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Think it would be possible to program decency into them? Good. Then we won't have to deal with the misogynist and homophobic bastards on our campus.

RE your study plans, if you were wanting to study in a Northa American school fo rthe cultural change, or even to get something you couldnt in Saudi Arabia, may I reccomend coming to my homeland, Canada. Many many MANY Arabs both go to and are professors at my University (UNB), and I suspect it is simmilar in most other areas of my country.

I'm a graduate student at an obscure little university in eastern Canada. I was initially digging around in the area of Artifical Intelligence, but rapidly became disillusioned by the obviously-crap paradigms that exist, to date, for AI. I mean, while Neural Networks, at first, appear to capture the essence of biological information processing systems, a bit of digging, reading and (perhaps) experimentation reveals it to be a farcical numbers game.

Ditto for most of the other approaches, excluding the ones that attempt to address issues on a symbolic level (but aren't at all practical).

The fundamental problem, as I've come to see it, with this area is the lack of a formal model that describes the *FRAMEWORK* of knowledge representation, the operations and transformations that can be applied to that knowledge, and the mathematics to back it all up.

So, that's why I got really interested when my advisor started talking with me about a representational framework he'd been working on for a long, long time, now.

The publications on the ETS model, to date, are very sparse, and probably too difficult (mathematically) for anyone but the a serious researcher to get through ... but it's there if you want to try. Try some of the papers on the bottom of Goldfarb's page if you're interested.

Pi equals 3!.

There seems to be a misunderstanding regadring ECC and Parity memory, at least in relation to PC's.
PC memory has either some extra bits (one for every eight bits) for ciclic redundancy, or it hasn't. There is no dedicated ECC circuity on PC memory, (Exept maybe IBM Chipkill memory). The difference between parity memory and ECC memory lies on how the memory controller takes advantage of the extra bits. To get an idea on how ECC really works, see Hamming code.

Regards
Roberto de Iriarte
roberto at spock dot cl

I thought that was only people in Indiana.

Actually, when I wrote that comment, I was thinking of a comment that a Harvard number theory prof had written; he said that there was a method that ran in polynomial time, based on the one I posted, but with modifications to avoid factoring n-1. I may have misrembered or he may have been wrong: the APR test, which sounds similar to his description, only runs in close to p-time. Meganet claims to have done it, but they do not have the source on their website, and since they also claim to have created "unbreakable" encryption (no source there either), they are probably full of...um...deception.

That's easier to find than some might think. For the hexadecimal representation there exists a formula that allows to calculate digits of pi starting at an arbitrary place, maybe there is such a formula for the decimal case too. Anyway given a decent PC you can probably calculate up to 10.000.000 digits in a few days. But why bother, when it's easier to simply download them. Your choosen password should be in here, starting with the 470344th or 470343th digit (depends if you count the 3., but you didn't, line 4704, 5th block from digit 4).

Or check out The P versus NP Problem at Clay for a really good description (unfortunately too long to quote here). And lastly, you might want to check out Tutorial: Does P = NP? at VB Helper for a little more info.

Ok, but what is it good for? The Compendium of NP Optimization Problems is a great place to look for real world examples of NP problems. Including everything from flower shop scheduling to multiprocessor scheduling.

Hopefully that helps. I was very clueless when it came to P vs. NP stuff that always seems to be mentioned on Slashdot. So I took the time to look it up. Now I'm clueless but I have links to share. :)

A lot of universities don't have caches - trying to cache web content for the (approx) 9000 students in UBC's dorms would be a nightmare, and if those caches included 600-700 meg files, resources would be taxed.

A lot of universities (larger ones anyway) tend to have their own file mirrors, and if not, they are often connected to larger universities which do, sometimes over private academic networks.

A HREF="ftp://ftp.crc.ca/">ftp.crc.ca, for example, my personal favourite Debian mirror, is connected to the CA*Net III, as are all major universities in Canada. This gives a friend at the University of New Brunswick the ability to max out his network card pulling down ISOs, Debian packages, and anything else, over an ultra-fast network link that costs the school absolutely nothing.

Perhaps more universities could benefit from building thier own such networks between each other. This is, after all, how the Internet got started, why not start again?

--Dan

The state of Indiana once tried to declare pi as 3.2.

(Ironically, Indiana is also the state where the radio show Bob and Tom is syndicated from.)

This is the only person thus far who knows what he/she is talking about. Everyone else should RTFFAQ and mod this up.

Actually it was the state of Indiana

Either way, it's 10 in ternary ;)

int dow(int m,int d,int y)
{y-=m<3;return(y+y/4-y/100+y/400+"-bed=pen+mad. "[m]+d)%7;}

Even though it only works for "a restricted range." This comes from here, which has some other information too.

I seem to remember that Weird Al has to get permission to do things like the star wars version of American Pie, but does not to do things like Fat.

You're wrong about Wierd Al... It's not hard to find these facts on the web with a google search...

