It does mention 'God Save The King', which is the same tune. You must have noticed that - why do you think they play that music at the Olympics when they hand out bronze medals?
As they are in 1429, that would seem a bit premature.
Or were you assuming they would be using your calendar? Oh I see, it's a joke based on the ignorance and backwardness of foreigners. I get it now. Very funny.
I think a lot of people fail to grasp how good sports betting markets are. There are problems with some 'Predictive Markets' caused mainly by puritanical US Government attitudes to gambling, but when hard cash is on the line and operator margins are low enough, betting markets are superb predictors.
Local fans, blind favourite backers and coincidence bettors just add a little background noise, because despite their overwhelming numbers their stakes are pitifully small compared to 'real' players. If you analyze predicted outcome / actual outcome for a large sample of events on something like Betfair for example, you will be stunned how good the fit is.
(DISCLAIMER - Don't do this if you are a punter, it will depress the fuck out of you)
One of the things I picked up on from the article was the way they describe Obama's loss in the NH primary as a failure of the predictive market. The markets made him 91-9 favourite so they were actually giving him a 9% chance of losing. The real failure would be if their 91% market leaders NEVER lost. You have to look at long-term relative frequencies stratified by price to get an idea of how accurate these markets are.
I'm not saying that the points about a weak market being a poor predictor are wrong, but from the comments regarding the NH primary it seems that the author has entirely failed to grasp how these markets work. If the Met Office says there is a 91% chance of rain tomorrow and it happens to stay dry, does he see this as an indication that their models are suddenly faulty, especially as the last 9 times they gave this forecast it pissed down?
Franklin I can live with, it's Da Vinci that always gets me. The guy was an artist with a good imagination, but a shite engineer and a worse scientist. Now he seems entrenched in the public psyche as some sort of scientific genius. I blame the writers of Star Trek, especially Voyager.
FSM wasn't thought up to 'produce some laughs', it was a device used to show the absurdity of teaching "Intelligent Design" in schools on an equal footing with scientific theory.
The whole point is that there isn't 'a world of difference' between the FSM and 'God'.
The use of FSM in discussions like this is actually a short-hand for most of the points you make in your post, you shouldn't confuse the patent absurdity of it with trivialization.
The Ozrics have been kicking around since the early eighties, always seemed to turn up at Stonehenge and Glastonbury; not a good example of 'music today' I would say.
(Yeah I know they're still recording / gigging, but so are The Stones)
I left formal education 20+ years ago, and I still use a pencil for working stuff out. (Not arithmetic, we have machines for that now, but equations and shit like that).
Pen for words, though, on the rare occasion it's not a keyboard.
hmmm... there does seem a heluva lot taken out. Was it replaced by anything? I'm guessing so, otherwise it would be a two week course:-)
One of the problems is that maths is such a huge subject, and there are so many varied disciplines which require good knowledge of certain small parts of it. I would imagine that requirements for CS, Physics, Engineering and Economics courses would be significantly different, not to mention statistical knowledge etc. required by Social Sciences and the like. Trying to cover all bases with a generic 'Mathematics' A Level is always going to be a tall order, perhaps there should be a range of them geared to various areas.
Probably the worst served discipline is Maths itself; I did Double Maths A Level (Pure and Applied, don't even know if they still do that). Apart from demonstrating aptitude, it was bugger all use for a Maths degree. Everything we learned in the first year came from first principles, and the later years built on that.
I suppose it is just inefficient to teach Mathematics to non-specialists when all they really want are Mathematical Techniques (in all their many and varied guises). Shame, really - techniques are cool and they make geeks smile at their cleverness, but I never got that 'beauty of mathematics' thing till Christopher Zeeman's first year foundations course. Perhaps they should teach that sort of thing to twelve year olds. Actually, they should teach it to the people who teach twelve year olds....
The UK as a whole introduced national testing for 7, 11 and 14 year olds a while back. When Wales got it's own National Assembly with responsibility for education they dropped testing of 7 and 11 year olds pretty quickly. The argument was that it was being used merely as a blanket performance indicator of schools' performance, but had a detrimental effect on pupils.
I must say that I agree with this, it seems like a badly thought out transplant of business practices into education. Doesn't work in schools - doesn't work in hospitals. (We run our own Health Service now as well, ratio of managers to doctors/nurses has gone waaay down. I'd rather be sick here than in England).
On another point, I was in school in the 70s and even then they stressed the difference between mean, median and mode quite early on, probably about age 9-10. Before that, certainly, 'average' was synonymous with 'arithmetic mean'.
I did my maths O Level in 1979, just at the tail-end of the 'new math(s)' movement in schools. We did some set theory, but to be honest it wasn't taught well. I don't think the teachers saw the point in it; they were much happier with trigonometry and algebra.
There was a bit more set theory / functions etc. at 'A' Level, but again the teachers were keener to push calculus because they were on firmer ground.
