I signed up for a Second Life (SL) account and now I'm hooked.
In addition to the gestures and RPC that's been added in version 1.4, there's an existing feature that readers of Slashdot might be equally interested in. Objects in SL can be animated, manipulated, and enhanced with scripts that have similar syntax to C, Java, and perl.
Having coded perl for years, I was impressed when I read up
on their scripting language.
C, Java, and perl purists should get an account just to celebrate
the absence of VB.
They've demangled "mbs" and "mps." Now if they could only add the
requisite nonbreaking space(7.2) between the number and units and capitalize the "M" to represent 1e6 we'd be set.
I desperately would like to see the integration of multimode
text editors into more GUIs. Right now there is a usability ceiling built into GUIs. They're designed for beginning and intermediate users with no advanced user features. The productivity jump I gained from moving from a standard text editor to vi was profound. Now I'm forced to dumb it down in GUIs.
You're right. What I should of said is that efficiency is a logistic function. You can read about the difference between exponential, logarithmic, and logistic functions here.
I understand now. At first I was puzzled by your reference
to "M.A.L.T.H.U.S.".
I thought it was a computer (like
W.O.P.R. in War Games)
and perhaps you were humorously implying that I was being too analytical.
After searching for 10 minutes for a computer named "M.A.L.T.H.U.S.,"
I took a guess and assumed you just meant "Malthus" as in
Thomas Malthus.
It seems now I was correct, although after reading your post above,
I realize now that it was in fact an
ad hominem argument,
where the use of Thomas Malthus's name is a negative connotation meant
to discredit the analysis.
Given that your rehtoric was modded up and my post was modded down
twice as "overrated", it seems that I have stumbled upon something
that I didn't realize was controversial!
Naturally, both posts deserve a reply, so
first I'll hit the rhetoric and
then I'll swing around and restate the science.
Both your models are overly simplistic and overly pessimistic....
They are overly pessimistic...
Your tone, even if you did not intend it, gave the impression...
You and Malthus sound defeatist and pessimistic...
some factions of the greens and environmentalists (not necessarily from you,
but others that share your views...
If you were alive then you would have been standing right next
to Augustus pointing out that...
Amusingly, none of this is accurate.
What you've done is attributed to me by means of a single post my
state of mind (pessimism), my point of view (green or environmentalist),
and my hypothetical actions (right next to Augustus pointing out).
It seems this post is a rhetoric rebuttal to a perceived point of view,
where you cloak me in attributes that you disagree with,
using those attributes as sounding boards for your own opinions.
Unlike your first attempt at rhetoric (which was quite successful and
even gave me a refresher on Thomas Malthus), this post mixes rhetorical
and logical arguments, neither of which support each other.
Further it runs the risk that I'll post a reply stating that
you're quite mad for reading all that into a single post (which I believe I just did).
(Although I have to say I'm very amused that you placed me into
European history and attributed to me the perpetuation of the Dark Ages!
I'm still giggling about that.;)
As for the science, improvements in efficiency are by definition
logarithmic. As time goes to infinity the efficiency of a given system
approaches but never reaches the 100%-efficiency asymptote.
The product of a logarithmic and exponential function as they go to
infinity is an exponential function.
Thus, if the concern is the consumption of a finite resource or
the creation of undersirable waste, an improvement in efficiency
will not solve the problem as long as the consumption or generation
is exponential.
That's all I'm saying in that post. Nothing more, nothing less.
As for where I was going with such a thought, I did expand on it
later in
this post.
The closest that Thomas Malthus came to my post is
his belief that the increase of population at a geometric rate and the growth of food supply at an arithmetic rate would lead to starvation. He thus espoused favoured "moral restraint" (including late marriage and sexual abstinence) as a check on population growth.
As we know, food production can also be exponential. There's nothing intrinsically that makes its growth an "arithmatic rate".
Contrast this with efficiency, where it's change in time is always logarithmic. There is a definite maximum limit (100% efficiency) which systems approach over time. Thus one shouldn't look to solutions which are logarithmic in time to solve problems which are exponential in time (the original poster made such a claim).
Exactly! That curve you describe is a Gaussian curve.
It occurs when there is an exponential draw on a finite resource.
It can be seen in the population of bacteria over time when bacteria are grown in a finite medium. It can be seen as the
Hubbert curve which describes accurately oil production as a function of time.
