Re:Damn you, I'm a Mech Engineer, not a Mathemetic
on
Happy Tau Day
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· Score: 1
Yes, tau is a bad choice, it means far too many things already. But I'm happy to celebrate the curve torsion day. And proper time day. And Tau Ceti day.
Re:PI not TAU in Euler's identity
on
Happy Tau Day
·
· Score: 1
The beauty of the Euler equation with pi is that you get an unexpected result if you haven't dealt with complex exponents before. It is not only beautiful, but it also shows that your expectations that the power of a positive number must be a non-negative number is *wrong*. You gain insight into complex exponents. The same equation with tau is simply a fancy way to write e^0, because tau*i is the period of the exponential function. True, a periodic exponential function is slightly surprising to someone who is just studying this, but it is still just "ah, ok, the imaginary part up there just makes it oscillate like a sine, cool", not "WAT?"
Do you really think that matters? The transmitted XML is smaller than the IPv6 header, the TCP header, the ethernet frame headers, etc.
But if you really care, you can use compression schemes to reduce it. The gzip that's currently supported won't help for small messages, but it might help for this:
The article does base some of its figures on hearsay, but that doesn't change the fact that the legal and patent system allow such ridiculous scenario to occur and favour it, it doesn't change the fact that Microsoft are trying hard to make it happen, and it doesn't change the fact that the figures in the conclusion are not in the least surprising to anyone here, and sound so plausible that doubts are next to non-existent.
But in the end, it doesn't matter if Microsoft are making "more" from Android or not, they are profiting from someone else's work, and not only profiting, they are directly picking their money. For those who love misleading metaphors, this is closer to armed robbery than copyright infringement is to theft.
You know that your legal and patent system are broken when a company is making more money from a competitor product in the making of which they had no part than from their own product. If you can't make a good product of your own, simply take some of the money your competitor makes for the profit that you're entitled to!
Tesla Model S can go 160 miles on a single charge with the default battery option. It could have at least be mentioned in the summary, even if it is not "competition/"
They are asking the wrong question. The question is "Can the US lead in space thanks to shuttle's end?" The Shuttle program was too expensive for what it actually brought on the table, and it was already too old. Replacing it with something like the Dragon capsule (and the other lifting capabilities in development by private companies) would only be an improvement. It's going to be more efficient, it will allow for more space project to be done with the money that would be saved, it will fund the private industry to develop space-faring technologies. The end of the shuttle will be good for the US space program and the human space program in general. Will the US lead? I doubt it, my bet is on China, but the shuttle going away is the biggest improvement.
I'm kind of sorry for Hawking, though. Sure, he's alive, we are all gaining a lot good from that, but from all I can tell, his life should be terrible. Now, only he can say that for certain, but I think it would be better for him if he was dead. And what humanity has gained from Hawking's working is not important enough to justify what he is going through, so I wouldn't call the fact that he lives a good thing. But still, he's the one who should tell us.
ALS is pretty fucked up disease. If that man from TFA wants to donate his heart now, it's wonderful. He'll save someone's life now, and he will skip all the pain that is waiting for him, and he won't be a burden for the people that would care and pay for him. I think his decision to end his life now is the right one. And people should help him do so when it is his wish.
Within a spoken conversation sarcasm is usually accompanied by a change in facial expressions or in the voice. It doesn't make it worse, it only makes it better. A sarcastic mark could stand for that, just like an exclamation mark is used when you'd raise your voice, or an emoticon gets used for other emotions. Now, it will probably be abused, just like emoticons and exclamation marks do !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111:PPPPPP, but nevertheless it serves a purpose. Online sarcasm seems too harsh without a sarcastic mark.
One problem is that there are different expressions that go with sarcasm, not one, both friendly and unfriendly, but written conversation doesn't try to match spoken exactly. They are different forms of conversations with their own intricacies. Adding another mark that allows you to add more to those intricacies is only good.
The main thing I learned about time travel from Primer is that it leads to headaches when it gets involved. I'm really hoping I'll never be one of the people who are supposed to comprehend what's happening should we invent it.
