But for a layman to actually be able to measure space in terms of things that you can't physically touch? That's a pretty big accomplishment. They also give a more "war & peace"-type of the analogy:
The magnitude of the calculation is staggering: the answer, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan.
The thing that's worked best for me is writing the lexical spec first, then going back and writing the parser spec. At least then you know that the basic tokens of the language are being recognized before you try to shape them into a parse tree. Well, you've figured it out! Although, another approach would be to write the parser first and then work out details about what <integer>, <string> and other thingies like that mean syntactically, or even do both things in parallel. Just a few suggestions, although probably in Java you're enforced to write things in a certain order, since it does not have abstract objects. In LISP you can do it any way you want, even perhaps get some ideas in the process: like to simplify the parser to the point that BNF is not even necessary in all of its glory.
Back in the good old days-- the "Golden Era" of computers-- it was easy to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called "Real Men" and "Quiche Eaters" in the literature). During this period, the Real Men were the ones who understood computer programming, and the Quiche Eaters were the ones who didn't. A real computer programmer said things like "DO 10 I=1,10" and "ABEND" (they actually talked in capital letters, you understand), and the rest of the world said things like "computers are too complicated for me" and "I can't relate to computers-- they're so impersonal". (A previous work [1] points out that Real Men don't "relate" to anything, and aren't afraid of being impersonal.) (from Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal)
Did he really apologize for writing FORTRAN by writing APL, and if so, why didn't he die of lead poisoning? I think he wrote FP, but ok, APL is definitely a great example of a great programming language. Next thing you'll tell me is that you'd rather program in Java instead of J...
[...]XML schemas, which follows a simple easily understood philosophy: if something is worth saying, then it is worth saying with a lot words. or more like: if something is worth saying, it is worth saying with a lot of worthless words.
[...]and a million-line massively-parallel quantum-chemistry package in an object-oriented fashion using F77. Are you saying it was a million-line code because it was written in F77 in an object-oriented fashion?
FORTRAN still has good use among physics labs, partly because there's a lot of physics-specific code that is made for it, and partly because everybody's already used to it. And it has been updated (F95) to include all the modern features you could want. and, let's not forget, party because nobody's using anything else...
Still, you'd need to be mad to use it. Which is why I do. You wish. I bet you've never tried FP.
There are good reasons to use FORTRAN nowadays... ok, not realy...
I mean other than the insane amount of code written in it... and good compilers...
and,... physicists are bad programmers,... and,... well that's probably about that.
Ok, maybe I didn't understand your previous post.
Yes, there was always lots of violence, in classical books (notice however that Shakespeare tended to write tragedies, which is nowadays almost completely gone out of the mainstream media, also, there is that one story of a little kid that says "wait a minute, the king has no clothes") etc, but what's happening with the media like TV and Hollywood movies is that they also supplant and produce the real: The Seige was made in 1998, and the current Iraqi war proves that the first one has never taken place outside the TV and computer screens, despite violence. Not that watching the violence on TV is necessarily bad, it's just that media tend to produce pure violence, just as the porn industry produces the pure sex. Masses can easily emulate the both, and neither has much to do with what was once called "the real thing".
On top of it there is another level of purification, where media prefer the former to the latter: after all, violence is in the benefit of the powers to be while with sexuality there is always dilemma about how to control it.
Basically, the same thing they said about sex many decades ago. Only now, instead of kids rutting earlier and teenagers dressing sexier, kids'll be literally torturing the kid they just used to beat up earlier, and carrying weapons (because it does feel cool) more often. The message "Violence is new sex" has been already launched (can't remember where I read it though...)
I believe, however, that humans, or at least the vast majority of us, are inherently violent. wow, that's a quite belief system you have developed for yourself. Let me explain it to you: people are not only violent, so if TV and movies show only violence, well, something is wrong with the system, even if waste majority of you is inherently violent.
I recommend This Film Is Not Yet Rated. Warning: this film may change your life.
What a couple of bad seeds do is not necessarily what we all do or condone. I don't think that anybody says that. The problem is that the "bad seeds" seem to
be spread out not horizontally, but vertically through the chain of command.
Let me explain to you how the system really works. Having been one of said easily influenced soldiers I have intimate knowledge of this. You're out on a patrol, you come upon a guy who is setting up a roadside bomb. Now more than likely this isn't really the guy you want as he's just some poor sod that a real bad guy paid to have do this. The bad guy that paid him isn't really even the really bad dude, he's just some farmer that got mixed up with the wrong crowd. You know this, so you catch the guy setting up the bomb, cuff him and take him back to your patrol base. When you reach the patrol base you have to fill out a very extensive form detailing everything that was said and done to the guy. When I say detail I mean it too. After that the guy you captured is taken to a holding area where he's given food and water and basically anything he needs even though what he was doing could have killed you or your best friend. Next time a convoy comes around which is usually a few hours they take this guy to the main base where all the interrogators hang out. These guys spend up to two years in school learing how to interrogate without using torture. They know how to mind fsck you, and they're really good at it. These guys never have to do anything that harms you because they're better than lawyer at playing word games and will generally know within the first few minutes whether you're worth keeping or not. The problems like Abu Ghraib arise because you have people that guard these guys and take it upon themselves to try and find out information. Which I don't have to say is illegal and the real interrogators will have your ass if they find out about it. That's the main point of failure. Now after the interrogator has talked with the guy for a while, if he's worth keeping they will, if not they'll give him a job working on public works projects in the city. That's how the system really works, and maybe people should actually do their research before spouting off with something that you have no clue about and put good people in a bad light. On the other hand: evidence has been accumulating about policy shifts of the US government pushing towards the legitimization of torture. Hell, there's been even a documentary about it:
The Torture Question.
