# Some Fun Software Facts

DevFeed: [Some Fun Software Facts](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/some-fun-software-facts-25505.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://buttondown.com/hillelwayne/archive/some-fun-software-facts/>)

Author: Hillel Wayne

Published: 2025-12-10T18:45:37Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Newsletter feed for Hillel Wayne's Newsletter](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/newsletter-feed-for-hillel-wayne-s-newsletter.md>)

Topics: [Software](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software.md>), [Algorithms, Complexity](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/algorithms-complexity.md>), [Simulation](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/simulation.md>), [ASCII](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ascii.md>), [Vim](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/vim.md>), [Cloudflare](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cloudflare.md>)

Tags: [algorithms](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/algorithms.md>), [ascii](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ascii.md>), [cloudflare](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cloudflare.md>), [simulation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/simulation.md>), [software](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software.md>), [vim](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vim.md>)

## AI overview

A year-end newsletter shares miscellaneous software facts, including a Game of Life implementation of Tetris, leap-second handling, Vim's computational capabilities, ASCII history, impractical faster algorithms, Cloudflare's lava-lamp randomness, and historical sorting-algorithm details.

## Source excerpt

Last newsletter of the year! First some news on Logic for Programmers. Thanks to everyone who donated to the feedchicago charity drive! In total we raised $2250 for Chicago food banks. Proof here. If you missed buying Logic for Programmers real cheap in the charity drive, you can still get it for $10 off with the holiday code hannukah-presents. This will last from now until the end of the year. After that, I'll be raising the price from $25 to $30. Anyway, to make this more than just some record keeping, let's close out with something light. I'm one of those people who loves hearing "fun facts" about stuff. So here's some random fun facts I accumulated about software over the years: In 2017, a team of eight+ programmers successfully implemented Tetris as a game of life simulation. The GoL grid had an area of 30 trillion pixels and implemented a full programmable CPU as part of the project. Computer systems have to deal with leap seconds in order to keep UTC (where one day is 86,400 seconds) in sync with UT1 (where one day is exactly one full earth rotation). The people in charge recently passed a resolution to abolish the leap second by 2035, letting UTC and UT1 slowly drift out of sync. Vim is Turing complete. The backslash character basically didn't exist in writing before 1930, and was only added to ASCII so mathematicians (and ALGOLists) could write /\ and \/. It's popular use in computing stems entirely from being a useless key on the keyboard. Galactic Algorithms are algorithms that are theoretically faster than algorithms we use, but only at scales that make them impractical. For example, matrix multiplication of NxN is normally O(N^2.81). The Coppersmith Winograd algorithm is O(N^2.38), but is so complex that it's vastly slower for even 10,000 x 10,000 matrices. It's still interesting in advancing our mathematical understanding of algorithms! Cloudflare generates random numbers by, in part, taking pictures of 100 lava lamps. Mergesort is older than bubblesor