I mostly agree with you, but the furor, if any, should be about the fact that it's yet again another example of yellow journalism. We get enough slanted reporting in the political media as it is; it's all the more absurd that the same tactics and biased reporting occurs over a phone.
...which was pointed out in the article as well as the summary, but so far has failed to gain any notice in the comments, is that one implementation is purely local to the owner's physical machine, whereas the other is hosted on a corporate server, with no provision that the data of interest is solely under the author's control.
That's the crux of the entire matter. Talking about unique identifiers or linking to other metadata is secondary. The real issue is that anything you submit to Google, Facebook, etc. is no longer really yours. The companies who host and mine this data have a vested interest in allaying such fears. They will say and do anything to give the appearance of trustworthiness. Whether they actually follow through is simultaneously independent and irrelevant, because the fact remains: once you put data online, or have it hosted remotely, someone else has it. Data is infinitely copyable, modifiable, crackable.
When you use a program like iPhoto to tag images you took on a camera, nobody else has access to that information, provided you don't share or publish it in some manner. The recognition technology is programmed into the application, and the application runs locally. Google's service does not. The trend toward server-side computing to be alarming. The price of convenience and robustness is security and privacy. I am becoming increasingly convinced that the former is not worth the loss of the latter.
(I do not have the latest version of iPhoto. And I'm not an Apple apologist by any means--for instance, I despise MobileMe for the exact same reasons I find Google's practices to be problematic. We live in a time when avoiding the harvesting of personal user data by powerful, ethically questionable governments and global corporations is virtually impossible, and it is getting more difficult by the day.)
I can only assume you don't own an iPhone, since you have such high ideals and you've made your displeasure abundantly clear. So then Apple's position doesn't affect you personally either way.
Maybe you should look into being a little less self-righteous. It's just a freaking phone, people. Don't like it? Don't buy it and don't use it. What, with all the scrutiny over copyright and jailbreaking and intellectual property, you would think this sort of stuff is the only thing worth debating.
I have an iPhone because within the parameters of Apple's terms of use, it does what I want, for the most part. What it does not do can be broadly categorized into two groups: Things that the hardware physically does not allow it to do, and things that it can do in theory but does not for whatever reason. I don't think anyone can reasonably get upset over the first category...otherwise, we'd have legions of horny nerds demanding that they'd be able to get the periodic BJ from their phone. In the second group, what separates the idealists from the pragmatists is that the former sees this lack of functionality as being forced upon them for evil purposes, and that there is no acceptable reason for it. The philosophy is "if I can't get it exactly my way I'm not going to use it at all," or "if it's not mine to hack and mess with then it's wrong." The pragmatists think that sort of attitude is really juvenile, and lacks consideration of the broader economic context of how technology is able to progress as quickly as it does. They don't need infinite hackability, they just do a simple, informal cost/benefit analysis and make the purchase if it suits them. Done. They don't get their tighty-whities wadded up over it, because they're too busy being productive and deriving enjoyment out of life, rather than getting up on that pedestal and speaking down to others about how they're being "unprincipled."
Am I 100% satisfied with an iPhone? No. Am I satisfied enough to use it the way Apple wants me to, and to pay for that use? Sure. There's no sin in that. Repeat after me: "It's just a phone. It's just a phone. It's just a phone." The same idea applies to any other kind of consumer electronics.
This is a classic text, brilliant for its simple thesis that data needs to be thoughtfully organized and presented in such a way as to obtain maximum impact, and therefore insight.
This voluminous, expansive text is somewhat on the advanced side of mathematics. However, not only is it unafraid to delve into the pure mathematics of many of the most significant discoveries and treatises of mathematical discourse, it also provides substantial historical context. Caveat: There unfortunately appears to be numerous errata for this text.
This is an entire series of books that focus on competition mathematics at the high school level. With a variety of difficulty levels, this series should provide a solid foundation for any students who love the problem-solving process, and would like to further develop their proficiency in mathematics below the calculus level. If that's not hard enough, try:
Again, a series of contest books, though at the Olympiad level. These are challenging enough for ANY student. But since we're still not at calculus yet, we have:
Undoubtedly, these contain some of the most difficult math problems ever presented in contest form to students who have yet to receive their undergraduate degree. Now let's bring things back down a few notches:
This is a wonderful book filled with detailed diagrams, photographs, and instructions on how to build the uniform polyhedra and some notable stellations out of paper. It is a bit dated, but it provides a window into the beautiful mathematics of polyhedral geometry, while practically inviting the reader to build some of the models described. The sophisticated student may even wish to use the information contained therein to program and draw their own templates by computer.
Please note that several of these titles have related titles that you should search for.
There are more books I could recommend, but I think that this list so far does a fairly good job at touching upon areas that are at once very mathematical while not making it appear too course-like. The problem with some of the suggestions I've seen so far is that they are really geared toward a college-level understanding of mathematics, and the reading level is such that the student would presumably have to be a lot more self-motivated. Another problem I see is the suggestion of books that are not very mathematical at all, or have a "pop math" feel which I am admittedly biased against. Furthermore, not every student will be drawn into
Instead of just making the typical/. armchair commentary about the zillion ways in which this proposal would be foolish or at best useless, I'm going to give a different angle on this.
First, on a global scale, the most sophisticated HIV treatments are administered to the relatively wealthy. Only when such a treatment is deemed effective does it start to spread down to the poor, due to economics. The old anti-retrovirals of yesterday are today's low-cost options for the millions of HIV+ individuals in developing nations. That's just the reality of the technological development of disease treatment. However, this "trickle-down" mechanism, combined with natural geographic and genetic variations, has led to the evolutionary branching of HIV into significantly distinct strains, with characteristically different disease modalities.
Second, we have as yet no drug that is able to eliminate HIV in the body. The currently available treatments are at best able to turn HIV into a chronic, managed condition. This has some very interesting (some would say alarming) socioeconomic implications. What we are finding is that over time, HAART therapy has evolved from a multiple-dose-per-day regimen that was difficult to maintain, to a more easily managed schedule, leading to better therapy adherence in patients. However, some of these drugs are poorly tolerated in many individuals, and over time, HIV is known to develop multiple resistances due to poor adherence or tolerance. The more disturbing situation, however, is that in many gay communities, the practice of "pre-exposure prophylaxis" has become alarmingly common. What is happening is that some HIV- gay men are obtaining anti-HIV drugs and taking them prior to knowingly exposing themselves to potentially HIV+ individuals through unprotected sex.
From a scientific standpoint, it is fascinating that this development is as successful as it has been. But from the standpoint of a gay man who takes every precaution to educate myself and follow safer sex practices and does everything in my power to serve as a role model for responsible behavior, I find it totally abhorrent that there are guys who expose themselves willingly to HIV in such an unethical manner, in light of all the AIDS deaths that have come before us and all the tireless work of our most brilliant scientists, medical care providers, and public health advocates. They have even given this "PrEP" cute names and euphemisms to disguise the utter insanity of what they are really doing (like they have done with the term "barebacking" to refer to unprotected anal intercourse). If there is anyone on the face of this earth that deserves to die of this terrible disease, it is them. And I don't say that lightly. Some of you might say that these people would have had unprotected sex with or without the drugs, but you have to realize that it is partly through the action of these individuals that drug-resistant HIV is spread. It is for this reason I dare stand in judgment against them.
