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User: AbyssWyrm

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  1. Political dissidents? on Google Tweaks Buzz To Tackle Privacy Concerns · · Score: 1

    If this isn't being blown out of proportion much, then the worst potential consequence I've thought of so far is political dissidents having their network exposed.

  2. Re:Mod Article -1 Whiner on How Comic Fans & Shops Are Stereotyped · · Score: 1

    Well, speaking of TV stereotypes, all of my friends who have seen The Big Bang Theory accuse me of being Sheldon. So maybe.

  3. Re:Mod Article -1 Whiner on How Comic Fans & Shops Are Stereotyped · · Score: 1

    Um, do you watch TV? "Good looking women stereotyped as airheads" was in the first example in the article, and is prevalent throughout Friends. Southerners stereotyped as trailer trash is virtually the premise of King of the Hill. As for the rich folk, I don't think I've ever seen a rich folk not stereotyped that way -- for instance Lois' dad in Family Guy, Mr. Burns in The Simpsons, the villain in any Adam Sandler movie. et cetera.

  4. Historical math books and papers on Classic Books of Science? · · Score: 1

    For math, remember that you'll also need to look at papers published. One of Gauss' works launched the field of intrinsic differential geometry, I think it's title went something like "On the geometry of curves and surfaces." Also Gauss' Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. You might try history books for other good leads -- the standard references in the history of math is Morris Kline's "Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times." Something of Riemann should be important, since he developed multivariable integration.

  5. Re:Any abstract algebra text on Mathematics Reading List For High School Students? · · Score: 1

    Sort of. I read Bell's The Development of Mathematics a couple years ago and spoke with a philosophy of math professor about it, who gave me the opinion that I stated above regarding Bell. The book was enjoyable, but in my philosophy professor's opinion at least, not reliable. He recommend Kline's Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times, which is 1300 dry pages. Perhaps if you have an interest in a particular episode of math it would be a good book, but I'm pretty sure it was not intended as an actual straight-through read. I don't know any more enjoyable math history read.

  6. Proofs from The Book on Mathematics Reading List For High School Students? · · Score: 1

    An assortment of problems (some more accessible to a high schooler than others, perhaps) with really, really neat proofs.

  7. Re:Any abstract algebra text on Mathematics Reading List For High School Students? · · Score: 1

    I also want to recommend Men of Mathematics by E. T. Bell. The calc kids were very interested to know about Newton and Riemann's lives. Considering that most of what we do in middle and high school is actually math history, it seemed fitting to bring some of the personalities in.

    It's worth noting that E.T. Bell tends to be full of errors, and occasionally just makes sh*t up.

  8. Re:Probably coincidence. on Anyone Besides Zune Owners With New Year's Crashes? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think your logic is incorrect. The original poster did not say "my server went down around midnight, could this be a coincidence?" rather he said "my server, which has a particularly excellent track record of not going down, did so near midnight with very high precision. Could this not be a coincidence?" Given that this happening at any specific time is very unlikely compared to the relative abundance of rollover errors, this is a very legitimate hypothesis. Furthermore your argument is essentially saying that anything with a non-zero probability of occurring randomly is probably not a coincidence. Otherwise, instead of comparing to some 50 million servers you ought to be comparing to a much smaller number of servers meeting the description of the original poster's. I don't think you pose any legitimate argument that this is coincidental, and it strikes me as very probable that it is not.