1) Where the hell are you?
A US state school in Missouri. I do have a departmental scholarship for next year. *grin* I could apply for a GA position--but I would loose out on a lot of the benefits I am getting now. I would still have my tuition paid, but I couldn't get part of my wife's covered like I am now. The stipend I would receive would also be a significant cut in pay. The school used to have great medical and dental benefits--but with recent funding cuts, we went to a new provider. I no longer have dental or medical for my wife (otherwise I take huge amounts out of my paycheck).
2)I suggest you get something like this started on your campus.
Not really up to me. Maybe I can propose it to the University anonymously. However, Management here is rather entrenched--been in his position here for 20+ years and is not moving, nor about to let someone have any more power over him than what they currently do. He's got some pull to back it up.
What I have proposed is that it will be easier for us to re-write select facilities than to get the current apps working in a manner that would suit us.
I have a few dozen utilities that fellow employees use daily, plus a couple full blown inventory systems (like keeping track of books sent out to high schools for dual credit classes).
Perhaps a better solution would be to find if there is a vendor that provides a better/cheaper solution that runs on Linux and suggest that.
It needs to interface with our current system. What I have proposed is various query utilities and simple transactions that will access our existing databases. Such as:
"Student is in Math 1111. Student wants to know what books he needs for the class before coming to the store, and wants to look for it on our website. Then, student decides he wants us to hold it for him."
We need to be able to handle these sort of demands. It will take some time, certainly. However, it should not be impossible to implement. Furthermore, it must access our existing databases (probably through some sort of daily export) to get to our specific adoption (and other) information.
The applications we previous to this Point of Slale system were developed entirely in house. However, it wasn't POS, which is why we put so much money on the new system. Hell--we didn't even have the equipment for a POS system before.
I've worked enough on our system to feel that I could get a solution deployed. One of management's concerns is who will maintain the site once I leave. What I've been telling him is, he is more likely to get a student familiar with linux, than to get one who can administer an AS/400. Though, we will still have the AS/400, just not as a webserver. At least we could quit dicking around with IBM's NET.DATA&DB2 (which we've had to do to modify what our vendor has supplied us) and move to something real like PHP&MySQL.
This is exactly what I have done. Unfortunately, if he goes with the VB fixes, it looks like they'll quit working in a few years. For one, any changes in the program by our vendor and they can quit working. Furthermore, the IT dept that services the campus here has subscribed to MS's license 6 program. When we are forced to upgrade to Longhorn, it looks like our VB 6 programs will quit. I doubt.Net will be much better.
actually, I didn't supply the context like I should have. What she was saying was that she was surprised that any code she wrote was being sold. She continued by talking about how she knew that was what school prepared you for but she still couldn't get over it.
Let inexperienced programmers work on the prototypes and/or programs that won't be maintained (for any extended period of time). It's not their fault, but when you're inexperienced you just don't produce good, maintainable code. You have to learn. But learning by writing code that's going to be sold and maintained is a real bad idea, that only management (who doesn't understand how programming works) would think of.
I have to agree here. I was a a job interview with a consulting firm a while back (didn't get the job--but I'm glad I didn't get it), and the interviewer made an offhand comment about how she "couldn't believe that code she wrote was actually being sold to other companies." If that isn't a mark of an inexperienced programmer, I don't know what is. BTW, she also mentioned that she was a project leader in one of their divisions. Egads!
Enjoyment and challenge on the job is not something that is pointed out to you; it is something you must find for yourself.
This sort of presupposes that such oportunities/challenges exist in your work place. Their are environments, typically only in small businesses, where management is so clueless that you can actually find yourself in hot water for proposing ways to get the company out of the IT shithole you're in.
Case in point: I'm currently working for a bookstore at a university. A few years back we purchased a point of sale and inventory management system. The product we purchased so poorly developed it's egregious. In many instances it just doesn't work, and where it does work we have to go through so many hoops to get it to work, it would be better ditching it altogether. Now, this product also has various web services that are meant to run on our AS/400 server. They allow our customers to perform various activities such as: order a textbook, reserve a textbook, request a textbook adoption (for faculty), and so on. Now, as with most of the products supplied to us by our vendors, these products barely work. This is exceptionally damaging to us as an institution as these are programs that our customers interface with directly. So, I have recently proposed an alternative to management. That we set up a linux server running mySQL, apache, and PHP. We could then create web applications to replace the faulty applications we are now using.