When I got to University EVERYTHING was sets, groups, fields and functions; all that solid, traditional stuff was reduced to background information, I never needed any of it in an exam.
Meanwhile, back at school in Thatcher's britain, even the little 'real' maths there was in the sylabus was discarded in favour of a more 'practical' approach - it was important that everyone should be a competent grocer. Even things like trig and geometry were sidelined as unimportant to creating financially competent 'citizens'.
There was a gap of ten or fifteen years then when I paid no attention to UK school maths, but since various nieces and nephews have been going through the system, I have seen a shift back to more traditional style topics (trig and geometry included), especially compared to the mid to late eighties. None of them so far has made it past GCSE, so I don't know if 'A' Levels are any closer to University maths than in my day, but I suspect not.
The point I am trying to make is that the original article bemoans the prospects of UK maths undergraduates because exams are easier than they were, hence they won't have the necessary knowledge going in. Since the maths taught in schools hasn't bourne much relationship to University maths for a hundred years or so I can't see it makes much difference. If they want better graduates they should sort the sylabus out before they worry about 'slipping standards'.
No, of course not. It has a "Remove Clicks" button.
Audacity is a very capable app, but doing simple stuff on it is pretty straightforward. (I'm sure my dad could do it)
My point with CDs was that this is BETTER in linux than in Windows. (You never mentioned ripping CDs BTW, only burning them; try re-reading your post)
I am sure there are a million reasons why people don't switch to linux, I was just pointing out that audio file manipulation shouldn't be one of them; if anything it's something linux does better.
I thought that Audacity and Lame were pretty much the standard tools for ripping vinyl to mp3. These are both available cross platform, and I have always had much better results using them in linux than in Windows. Granted the process may not be so pointy/clicky, but the end results seem to be more consistent.
As for ripping CDs, Grip on linux as a front end to cdparanoia/lame is much better than anything I have managed to find for Windows. (Even my brother grudgingly admits this, and he told me last week that the weather was too warm to consider switching to linux, and I should get back to him when Hell started to freeze over...)
While I wouldn't downplay Turing's contribution, my vote would go to
this guy for 'main hero'.
He gets recognition for electronic telephone exchanges and ERNIE (the Premium Bond RNG), but due to the Official Secrets Act his part in the development of Colossus is still not widely appreciated.
The general feeling I get from people with a computing background is that Turing 'designed' the machine and some monkey with a soldering iron built it. This is a long way from the truth, but I guess a bricklayer's son called Tommy doesn't make as good a story as a tortured academic who commits suicide with a poisoned apple.
"ASP, or Awareness during Sleep Paralysis" - It all makes sense now; that mind-numbing fear, the horrifying images, a total inability to do anything about it other than surrender to the sheer horror of it all.
I always thought it stood for "Active Server Pages", silly me.
Slashdot Mirror
It does mention 'God Save The King', which is the same tune. You must have noticed that - why do you think they play that music at the Olympics when they hand out bronze medals?
No the computer is in England in November 1951 and starts out with "God Save The King." Which is the original title of the music.
The recording also includes a rendition of 'God Save The King' at the beginning - didn't work, though, he died six months later aged 56.
As the only people still driving real minis are enthusiasts who would know this, I think you can safely assume he's driving a ladies car.
Or were you assuming they would be using your calendar? Oh I see, it's a joke based on the ignorance and backwardness of foreigners. I get it now. Very funny.
Local fans, blind favourite backers and coincidence bettors just add a little background noise, because despite their overwhelming numbers their stakes are pitifully small compared to 'real' players. If you analyze predicted outcome / actual outcome for a large sample of events on something like Betfair for example, you will be stunned how good the fit is.
(DISCLAIMER - Don't do this if you are a punter, it will depress the fuck out of you)
I'm not saying that the points about a weak market being a poor predictor are wrong, but from the comments regarding the NH primary it seems that the author has entirely failed to grasp how these markets work. If the Met Office says there is a 91% chance of rain tomorrow and it happens to stay dry, does he see this as an indication that their models are suddenly faulty, especially as the last 9 times they gave this forecast it pissed down?
Franklin I can live with, it's Da Vinci that always gets me. The guy was an artist with a good imagination, but a shite engineer and a worse scientist. Now he seems entrenched in the public psyche as some sort of scientific genius. I blame the writers of Star Trek, especially Voyager.
The whole point is that there isn't 'a world of difference' between the FSM and 'God'.
The use of FSM in discussions like this is actually a short-hand for most of the points you make in your post, you shouldn't confuse the patent absurdity of it with trivialization.
(Yeah I know they're still recording / gigging, but so are The Stones)
He's never off-topic here; reading slashdot is the best example of Hofstadter's Law known to man.
