How strong is your intuitive pattern-matching? Discreet mathematics as a direct, explicit application of math in computer science. Meanwhile, real/complex analysis is abstract, and requires _you_ to make intuitive connections between its concepts and _your work_, in order for it to become applicable and useful. (If you know for a fact that math isn't your strong point, then go with Discreet.)
Furthermore, don't think of the two as being exclusive! They're not separate. Discreet mathematics is a _subset_ of real analysis. When you jump right into discreet mathematics, you're just skipping lower-level details of analysis.
"DRM and its ilk does persuade citizens to infringe copyright"
I haven't RTFA but I suspect this is correlation, not causation. The probability of property having DRM is correlated to its value, i.e. demand. Higher demand encourages crackers and the like to make the property available for pirating.
I'm sure there are many hypotheses out there, but my guess is: the universe is "so damn mathematical" because that was just the most probable way in which things would fall into place. Pairs of interactions were more common than quartets. Certain configurations of three's were more stable than others. As the universe and its particles randomly assembled and disassembled, what emerged was a system of simplicity and automatic minimalism/reductionism. In a three-dimensional universe, often the manifestations were in two's and three's. Of course, things started getting a little crazy on Earth, where complex mechanisms of competing systems (from organic compounds to life) formed and survived against the odds. However, even so we perceive certain proportions of shapes as aesthetically pleasing, and have other mathematically curious inclinations. Why? I can only guess that those instincts are derived from a trait that once was useful for our predecessors.
Being about "how not to use math" and about math as such are pretty different things. It's like you were teaching a class on car repair and assigning a book on consumer fraud.
No. It's like you were teaching a class on car repair and telling your students how to not screw up. e.g. "Do not ever adjust the stabilizer based on popular arguments such as ___ and ___ because it will only screw with the engine and may even cause permanent damage." It's actually very relevant, especially in the early stages of learning.
Perhaps one or both of us are not communicating well. I don't see what your argument has to do with mine. By 3D "surface", I did not mean the surface of a table or a car, but the entire table or car itself, as a 3D "projection" on, for example, a 4D hyperplane.
Anyway, you raise interesting points. And if we had time to sit down and converse, we'd probably clear everything up and come to one agreement or another.
I don't think they're missing that; I bet they'd agree with what you're saying. You just seem to disagree with their terminology (e.g. "illusion").
Also, what is the difference between seeing 3D in a 2D surface and seeing 3D in a 3D "surface"? Like the Flatlander that sees a penny as a line (he can only see one-dimensional information), everything we see is actually a 2D image translated into a 3D construction in our brain.
I'm not sure how what you're saying is related to what I said...
I was simply arguing against the statement, "Since the probability of life happening is so small, there must be a god."
I was saying that we're able to consider the possibility of a god because we are conscious. All the multitudes of probabilistic "failures" never even got to the point where they could wonder if a god could exist. So our "sampling" is biased toward the existence of a god.
If I'm still misunderstanding you, please let me know...
"what are the odds that we'd all have left-handed amino acids..."
In econometrics, I learned this to be "Sample Selection Bias". The odds that we'd all have left-handed amino acids might be nill. However, the odds that we'd all have left-handed amino acids GIVEN that we've become conscious beings able to analyze such a thing?
I mean, maybe there WERE a lot of failures. But somewhere in the universe, ONE worked. And BECAUSE we worked, we're able to wonder about it.
When he says "standards compliance is [not] a relative term", he's not saying that a browser must _either_ be compliant or not. (He's _not_ saying that compliance is a binary state, which is what you're arguing against.) Rather, he's arguing that there exists a standard to which everyone should comply: an _absolute_ standard. Of course, all of the browsers have some imperfection, but some browsers take these imperfections as "bugs", recognizing that they are not fully conforming to the standard, while other browsers take these imperfections as a choice (i.e. taking it as their own _relative_ standard).
There are people here who argue that standards are "relative"--that everyone is allowed to have their own standards because no one can speak for the masses about what is right and what is wrong. However, the _point_ of making standards is so that we have an absolute goal that everyone may work toward, in uniform. You can't let everyone have their own standards, and say that some standard exists.
I don't mean to troll. I just don't think we're all on the same page about what "relative" means.
Agreed. Patents are very important for motivating those who have ideas but not the funds/resources to innovate.
Still, however, I think that my idea of not reviewing any patents (until there are disputes) would work in the example you gave. The original inventor would have the ability to file a lawsuit against followers, and is thus protected. Meanwhile, the followers would be a lot more careful about their research and most (if not all) of them should not even file a patent for the same thing.
i must be a n00b in the patent process, because i don't understand why we need people to review patents in the first place.
why don't we simply publish every patent on some online database, and review patents _only if_ disputes arise? if someone wants to patent something, then he must sift through the patent records _himself_ and make sure he's not infringing on anyone's rights. if a dispute (i.e. lawsuit) should ever be filed, _then_ we check the patent records to verify and take the appropriate course of action.
with this system, people who want to patent things will be a lot more careful about their research on prior patents, no? maybe they'll even contact people with similar patents and clear everything up so that no disputes arise in the future?
and the cost to the USPTO is simply publishing all the patents online and checking over disputed patents?
