John Khoo

Catholic. Husband and father. Glad semi-trad. Quantum information, cryptography, embedded systems, open source software. Will pray for your intentions.

[John Khoo @jtacktf]

"It is impossible that scandals should not come: but woe to him through whom they come. It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalise one of these little ones." Do we heed these words of Our Lord? 1/8

[John Khoo @jtacktf]

@OVTweetmarck We will love each other in heaven more than we love our spouses here on earth, but we will love our spouses in heaven even more still.

[Jonathan Gorard @getjonwithit]

New paper!

What if you could guarantee (using a mix of formal verification and PDE theory) that a neural network would *always* give you the correct answer, even when making inferences arbitrarily far away from the training data?

Introducing BEACONS. arXiv link below. (1/15)

[Joseph Zen @CardJosephZen]

恭賀新禧
祝大家 馬年
家中 主恩常佑、恩寵滿盈，
人人 身體健康、龍馬精神。

願上主的慈顏光照你，仁慈待你，
願上主轉面垂顧你，賜你平安。(戶6:24-26）
上主保護你出外，保護你回來，
從現在起，一直到永遠的世代。（詠121:8）

Happy Lunar New Year!
Wishing everyone in the year of horse:
May your homes be filled with the Lord’s constant grace and abundant blessings,
and may each of you enjoy good health and vitality.

May the Lord let His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
may the Lord turn His countenance toward you and grant you peace. (Numbers 6:24–26)
May the Lord guard you as you go out and as you return,
from now on and for evermore. （Psalm 121:8）#LunarNewYear #Horse #blessings #GodBless

[Tzvetan Mikov @tmikov]

The cope about Claude's C compiler continues:
- "it can't even compile hello world!" (because it can't find all headers)
- "it was trained on existing compilers!" (whereas I, a human, wasn't?)

It is funny to watch. One has to be in complete denial in order to claim that what was demonstrated is unimpressive. It doesn't mean models are ready to write whole innovative compilers. But, heck, it is impressive!

OTOH, people are rightfully concerned that our job is starting to automate itself out of existence. I just don't see how denial helps...

[Acer @AcerFur]

shoutout to my favourite MSE comment to date

[Grǣġhama @grahamscheper]

The word “gazebo” is a learned joke which originated in the 1700s and is now widely unknown… can you guess it?

A handful of Latin verbs form their future case by adding -bō to the stem vowel, like “amābō” (I will love) and “vidēbō” (I will see). Occasionally, this forms nouns in English, like “lavābō” (I will wash) -> MnE lavabo, which can mean a washbasin or a bathroom.

Someone apparently thought it would be funny to call this structure a “gazebo”, slapping the Latin future ending onto a Germanic English word (gaze) and making a joke name, which theoretically would mean “I will gaze” in Latin.

In the 18th century, the average person rich enough to own a gazebo had at least some Latin education and would get the joke. Nowadays… not so much.

[Find me on bsky @colin-fraser.net @colin_fraser]

I hate this age

[Catholic Waluigi @BolonelSanders]

@StuffForSisters Granted, there have only ever been 4 popes who were capable of watching Die Hard. Not counting the ones in Heaven, who undoubtedly watch Die Hard at the heavenly cineplex with all the other saints every Christmas.

[Thoughts on Tolkien @tolkienthoughts]

In 1936, Tolkien published a Christmas poem called "Noel" in the annual journal of a Catholic school near Oxford. For about 80 years the text of the poem was lost to history until Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull visited the school and found it in the archives. Here is the poem:

[John Khoo @jtacktf]

@OVTweetmarck And cryo-preserve the rest. Got it boss

[Ted ☦️🐒 @Tawadros15]

Silent Night the most popular Christmas song in the world was written by an Austrian Catholic priest in 1818 because his organ broke on Christmas Eve and he needed music for the Mass. It was originally played on guitar that night without an organ.

[John Khoo @jtacktf]

@pegobry_en Developing a taboo against passing AI slop off as one's writing was a precondition for developing such an advanced civilisation

[owen cyclops @owenbroadcast]

first day of advent

[Edward Feser @FeserEdward]

We need an ex cathedra condemnation!

[Matt Swaim @mattswaim]

And Jesus said to him, You lack one thing: Go, close all of your tabs, and you will have treasure in heaven.

But his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had a great many open tabs.

[John Khoo @jtacktf]

@LendHopeNothing What are you trying to index on? DM me, I'm a programmer and can help

[John Khoo @jtacktf]

@hillbillythings @catholicrob Be careful, the statements from Rome have been ambiguous at best and, at worst, require mental gymnastics to arrive at the conclusion that it fulfills the obligation in general. IMO, a sensible bar for "nowhere to go" is that available options harm your faith/rship with God.