I think it was a joke at the expense of the average Brit. A pretty high proportion of people in the UK make plenty of grammatical errors in their speech. Grammar isn't taught formally in most schools now (I know I have plenty of glitches and I was at a private school) and certainly plenty areas blue collar/lower class/less educated (not meaning to be rude just trying to get a point across) people won't really care at all.
On the other hand many Indians who speak English will have been very well taught (so much so that they can willingly add accents and regional slang to blend in on the phone), so they almost certainly have better technical English skills then much of the population.
Britain's population is over 50 million but since many of those won't speak English perfectly there may be more good English speakers in India.
Yup, for my maths degree I'm allowed a calculator with +,-,*,/ and square root and %.
It also has memory add, memory remove and memory recall. I guess I'll take it into exams just in case:) but I can't say I use it very often. I suspect it would be somewhat different for an applied course, but for maths its fairly useless.
"News for nerds". Doesn't comming onto a geek news site and complaining about people who always use their computer seem rather silly to you? Do you go up to sports fans and tell them to stop talking/thinking about their team all the time after all "it's only a game" so shouldn't they go do something productive?
Sure its possible to overdo IM and I think its generally advisable to try and keep some real life contact going with friends and family, especially if young kids are involved (though if someone who is older and childless doesn't like that then its cool with me, not my job to tell them how to live their life). However IMing can be pretty usefull and if you live in a big house then it might be pretty practical. I've never had much need to at home (though when I'm at university its a different story of course) but for example my brother lives on the opposite side of the house to me, we both have PCs in our rooms, if its just a quick questions then why bother going there? I see plenty of him anyway.
I may have missed someone else posting this, but it doesn't seem like anyone has brought it up. One of the key advantages with starting with the BSDL is that because it is weaker than any other open source licences you can then mould it to be whatever you want.
Someone has already pointed out that the LGPL works favorably for companies, they can be sure competitors won't take their code and use it a proprietry system, but at the same time it can mingle easily with their proprietry programs.
Now if you start with GPL programs you can't backpedal and then release modifications under the LGPL, but you can take BSDL code and then release new versions under the LGPL. So if the intention is to move away from a GPL style licence, they will either have to start from scratch or start with a weaker licence like BSDL.
I've got a letter telling me to pay up sitting next to me now:) They blanket mailed my college with demands last week, interesting because I don't know anyone with TVs here (inc. myself). Must be people over the summer who had them and the registry hasn't been updated (or they've just lost the plot:)
Something I missed. I realise you weren't just talking about the validity of using "hacker" to describe coders and such but about pushing this usage to the public.
I don't think they should be forced to use it but it's a shame from the point of view that they don't even recognise it. If I was on a golf course and described someone as a hacker people would realise I meant a poor golf player, not a malicious computer user. But if I was in an office talking about some internal project and said "I think I'll ask my friend for some advice on this, he's a great java hacker" they'd all assume I meant a cracker/black-hat type even if security/networking was totally irrelevant to the topic in question.
Treat it like that if you want, but if you look up "hacker" in a dictionary you'll find both descriptions (coding enthusiast and malicious computer users) alongside a bunch of others. [FYI I checked it out in the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster and dictionary.com]
It's a valid use of the word in English, why shouldn't people use it like that?
A square numbers is one which is equal to n^2 when n is a whole number. You are almost talking about primes numbers but you made a mistake, 1 is not a prime. A prime p has to be divisible by two distinct (ie. different) numbers, 1 and itself. 1 and 1 are not distinct (there are some good reasons for this mentioned in the links bellow).
That's actually happening in the UK now, you can get cards for your laptop that will let you connect to cellphone networks for a GPRS connection. It just runs like a standard 'net connection as far as I can see, apart from including software so you can text message and get an indication of how strong your network signal is. I don't know if they'll work with anything apart from windows though. Here's a link to one service.
There was pretty huge uproar about this in the quake3 community but basicly the WCG organisation were unwilling to use any game without support from the games publishers, ie. people on hand to sort out any technical issues arrising during the tourament. Activision decided they weren't willing too (maybe as they aren't really making money on q3 atm as its quite old) and as a result q3 wasn't picked. Tbh activision aren't the people I'd want in a tech support role like that, compared to experienced q3 server admins/mod coders, but I understand why they have rules like that.
