Just the fact that it is described as an analytic extension of an infinite series does not imply it is not algebraic. For instance, the series 1+x+x^2+x^3+... converges only when |x|1. It can be analytically continued to all complex values of x except x=1. The expression for the extension is 1/(1-x) which is of course algebraic.
The BringRadical might not be algebraic - but the reason is not that it is defined via an infinite series.
Did you know that taking pictures using your dinky point-and-shoot is not allowed from commercial airplanes in India? the idea is once again "security", but I really think pictures from a plane with an ordinary camera are far worse in detail than ANY picture you could take from inside a tall building. (Actually - it might even be worse than hand-drawn maps...).
Try explaning that to the cabin-crew on Indian airliners.
Great! Being nerds we will never *play* soccer - we got robots to do that. Then we get so lazy, we won't even watch them play - we get robots to do *that*. (Of course, the more AI minded nerds among us will enjoy studying the robots watching the robots playing...)
(1) "Pi is not random becuase I have a formula for its digits" is nonsense. Randomness is not the inability (or impossibility) to predict (at least in this situation). Randomness refers to statistical properties of the sequences. For ex. no correlation between conseq. digits, no corr. betweteen conseq. pairs of digits and so on brings a sequence closer to randomness.
(2) If you REALLY want randomness (with impossibility of prediction, and unreplicability of the sequence) - go and count events in a radiactive decay experiment. (More precisely, count waiting times for each successive decay - they follow an exponential distribution). (I think fourmilab has a 1-time rnadom number generator linked up to a geiger counter - don;t remmeber the URL any more).
(3) Why do mathematicians find "randomness" in digits interetsing? The reasons are similar to why people prove theorems about "how randomly are the primes distributed among the integers". It says something about the structure of the primes. I am not a number theorist - so I cannot give explicit results.
Of course people don't like it. Why did you set fire to *foxes* ? A firefox is not a fox. It is the Himalayan Red Panda or the Lesser Panda (Ailureus fulgens). Catch one of THOSE and do your stunt:)
Here is a good Nikon related example. Nikon makes its money by selling cameras/lenses. So, in 1994 they introduced an advanced amateus camera called the N90s, which was supposed to be almosta professional camera (and actually was in its day).
But, they needed ways in which they could sell more hardware. So, here is what they did:
(1) You want to do multiple exposures? you have to buy an "optional" component costing a couple hundred bucks.
(2) There are cutting edge features you can set - like "Does the camera beep or not when focus is achieved" - but you have to buy a primitive Ipod type thing (made by Sharp I think - but I forget) to set such features. Cost - a couple 100 bucks.
(3) Unfortunately, the company that made the gadget that would connect to the camera stopped production. So, what would Nikon do? Release software for accessing these custom functions - but you now have to pay Nikon to buy the *cable* that connects your PC to the camera. Cost - about a 100 bucks.
That's why you don't show your source code if you are into fleecing your customers - you can make them come back to you for every single bit.
It's not that simple for professional photographers. You usually build up an entire system (multiple lenses - and a couple of bodies) - and you have to make some choices depending on what you are going to shoot and how much you are willing to spend.
In general, Nikon's lenses are more interoperable than Canon. Canon's latest bodies will only take EOS lenses, not the older FD mount. With Nikon, some of your older lenses will still work (yes - even manual lenses on the latest SLR or Digital SLR (you might not want to put a ordinary lens on a digital SLR - but that is a different story))
So, the bottom line is - you cannot expect photographers to give up the Nikon line just because of this one hitch.
And by the way, Nikon's lenses are waaaaaay better than Canon... (Yes - that is our equivalent of the Linux distro war)
Despite the fact that there are many extremely smart and talented people at NASA, it, like every bureaucracy, has become an entrenched special interest, more concerned with preserving its budget than in actually moving the cause of space flight forward. The Space Shuttle, no matter how many times it has been retrofitted, is still 1970s technology. It's hideously expensive to launch and requires a vast support army to operate. But that vast support army is precisely why it exists. The space shuttle exists to serve the International Space Station. The International Space Station exists to be serviced by the space shuttle. Both provide lots of aerospace industry jobs and this is, in fact, their primary function. Turf and caution have become the watchwords at the highest echelons of NASA, who are more concerned with protecting their bureaucratic empire than moving the exploration and colonization of space forward. The shuttle monopoly has strangled the development of alternative launch vehicles, something the X Prize has only partially offset. A lot of people had predicted we'd not only have launched a manned mission to Mars by now, but set up a colony. See any sign of that?
