Oh come on. A good chunk of the US still seems to practically define itself through resentment at the North over the civil war.
Maybe 30 years ago, but you really don't see much of that now. You DO see southerners who don't like yankees, not because of the Civil War, but because their culture makes them come off as assholes to southerners.
I see a lot of southerners who don't like yankees, not because of the Civil War, but because of the War of Northern Aggression.
It isn't hard to tell who isn't "from around here" by simply talking to someone. Northerners tend to be more pushy and aggressive in their speaking.
I think that depends on what part of the north they're from. I know a lot of midwesterners who are about as far from "pushy and aggressive in their speaking" as is humanly possible. But as for northeasterners, I'm inclined to agree.
Many northerners assume southerners are dumb redneck hillbillies.
That's probably true, and it's probably a case of northerners unfairly stereotyping. However, it's probably also due to a higher proportion of actual dumb rednecks coming from the deep south as opposed to other regions of the country.
It isn't about the Civil War, its about the differences in culture. I live in one of the least progressive counties in North Carolina, where whites will still complain about blacks (not in public, like 20 years ago), but you rarely see confederate flags any more, as an example.
Then I seriously doubt it's actually one of the least progressive. Never been to North Carolina, but I know there are plenty of places in the south (and, scarily, plenty of rural areas of the north) where confederate flags are proudly flown all over the place. I'm sure it varies quite a bit from place to place, but there are definitely places where the resentment against Lincoln and Sherman still runs strong.
We've had almost 100 years of "You would be speaking German if it wasn't for us".
Man, those must have been some dumb Americans at the beginning of that period, given that Britain was never even remotely close to threat of German invasion during WWI.
Not that I put it past some of my countryman to be that ignorant, or anything...
I thought maybe isolate both sides for 100 years or so. Give them time to cool off.
Yeah, because it's not like the Jews or Muslim to carry a grudge for hundreds of years, right?
Well, have they? It took Christians in most places 1900+ years to get over Jews supposedly killing Jesus, but until the 19th Century Jews and Muslims lived peacefully side-by-side in almost all Muslim countries, at least most of the time. There were occasional pogroms, but since these were better than Europe's frequent pogroms, the Jews tended to forgive and forget. It was only once the Brits and French came in and started telling people where to go that they started gunning for each other.
He didn't say Al-jazeera stood alone. What he's trying to convey is that they make Fox News looks like men of honor.
Which is only true if you take "Muslims are dishonest" or something similar as one of your premises. For all the talk about "fibs" and "lies" on al Jazeera, they are measurably more accurate and less biased than Fox News. It's just that they're biased in a direction that is politically incorrect in present American society, whereas Fox News is biased in a direction that's politically correct (again, within American society) so they usually get a pass.
For sure. It completely baffles me how anyone can have a strong opinion on any issue when they are only fed the information via the mainstream media. War on Terrorism is the main one that springs to mind - so many people wanting the US (and everyone else) out of there and obviously feeling very strongly about it, having only read about it in mainstream media and maybe a few forums. Maybe they're right, maybe there are a whole load of valid reasons why we shouldn't be over there, but how can they know for sure when they are just repeating 'popular opinion'???
I don't know where you get the idea that popular opinion says to end the War on Terror, based on reading the mainstream media. It seems to me that almost every cheerleader of the War on Terror I've met was someone who limited themselves to the mainstream media and limited their discussion of the issue to repeating talking points, and almost every staunch critic of the War on Terror I've met has based their opinion on having done independent research including talking to people from the affected parts of the world on all sides of the issue, and could engage in lengthy and nuanced debates on the subject. Maybe you just assume because their view doesn't match yours that it must be based on lack of information? Or maybe you're in a country where that is the popular opinion and I'm just assuming you're in the US 'cause I'm a dope;-)
Here you go: Let's say you want to have sex with Natalie Portman (NP). Up until now, it was generally assumed that meant you had to satisfy three conditions: be rich, handsome, and fascinating. Unfortunately, any one of those would leave out the vast majority of people on this list; satisfying all three (3-SAT) was considered virtually impossible.
But now, Romanov claims that it is sufficient merely to say the mathematical equivalent of "Please" (P). Naturally, people are skeptical.