So this brings me to my third point. The CCR5 discovery is notable in that it confers strong resistance against HIV-1. Two copies of the gene are required for this resistance. However, the transmission of other strains of HIV may not be blocked by the presence of this gene. Even if this therapy were to work, I doubt it would be effective on a large scale. Some of these patients, if you cure them, will simply go out and have more unprotected sex. If you don't believe me, reread the previous paragraph.
The only way human civilization will ever rid itself of the scourge of HIV is if we discover a vaccine or outright cure for all its strains. No chronic management or piecemeal therapy will be sufficient, because there are always people who will do things that will enable the virus to mutate and survive. Ever since the discovery and announcement of the virus in the 80s, this simple fact was apparent to me. But the untold billions of dollars in revenue that HIV research and managemen
Right after the first data breach, I called them up and demanded they delete my account and all of my personal data. The fact that there was not an option to do this online, and that I was forced to call them in person, was the first sign that their data management policies were fscked up.
I was put on hold for a long period of time, and when I finally got a real person on the other end of the line, I told them in no uncertain terms that I wanted my account removed. You want to know what their response was? He went into some spiel asking me why I wanted to leave monster.com. I mentioned their data breach, and he replied that they'd taken measures to ensure it would not happen again, so that it was no longer a reason for me to leave. That is to say, he initially refused my request. I repeated myself, this time, threatening his company with legal action if they did not remove my personal data. I also pointed out that I don't need a reason to request my business relationship with monster.com to be permanently terminated.
And now, a second breach has happened. Big surprise. Whether my information was actually removed, or simply stored in some database, I do not know. That's the problem with these companies. Personal information is the true currency of the online market. The individual user has no leverage, no recourse. The only solution is to never give out that information to begin with.
For all of you who are asking why this sort of data (name, address, phone number) is really all that sensitive in light of the fact that anyone could find such information in phone books and other public records, the fact of the matter is that an electronic database is far easier to harvest than a physical book. Data = content + format. You're also not taking into account the fact that the database of monster.com users is a self-selected group of individuals who at some point were actively seeking a job through online means. That property in itself makes the data a valued segment, which is why (1) monster.com is so unwilling to delete your information, and (2) malicious third parties want to steal it.
Huh??? Your ability to sense and process that sensory input is not a function of the surrounding environment; it is mainly a function of physiology.
I'm not talking about herds. I'm talking about living in a human societies, pooling resources, and the very clear anthropological and sociological advantages to collective living. In case I am still not being understood, we humans have developed and adapted to the civilization model. That has nothing to do with going to crowded baseball games. I am trying to explain that most people who live in cities have taken for granted the clear evolutionary advantages of doing so, to the point that now we talk fondly about how wonderful it would be to live among nature again, which is bollocks. It's romanticizing the harsh reality that nature is full of hazards and stresses, and people only think of nature as idyllic because they can always return to society and fall back on technological conveniences when nature decides to, say, drop a blizzard on your head or have a jaguar rip your arm off.
Finally, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it seems that there's a logical fallacy being applied in your reasoning. That it is difficult to do math in your head while navigating a busy crowd doesn't mean the busy crowd is therefore to blame, any more than doing math is hard while you're writing an essay or doing anything else that is cognitively distracting. That's why I pointed out that the study is stupid. It's basically saying "people can't think as well when distracted." DUH. Who is arguing that? But then to take that self-evident statement and somehow place it in the context of nature vs. civilization and then conclude that we should somehow eschew city life for some idyllic nature fantasy, well that's about as stupid as anyone can get.
This is not only incorrect, but it is also not the point of the original article. First of all, I will address your specific statements. Being in the wilderness is not less stressful than being in civilization. That flies in the face of our entire human history. You, a modern human, only enjoy the wilderness now as a convenience brought to you by the comforts of modern technology. Where and how do you get your food, shelter, water, safety? It is illogical to compare being run over in the street with some romanticized notion of idyllic nature, because you have been far removed from primary threats to existence such as disease, predation, exposure, and starvation.
Second, the point of the article is that urban environments are cognitively distracting compared to a natural setting. That may be true but it is also pointless. What is the base level of cognitive ability? Did the study compare attention and mental focus for individuals who are simply sitting comfortably in their home doing nothing? It stands to reason that if there is a correlation between environment and cognition, the most safe and peaceful environment would provide the best result. But I object to this kind of weakly disguised propaganda that continues to romanticize and idealize the superiority of "nature." Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being outdoors. But I have no illusions that my ability to enjoy being outdoors is ENTIRELY predicated upon the fact that my safety and well-being is facilitated by the comforts of modern human civilization and technology.
I accept the fact that I don't have the ability to be tossed into the wild and survive. I don't need to. Moreover, I don't WANT to. Why would I want to spend most of my day worrying about where my next meal is going to come from, or providing for basic safety? That is how we all lived thousands of years ago, and that is how many people in underdeveloped countries continue to live today. There is a very good reason why humans discovered the benefits of civilization long ago. The notion that civilization is evil and we should embrace nature and return to a nomadic life is yet another insult to those who live in squalor and desperation among us.
Only very recently. That doesn't mean (1) there wasn't years of unconstitutional harassment and curtailment of basic civil rights, and (2) suddenly, *presto*, everyone who ever received one of the notices can now speak up, no harm, no foul, no ruined lives. There will be years of appeals.
Anyway, the point is not that this particular provision was overturned. The point is that Americans for the most part live under the illusion of a free state. They do so because we are taught from childhood how great America is, and of the incredibly prescient wisdom of our founding fathers who wrote this beloved Constitution. Americans believe in their system of government so much that they will go to great lengths to force their political, economic, and cultural values upon other nations they see as being less developed.
But the sad truth is that it is a farce. We are not a free society. The government can make your life pure hell, destroy you financially, and with absolutely no cause. You may eventually be vindicated, but it could take most of your remaining lifetime, not to mention your livelihood.
This is, of course, true of most countries, not just the US. But again, that was never the point of my prior post. The point is that the citizens of those countries have no illusions about the grandeur of their political system. They know the state may capriciously destroy lives. Americans believe they are "free" only because they are sold the concept, hook, line, and sinker, by the very few, rich, powerful elite that truly run things behind the scenes. Is it really any wonder why the rest of the world hates us so much? They are all collectively waiting for us to wake the fuck up and realize just how deluded we've all been.
Tell that to the US citizens who were served National Security Letters under the auspices of the PATRIOT Act. Oh wait, you can't, because those people are legally prohibited from disclosure, so there's no way to identify who they are.
