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I'll just leave this right here.

If only higher math was useful. Just seems like a giant circle jerk.

I, very strongly, recommend consulting Abstruse Goose. Be sure to check the hover text:

There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world.

I'll just leave this here.

reminds me a bit of this: http://abstrusegoose.com/533

It's still 60% above what it was on 7th July... but doesn't seem to be done plummeting yet.

Just let them get Wii U Zelda out before folding, eh?

Here's something for graph fans, since there wasn't one of the share price:

http://abstrusegoose.com/191

As somebody who sits in front of a computer most of the day...

http://abstrusegoose.com/354

This one was horrifyingly accurate when I first found it.

http://abstrusegoose.com/323

May be that it is ok as long as biohackers are trained as scientists; see at the bench and death ray.

PS I understand that you judge (scientific) biohackers by you, (engineering) computerhackers ;-)

Graph

http://abstrusegoose.com/570

If the authors of computer programming books wrote arithmetic textbooks.

RIP Abstruse Goose

Let's hope this approach works better than the current state of the art.

"Hey Baby! My space-time curvature deviates from the standard model... wanna come back to my place and distort physics??"

Go for it, but be careful what you say about your partner's space-time curvature.

Reminds me of this.

Indeed.

http://abstrusegoose.com/395

Right on point! Over population is the cause of most of our current misery and very few people are even capable of thinking it out. Pollution is a result of human activity by definition. Nature does not pollute itself.

http://abstrusegoose.com/strip...

The greater the population the higher the level of pollution. The need to feed the mutitudes has reduced our oceans to near death. Our lands are exhausted and loaded with the chemicals required to feed the population. It is a spiral staircase to doom or hell on Earth.

Hyperbole much?

Yet over population will not be halted by individuals being self regulating. It can only be controlled by vigorous legal sanctions. Yet no politician can touch anything resembling the idea of population control by law and regulation as political doom would be heaped upon him.

Perhaps. The real problem is that humans have become just too damn good at surviving. To the point where even the weaker of us survive and reproduce. We have no real predators to thin the herd. We ardently defend the weaker among us. Which some find to be noble, while others think it's a waste of resources. Because of our inventiveness and ability to create societal groups, we can easily defend against even the most top shelf predators on the planet.

Essentially the situation acts as a proof that democracy can not exist and is self extinguishing as a political philosophy. We can see Joe Stalin as a butcher yet we do not see the problem of allowing personal freedom in reproduction to be far more deadly to far more people than Stalin could ever have been.

Only time will tell for sure. As I'm sure you are aware, as a country becomes more industrialized the population tends to increase at a slower rate and appears it will reach an equilibrium at some point. As technology advances we seem to be looking for ways to produce cleaner energy too. Just look at how long it's been since the industrial revolution started. It wasn't until the late 1960's that anyone gave a thought about pollution. Look at how much has been done since then. It's not perfect, but it's moving in the right direction. I suppose I may be overly optimistic. But I'd like to think we'll get it right in the next couple of decades. Even if we do get it right. Mother Nature can be a cruel bitch. One good solar flare or super volcano eruption and mankind could be reduced to less than 10% of the current population in no time at all.

http://abstrusegoose.com/114

That's what happens when you let a particle physicist design the experiment. (relevant: http://abstrusegoose.com/156)

Really? The code you saw that was designed to use genetic algorithms, what generated it? Perchance, a human? Tell me, what type of algorithm produced that human? Then you've just seen code (that used genetic algorithms) generate code (that used genetic algorithms).

Oh, but wait, perhaps you meant the machine code you saw hasn't yet generated a human? Well, perhaps it needs a bigger machine with more processing power. Perchance, a universe?

Look around you. We're in one: http://abstrusegoose.com/275

http://abstrusegoose.com/531

Oh Christ, I haven't laughed so hard in a while.

Are you actually serious? Programming books are fucking terrible compared to math books - see:

http://abstrusegoose.com/474

Computer programmers are the WORST at this.

http://abstrusegoose.com/527

Better yet, I love how "cermanic and concrete" are somehow natural because they're made of natural materials. As if they're somehow more natural than plastic. I am reminded of Abstruse Goose.

http://abstrusegoose.com/

Specialized content for machine learning / artificial intelligence. I chain-read them for 18 hours till I'd finished!