While I don't think that you can call pseudoscience the exploration of the implications of a theory that are unlikely to be possible in practice, let's assume it's pseudoscience. So what? It was pretty interesting read, at worst it will serve as an inspiration to some science fiction author. It's interesting. You know why? Because it is "fun stuff"! Also, as the parent stated, exploring the theoretical possibilities provides better understanding of the model, allows you to improve the model and might allow you to find the boundaries where the model stops being correct. Also, making advances in the part that don't apply in practise might improve the understanding of the practical part of the model. Infinitesimals don't seem to exist in our universe, but the models that explore their properties closely have been the basis for most of the physics.
Also, I might not understand the article completely, but it, along with another report that was posted to Slashdot less than an year ago, seems to show a method of time "travel" that doesn't allow to send information back in time at all. Seems reasonable, and not against anything that I know about the world I'm living in. It would completely blow out my idea of time -- I'm a firm believer that only the current moment exists, and you can't affect or travel to previous ones, and that other interpretations of time are merely implementation details of the physical models we use -- but these results wouldn't be against any physics I know. Also, even if there is an experiment that confirms that this paper isn't bullshit, and it is empirically proven that this kind of time "travel" is possible, the results won't have a single interpretation. I wouldn't be surprised even if someone builds another model that doesn't involve any time travel that explains the same empirical results.
Yes, someone needs to verify the premises and the conclusions, I don't have good enough knowledge to do that myself on the first read, but I didn't see any mistakes pointed out by the GP, only baseless claims, so I'd rather go with the article and/or the paper. I have a direct question for the GP: We have no idea what time is, OK. Suppose that our current theoretical model allows for time travel (which would seem to be the case unless the article is full of mistakes). Are you denying that testing them would allow us to be closer to understanding what time is?
Out of all fathers of two kids, 1/2 have a girl as the first one, and the other 1/2 - a boy. Same for the second one.
This makes 4 groups of fathers that have two kids:
1. boy, boy - 1/4 2. boy, girl - 1/4 3. girl, boy - 1/4 4. girl, girl - 1/4
That's something I don't think you'd doubt.
If I tell you my first child is a boy, this means I'm either from group 1, or from group 2. Which means that the chance that the second child is a boy is 1/2.
If I tell you that one of my child is a boy, I'm either from group 1, 2 or 3. If you do the counting, you'd find that only 1/3 of the parents from those groups have their second child being a boy, too!
If I told you "One of them is a boy, what is the chance that the second is a boy?", I'm asking you what's the chance that both children have the same sex when I have excluded one of the equal possibilities, thus the answer is 1/3. If I told you "The first is a boy, what is the chance that the second is a boy?", I'm asking you what is the sex of a specific child, thus the answer is 1/2. If I told you "One of them is born on Tuesday and is a boy", I almost specified which child is a boy, and I'm asking about the sex of the other one, thus the result is close to 1/2, but not exactly since the two children might be born on the same day (in which case it is unknown which child is with the given sex).
X = I have a boy P(X|boyboy) = 1 P(X|boygirl) = 1 P(X|girlboy) = 1 P(X|girlgirl) = 0 P(boyboy) = P(boygirl) = P(girlboy) = P(girlgirl) = 1/4 P(X) = 3/4 Using Bayes's theorem: P(boyboy|X) = P(X|boyboy)*P(boyboy)/P(X) = 1 * 1/4 * 4/3 = 1/3
X = I have a boy born on tuesday P(X|boyboy) = 1/7 + (6/7*1/7) = 13/49 P(X|boygirl) = 1/7 P(X|girlboy) = 1/7 P(X|girlgirl) = 0 P(boyboy) = P(boygirl) = P(girlboy) = P(girlgirl) = 1/4 P(X) = (1/7 + 1/7 + 13/49)/4 = 27/196 Using Bayes's theorem: P(boyboy|X) = P(X|boyboy)*P(boyboy)/P(X) = 13/49 * 1/4 * 196/27 = 48.1%
I still believe both of the interpretations are incorrect, and the Tuesday information is irrelevant, because it should be completely independent of the sexes of the children, and I believe both and I are making an error. The problem is that I just don't see it.
You're misreading the question. If you exclude the Tuesday part (which I still don't get, and I still doubt), the question is not what's the chance that the second child is a boy, which would be 50%. The question is what is the chance that both kids have the same sex. Since the fact that one of them is a boy doesn't bring any new information to the table about they being the same sex or not, the probability remains the same -- 1/3.
I'm pretty sure that protecting your God-given rights to the works you've created precludes anyone else from releasing works under a free license. People who are releasing their works under a Creative Commons are stealing from the real artists, who work so hard to earn a living. They just want to get stuff for free. Good to see ASCAP has understood this simple fact.