The problem, of course, is not the validity of your statement. It's absolutely correct. But as we can clearly see, there really isn't such a thing as a truly free society, only those that call themselves "free."
In fact, it's so easy, all that you need to do is flip it over, open the battery latch, and pop out the drive. That's it.
Once a new drive is installed, the user has complete control with zero restrictions.
That said, you cannot hope to successfully restrict any laptop. The question then becomes whether the cost--both financially and socially--of giving children and adolescents unfettered access to (some very nice) laptops is really worth any potential academic benefit. From what I can tell, the answer is clearly NO. You'll find lowered productivity and increased social/behavioral problems both in and out of school.
Schools are not appropriate entities to be giving computer hardware to children who have not yet fully developed their frontal lobes. Doing so inevitably opens up the school to legal liability. It simply isn't worth the trouble.
Frankly, I probably wouldn't either, unless there was a clear reason to. I imagine a lot of time and effort was already invested in developing those macros. Why go back and start from scratch? Also, I have the feeling that Photoshop does a better job at handling large amounts of image data than Mathematica, the most recent version included.
Where did I say that the algorithms used by Mathematica are unique to Mathematica? I even said heavily-researched. That means things like Grobner bases, Risch integration, numerical methods, differential equation solving, etc. are well-known and understood in the relevant academic circles. Does this mean competing software doesn't exist? Again, NO. Sure, a programmer with the appropriate math background could implement these things as specialized tools, or could even try to make their own comprehensive suite (e.g., Waterloo Maple, which was later commercialized). But is such software expensive in part because the algorithms are of such nature and complexity that it is nontrivial for most programmers to implement? ABSOLUTELY. Tell me, what is your estimate of the percentage of career programmers across the entire software industry that even know about three of the algorithms I just mentioned, let alone understand the mathematics behind it to implement it efficiently? That is what I mean by my statement. The kind of code that goes into Mathematica is not even remotely like that which goes into something like Firefox, or anything that Google does. That's not to say that the latter is inferior--it is merely different. That scarcity of supply, and the niche market nature for such a product, is what creates high prices. That is my point.
I've used Maple, Mathematica, and SAS, among other products, for mathematical and/or statistical analysis. From a programming/features perspective, each has its own strengths--and weaknesses.
I'll only briefly mention cost. These things are expensive because it's not like any random programmer can build this kind of software. Especially with Mathematica, these are heavily-researched algorithms that are nontrivial to implement. Also, the market is small for such a specialized and sophisticated application. Your average person isn't ever going to be able to use something like this. They barely know what the quadratic formula is. (They should, but that's an entirely different story.) You think they need to invert a 20x20 matrix? Or compute the Galois group of a quintic? Or even do a simple hypothesis test?
As for the image manipulation stuff, I think that comparisons to Photoshop are a bit naive. Clearly, it's not supposed to be for people who want to do red-eye reduction on their family photos. It's not even for graphic designers or photographers. It's for scientists who want an algorithmic approach to adjusting their images, either for research or for purposes of publication. Could you do these things in Photoshop? Sure. Could you then say what formula or algorithm was applied to the image to produce that specific result? No. And conversely, you wouldn't do layer composition, masking, or on-the-fly tonal adjustments with Mathematica.
FWIW I hate the copy protection on it too. It's infuriating and a burden to legitimate users while doing little to deter piracy.
"Dogs suck at tracking people in urban environments. They can do a ridiculously good job in the country, but put them in downtown New York and they lose the scent immediately. That would indicate that the odor is either not unique, or that dogs are not capable of detecting the subtle differences."
Or it could just mean that other smells and stimuli compete for the dog's attention, masking the scent to be tracked. Urban environments are filled with all kinds of odors, noises, and pollution. This probably plays as much a role in tracking as the actual distinctiveness of a smell itself.
It's from a National Geographic article from like 15 years ago, about the science of smell. The notable thing about this photo is that all the "smellers" are female--this is because in general, women tend to be more sensitive to smell, and besides, men probably don't want other men smelling their pits.
Internet protocols and standards were originally implemented for academic use. Decades ago, TCP/IP, SMTP, DNS, and HTTP were created with an implicit assumption of trust between client and server--indeed, between all nodes in the network. The Internet was an exercise in efficient data transfer across a network. It was not designed for spam, or DDoS, or phishing; nor was it designed for shopping, bank account management, or YouTube. That we can do these things now is a reflection of the workarounds that have been developed in the meantime.
Furthermore, hardware at the time of the development of these protocols was not what it is today.
And then, over the course of several years, the monetizing and commercialization of this academic project occurred. ISPs, in order to reach the masses, established an inherently unequal system of access that encouraged consumption of content but discouraged users from hosting it. The solution that has come about in more recent years, with blogs, social networks, and so forth, was to have users submit content and have it hosted by large, ad-revenue based corporations. This has led to serious problems concerning the nature of ownership of information.
And now, we have one of the people running such a site, complaining that the underlying model on which their company relies is "built wrong" because it doesn't suit their needs. Well, isn't that rich? It smacks of willful ignorance of not only what the Internet is, but more importantly, the original design principles (egalitarian, neutral) that the Internet embodied.
The pace of technology is rapid. History, however, is long, and the danger I see here is not that you have one idiot who hasn't learned his history lesson, but that as time goes by, more and more people and corporations and politicians will forget why the Internet was originally built. That's why we have companies against Net neutrality. They have forgotten or ignored history. They took something free and made billions off of it, and they want to milk it for all it's worth. And therein lies the real problem, because when you forget where something came from, you become disconnected from the past and blind to the future.
The article contains a serious flaw in logic. Given the legal environment of the DMCA, if the internet we have now is a Good Thing, then how does that imply that the DMCA is the cause, without considering how much potentially better things could have been instead?
This kind of false rationalization is neither legitimate news reporting, nor is it respectful of those who have fought against the abuses of a poorly conceived and implemented law.
After all, it's a bit like saying that because my car got towed yesterday, I wasn't able to get into a car accident. That I had no car to wreck does not mean I am better off for having it towed--in fact, it is very probable the time and money I spent to retrieve it could have gone to something much more rewarding and useful.
So I have a good friend who is on the rather kinky side. Last year, he went on a trip to a certain event that involved bringing various "toys." So he packed various items into checked luggage, and went through the security screening. When he arrived at his destination and opened his luggage to unpack, he discovered a slip of paper that indicated that his suitcase had been opened by a TSA screener.
What he found remarkable was not the paper itself, but where it had been located. It was very neatly and securely wrapped around a large black rubber dildo.
The first thing that came to mind when he told me this was to ask whether he had put it in some kind of ziploc bag. (I am a big fan of storage bags.) He replied, "Why would I do that?" I then pointed out that perhaps the person who put that paper there would have chosen to "handle things differently" (gloves notwithstanding) had they given some thought as to where this object has been.