Doesn't that sound familiar? Despite the fact that there are many extremely smart and talented people at Microsoft, it, like every software behemoth, has become an entrenched special interest, more concerned with preserving its marketshare than in actually moving the cause of software forward. Windows, no matter how many times it has been renamed (DOS/95/98/NT/2k/ME/XP), is still 1980s technology. It's hideously expensive to run (vis-avis hardware) and requires a vast tech support staff to operate. But that vast support army is precisely why it exists. Windows exists to serve Microsoft.... (Analogy breaks down, stumble along for a few meaningless phrases, and amazingly recover)... Both provide lots of IT jobs and this is, in fact, their primary function. Turf and caution have become the watchwords at the highest echelons of Microsoft, who are more concerned with protecting their marketshare than moving innovation forward. The Microsoft monopoly has strangled the development of alternative operating systems, something Linux/OSX has only partially offset. A lot of people had predicted we'd not only have complete server dominance, but also have cornered the desktop market. See any sign of that?
Re:not suprising..
on
Mapping the Mind
·
· Score: 3, Informative
"they were just being juvenal."
Oh please mod the parent up. There is the obvious pun on "juvenile", but the user also probably meant the stereotype of philosophers in some of Juvenal's Satires: philosophers = gay.
The article (and the text of the orginial posting) makes it seem like translating a specialized technical text is somehow harder than translating, say, a newspaper article. As someone experienced in translating technical (science/engineering) documents, I can say that any tech document is far _easier_ to translate after an initial learning curve.
The main reason (I think) is that: tech documents have specialised vocabulary and idioms, but these are much fewer than the idioms one has to master in order to understand the editorial page in a newspaper.
With a rudimentary knowledge of Russian and French, I have found it much easier to read an engineering textbook or paper in these languages, than reading any nontechnical text. (This is not necessarily the case with other languages. Any document in Japanese for instance is an entirely different ballgame...)
Want to run a website with secure connections? Or, want to run a website at all? Then don't publicise it on/. till you are *really* ready for the action!
So this is the latest variant of the old fable (big boulder in the middle of the road, everyone walks around it, the chap who finally pushes it aside finds the treasure underneath). But really - nice as the story is, is it going to make any change to how people treat an EULA? I think not.
People will still not read an EULA because
(a) They know thay not every EULA has a $1000 check buried in it
(b) They still won't understand the real point to reading the EULA - which is understanding exactly what the software claims it will do on your computer.
Unless they get (b), there really is no reason to read an EULA.
You kids have it all too easy now. We used to give the sysadmin the punchcards and get back a printout the next day. We did REAL programming on those days. Who needs a video display...
It is true that most warez files are compressed using RAR. But it is also true that the general warez kiddie is not the type who would click on any executable without some virus checking. (Yes - it seems a shame - but the run of the mill warez kiddie is not the clueless user who clicks on every attachment in their email).
His ability to multiply numbers quickly, or test for primes quickly (not sure if he does this), or factor large numbers quickly (never does an article about a math idiot-savant talk about this - a problem that is *hard* by all known algorithms - but that is another story) does not say anything interesting for mathematics. It is interesting purely from the viewpoint of understanding how the human brain works.
And if we are on the topic of raw computing ability - and we decide that computing ability _is_ interesting - could we *please* have them try computations in a more general number field? Could we *please* have them solve problems that we can't yet solve efficiently by any known algorithm? (And, could someone also study how fast this guy computes factorisations as a funtion of the input size? Fr instance, could we find out how fast his brain's process works - O(n) ? O(log(n))? This question could at least be answered experimentally.
This is an improved version of what we saw in South Park. There is no steering lever to be inserted into the rider's mouth. The other lever is still being used I think, as in Mr. Garrison's design.
Slashdot Mirror
For a second I read Netherlands insstead of Neanderthals - and thought "Wow, they had
pot 40,000 years ago too?"
So this is not some wild claim about
Win XP doing "N flops" for some very large N?
Just the fact that it is described as an analytic extension of an
infinite series does not imply it is not algebraic. For instance,
the series 1+x+x^2+x^3+... converges only when |x|1. It can be analytically continued
to all complex values of x except x=1. The expression for the
extension is 1/(1-x) which is of course algebraic.