Don't worry, FUD is absorbed by the reality distortion field, too. The walled garden is well protected from attacks coming from facts, common sense or FUD. You're safe inside.
Drinking it might not be as dangerous as one would think, since you will excrete most of what you have consumed. Mercury vapours *are* more dangerous. Drinking motor oil is also more dangerous. And eating sushi might also be dangerous, because it contains highly toxic mercury organic compounds that your body actually assimilates quite easily (which is why you'd find many advices about how much tuna to eat in a year at maximum).
Mercury is used by dentists, many people (including myself) have tooth fillings with mercury in them. And you know what? I'm not much concerned about the prospect that it breaks and I swallow it, since if I do, it will poison me less than my yearly consumption of sashimi does. Given that it takes years to purge mercury from your body, I guess I have already accumulated more mercury.
Mercury might be extremely toxic, but this is only when it is mishandled. If you know how to handle it, it's not dangerous, and I'd say that shouldn't be a cause for much concern. Also, I hope that these liquid telescopes would be placed in outer space or on the moon, so it is even less a problem. I doubt anyone makes pressurized space telescopes, and mercury separate from your pressurized environment and environmental suit is completely harmless. You can do whatever you want with it with almost zero risk. If it somehow gets inside either, you'd have much bigger problems to worry about.
It does have a vowel, it's just not written down. When you pronounce this sequence of consonants (prst), a special mid back unrounded vowel would appear between "pr" and "st". If you try pronouncing it "prst" and "prast" (where "a" signifies this vowel), you'll notice it sounds the same. Other languages have the same word, and they have a letter for the vowel. Czech doesn't seem to have the letter, but the vowel would still be there implicitly, since you can't technically pronounce it without it (though if you try hard it will be almost inaudible). If you hear the pronunciation in Wiktionary, you'll notice that the vowel is evident there.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, tau is a bad choice, it means far too many things already. But I'm happy to celebrate the curve torsion day. And proper time day. And Tau Ceti day.
The beauty of the Euler equation with pi is that you get an unexpected result if you haven't dealt with complex exponents before. It is not only beautiful, but it also shows that your expectations that the power of a positive number must be a non-negative number is *wrong*. You gain insight into complex exponents. The same equation with tau is simply a fancy way to write e^0, because tau*i is the period of the exponential function. True, a periodic exponential function is slightly surprising to someone who is just studying this, but it is still just "ah, ok, the imaginary part up there just makes it oscillate like a sine, cool", not "WAT?"
Do you really think that matters? The transmitted XML is smaller than the IPv6 header, the TCP header, the ethernet frame headers, etc.
But if you really care, you can use compression schemes to reduce it. The gzip that's currently supported won't help for small messages, but it might help for this:
http://xmpp.org/extensions/inbox/compress-exi.html
Time to stop using Google and their services altogether.
The article does base some of its figures on hearsay, but that doesn't change the fact that the legal and patent system allow such ridiculous scenario to occur and favour it, it doesn't change the fact that Microsoft are trying hard to make it happen, and it doesn't change the fact that the figures in the conclusion are not in the least surprising to anyone here, and sound so plausible that doubts are next to non-existent.
But in the end, it doesn't matter if Microsoft are making "more" from Android or not, they are profiting from someone else's work, and not only profiting, they are directly picking their money. For those who love misleading metaphors, this is closer to armed robbery than copyright infringement is to theft.
You know that your legal and patent system are broken when a company is making more money from a competitor product in the making of which they had no part than from their own product. If you can't make a good product of your own, simply take some of the money your competitor makes for the profit that you're entitled to!
Tesla Model S can go 160 miles on a single charge with the default battery option. It could have at least be mentioned in the summary, even if it is not "competition/"
They are asking the wrong question. The question is "Can the US lead in space thanks to shuttle's end?" The Shuttle program was too expensive for what it actually brought on the table, and it was already too old. Replacing it with something like the Dragon capsule (and the other lifting capabilities in development by private companies) would only be an improvement. It's going to be more efficient, it will allow for more space project to be done with the money that would be saved, it will fund the private industry to develop space-faring technologies. The end of the shuttle will be good for the US space program and the human space program in general. Will the US lead? I doubt it, my bet is on China, but the shuttle going away is the biggest improvement.