The moral of the story, my friends, is don't put anything worth stealing in your checked luggage. For example, I would never put computers or electronic equipment in checked luggage. That is like putting a giant bulls-eye on your stuff, saying, "STEAL ME." And sometimes, putting something a little...distasteful might even help prevent stealing. I imagine the TSA screener wasn't about to abscond with an already-used (though clean, my friend claimed) sex toy.
OTOH, the iPhone can only use apps from Apple's app store but not from any other source.
This is not strictly true. iPhone applications can be installed outside of the iTunes App Store--in fact, I have done such an installation myself for the purposes of beta testing. However, distribution through this method is limited to a fixed number of devices. The way it works is each device must send a code to the developer, and a provisioning key is then distributed with the application to enable its use on that device.
While this is clearly not the same as Google's approach, it is a valid counterexample of the stated claim.
Personally I hold no position on kill switches or Android vs. iPhone. I think that Android is still nascent, and at the present time, comparisons are premature. I do find it amusing how there is so much discussion about these issues--it is the nerd equivalent of navel-gazing.
The criterion used to determine whether a technology is outdated is not how long it has been around or if other technologies are superior. The single criterion used is whether the technology is still NEEDED--that is to say, no other reasonable alternative, either economically or technologically, exists.
Since FireWire (IEEE 1394) is a commonly used interface for external HDs, and more importantly, DV cameras, and iMovie uses this interface to read digital video from such a camera, it is still necessary because the loss of the interface means significant functionality is lost. USB is not an adequate replacement for this purpose, and the same is true for Target Disk Mode (otherwise Apple would have implemented it over USB but that has clearly not come to pass). Therefore FireWire is not outdated.
That is it not widely used outside the Mac market is irrelevant. The MacBook used to be able to do at least two things (as described above) that many users consider important, that the newest iteration cannot. Moreover, there is no known workaround, no effort by Apple to find a reasonable alternative. That is why so many are upset. I personally believe it reflects a poor design and planning choice. The MacBook is not the MacBook Air. It is the entry-level laptop, some users' only machine. Many of them are educational users.
FWIW I own a MacBook Pro. I personally think 13" is too small and wouldn't get a MacBook anyway. But should Apple ever get rid of FireWire across the entire laptop line (without furnishing a viable alternative), I think you'd have a reaction 100 times worse than what's happening now. It would effectively kill laptop sales. That is how accepted FireWire is in the "Pro" and Mac market as a whole.
You might be interested to know that the expression you gave, (B^2 - A^2 + B + A)/2 can be factored like so: ((B+A)(B-A) + (B+A))/2 = (B+A)(B-A+1)/2. This is the form of the solution that most directly corresponds to the "reversal" method previously discussed, since B+A is the sum of the first and last terms, and B-A+1 is the total number of terms in the series. Thus we can immediately see how the two methods are equivalent.
It is also a well-known theorem which states that the sum of any arithmetic series S[n] = a[1]+a[2]+...+a[n] is given by the formula S[n] = (a[1]+a[n])n/2; again, it is the product of the sum of the first and last terms, with the number of terms, divided by 2. The proof is a simple generalization of the reversal method; curiously, the common difference d = a[k+1] - a[k] is not needed (though its value is implied, given a[1], a[n], and n).
3 - "OK. In that case, add up the numbers between 100 and 200." (Tricky one, that - it's an odd number of elements!)
Well, some math historians contend that this story is apocryphal, but that's not the reason why I am responding.
The real reason is that your example is not really any more difficult using the same method as that attributed to the young Gauss. You would simply observe that 100+101+102+...+200, when written in reverse, gives 200+199+198+...+100, and the sum of each corresponding term in the two series is simply 300. Since there are 200-100+1 = 101 such terms in each series, and the two series are obviously equal, the sum of one series is 300(101)/2 = 150(100+1) = 15000 + 150 = 15150. The reasoning is essentially the same, and the arithmetic is equally simple.
A more difficult question, one that would have required even more sophisticated reasoning, would have been to find the sum 1+4+9+16+...+2500. While it can still be done in a very elementary way, such a series would not yield to the simple manipulation used in the linear case.
I'm really not sure why you are making personal attacks on me. I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to learn something about actuarial science before you speak about the supposed scam that is insurance. But you don't need that kind of "fancy math," so I guess that request is in vain.
In fact, I am an ardent Obama supporter, not because I like him in particular, but because Bush, McCain, and the Republicans (neocons) have been so incredibly bad for the US on virtually all issues of importance (foreign policy, economy, energy, environment, civil liberties, healthcare, education) that I am just hoping in my heart of hearts that we don't go through four more years of failed policy.
As for the current economic problems, they are largely unrelated to the personal insurance market, but rather, the collapse of the mortgage lending market due to the issuing of vast amounts of credit to individuals who were not credit-worthy. When housing prices crashed, mortgagees had less incentive to pay back loans on properties that were worth less than the loan amount. Foreclosures led to the invocation of credit default swaps, which then led to a loss of liquidity in the market due to insufficient reserves to back so many defaulted mortgages. And now we are presently in a state where most banks have run into problems due to the inability to borrow from other banks. The situation is dire, but my belief is that these institutions must be allowed to collapse and fail, rather than be bailed out by the taxpayer, thereby creating moral hazard. Privatization of profit and socialization of loss is not capitalism, it is highway robbery, and that is what the bailout is.
Have you ever compared the annual statements of a bank and an insurance company? Do you know what a mutual insurer is? You can demonize insurance all you want. I'm not going to continue to try to dispel your beliefs any further, since it is plainly obvious you have no interest whatsoever in understanding what you hate so much. Your problem is your failure to understand the distinction between the insurance mechanism versus insurance business practices. The former is what I defend because it is rational. The latter, I do not necessarily defend. As I have said, not all actions by an insurer are morally sound. That does not mean ALL actions are thereby morally unsound. Your inability to reason logically does a terrible disservice to those who have been properly indemnified from loss as a result of their insurance.
You should not expect to receive further correspondence with me on this subject, as I feel that further discussion with you would not be productive as you have not expressed any sincere interest in the nature of actuarial science.
Well, that's absolutely wrong and I'm very sorry to hear that, not that my words have much meaning in the face of such loss. I sincerely hope that it was not my company that insured your family.
Not all insurers are alike. And if you think about the total incurred loss from a single event like Katrina, it is dwarfed by the bailout bill signed by the US government recently. It is dwarfed by the sum total of reinsurance contracts and retrocession agreements for the major P&C insurers. The justification (which in my view, may have actuarial basis but is nevertheless flawed from an overall insurance viewpoint) for denying claims from Katrina was that this event was considered so rare and severe that there was no way to create an appropriate provision for it, and therefore the insurers could not pay out on the claims. Again, I think that is the wrong way to look at it. I think that for the insurance mechanism to work properly, insureds must have confidence that the insurer will fulfill its contractual obligations.
Slashdot Mirror
I mostly agree with you, but the furor, if any, should be about the fact that it's yet again another example of yellow journalism. We get enough slanted reporting in the political media as it is; it's all the more absurd that the same tactics and biased reporting occurs over a phone.
