Try DrScheme; learning Lisp is a lot more palatable for beginners in my experience and DrScheme has a wonderful interface. He can have fun with simple programming and making his own algorithms without having to go through all the tedious memorization and syntax that would comes with a lot of languages.
My non-techie mom loves puzzles and is a competitive (and damn good) bridge player - I'd always wanted to get her into computer science, but was never able to because having to think about compilers or calling pre-existing packages would just make her eyes glaze over. I finally broke through with DrScheme - now she makes her own programs to crack those puzzles that are in the newspaper each day (and has no idea that that is programming - she assumes programming means something ugly like Java).
"It depends. Are you smart? Or did you choose a degree path based on expected income? Sounds like you fall into the first camp, so you're pretty safe. There are plenty of tough problem solving positions out there. They're hard to fill because most people are not smart. You may have to work a few jobs before you find the one that fits you, where you're really challenged and appreciated. BTW, most of what you learned in school is at least 5 years old, which means get ready to throw it out and learn how to do this stuff all over again. Just sayin'."</i>
I already graduated with a finance degree and was working in that capacity for a couple years, planning to pursue a professional career. The opportunity cost of not working while in school again, paying for school, and having to start at the bottom again when I come out probably works out to >$200k, so no, not in it for the money.
I just have an extremely small amount of patience for the shitheads who pepper their speech with corporate buzzwords (the crap they teach in business school) thinking it will compensate for mediocre intelligence. Though given the crap I see/hear about at big companies, perhaps they are right. In any case, I like to think, I like science, and I don't like stupid people so big corp business job isn't for me.
I'm taking computer science - I love the math, the logic, and the abstract thinking really tough problems require.
Listening to this, it sounds like the industry side of this is boring crap where you don't apply any of what you learned in school. Is this really accurate, or did a lot of the complainers not really enjoy studying / not good at it?
Any help would be appreciated - if I have this shit to look forward to then I'm going straight to grad school.
This is a bold statement and I'm open to being proved wrong, but I don't believe that this is an analogue of a 4D game, unless it's creators have a very different notion of what 'analogue' means than I do.
Is there anyone here who finds the analogue very compelling, who might be able to argue otherwise? I'd provide more explanation for my view, except that if no one feels strongly one way or the other, it will probably go unread, and thus be a waste of time...
FUCK! I am an idiot!!
Okay, one last time, here is what that should have said. Original post:
Then applying 2D logic would indicate that the only permitted movements would be WA, or WB. However, you could provide the 2D player with 3D "rules", which would hold that WA, WB, WX, WZ, XA.... etc, etc, Wrong about the rules. Should have been, for the indicated pattern:
A WXYZ B
2D = every variable can be switched with the adjacent variable
Then applying 2D logic would indicate that the only permitted movements would be WA, or WB. However, you could provide the 2D player with 3D "rules", which would hold that WA, WB, WX, WZ, XA.... etc, etc,
Oops, there's more moves than that available in 2D...
A
WXYZ
B
2D = every variable can be switched with the adjacent variable
3D = 2D moves + "wrap arounds" (ZW, AX, etc.)
To use your analogy of a 3-D sliding puzzle in a 2-D world; a 3-D sliding puzzle would be a cube (with six sides) and only one square missing. Projected down to a 2-D surface we would see three of the sides (distorted from their square shape). When rotated, the sides would change shape and size, and dissapear and reapear. We can never see more than three sides at a time.
The easiest way to understand projection down to lower dimensions is to imagine a 3-D object in the sun. When you rotate it, the shadow of the object changes shape, even though the object itself does not.</quote>
I agree with you (my previous post described something similar - probably got posted while you were typing this).
Anyways, I'd be very interested in a game that simulates 4D by using 4D inspired rules and applying them to 3D space. For instance, you could very easily play a 3D "game" in 2D space by applying 3D logic to the 2D unpacked cube. Every move would give the player the option to make movements in 2D based on 3D rules.
For instance, if each of these variables represented a side of a 3D cube (hopefully this formats ok) in a 2D universe:
A WXYZ B
Then applying 2D logic would indicate that the only permitted movements would be W<->A, or W<->B. However, you could provide the 2D player with 3D "rules", which would hold that W<->A, W<->B, W<->X, W<->Z, X<->A.... etc, etc, would be possible moves. I have no idea if a 2D being would be able to understand this. But there would be nothing inconsistent with creating such a game with said rules in 2D space, and it would be a perfect representation of a 3D puzzle. So I would argue that the way the object is displayed in 2D, 3D, etc space is rather irrelevant. Therefore, I'm more interested in being directly provided the rules that govern the behavior of the object, rather than having to reverse engineer them by looking at an object which another human has designed based on his interpretation of said rules (which adds another level vagueness, as even if the rules were right one would also have to assume that the error prone 3D humans who converted them to a 3D image did so entirely accurately).
