Hrvoje's blog

Disregarding the sensationalistic title of the BBC Earth video on youtube, I was very impressed by the work of scientists from The Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, described here  Chimp vs Human! | Memory Test | BBC Earth  .  First thing that came to my mind was the question how did they manage to do it? Note that a chimpanzee does not have to actually understand the meaning of each particular symbol with respect to integer quantity it represents, in order to perform this task, but it has to understand exactly and precisely the order of symbols. If I were to teach a chimpanzee the order of arabic numerals, by using a computer with a touch screen and a reward deliverer interface, my program would first display the numerals in a fully ordered fashion that is easily followed even by humans, which are surprisingly inferior to chimpanzees in this exercise. For example, in a horizontal line from left to right in a strictly ascending order, if touched sequentia...

My view is that there are a few fundamentally different methods by which people try to investigate reality and conclude something about it, that they hope is true. The produced statement is usually expressed in a natural language, however not always is that necessarily the best way of conveying the truth. These are science, philosophy, religion and art. Religion is based on faith, while science is based on doubt. For instance, one can religiously believe that his wife will not cheat on him, regardless of temptations, because she loves him, but he will probably not conduct experiments conciously to test that theory. Or, one can religiously believe that his parents always had his best interests in mind, when they made desicions for him. Or that his children will be there for him when he will need them, just as he was there when they needed him. Or that they will contribute to society by doing their jobs, just as much as he did all his life. Doubting such things probably is not a good way...

  Tražeći bezuspješno po Istri adekvatnu nekretninu već duže vremena kako bih je kupio za odmor i eventualno iznajmljivanje, angažirao sam pritom poveći broj posredničkih agencija. Kako god bi neku nekretninu koja me zainteresirala nudila neka nova agencija s kojom dotad nisam poslovao, ja bih s njenim agentom zaduženim za dotični predmet sklopio posrednički ugovor. Pri tome sam se susreo s izvjesnim brojem ponuda koje su meni kao laiku djelovale nezakonito, te s činjenicom da velika većina agencija, negdje između 98 i 99 posto ukupnog broja, barem onih u Istri i Zagrebu, posreduje u predmetima kao agent obje strane. Budući da sam u tome vidio sukob interesa, koji je umjesto iznimke postao pravilo koje korumpira jednu cijelu privrednu djelatnost, uzrokujući direktno spomenute nezakonitosti, to me ponukalo da malo proučim sljedeće tekstove, sljedećim redom: Zakon o posredovanju u prometu nekretnina   Zakon o sprječavanju sukoba interesa   SUKOB INTERESA U PRIVATNOM SEKTORU...

  Did you ever notice how an artistic explanation can sometimes be superior to any scientific or philosophical one, and therefore more enjoyable and fun? This week ABBA published a new album named Voyage, after a forty years long sabbatical, during which me and the rest of the world who admires them could only pray to God for this to happen.  Although all songs are brilliant, to me Bumblebee stands out for the ecological theme of its lyrics, expressing anxiety about the possibility that humans can cause the extinction of this insect species. I will spare my words by not trying to describe the magic of their music, suffice it to say they are the reason why I love music, and that I will never forget the moment I first heard Super Trouper, forty years ago, played on a brand new stereo device my parents bought so that their children could learn to love music and better socialize through that. The transformation which that beautiful song sung by beautiful ladies produced in me was ...

  Let us first postulate the problem of abiogenesis, what is it exactly? If one reads popular science articles such as this one  https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/spontaneous-generation/ one might get confused by a sentence such as this one: >>“Spontaneous generation” was the idea that living organisms can spring into existence from non-living matter.<< Being written by superficial evangelists of science of today, it is no wonder that it poses a question, at least to a reader who is not a native English speaker, how come was abiogenesis possible then, if that idea is wrong, and what does that sentence mean at all? To convey anything meaningful, it obviously relies heavily on the distinct meaning of the phrase "spring into existence", vs "come into existence", or "arise". The difference is that it means "arise suddenly", but the precise meaning of the word "suddenly", in that context was not given. Wikipedia article htt...

As soon as I wrote my previous essay, I realized there are several points that require correction or further explication.  First, I checked if Stockfish would use against me the same strategy that I described for KRK and KQK, and saw that it does not, which proves I was wrong when I supposed that there are no correct strategies which are substantially different from those I described. It turns out there are, and they are faster in delivering checkmate, especially when starting position is with BK in the center and WK in the corner. The basic difference is that I assumed BK must be squeezed from the center to some edge by pushing it away from WK, by taking immediately under control the line that separates kings, using the major piece, while the engine is not afraid to push BK towards WK, and save that way a few moves needed for WK to approach BK. Second, precise and concise language in which rigorous proofs are written is known to be math. Describing KRK endgame concept mathematical...