I've spent quite some time with this proposal: In fact it's turned out to be forty-some page memorandum, complete with research and estimates on how this change would effect our company.
Now, here's the kicker. Management turned out not to be interested in even looking at the proposal. It seems he's more interested in protecting his image than the company. We've spent over a quarter million dollars on equipment and software alone, not to mention outrageous support fees. He's expressed the opinion that since we've invested so much into this product already, he can't just back out now. You see, it would make it look like he made a bad decision. Not just a bad one, but a very costly one. Since the University is considering outsourcing the bookstore, it is important that his image remain intact. Even if it means that we can barely funciton.
So, for the time being I am stuck with: Data entry, employee training, finding workarounds, and writing shitty reports and query utilities with Visual Basic (the only thing I've been able to use out of concern for future maintenance--it has to be able to be modified by Joe Random Coder). Damn it. I swear, it seems like nothing I do will actually have any impact. Why, then, should I care?
FYI: I am a graduate student studying mathematics. I've been with this bookstore for 5 years now. I was hired as an undergraduate student studying Comp Sci. I am now working full time and have education benefits for me and my wife, which is what is keeping me with this employer. And yes, I am at work now.:-7
Latin isn't being spoken anymore, and not written anymore, but it's not a dead language...
I would be more careful with the phrase "dead language" if I were you. It has a particular meaning. Latin is definately: "no longer used as the primary language of any indigenous human community." Latin is very much a "dead language".
Re:Hands on is the best for those who can
on
Imagining Numbers
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Bzzt! Wrong. Mathematicians started to handle complex numbers when they found out that to find roots third-degree equations that have only distinct real solutions using Cardano's formula they needed to extract cubic roots of (now known as) complex numbers. This led to the complex number theory.
Well, the idea was around for a while before Cardan, but they were dismissed as absurd and unnatural. BTW: They needed to extract square roots of negative numbers (imaginary), not cubic roots of complex numbers. For the most part, imaginary numbers weren't considered to be proper objects in Cardan's time, and were primarily regarded as a way to classify types of polynomials. Complex number theory wasn't really legitimized until Euler introduced the notation i and developed the standard rectangular form of complex numbers, a + bi. This is over 200 years after Cardan.
Imaginary numbers during Cardan's time were refered to as Sqrt(-1), go figure. Euler, indeed, just assigned an arbitrary "answer" to this equation so it could be conceptualized as a mathematical object.
So why don't you get your dick out of his ass and go study some fucking mathematics.
We have lots of foreign students, and you have a lot of reports on them to make to the INS (or whatever is replacing the INS now that they got rid of it) due to post-9/11 legislation.
We have many foreign students as well. Most, however, do not have SSN's. The school simply creates a key (starting with "800" as "800" is not a valid SSN location). Why the haven't done that for all students just puzzles me. They are, however, moving to a new system without SSN's as one's student number. It should be in place in a couple of years.
What gets really interesting, is my userid (and consequently, e-mail address) contains my citizen id (last 4 of my social). All someone needs to know is my e-mail, where & when I was born (or otherwise applied for a SSN) and with some research they can recreate my SSN.
My school still uses SSN's as student id's. I've found that as a student employee I run into thousands of id's a day. I know it's the same way for a lot of student employees on campus. When will schools learn the benefits of a autogenerated key?
I said number, not numeral. I understand the difference between a number and the symbol chosen to represent it. I am not a mathmatician, I am a physicist. As such I am often put into intimate contact with mathmaticians for hours at a time.
well said.
They often spend much of this time berating physicists for treating numbers like objects. They are not. They are pure abstractions. You cannot show me a number one.
No beef here.
The same goes for the rules and axioms of mathmatics. They have no existence outside of your brain.
The rules and axioms do not. However, they are meant to "represent" actual relationships. I see my computer screen with my eyes. What my brain is aware of is not the screen itself, but signals meant to represent the screen. This is an imperfect representation. Does this mean that the screen does not exist or that I should treat what I see as not actually existing?
They are thoughts and ideas. Thoughts are not objects.
They are objects as much as OOP objects are objects. They have properties. They can be compartmentalized. They can be combined with operators. To think of them as actual objects is just a conceptual tool.
