Well, you could try addressing the trust issue using semantic web notions as well... You could create a semantic link between your slashdot profile and a document that you recommend, or the profile of the person who wrote it (hey you could even call it "moderation"). And then somebody else could create a "recommendation" link between him/herself and your profile, etc... You could obtain a rating for each document, using an inference engine that would follow a FOAF chain.
Just like TBL said, it's the network effect that makes the semantic web powerful. Trust evaluation can also leverage such an effect, as Slashdot has been able to demonstrate.
Crime is usually something perpetrated by a very small minority, while preventive measures end up being applied to everybody. So with preventive measures you're basically restricting everybody's freedom, just to address crime potential in a small minority of people.
When the size of a society is small enough that people all know each other, crime either doesn't happen, or is dealt with on a case by case basis. You don't need a constitution to run a family or a village!
I used to moderate a musical mailing-list that quickly grew to reach 250+ members. At that point one subscriber started making trouble by insulting other members, but it was mostly humorous. Something that wouldn't have been a big deal in a small mailing-list ended up snowballing because we ended up with people who didn't get the humor or were insulted and wanted that subscriber removed, others who said the list should be moderated, others who said removing that person would equate to having a dictatorship.
So basically it took ONE person in a big mailing-list to create all that trouble. None of the solutions ended up being satisfactory. My solution? I just handed over that list to somebody else;-) I just think that societies are only manageable in small sizes.
The last time I used BugMeNot to read a NYT article, I went through 10 accounts and none worked, I don't know why. It's worked well for other sites though.
I agree with AC! Another benefit would be that you'd be separating data from processing, which would allow easy formula manipulation without needing a programmer (assuming that you'd have some sort of nice formula editor that can spit out the XML for you).
I think his problem is elsewhere: without overloading he would end up with something like:
a = Math.sqrt(Math.abs((b + c)multiply((d/e)) ))
That is, a mix of "native" operators and adhoc methods. With overloading you would be able to forget about the type of the variable or the return value and let the VM figure it all out.
I think we all just hit the nail on the head. Libertarianism has an optimistic view in that it assumes that people are fundamentally good, that they won't let the law of the jungle take over because they will make up for it via spontaneous generosity. And issues such as the environment and peace will be taken care of easily because people have the foresight of spending their money willfully on companies that would offer to take care of them responsibly and competitively.
Socialists on the other hand have a pessimistic view of people. They think that the rich won't naturally help the poor, that if people think of their own survival first, they won't think of long-term issues such as the environment. As a result, they believe that such issues should be taken care of by a government that "knows better" how to spend half the people's money (although in the case of a democratic country, the government is eventually chosen by the same people that they believe aren't good to begin with).
Yes, and Episodes I-III could have been excellent in cartoon format instead of the horrid CGI. No more actors talking to a blue wall, and we wouldn't have tried hard to take Jar Jar seriously.
(disclaimer: this is a newbie type of question, apologies if the answer is too obvious)
Yes, I did think of a series expansion, but I guess my more general question was: how do you manipulate any number with a 100+ digit precision in a program? What data type in a programming language such as Java allows you to store it? How about interpreted languages with no explicit type declarations? If you store things in a big array, you'd have to hand code all needed operations, right? Am I missing something terribly obvious?
I suppose Fortran or Matlab have an easy way to hide such details, and there must also be some dedicated library in Java to do this, but then the question becomes: how do they do it?
First of all thanks for your clear and detail replies!
We mathematicians generally dislike numbers because they make everything messy. That's for engineers and physicists. We'd rather keep things clean and exact, and as abstract as possible:)
I guess I'm thinking like a programmer then, trying to express a complex problem in terms of a combination of simpler ones. What I really had in mind was whether for some particular poly equations it makes sense to do a transformation into an equivalent expression that uses integrals (or whatever "omega" function that mathematicians are comfortable dealing with), in the hope that the new expression will be easier to simplify and ultimately to solve. Not a general solution then, but it might help in some cases? Or maybe helpful if approximation methods for that particular "omega" are more effective and efficient...