I barely have time to eat and sleep properly when I'm in school.
But working people aren't any less busy.
I guess the difference is that school can be put off, somewhat. Working people are trying to pay the bills and support their families.
Ah, I see. I replied too hastily and didn't realize that the API changed in that way. I used the API a few months back and I thought that's what they were talking about.
The Facebook API was released many months ago, and it does not lead to pages like MySpace. The Facebook pages itself do not change at all; the layout will be consistent throughout the whole networking site, as it always has been. The API allows developers to access facebook's information and create applications OUTSIDE of Facebook. For example, one application might make a powerpoint photo slideshow of all your photos on facebook. Or another application might use information to match up people into relationships.
So could we let the radius-dimension of the balloon be analogous to the the time-dimension of our world? Then, the "center of the universe" really only exists at the beginning of time. And no one would know if the universe started collapsing, since time would reverse.
That's true, I didn't think of that.
Plus, even at the very early stages such as the formation of amino acids, things could be very different depending on the environmental conditions. Like if there were insufficient levels of a certain substance, then other "amino acids" (which may be nothing like them at all, but a key component in the progress toward life) may form, since the most "stable" competitors do not have to be the substances we know.
By no means am I an expert, but I think it's very possible that life as we know it MAY be the only form of life.
According to some theories, as Earth's crust solidified and conditions stabilized, random collisions and reactions (aided by lightning) occurred throughout the entire surface. Imagine the countless number of interactions that occurred in a single second. Multiply that by hundreds of millions of years. For generations upon generations of these tiny random "experiments", only the most stable results "made it" and survived long enough to be part of the next generation of experiments. I have no grasp over the magnitude we are discussing, but I feel that only the very "best" choices would have survived the millions of generations to produce molecules such as amino acids.
With more complex components (i.e. cell membranes, DNA/proteins/enzymes, etc.) I agree that it's extremely difficult to imagine that these results were unique or "chosen". But the number of test collisions is large - after the hundred million years, add 4 billion years for evolution to take place.
In reality, I have no idea, so someone run the numbers and see whether or not the above statements are at least valid, if not sound.
Slashdot Mirror
Plus if you're shooting opposite to the direction you're moving... relative velocity.
start looking at http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/search/sys?query=dell&srchType=A maybe?
How strong is your intuitive pattern-matching? Discreet mathematics as a direct, explicit application of math in computer science. Meanwhile, real/complex analysis is abstract, and requires _you_ to make intuitive connections between its concepts and _your work_, in order for it to become applicable and useful. (If you know for a fact that math isn't your strong point, then go with Discreet.)
Furthermore, don't think of the two as being exclusive! They're not separate. Discreet mathematics is a _subset_ of real analysis. When you jump right into discreet mathematics, you're just skipping lower-level details of analysis.
"DRM and its ilk does persuade citizens to infringe copyright" I haven't RTFA but I suspect this is correlation, not causation. The probability of property having DRM is correlated to its value, i.e. demand. Higher demand encourages crackers and the like to make the property available for pirating.
I'm sure there are many hypotheses out there, but my guess is: the universe is "so damn mathematical" because that was just the most probable way in which things would fall into place. Pairs of interactions were more common than quartets. Certain configurations of three's were more stable than others. As the universe and its particles randomly assembled and disassembled, what emerged was a system of simplicity and automatic minimalism/reductionism. In a three-dimensional universe, often the manifestations were in two's and three's. Of course, things started getting a little crazy on Earth, where complex mechanisms of competing systems (from organic compounds to life) formed and survived against the odds. However, even so we perceive certain proportions of shapes as aesthetically pleasing, and have other mathematically curious inclinations. Why? I can only guess that those instincts are derived from a trait that once was useful for our predecessors.
would mod up if i could
Define "shallow" :^)
Being about "how not to use math" and about math as such are pretty different things. It's like you were teaching a class on car repair and assigning a book on consumer fraud.
No. It's like you were teaching a class on car repair and telling your students how to not screw up. e.g. "Do not ever adjust the stabilizer based on popular arguments such as ___ and ___ because it will only screw with the engine and may even cause permanent damage." It's actually very relevant, especially in the early stages of learning.
Perhaps one or both of us are not communicating well. I don't see what your argument has to do with mine. By 3D "surface", I did not mean the surface of a table or a car, but the entire table or car itself, as a 3D "projection" on, for example, a 4D hyperplane. Anyway, you raise interesting points. And if we had time to sit down and converse, we'd probably clear everything up and come to one agreement or another.
I don't think they're missing that; I bet they'd agree with what you're saying. You just seem to disagree with their terminology (e.g. "illusion").
