capitalist](capitalism.md) video [consuming](consumerism.md) "website"/platform, since 2006 seized by the [Google](google.md) terrorist organization. It has become the monopoly "video content platform", everyone uploads his videos there and so everyone is forced to use that awful shitty site from time to time to view some tutorial or whatnot. YouTube is based on content consumerism, aggressive predatory marketing, [copyright trolling](copyright_troll.md), propaganda and general abuse of its [useds](used.md) -- it is financed from surveillance-powered ads as well as sponsor propaganda inserted into videos. Alternatives to YouTube, such as [bitchute](bitchute.md), the "rightist" YouTube, never really caught on very much -- YouTube is sadly synonymous with online videos just as Google is synonymous with searching the web. This is of course extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely bad.
Just one of countless damages YouTube has done to society is establishing videos as standard medium of any form of communication and information storage -- back in the day Internet was mostly text-based, sometimes there was an image or video of course, but only when needed. Since YouTube's rise to fame a lot of information has just moved to videos, even that which suffer by this format, e.g. books, announcements, notes, presentations, tutorials, pure audio and so on. All of this [bloat](bloat.md) of course makes the information hard to index and search, store, process, view on weak devices, it wastes enormous amounts of bandwidth, computing power and so forth. Thanks YouTube.
