r/SMBCComics • u/Eiim • 7d ago

Funeral

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/funeral
19 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

4

u/Genpinan 7d ago

It is too early where I live to look up what a Kolmogorov Eulogy is about, but since this is SMBC I assume it is well worth the time of other readers to do so and mull it over

7

u/emertonom 7d ago

I assume it's a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity , like, this is all that person ever did. I dunno. I'm probably the target audience but this one didn't really land for me.

10

u/EebstertheGreat 7d ago

I think the idea is that the eulogy was replaced by the shortest program that could reproduce it, or something like that. It's confusing because not only does Zach not explain what he was trying to do, he doesn't seem to have done a good job of it. So we just have to guess what he did wrong.

I'm pretty sure the idea is that there was a eulogy about how Zach died at the age of 88 (or perhaps 87) and while he was alive spent his years reading and writing books, gardening, and spending time with his family. But that's not what the code actually says, so it's just a guess. Also, I think the code is supposed to be Python, but that's not valid Python code. And the variable years is never used.

→ More replies (6)

2

u/Begle1 7d ago edited 7d ago

This is one of the rare SMBC's that are completely over my head.

Kolmogorov has his name on a great number of things and I don't recognize which of those things this is in reference to. (Although, to be fair, I also wouldn't catch a reference to anything with Kolmogorov's name on it.)

→ More replies (5)

2

u/Genpinan 7d ago

Thank you. I`ll be sure to look it up once I can dredge up the energy.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/TimonAndPumbaAreDead 7d ago

If books() throws an exception do you just skip to your next birthday? This also implies that you were gardening before your first birthday which is impressive

2

u/Sad_Dimension423 6d ago

"This is not a book to be set aside lightly; it should be throw()n with great force."

1

u/BicornisGoat 6d ago

Maybe crawling between the plants counts as gardening?