...which was pointed out in the article as well as the summary, but so far has failed to gain any notice in the comments, is that one implementation is purely local to the owner's physical machine, whereas the other is hosted on a corporate server, with no provision that the data of interest is solely under the author's control.
That's the crux of the entire matter. Talking about unique identifiers or linking to other metadata is secondary. The real issue is that anything you submit to Google, Facebook, etc. is no longer really yours. The companies who host and mine this data have a vested interest in allaying such fears. They will say and do anything to give the appearance of trustworthiness. Whether they actually follow through is simultaneously independent and irrelevant, because the fact remains: once you put data online, or have it hosted remotely, someone else has it. Data is infinitely copyable, modifiable, crackable.
When you use a program like iPhoto to tag images you took on a camera, nobody else has access to that information, provided you don't share or publish it in some manner. The recognition technology is programmed into the application, and the application runs locally. Google's service does not. The trend toward server-side computing to be alarming. The price of convenience and robustness is security and privacy. I am becoming increasingly convinced that the former is not worth the loss of the latter.
(I do not have the latest version of iPhoto. And I'm not an Apple apologist by any means--for instance, I despise MobileMe for the exact same reasons I find Google's practices to be problematic. We live in a time when avoiding the harvesting of personal user data by powerful, ethically questionable governments and global corporations is virtually impossible, and it is getting more difficult by the day.)
I can only assume you don't own an iPhone, since you have such high ideals and you've made your displeasure abundantly clear. So then Apple's position doesn't affect you personally either way.
Maybe you should look into being a little less self-righteous. It's just a freaking phone, people. Don't like it? Don't buy it and don't use it. What, with all the scrutiny over copyright and jailbreaking and intellectual property, you would think this sort of stuff is the only thing worth debating.
I have an iPhone because within the parameters of Apple's terms of use, it does what I want, for the most part. What it does not do can be broadly categorized into two groups: Things that the hardware physically does not allow it to do, and things that it can do in theory but does not for whatever reason. I don't think anyone can reasonably get upset over the first category...otherwise, we'd have legions of horny nerds demanding that they'd be able to get the periodic BJ from their phone. In the second group, what separates the idealists from the pragmatists is that the former sees this lack of functionality as being forced upon them for evil purposes, and that there is no acceptable reason for it. The philosophy is "if I can't get it exactly my way I'm not going to use it at all," or "if it's not mine to hack and mess with then it's wrong." The pragmatists think that sort of attitude is really juvenile, and lacks consideration of the broader economic context of how technology is able to progress as quickly as it does. They don't need infinite hackability, they just do a simple, informal cost/benefit analysis and make the purchase if it suits them. Done. They don't get their tighty-whities wadded up over it, because they're too busy being productive and deriving enjoyment out of life, rather than getting up on that pedestal and speaking down to others about how they're being "unprincipled."
Am I 100% satisfied with an iPhone? No. Am I satisfied enough to use it the way Apple wants me to, and to pay for that use? Sure. There's no sin in that. Repeat after me: "It's just a phone. It's just a phone. It's just a phone." The same idea applies to any other kind of consumer electronics.
...or underestimate the prerequisite mathematics knowledge of 16-18 year old students.
My suggestions: (I do not endorse amazon.com in any way; I am only using their site as a reference)
Tufte, Edward R. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd ed.
This is a classic text, brilliant for its simple thesis that data needs to be thoughtfully organized and presented in such a way as to obtain maximum impact, and therefore insight.
Hawking, Stephen. God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs that Changed History.
This voluminous, expansive text is somewhat on the advanced side of mathematics. However, not only is it unafraid to delve into the pure mathematics of many of the most significant discoveries and treatises of mathematical discourse, it also provides substantial historical context. Caveat: There unfortunately appears to be numerous errata for this text.
Various authors. The Contest Problem Book.
This is an entire series of books that focus on competition mathematics at the high school level. With a variety of difficulty levels, this series should provide a solid foundation for any students who love the problem-solving process, and would like to further develop their proficiency in mathematics below the calculus level. If that's not hard enough, try:
Various authors. International Mathematical Olympiads.
Again, a series of contest books, though at the Olympiad level. These are challenging enough for ANY student. But since we're still not at calculus yet, we have:
Various authors. The William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition.
Undoubtedly, these contain some of the most difficult math problems ever presented in contest form to students who have yet to receive their undergraduate degree. Now let's bring things back down a few notches:
Wenninger, Magnus J. Polyhedron Models.
This is a wonderful book filled with detailed diagrams, photographs, and instructions on how to build the uniform polyhedra and some notable stellations out of paper. It is a bit dated, but it provides a window into the beautiful mathematics of polyhedral geometry, while practically inviting the reader to build some of the models described. The sophisticated student may even wish to use the information contained therein to program and draw their own templates by computer.
Please note that several of these titles have related titles that you should search for.
There are more books I could recommend, but I think that this list so far does a fairly good job at touching upon areas that are at once very mathematical while not making it appear too course-like. The problem with some of the suggestions I've seen so far is that they are really geared toward a college-level understanding of mathematics, and the reading level is such that the student would presumably have to be a lot more self-motivated. Another problem I see is the suggestion of books that are not very mathematical at all, or have a "pop math" feel which I am admittedly biased against. Furthermore, not every student will be drawn into
Instead of just making the typical /. armchair commentary about the zillion ways in which this proposal would be foolish or at best useless, I'm going to give a different angle on this.
First, on a global scale, the most sophisticated HIV treatments are administered to the relatively wealthy. Only when such a treatment is deemed effective does it start to spread down to the poor, due to economics. The old anti-retrovirals of yesterday are today's low-cost options for the millions of HIV+ individuals in developing nations. That's just the reality of the technological development of disease treatment. However, this "trickle-down" mechanism, combined with natural geographic and genetic variations, has led to the evolutionary branching of HIV into significantly distinct strains, with characteristically different disease modalities.
Second, we have as yet no drug that is able to eliminate HIV in the body. The currently available treatments are at best able to turn HIV into a chronic, managed condition. This has some very interesting (some would say alarming) socioeconomic implications. What we are finding is that over time, HAART therapy has evolved from a multiple-dose-per-day regimen that was difficult to maintain, to a more easily managed schedule, leading to better therapy adherence in patients. However, some of these drugs are poorly tolerated in many individuals, and over time, HIV is known to develop multiple resistances due to poor adherence or tolerance. The more disturbing situation, however, is that in many gay communities, the practice of "pre-exposure prophylaxis" has become alarmingly common. What is happening is that some HIV- gay men are obtaining anti-HIV drugs and taking them prior to knowingly exposing themselves to potentially HIV+ individuals through unprotected sex.