From what I've gathered the bugs in OpenSSH didn't even have known exploits when then were patched. No system is perfect but their minimalistic approach with attention to little details is an improvement over other systems where lots of 'minor' bugs are left lying around and sometimes are then found to be major bugs that no one had really understood.
Its true however that in most cases a good sysadmin would solve most of the problems. Most windows users wouldn't be better of switching to openBSD or such, so its the admins job to keep patching boxes and have a decent firewall.
There is still an argument though, that in critical goverment departments, everything possible should be done to avoid security problems and maybe changing the OS as well as hiring some new admins would be sensible.
They could get off their asses and go and buy the album in a used cd store instead of downloading it. Why don't they?
How do you know they don't? I'm sure there are a plenty of people who just download and don't buy (I know a few) but most of the people I know download and buy, they download more than they purchase, but how much they spend overall hasn't really changed.
Record sales in America have gone down but the country isn't in the best economic situation so I don't think it's sensible to jump to conclusions, here in the UK album sales are rising desipite broadband p2p user numbers rising.
There isn't really any conclusive evidence at the moment concerning how filesharing affects purchasing, the record industry hasn't lost anywhere near the number of sales where they can be sure how much it is hurting them.
>"we might be seeing the start of a common language for China"
Written Chinese is common across China and has been for thousands of years, though there is now a difference between simplified (more stylised, introduced in China after the revolution) and traditional (still used in other Chinese speaking territories such as Taiwan).
I can't see how this would make any impact on spoken Chinese, Mandarin/Standard Chinese (technically now quite the same) will gain influence as more people are taught it in school, but China is big enough that there will be areas of people speaking their own dialects for a long time.
The whole point is that science isn't "blind", you can't be 100% sure what is/isn't true, but fundamentaly you are basing your decision on evidence. Any good scientist should realise that any theories could be wrong, plenty end up going back on their own ideas/work because someone else comes up with evidence to refute it.
If you are calling support of scientific principles "blind faith" then I'd disagree as fundamentally they are just common sence, weigh up evidence for an against, and if there is none either way than don't make any assumptions.
it they intend it to be totally stand alone then the physics will be fine, but I've played q3 with perfect qw physics before and it causes a lot of problems, you become a sitting duck on jump-pads for example because of the different way the air-accel works. (some guy just knocked together a.pk3 with changed physics, he did redo it in the end to make it more playable on q3a maps).
Of course I'd love to be able to play proper qwtf, I played q3f for a while with old clanmates but I didn't like the game enough to play when they quit. I'd probably just play qwtf tho if there were more players, not too fussed about gfx really:)
perhaps, but would you compare a really great softball player to a great baseball player? or a great minature golfer to someone who plays normal golf? they are different games with different rules but one is generally considered to push you harder.
Now there is more to a game than just physics obviously, but it is certainly possible for one game to be more complicated/"skillful" than another.
For the record, I think most of the quake series games are pretty equal in this respect, it depends what sort of game you are playing (free for all, dueling, team games) when one is a bit above another. I think CPMA is pushing the limit in terms of dueling, but it hasn't caught up in teamplay yet (I'd rate qw and q3 as the best in that respect).
Its more complicated than that. When you set up a major system you need to look long term and think about support and licencing as well as technical merit.
He may be letting personal feelings into this but that doesn't change the facts that some people wouldn't be happy using software from a company that has resorted to trying to obtain customers from that sort of method, I'd personally like a little bit of trust in a provider-client relationship.
Anyway he may be going a little OTT, but when there's a lot at stake, simply 'choosing the best tool for the job' is more complicated than it seems.
Yes, but some sites are taken down because of the strain on the databases generating dynamic pages (you sometimes notice people switching their website to a static index.html to display a message when they are slashdotted) so in these cases the server is the issue not the bandwidth.
I'm not convinced quake doesn't have good implications for brain use. If you look at it as a game where you "run around and shoot people" you may as well be watching some action movie. But a serious player will be doing a lot of things to keep track of what's going on in the game. For example;
1) remembering spawn times for various items (eg. just picked up the armor, so I should return in 25 seconds to pick it up again) a good player should be able to do this for quite a lot of items at once (which won't always have the same gap between spawns)
2) keeping track of your stats and team mates stats and locations,
3) working out opponents possitions from audio cues, map/tactical knowledge, previous experience of playing the oponents.
