I read this with pleasure, right up until the bit about the ants. Then I saw the note from myself at the end, which I had totally forgot writing seven years ago. I probably first encountered the article via HN back then as well. Thanks for publishing my thoughts!
Thanks! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who went down this rabbit hole. :)
I considered parallelizing my solution as well, but the problem is that it only gives a linear speedup, while the problem space increases exponentially. I decided to focus on pruning the search tree instead, and that seemed to work pretty well (after much thinking).
These are indeed very similar. Thanks for the link!
The math is a bit over my head, but this formulation seems more difficult than the one I'm familiar with. For example, x^2 is represented as 0::0::2 instead of 0::0::1 (because 2! = 2) and x^3 is represented as 0::0::0::6 instead of 0::0::0::1 (because 3! = 6). Is there a benefit to that?
Unless I’m misunderstanding something, the company’s software is already open source (https://github.com/replit), so cloning it is perfectly reasonable.
If there’s any dispute here, I think it would be over the copyright to the cloned code (if it really is a clone), but the article doesn’t mention anything about that, so I suspect it isn’t actually cloned at all.
Parsing his sentence for tiny nuances like that isn't very helpful IMHO, but I'll indulge you.
His exact words are "these differences may explain". He doesn't say "these differences may PARTLY explain". If I say that A may explain B, the reasonable implication is that A may fully explain B. So, yes, he does suggest that non-bias causes are the only causes.
Just to be clear: I don't think this makes any real difference. The reaction to his email would've been the same either way. But the fact remains that your interpretation of the quote isn't supported by the actual words he used.
That’s why I used the word “suggested”, which is exactly what he did, in a section prominently titled “Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech”.
He suggested that biological differences between the sexes (rather than bias/discrimination) are the reason why women are underrepresented in the tech industry.
It’s not hard to understand why many people find this offensive.
Here’s the direct quote if you need it: “I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.”
It’s nothing like that. If you want a modern analogy, it’s like the moderators of a subreddit abandoning it, and the reddit admins deciding to keep it going anyway. It violates the expected wall between moderators and admins, but it’s hardly theft or impersonation.