Thanks for the explanation! So am I correct in saying that if we extended the definition of "analytical" to include integrals for solving polynomial equations (that's contrived too, since I don't know if integrals would be of any use), it wouldn't do much good, because we can't solve integrals analytically either (even using other integrals)?
(sorry if I am missing something, my math is rusty)
But the logarithm function isn't all that magical, since you can express it as the integral of 1/x. So do you mean that integrals aren't part of an analytical solution? (I guess there must be a proof somewhere stating that you can't calculate all integrals using analytical solutions?)
I totally agree with you. My point though was not so much about whether it is a good idea to write a comment or not, but rather how much impact it really has (as opposed to talk radio or the other media mentioned in my post's parent).
It is a pity though, as late posters might have more insight to contribute than "frist posters", as they may have thought over their reply a bit more carefully.
In fact, that's something the Internet has that talk radio and TV panels do not: you can take as much time and as much space as you need to to be an effective disputant.
True, but things are just as transient in blogs, especially Slashdot. If you write your comment more than an hour after the thread was created, noone will read you. Everybody's moved on to the next topic.
Not only that, but dishonest people have better firepower than the honest ones. It is easier to "mass-destroy" Wikipedia pages than it is to "mass-repair" them. There may be some more socio-politico-philosophical depth to this, but I'll leave it as an exercise to the next guy...
It's about time airlines offered Adult Flights, where you'd be sheltered from crying babies and family-rated (i.e. dull) movies. I'd happily pay a $100 surcharge for a transatlantic flight.
Wow, almost every single prediction he made in 1999 (RealNetworks acquired within a year, death of MP3, iTunes-style music stores not a good idea...) turned out wrong! Is that how he "gets it"?
Yes, definitely a very cool hack. I'm thinking this could be used in an OS course somewhere, it really brings it home that a file system is "only" about providing a handful of functions in its API, it looks much less scary this way. Of course there are a lot of choices as to how to implement such an API, but that's another story...
Slashdot Mirror
Would it also make sense to use the DS to share, discover and download MP3s from your adhoc peers?
Well, you could try addressing the trust issue using semantic web notions as well... You could create a semantic link between your slashdot profile and a document that you recommend, or the profile of the person who wrote it (hey you could even call it "moderation"). And then somebody else could create a "recommendation" link between him/herself and your profile, etc... You could obtain a rating for each document, using an inference engine that would follow a FOAF chain.
Just like TBL said, it's the network effect that makes the semantic web powerful. Trust evaluation can also leverage such an effect, as Slashdot has been able to demonstrate.
Crime is usually something perpetrated by a very small minority, while preventive measures end up being applied to everybody. So with preventive measures you're basically restricting everybody's freedom, just to address crime potential in a small minority of people.
;-) I just think that societies are only manageable in small sizes.
When the size of a society is small enough that people all know each other, crime either doesn't happen, or is dealt with on a case by case basis. You don't need a constitution to run a family or a village!
I used to moderate a musical mailing-list that quickly grew to reach 250+ members. At that point one subscriber started making trouble by insulting other members, but it was mostly humorous. Something that wouldn't have been a big deal in a small mailing-list ended up snowballing because we ended up with people who didn't get the humor or were insulted and wanted that subscriber removed, others who said the list should be moderated, others who said removing that person would equate to having a dictatorship.
So basically it took ONE person in a big mailing-list to create all that trouble. None of the solutions ended up being satisfactory. My solution? I just handed over that list to somebody else
Guess I could hang my iDuck around my neck, not sure it'd make me look cool though...
Plus, the rubberduck tends to detach itself from the memory stick too easily.
The last time I used BugMeNot to read a NYT article, I went through 10 accounts and none worked, I don't know why. It's worked well for other sites though.
So "i" is taken, "j" is taken (Java stuff), now "g"... quick, let's register all variations with other letters of the alphabet!