Al not only had permission from Michael Jackson to do "Fat", but Michael -gave- him the "Bad" set to film the "Fat" video! Very cool.
http://www.yesterdayland.com/popopedia/shows/music /mu1208.php
http://www.dailyegyptian.com/fall00/09-29-00/freak .html
http://www.unb.ca/web/bruns/9900/issue9/entertainm ent/weirdal.html

And a quote from the Al man on Michael Jackson: "He is really a nice guy, very sweet and he let me do two parodies "Eat It" and "Fat.""

... or to eliminate grades altogether, a la Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I think Phaedrus had a good idea.

This is the sort of thing why I loved the honours program I took: your mark was based in great part on your participation in seminar. None of the parroting back crap that only separates those who can memorise from those who can't. Yum.

Many moons ago I collected what I thought were particularly cogent articles both in favour or against software patents. Here are the two best ones in favour of software patents:

• A pre-software patent programmer
• Carl Oppedahl on software patents

Many moons ago I collected what I thought were particularly cogent articles both in favour or against software patents. Here are the two best ones in favour of software patents:

• A pre-software patent programmer
• Carl Oppedahl on software patents

Here at UNB (University of New Brunswick) in Canada our CS/a> program uses Linux for our Operating System courses. I haven't taken the second operating systems course where we actually get to muck around in the Linux kernel; but I am taking it next semester.

Here at UNB (University of New Brunswick) in Canada our CS/a> program uses Linux for our Operating System courses. I haven't taken the second operating systems course where we actually get to muck around in the Linux kernel; but I am taking it next semester.

Here at UNB (University of New Brunswick) in Canada our CS/a> program uses Linux for our Operating System courses. I haven't taken the second operating systems course where we actually get to muck around in the Linux kernel but I am taking it next semester.

Here at UNB (University of New Brunswick) in Canada our CS/a> program uses Linux for our Operating System courses. I haven't taken the second operating systems course where we actually get to muck around in the Linux kernel but I am taking it next semester.

Actually, they didn't settle on just one value of pi, they had many... including 3.2. Here's the requisite hyperlink.
Mike Warot, Hoosier

The university of new brunswick has mirror up at: ftp://menace.csd.unb.ca/pub/redhat70/iso Pretty fast for anyone here in NB. Enjoy.

First Off, Caffeine Faq. Needless to say, this story sort of threw me. From my understanding, caffeine works by inhibiting cAMP phosphodiesterase, a protein which degrades cAMP, also known as cyclic adenosine monophosphate. Now, cAMP has various functions in the body, including acting as a second messenger for various hormones, including epinephrine. Abnormally high levels of cAMP isn't something one wishes to have all of the time, and the idea of a 'caffeine gene' sounds wreckless and irresponsible. This suggestion is on par with suggesting the insertion of genes, which code for proteins capable of synthesizing rat poison. Both are laughable. The insertion of such genes, or a "pharmacy" organ don't really make any sense. Just thought I'd share what I know with you, and bitch at you in the process. If you are at all interested in learning more about caffeine, cAMP, or pretty much anything medically related, go to the NIH and follow the link to PubMED. There you will find a search engine which will search nearly all of the abstracts(summaries) of articles in the national library of medicine. sorry if I was rude.

Really, this hardly counts as news. For about 5 years now there's been copies of the Caffeine FAQ floating around. Its packed with much more information than the linked site offers.

Plus, the caffeine images on the site mentioned in the article are kind of lame. Using a copy of CAChe, readily avaliable to most 1st year organic chem students, it'd be piece of cake to make a caffeine molecule that danced, spun, showed electron density, and otherwise entertained, all in .gif format.

Indiana actually did pass this law, back in the late 19th century. I've never heard of the LA or CA references though. You can find Indiana referenced here: http://www.cs.unb.ca/~ alopez-o/math-faq/mathtext/node18.html. An excerpt:

Indiana bill sets the value of pi to 3

The bill House Bill No. 246, Indiana State Legislature, 1897, reportedly set the value of pi to an incorrect rational approximation.

The following is the text of the bill:

HOUSE BILL NO. 246

"A bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered as a contribution to education to be used only by the State of Indiana free of cost by paying any royalties whatever on the same, provided it is accepted and adopted by the official action of the legislature of 1897.

"Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana: It has been found that a circular area is to the square on a line equal to the quadrant of the circumference, as the area of an equilateral rectangle is to the square on one side. The diameter employed as the linear unit according to the present rule in computing the circle's area is entirely wrong, as it represents the circles area one and one-fifths times the area of a square whose perimeter is equal to the circumference of the circle. This is because one-fifth of the diameter fils to be represented four times in the circle's circumference. For example: if we multiply the perimeter of a square by one-fourth of any line one-fifth greater than one side, we can, in like manner make the square's area to appear one fifth greater than the fact, as is done by taking the diameter for the linear unit instead of the quadrant of the circle's circumference.