Does this mean Romanov has successfully slept with Natalie Portman, or that he's just given us instructions on how to sleep with her, and left it up to us to test his method?
Everyone has been saying that it's very, very hard (NP) to crack the code by trying combinations. Now there's a guy saying it's not quite as hard (P) and he wants everyone on the internet to check his work.
And if each car is located in a different city, then he'll have to go travelling in order to test all the criteria. Of course, he wouldn't want to end up hitting the same city twice...
Best car analogy i can think of is:
Is it easy to both plan a car trip and check that your car trip is planned well. If yes, the P=NP, if no, then P!=NP, if you cant determine either yes or no then its all wrong;)
I like your analogy, but I would amend it to: "if you can't determine either yes or no, then it continues to be a mystery attracting all sorts of speculation from the trip-planning (and/or mathematical) community."
You didn't learn about convergence in whatever passes for precalculus mathematics in your country.
Probably in the US. That's where I took precalculus and I didn't learn it at that stage. And then people wonder why our high school grads test badly at math. Anyhow, my cohort didn't learn about convergence (formally) until 2nd-semester calc in college (though the more competent among us had already learned it on our own).
Please ignore parent post, I foolishly left a < in one formula and a > in a later formula so that slashdot thought everything in the middle was an html tag, and omitted it. Please read the repost (also attached to GP) instead.
(reposting because slashcode butchered the middle of my post)
I think the hole in your logic may be that 0.333... == 1/3. I think 0.333... may only be a very close numerical approximation of 1/3, but 1/3 cannot be expressed absolutely as a number (even assuming infinite 3s).
No, it is not an approximation. It is exactly 1/3. If that were not true, all of mathematics would break. Think about it: If 1/3 were not exactly.3333... (infinite) then you would have to add (or subtract, but it seems like your implication is that 0.333... (infinite) < 1/3 so we'll go with that) something to 0.333... (infinite) to get 1/3. This would have to have a non-zero digit somewhere, so let's call it 0.000...X0... with digit X in the nth place and infinite 0s thereafter, so that 0.333... + 0.000...X00... = 1/3. Since X is at least 1, this means 1/3 > = 0.333...343... (with a 4 in place n and infinite 3s thereafter). If that were the case, you could divide 1 by 3, render it as a decimal, multiply it by 3, and get a number greater than 1. Repeat ad nauseum to prove 1=7, 1=2,467,946, et cetera. If 1/3 is defined as exactly equaling.333... (infinite) and 1 is defined as 0.999... (infinite) then mathematics is consistent, performing a function on its inverse always gives back the original number, and life can go on.
I have read about the issue of 0.999... = 1 several times, but the explanation is much more complex than this.
Only because some folks don't like the simple explanation. The complex explanation is only necessary to put all the nonsense to rest.
I think the hole in your logic may be that 0.333... == 1/3. I think 0.333... may only be a very close numerical approximation of 1/3, but 1/3 cannot be expressed absolutely as a number (even assuming infinite 3s).
No, it is not an approximation. It is exactly 1/3. If that were not true, all of mathematics would break. Think about it: If 1/3 were not exactly.3333... (infinite) then you would have to add (or subtract, but it seems like your implication is that 0.333... = 0.333...343... (with infinite 3s and a 4 in place n). If that were the case, you could divide 1 by 3, render it as a decimal, multiply it by 3, and get a number greater than 1. Repeat ad nauseum to prove 1=7, 1=2,467,946, et cetera. If 1/3 is defined as exactly equaling.333... (infinite) and 1 is defined as 0.999... (infinite) then mathematics is consistent, performing a function on its inverse always gives back the original number, and life can go on.
I have read about the issue of 0.999... = 1 several times, but the explanation is much more complex than this.
Only because some folks don't like the simple explanation. The complex explanation is only necessary to put all the nonsense to rest.
So the article goes on and on about the "mistakes" in Stuxnet, which supposedly show that whoever was behind it was a rank amateur, then at the end we find this gem:
Lawson concludes that whoever wrote Stuxnet likely was constrained by time and didn't think there was enough of a return to justify the investment of more time in advanced cloaking techniques.