When creating an object in a program, let's say a playing card for a poker game, you are *abstracting* the real object into. . . numbers, i.e., not actually an object.
Certainly I am abstracting the real object into something. This would likely be an object (oop) or a data structure without methods(top-down). Neither are "actual objects". Both are "conceptual objects". The primary difference with oop is the addition of methods. I know, I'm greatly simplifying things here but it's best that I leave more qualified people to disect the specifics of oop design.
Numbers are an *abstraction,* by nature.
Certainly.
To turn them into an object turns the raison d'etre of Object Oriented Programing on its head and "deabstracts" things that are already abstractions into real objects, and then abstracts them again.
Whoa! First, how does one turn "things that are already abstractions into real object"? This doesn't make any sense. Perhaps you mean, reconceptualize an abstraction as if it were a real object to determine how it would function in it's hypothetical world?
But isn't this just associating properties and relationships with an "object"? Isn't this *exactly* the raison d'etre of Object Oriented Programing? To bring the properties and interactions of an object with its "world" all under the convenient shell of a class?
And it is ruining an entire generation of programers for abstract and critical thought. The very existence of "Object Oriented" databases is further proof of my position. The very concept is mathmatically provable as doofey, and has no mathmatical basis of its own at all.
Actually, a lack of a basis in mathematics is crippling most of a generation of programers--who now cannot think well, either critically or abstractly.
Blame those damn "business programming" programs.
Let me point out for other readers though, that 1 + 2 = 3 does not mean that 3 is (1 + 2), but rather that 3 is related to 1 + 2 and that particular relation is equality. Properties of certain number systems then allow for substitution of 3 for 1 + 2. Let me also further stress that "3" is simply a symbol denoting a particular element of a set. 3 may not even be an integer, it may be an element in some other set.
For example:
Let S be any set, with |S| = 3 (it is understood that cardinality is a non-negative integer, so 3 here is not ambiguous)
We may then denote the elements of S as follows: s= {1,2,3}.
1,2, and 3 may very well be a function, or any other object for that matter (including other sets).
If 1,2,3 are the equivalence classes [0],[1],[2] (respectively) created by [n] = {r ~ n mod 3|r is an integer}, and r ~ n mod 3 iff (r - n)/3 = an integer;
Then:
we can say things like "2 + 3 = 1", and "1 + 2 = 2".
Furthermore, A(S)=S3(that is, subscript 3)= {(1),(12),(13),(23)(123),(132)}
This should serve as an ample demonstration of a number as an object.
I understand the point you are making, and agree with most of it, but I would like to clarify a point you made.
You stated:Thus, the learning process depends, initially on two factors: the structure at time 0 (the initial structure, e.g. the brain when you are born) and the structure at the time a person receive the impulses (the brain after experimenting and processing all the impulses one got up to now).
IANA Biologist, yet I think you have over-simplied the interconnected nature of nature vs. nuture. First, Once the brain begins developing in the womb, environmental factors definately are at work. For instance, what if the mother does crack? Research has also indicated that the phonemes of the mothers language are already beginning to be recognized, though most of this development begins during early infancy.
Second, genetic influences continue to play an active role in development, even after birth, even after the brain is fully matured. What if, for example, I happen to have genes related to Alzheimer's, making proteins build up in my synapses. Furthermore, does own consider this to be an environmental or a genetic influence? Obviously, the genes were the original cause, but the protein buildup could be consider an environment of the brain. With a different envroment altogether (say the presence of certain medications), the Alzheimer's may be somewhat retarded. Aso, the absense of such drugs can be considered to be an environmental condition in itself.
Personally, I think breaking developmental/behaivoral influences down into a genetic/environment debate is somewhat ludicrous. After all, aren't your genes your environment too? It's just that we have this notion that our genes are us, and we don't want to be mere automatons created by our environment. Personally, I think the debate should stick to the soul/physical debate where it belongs so it doesn't confuse people about science.
It seems that everytime someone experiences abnormal behavior, these scientists want to blame it on genetics. Give me a break.
These scientists? What is there, some sort of international conspriacy that people are initiated into after obtaining their PhD?
These articles seem to want to blame all of the worlds ills on genetics.