The BringRadical might not be algebraic - but the reason is
not that it is defined via an infinite series.
Did you know that taking pictures using your dinky point-and-shoot is not allowed from commercial airplanes in India? the idea is once again "security", but I really think pictures from a plane with an ordinary camera are far worse in detail than ANY picture you could take from inside a tall building. (Actually - it might even be worse than hand-drawn maps ...).
Try explaning that to the cabin-crew on Indian airliners.
Every had a user download a rootkit and mess with the system?
All said, though, go see it in the theatre. I went to the 12:01 showing last night and it was awesome. Truly awesome.
Welcome to
(1) I for one welcome our self-replicating robot ...
...
...
(2) Imagine a Beowulf cluster
(3) Not all robots can replicate, you insensitive clod
(4) In soviet Russia, robot replicates robot (?)
Great! Being nerds we will never *play* soccer - we got robots to do that. Then we get so lazy, we won't even watch them play - we get robots to do *that*. (Of course, the more AI minded nerds among us will enjoy studying the robots watching the robots playing ...)
(1) "Pi is not random becuase I have a formula for its digits" is nonsense. Randomness is not the inability (or impossibility) to predict (at least in this situation). Randomness refers to statistical properties of the sequences. For ex. no correlation between conseq. digits, no corr. betweteen conseq. pairs of digits and so on brings a sequence closer to randomness.
(2) If you REALLY want randomness (with impossibility of prediction, and unreplicability of the sequence) - go and count events in a radiactive decay experiment. (More precisely, count waiting times for each successive decay - they follow an exponential distribution). (I think fourmilab has a 1-time rnadom number generator linked up to a geiger counter - don;t remmeber the URL any more).
(3) Why do mathematicians find "randomness" in digits interetsing? The reasons are similar to why people prove theorems about "how randomly are the primes distributed among the integers". It says something about the structure of the primes. I am not a number theorist - so I cannot give explicit results.
Of course people don't like it. Why did you set fire to *foxes* ? A firefox is not a fox. It is the Himalayan Red Panda or the Lesser Panda (Ailureus fulgens). Catch one of THOSE and do your stunt :)
Here is a good Nikon related example. Nikon makes its money by selling cameras/lenses. So, in 1994 they introduced an advanced amateus camera called the N90s, which was supposed to be almosta professional camera (and actually was in its day).
But, they needed ways in which they could sell more hardware. So, here is what they did:
(1) You want to do multiple exposures? you have to buy an "optional" component costing a couple hundred bucks.
(2) There are cutting edge features you can set - like "Does the camera beep or not when focus is achieved" - but you have to buy a primitive Ipod type thing (made by Sharp I think - but I forget)
to set such features. Cost - a couple 100 bucks.
(3) Unfortunately, the company that made the gadget that would connect to the camera stopped production. So, what would Nikon do? Release software for accessing these custom functions - but you now have to pay Nikon to buy the *cable* that connects your PC to the camera. Cost - about a 100 bucks.
That's why you don't show your source code if you are into fleecing your customers - you can make them come back to you for every single bit.
Maybe we should (I wish I could, but I don't know XUL) change ForecastFox to not use weather.com. Link it up directly to the NOAA data.
I am not sure what this would do - except piss off weather.com even more - but this is the only knee-jerk reaction I can come up with.
It's not that simple for professional photographers.
... (Yes - that is our equivalent of the Linux distro war)
You usually build up an entire system (multiple lenses - and a couple of bodies) - and you have to make some choices depending on what you are going to shoot and how much you are willing to spend.
In general, Nikon's lenses are more interoperable than Canon. Canon's latest bodies will only take EOS lenses, not the older FD mount. With Nikon, some of your older lenses will still work (yes - even manual lenses on the latest SLR or Digital SLR (you might not want to put a ordinary lens on a digital SLR - but that is a different story))
So, the bottom line is - you cannot expect photographers to give up the Nikon line just because of this one hitch.
And by the way, Nikon's lenses are waaaaaay better than Canon
Not monkeys. This is a CS forum. The right units is "beowulf cluster".
