Agreed! I myself don't form opinions. I merely discover facts which should be obvious to anyone once I point them out. The constant disagreements I get into are strong evidence for the fact that everyone is stupider than I am, though of course I don't need evidence for that particular conclusion!
Quick, call NASA! Screw the rocket scientists and engineers who designed the thing and whose work almost certainly includes detailed failure rate estimates which ended up being acceptably low for the project to proceed. We may as well press the self-destruct button now and get it over with.
This is the part of/. I hate the most--nerds blessing the world with their special insight, because they really do have insight in their chosen field, and that translates to every other field, right?
Re:What does the hell does NP Hard mean?
on
Pac-Man Is NP-Hard
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· Score: 1
Perhaps a little bit of "informal formality" will help. Suppose you have a problem A that you can solve with calls to a subroutine also named A. A is called NP-Hard if the following holds. Given any problem Z in NP, we can write a subroutine which solves Z subject to two constraints: (1) Z can call A, but *calls to A take one cycle to complete*; (2) Z must run in polynomial time.
The runtime of A is irrelevant. The essential feature of the definition is that the NP-Hard problem A can be used to solve an arbitrary NP problem with only a polynomial number of calls to A and polynomial additional work.
One can imagine an extremely difficult problem B whose solution cannot in general be verified in polynomial time but which is powerful enough to solve any NP problem in the above sense. B would then be NP-Hard but not NP. Alternatively, perhaps there are problems C whose solution can indeed be verified in polynomial time and which are powerful enough to solve any NP problem. C would then be both NP-Hard and NP--such a problem is called NP-complete.
In fact, B can be the problem of halt checking and C can be the decision version of the traveling salesman problem. B, which is NP-Hard but not NP, shows that NP-Hard cannot be a subset of NP. However, perhaps NP is a subset of NP-Hard.
Re:This is why religion is still popular
on
Pac-Man Is NP-Hard
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· Score: 1
Watching Feynman's videos is the most "productive" use of YouTube I've seen in a while. He has personality so they hold a person's interest. On top of that his explanations are usually very clear. Maybe the nicest thing about watching Feynman is his scrupulous honesty--he doesn't want to mislead his audience in any way, even if he has to pass up simpler ideas that give partial understanding but which break down upon further examination.
Re:What does the hell does NP Hard mean?
on
Pac-Man Is NP-Hard
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· Score: 1
What's wrong with it? If you're in a very nitpicky mood, the word "provably" should be removed from the second point (our ability to prove something is irrelevant to the definition of a complexity class), but that's a ridiculously minor error. It's nothing compared to the errors in the post they replied to.
Re:This is why religion is still popular
on
Pac-Man Is NP-Hard
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· Score: 1
Most/. discussions are just as bad as this. It happens that in computational complexity there really is an answer you can look up to prove someone wrong. That's not the case the vast majority of the time though, so crap that sounds good floats to the top and fails to sink back down. The same principle characterizes most political discourse (which is a tragedy, but there you have it).
Re:What does the hell does NP Hard mean?
on
Pac-Man Is NP-Hard
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· Score: 2
Also not quite. NP-hard problems can be as difficult as one likes. The key is that, given an oracle for an NP-hard problem, you can solve any NP problem within a polynomial amount of time (where calls to the oracle take unit time).
Another point to be mindful of is that there are runtimes between polynomial and exponential.
Re:What does the hell does NP Hard mean?
on
Pac-Man Is NP-Hard
·
· Score: 1
Mod up (or mod GP down). Confusing linear and polynomial time is a horrible mistake, and even then the GP assumes P != NP without saying so.
Re:What does the hell does NP Hard mean?
on
Pac-Man Is NP-Hard
·
· Score: 1
Mod up. This is the only correct explanation so far.
It's been a few years since I read it so my memory is a bit hazy. Still, I do remember copious footnotes in my translation, pointing out lots of symbolism and historical background. Eventually I found that I just didn't care about those features. After the morbidly interesting punishments in Hell and Purgatory were over, I suppose there wasn't much left to keep my interest. The structure, while obviously laden with symbolism, is also incredibly repetitive. I'm sure it was great for its time, but the same can be said for number 0. Perhaps it is better in the original Italian.
Just to be clear, it's not like I have a grudge against all "classics". Shakespeare's got some wonderful stuff in his plays, for instance. I was just underwhelmed by the Divine Comedy, particularly the 2nd and 3rd (what I read of it) parts.
While I agree that homosexuality is not a mental defect (whatever that phrase even means), the fact that Turing was both gay and productive is not an argument for that position. Then again, stupid people might see it as such, and you were addressing a stupid person.... That brings up an interesting point: is it right to argue in a way you know is wrong if only because the person you're arguing with will believe you?