4) respond to team comunications, either voice comms or text, I've been playing for years and still can't absorb the infomation from a top clan using text comms when I'm watching a game, they can do that while playing (new instructions/information every.5 seconds)
5) Some people will actually keep track of enemies ammo count (normally only in 1on1 games and with non-rapid fire weapons), listening out for explosions and such when the enemy is out of view.
These aren't logical/reasoning skills for the most part, but being able to do this while running around and trying to concentrate on shooting people isn't easy, and is exactly the sort of multi-tasking skills that have been mentioned as the sort fighter pilots use. This also isn't some thing most people have naturally, but I think training your brain up to be able to deal with lots of information like that is useful.
Anyway I think deathmatch games involve a lot more thinking than you might guess:)
I can see their point, certainly radiohead have released stuff that didn't work as indivdual songs, only as a whole album. But I don't think its a serious issues for a few reasons; (1) a regular album with 8+ good tracks will still do well under this system and should encorage people to quit throwing filler songs in. (2) Experimental albums will always be viewed as such by anyone with a clue about music, these won't be mainstream anyway, they will be publicised by people telling their friends "hey check this out, and make sure you listen to the whole thing" (3) apple has claimed a large proportion of sales are whole albums. getting individual tracks is a large benifit present digial distribution methods but it will hardly kill off the desire to listen to a set of tracks that were intended to be listened to together.
I'm not so sure, I heard about this (from my mum who saw the documentary) and its certainly something I'd agree with. I'm 19 going on 20, at university so I know plenty of people in the 18-22 bracket, but I have younger siblings and I'm pretty good friends with some of their friends in the 16-18. I always feel there's a bit of a difference in behavior when it comes to making decisions.
Perhaps one key point is that my mum mentioned was that they were less talking about a lack of responsibility, but rather a weakness in teenagers risk assesment. So it makes more of a difference in spur of the moment decisions, when you are making a quick judgement and can't think everything through. Certainly I was a fairly respnonsible (boring?:) at 15-17, but in hindsight this wasn't just due to me always being capable of making the right choice, it was partly because I was naturally a little held back/cautious and would think things over more than some people. If I'd been asked to make an important decision quickly though I'd probably be quite likely to screw up.
With regards to the hacking thing, I think if the course is done well then the age of the students shouldn't be too much of a problem, as they will be educated about why they shouldn't abuse what they are learning, so they will then be less likely to make a spur of the moment decision if any oportunity presents itself as they have a bit of conditioning on how to deal with it.
Europe is fine as far as individual countries go, but I'm still not keen on the idea of a overly powerful EU.
There are already laws like the EU Copyright Directive, which is pretty similar to the DMCA and ideas for allowing patenting of software ideas (fingers crossed it won't be passed). Countries can technically opt out of certain areas of this I believe, but with more levels of bureaucracy things can get messy. Its a lot easier for people to get their point across to the government when they know which area of government to aim their concerns at.
I'm not a patriotic person, but I don't like handing too much power away for practical reasons, I think people should have as much control over issues that affect them as possible.
As a mathematician (undergrad) who prefers abstract conceptual areas of maths, I think its a little more complicated then that. By "visualise" in this context its a little different from visualising a 3D space, you may never get to quite that level of understanding, but you're still brainwashed to the extend that anything past 3-dimensions seems somewhat silly and people actually approach it with some fear.
Perhaps an easier example of this to explain would be complex numbers. One of my friends, a pretty smart engineer, once said to me something along the lines of "don't you find it scary that all modern electonics is based around numbers that don't exist?". I think I gave him a pretty odd look, because as a mathmatician, seeing complex numbers used like that its pretty logical. In fact the complex numbers aren't all that scary, just numbers in 2-dimensions really. People are trained to believe that the real numbers are ok, even though they can be complicated in their own way, they just look at them as decimal expansions. Now when they get to complex numbers some little voice in their head telling them that these numbers are unatural or weird in some way, though they aren't significantly difficult to deal with, once you just accept them.
My friend was certainly smart enough (triple A at UK a-levels) to deal with something like this, but at first he had an intuative block which he had to get past before progressing, and really, that block should never have been there in the first place.
The "Third World" was originally used to describe commoners (1st and 2nd world being nobility and clergy).
But the "Third World" as in "Third World Country" was originally used to describe countries that were not capitalist or communist. (basicly countries that had not developed enough to get to that turning point). So certainly there were major issues with living conditions in many communist countries, and still are, the second world is not dead yet by far.