Obviously you didn't read the articles as one is about pain thresholds and the other is about eating behaivors (picky eaters--not liking/liking surgary/fat foods). Unless of course, you consider the obese to be the world's evils. Even still, what does the amount of pain you can withstand have to do with the world's evil's? Are "wimps" to fall into such a category too?
it's strange when events like open-software gaining acceptance in the marketplace are called 'uprisings
I would say the language is not "grand" enough.
I would call this a social revolution. Open source is definately a limited form of socialism. I say 'limited' because it does not embrace all of society, political structures do not need to change to embrace it, it will not destroy many existing capitalist establishments, etc.
It is, however, a revolutionary mode of thought. The OS Doctrine (if you will allow this terminology) states that software created under this model should be made publically available and that anyone "borrowing" from this publically available software must return the favor. It leads more closely to a collaborative society of equal compensation among developers.
Where socialism in software (& electronic media) will succeed (and conversely, in general society, failed) is that resources are unlimited. For instance, try insuring everyone has enough food to eat--now, even if there is enough you're sure to get some people who would want to hoard more than their fair share. Now, try to give everyone with a computer a copy of linux. Which is easier? Furthermore, how can someone hoard information? Of course, we see the RIAA, MPAA trying to do it, but are they succeeding?
As long as the US government doesn't get any harebrained ideas, I think we will see this sort of socialist mentality slowly invade other related industries (like entertainment--hell, I think I've see the germination of this already).
Imagine the day when this applies to all information. When you can access *quality* textbooks online with only the cost from your ISP. It's quite a marvellous thought, really. Damn those OS idealists. What kind of ideas are they trying to spread?
Of course, if the US fights this, I think we may see some of those so-called real uprisings.
When making such an argument, you can't use such words as 'evil' without first discussing two things:
1) What sense of evil you believe your target has is mind by calling a corporation evil.
and
2) What sense you mean it in.
You have also not established why an abstract entity cannot be evil.
When I think evil, I think of something in the general sense of causing harm by disrupting the aspects of life I value (life itself, inquisitiveness, sense of self-decency, respect, tolerance, understanding, and compassion). I see no reason a company cannot stiffle these qualities.
I think a much better solution would be to simple use a little track ball on the the bottom of the PDA to scroll around screen. but, that's not new technology at all.
I agree, but there may still be other alternatives. How about something like the new projected keyboard. Certainly an "outline" of the screen could be displayed and the user could touch the area which they would like to "peep" into.
Does anyone know the name for the logical fallacy of incorrectly attributing a logical fallacy to an argument as a counter argument?
Or perhaps I'm missing where the judge assumed the conclusion. As far as I can tell Judge Barzilay's argument goes as follows:
1) "Kraven exhibit[s] 'highly exaggerated muscle tone in arms and legs.'"
2) To have exaggerated or extra-human traits is to be non-human
therefore, Kraven is non-human.
Of course, I think being made of plastic is quite inhuman in itself.
Perhaps this is meant to elucidate NASA's intentions with the project.... let's see... giving fire (insiration?) to humans.... or in another sense, becoming as gods(i.e. powerful),that is, what fire was purported to do... oops, I guess not, there's no sense to be made there at all.
Another poster has mentioned the introduction which may be the case, but I'm at work and can't verify that right now. At any rate, he is quoted on bonus material on the extended DVD set as stating his dispised allegory, but favors "application". Nevertheless, as a writer, his views on the world will inevitably find their way into his writing whether he wants them to or not. I mean, if he's anti-industrialist (or at least anti-creeping-industrialist), he wouldn't portray industrialism/destruction of nature in a pleasant way, would he? No. Sauromon is a villian because he violates the principles that Tolkien holds dear. Whether that be integrity or respect for nature.
As a final point, I would like to mention Tolkien's revulsion to the idea that LOTR is an allegory for WWII. Granted, we must keep in mind Tolkien did not intend this allegory (so there is a limit to how far we should take this), but it was definately on his mind when he wrote the books. I can state this unequivocally because it is what was on everyone's mind. It impacted every facet of society, shaped the way we view the world. So, in a way, LOTR must reflect this.
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1) Where the hell are you? A US state school in Missouri. I do have a departmental scholarship for next year. *grin* I could apply for a GA position--but I would loose out on a lot of the benefits I am getting now. I would still have my tuition paid, but I couldn't get part of my wife's covered like I am now. The stipend I would receive would also be a significant cut in pay. The school used to have great medical and dental benefits--but with recent funding cuts, we went to a new provider. I no longer have dental or medical for my wife (otherwise I take huge amounts out of my paycheck).