Well, we still can contribute to the gene pool, just not as couples. Lesbians often bear biological children using donated sperm, and gay men can do something similar in the reverse by essentially renting a womb. It's perfectly conceivable to have a species in which one relatively common but infertile variant does all the child rearing, in which case that infertile group would still be selected for regardless of its infertility. I'm not a biologist, so I don't have a specific example. Evolution can be quite indirect--for instance, "cuteness" has been selected for in recent years (see: pandas; cats/kittens; dogs/puppies; sea otters;...), but only because humans have come to dominate parts of the planet.
Regardless, basing social policy off of evolution is a stupid (or at least heartless) thing to do. If you wanted to enact social policy based on what evolution favors, you'd give all the resources to people who want to have tons of kids, and deprive those who don't. So what if that means the educated suffer and die? There would be tons of humans around until society stopped being able to provide for itself and the population would crash. Evolution isn't perfect by any means. Social policy should be based on social attitudes instead of the inefficient, brutal system that got us here.
All that said, I'm reasonably sure the OP (thread starter) is just a troll, or a troll's near cousin. They seem to enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing, and the issues be damned.
They don't have to be catering to "doomsday nuts" (I like the phrase, by the way) to exploit the doomsday theory. The article itself does this:
So, if you're wondering where to spend the last tourist dollars you’ll have as a breathing human being or just want to see the looks on those faces when December 21 comes and goes uneventfully, here are a couple ideas in and out of Mexico that are worth checking out.
Perhaps we're using the term 'exploit' a little differently. I'm using it in the sense of "you can exploit the vector space structure of a field over a subfield to analyze field extensions". That is, no negative connotations are necessarily implied. I think that, so long as Mexico isn't trying to trick people into believing such a silly notion, using it to promote tourism is fine.
Thank you. It's a bit telling that the entire website seems geared towards selling the magazine issue. It's not clear to me whether any of the authors actually believe in a 2012 apocalypse or if they're just piggy-backing on the idea for other reasons (like selling a magazine). After glancing at Aleksandr Dugin's Wikipedia page, the quote at the bottom seems to be about a much more general new era than just something that'll happen in 2012 specifically.
Is there any evidence that anyone really thinks the world will end? As near as I can tell, most people find it somewhat entertaining. A few people are trying to exploit it without really believing in it (the government of Mexico, the people behind the recent movie, some New Age authors). So... does anyone actually believe this crap?
I'm curious, why didn't you simply include a link in the first place? It would have made the post more informative, and asking for a citation is reasonable and in this case probably to be expected.
Sorry if I was unclear. My question was not if they had to provide source upon request *after you've bought the module*, but rather beforehand. Obviously in this case afterwards the question is moot, though I was also curious if in general they have to advertise the fact that you can request the source in some way.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed! I myself don't form opinions. I merely discover facts which should be obvious to anyone once I point them out. The constant disagreements I get into are strong evidence for the fact that everyone is stupider than I am, though of course I don't need evidence for that particular conclusion!
Quick, call NASA! Screw the rocket scientists and engineers who designed the thing and whose work almost certainly includes detailed failure rate estimates which ended up being acceptably low for the project to proceed. We may as well press the self-destruct button now and get it over with.
This is the part of /. I hate the most--nerds blessing the world with their special insight, because they really do have insight in their chosen field, and that translates to every other field, right?
Perhaps a little bit of "informal formality" will help. Suppose you have a problem A that you can solve with calls to a subroutine also named A. A is called NP-Hard if the following holds. Given any problem Z in NP, we can write a subroutine which solves Z subject to two constraints: (1) Z can call A, but *calls to A take one cycle to complete*; (2) Z must run in polynomial time.
The runtime of A is irrelevant. The essential feature of the definition is that the NP-Hard problem A can be used to solve an arbitrary NP problem with only a polynomial number of calls to A and polynomial additional work.
One can imagine an extremely difficult problem B whose solution cannot in general be verified in polynomial time but which is powerful enough to solve any NP problem in the above sense. B would then be NP-Hard but not NP. Alternatively, perhaps there are problems C whose solution can indeed be verified in polynomial time and which are powerful enough to solve any NP problem. C would then be both NP-Hard and NP--such a problem is called NP-complete.
In fact, B can be the problem of halt checking and C can be the decision version of the traveling salesman problem. B, which is NP-Hard but not NP, shows that NP-Hard cannot be a subset of NP. However, perhaps NP is a subset of NP-Hard.
Watching Feynman's videos is the most "productive" use of YouTube I've seen in a while. He has personality so they hold a person's interest. On top of that his explanations are usually very clear. Maybe the nicest thing about watching Feynman is his scrupulous honesty--he doesn't want to mislead his audience in any way, even if he has to pass up simpler ideas that give partial understanding but which break down upon further examination.
What's wrong with it? If you're in a very nitpicky mood, the word "provably" should be removed from the second point (our ability to prove something is irrelevant to the definition of a complexity class), but that's a ridiculously minor error. It's nothing compared to the errors in the post they replied to.
Most /. discussions are just as bad as this. It happens that in computational complexity there really is an answer you can look up to prove someone wrong. That's not the case the vast majority of the time though, so crap that sounds good floats to the top and fails to sink back down. The same principle characterizes most political discourse (which is a tragedy, but there you have it).