--

Richard Fateman has a program called "mockmma" that is a simple knock-off of Mathematica. I don't know how complete it is, but I doubt it is anywhere close to being a complete clone of Mathematica. It's written in Common Lisp and there's a pointer to it on the ALU's Lisp Tools page.

There are other resources:

• The Numerical Analysis & Associated Fields Resource Guide, especially sections "NA Software Libraries on the Net" and "NA Software Packages on the Net".
• Usenet newsgroups sci.math and sci.math.symbolic (but read the FAQ, first, and read the news groups for a few weeks before posting!)

I'm sure if you spend a little time with a search engine (Deja, Google), you will turn up more information. I found the above in less than five minutes, so I'm sure there's much more information out there if you look a little bit.

I applaud the attempt to put a different spin on this issue, and I agree that there are some "meta-issues" here driving the whole /. community, particularly group dynamics and intra/interpersonal psych. factors which are both fascinating and worthy of examination.

However simplifying these matters to the level of psychoanalytic theory is limiting at least and possibly curtails further examination using more appropriate model of the human psyche and associate group dynamics.

I would encourage such exploration, but would strongly advise one to move far beyond Freudian psychoanalysis as the basis for such an investigation.

Although Freud helped spark the revolution which has resulted in the modern field of psychology, in no way should his theories of the ego, id, and superego be assumed to accurately model the human psyche. Perhaps they do, perhaps they don't. Don't swallow freud's theories unchewed... decide for yourself. Hack your own psyche.

(or click here for a simplified list putting freud's theoretical contribution into a little more context...)

I have been told by an applied math geek friend of mine that STW is another one of those "it's all connected, maaaan..."-type theories along the line of "e^(pi * i) + 1 = 0", although a good deal messier. I've also been informed that STW was used heavily in Wiles' proof, not unlike a load-bearing block in Jenga.

(Never mind "First Post!" I hereby start the new tradition of "Most Links!" After all, it's more productive, and more importantly, it's all connected, maaaaaan....)

I suggest checking out the Caffeine and Coffee FAQs - click here.

I also just finished working with the FAQ's maintainer on a trimmed down version for Palm Pilot (in case you eve need to decide between Sugar Free Mr. Pibb and Dr. Pepper striclty on Caffeine content). I don't think he's linked them yet, but you can go to my page to get them (in the Palm Pilot section).

Johnath

I suggest checking out the Caffeine and Coffee FAQs - click here.



I also just finished working with the FAQ's maintainer on a trimmed down version for Palm Pilot (in case you eve need to decide between Sugar Free Mr. Pibb and Dr. Pepper striclty on Caffeine content). I don't think he's linked them yet, but you can go to my page to get them (in the Palm Pilot section).



Johnath

Chalst wrote
No mathematics prize either, and I believe that subject existed then...

The mathematical equivalent is the Fields Medal. The story is that Nobel had a bit of a ... ummm ... personal disagreement with a prominant mathematician of the day so deliberately left out mathematics to prevent his rival from gaining any kudos.

As for other posters wanting something similar for computing, I would instead suggest that a computer language which is widely adopted and solves a significant class of problems would be a better choice. Afterwall, what is a language but a systematic way of ennunciating the concepts for a general problem domain? In this way, the greatest mark of respect for Perl and (to some extent) Python has been their rapid adoption by peer programmers. To paraphrase ESR, show them the code and reap the kudos.

LL

From the caffeine faq:

Toxic dose

The LD_50 of caffeine (that is the lethal dosage reported to kill
50% of the population) is estimated at 10 grams for oral
administration. As it is usually the case, lethal dosage varies
from individual to individual according to weight. Ingestion of
150mg/kg of caffeine seems to be the LD_50 for all people. That
is, people weighting 50 kilos have an LD_50 of approx. 7.5 grams,
people weighting 80 kilos have an LD_50 of about 12 grams.

In cups of coffee the LD_50 varies from 50 to 200 cups of coffee
or about 50 vivarins (200mg each).

One exceptional case documents survival after ingesting 24 grams.
The minimum lethal dose ever reported was 3.2 grams
intravenously, this does not represent the oral MLD (minimum
lethal dose).

In small children ingestion of 35 mg/kg can lead to moderate
toxicity. The amount of caffeine in an average cup of coffee is
50 - 200 mg. Infants metabolize caffeine very slowly.

Symptoms
+ Acute caffeine poisoning gives early symptoms of anorexia,
tremor, and restlessness. Followed by nausea, vomiting,
tachycardia, and confusion. Serious intoxication may cause
delirium, seizures, supraventricular and ventricular
tachyarrhythmias, hypokalemia, and hyperglycemia.
+ Chronic high-dose caffeine intake can lead to nervousness,
irritability, anxiety, tremulousness, muscle twitching,
insomnia, palpitations and hyperreflexia. For blood testing,
cross-reaction with theophylline assays will detect toxic
amounts. (Method IA) Blood concentration of 1-10 mg/L is
normal in coffee drinkers, while 80 mg/L has been associated
with death.