I left formal education 20+ years ago, and I still use a pencil for working stuff out. (Not arithmetic, we have machines for that now, but equations and shit like that).
Pen for words, though, on the rare occasion it's not a keyboard.
One of the problems is that maths is such a huge subject, and there are so many varied disciplines which require good knowledge of certain small parts of it. I would imagine that requirements for CS, Physics, Engineering and Economics courses would be significantly different, not to mention statistical knowledge etc. required by Social Sciences and the like. Trying to cover all bases with a generic 'Mathematics' A Level is always going to be a tall order, perhaps there should be a range of them geared to various areas.
Probably the worst served discipline is Maths itself; I did Double Maths A Level (Pure and Applied, don't even know if they still do that). Apart from demonstrating aptitude, it was bugger all use for a Maths degree. Everything we learned in the first year came from first principles, and the later years built on that.
I suppose it is just inefficient to teach Mathematics to non-specialists when all they really want are Mathematical Techniques (in all their many and varied guises). Shame, really - techniques are cool and they make geeks smile at their cleverness, but I never got that 'beauty of mathematics' thing till Christopher Zeeman's first year foundations course. Perhaps they should teach that sort of thing to twelve year olds. Actually, they should teach it to the people who teach twelve year olds....
I must say that I agree with this, it seems like a badly thought out transplant of business practices into education. Doesn't work in schools - doesn't work in hospitals. (We run our own Health Service now as well, ratio of managers to doctors/nurses has gone waaay down. I'd rather be sick here than in England).
On another point, I was in school in the 70s and even then they stressed the difference between mean, median and mode quite early on, probably about age 9-10. Before that, certainly, 'average' was synonymous with 'arithmetic mean'.
There was a bit more set theory / functions etc. at 'A' Level, but again the teachers were keener to push calculus because they were on firmer ground.
When I got to University EVERYTHING was sets, groups, fields and functions; all that solid, traditional stuff was reduced to background information, I never needed any of it in an exam.
Meanwhile, back at school in Thatcher's britain, even the little 'real' maths there was in the sylabus was discarded in favour of a more 'practical' approach - it was important that everyone should be a competent grocer. Even things like trig and geometry were sidelined as unimportant to creating financially competent 'citizens'.
There was a gap of ten or fifteen years then when I paid no attention to UK school maths, but since various nieces and nephews have been going through the system, I have seen a shift back to more traditional style topics (trig and geometry included), especially compared to the mid to late eighties. None of them so far has made it past GCSE, so I don't know if 'A' Levels are any closer to University maths than in my day, but I suspect not.
The point I am trying to make is that the original article bemoans the prospects of UK maths undergraduates because exams are easier than they were, hence they won't have the necessary knowledge going in. Since the maths taught in schools hasn't bourne much relationship to University maths for a hundred years or so I can't see it makes much difference. If they want better graduates they should sort the sylabus out before they worry about 'slipping standards'.
Terrorism - to act or think in any way contrary to the policy of the US government (or, by extension, any major US corporation)
Just ask Tony Blair / Gordon Brown
You should have tried to run it - chances are it would have printed "Just another perl hacker" to stdout.
Not all qualifications lose their value - an MCSE is worth about the same anywhere in the world.
No, of course not. It has a "Remove Clicks" button.
Audacity is a very capable app, but doing simple stuff on it is pretty straightforward. (I'm sure my dad could do it)
My point with CDs was that this is BETTER in linux than in Windows. (You never mentioned ripping CDs BTW, only burning them; try re-reading your post)
I am sure there are a million reasons why people don't switch to linux, I was just pointing out that audio file manipulation shouldn't be one of them; if anything it's something linux does better.
As for ripping CDs, Grip on linux as a front end to cdparanoia/lame is much better than anything I have managed to find for Windows. (Even my brother grudgingly admits this, and he told me last week that the weather was too warm to consider switching to linux, and I should get back to him when Hell started to freeze over...)
Care to elaborate what those tasks are that require command prompt in Windows?
'ping' and 'tracert' leap to mind - I know there are equivalent gui tools, but not on a standard Windows install.
Eternal damnation, obviously (or a £10 on-the-spot fine)
Pictures at Eleven - Robert Plant's first solo album. It was about fifteen years before I realised it was referring to US television news.
Alan Turing — Bletchley Park's main hero
While I wouldn't downplay Turing's contribution, my vote would go to this guy for 'main hero'.
He gets recognition for electronic telephone exchanges and ERNIE (the Premium Bond RNG), but due to the Official Secrets Act his part in the development of Colossus is still not widely appreciated.
The general feeling I get from people with a computing background is that Turing 'designed' the machine and some monkey with a soldering iron built it. This is a long way from the truth, but I guess a bricklayer's son called Tommy doesn't make as good a story as a tortured academic who commits suicide with a poisoned apple.
I always thought it stood for "Active Server Pages", silly me.