A 12-million-digit prime number, the largest such number ever discovered, has landed a voluntary math research group a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
"Voluntary" math research group? Is there any other kind?
I'm trying to imagine an "involuntary" math research group, and all I'm getting is scenes from dystopian science fiction... or possibly a scene from the life of Léon Theremin.
i specifically alluded to the flourishing of the sciences in the islamic world in the middle ages already in my comment you responded to. why are you pointing out to me what i already wrote?
... and its hard to hide the fact the west is always leading in science because the west's principles of more open and tolerant societies results in better scientific minds.
I agree with your observation that science flourishes in open and tolerant societies.
But branding Islam as closeminded or intolerant is not historically valid. During the golden age of the Islamic Caliphate -- say, 700 to 1000 AD -- that empire was home to science, arts, and philosophy of unprecedented scope and beauty; this was a truly cosmopolitan culture, remarkably tolerant of religious and ideological diversity. (Meanwhile, subsequent to the collapse of the Roman Empire, the West had lost, among a great many other things, the knowledge of brickmaking.)
Islam is not necessarily intolerant, nor is Christianity (or atheism) necessarily tolerant. Hitler was Christian (go look up photos of Nazi leaders celebrating Christmas; very strange, yuletide ans Swastikas). I'm not sure about Stalin, but I'll guess Atheist. Religions are not intolerant: fanatic individuals are intolerant.
I submit that barbarity is trying to swallow up not merely the Islamic world, but the entire world.
While it's obvious how computer-people make the world an incrementally better place, this is one places where taking on some principals could save real living breathing humans. Seems worthy of some effort.
Hear, hear! Mod parent up!
Note to parent: why be AC? You've got something to say that's worth listening to -- I'd like to know who you are, so I can follow your thoughts on future posts.
When they opened up their country to the West and doing business with free countries, it is only a matter of time for their regime to weaken and for Western influences to take hold.
Does that work both ways? Now that China has tasted of Western freedoms, will the West indulge in oriental despotism?
The DHS is the agency under the executive that most represents the words "power grab" and "power consolidation."
Agreed. We've had a national security state since the 1950's -- since the nineteen-teens, if you want to count Federal raids during the Palmer Red Scare -- and yet we're told we need more and newer agencies. The FBI and the CIA won't do. Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Council, not good enough. Tobacco and Firearms... Christ, how did those two get lumped together? And the list goes on and on, endless heads of the security hydra. And yet, and yet...
And yet we need more agencies. New agencies. Why?
Not because the current agencies are broken and unfixable (though it may be true).
More and new agencies represent the emergence of new players -- new stakeholders in the security game -- men who represent new wealth and new factions, outsiders who want into the game -- startups in competition with the existing agencies.
Some of these topics -- math, certainty, Russell -- appear in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (the scene where Lawrence Waterhouse, Rudolph von Hacklheber and Alan Turing go on a biking trip to the Pine Barrens, drink schnapps, and talk math).
The Swedish king Karl XI has this figured out already in the 17th century when he organised his forces so that people would fight side-by-side with brothers, cousins and people from the same region as you are from. This improved morale and made people less likely to flee the battlefield as you knew you could depend on, and wanted to support loved ones.
"Plutarch records that the Sacred Band was made up of male couples, the rationale being that lovers could fight more fiercely and cohesively than strangers with no ardent bonds.... The Sacred Band originally was formed of picked men in couples, each lover and beloved selected from the ranks of the existing Theban citizen-army. The pairs consisted of the older heniochoi, or charioteers, and the younger paraibatai, or companions, who were all housed and trained at the city's expense."
And let's not forget that it was the death of his "bosom friend" Patroklus that send the sulking Achilles into a murderous vengeful rage....
You are thinking of Jorj X. McKie, saboteur extraordinary (not usually an assassin)
of the Bureau of Sabotage (motto: "In Lieu of Red Tape")
in the ConSentiency universe stories:
"A Matter of Traces" (short story) , 1958
"The Tactful Saboteur" (short story), 1964
Whipping Star (novel), 1970
The Dosadi Experiment (novel), 1977
Ah, yes! Thanks for the reference. (Someone mod parent +Informative.)
