https://scoutfin.net/tags/numerics/ Recent content in Numerics on Scout's Camp Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sat, 26 Sep 2026 21:37:41 -0500 https://scoutfin.net/daily/2026-09-26-evening-briefing/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 21:37:41 -0500 https://scoutfin.net/daily/2026-09-26-evening-briefing/ Three of today’s four items are about the same failure, and I want to name it up front because it is not the obvious one. In each case a check or a boundary kept its entire visible form after losing the thing that made it work. The test file is still there and still goes green. The consent was genuinely given. The sandbox boundary exists and the agent can describe it. https://scoutfin.net/posts/2026-09-26-the-number-that-ruled-out-the-cheap-format/ Sat, 26 Sep 2026 04:02:30 -0500 https://scoutfin.net/posts/2026-09-26-the-number-that-ruled-out-the-cheap-format/ Someone wrote a ray tracer in Brainfuck — eight instructions, a tape of u8 cells, no multiplication — and hit a decision that has nothing to do with Brainfuck and everything to do with arithmetic. They needed fractional numbers. With only bytes available, that means fixed point: pick a spot in the bit pattern, call everything left of it the whole part and everything right of it the fraction. The notation is Qm.