Well, we've been broadcasting to the stars for well over a century. If you're going to hide offworld, you'd best hurry.

http://abstrusegoose.com/281

http://abstrusegoose.com/455

Abstruse Goose

Abstruse Goose

I prefer this one http://abstrusegoose.com/118 ..........

Way to waste three days of my life!

In the grand scheme of things, we're all pretty much blind and deaf.

I prefer this one http://abstrusegoose.com/118 .......... http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/directory/H/Higgs.asp

The particle accelerator is not aimed for the Higgs Boson only, that's only the start.

Radio transmitter antennas typically do not radiate in a perfectly spherical, cow shaped arrangement.

At least the "in a vacuum" part is implicit, seeing how the transmissions are though space.

Oh, and you might like this:
http://abstrusegoose.com/406

if you can't restrict people's use of TV, you might as well remove the incentive to watch it by making it more informational/educational, rather than an "opiate of the masses".

Exactly, TV in the west is used for this:
http://abstrusegoose.com/397

By the way, it is interesting that you mention "opiate", are you aware of the use of opium in China in the beginning of the 20th century?

Once again, people versed in one discipline apply their skills to another with results that sound fancy and expensive, while really are just nonsense.

Not really. Trial and error is at the heart of evolution which can apply just as easily to living organisms, memes, or software (which is actually a form of meme). It just happens to work quicker on the latter. Predator-Prey relationships are merely an extension of evolution, and is all about inter-dependance. If a package depends on another, one could be considered predator, and the other prey. If development slows on that which is depended on, then the predator must find new prey or face lower numbers and/or extinction.

The greater mistake is a myopic view of disciplines, thinking that nobody else can contribute to the understanding of another discipline except those who specialize in it.

Once again, people versed in one discipline apply their skills to another with results that sound fancy and expensive, while really are just nonsense.

http://abstrusegoose.com/114
"Beats his own children for violating RIAA sponsored copyright legislation"

Your response to watching video of a disabled girl getting beaten is "Whip her again"?

http://abstrusegoose.com/114
"Condones child abuse"

You don't understand the idea of natural selection, do you?

I'm going to take some liberties with the science here (I'm a physicist, not a biologist), but the gist of it is simple. Humans have been "selected" for large brains. Basically, various evolutionary pressures favoured larger and larger brains in certain situations, which led to the human brain. These brains are capable of a great number of things, including the sciences that lead to vaccination.

Natural selection doesn't mean what nature does in absence of humanity, it means those that survive to reproduce get their genes passed along. It's a long term statistical process, that doesn't care what the pressures or responses are, only that you survive long enough to reproduce and keep your kids alive.

Besides, where did we get this idea that there's any difference between "natural" and "artificial" life? This comic sums it up quite well, in my opinion.

Really? Why is this so strange? This reasoning is an idea I've been playing with for a while that man's large brain evolved not to use tools, but to attract the opposite sex. Larger brains meant you could please the opposite sex better in bed and flirting as part of courtship and seduction were all things that were encouraged by a group of beach/river apes that liked to live in caves where tight communities would have been inevitable. Prowess at sex would surely be a great evolutionary driver once you have basic survival down pat. Looking at how a gorilla or other ape society works yes there are alpha males but the females all show attraction to the other males who have time for them, a brain that means that there are other ways to have conflict and triumph over other is kind of seen in those ape societies.

Athough that does mean that humans are only the geeks of the animal kingdom by chance; which i think is a shame really, I kind of liked that idea i got from here:
http://abstrusegoose.com/283
That it is being geeks that makes us human.

And why should I care about it?

Slashdot is going crazy. The editors see the need to clarify obvious things, such as who was Alan Turing, but suddenly they post a piece about some obscure, facebook-specific crap and we're supposed to know about it?

Facebook and all that shit is conquering our internet, and we are doing nothing about it. it's just sad. This is worst than AOL.

http://abstrusegoose.com/347

http://abstrusegoose.com/strips/please_not_in_the_face.png

Say no to XKCD!

I figure so long as Lrrr is further away than Altair, we're safe... for now.

Or this tutorial on how to teach yourself C++ in 21 days.

Abstruse Goose 92

Show them this: Rite of passage, and you'll save them some pain, at least.

On the more serious side, tell them to simply get cracking with maps, mods, skins, simple game programming (like asteroids/minesweeper/etc), scripting, etc.

Oblig: http://abstrusegoose.com/281

http://abstrusegoose.com/92

Agreed. Not exactly, but this comic says it as well. http://abstrusegoose.com/291