End the War on Freedom

By Tim Donner

It’s been said that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, and that truth is often in the eye of the beholder. Such is the case with one Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky. As a consistent thorn in the side of his own party, particularly President Donald Trump and Speaker of the […]

By Liberty Nation Authors

In this week’s edition of Liberty Nation Radio, we talk about reciprocal tariffs and the seed of a peace plan in Europe. For more episodes, click here.

By James Fite

New US Attorney General Pam Bondi has teased America with the release of something huge in connection to Jeffrey Epstein. So far, she has not delivered. Bondi told Fox’s Jesse Watters on Wednesday, February 26, that she had 200 pages on her desk for review and that it would “make you sick.” She even called […]

For day 17, we are emulating a small processor. The processor has 4 registers, a, b, and c, and a program counter. The program is an array of instructions, each of which is an integer.

;;; -*- Lisp -*-

(in-package "ADVENT2024/DAY17")

(defstruct (machine
            (:type vector)
            (:conc-name machine/))
  (pc 0)
  a
  b
  c
  (program (vector) :read-only t))

To read a machine from the input file, we build a keyword argument list for the MAKE-MACHINE function and then apply the function:

(defun read-machine (filename)
  (apply #’make-machine
         (collect-append
          (choose
           (#M(lambda (line)
                (cond ((str:starts-with? "Register A:" line)
                       (list :a (parse-integer (subseq line 11))))
                      ((str:starts-with? "Register B:" line)
                       (list :b (parse-integer (subseq line 11))))
                      ((str:starts-with? "Register C:" line)
                       (list :c (parse-integer (subseq line 11))))
                      ((str:starts-with? "Program:" line)
                       (list :program (collect ’vector
                                        (choose
                                         (#Mdigit-char-p
                                          (scan ’string (subseq line 9)))))))
                      (t nil)))
              (scan-file filename #’read-line))))))

To run the machine, we sit in a loop, reading the instruction at the program counter, and then using an ECASE to dispatch to the appropriate operation. We symbol-macrolet the parts of an instruction so that instructions appear to be simple assignments.

(defun run-machine (machine)
  (symbol-macrolet ((a  (machine/a machine))
                    (b  (machine/b machine))
                    (c  (machine/c machine))
                    (pc (machine/pc machine))
                    (program (machine/program machine))
                    (immediate (svref program (1+ pc)))
                    (argument (ecase immediate
                                (0 0)
                                (1 1)
                                (2 2)
                                (3 3)
                                (4 a)
                                (5 b)
                                (6 c)))
                    (next-instruction (progn (incf pc 2)
                                             (iter))))

    (let ((output ’()))
      (let iter ()
        (if (>= pc (length program))
            (reverse output)
            (ecase (svref program pc)
              (0 (setf a (truncate a (expt 2 argument))) next-instruction)
              (1 (setf b (logxor b immediate))           next-instruction)
              (2 (setf b (mod argument 8))               next-instruction)

              (3
               (if (zerop a)
                   next-instruction
                   (progn
                     (setf pc immediate)
                     (iter))))

              (4 (setf b (logxor b c))                   next-instruction)
              (5 (push (mod argument 8) output)          next-instruction)
              (6 (setf b (truncate a (expt 2 argument))) next-instruction)
              (7 (setf c (truncate a (expt 2 argument))) next-instruction)))))))

For part 1, we simply run the machine as given in the input file and print the output as comma separated integers:

(defun part-1 ()
  (format nil "~{~d~^,~}" 
    (run-machine (read-machine (input-pathname)))))

For part 2, we seek an initial value of the A register that will cause the machine to output its own program. We search for the value of A one digit at a time:

(defun get-machine-state (machine)
  (list (machine/pc machine)
        (machine/a machine)
        (machine/b machine)
        (machine/c machine)))

(defun set-machine-state! (machine state)
  (setf (machine/pc machine) (first state)
        (machine/a machine) (second state)
        (machine/b machine) (third state)
        (machine/c machine) (fourth state)))

(defun try-machine (machine state input-a)
  (set-machine-state! machine state)
  (setf (machine/a machine) input-a)
  (run-machine machine))

(defun pad-terms (terms size)
  (revappend (make-list (- size (length terms)) :initial-element 0) terms))

(defun from-octal (octal-digits)
  (fold-left (lambda (n digit) (+ (* n 8) digit)) 0 (reverse octal-digits)))

(defun part-2 ()
  (let* ((machine (read-machine (input-pathname)))
         (initial-state (get-machine-state machine))
         (target (machine/program machine)))
    (let term-loop ((terms ’())
                    (index (1- (length target))))
      (if (= index -1)
          (from-octal terms)
          (let digit-loop ((digit 0))
            (if (> digit 7)
                (error "No solution")
                (let* ((padded (pad-terms (cons digit terms) (length target)))
                       (output (try-machine machine initial-state (from-octal padded))))
                  (if (and (= (length output) (length target))
                           (= (elt output index) (svref target index)))
                      (term-loop (cons digit terms) (1- index))
                      (digit-loop (1+ digit))))))))))

The outer iteration in part-2 is over the program instructions. If the index is -1, we have found the solution. Otherwise, we iterate over the digits 0-7, trying each one in turn. We pad the terms with zeros to make an octal input number, run the machine, and check the output. If the output matches the target, we move to the next term. Otherwise, we increment the digit.

By Liberty Nation Authors

DOJ’s Epstein Files Release Is a Flop It was a disappointing day for those who were hoping for hard information. “The Justice Department released a handful of files on notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday – though there appear to be no new names or details,” The New York Post reports. More Today?: “The info […]

By Tom Stiglich

Fun conservative cartoons daily.