Also not quite. NP-hard problems can be as difficult as one likes. The key is that, given an oracle for an NP-hard problem, you can solve any NP problem within a polynomial amount of time (where calls to the oracle take unit time).
Another point to be mindful of is that there are runtimes between polynomial and exponential.
Mod up (or mod GP down). Confusing linear and polynomial time is a horrible mistake, and even then the GP assumes P != NP without saying so.
Mod up. This is the only correct explanation so far.
It's been a few years since I read it so my memory is a bit hazy. Still, I do remember copious footnotes in my translation, pointing out lots of symbolism and historical background. Eventually I found that I just didn't care about those features. After the morbidly interesting punishments in Hell and Purgatory were over, I suppose there wasn't much left to keep my interest. The structure, while obviously laden with symbolism, is also incredibly repetitive. I'm sure it was great for its time, but the same can be said for number 0. Perhaps it is better in the original Italian.
Just to be clear, it's not like I have a grudge against all "classics". Shakespeare's got some wonderful stuff in his plays, for instance. I was just underwhelmed by the Divine Comedy, particularly the 2nd and 3rd (what I read of it) parts.
I wouldn't call Paradiso painless and rewarding. I couldn't get through it--it's very repetitive and uninteresting.
Wookieepedia has a brief discussion on the Holiday Special's inception, and there's a very long Vanity Fair article with many more details.
25. If a man’s slave-woman, comparing herself to her mistress, speaks insolently to her, her mouth shall be scoured with 1 quart of salt.
A mental defect you say? Are you aware that the method by which we communicate right now could not have been possible without the progress of one man who had such a mental defect (in more than one way)?
While I agree that homosexuality is not a mental defect (whatever that phrase even means), the fact that Turing was both gay and productive is not an argument for that position. Then again, stupid people might see it as such, and you were addressing a stupid person.... That brings up an interesting point: is it right to argue in a way you know is wrong if only because the person you're arguing with will believe you?
Well, we still can contribute to the gene pool, just not as couples. Lesbians often bear biological children using donated sperm, and gay men can do something similar in the reverse by essentially renting a womb. It's perfectly conceivable to have a species in which one relatively common but infertile variant does all the child rearing, in which case that infertile group would still be selected for regardless of its infertility. I'm not a biologist, so I don't have a specific example. Evolution can be quite indirect--for instance, "cuteness" has been selected for in recent years (see: pandas; cats/kittens; dogs/puppies; sea otters; ...), but only because humans have come to dominate parts of the planet.
Regardless, basing social policy off of evolution is a stupid (or at least heartless) thing to do. If you wanted to enact social policy based on what evolution favors, you'd give all the resources to people who want to have tons of kids, and deprive those who don't. So what if that means the educated suffer and die? There would be tons of humans around until society stopped being able to provide for itself and the population would crash. Evolution isn't perfect by any means. Social policy should be based on social attitudes instead of the inefficient, brutal system that got us here.
All that said, I'm reasonably sure the OP (thread starter) is just a troll, or a troll's near cousin. They seem to enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing, and the issues be damned.
So, if you're wondering where to spend the last tourist dollars you’ll have as a breathing human being or just want to see the looks on those faces when December 21 comes and goes uneventfully, here are a couple ideas in and out of Mexico that are worth checking out.
Perhaps we're using the term 'exploit' a little differently. I'm using it in the sense of "you can exploit the vector space structure of a field over a subfield to analyze field extensions". That is, no negative connotations are necessarily implied. I think that, so long as Mexico isn't trying to trick people into believing such a silly notion, using it to promote tourism is fine.
Thanks.
Thank you. It's a bit telling that the entire website seems geared towards selling the magazine issue. It's not clear to me whether any of the authors actually believe in a 2012 apocalypse or if they're just piggy-backing on the idea for other reasons (like selling a magazine). After glancing at Aleksandr Dugin's Wikipedia page, the quote at the bottom seems to be about a much more general new era than just something that'll happen in 2012 specifically.
I agree completely.
Is there any evidence that anyone really thinks the world will end? As near as I can tell, most people find it somewhat entertaining. A few people are trying to exploit it without really believing in it (the government of Mexico, the people behind the recent movie, some New Age authors). So... does anyone actually believe this crap?
I'm curious, why didn't you simply include a link in the first place? It would have made the post more informative, and asking for a citation is reasonable and in this case probably to be expected.
Sssh! Do you know what they do to people who praise Microsoft around here? Weird stuff. Butt stuff.
(Said in Patrick Stewart's voice of course.)
Sorry if I was unclear. My question was not if they had to provide source upon request *after you've bought the module*, but rather beforehand. Obviously in this case afterwards the question is moot, though I was also curious if in general they have to advertise the fact that you can request the source in some way.
Do they have to provide the source upon request for free, or advertise the source in some way?
Your first link led to this fascinating story. Thank you; I don't have mod points right now, though.