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I think it was a joke at the expense of the average Brit. A pretty high proportion of people in the UK make plenty of grammatical errors in their speech. Grammar isn't taught formally in most schools now (I know I have plenty of glitches and I was at a private school) and certainly plenty areas blue collar/lower class/less educated (not meaning to be rude just trying to get a point across) people won't really care at all.
On the other hand many Indians who speak English will have been very well taught (so much so that they can willingly add accents and regional slang to blend in on the phone), so they almost certainly have better technical English skills then much of the population.
Britain's population is over 50 million but since many of those won't speak English perfectly there may be more good English speakers in India.
Yup, for my maths degree I'm allowed a calculator with +,-,*,/ and square root and %. It also has memory add, memory remove and memory recall. I guess I'll take it into exams just in case :) but I can't say I use it very often. I suspect it would be somewhat different for an applied course, but for maths its fairly useless.
"News for nerds". Doesn't comming onto a geek news site and complaining about people who always use their computer seem rather silly to you? Do you go up to sports fans and tell them to stop talking/thinking about their team all the time after all "it's only a game" so shouldn't they go do something productive?
Sure its possible to overdo IM and I think its generally advisable to try and keep some real life contact going with friends and family, especially if young kids are involved (though if someone who is older and childless doesn't like that then its cool with me, not my job to tell them how to live their life). However IMing can be pretty usefull and if you live in a big house then it might be pretty practical. I've never had much need to at home (though when I'm at university its a different story of course) but for example my brother lives on the opposite side of the house to me, we both have PCs in our rooms, if its just a quick questions then why bother going there? I see plenty of him anyway.
I may have missed someone else posting this, but it doesn't seem like anyone has brought it up. One of the key advantages with starting with the BSDL is that because it is weaker than any other open source licences you can then mould it to be whatever you want.
Someone has already pointed out that the LGPL works favorably for companies, they can be sure competitors won't take their code and use it a proprietry system, but at the same time it can mingle easily with their proprietry programs.
Now if you start with GPL programs you can't backpedal and then release modifications under the LGPL, but you can take BSDL code and then release new versions under the LGPL. So if the intention is to move away from a GPL style licence, they will either have to start from scratch or start with a weaker licence like BSDL.
Its 116 GBP so about $200 at the moment.
:) They blanket mailed my college with demands last week, interesting because I don't know anyone with TVs here (inc. myself). Must be people over the summer who had them and the registry hasn't been updated (or they've just lost the plot :)
I've got a letter telling me to pay up sitting next to me now
Something I missed. I realise you weren't just talking about the validity of using "hacker" to describe coders and such but about pushing this usage to the public.
I don't think they should be forced to use it but it's a shame from the point of view that they don't even recognise it. If I was on a golf course and described someone as a hacker people would realise I meant a poor golf player, not a malicious computer user. But if I was in an office talking about some internal project and said "I think I'll ask my friend for some advice on this, he's a great java hacker" they'd all assume I meant a cracker/black-hat type even if security/networking was totally irrelevant to the topic in question.
Treat it like that if you want, but if you look up "hacker" in a dictionary you'll find both descriptions (coding enthusiast and malicious computer users) alongside a bunch of others. [FYI I checked it out in the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster and dictionary.com]
It's a valid use of the word in English, why shouldn't people use it like that?
A square numbers is one which is equal to n^2 when n is a whole number. You are almost talking about primes numbers but you made a mistake, 1 is not a prime. A prime p has to be divisible by two distinct (ie. different) numbers, 1 and itself. 1 and 1 are not distinct (there are some good reasons for this mentioned in the links bellow).
Square Numbers
Prime Numbers
That's actually happening in the UK now, you can get cards for your laptop that will let you connect to cellphone networks for a GPRS connection. It just runs like a standard 'net connection as far as I can see, apart from including software so you can text message and get an indication of how strong your network signal is. I don't know if they'll work with anything apart from windows though. Here's a link to one service.
There was pretty huge uproar about this in the quake3 community but basicly the WCG organisation were unwilling to use any game without support from the games publishers, ie. people on hand to sort out any technical issues arrising during the tourament. Activision decided they weren't willing too (maybe as they aren't really making money on q3 atm as its quite old) and as a result q3 wasn't picked. Tbh activision aren't the people I'd want in a tech support role like that, compared to experienced q3 server admins/mod coders, but I understand why they have rules like that.