Damnit, my unpacked "cube" did not format properly... Anyways, looks like there is no edit option, so if that you're unsure of what that image was supposed to be, disassemble a (cubic) kleenex box...:-S
I'm not sure, but the 4D software cubes I've played with before seem to be actually 4D. In your sliding puzzle analog, sliding a square on one side would have an effect in the orientation of the squares on the other sides. So in the 4D Rubik's cube model, turning a side on one of the cubes would also rotate something else on one of the other cubes. I can solve the 3x3 Rubik's original, and almost solve the 4x4 variant, but the 4D cubes are next to impossible in my mind.
I agree that the effects produced by moving the meta-pieces within the analog I described would have some similarity to a 3D puzzle. But in my mind, the analogy is very limited. The only way I could think of accurately portraying 3D puzzle within 2D space would be to display it as a flat "unpacked" 3D object, like a collapsed cardboard box that you fold together to make a cube:
__
__ |__|__ __ |__|__|__|__|
|__|
And then establish how the patterns of 3D movement would be displayed in the 2D "unpacked" representation (taking into account that some of the squares would have to be displayed in reverse or upside down since their data would be facing "away" from the 2D observer). Of course, it would be not be very elegant, and very difficult, if not impossible, for 2D beings to conceptualize.
Assuming my logic is tenable, it would then seem very hard to believe that a 4D object could be accurately represented in such an elegant and intuitive manner in 3D space, when it appears that doing the same in 2D space (with a 3D object) requires a tradeoff between elegance or accuracy.
Is it readily apparent to everyone else that this thing really is an analog of a 4-D MagicCell puzzle? It's very possible that it is and going right over my head. But from looking at this, it appears to me this is more analogous to people in a 2-D world taking a Sliding Puzzle game (like this ) and adding 3 more to form a square, with each Sliding Puzzle being a piece within the "meta-Sliding Puzzle", and calling that analogous to a 3-D puzzle... ?
I'm not sure if this makes sense or not (if I could draw a picture I could make my point a lot easier)...
No matter how counter to ones own beliefs, allowing everyone the free exercise of their beliefs is of utmost importance to me. Given the blatant desire by religious zealots to squash that for their own personal comfort,, as my original comment suggested, I feel little weight should be given to religious views concerning the topic at hand. Partially because they're already well known; additionally because they tend to offer little in the way of leeway when it comes to constructive discussion. fixed that for you:
Depending how counter to my own beliefs, allowing some people the free exercise of their beliefs is of utmost importance to me. Given the blatant desire by religious zealots to exercise their own beliefs, as my original comment suggested, I feel little weight should be given to religious views concerning the topic at hand. Partially because they're already well known; additionally because they tend to offer little in the way of leeway when it comes to agreeing with me.
This crap is going to become more and more prevalent in Canada, the US, Britain, etc., and I'm not sure exactly how it can be stopped.
The problem is that a large portion of the population cannot be reasoned with (to put it lightly). To many people an unassailable argument (i.e., one that sounds good) in support of these star chambers would be this:
"Free speech is an important right, but it's no more important than the right of minorities to not be exposed to hate speech."
It's just a soundbyte, but even dissecting this requires quite a bit of thought (way more than the typical couch potato is used to). For instance, the underlying meaning expressed within that sentence might could be conceptualized something like this (and even this is a HUGE simplification):
"Free speech is an important right..." free_speech -> right [CATEGORY]
"...the right of minorities to not be exposed to hatred..." not be exposed to hatred -> right[CATEGORY], [CLASS] = minorities
"...no more important than the right of minorities to not be exposed to hate speech." free_speech (right, all/undefined) >= not_exposed_to_hate (right, minorities)
From here you could derive further things implied by the original statement that someone accepting it would also have to accept (e.g., free speech must not be the most important right, or not all groups of people possess the same rights), and challenge ambiguities (what is hate speech? Who are minorities?), then based on those responses further refine your conceptual model of the person is saying, derive implications, and repeat... (In a perfect world it would be possible to repeat this until either one realized his beliefs were based on flawed logic, or that either side's beliefs were both logically sound and reached different conclusions only because they had a different opinion on some fundamental principle).
But it's never going to happen like that. There's surely flaws in my logic, things I've overlooked, or left ambigious. However, at least it's a framework for how two smart people could go about resolving an issue. Unfortunatley, I believe that most people's brains would operate more like this (I wish I could say this was a simplification):
"Free speech is an important right..." Yeah! Good! Freedom!!!
"...right of minorities..." Minorities -> victims, need help *sympathy* ->help them with rights!!
