The reviewer is a moron. No only his euclidian distance formula is wrong (as in primary school wrong), but if he ever got past reading the first chapters of Wildberger's book, he should know that the whole idea is to get rid of cosines, sines and other trigonometric functions in algebra computations. Few people realize that the angle concept we use is axiomatic and ill-defined algebraically. The beauty of Wildberger's approach is to redefine a lot of algebraic formulas in the shape of quadrance and spread equivalent formulas that are much more precise, and easier to compute. The rest of the review was made on a mushroom-induced delirium
So the reviewer cheats by using cosines and sines in his example. Where did he get those values? From a table or calculator. Sines and cosines are computed by adding a (truncated) infinite series of numbers. You dont't have to do that using rational trigonometry, that's the wole point. It's like proposing going from New York to Boston without riding a car (by flying on a plane), and saying that it is ridiculous, because you like driving from New York to Boston just fine.
I remember an old southafrican (boer) joke.
"You need 2 legal workers at union wages and a bulldozer to dig a hole in a day? What, give me ten kaffirs and I'll make them dig it in a week, at half price".
Really
Just to offer more clarification on the issue, since I attended the event.
On August 28, the Venezuelan government
approved a resolution requiring Open Standards for all govermnent data storage,
Open Source Software solutions for all new developments, and Free Software
throughout. The announcement was made at a public event attended by local
developers (and some Microsoft representatives!). The initiative is a joint
effort of the several Ministries: Planning
& Development, Science & Technology,
Production & Commerce, the National Center for Information Technologies
(CNTI), and the local Telecomunications comptroller, CONATEL. The local head of the Autonomous
Intellectual Property System (SAPI) was also present, and spoke about how
it ACTUALLY the policy is defending property and copyright issues. All sites
are spanish-only, so use Babel.
No press releases have been forthcoming from the venezuelan Ministry of Planning
and Development yet, whose head, Felipe Perez-Marti (Ph.D. in Economics,
University of Chicago, 1985), is a known advocate of the OSS model. Perez-Marti
was borrowed from the prestigious IESA (Institute
for Higher Management Studies), and is believed to be the only cabinet
minister in the Americas (including the U.S. !!!) to use open source software
on daily basis from his Linux laptop. He even reads Slashdot everyday
!!!. Several key public universities (USB,
UCV, ULA)
are offering technical know-how, with the help of local developers and the
venezuelan linux user group, VELUG.
All licences (GPL, BSD, LGPL, etc.) are allowable for software use in this
model, but GPL will be the norm for all software developed and paid for the
venezuelan govenment.
The catchy slogan for this resolution is "Free software where possible, propietary
solutions where unavoidable". As sign that new thinking is in the way, it
was also announced at the event that SIGECOFF, the state-owned financial
and accounting system used by all public entities, will be open-sourced,
in an effort to bolster government transparency and developer support.
Local license resellers are fuming,
since they think themselves as an "Industry" (?) and not as importers. Most
of the market IS NOT the government, but the oil company PDVSA (second in
the world), who is the largest software buyer in the country. The resolution
only applies to government contracted software, and does not regulate the
private sector. An army of high level Microsoft executives is expected to
arrive at the country next week, with an expected Per-like offer
donation (or, at has been cynically suggested, join another Coup d'Etat attempt
against President Hugo Chavez.)
Slashdot Mirror
The reviewer is a moron. No only his euclidian distance formula is wrong (as in primary school wrong), but if he ever got past reading the first chapters of Wildberger's book, he should know that the whole idea is to get rid of cosines, sines and other trigonometric functions in algebra computations. Few people realize that the angle concept we use is axiomatic and ill-defined algebraically. The beauty of Wildberger's approach is to redefine a lot of algebraic formulas in the shape of quadrance and spread equivalent formulas that are much more precise, and easier to compute. The rest of the review was made on a mushroom-induced delirium
So the reviewer cheats by using cosines and sines in his example. Where did he get those values? From a table or calculator. Sines and cosines are computed by adding a (truncated) infinite series of numbers. You dont't have to do that using rational trigonometry, that's the wole point. It's like proposing going from New York to Boston without riding a car (by flying on a plane), and saying that it is ridiculous, because you like driving from New York to Boston just fine.
I remember an old southafrican (boer) joke.
"You need 2 legal workers at union wages and a bulldozer to dig a hole in a day? What, give me ten kaffirs and I'll make them dig it in a week, at half price".
Really
Just to offer more clarification on the issue, since I attended the event. On August 28, the Venezuelan government approved a resolution requiring Open Standards for all govermnent data storage, Open Source Software solutions for all new developments, and Free Software throughout. The announcement was made at a public event attended by local developers (and some Microsoft representatives!). The initiative is a joint effort of the several Ministries: Planning & Development, Science & Technology, Production & Commerce, the National Center for Information Technologies (CNTI), and the local Telecomunications comptroller, CONATEL. The local head of the Autonomous Intellectual Property System (SAPI) was also present, and spoke about how it ACTUALLY the policy is defending property and copyright issues. All sites are spanish-only, so use Babel. No press releases have been forthcoming from the venezuelan Ministry of Planning and Development yet, whose head, Felipe Perez-Marti (Ph.D. in Economics, University of Chicago, 1985), is a known advocate of the OSS model. Perez-Marti was borrowed from the prestigious IESA (Institute for Higher Management Studies), and is believed to be the only cabinet minister in the Americas (including the U.S. !!!) to use open source software on daily basis from his Linux laptop. He even reads Slashdot everyday !!!. Several key public universities (USB, UCV, ULA) are offering technical know-how, with the help of local developers and the venezuelan linux user group, VELUG. All licences (GPL, BSD, LGPL, etc.) are allowable for software use in this model, but GPL will be the norm for all software developed and paid for the venezuelan govenment.
The catchy slogan for this resolution is "Free software where possible, propietary solutions where unavoidable". As sign that new thinking is in the way, it was also announced at the event that SIGECOFF, the state-owned financial and accounting system used by all public entities, will be open-sourced, in an effort to bolster government transparency and developer support.
Local license resellers are fuming, since they think themselves as an "Industry" (?) and not as importers. Most of the market IS NOT the government, but the oil company PDVSA (second in the world), who is the largest software buyer in the country. The resolution only applies to government contracted software, and does not regulate the private sector. An army of high level Microsoft executives is expected to arrive at the country next week, with an expected Per-like offer donation (or, at has been cynically suggested, join another Coup d'Etat attempt against President Hugo Chavez.)