From what I've gathered the bugs in OpenSSH didn't even have known exploits when then were patched. No system is perfect but their minimalistic approach with attention to little details is an improvement over other systems where lots of 'minor' bugs are left lying around and sometimes are then found to be major bugs that no one had really understood.
Its true however that in most cases a good sysadmin would solve most of the problems. Most windows users wouldn't be better of switching to openBSD or such, so its the admins job to keep patching boxes and have a decent firewall.
There is still an argument though, that in critical goverment departments, everything possible should be done to avoid security problems and maybe changing the OS as well as hiring some new admins would be sensible.
actually they were from Tennessee, its just a British newspaper reporting on it.
They could get off their asses and go and buy the album in a used cd store instead of downloading it. Why don't they?
How do you know they don't? I'm sure there are a plenty of people who just download and don't buy (I know a few) but most of the people I know download and buy, they download more than they purchase, but how much they spend overall hasn't really changed.
Record sales in America have gone down but the country isn't in the best economic situation so I don't think it's sensible to jump to conclusions, here in the UK album sales are rising desipite broadband p2p user numbers rising.
There isn't really any conclusive evidence at the moment concerning how filesharing affects purchasing, the record industry hasn't lost anywhere near the number of sales where they can be sure how much it is hurting them.
>"we might be seeing the start of a common language for China"
Written Chinese is common across China and has been for thousands of years, though there is now a difference between simplified (more stylised, introduced in China after the revolution) and traditional (still used in other Chinese speaking territories such as Taiwan).
I can't see how this would make any impact on spoken Chinese, Mandarin/Standard Chinese (technically now quite the same) will gain influence as more people are taught it in school, but China is big enough that there will be areas of people speaking their own dialects for a long time.
The whole point is that science isn't "blind", you can't be 100% sure what is/isn't true, but fundamentaly you are basing your decision on evidence. Any good scientist should realise that any theories could be wrong, plenty end up going back on their own ideas/work because someone else comes up with evidence to refute it.
If you are calling support of scientific principles "blind faith" then I'd disagree as fundamentally they are just common sence, weigh up evidence for an against, and if there is none either way than don't make any assumptions.
it they intend it to be totally stand alone then the physics will be fine, but I've played q3 with perfect qw physics before and it causes a lot of problems, you become a sitting duck on jump-pads for example because of the different way the air-accel works. (some guy just knocked together a .pk3 with changed physics, he did redo it in the end to make it more playable on q3a maps).
:)
Of course I'd love to be able to play proper qwtf, I played q3f for a while with old clanmates but I didn't like the game enough to play when they quit. I'd probably just play qwtf tho if there were more players, not too fussed about gfx really
perhaps, but would you compare a really great softball player to a great baseball player? or a great minature golfer to someone who plays normal golf? they are different games with different rules but one is generally considered to push you harder.
Now there is more to a game than just physics obviously, but it is certainly possible for one game to be more complicated/"skillful" than another.
For the record, I think most of the quake series games are pretty equal in this respect, it depends what sort of game you are playing (free for all, dueling, team games) when one is a bit above another. I think CPMA is pushing the limit in terms of dueling, but it hasn't caught up in teamplay yet (I'd rate qw and q3 as the best in that respect).
Its more complicated than that. When you set up a major system you need to look long term and think about support and licencing as well as technical merit.
He may be letting personal feelings into this but that doesn't change the facts that some people wouldn't be happy using software from a company that has resorted to trying to obtain customers from that sort of method, I'd personally like a little bit of trust in a provider-client relationship.
Anyway he may be going a little OTT, but when there's a lot at stake, simply 'choosing the best tool for the job' is more complicated than it seems.
Yes, but some sites are taken down because of the strain on the databases generating dynamic pages (you sometimes notice people switching their website to a static index.html to display a message when they are slashdotted) so in these cases the server is the issue not the bandwidth.
I'm not convinced quake doesn't have good implications for brain use. If you look at it as a game where you "run around and shoot people" you may as well be watching some action movie. But a serious player will be doing a lot of things to keep track of what's going on in the game. For example;
.5 seconds)
:)
1) remembering spawn times for various items (eg. just picked up the armor, so I should return in 25 seconds to pick it up again) a good player should be able to do this for quite a lot of items at once (which won't always have the same gap between spawns)
2) keeping track of your stats and team mates stats and locations,
3) working out opponents possitions from audio cues, map/tactical knowledge, previous experience of playing the oponents.