2)I suggest you get something like this started on your campus.
Not really up to me. Maybe I can propose it to the University anonymously. However, Management here is rather entrenched--been in his position here for 20+ years and is not moving, nor about to let someone have any more power over him than what they currently do. He's got some pull to back it up.
What I have proposed is that it will be easier for us to re-write select facilities than to get the current apps working in a manner that would suit us.
I have a few dozen utilities that fellow employees use daily, plus a couple full blown inventory systems (like keeping track of books sent out to high schools for dual credit classes).
Perhaps a better solution would be to find if there is a vendor that provides a better/cheaper solution that runs on Linux and suggest that. It needs to interface with our current system. What I have proposed is various query utilities and simple transactions that will access our existing databases. Such as: "Student is in Math 1111. Student wants to know what books he needs for the class before coming to the store, and wants to look for it on our website. Then, student decides he wants us to hold it for him."
We need to be able to handle these sort of demands. It will take some time, certainly. However, it should not be impossible to implement. Furthermore, it must access our existing databases (probably through some sort of daily export) to get to our specific adoption (and other) information.
The applications we previous to this Point of Slale system were developed entirely in house. However, it wasn't POS, which is why we put so much money on the new system. Hell--we didn't even have the equipment for a POS system before.
I've worked enough on our system to feel that I could get a solution deployed. One of management's concerns is who will maintain the site once I leave. What I've been telling him is, he is more likely to get a student familiar with linux, than to get one who can administer an AS/400. Though, we will still have the AS/400, just not as a webserver. At least we could quit dicking around with IBM's NET.DATA&DB2 (which we've had to do to modify what our vendor has supplied us) and move to something real like PHP&MySQL.
This is exactly what I have done. Unfortunately, if he goes with the VB fixes, it looks like they'll quit working in a few years. For one, any changes in the program by our vendor and they can quit working. Furthermore, the IT dept that services the campus here has subscribed to MS's license 6 program. When we are forced to upgrade to Longhorn, it looks like our VB 6 programs will quit. I doubt .Net will be much better.
You work at a college bookstore - there's a supply of cheap labor in the form of motivated college students. You can probably use them.
Most student employees here are treated more as a liability than a resource. Like I said, most. I would be an exception.
actually, I didn't supply the context like I should have. What she was saying was that she was surprised that any code she wrote was being sold. She continued by talking about how she knew that was what school prepared you for but she still couldn't get over it.
Let inexperienced programmers work on the prototypes and/or programs that won't be maintained (for any extended period of time). It's not their fault, but when you're inexperienced you just don't produce good, maintainable code. You have to learn. But learning by writing code that's going to be sold and maintained is a real bad idea, that only management (who doesn't understand how programming works) would think of.
I have to agree here. I was a a job interview with a consulting firm a while back (didn't get the job--but I'm glad I didn't get it), and the interviewer made an offhand comment about how she "couldn't believe that code she wrote was actually being sold to other companies." If that isn't a mark of an inexperienced programmer, I don't know what is. BTW, she also mentioned that she was a project leader in one of their divisions. Egads!
Enjoyment and challenge on the job is not something that is pointed out to you; it is something you must find for yourself.
:-7
This sort of presupposes that such oportunities/challenges exist in your work place. Their are environments, typically only in small businesses, where management is so clueless that you can actually find yourself in hot water for proposing ways to get the company out of the IT shithole you're in.
Case in point: I'm currently working for a bookstore at a university. A few years back we purchased a point of sale and inventory management system. The product we purchased so poorly developed it's egregious. In many instances it just doesn't work, and where it does work we have to go through so many hoops to get it to work, it would be better ditching it altogether. Now, this product also has various web services that are meant to run on our AS/400 server. They allow our customers to perform various activities such as: order a textbook, reserve a textbook, request a textbook adoption (for faculty), and so on. Now, as with most of the products supplied to us by our vendors, these products barely work. This is exceptionally damaging to us as an institution as these are programs that our customers interface with directly. So, I have recently proposed an alternative to management. That we set up a linux server running mySQL, apache, and PHP. We could then create web applications to replace the faulty applications we are now using.
I've spent quite some time with this proposal: In fact it's turned out to be forty-some page memorandum, complete with research and estimates on how this change would effect our company.