Also, what is the difference between seeing 3D in a 2D surface and seeing 3D in a 3D "surface"? Like the Flatlander that sees a penny as a line (he can only see one-dimensional information), everything we see is actually a 2D image translated into a 3D construction in our brain.
I'm not sure how what you're saying is related to what I said...
I was simply arguing against the statement, "Since the probability of life happening is so small, there must be a god."
I was saying that we're able to consider the possibility of a god because we are conscious. All the multitudes of probabilistic "failures" never even got to the point where they could wonder if a god could exist. So our "sampling" is biased toward the existence of a god.
If I'm still misunderstanding you, please let me know...
"what are the odds that we'd all have left-handed amino acids..."
In econometrics, I learned this to be "Sample Selection Bias". The odds that we'd all have left-handed amino acids might be nill. However, the odds that we'd all have left-handed amino acids GIVEN that we've become conscious beings able to analyze such a thing?
I mean, maybe there WERE a lot of failures. But somewhere in the universe, ONE worked. And BECAUSE we worked, we're able to wonder about it.
I think there's a misunderstanding here.
When he says "standards compliance is [not] a relative term", he's not saying that a browser must _either_ be compliant or not. (He's _not_ saying that compliance is a binary state, which is what you're arguing against.) Rather, he's arguing that there exists a standard to which everyone should comply: an _absolute_ standard. Of course, all of the browsers have some imperfection, but some browsers take these imperfections as "bugs", recognizing that they are not fully conforming to the standard, while other browsers take these imperfections as a choice (i.e. taking it as their own _relative_ standard).
There are people here who argue that standards are "relative"--that everyone is allowed to have their own standards because no one can speak for the masses about what is right and what is wrong. However, the _point_ of making standards is so that we have an absolute goal that everyone may work toward, in uniform. You can't let everyone have their own standards, and say that some standard exists.
I don't mean to troll. I just don't think we're all on the same page about what "relative" means.
Agreed. Patents are very important for motivating those who have ideas but not the funds/resources to innovate.
Still, however, I think that my idea of not reviewing any patents (until there are disputes) would work in the example you gave. The original inventor would have the ability to file a lawsuit against followers, and is thus protected. Meanwhile, the followers would be a lot more careful about their research and most (if not all) of them should not even file a patent for the same thing.
i must be a n00b in the patent process, because i don't understand why we need people to review patents in the first place. why don't we simply publish every patent on some online database, and review patents _only if_ disputes arise? if someone wants to patent something, then he must sift through the patent records _himself_ and make sure he's not infringing on anyone's rights. if a dispute (i.e. lawsuit) should ever be filed, _then_ we check the patent records to verify and take the appropriate course of action. with this system, people who want to patent things will be a lot more careful about their research on prior patents, no? maybe they'll even contact people with similar patents and clear everything up so that no disputes arise in the future? and the cost to the USPTO is simply publishing all the patents online and checking over disputed patents?
I barely have time to eat and sleep properly when I'm in school. But working people aren't any less busy. I guess the difference is that school can be put off, somewhat. Working people are trying to pay the bills and support their families.
Ah, I see. I replied too hastily and didn't realize that the API changed in that way. I used the API a few months back and I thought that's what they were talking about.
The Facebook API was released many months ago, and it does not lead to pages like MySpace. The Facebook pages itself do not change at all; the layout will be consistent throughout the whole networking site, as it always has been. The API allows developers to access facebook's information and create applications OUTSIDE of Facebook. For example, one application might make a powerpoint photo slideshow of all your photos on facebook. Or another application might use information to match up people into relationships.
So could we let the radius-dimension of the balloon be analogous to the the time-dimension of our world? Then, the "center of the universe" really only exists at the beginning of time. And no one would know if the universe started collapsing, since time would reverse.
That's true, I didn't think of that. Plus, even at the very early stages such as the formation of amino acids, things could be very different depending on the environmental conditions. Like if there were insufficient levels of a certain substance, then other "amino acids" (which may be nothing like them at all, but a key component in the progress toward life) may form, since the most "stable" competitors do not have to be the substances we know.
By no means am I an expert, but I think it's very possible that life as we know it MAY be the only form of life.
According to some theories, as Earth's crust solidified and conditions stabilized, random collisions and reactions (aided by lightning) occurred throughout the entire surface. Imagine the countless number of interactions that occurred in a single second. Multiply that by hundreds of millions of years. For generations upon generations of these tiny random "experiments", only the most stable results "made it" and survived long enough to be part of the next generation of experiments. I have no grasp over the magnitude we are discussing, but I feel that only the very "best" choices would have survived the millions of generations to produce molecules such as amino acids.
With more complex components (i.e. cell membranes, DNA/proteins/enzymes, etc.) I agree that it's extremely difficult to imagine that these results were unique or "chosen". But the number of test collisions is large - after the hundred million years, add 4 billion years for evolution to take place.
In reality, I have no idea, so someone run the numbers and see whether or not the above statements are at least valid, if not sound.