Some questions: "What was the rationale behind the Bush administration's 2002 decision that the Geneva Conventions' guidelines on treating prisoners of war don't apply in America's fight against foreign terrorists like Al Qaeda? Who in Washington opposed this decision -- and why?" etc...
Did you get that formula yourself or did somebody thought you?
torturing = two subjective terms: one of the interrogator, one of the victim.
Re:Is Roland Piquepaille paid for Slashdot stories
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A Single-Photon Server
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Last but not least: The research in question was published in Nature (Physics online) last week. That's about as much publicity as you want as a scientist. That just about says it all, doesn't it?
Government, please stay off of the Internet. Freedom of speech involves some risk. Let the people choose if they take that risk or not, but if you take it from us, you take our freedom as well. Government to gravesp:
This message is to inform you that according to the law you have the right to
be informed that your message has been stored into our database of messages,
as a part of our routine monitoring of the Internet traffic. We will process
it shortly.
Sincerely Yours,
The Government
PS: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry.
We send them nuke and weapons tech and they send us censorship tech. Sounds like a good trade balance! You mean like they can teach us something new in the censorship business?
It's a side effect of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. No, "popping out" of universe is not the side effect of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
In a sense, it is the opposite: imagine two very close metallic plates, and vacuum between them.
Now make them so close to one another that there is no room left for virtual fluctuations of
elementary particles in the vacuum to take place. Since the energy of the vacuum is determined
by the energy of these virtual processes, which are possible due to the uncertainty principle,
the above experiment then supresses the fluctuations and therefore lowers the energy
of vacuum between the plates. Since you have just created something with
lower energy that the energy of our ordinary vacuum, well, this new thing will expand, very
fast, because our ordinary vacuum will trade the uncertainty principle for the lower energy.
This is one of the oldest conundrums of philosophy; indeed, of Western thought. Stephen Hawking is a smart guy, or so I have been led to believe. Can someone explain why this is a significant assertion? Is it because this is a "man of science" talking something suspiciously similar to ex nihilo, mainstream Christian creationism? Or do people really think this is a new assertion? One way to look at it is that his assertion is interesting exactly because it is one of the oldest conundrums of the Western philosophy. If he was saying something that is completely outside of the tradition he would have been certainly completely outside of academia, if not the whole society. So when you mention "ex nihilo" in context of both Christianity and physics, well, it's because both of them have some common tradition, which of course does not mean they talk about the same thing, nor that you should not be suspicious.
You also said, "It is the absence of existence". Isn't that the same as saying "Nothing is the absence of existence", which begins with "Nothing is", which you have already claimed is false? Not quite: he said also in the sentence before the one you quote that
"Nothingness and beingness (isness) are opposites". Now, if you think of "opposites" as logical
opposites, then you're right. But you also said "We can't talk about nothing without creating logical absurdities;)", so maybe this "opposite"-ness cannot be treated as simply as being a logical negation.
Like "1+1=3" is false, and it is also the logical opposite of "1+1=2", which is true, but both
are something.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, maybe I didn't understand your previous post. Yes, there was always lots of violence, in classical books (notice however that Shakespeare tended to write tragedies, which is nowadays almost completely gone out of the mainstream media, also, there is that one story of a little kid that says "wait a minute, the king has no clothes") etc, but what's happening with the media like TV and Hollywood movies is that they also supplant and produce the real: The Seige was made in 1998, and the current Iraqi war proves that the first one has never taken place outside the TV and computer screens, despite violence. Not that watching the violence on TV is necessarily bad, it's just that media tend to produce pure violence, just as the porn industry produces the pure sex. Masses can easily emulate the both, and neither has much to do with what was once called "the real thing". On top of it there is another level of purification, where media prefer the former to the latter: after all, violence is in the benefit of the powers to be while with sexuality there is always dilemma about how to control it.
Did you get that formula yourself or did somebody thought you?
torturing = two subjective terms: one of the interrogator, one of the victim.
This message is to inform you that according to the law you have the right to be informed that your message has been stored into our database of messages, as a part of our routine monitoring of the Internet traffic. We will process it shortly.
Sincerely Yours,
The Government
PS: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry.
...Internet is called Interniet. (this one I've heard about 10 years ago)