Now, here's the kicker. Management turned out not to be interested in even looking at the proposal. It seems he's more interested in protecting his image than the company. We've spent over a quarter million dollars on equipment and software alone, not to mention outrageous support fees. He's expressed the opinion that since we've invested so much into this product already, he can't just back out now. You see, it would make it look like he made a bad decision. Not just a bad one, but a very costly one. Since the University is considering outsourcing the bookstore, it is important that his image remain intact. Even if it means that we can barely funciton.
So, for the time being I am stuck with: Data entry, employee training, finding workarounds, and writing shitty reports and query utilities with Visual Basic (the only thing I've been able to use out of concern for future maintenance--it has to be able to be modified by Joe Random Coder). Damn it. I swear, it seems like nothing I do will actually have any impact. Why, then, should I care?
FYI: I am a graduate student studying mathematics. I've been with this bookstore for 5 years now. I was hired as an undergraduate student studying Comp Sci. I am now working full time and have education benefits for me and my wife, which is what is keeping me with this employer. And yes, I am at work now.
Latin isn't being spoken anymore, and not written anymore, but it's not a dead language...
I would be more careful with the phrase "dead language" if I were you. It has a particular meaning. Latin is definately: "no longer used as the primary language of any indigenous human community." Latin is very much a "dead language".
Bzzt! Wrong. Mathematicians started to handle complex numbers when they found out that to find roots third-degree equations that have only distinct real solutions using Cardano's formula they needed to extract cubic roots of (now known as) complex numbers. This led to the complex number theory.
Well, the idea was around for a while before Cardan, but they were dismissed as absurd and unnatural. BTW: They needed to extract square roots of negative numbers (imaginary), not cubic roots of complex numbers. For the most part, imaginary numbers weren't considered to be proper objects in Cardan's time, and were primarily regarded as a way to classify types of polynomials. Complex number theory wasn't really legitimized until Euler introduced the notation i and developed the standard rectangular form of complex numbers, a + bi. This is over 200 years after Cardan.
Imaginary numbers during Cardan's time were refered to as Sqrt(-1), go figure. Euler, indeed, just assigned an arbitrary "answer" to this equation so it could be conceptualized as a mathematical object.
So why don't you get your dick out of his ass and go study some fucking mathematics.
Canopy group, eh? ;)
Why don't they just call themselves the "Umbrella Corporation"
We have lots of foreign students, and you have a lot of reports on them to make to the INS (or whatever is replacing the INS now that they got rid of it) due to post-9/11 legislation.
We have many foreign students as well. Most, however, do not have SSN's. The school simply creates a key (starting with "800" as "800" is not a valid SSN location). Why the haven't done that for all students just puzzles me. They are, however, moving to a new system without SSN's as one's student number. It should be in place in a couple of years.
What gets really interesting, is my userid (and consequently, e-mail address) contains my citizen id (last 4 of my social). All someone needs to know is my e-mail, where & when I was born (or otherwise applied for a SSN) and with some research they can recreate my SSN.
My school still uses SSN's as student id's. I've found that as a student employee I run into thousands of id's a day. I know it's the same way for a lot of student employees on campus. When will schools learn the benefits of a autogenerated key?
I said number, not numeral. I understand the difference between a number and the symbol chosen to represent it. I am not a mathmatician, I am a physicist. As such I am often put into intimate contact with mathmaticians for hours at a time.
well said.
They often spend much of this time berating physicists for treating numbers like objects. They are not. They are pure abstractions. You cannot show me a number one.
No beef here.
The same goes for the rules and axioms of mathmatics. They have no existence outside of your brain.
The rules and axioms do not. However, they are meant to "represent" actual relationships. I see my computer screen with my eyes. What my brain is aware of is not the screen itself, but signals meant to represent the screen. This is an imperfect representation. Does this mean that the screen does not exist or that I should treat what I see as not actually existing?
They are thoughts and ideas. Thoughts are not objects.
They are objects as much as OOP objects are objects. They have properties. They can be compartmentalized. They can be combined with operators. To think of them as actual objects is just a conceptual tool.
When creating an object in a program, let's say a playing card for a poker game, you are *abstracting* the real object into. . . numbers, i.e., not actually an object.