From a scientific standpoint, it is fascinating that this development is as successful as it has been. But from the standpoint of a gay man who takes every precaution to educate myself and follow safer sex practices and does everything in my power to serve as a role model for responsible behavior, I find it totally abhorrent that there are guys who expose themselves willingly to HIV in such an unethical manner, in light of all the AIDS deaths that have come before us and all the tireless work of our most brilliant scientists, medical care providers, and public health advocates. They have even given this "PrEP" cute names and euphemisms to disguise the utter insanity of what they are really doing (like they have done with the term "barebacking" to refer to unprotected anal intercourse). If there is anyone on the face of this earth that deserves to die of this terrible disease, it is them. And I don't say that lightly. Some of you might say that these people would have had unprotected sex with or without the drugs, but you have to realize that it is partly through the action of these individuals that drug-resistant HIV is spread. It is for this reason I dare stand in judgment against them.
So this brings me to my third point. The CCR5 discovery is notable in that it confers strong resistance against HIV-1. Two copies of the gene are required for this resistance. However, the transmission of other strains of HIV may not be blocked by the presence of this gene. Even if this therapy were to work, I doubt it would be effective on a large scale. Some of these patients, if you cure them, will simply go out and have more unprotected sex. If you don't believe me, reread the previous paragraph.
The only way human civilization will ever rid itself of the scourge of HIV is if we discover a vaccine or outright cure for all its strains. No chronic management or piecemeal therapy will be sufficient, because there are always people who will do things that will enable the virus to mutate and survive. Ever since the discovery and announcement of the virus in the 80s, this simple fact was apparent to me. But the untold billions of dollars in revenue that HIV research and managemen
Right after the first data breach, I called them up and demanded they delete my account and all of my personal data. The fact that there was not an option to do this online, and that I was forced to call them in person, was the first sign that their data management policies were fscked up.
I was put on hold for a long period of time, and when I finally got a real person on the other end of the line, I told them in no uncertain terms that I wanted my account removed. You want to know what their response was? He went into some spiel asking me why I wanted to leave monster.com. I mentioned their data breach, and he replied that they'd taken measures to ensure it would not happen again, so that it was no longer a reason for me to leave. That is to say, he initially refused my request. I repeated myself, this time, threatening his company with legal action if they did not remove my personal data. I also pointed out that I don't need a reason to request my business relationship with monster.com to be permanently terminated.
And now, a second breach has happened. Big surprise. Whether my information was actually removed, or simply stored in some database, I do not know. That's the problem with these companies. Personal information is the true currency of the online market. The individual user has no leverage, no recourse. The only solution is to never give out that information to begin with.
For all of you who are asking why this sort of data (name, address, phone number) is really all that sensitive in light of the fact that anyone could find such information in phone books and other public records, the fact of the matter is that an electronic database is far easier to harvest than a physical book. Data = content + format. You're also not taking into account the fact that the database of monster.com users is a self-selected group of individuals who at some point were actively seeking a job through online means. That property in itself makes the data a valued segment, which is why (1) monster.com is so unwilling to delete your information, and (2) malicious third parties want to steal it.
Huh??? Your ability to sense and process that sensory input is not a function of the surrounding environment; it is mainly a function of physiology.
I'm not talking about herds. I'm talking about living in a human societies, pooling resources, and the very clear anthropological and sociological advantages to collective living. In case I am still not being understood, we humans have developed and adapted to the civilization model. That has nothing to do with going to crowded baseball games. I am trying to explain that most people who live in cities have taken for granted the clear evolutionary advantages of doing so, to the point that now we talk fondly about how wonderful it would be to live among nature again, which is bollocks. It's romanticizing the harsh reality that nature is full of hazards and stresses, and people only think of nature as idyllic because they can always return to society and fall back on technological conveniences when nature decides to, say, drop a blizzard on your head or have a jaguar rip your arm off.
Finally, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it seems that there's a logical fallacy being applied in your reasoning. That it is difficult to do math in your head while navigating a busy crowd doesn't mean the busy crowd is therefore to blame, any more than doing math is hard while you're writing an essay or doing anything else that is cognitively distracting. That's why I pointed out that the study is stupid. It's basically saying "people can't think as well when distracted." DUH. Who is arguing that? But then to take that self-evident statement and somehow place it in the context of nature vs. civilization and then conclude that we should somehow eschew city life for some idyllic nature fantasy, well that's about as stupid as anyone can get.
This is not only incorrect, but it is also not the point of the original article. First of all, I will address your specific statements. Being in the wilderness is not less stressful than being in civilization. That flies in the face of our entire human history. You, a modern human, only enjoy the wilderness now as a convenience brought to you by the comforts of modern technology. Where and how do you get your food, shelter, water, safety? It is illogical to compare being run over in the street with some romanticized notion of idyllic nature, because you have been far removed from primary threats to existence such as disease, predation, exposure, and starvation.
Second, the point of the article is that urban environments are cognitively distracting compared to a natural setting. That may be true but it is also pointless. What is the base level of cognitive ability? Did the study compare attention and mental focus for individuals who are simply sitting comfortably in their home doing nothing? It stands to reason that if there is a correlation between environment and cognition, the most safe and peaceful environment would provide the best result. But I object to this kind of weakly disguised propaganda that continues to romanticize and idealize the superiority of "nature." Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being outdoors. But I have no illusions that my ability to enjoy being outdoors is ENTIRELY predicated upon the fact that my safety and well-being is facilitated by the comforts of modern human civilization and technology.
I accept the fact that I don't have the ability to be tossed into the wild and survive. I don't need to. Moreover, I don't WANT to. Why would I want to spend most of my day worrying about where my next meal is going to come from, or providing for basic safety? That is how we all lived thousands of years ago, and that is how many people in underdeveloped countries continue to live today. There is a very good reason why humans discovered the benefits of civilization long ago. The notion that civilization is evil and we should embrace nature and return to a nomadic life is yet another insult to those who live in squalor and desperation among us.
Only very recently. That doesn't mean (1) there wasn't years of unconstitutional harassment and curtailment of basic civil rights, and (2) suddenly, *presto*, everyone who ever received one of the notices can now speak up, no harm, no foul, no ruined lives. There will be years of appeals.
Anyway, the point is not that this particular provision was overturned. The point is that Americans for the most part live under the illusion of a free state. They do so because we are taught from childhood how great America is, and of the incredibly prescient wisdom of our founding fathers who wrote this beloved Constitution. Americans believe in their system of government so much that they will go to great lengths to force their political, economic, and cultural values upon other nations they see as being less developed.
But the sad truth is that it is a farce. We are not a free society. The government can make your life pure hell, destroy you financially, and with absolutely no cause. You may eventually be vindicated, but it could take most of your remaining lifetime, not to mention your livelihood.
This is, of course, true of most countries, not just the US. But again, that was never the point of my prior post. The point is that the citizens of those countries have no illusions about the grandeur of their political system. They know the state may capriciously destroy lives. Americans believe they are "free" only because they are sold the concept, hook, line, and sinker, by the very few, rich, powerful elite that truly run things behind the scenes. Is it really any wonder why the rest of the world hates us so much? They are all collectively waiting for us to wake the fuck up and realize just how deluded we've all been.