By Liberty Nation Authors

Something to ponder over your morning coffee.

By Liberty Nation Authors

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Two weeks into his job leading the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday stopped production of the latest COVID-19 vaccine, from U.S. biotech company, Vaxart. The vaccine had been greenlit under the Biden administration. The news was first reported on Fox. “While it is crucial that the Department [of] Health and Human Services (HHS) support pandemic preparedness, four years of the Biden administration’s failed oversight have made it necessary to review agreements for vaccine production, including Vaxart’s,” Kennedy told Fox News Digital. Kennedy said that pausing the work order on the experiment was necessary … Continue reading →

The post HHS Secretary Kennedy Halts Clinical Trials of Experimental, Multi-million Dollar COVID-19 Vaccine appeared first on LewRockwell.

The New York Times reports (archived) that “Ukraine has agreed to turn over the revenue from some of its mineral resources to the United States”. Ukraine will get nothing of value in return for it. The (former) Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski is expected to visit the White House of Friday to submit to the extraordinary extortion of his country. The deal is imposed indentured servitude at scale: a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract called an “indenture”, may be entered voluntarily for a prepaid lump sum, as payment for some good or … Continue reading →

The post Ukraine – Minerals Deal Agreement, Lavrov Rejects Peacekeepers, War Destined To Become Trump’s Vietnam appeared first on LewRockwell.

Eighty-nine years ago this month, the film Modern Times, starring Charlie Chaplin, was released. Considered one of the greatest movies ever, it was a comedic but savage critique of industrial capitalism and a prescient indictment of the alienated modern life to come, as Chaplin’s character, the Little Tramp, worked on an assembly line where he suffered a nervous breakdown from the stress and repetitive nature of the work. But the film ends on a hopeful note, as the Little Tramp and his beloved Ellen hit the road and walk away from the mechanized life. It is a poetic call to replace … Continue reading →

The post Modern Times and Ancient Truths appeared first on LewRockwell.

Pestilence, Famine, War and Death; the Apocalyptic Horsemen of prophecy gallop over the planet; a purely predictable downside result of population ecology! ….Or we can just pretend that technology will save us, that food and water will simply fall from the cloud, or that our soulless selfish elites have not been working for decades to dispose of billions of deplorables? Lessons from the Wild Look at animal populations that outgrow available food supplies and lose the predator/prey balance. The onset of famine and disease will usually first wipe out prey animals,..then the predators who rely on them. Sometimes man, as … Continue reading →

The post Population Bomb; Hear It Exploding? appeared first on LewRockwell.

UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer is looking to pitch the plan to Donald Trump, masking it under the “readiness to deploy British troops as a security guarantee for a free, sovereign and democratic Ukraine”. However, as Moscow is perfectly clear that it won’t tolerate any NATO occupation forces, this proposal makes no sense – unless Starmer is trying everything in his power to sabotage an actual peace deal, just like Boris Johnson did back in 2022. As the strategic irrelevance of the dying European Union becomes more evident with every passing day, the troubled bloc is desperate to remain relevant, posing … Continue reading →

The post EU/NATO Keeps Poking the Bear, Still Wants Troops in Ukraine appeared first on LewRockwell.

Apparently, I’m a Catholic fundamentalist. At least, that’s the assessment of Boston College theology professor Fr. Mark S. Massa, S.J. In his recent book Catholic Fundamentalism in America (Oxford University Press), Massa warns of the threat of Catholic fundamentalists, who “combine a sectarian understanding of religion with an aggressive anti-progressive stance.” He highlights in particular seven individuals and movements “that embody the Catholic fundamentalist impulse,” and one of those case studies is me as the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. In a chapter entitled, “On the Dangers of Swimming the Tiber: Crisis Magazine and the Premillennialist Embrace of Catholicism,” Massa takes special chagrin at my Protestant … Continue reading →

The post Confessions of a Catholic Fundamentalist appeared first on LewRockwell.

The new, “Woke” Left has entirely taken over my old party, the Democrats. There literally isn’t a single Democratic Party elected official who is redeemable in the least. They are all irrational devotees of Identity Politics, where emotion rules instead of reason. They are authoritarians in pink gloves, tattoos, and multi-colored hair. In 1975, at about the time of my political awakening, there were a lot of younger Democrats in Congress, elected in a post-Watergate tidal wave. The Freedom of Information Act was passed, and the hearings chaired by Senator Frank Church first shone light on the CIA’s nefarious activities, … Continue reading →

The post The Left Has Left the Building appeared first on LewRockwell.

I feel constrained to continue the theme of what I wrote in this column last week. Most Americans are not paying attention (there’s nothing new about that, of course), but this is especially true of political conservatives and religious evangelicals. But the impending introduction of Elon Musk’s technocratic-dominated governmental system being launched under Donald Trump is more dangerous than almost any of us realize. I am going to refer often to a fascinating treatise—with the title that I borrowed for this column—written by Ira Basen in 2021. He begins: On Oct. 13, 1940, a Regina chiropractor named Joshua Haldeman appeared … Continue reading →

The post In Science We Trust appeared first on LewRockwell.

The Sunni radicals that have taken over Syria are demanding that all Israeli forces must leave Syrian territory.  On the other side, the IDF is hammering military targets in southern Syria with a blistering wave of airstrikes, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that any military forces aligned with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham will not be allowed south of Damascus.  Do you understand what this means?  It means that Damascus is now right on the front lines of a conflict between Israel and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that is rapidly heating up.  If all-out war erupts, Damascus is likely to be … Continue reading →

The post Is The Stage Being Set for Damascus To Be Utterly Destroyed and Turned Into a Heap of Ruins? appeared first on LewRockwell.