Certainly I am abstracting the real object into something. This would likely be an object (oop) or a data structure without methods(top-down). Neither are "actual objects". Both are "conceptual objects". The primary difference with oop is the addition of methods. I know, I'm greatly simplifying things here but it's best that I leave more qualified people to disect the specifics of oop design.
Numbers are an *abstraction,* by nature. Certainly.
To turn them into an object turns the raison d'etre of Object Oriented Programing on its head and "deabstracts" things that are already abstractions into real objects, and then abstracts them again.
Whoa! First, how does one turn "things that are already abstractions into real object"? This doesn't make any sense.
Perhaps you mean, reconceptualize an abstraction as if it were a real object to determine how it would function in it's hypothetical world?
But isn't this just associating properties and relationships with an "object"? Isn't this *exactly* the raison d'etre of Object Oriented Programing? To bring the properties and interactions of an object with its "world" all under the convenient shell of a class?
And it is ruining an entire generation of programers for abstract and critical thought. The very existence of "Object Oriented" databases is further proof of my position. The very concept is mathmatically provable as doofey, and has no mathmatical basis of its own at all.
Actually, a lack of a basis in mathematics is crippling most of a generation of programers--who now cannot think well, either critically or abstractly.
Blame those damn "business programming" programs.
My sentiments exactly.
Let me point out for other readers though, that 1 + 2 = 3 does not mean that 3 is (1 + 2), but rather that 3 is related to 1 + 2 and that particular relation is equality. Properties of certain number systems then allow for substitution of 3 for 1 + 2. Let me also further stress that "3" is simply a symbol denoting a particular element of a set. 3 may not even be an integer, it may be an element in some other set.
For example:
Let S be any set, with |S| = 3 (it is understood that cardinality is a non-negative integer, so 3 here is not ambiguous)
We may then denote the elements of S as follows: s= {1,2,3}.
1,2, and 3 may very well be a function, or any other object for that matter (including other sets).
If 1,2,3 are the equivalence classes [0],[1],[2] (respectively) created by [n] = {r ~ n mod 3|r is an integer}, and r ~ n mod 3 iff (r - n)/3 = an integer;
Then:
we can say things like "2 + 3 = 1", and "1 + 2 = 2".
Furthermore, A(S)=S3(that is, subscript 3)= {(1),(12),(13),(23)(123),(132)}
This should serve as an ample demonstration of a number as an object.
I understand the point you are making, and agree with most of it, but I would like to clarify a point you made.
You stated:Thus, the learning process depends, initially on two factors: the structure at time 0 (the initial structure, e.g. the brain when you are born) and the structure at the time a person receive the impulses (the brain after experimenting and processing all the impulses one got up to now).
IANA Biologist, yet I think you have over-simplied the interconnected nature of nature vs. nuture. First, Once the brain begins developing in the womb, environmental factors definately are at work. For instance, what if the mother does crack? Research has also indicated that the phonemes of the mothers language are already beginning to be recognized, though most of this development begins during early infancy.
Second, genetic influences continue to play an active role in development, even after birth, even after the brain is fully matured. What if, for example, I happen to have genes related to Alzheimer's, making proteins build up in my synapses. Furthermore, does own consider this to be an environmental or a genetic influence? Obviously, the genes were the original cause, but the protein buildup could be consider an environment of the brain. With a different envroment altogether (say the presence of certain medications), the Alzheimer's may be somewhat retarded. Aso, the absense of such drugs can be considered to be an environmental condition in itself.
Personally, I think breaking developmental/behaivoral influences down into a genetic/environment debate is somewhat ludicrous. After all, aren't your genes your environment too? It's just that we have this notion that our genes are us, and we don't want to be mere automatons created by our environment. Personally, I think the debate should stick to the soul/physical debate where it belongs so it doesn't confuse people about science.
Terribly sorry... "evils" should read "ills". I must have simply projected my sense of what you meant onto what you actually did say.
Even still, I believe my argument applies.
If you other posts didn't speak to the contrary, I would think you were a troll.
It seems that everytime someone experiences abnormal behavior, these scientists want to blame it on genetics. Give me a break.
These scientists? What is there, some sort of international conspriacy that people are initiated into after obtaining their PhD?
These articles seem to want to blame all of the worlds ills on genetics.