Tell that to the US citizens who were served National Security Letters under the auspices of the PATRIOT Act. Oh wait, you can't, because those people are legally prohibited from disclosure, so there's no way to identify who they are.
The problem, of course, is not the validity of your statement. It's absolutely correct. But as we can clearly see, there really isn't such a thing as a truly free society, only those that call themselves "free."
In fact, it's so easy, all that you need to do is flip it over, open the battery latch, and pop out the drive. That's it.
Once a new drive is installed, the user has complete control with zero restrictions.
That said, you cannot hope to successfully restrict any laptop. The question then becomes whether the cost--both financially and socially--of giving children and adolescents unfettered access to (some very nice) laptops is really worth any potential academic benefit. From what I can tell, the answer is clearly NO. You'll find lowered productivity and increased social/behavioral problems both in and out of school.
Schools are not appropriate entities to be giving computer hardware to children who have not yet fully developed their frontal lobes. Doing so inevitably opens up the school to legal liability. It simply isn't worth the trouble.
Frankly, I probably wouldn't either, unless there was a clear reason to. I imagine a lot of time and effort was already invested in developing those macros. Why go back and start from scratch? Also, I have the feeling that Photoshop does a better job at handling large amounts of image data than Mathematica, the most recent version included.
Where did I say that the algorithms used by Mathematica are unique to Mathematica? I even said heavily-researched. That means things like Grobner bases, Risch integration, numerical methods, differential equation solving, etc. are well-known and understood in the relevant academic circles. Does this mean competing software doesn't exist? Again, NO. Sure, a programmer with the appropriate math background could implement these things as specialized tools, or could even try to make their own comprehensive suite (e.g., Waterloo Maple, which was later commercialized). But is such software expensive in part because the algorithms are of such nature and complexity that it is nontrivial for most programmers to implement? ABSOLUTELY. Tell me, what is your estimate of the percentage of career programmers across the entire software industry that even know about three of the algorithms I just mentioned, let alone understand the mathematics behind it to implement it efficiently? That is what I mean by my statement. The kind of code that goes into Mathematica is not even remotely like that which goes into something like Firefox, or anything that Google does. That's not to say that the latter is inferior--it is merely different. That scarcity of supply, and the niche market nature for such a product, is what creates high prices. That is my point.
I've used Maple, Mathematica, and SAS, among other products, for mathematical and/or statistical analysis. From a programming/features perspective, each has its own strengths--and weaknesses.
I'll only briefly mention cost. These things are expensive because it's not like any random programmer can build this kind of software. Especially with Mathematica, these are heavily-researched algorithms that are nontrivial to implement. Also, the market is small for such a specialized and sophisticated application. Your average person isn't ever going to be able to use something like this. They barely know what the quadratic formula is. (They should, but that's an entirely different story.) You think they need to invert a 20x20 matrix? Or compute the Galois group of a quintic? Or even do a simple hypothesis test?
As for the image manipulation stuff, I think that comparisons to Photoshop are a bit naive. Clearly, it's not supposed to be for people who want to do red-eye reduction on their family photos. It's not even for graphic designers or photographers. It's for scientists who want an algorithmic approach to adjusting their images, either for research or for purposes of publication. Could you do these things in Photoshop? Sure. Could you then say what formula or algorithm was applied to the image to produce that specific result? No. And conversely, you wouldn't do layer composition, masking, or on-the-fly tonal adjustments with Mathematica.
FWIW I hate the copy protection on it too. It's infuriating and a burden to legitimate users while doing little to deter piracy.
"Dogs suck at tracking people in urban environments. They can do a ridiculously good job in the country, but put them in downtown New York and they lose the scent immediately. That would indicate that the odor is either not unique, or that dogs are not capable of detecting the subtle differences."
Or it could just mean that other smells and stimuli compete for the dog's attention, masking the scent to be tracked. Urban environments are filled with all kinds of odors, noises, and pollution. This probably plays as much a role in tracking as the actual distinctiveness of a smell itself.
It's from a National Geographic article from like 15 years ago, about the science of smell. The notable thing about this photo is that all the "smellers" are female--this is because in general, women tend to be more sensitive to smell, and besides, men probably don't want other men smelling their pits.
Internet protocols and standards were originally implemented for academic use. Decades ago, TCP/IP, SMTP, DNS, and HTTP were created with an implicit assumption of trust between client and server--indeed, between all nodes in the network. The Internet was an exercise in efficient data transfer across a network. It was not designed for spam, or DDoS, or phishing; nor was it designed for shopping, bank account management, or YouTube. That we can do these things now is a reflection of the workarounds that have been developed in the meantime.
Furthermore, hardware at the time of the development of these protocols was not what it is today.
And then, over the course of several years, the monetizing and commercialization of this academic project occurred. ISPs, in order to reach the masses, established an inherently unequal system of access that encouraged consumption of content but discouraged users from hosting it. The solution that has come about in more recent years, with blogs, social networks, and so forth, was to have users submit content and have it hosted by large, ad-revenue based corporations. This has led to serious problems concerning the nature of ownership of information.
And now, we have one of the people running such a site, complaining that the underlying model on which their company relies is "built wrong" because it doesn't suit their needs. Well, isn't that rich? It smacks of willful ignorance of not only what the Internet is, but more importantly, the original design principles (egalitarian, neutral) that the Internet embodied.
The pace of technology is rapid. History, however, is long, and the danger I see here is not that you have one idiot who hasn't learned his history lesson, but that as time goes by, more and more people and corporations and politicians will forget why the Internet was originally built. That's why we have companies against Net neutrality. They have forgotten or ignored history. They took something free and made billions off of it, and they want to milk it for all it's worth. And therein lies the real problem, because when you forget where something came from, you become disconnected from the past and blind to the future.
The article contains a serious flaw in logic. Given the legal environment of the DMCA, if the internet we have now is a Good Thing, then how does that imply that the DMCA is the cause, without considering how much potentially better things could have been instead?
This kind of false rationalization is neither legitimate news reporting, nor is it respectful of those who have fought against the abuses of a poorly conceived and implemented law.
After all, it's a bit like saying that because my car got towed yesterday, I wasn't able to get into a car accident. That I had no car to wreck does not mean I am better off for having it towed--in fact, it is very probable the time and money I spent to retrieve it could have gone to something much more rewarding and useful.
So I have a good friend who is on the rather kinky side. Last year, he went on a trip to a certain event that involved bringing various "toys." So he packed various items into checked luggage, and went through the security screening. When he arrived at his destination and opened his luggage to unpack, he discovered a slip of paper that indicated that his suitcase had been opened by a TSA screener.
What he found remarkable was not the paper itself, but where it had been located. It was very neatly and securely wrapped around a large black rubber dildo.
The first thing that came to mind when he told me this was to ask whether he had put it in some kind of ziploc bag. (I am a big fan of storage bags.) He replied, "Why would I do that?" I then pointed out that perhaps the person who put that paper there would have chosen to "handle things differently" (gloves notwithstanding) had they given some thought as to where this object has been.