4) respond to team comunications, either voice comms or text, I've been playing for years and still can't absorb the infomation from a top clan using text comms when I'm watching a game, they can do that while playing (new instructions/information every
5) Some people will actually keep track of enemies ammo count (normally only in 1on1 games and with non-rapid fire weapons), listening out for explosions and such when the enemy is out of view.
These aren't logical/reasoning skills for the most part, but being able to do this while running around and trying to concentrate on shooting people isn't easy, and is exactly the sort of multi-tasking skills that have been mentioned as the sort fighter pilots use. This also isn't some thing most people have naturally, but I think training your brain up to be able to deal with lots of information like that is useful.
Anyway I think deathmatch games involve a lot more thinking than you might guess
I can see their point, certainly radiohead have released stuff that didn't work as indivdual songs, only as a whole album. But I don't think its a serious issues for a few reasons;
(1) a regular album with 8+ good tracks will still do well under this system and should encorage people to quit throwing filler songs in.
(2) Experimental albums will always be viewed as such by anyone with a clue about music, these won't be mainstream anyway, they will be publicised by people telling their friends "hey check this out, and make sure you listen to the whole thing"
(3) apple has claimed a large proportion of sales are whole albums. getting individual tracks is a large benifit present digial distribution methods but it will hardly kill off the desire to listen to a set of tracks that were intended to be listened to together.
I'm not so sure, I heard about this (from my mum who saw the documentary) and its certainly something I'd agree with. I'm 19 going on 20, at university so I know plenty of people in the 18-22 bracket, but I have younger siblings and I'm pretty good friends with some of their friends in the 16-18. I always feel there's a bit of a difference in behavior when it comes to making decisions.
:) at 15-17, but in hindsight this wasn't just due to me always being capable of making the right choice, it was partly because I was naturally a little held back/cautious and would think things over more than some people. If I'd been asked to make an important decision quickly though I'd probably be quite likely to screw up.
Perhaps one key point is that my mum mentioned was that they were less talking about a lack of responsibility, but rather a weakness in teenagers risk assesment. So it makes more of a difference in spur of the moment decisions, when you are making a quick judgement and can't think everything through. Certainly I was a fairly respnonsible (boring?
With regards to the hacking thing, I think if the course is done well then the age of the students shouldn't be too much of a problem, as they will be educated about why they shouldn't abuse what they are learning, so they will then be less likely to make a spur of the moment decision if any oportunity presents itself as they have a bit of conditioning on how to deal with it.
Europe is fine as far as individual countries go, but I'm still not keen on the idea of a overly powerful EU.
There are already laws like the EU Copyright Directive, which is pretty similar to the DMCA and ideas for allowing patenting of software ideas (fingers crossed it won't be passed). Countries can technically opt out of certain areas of this I believe, but with more levels of bureaucracy things can get messy. Its a lot easier for people to get their point across to the government when they know which area of government to aim their concerns at.
I'm not a patriotic person, but I don't like handing too much power away for practical reasons, I think people should have as much control over issues that affect them as possible.
As a mathematician (undergrad) who prefers abstract conceptual areas of maths, I think its a little more complicated then that. By "visualise" in this context its a little different from visualising a 3D space, you may never get to quite that level of understanding, but you're still brainwashed to the extend that anything past 3-dimensions seems somewhat silly and people actually approach it with some fear.
Perhaps an easier example of this to explain would be complex numbers. One of my friends, a pretty smart engineer, once said to me something along the lines of "don't you find it scary that all modern electonics is based around numbers that don't exist?". I think I gave him a pretty odd look, because as a mathmatician, seeing complex numbers used like that its pretty logical. In fact the complex numbers aren't all that scary, just numbers in 2-dimensions really. People are trained to believe that the real numbers are ok, even though they can be complicated in their own way, they just look at them as decimal expansions. Now when they get to complex numbers some little voice in their head telling them that these numbers are unatural or weird in some way, though they aren't significantly difficult to deal with, once you just accept them.
My friend was certainly smart enough (triple A at UK a-levels) to deal with something like this, but at first he had an intuative block which he had to get past before progressing, and really, that block should never have been there in the first place.
The "Third World" was originally used to describe commoners (1st and 2nd world being nobility and clergy).
But the "Third World" as in "Third World Country" was originally used to describe countries that were not capitalist or communist. (basicly countries that had not developed enough to get to that turning point). So certainly there were major issues with living conditions in many communist countries, and still are, the second world is not dead yet by far.
some info
and also some stuff on everything2