Obviously you didn't read the articles as one is about pain thresholds and the other is about eating behaivors (picky eaters--not liking/liking surgary/fat foods). Unless of course, you consider the obese to be the world's evils. Even still, what does the amount of pain you can withstand have to do with the world's evil's? Are "wimps" to fall into such a category too?
it's strange when events like open-software gaining acceptance in the marketplace are called 'uprisings
I would say the language is not "grand" enough.
I would call this a social revolution. Open source is definately a limited form of socialism. I say 'limited' because it does not embrace all of society, political structures do not need to change to embrace it, it will not destroy many existing capitalist establishments, etc.
It is, however, a revolutionary mode of thought. The OS Doctrine (if you will allow this terminology) states that software created under this model should be made publically available and that anyone "borrowing" from this publically available software must return the favor. It leads more closely to a collaborative society of equal compensation among developers.
Where socialism in software (& electronic media) will succeed (and conversely, in general society, failed) is that resources are unlimited. For instance, try insuring everyone has enough food to eat--now, even if there is enough you're sure to get some people who would want to hoard more than their fair share. Now, try to give everyone with a computer a copy of linux. Which is easier? Furthermore, how can someone hoard information? Of course, we see the RIAA, MPAA trying to do it, but are they succeeding?
As long as the US government doesn't get any harebrained ideas, I think we will see this sort of socialist mentality slowly invade other related industries (like entertainment--hell, I think I've see the germination of this already).
Imagine the day when this applies to all information. When you can access *quality* textbooks online with only the cost from your ISP. It's quite a marvellous thought, really. Damn those OS idealists. What kind of ideas are they trying to spread?
Of course, if the US fights this, I think we may see some of those so-called real uprisings.
When making such an argument, you can't use such words as 'evil' without first discussing two things:
1) What sense of evil you believe your target has is mind by calling a corporation evil.
and
2) What sense you mean it in.
You have also not established why an abstract entity cannot be evil.
When I think evil, I think of something in the general sense of causing harm by disrupting the aspects of life I value (life itself, inquisitiveness, sense of self-decency, respect, tolerance, understanding, and compassion). I see no reason a company cannot stiffle these qualities.
*Sheepishly correcting himself.*
That is, 50K is twice as warm as 25K.
I think a much better solution would be to simple use a little track ball on the the bottom of the PDA to scroll around screen. but, that's not new technology at all.
I agree, but there may still be other alternatives. How about something like the new projected keyboard. Certainly an "outline" of the screen could be displayed and the user could touch the area which they would like to "peep" into.
This begs the question.
Does anyone know the name for the logical fallacy of incorrectly attributing a logical fallacy to an argument as a counter argument?
Or perhaps I'm missing where the judge assumed the conclusion. As far as I can tell Judge Barzilay's argument goes as follows:
1) "Kraven exhibit[s] 'highly exaggerated muscle tone in arms and legs.'"
2) To have exaggerated or extra-human traits is to be non-human
therefore, Kraven is non-human.
Of course, I think being made of plastic is quite inhuman in itself.
Perhaps this is meant to elucidate NASA's intentions with the project.... let's see... giving fire (insiration?) to humans.... or in another sense, becoming as gods(i.e. powerful),that is, what fire was purported to do... oops, I guess not, there's no sense to be made there at all.
There will always be people who "have" to be reachable for one reason or another - on call, babysitter, etc etc.
:-)
A better idea would be to make people check their phone in the lobby, and having someone answer it for them.
What ever happened to paging? I've heard this used to be common practice...
Another poster has mentioned the introduction which may be the case, but I'm at work and can't verify that right now. At any rate, he is quoted on bonus material on the extended DVD set as stating his dispised allegory, but favors "application". Nevertheless, as a writer, his views on the world will inevitably find their way into his writing whether he wants them to or not. I mean, if he's anti-industrialist (or at least anti-creeping-industrialist), he wouldn't portray industrialism/destruction of nature in a pleasant way, would he? No. Sauromon is a villian because he violates the principles that Tolkien holds dear. Whether that be integrity or respect for nature.
As a final point, I would like to mention Tolkien's revulsion to the idea that LOTR is an allegory for WWII. Granted, we must keep in mind Tolkien did not intend this allegory (so there is a limit to how far we should take this), but it was definately on his mind when he wrote the books. I can state this unequivocally because it is what was on everyone's mind. It impacted every facet of society, shaped the way we view the world. So, in a way, LOTR must reflect this.