The moral of the story, my friends, is don't put anything worth stealing in your checked luggage. For example, I would never put computers or electronic equipment in checked luggage. That is like putting a giant bulls-eye on your stuff, saying, "STEAL ME." And sometimes, putting something a little...distasteful might even help prevent stealing. I imagine the TSA screener wasn't about to abscond with an already-used (though clean, my friend claimed) sex toy.
OTOH, the iPhone can only use apps from Apple's app store but not from any other source.
This is not strictly true. iPhone applications can be installed outside of the iTunes App Store--in fact, I have done such an installation myself for the purposes of beta testing. However, distribution through this method is limited to a fixed number of devices. The way it works is each device must send a code to the developer, and a provisioning key is then distributed with the application to enable its use on that device.
While this is clearly not the same as Google's approach, it is a valid counterexample of the stated claim.
Personally I hold no position on kill switches or Android vs. iPhone. I think that Android is still nascent, and at the present time, comparisons are premature. I do find it amusing how there is so much discussion about these issues--it is the nerd equivalent of navel-gazing.
The criterion used to determine whether a technology is outdated is not how long it has been around or if other technologies are superior. The single criterion used is whether the technology is still NEEDED--that is to say, no other reasonable alternative, either economically or technologically, exists.
Since FireWire (IEEE 1394) is a commonly used interface for external HDs, and more importantly, DV cameras, and iMovie uses this interface to read digital video from such a camera, it is still necessary because the loss of the interface means significant functionality is lost. USB is not an adequate replacement for this purpose, and the same is true for Target Disk Mode (otherwise Apple would have implemented it over USB but that has clearly not come to pass). Therefore FireWire is not outdated.
That is it not widely used outside the Mac market is irrelevant. The MacBook used to be able to do at least two things (as described above) that many users consider important, that the newest iteration cannot. Moreover, there is no known workaround, no effort by Apple to find a reasonable alternative. That is why so many are upset. I personally believe it reflects a poor design and planning choice. The MacBook is not the MacBook Air. It is the entry-level laptop, some users' only machine. Many of them are educational users.
FWIW I own a MacBook Pro. I personally think 13" is too small and wouldn't get a MacBook anyway. But should Apple ever get rid of FireWire across the entire laptop line (without furnishing a viable alternative), I think you'd have a reaction 100 times worse than what's happening now. It would effectively kill laptop sales. That is how accepted FireWire is in the "Pro" and Mac market as a whole.
Thank you.
You might be interested to know that the expression you gave, (B^2 - A^2 + B + A)/2 can be factored like so: ((B+A)(B-A) + (B+A))/2 = (B+A)(B-A+1)/2. This is the form of the solution that most directly corresponds to the "reversal" method previously discussed, since B+A is the sum of the first and last terms, and B-A+1 is the total number of terms in the series. Thus we can immediately see how the two methods are equivalent.
It is also a well-known theorem which states that the sum of any arithmetic series S[n] = a[1]+a[2]+...+a[n] is given by the formula S[n] = (a[1]+a[n])n/2; again, it is the product of the sum of the first and last terms, with the number of terms, divided by 2. The proof is a simple generalization of the reversal method; curiously, the common difference d = a[k+1] - a[k] is not needed (though its value is implied, given a[1], a[n], and n).
3 - "OK. In that case, add up the numbers between 100 and 200." (Tricky one, that - it's an odd number of elements!)
Well, some math historians contend that this story is apocryphal, but that's not the reason why I am responding.
The real reason is that your example is not really any more difficult using the same method as that attributed to the young Gauss. You would simply observe that 100+101+102+...+200, when written in reverse, gives 200+199+198+...+100, and the sum of each corresponding term in the two series is simply 300. Since there are 200-100+1 = 101 such terms in each series, and the two series are obviously equal, the sum of one series is 300(101)/2 = 150(100+1) = 15000 + 150 = 15150. The reasoning is essentially the same, and the arithmetic is equally simple.
A more difficult question, one that would have required even more sophisticated reasoning, would have been to find the sum 1+4+9+16+...+2500. While it can still be done in a very elementary way, such a series would not yield to the simple manipulation used in the linear case.
I'm really not sure why you are making personal attacks on me. I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to learn something about actuarial science before you speak about the supposed scam that is insurance. But you don't need that kind of "fancy math," so I guess that request is in vain.
In fact, I am an ardent Obama supporter, not because I like him in particular, but because Bush, McCain, and the Republicans (neocons) have been so incredibly bad for the US on virtually all issues of importance (foreign policy, economy, energy, environment, civil liberties, healthcare, education) that I am just hoping in my heart of hearts that we don't go through four more years of failed policy.
As for the current economic problems, they are largely unrelated to the personal insurance market, but rather, the collapse of the mortgage lending market due to the issuing of vast amounts of credit to individuals who were not credit-worthy. When housing prices crashed, mortgagees had less incentive to pay back loans on properties that were worth less than the loan amount. Foreclosures led to the invocation of credit default swaps, which then led to a loss of liquidity in the market due to insufficient reserves to back so many defaulted mortgages. And now we are presently in a state where most banks have run into problems due to the inability to borrow from other banks. The situation is dire, but my belief is that these institutions must be allowed to collapse and fail, rather than be bailed out by the taxpayer, thereby creating moral hazard. Privatization of profit and socialization of loss is not capitalism, it is highway robbery, and that is what the bailout is.
Have you ever compared the annual statements of a bank and an insurance company? Do you know what a mutual insurer is? You can demonize insurance all you want. I'm not going to continue to try to dispel your beliefs any further, since it is plainly obvious you have no interest whatsoever in understanding what you hate so much. Your problem is your failure to understand the distinction between the insurance mechanism versus insurance business practices. The former is what I defend because it is rational. The latter, I do not necessarily defend. As I have said, not all actions by an insurer are morally sound. That does not mean ALL actions are thereby morally unsound. Your inability to reason logically does a terrible disservice to those who have been properly indemnified from loss as a result of their insurance.
You should not expect to receive further correspondence with me on this subject, as I feel that further discussion with you would not be productive as you have not expressed any sincere interest in the nature of actuarial science.
Well, that's absolutely wrong and I'm very sorry to hear that, not that my words have much meaning in the face of such loss. I sincerely hope that it was not my company that insured your family.
Not all insurers are alike. And if you think about the total incurred loss from a single event like Katrina, it is dwarfed by the bailout bill signed by the US government recently. It is dwarfed by the sum total of reinsurance contracts and retrocession agreements for the major P&C insurers. The justification (which in my view, may have actuarial basis but is nevertheless flawed from an overall insurance viewpoint) for denying claims from Katrina was that this event was considered so rare and severe that there was no way to create an appropriate provision for it, and therefore the insurers could not pay out on the claims. Again, I think that is the wrong way to look at it. I think that for the insurance mechanism to work properly, insureds must have confidence that the insurer will fulfill its contractual obligations.