"..hate speech." HATE?!!! omg! Nazis!!! KKK!!!:(
***thinking***
helping minorities = good
free speech = good + hate speech
hate speech = bad
Solution:
free speech - hate speech + helping minorities
= (good + bad) - bad + good
= good + bad - bad + good
= SUPER GOOD!!!!!!!111oneoneone:)
Add to this that those possessing the subjective, emotion responsive brains are going to be disproportionatley represented in fields like political science (which are the feeders for the intelligencia class - media academia, law, politics, etc.) and bullshit like Human "Rights" Commissions should surprise no one. The shrieking fanatic calling everything that moves a racist tends to drown out at any appeal to reason.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey,
Try DrScheme; learning Lisp is a lot more palatable for beginners in my experience and DrScheme has a wonderful interface. He can have fun with simple programming and making his own algorithms without having to go through all the tedious memorization and syntax that would comes with a lot of languages.
My non-techie mom loves puzzles and is a competitive (and damn good) bridge player - I'd always wanted to get her into computer science, but was never able to because having to think about compilers or calling pre-existing packages would just make her eyes glaze over. I finally broke through with DrScheme - now she makes her own programs to crack those puzzles that are in the newspaper each day (and has no idea that that is programming - she assumes programming means something ugly like Java).
http://www.drscheme.org/
"It depends. Are you smart? Or did you choose a degree path based on expected income? Sounds like you fall into the first camp, so you're pretty safe. There are plenty of tough problem solving positions out there. They're hard to fill because most people are not smart. You may have to work a few jobs before you find the one that fits you, where you're really challenged and appreciated.
BTW, most of what you learned in school is at least 5 years old, which means get ready to throw it out and learn how to do this stuff all over again. Just sayin'."</i>
I already graduated with a finance degree and was working in that capacity for a couple years, planning to pursue a professional career. The opportunity cost of not working while in school again, paying for school, and having to start at the bottom again when I come out probably works out to >$200k, so no, not in it for the money.
I just have an extremely small amount of patience for the shitheads who pepper their speech with corporate buzzwords (the crap they teach in business school) thinking it will compensate for mediocre intelligence. Though given the crap I see/hear about at big companies, perhaps they are right. In any case, I like to think, I like science, and I don't like stupid people so big corp business job isn't for me.
I'm taking computer science - I love the math, the logic, and the abstract thinking really tough problems require.
Listening to this, it sounds like the industry side of this is boring crap where you don't apply any of what you learned in school. Is this really accurate, or did a lot of the complainers not really enjoy studying / not good at it?
Any help would be appreciated - if I have this shit to look forward to then I'm going straight to grad school.
This is a bold statement and I'm open to being proved wrong, but I don't believe that this is an analogue of a 4D game, unless it's creators have a very different notion of what 'analogue' means than I do.
Is there anyone here who finds the analogue very compelling, who might be able to argue otherwise? I'd provide more explanation for my view, except that if no one feels strongly one way or the other, it will probably go unread, and thus be a waste of time...
3D = 2D moves + "wrap arounds" (ZW, AX, etc.)
Then applying 2D logic would indicate that the only permitted movements would be WA, or WB. However, you could provide the 2D player with 3D "rules", which would hold that WA, WB, WX, WZ, XA.... etc, etc, Oops, there's more moves than that available in 2D... A WXYZ B 2D = every variable can be switched with the adjacent variable 3D = 2D moves + "wrap arounds" (ZW, AX, etc.)
To use your analogy of a 3-D sliding puzzle in a 2-D world; a 3-D sliding puzzle would be a cube (with six sides) and only one square missing. Projected down to a 2-D surface we would see three of the sides (distorted from their square shape). When rotated, the sides would change shape and size, and dissapear and reapear. We can never see more than three sides at a time.
The easiest way to understand projection down to lower dimensions is to imagine a 3-D object in the sun. When you rotate it, the shadow of the object changes shape, even though the object itself does not.</quote>
I agree with you (my previous post described something similar - probably got posted while you were typing this).
Anyways, I'd be very interested in a game that simulates 4D by using 4D inspired rules and applying them to 3D space. For instance, you could very easily play a 3D "game" in 2D space by applying 3D logic to the 2D unpacked cube. Every move would give the player the option to make movements in 2D based on 3D rules.
For instance, if each of these variables represented a side of a 3D cube (hopefully this formats ok) in a 2D universe:
A
WXYZ
B
Then applying 2D logic would indicate that the only permitted movements would be W<->A, or W<->B. However, you could provide the 2D player with 3D "rules", which would hold that W<->A, W<->B, W<->X, W<->Z, X<->A.... etc, etc, would be possible moves. I have no idea if a 2D being would be able to understand this. But there would be nothing inconsistent with creating such a game with said rules in 2D space, and it would be a perfect representation of a 3D puzzle. So I would argue that the way the object is displayed in 2D, 3D, etc space is rather irrelevant. Therefore, I'm more interested in being directly provided the rules that govern the behavior of the object, rather than having to reverse engineer them by looking at an object which another human has designed based on his interpretation of said rules (which adds another level vagueness, as even if the rules were right one would also have to assume that the error prone 3D humans who converted them to a 3D image did so entirely accurately).