I agree with AC! Another benefit would be that you'd be separating data from processing, which would allow easy formula manipulation without needing a programmer (assuming that you'd have some sort of nice formula editor that can spit out the XML for you).
I think his problem is elsewhere: without overloading he would end up with something like:
a = Math.sqrt(Math.abs((b + c)multiply((d/e)) ))
That is, a mix of "native" operators and adhoc methods. With overloading you would be able to forget about the type of the variable or the return value and let the VM figure it all out.
I think we all just hit the nail on the head. Libertarianism has an optimistic view in that it assumes that people are fundamentally good, that they won't let the law of the jungle take over because they will make up for it via spontaneous generosity. And issues such as the environment and peace will be taken care of easily because people have the foresight of spending their money willfully on companies that would offer to take care of them responsibly and competitively.
Socialists on the other hand have a pessimistic view of people. They think that the rich won't naturally help the poor, that if people think of their own survival first, they won't think of long-term issues such as the environment. As a result, they believe that such issues should be taken care of by a government that "knows better" how to spend half the people's money (although in the case of a democratic country, the government is eventually chosen by the same people that they believe aren't good to begin with).
So: are you an optimist or a pessimist?
Yes, and Episodes I-III could have been excellent in cartoon format instead of the horrid CGI. No more actors talking to a blue wall, and we wouldn't have tried hard to take Jar Jar seriously.
To stay true to the initial post, it should have been spelled "Penouse" in the first place...
(disclaimer: this is a newbie type of question, apologies if the answer is too obvious)
Yes, I did think of a series expansion, but I guess my more general question was: how do you manipulate any number with a 100+ digit precision in a program? What data type in a programming language such as Java allows you to store it? How about interpreted languages with no explicit type declarations? If you store things in a big array, you'd have to hand code all needed operations, right? Am I missing something terribly obvious?
I suppose Fortran or Matlab have an easy way to hide such details, and there must also be some dedicated library in Java to do this, but then the question becomes: how do they do it?
Just curious: what is an easy way to generate the digits of e?
Well, logically speaking, it should be a mushroom factory, right?
Thanks for the explanation! So am I correct in saying that if we extended the definition of "analytical" to include integrals for solving polynomial equations (that's contrived too, since I don't know if integrals would be of any use), it wouldn't do much good, because we can't solve integrals analytically either (even using other integrals)?
(sorry if I am missing something, my math is rusty)
But the logarithm function isn't all that magical, since you can express it as the integral of 1/x. So do you mean that integrals aren't part of an analytical solution? (I guess there must be a proof somewhere stating that you can't calculate all integrals using analytical solutions?)
I totally agree with you. My point though was not so much about whether it is a good idea to write a comment or not, but rather how much impact it really has (as opposed to talk radio or the other media mentioned in my post's parent).
It is a pity though, as late posters might have more insight to contribute than "frist posters", as they may have thought over their reply a bit more carefully.
He must be easy to find, doesn't he work for a famous TV game show? He/she even comes up with a few every week!
Not only that, but dishonest people have better firepower than the honest ones. It is easier to "mass-destroy" Wikipedia pages than it is to "mass-repair" them. There may be some more socio-politico-philosophical depth to this, but I'll leave it as an exercise to the next guy...
As they say, it takes one bad apple!
It's about time airlines offered Adult Flights, where you'd be sheltered from crying babies and family-rated (i.e. dull) movies. I'd happily pay a $100 surcharge for a transatlantic flight.
Wow, almost every single prediction he made in 1999 (RealNetworks acquired within a year, death of MP3, iTunes-style music stores not a good idea...) turned out wrong! Is that how he "gets it"?
Yes, definitely a very cool hack. I'm thinking this could be used in an OS course somewhere, it really brings it home that a file system is "only" about providing a handful of functions in its API, it looks much less scary this way. Of course there are a lot of choices as to how to implement such an API, but that's another story...