Whoever wrote Stuxnet was right. It had enough tricks to get its payload delivered and to harm the target. Yeah, one could imagine it having been easily discovered, but it wasn't discovered until after the damage had been done. So either the folks behind Stuxnet were making rookie mistakes, or they're just as sophisticated as we all presumed and they prioritized what was important to get the job done, not what would have allowed the worm to evade countermeasures that the Iranians weren't even using, or what would have made them look cooler in the eyes of security researchers. Where's the story here?
Specie, on the other hand, is neither debt, nor credit, nor a promise to pay anyone or anybody, although it may have some usefulness in that regard. It is accepted rather because it has intrinsic value that no promissor can default on.
Specie that has been minted by a sovereign is also accepted because it is legal tender, or coin of the realm, or whatever you want to call it. In fact, moreso that than because of the metal contained in it. The stores in my city don't accept Canadian or European Union or any other non-US coins, because they value the coins only for their exchangeability for other goods and services in the US economy, not because the store could do something with the metal. The "value that no promissor can default on" is not intrinsic because it depends on how much of the exchanging world values that type of specie for exchange, and it also depends on general world supply.
G-S didn't get money from the federal reserve, they got it from a bail out fund. So no, in this case, the federal government is NOT a bank.
You didn't say "the federal government", you said "the fed". "The fed" is universally recognized as a shorthand for "the Federal Reserve", not "the Federal Government". So regardless of where the money actually came from, your statement is still ridiculous.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh come on. A good chunk of the US still seems to practically define itself through resentment at the North over the civil war.
Maybe 30 years ago, but you really don't see much of that now. You DO see southerners who don't like yankees, not because of the Civil War, but because their culture makes them come off as assholes to southerners.
I see a lot of southerners who don't like yankees, not because of the Civil War, but because of the War of Northern Aggression.
It isn't hard to tell who isn't "from around here" by simply talking to someone. Northerners tend to be more pushy and aggressive in their speaking.
I think that depends on what part of the north they're from. I know a lot of midwesterners who are about as far from "pushy and aggressive in their speaking" as is humanly possible. But as for northeasterners, I'm inclined to agree.
Many northerners assume southerners are dumb redneck hillbillies.
That's probably true, and it's probably a case of northerners unfairly stereotyping. However, it's probably also due to a higher proportion of actual dumb rednecks coming from the deep south as opposed to other regions of the country.
It isn't about the Civil War, its about the differences in culture. I live in one of the least progressive counties in North Carolina, where whites will still complain about blacks (not in public, like 20 years ago), but you rarely see confederate flags any more, as an example.
Then I seriously doubt it's actually one of the least progressive. Never been to North Carolina, but I know there are plenty of places in the south (and, scarily, plenty of rural areas of the north) where confederate flags are proudly flown all over the place. I'm sure it varies quite a bit from place to place, but there are definitely places where the resentment against Lincoln and Sherman still runs strong.
We've had almost 100 years of "You would be speaking German if it wasn't for us".
Man, those must have been some dumb Americans at the beginning of that period, given that Britain was never even remotely close to threat of German invasion during WWI.
Not that I put it past some of my countryman to be that ignorant, or anything...
I thought maybe isolate both sides for 100 years or so. Give them time to cool off.
Yeah, because it's not like the Jews or Muslim to carry a grudge for hundreds of years, right?
Well, have they? It took Christians in most places 1900+ years to get over Jews supposedly killing Jesus, but until the 19th Century Jews and Muslims lived peacefully side-by-side in almost all Muslim countries, at least most of the time. There were occasional pogroms, but since these were better than Europe's frequent pogroms, the Jews tended to forgive and forget. It was only once the Brits and French came in and started telling people where to go that they started gunning for each other.
They would send it back too, only they would put lead in it first.
He didn't say Al-jazeera stood alone. What he's trying to convey is that they make Fox News looks like men of honor.
Which is only true if you take "Muslims are dishonest" or something similar as one of your premises. For all the talk about "fibs" and "lies" on al Jazeera, they are measurably more accurate and less biased than Fox News. It's just that they're biased in a direction that is politically incorrect in present American society, whereas Fox News is biased in a direction that's politically correct (again, within American society) so they usually get a pass.