I'm kind of sorry for Hawking, though. Sure, he's alive, we are all gaining a lot good from that, but from all I can tell, his life should be terrible. Now, only he can say that for certain, but I think it would be better for him if he was dead. And what humanity has gained from Hawking's working is not important enough to justify what he is going through, so I wouldn't call the fact that he lives a good thing. But still, he's the one who should tell us.
ALS is pretty fucked up disease. If that man from TFA wants to donate his heart now, it's wonderful. He'll save someone's life now, and he will skip all the pain that is waiting for him, and he won't be a burden for the people that would care and pay for him. I think his decision to end his life now is the right one. And people should help him do so when it is his wish.
You're wrong.
Within a spoken conversation sarcasm is usually accompanied by a change in facial expressions or in the voice. It doesn't make it worse, it only makes it better. A sarcastic mark could stand for that, just like an exclamation mark is used when you'd raise your voice, or an emoticon gets used for other emotions. Now, it will probably be abused, just like emoticons and exclamation marks do !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111 :PPPPPP, but nevertheless it serves a purpose. Online sarcasm seems too harsh without a sarcastic mark.
One problem is that there are different expressions that go with sarcasm, not one, both friendly and unfriendly, but written conversation doesn't try to match spoken exactly. They are different forms of conversations with their own intricacies. Adding another mark that allows you to add more to those intricacies is only good.
The main thing I learned about time travel from Primer is that it leads to headaches when it gets involved. I'm really hoping I'll never be one of the people who are supposed to comprehend what's happening should we invent it.
I'm completely with the parent.
While I don't think that you can call pseudoscience the exploration of the implications of a theory that are unlikely to be possible in practice, let's assume it's pseudoscience. So what? It was pretty interesting read, at worst it will serve as an inspiration to some science fiction author. It's interesting. You know why? Because it is "fun stuff"! Also, as the parent stated, exploring the theoretical possibilities provides better understanding of the model, allows you to improve the model and might allow you to find the boundaries where the model stops being correct. Also, making advances in the part that don't apply in practise might improve the understanding of the practical part of the model. Infinitesimals don't seem to exist in our universe, but the models that explore their properties closely have been the basis for most of the physics.
Also, I might not understand the article completely, but it, along with another report that was posted to Slashdot less than an year ago, seems to show a method of time "travel" that doesn't allow to send information back in time at all. Seems reasonable, and not against anything that I know about the world I'm living in. It would completely blow out my idea of time -- I'm a firm believer that only the current moment exists, and you can't affect or travel to previous ones, and that other interpretations of time are merely implementation details of the physical models we use -- but these results wouldn't be against any physics I know. Also, even if there is an experiment that confirms that this paper isn't bullshit, and it is empirically proven that this kind of time "travel" is possible, the results won't have a single interpretation. I wouldn't be surprised even if someone builds another model that doesn't involve any time travel that explains the same empirical results.
Yes, someone needs to verify the premises and the conclusions, I don't have good enough knowledge to do that myself on the first read, but I didn't see any mistakes pointed out by the GP, only baseless claims, so I'd rather go with the article and/or the paper. I have a direct question for the GP: We have no idea what time is, OK. Suppose that our current theoretical model allows for time travel (which would seem to be the case unless the article is full of mistakes). Are you denying that testing them would allow us to be closer to understanding what time is?
No, he should have asked this graphic designer:
http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html
Now that they stopped it, let's Slashdot it from the inside.
anymore? When they did something that would count as "caring for their customers"? They've been not caring since day one.
Just beam the other vessel aboard the parliament, and you're in the clear.
Out of all fathers of two kids, 1/2 have a girl as the first one, and the other 1/2 - a boy. Same for the second one.
This makes 4 groups of fathers that have two kids:
1. boy, boy - 1/4
2. boy, girl - 1/4
3. girl, boy - 1/4
4. girl, girl - 1/4
That's something I don't think you'd doubt.
If I tell you my first child is a boy, this means I'm either from group 1, or from group 2. Which means that the chance that the second child is a boy is 1/2.
If I tell you that one of my child is a boy, I'm either from group 1, 2 or 3. If you do the counting, you'd find that only 1/3 of the parents from those groups have their second child being a boy, too!