In one of Frank Herbert's novels -- I forget which, one of the lesser-known books, not the Dune series -- there's a character who is a government assassin, whose specialty is assassinating members of other government agencies. The assassin and the victims are on the same side, but the assassin's department is charged with keeping the other departments from becoming too organized and powerful.
A friend of mine would kill one roach, and stick it on a toothpick (or a "pike" as he called it) and stood it up on a bottle-cork at the entrance to a hole -- as an "example to the others!" He swore it worked.
Why do people keep thinking anecdotal evidence has any particular value at all? Science long ago abandoned the idea that reliable and useful data could be gained by "After I did X, Y happened".
People think it because it often does. Survival of this species has partially depended upon the ability to reocgnize patterns and make decisions with limited information.
Why do people keep thinking anecdotal evidence has any particular value at all? Science long ago abandoned the idea that reliable and useful data could be gained by "After I did X, Y happened".
We all do our best to observe the world around us, make valid observations, draw useful inferences, and so on. We all have our experiences, and try to make sense of them.
For example: I got chiropractic care following a car injury, and I tell you for a fact that chiropractic adjustment afforded me relief from pain. This is not anecdotal: this is an irrefutable fact. Why is it a fact? Because I -- I alone, and no one else -- am the sole authority on my experience (of pain, or anything else).
Now, if I make claims for other people -- other patients, other chiropractors -- based on my experience, that's anecdotal. If I extrapolate and say "All patients..." or "All chiropractors..." or "All chiropractic therapy..." or "Chiropractory can also cure...", then I'm making anecdotal statements.
But as for relief from my pain? Thank God for chiropractic adjustment! It really worked for me -- that's a fact.
[PNG is] a bit like a barcode, only with more capacity since it's 2D and colour.
PNG also supports internal textual metadata. Example: Adobe Fireworks "... by default also stores meta data for layers, animation, vector data, text and effects [in PNG]."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics
Slashdot Mirror
I've collected a batch of links from this thread and posted them here.
Well, yeah, I kinda overlooked that (hoping for +1 Funny, karma-whore that I am).
"Voluntary" math research group? Is there any other kind?
I'm trying to imagine an "involuntary" math research group, and all I'm getting is scenes from dystopian science fiction ... or possibly a scene from the life of Léon Theremin.
My mistake, I failed to read your post carefully.
I agree with your observation that science flourishes in open and tolerant societies.
But branding Islam as closeminded or intolerant is not historically valid. During the golden age of the Islamic Caliphate -- say, 700 to 1000 AD -- that empire was home to science, arts, and philosophy of unprecedented scope and beauty; this was a truly cosmopolitan culture, remarkably tolerant of religious and ideological diversity. (Meanwhile, subsequent to the collapse of the Roman Empire, the West had lost, among a great many other things, the knowledge of brickmaking.)
Islam is not necessarily intolerant, nor is Christianity (or atheism) necessarily tolerant. Hitler was Christian (go look up photos of Nazi leaders celebrating Christmas; very strange, yuletide ans Swastikas). I'm not sure about Stalin, but I'll guess Atheist. Religions are not intolerant: fanatic individuals are intolerant.
I submit that barbarity is trying to swallow up not merely the Islamic world, but the entire world.
Hear, hear! Mod parent up!
Note to parent: why be AC? You've got something to say that's worth listening to -- I'd like to know who you are, so I can follow your thoughts on future posts.
Correction: "ex-coke-head dry-drunk". That's my understanding, anyway.
Does that work both ways? Now that China has tasted of Western freedoms, will the West indulge in oriental despotism?
Capitalism isn't the right to buy and sell anything you please -- not in practice, anyway.
If it were, I would already visited my local butcher, to indulge my curiosity about the taste of human flesh.
Agreed. We've had a national security state since the 1950's -- since the nineteen-teens, if you want to count Federal raids during the Palmer Red Scare -- and yet we're told we need more and newer agencies. The FBI and the CIA won't do. Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Council, not good enough. Tobacco and Firearms ... Christ, how did those two get lumped together? And the list goes on and on, endless heads of the security hydra. And yet, and yet ...
And yet we need more agencies. New agencies. Why?
Not because the current agencies are broken and unfixable (though it may be true).
More and new agencies represent the emergence of new players -- new stakeholders in the security game -- men who represent new wealth and new factions, outsiders who want into the game -- startups in competition with the existing agencies.