I can't take credit for pointing that out, that comparison was brought to light in 4chan's /b/ years ago...and it still hasn't changed.
To be fair, I would lose a lot of respect for CNN if I found out they were reading /b/, so that's probably a good thing.
Exactly. Notice who looks bad in this situation, and WHO ended up with the leak.
Al Jazeera ended up with the leak; the World Health Organization had nothing to do with it!
For sure. It completely baffles me how anyone can have a strong opinion on any issue when they are only fed the information via the mainstream media. War on Terrorism is the main one that springs to mind - so many people wanting the US (and everyone else) out of there and obviously feeling very strongly about it, having only read about it in mainstream media and maybe a few forums. Maybe they're right, maybe there are a whole load of valid reasons why we shouldn't be over there, but how can they know for sure when they are just repeating 'popular opinion'???
I don't know where you get the idea that popular opinion says to end the War on Terror, based on reading the mainstream media. It seems to me that almost every cheerleader of the War on Terror I've met was someone who limited themselves to the mainstream media and limited their discussion of the issue to repeating talking points, and almost every staunch critic of the War on Terror I've met has based their opinion on having done independent research including talking to people from the affected parts of the world on all sides of the issue, and could engage in lengthy and nuanced debates on the subject. Maybe you just assume because their view doesn't match yours that it must be based on lack of information? Or maybe you're in a country where that is the popular opinion and I'm just assuming you're in the US 'cause I'm a dope ;-)
Here you go: Let's say you want to have sex with Natalie Portman (NP). Up until now, it was generally assumed that meant you had to satisfy three conditions: be rich, handsome, and fascinating. Unfortunately, any one of those would leave out the vast majority of people on this list; satisfying all three (3-SAT) was considered virtually impossible.
But now, Romanov claims that it is sufficient merely to say the mathematical equivalent of "Please" (P). Naturally, people are skeptical.
Does this mean Romanov has successfully slept with Natalie Portman, or that he's just given us instructions on how to sleep with her, and left it up to us to test his method?
Everyone has been saying that it's very, very hard (NP) to crack the code by trying combinations. Now there's a guy saying it's not quite as hard (P) and he wants everyone on the internet to check his work.
Where does NP-hard enter into all this?
And if each car is located in a different city, then he'll have to go travelling in order to test all the criteria. Of course, he wouldn't want to end up hitting the same city twice...
Would he have to become a salesman as well?
Best car analogy i can think of is: Is it easy to both plan a car trip and check that your car trip is planned well. If yes, the P=NP, if no, then P!=NP, if you cant determine either yes or no then its all wrong ;)
I like your analogy, but I would amend it to: "if you can't determine either yes or no, then it continues to be a mystery attracting all sorts of speculation from the trip-planning (and/or mathematical) community."
You didn't learn about convergence in whatever passes for precalculus mathematics in your country.
Probably in the US. That's where I took precalculus and I didn't learn it at that stage. And then people wonder why our high school grads test badly at math. Anyhow, my cohort didn't learn about convergence (formally) until 2nd-semester calc in college (though the more competent among us had already learned it on our own).
Please ignore parent post, I foolishly left a < in one formula and a > in a later formula so that slashdot thought everything in the middle was an html tag, and omitted it. Please read the repost (also attached to GP) instead.
I think the hole in your logic may be that 0.333... == 1/3. I think 0.333... may only be a very close numerical approximation of 1/3, but 1/3 cannot be expressed absolutely as a number (even assuming infinite 3s).
No, it is not an approximation. It is exactly 1/3. If that were not true, all of mathematics would break. Think about it: If 1/3 were not exactly .3333... (infinite) then you would have to add (or subtract, but it seems like your implication is that 0.333... (infinite) < 1/3 so we'll go with that) something to 0.333... (infinite) to get 1/3. This would have to have a non-zero digit somewhere, so let's call it 0.000...X0... with digit X in the nth place and infinite 0s thereafter, so that 0.333... + 0.000...X00... = 1/3. Since X is at least 1, this means 1/3 > = 0.333...343... (with a 4 in place n and infinite 3s thereafter). If that were the case, you could divide 1 by 3, render it as a decimal, multiply it by 3, and get a number greater than 1. Repeat ad nauseum to prove 1=7, 1=2,467,946, et cetera. If 1/3 is defined as exactly equaling .333... (infinite) and 1 is defined as 0.999... (infinite) then mathematics is consistent, performing a function on its inverse always gives back the original number, and life can go on.