I actually understood my own result:
If I told you "One of them is a boy, what is the chance that the second is a boy?", I'm asking you what's the chance that both children have the same sex when I have excluded one of the equal possibilities, thus the answer is 1/3.
If I told you "The first is a boy, what is the chance that the second is a boy?", I'm asking you what is the sex
of a specific child, thus the answer is 1/2.
If I told you "One of them is born on Tuesday and is a boy", I almost specified which child is a boy, and I'm asking about the sex of the other one, thus the result is close to 1/2, but not exactly since the two children might be born on the same day (in which case it is unknown which child is with the given sex).
I don't think I get it. How about this one?
X = I have a boy
P(X|boyboy) = 1
P(X|boygirl) = 1
P(X|girlboy) = 1
P(X|girlgirl) = 0
P(boyboy) = P(boygirl) = P(girlboy) = P(girlgirl) = 1/4
P(X) = 3/4
Using Bayes's theorem:
P(boyboy|X) = P(X|boyboy)*P(boyboy)/P(X) = 1 * 1/4 * 4/3 = 1/3
X = I have a boy born on tuesday
P(X|boyboy) = 1/7 + (6/7*1/7) = 13/49
P(X|boygirl) = 1/7
P(X|girlboy) = 1/7
P(X|girlgirl) = 0
P(boyboy) = P(boygirl) = P(girlboy) = P(girlgirl) = 1/4
P(X) = (1/7 + 1/7 + 13/49)/4 = 27/196
Using Bayes's theorem:
P(boyboy|X) = P(X|boyboy)*P(boyboy)/P(X) = 13/49 * 1/4 * 196/27 = 48.1%
I still believe both of the interpretations are incorrect, and the Tuesday information is irrelevant, because it should be completely independent of the sexes of the children, and I believe both and I are making an error. The problem is that I just don't see it.
You're misreading the question. If you exclude the Tuesday part (which I still don't get, and I still doubt), the question is not what's the chance that the second child is a boy, which would be 50%. The question is what is the chance that both kids have the same sex. Since the fact that one of them is a boy doesn't bring any new information to the table about they being the same sex or not, the probability remains the same -- 1/3.
I'm pretty sure that protecting your God-given rights to the works you've created precludes anyone else from releasing works under a free license. People who are releasing their works under a Creative Commons are stealing from the real artists, who work so hard to earn a living. They just want to get stuff for free. Good to see ASCAP has understood this simple fact.
What the hell is ActivePython and why the hell would anyone use it?
I've been using Python, numpy, scipy and matplotlib, and I know of absolutely no issue on any platform. How does this "news" affect me (or anyone)?
Don't worry, FUD is absorbed by the reality distortion field, too. The walled garden is well protected from attacks coming from facts, common sense or FUD. You're safe inside.
Drinking it might not be as dangerous as one would think, since you will excrete most of what you have consumed. Mercury vapours *are* more dangerous. Drinking motor oil is also more dangerous. And eating sushi might also be dangerous, because it contains highly toxic mercury organic compounds that your body actually assimilates quite easily (which is why you'd find many advices about how much tuna to eat in a year at maximum).
Mercury is used by dentists, many people (including myself) have tooth fillings with mercury in them. And you know what? I'm not much concerned about the prospect that it breaks and I swallow it, since if I do, it will poison me less than my yearly consumption of sashimi does. Given that it takes years to purge mercury from your body, I guess I have already accumulated more mercury.
Mercury might be extremely toxic, but this is only when it is mishandled. If you know how to handle it, it's not dangerous, and I'd say that shouldn't be a cause for much concern. Also, I hope that these liquid telescopes would be placed in outer space or on the moon, so it is even less a problem. I doubt anyone makes pressurized space telescopes, and mercury separate from your pressurized environment and environmental suit is completely harmless. You can do whatever you want with it with almost zero risk. If it somehow gets inside either, you'd have much bigger problems to worry about.
It does have a vowel, it's just not written down. When you pronounce this sequence of consonants (prst), a special mid back unrounded vowel would appear between "pr" and "st". If you try pronouncing it "prst" and "prast" (where "a" signifies this vowel), you'll notice it sounds the same. Other languages have the same word, and they have a letter for the vowel. Czech doesn't seem to have the letter, but the vowel would still be there implicitly, since you can't technically pronounce it without it (though if you try hard it will be almost inaudible). If you hear the pronunciation in Wiktionary, you'll notice that the vowel is evident there.