Some of these topics -- math, certainty, Russell -- appear in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (the scene where Lawrence Waterhouse, Rudolph von Hacklheber and Alan Turing go on a biking trip to the Pine Barrens, drink schnapps, and talk math).
This weaponized bio-technology will give a whole new meaning to assassin bugs.
If I understand this correctly, we're talking about a peer to peer mobile device network.
The Swedish king Karl XI has this figured out already in the 17th century when he organised his forces so that people would fight side-by-side with brothers, cousins and people from the same region as you are from. This improved morale and made people less likely to flee the battlefield as you knew you could depend on, and wanted to support loved ones.
See also the Sacred Band of Thebes --
"Plutarch records that the Sacred Band was made up of male couples, the rationale being that lovers could fight more fiercely and cohesively than strangers with no ardent bonds .... The Sacred Band originally was formed of picked men in couples, each lover and beloved selected from the ranks of the existing Theban citizen-army. The pairs consisted of the older heniochoi, or charioteers, and the younger paraibatai, or companions, who were all housed and trained at the city's expense."
And let's not forget that it was the death of his "bosom friend" Patroklus that send the sulking Achilles into a murderous vengeful rage ....
Maybe we can line fire hoses with this amazingly slippery material?
'Government intervention ... on the grounds that "market failures" in this area are causing "less-than-optimal production and consumption."'
Thank God we don't have optimal production, whether government-mandated or otherwise!
For a contrarian alternative, see Frank Herbert's Bureau of Sabotage.
That path leads to madness.
Made me laugh!
You are thinking of Jorj X. McKie, saboteur extraordinary (not usually an assassin) of the Bureau of Sabotage (motto: "In Lieu of Red Tape") in the ConSentiency universe stories:
"A Matter of Traces" (short story) , 1958 "The Tactful Saboteur" (short story), 1964 Whipping Star (novel), 1970 The Dosadi Experiment (novel), 1977
Ah, yes! Thanks for the reference. (Someone mod parent +Informative.)
In one of Frank Herbert's novels -- I forget which, one of the lesser-known books, not the Dune series -- there's a character who is a government assassin, whose specialty is assassinating members of other government agencies. The assassin and the victims are on the same side, but the assassin's department is charged with keeping the other departments from becoming too organized and powerful.
A friend of mine would kill one roach, and stick it on a toothpick (or a "pike" as he called it) and stood it up on a bottle-cork at the entrance to a hole -- as an "example to the others!" He swore it worked.
Your engaging anecdote has inspired me to make an illustrated example.
People think it because it often does. Survival of this species has partially depended upon the ability to reocgnize patterns and make decisions with limited information.
Good point.
See my related comments here.
Why do people keep thinking anecdotal evidence has any particular value at all? Science long ago abandoned the idea that reliable and useful data could be gained by "After I did X, Y happened".
We all do our best to observe the world around us, make valid observations, draw useful inferences, and so on. We all have our experiences, and try to make sense of them.
For example: I got chiropractic care following a car injury, and I tell you for a fact that chiropractic adjustment afforded me relief from pain. This is not anecdotal: this is an irrefutable fact. Why is it a fact? Because I -- I alone, and no one else -- am the sole authority on my experience (of pain, or anything else).
Now, if I make claims for other people -- other patients, other chiropractors -- based on my experience, that's anecdotal. If I extrapolate and say "All patients ..." or "All chiropractors ..." or "All chiropractic therapy ..." or "Chiropractory can also cure ...", then I'm making anecdotal statements.
But as for relief from my pain? Thank God for chiropractic adjustment! It really worked for me -- that's a fact.
What I want is a velocity-sensitive keyboard.
My dream: a word processor that renders the emotional expressiveness of keystrokes.
If I hit the keys fast and hard, that means I'm angry, so use the angry font, goddamit.
If I stroke the keys slow and sensual, that means I'm making love to the keyboard, so call the authorities already ....
[PNG is] a bit like a barcode, only with more capacity since it's 2D and colour.
PNG also supports internal textual metadata. Example: Adobe Fireworks "... by default also stores meta data for layers, animation, vector data, text and effects [in PNG]."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics
Amen to that, brother!