With these three functions (logarithmic, exponential, and gaussian) one can draw several conclusions about the future of humanity.
Ultimately unlimited exponential growth is not possible. Whether it is energy consumption, human population, or the economy, they all must stop growing eventually. One of the arguments that people reach for when arguing for unlimited exponential growth is improvement in efficiency or conservation.
Unfortunately, those functions are logarithmic and cannot offset exponential growth indefinitely. Thus the only alternative is an end to exponential growth. Whether steady state manifests itself as constant, oscillatory, or a descent to zero as in a Gaussian, it must happen.
This won't be a weapon in the fight against global warming, oil depletion, rising energy costs, and so on. The reason is that all improvements in efficiency are logarithmic whereas growth is exponential.
A logarithmic function will increase rapidly at first and then slow as it reaches an asymptotic limit at infinity. In the case of efficiency it starts low and as improvements are made efficiency approaches but never quite reaches 100%. It's logarithmic. Growth on the other hand is exponential. It starts small and then heads toward infinity.
Thus in the long run a logarithmic decrease cannot overcome an exponential increase.
In crosswords, the "dimensions" don't necessarily have to be orthogonal. It is permissible to create several coplanar vectors (called "directions" instead of "dimensions") that intersect at various angles.
For instance you could use squares (two directions), hexagons (three directions), octagons (four directions), and so on. The closest to what you were asking for would be hexagonal shapes with words moving "down", "up-across", and "down-across".
If your three word vectors must be orthogonal, I have seen
sparse 3D crosswords drawn in 2D in perspective. They were sparse to allow the reader to solve words that would otherwise be occluded by a dense crossword. A dense orthogonal 3D crossword could be represented in many slices of a traditional 2D crossword.
In crosswords, the "dimensions" don't necessarily have to be orthogonal. For instance to do a 3D crossword puzzle, hexagonal boxes will allow one to make words in three directions, "down", "up-across", and "down-across". To make
a "4-dimensional" crossword you could stack several slices of these hexagonal structures or even migrate to octagons.
Additionally, for students of the English language, I also have an
English phonetic transcription program
that will output phrases in IPA, SAMPA, CMU, HTML, and LaTeX format.
When I worked at UnixOps we had several different versions of/etc/sudoers that were distributed by rdist to servers and clients across campus. One could edit a single file and push the changes out to all machines with a single command.
Name: hello, world Dialect: English Version: 5 June 2000 Comments: Not the canonical var'aq "hello, world"; actually prints "What do you want, universe?" in Klingon
Choosing to work or not to work, to eat or not to eat, to have a home or not to have a home, this is a choice to satisfy basic physiological needs or not to (Maslow's hierarchy of needs). Interestingly, the ramifications of this choice are often used as an example of why unions are necessary. Workers must choose between 80-hour weeks and their very survival, whereas corporations do not. Thus individuals are always at a disadvantage when negotiating with a corporation.
Mmm. Rhetoric. Let's show 'em how rhetoric works boys.
Join a corporation and lose any individual decision making in your career path while bureaucratic, professional company leaders rake in the cash and power.
A corporation turns everyone into one neck, ready for one noose.
Every time I see a story like this I post the same thing.
Form a union. You should be paid for the hours you work.
Anything else is the theft of your time and money by your employer. You say legislation allows employers to legally ask you to work overtime without pay? Vote for people who support your right to be paid for time worked.
The best way to learn LaTeX is to take and modify someone else's source code.
For that reason, I have the source code for my thesis and an IEEE technical publication on my website here.
It should work with a vanilla LaTeX installation in both
Linux and MacOS (just type "make preview"). In Windows you'll need to install MikTeX and TeXnicCenter.
Speaking of planets, what kind of crazy
regular-expression planet do you come from?
Your alternatives don't require grouping (if they did
use parentheses not curly braces) and you have
to quote the special character "?", as such: Is Pluto|Sedna a planet\?
All obscure regular expression trolls are required
to be modded as funny or insightful as per the
Slashdot moderation guidelines.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's all just capitulate and make the official format a Microsoft Word document.
Michael.
I've done Mach 5.
Michael.
I have no idea what my call to vote followed by a recent news story which relates to the original post in a humorous way has to do with what you said.
Your bewildering reply disturbs me.
Michael.
This November vote and put an end to this nonsense!