Damnit, my unpacked "cube" did not format properly... Anyways, looks like there is no edit option, so if that you're unsure of what that image was supposed to be, disassemble a (cubic) kleenex box... :-S
I'm not sure, but the 4D software cubes I've played with before seem to be actually 4D. In your sliding puzzle analog, sliding a square on one side would have an effect in the orientation of the squares on the other sides. So in the 4D Rubik's cube model, turning a side on one of the cubes would also rotate something else on one of the other cubes. I can solve the 3x3 Rubik's original, and almost solve the 4x4 variant, but the 4D cubes are next to impossible in my mind.
I agree that the effects produced by moving the meta-pieces within the analog I described would have some similarity to a 3D puzzle. But in my mind, the analogy is very limited. The only way I could think of accurately portraying 3D puzzle within 2D space would be to display it as a flat "unpacked" 3D object, like a collapsed cardboard box that you fold together to make a cube:
__
__ |__|__ __
|__|__|__|__|
|__|
And then establish how the patterns of 3D movement would be displayed in the 2D "unpacked" representation (taking into account that some of the squares would have to be displayed in reverse or upside down since their data would be facing "away" from the 2D observer). Of course, it would be not be very elegant, and very difficult, if not impossible, for 2D beings to conceptualize.
Assuming my logic is tenable, it would then seem very hard to believe that a 4D object could be accurately represented in such an elegant and intuitive manner in 3D space, when it appears that doing the same in 2D space (with a 3D object) requires a tradeoff between elegance or accuracy.
Is it readily apparent to everyone else that this thing really is an analog of a 4-D MagicCell puzzle? It's very possible that it is and going right over my head. But from looking at this, it appears to me this is more analogous to people in a 2-D world taking a Sliding Puzzle game (like this ) and adding 3 more to form a square, with each Sliding Puzzle being a piece within the "meta-Sliding Puzzle", and calling that analogous to a 3-D puzzle... ?
I'm not sure if this makes sense or not (if I could draw a picture I could make my point a lot easier)...
Q: "does Powerset suck?"
A: "Hasse Diagram", "Martian Manhunter", "Tank", "Carnivorous Plants", "Sunspot"...
This crap is going to become more and more prevalent in Canada, the US, Britain, etc., and I'm not sure exactly how it can be stopped.
:(
:)
The problem is that a large portion of the population cannot be reasoned with (to put it lightly). To many people an unassailable argument (i.e., one that sounds good) in support of these star chambers would be this:
"Free speech is an important right, but it's no more important than the right of minorities to not be exposed to hate speech."
It's just a soundbyte, but even dissecting this requires quite a bit of thought (way more than the typical couch potato is used to). For instance, the underlying meaning expressed within that sentence might could be conceptualized something like this (and even this is a HUGE simplification):
"Free speech is an important right..."
free_speech -> right [CATEGORY]
"...the right of minorities to not be exposed to hatred..."
not be exposed to hatred -> right[CATEGORY], [CLASS] = minorities
"...no more important than the right of minorities to not be exposed to hate speech."
free_speech (right, all/undefined) >= not_exposed_to_hate (right, minorities)
From here you could derive further things implied by the original statement that someone accepting it would also have to accept (e.g., free speech must not be the most important right, or not all groups of people possess the same rights), and challenge ambiguities (what is hate speech? Who are minorities?), then based on those responses further refine your conceptual model of the person is saying, derive implications, and repeat... (In a perfect world it would be possible to repeat this until either one realized his beliefs were based on flawed logic, or that either side's beliefs were both logically sound and reached different conclusions only because they had a different opinion on some fundamental principle).
But it's never going to happen like that. There's surely flaws in my logic, things I've overlooked, or left ambigious. However, at least it's a framework for how two smart people could go about resolving an issue. Unfortunatley, I believe that most people's brains would operate more like this (I wish I could say this was a simplification):
"Free speech is an important right..."
Yeah! Good! Freedom!!!
"...right of minorities..."
Minorities -> victims, need help *sympathy* ->help them with rights!!
"..hate speech."
HATE?!!! omg! Nazis!!! KKK!!!
***thinking***
helping minorities = good
free speech = good + hate speech
hate speech = bad
Solution:
free speech - hate speech + helping minorities
= (good + bad) - bad + good
= good + bad - bad + good
= SUPER GOOD!!!!!!!111oneoneone
Add to this that those possessing the subjective, emotion responsive brains are going to be disproportionatley represented in fields like political science (which are the feeders for the intelligencia class - media academia, law, politics, etc.) and bullshit like Human "Rights" Commissions should surprise no one. The shrieking fanatic calling everything that moves a racist tends to drown out at any appeal to reason.