Despite the fact that there are many extremely smart and talented people at NASA, it, like every bureaucracy, has become an entrenched special interest, more concerned with preserving its budget than in actually moving the cause of space flight forward. The Space Shuttle, no matter how many times it has been retrofitted, is still 1970s technology. It's hideously expensive to launch and requires a vast support army to operate. But that vast support army is precisely why it exists. The space shuttle exists to serve the International Space Station. The International Space Station exists to be serviced by the space shuttle. Both provide lots of aerospace industry jobs and this is, in fact, their primary function. Turf and caution have become the watchwords at the highest echelons of NASA, who are more concerned with protecting their bureaucratic empire than moving the exploration and colonization of space forward. The shuttle monopoly has strangled the development of alternative launch vehicles, something the X Prize has only partially offset. A lot of people had predicted we'd not only have launched a manned mission to Mars by now, but set up a colony. See any sign of that?
... (Analogy breaks down, stumble along for a few meaningless phrases, and amazingly recover) ... Both provide lots of IT jobs and this is, in fact, their primary function. Turf and caution have become the watchwords at the highest echelons of Microsoft, who are more concerned with protecting their marketshare than moving innovation forward. The Microsoft monopoly has strangled the development of alternative operating systems, something Linux/OSX has only partially offset. A lot of people had predicted we'd not only have complete server dominance, but also have cornered the desktop market. See any sign of that?
Doesn't that sound familiar? Despite the fact that there are many extremely smart and talented people at Microsoft, it, like every software behemoth, has become an entrenched special interest, more concerned with preserving its marketshare than in actually moving the cause of software forward. Windows, no matter how many times it has been renamed (DOS/95/98/NT/2k/ME/XP), is still 1980s technology. It's hideously expensive to run (vis-avis hardware) and requires a vast tech support staff to operate. But that vast support army is precisely why it exists. Windows exists to serve Microsoft.
"they were just being juvenal."
Oh please mod the parent up. There is the obvious pun on "juvenile", but the user also probably meant the stereotype of philosophers in some of Juvenal's Satires: philosophers = gay.
Subject says it all - mod me down if you have never read Mark Twain :)
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of ... oh never mind.
On second thoughts, should this be called a "Grendel" cluster?
The article (and the text of the orginial posting) makes it seem like translating a specialized technical text is somehow harder than translating, say, a newspaper article. As someone experienced in translating technical (science/engineering) documents, I can say that any tech document is far _easier_ to translate after an initial learning curve.
...)
The main reason (I think) is that: tech documents have specialised vocabulary and idioms, but these are much fewer than the idioms one has to master in order to understand the editorial page in a newspaper.
With a rudimentary knowledge of Russian and French, I have found it much easier to read an engineering textbook or paper in these languages, than reading any nontechnical text. (This is not necessarily the case with other languages. Any document in Japanese for instance is an entirely different ballgame
your website is slashdotted?
/. till you are *really* ready for the action!
Want to run a website with secure connections? Or, want to run a website at all? Then don't publicise it on
So this is the latest variant of the old fable (big boulder in the middle of the road, everyone walks around it, the chap who finally pushes it aside finds the treasure underneath). But really - nice as the story is, is it going to make any change to how people treat an EULA? I think not.
People will still not read an EULA because
(a) They know thay not every EULA has a $1000 check buried in it
(b) They still won't understand the real point to reading the EULA - which is understanding exactly what the software claims it will do on your computer.
Unless they get (b), there really is no reason to read an EULA.
You kids have it all too easy now. We used to give the sysadmin the punchcards and get back a printout the next day. We did REAL programming on those days. ...
Who needs a video display
It is true that most warez files are compressed using RAR. But it is also true that the general warez kiddie is not the type who would click on any executable without some virus checking. (Yes - it seems a shame - but the run of the mill warez kiddie is not the clueless user who clicks on every attachment in their email).
His ability to multiply numbers quickly, or test for primes quickly (not sure if he does this), or factor large numbers quickly (never does an article about a math idiot-savant talk about this - a problem that is *hard* by all known algorithms - but that is another story) does not say anything interesting for mathematics. It is interesting purely from the viewpoint of understanding how the human brain works.
And if we are on the topic of raw computing ability - and we decide that computing ability _is_ interesting - could we *please* have them try computations in a more general number field? Could we *please* have them solve problems that we can't yet solve efficiently by any known algorithm? (And, could someone also study how fast this guy computes factorisations as a funtion of the input size? Fr instance, could we find out how fast his brain's process works - O(n) ? O(log(n))? This question could at least be answered experimentally.
This is an improved version of what we saw in South Park. There is no steering lever to be inserted into the rider's mouth. The other lever is still being used I think, as in Mr. Garrison's design.