Unless of course the voting is postponed due to terrorist threats.
Michael.
I always use "privacy@devnull.com".
Michael.
I signed up for a Second Life (SL) account and now I'm hooked. In addition to the gestures and RPC that's been added in version 1.4, there's an existing feature that readers of Slashdot might be equally interested in. Objects in SL can be animated, manipulated, and enhanced with scripts that have similar syntax to C, Java, and perl.
Having coded perl for years, I was impressed when I read up on their scripting language. C, Java, and perl purists should get an account just to celebrate the absence of VB.
Michael.
They've demangled "mbs" and "mps." Now if they could only add the requisite nonbreaking space(7.2) between the number and units and capitalize the "M" to represent 1e6 we'd be set.
Michael.
I desperately would like to see the integration of multimode text editors into more GUIs. Right now there is a usability ceiling built into GUIs. They're designed for beginning and intermediate users with no advanced user features. The productivity jump I gained from moving from a standard text editor to vi was profound. Now I'm forced to dumb it down in GUIs.
Michael.
You're right. What I should of said is that efficiency is a logistic function. You can read about the difference between exponential, logarithmic, and logistic functions here.
Michael.
I understand now. At first I was puzzled by your reference to "M.A.L.T.H.U.S.". I thought it was a computer (like W.O.P.R. in War Games) and perhaps you were humorously implying that I was being too analytical. After searching for 10 minutes for a computer named "M.A.L.T.H.U.S.," I took a guess and assumed you just meant "Malthus" as in Thomas Malthus. It seems now I was correct, although after reading your post above, I realize now that it was in fact an ad hominem argument, where the use of Thomas Malthus's name is a negative connotation meant to discredit the analysis. Given that your rehtoric was modded up and my post was modded down twice as "overrated", it seems that I have stumbled upon something that I didn't realize was controversial! Naturally, both posts deserve a reply, so first I'll hit the rhetoric and then I'll swing around and restate the science.
Both your models are overly simplistic and overly pessimistic.
Amusingly, none of this is accurate. What you've done is attributed to me by means of a single post my state of mind (pessimism), my point of view (green or environmentalist), and my hypothetical actions (right next to Augustus pointing out). It seems this post is a rhetoric rebuttal to a perceived point of view, where you cloak me in attributes that you disagree with, using those attributes as sounding boards for your own opinions. Unlike your first attempt at rhetoric (which was quite successful and even gave me a refresher on Thomas Malthus), this post mixes rhetorical and logical arguments, neither of which support each other. Further it runs the risk that I'll post a reply stating that you're quite mad for reading all that into a single post (which I believe I just did). (Although I have to say I'm very amused that you placed me into European history and attributed to me the perpetuation of the Dark Ages! I'm still giggling about that.
As for the science, improvements in efficiency are by definition logarithmic. As time goes to infinity the efficiency of a given system approaches but never reaches the 100%-efficiency asymptote. The product of a logarithmic and exponential function as they go to infinity is an exponential function. Thus, if the concern is the consumption of a finite resource or the creation of undersirable waste, an improvement in efficiency will not solve the problem as long as the consumption or generation is exponential. That's all I'm saying in that post. Nothing more, nothing less.
As for where I was going with such a thought, I did expand on it later in this post.
Michael
The closest that Thomas Malthus came to my post is his belief that the increase of population at a geometric rate and the growth of food supply at an arithmetic rate would lead to starvation. He thus espoused favoured "moral restraint" (including late marriage and sexual abstinence) as a check on population growth.
As we know, food production can also be exponential. There's nothing intrinsically that makes its growth an "arithmatic rate". Contrast this with efficiency, where it's change in time is always logarithmic. There is a definite maximum limit (100% efficiency) which systems approach over time. Thus one shouldn't look to solutions which are logarithmic in time to solve problems which are exponential in time (the original poster made such a claim).
Michael.
Exactly! That curve you describe is a Gaussian curve. It occurs when there is an exponential draw on a finite resource. It can be seen in the population of bacteria over time when bacteria are grown in a finite medium. It can be seen as the Hubbert curve which describes accurately oil production as a function of time.