I have read about the issue of 0.999... = 1 several times, but the explanation is much more complex than this.
Only because some folks don't like the simple explanation. The complex explanation is only necessary to put all the nonsense to rest.
I think the hole in your logic may be that 0.333... == 1/3. I think 0.333... may only be a very close numerical approximation of 1/3, but 1/3 cannot be expressed absolutely as a number (even assuming infinite 3s).
No, it is not an approximation. It is exactly 1/3. If that were not true, all of mathematics would break. Think about it: If 1/3 were not exactly .3333... (infinite) then you would have to add (or subtract, but it seems like your implication is that 0.333... = 0.333...343... (with infinite 3s and a 4 in place n). If that were the case, you could divide 1 by 3, render it as a decimal, multiply it by 3, and get a number greater than 1. Repeat ad nauseum to prove 1=7, 1=2,467,946, et cetera. If 1/3 is defined as exactly equaling .333... (infinite) and 1 is defined as 0.999... (infinite) then mathematics is consistent, performing a function on its inverse always gives back the original number, and life can go on.
I have read about the issue of 0.999... = 1 several times, but the explanation is much more complex than this.
Only because some folks don't like the simple explanation. The complex explanation is only necessary to put all the nonsense to rest.
Damn you math geeks. Why must you come here and spew your incomprehensible formulas.
Because this site's tagline is "NEWS FOR NERDS." (capitalization in original)
Apple does not "block" porn, they just refuse publishing porn themselves.
s/porn/nudity/g
Skype installing a toolbar isn't half as annoying as the JRE (Java Runtime) or my Logitech Mouse Software installing the Yahoo! toolbar.
I agree, they shouldn't install that either. Why can't all those fuckers just leave our browsers alone?
...software makers should not auto-install add-ons to other programs that users haven't asked for. WTG Skype.
[...] You know better than to feed the trolls slashdot...
Do you have ANY evidence to substantiate this?
I would say there's quite a bit of counter-evidence, given how often trolls are fed around here...
Lawson concludes that whoever wrote Stuxnet likely was constrained by time and didn't think there was enough of a return to justify the investment of more time in advanced cloaking techniques.
Whoever wrote Stuxnet was right. It had enough tricks to get its payload delivered and to harm the target. Yeah, one could imagine it having been easily discovered, but it wasn't discovered until after the damage had been done. So either the folks behind Stuxnet were making rookie mistakes, or they're just as sophisticated as we all presumed and they prioritized what was important to get the job done, not what would have allowed the worm to evade countermeasures that the Iranians weren't even using, or what would have made them look cooler in the eyes of security researchers. Where's the story here?
That game sounds really cool. I'ma have to go check it out. Trebuchets >= Birds, no matter how angry.
Specie, on the other hand, is neither debt, nor credit, nor a promise to pay anyone or anybody, although it may have some usefulness in that regard. It is accepted rather because it has intrinsic value that no promissor can default on.
Specie that has been minted by a sovereign is also accepted because it is legal tender, or coin of the realm, or whatever you want to call it. In fact, moreso that than because of the metal contained in it. The stores in my city don't accept Canadian or European Union or any other non-US coins, because they value the coins only for their exchangeability for other goods and services in the US economy, not because the store could do something with the metal. The "value that no promissor can default on" is not intrinsic because it depends on how much of the exchanging world values that type of specie for exchange, and it also depends on general world supply.
G-S didn't get money from the federal reserve, they got it from a bail out fund. So no, in this case, the federal government is NOT a bank.
You didn't say "the federal government", you said "the fed". "The fed" is universally recognized as a shorthand for "the Federal Reserve", not "the Federal Government". So regardless of where the money actually came from, your statement is still ridiculous.