ExLisper

Hi all,

Some time ago I've been thinking about a programming challenge that's not simply another HackerRank style algorithm task and came up with something that I myself had a lot of fun solving. It goes like this:

We have a well known function (as in I didn't come up with it):

 function xoshiro128ss(a, b, c, d) {
                return function() {
                    var t = b << 9, r = b * 5; r = (r << 7 | r >>> 25) * 9;
                    c ^= a; 
                    d ^= b;
                    b ^= c; 
                    a ^= d; 
                    c ^= t;
                    d = d << 11 | d >>> 21;
                    
                    return (r >>> 0) / 4294967296;
                }
            }  

We initialize it with 4 random parameters a,b,c,d (that I selected) :

  let rnd = xoshiro128ss(a, b, c, d);

and we do:

  let rand1 = rnd();
  let rand2 = rnd();
  let rand3 = rnd();
  let rand4 = rnd();

Knowing that:

rand1 == 0.38203435111790895
rand2 == 0.5012949781958014
rand3 == 0.5278898433316499
rand4 == 0.5114834443666041

What are the values of a,b,c and d?

I was wandering if it's possible to figure it out and couldn't stop trying until I did. It was an interesting journey and I learned some new things along the way Maybe someone else here will also have fun with it. As for prizes, I don't know... whoever posts the right answer first gets an upvote and eternal fame.

What essential skills/knowledge would you say are/is required to work as a Rust dev?

I did couple of small/mediumish personal projects in Rust using axum with sea-orm and later tauri with leptos. That's on top of many years of experience working as a Java/Javascript dev and occasionally touching things like Python or Flutter. Most of things like databases and web stuff is transferable but what strictly Rust concepts are required to work as a Rust dev? In what fields it's used the most?

I just finished watching 'Bodies' and we have to agree on one thing:

Timecrimes is the only proper time travel movie ever made.

Spoilers below...

Every other movie either tries to take time travel seriously (Primer, Minority report, Travelers) and fails by creating paradoxes or takes it lightly (Back to the future, Hot tub time machine, Groundhog day) and is not a real SciFi movie. Timecrimes is the only perfect loop and hence the only movie that avoid paradoxes. And what a loop at that. The reveal is just perfectly timed giving away each detail step by step. You basically figure it out together with the protagonist and watch him change his decisions as he realizes what's going on. The loop is the entire point of the movie and that's the only proper way to do it.

Bodies was close but of course they had to add a happy ending there and break the loop in the last episode which was pretty weak.

Timecrimes forever.

That's all I had to say. Thank you.

Haven't seen any posts about this and it's a pretty big thing. From DMA website:

Examples of the “do’s”: gatekeepers will for example have to:

• allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services in certain specific situations;
• provide companies advertising on their platform with the tools and information necessary for advertisers and publishers to carry out their own independent verification of their advertisements hosted by the gatekeeper;
• allow their business users to promote their offer and conclude contracts with their customers outside the gatekeeper’s platform.

Example of the “don'ts”: gatekeepers will for example no longer:

• treat services and products offered by the gatekeeper itself more favourably in ranking than similar services or products offered by third parties on the gatekeeper's platform;
• prevent users from un-installing any pre-installed software or app if they wish so;
• track end users outside of the gatekeepers' core platform service for the purpose of targeted advertising, without effective consent having been granted.

We'll see how this plays out but this is first move in a very long time that could open up platform like WhatsApp to 3rd party clients and force Google and Apple to open their mobile OSes to other apps. Maybe we'll see stock Android without play services? One can dream...

P.S. https://digital-markets-act-cases.ec.europa.eu - page about the legislation

Hi all,

Recommend me a game! I'm looking for something casual (to play for 20-30 minutes from time to time), challenging (like in difficult to master), not super complicated (I don't want to spend hours learning all the rules), but not super simple (when it's too repetitive the patters get ingrained in my brain. anyone else has this?), cheap (don't want to spend $30 on a game I will play from time to time). Must work on Linux and on an integrated GPU. Games I enjoyed previously:

• Fistful of Frags
• smashcarts.io
• xevil

What I did a lot years ago was to play single levels of games over and over until I totally crashed it even if I wasn't that interested in the entire game. I guess what I like most is figuring out the smallest details of a game, not getting into long campaigns.

So, what can I play?

Edit: Thanks for all recommendations so far but I see I need to add one more requirement: no levels. I'm looking for something quick, in and out, skirmish, death match, melee type of game. Not something where you build a character, solve puzzles and so on.