With these three functions (logarithmic, exponential, and gaussian) one can draw several conclusions about the future of humanity. Ultimately unlimited exponential growth is not possible. Whether it is energy consumption, human population, or the economy, they all must stop growing eventually. One of the arguments that people reach for when arguing for unlimited exponential growth is improvement in efficiency or conservation. Unfortunately, those functions are logarithmic and cannot offset exponential growth indefinitely. Thus the only alternative is an end to exponential growth. Whether steady state manifests itself as constant, oscillatory, or a descent to zero as in a Gaussian, it must happen.
Michael.
This won't be a weapon in the fight against global warming, oil depletion, rising energy costs, and so on. The reason is that all improvements in efficiency are logarithmic whereas growth is exponential.
A logarithmic function will increase rapidly at first and then slow as it reaches an asymptotic limit at infinity. In the case of efficiency it starts low and as improvements are made efficiency approaches but never quite reaches 100%. It's logarithmic. Growth on the other hand is exponential. It starts small and then heads toward infinity.
Thus in the long run a logarithmic decrease cannot overcome an exponential increase.
Michael.
In crosswords, the "dimensions" don't necessarily have to be orthogonal. It is permissible to create several coplanar vectors (called "directions" instead of "dimensions") that intersect at various angles. For instance you could use squares (two directions), hexagons (three directions), octagons (four directions), and so on. The closest to what you were asking for would be hexagonal shapes with words moving "down", "up-across", and "down-across".
If your three word vectors must be orthogonal, I have seen sparse 3D crosswords drawn in 2D in perspective. They were sparse to allow the reader to solve words that would otherwise be occluded by a dense crossword. A dense orthogonal 3D crossword could be represented in many slices of a traditional 2D crossword.
Michael.
In crosswords, the "dimensions" don't necessarily have to be orthogonal. For instance to do a 3D crossword puzzle, hexagonal boxes will allow one to make words in three directions, "down", "up-across", and "down-across". To make a "4-dimensional" crossword you could stack several slices of these hexagonal structures or even migrate to octagons.
Michael.
For those studying German, I have a German-English Dictionary, German-English Hyperdictionary, and an overview of German Phonetics in SAMPA online.
Additionally, for students of the English language, I also have an English phonetic transcription program that will output phrases in IPA, SAMPA, CMU, HTML, and LaTeX format.
Michael.
The analogy holds for positive and negative reasons.
GNU/Linux is affordable. MacOS is expensive. GNU/Linux is utilitarian. MacOS is luxurious.
At home I have a GNU/Linux server and two Apple laptops. At work I have a GNU/Linux server, an Apple G5, and a Sun Blade 2000.
If you're a GNU/Linux troll, who got their feelings hurt, you can relax. It's all Unix.
Michael.
When I worked at UnixOps we had several different versions of
Michael.
Klingon Var'aq.
Example:
Michael.
Choosing to work or not to work, to eat or not to eat, to have a home or not to have a home, this is a choice to satisfy basic physiological needs or not to (Maslow's hierarchy of needs). Interestingly, the ramifications of this choice are often used as an example of why unions are necessary. Workers must choose between 80-hour weeks and their very survival, whereas corporations do not. Thus individuals are always at a disadvantage when negotiating with a corporation.
Mmm. Rhetoric. Let's show 'em how rhetoric works boys.
Join a corporation and lose any individual decision making in your career path while bureaucratic, professional company leaders rake in the cash and power.
A corporation turns everyone into one neck, ready for one noose.
Whee! It's like we don't even have to think.
Michael
Every time I see a story like this I post the same thing.
Form a union. You should be paid for the hours you work. Anything else is the theft of your time and money by your employer. You say legislation allows employers to legally ask you to work overtime without pay? Vote for people who support your right to be paid for time worked.
Union. Vote.
Michael.
The best way to learn LaTeX is to take and modify someone else's source code.
For that reason, I have the source code for my thesis and an IEEE technical publication on my website here. It should work with a vanilla LaTeX installation in both Linux and MacOS (just type "make preview"). In Windows you'll need to install MikTeX and TeXnicCenter.
Michael.
ludum dare - to give free play to
Michael.
Is {pluto|sedna} a Planet?
Speaking of planets, what kind of crazy regular-expression planet do you come from?
Your alternatives don't require grouping (if they did use parentheses not curly braces) and you have to quote the special character "?", as such:
Is Pluto|Sedna a planet\?
All obscure regular expression trolls are required to be modded as funny or insightful as per the Slashdot moderation guidelines.
Michael.