We need new mod options just for this type of nonsense.
-1, Fascist
-1, Draconian
This attitude is the exact reason that the US has such a problem with violent crime. Every time someone expounds publicly on the virtues of capital punishment, these "sick fucks" just become angrier.
The solution is not to institute state-sanctioned murder - much less state-sanctioned violent, gruesome, murder. The solution is to attack the problem at its root - through rehabilitation of communities that suffer from particularly severe crime.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The way to prevent crime as a whole is to help those in need (predominantly young people) establish a stable life, a career, and a family for themselves.
Fear of tyrranical punishment does not make a society safer. It only destablizes the society.
That said, I still think murderers and rapists should not see the light of day, and penalties for violent crime should be tough. Tough, in this case, does not include flogging, stoning, hanging, or electrocution. Having to spend a few years all by your lonesome is quite sufficient.
Re:Mathematics not universal?
on
The Golden Ratio
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
You bring out a very subtle fallacy, and one that is tied to philosophical issues regarding mathematics. I bit of history is in order:
The fundamental question is this: is, or isn't, mathematics an extension of logic? A smart man named Frege (read about him here) said, yes, it is. He showed a way to connect formal logic with set theory, which is the basis for mathematics as we know it.
There was only one problem: Russell's Paradox. Bertrand Russell showed that, using Frege's axioms that defined set theory, we have a contradiction - Russell's Paradox. And as any student of logic knows, a contradiction can be used to prove anything at all, which means that mathematics as Frege defined it was not viable.
To make a very long and very interesting story short, Russell (with Alfred Whitehead) attempted to create a foundation for mathematics that would not give rise to Russell's paradox - the Principia Mathematica. And everyone thought the world was cool.
Then, in the 1930s, Kurt Godel came along and smashed a hole in Russell's approach by showing that, given a sufficiently powerful formal system, one will always find unprovable truths and irrefutible falsehoods. So mathematics was, by that line of reasoning, incomplete.
This leaves the door open to a variety of critiques, the most relevant of which is that it is automatically not universal. After all, how could it be - there are things missing! We can't prove everything that is true, and we can't disprove everything that is false!
Godel's argument tells us that we are unable to describe the universal laws of nature using non-universal and incomplete mathematics. That dosen't make mathematics useless - it just places a limit on what we can or cannot do. For instance, we cannot use deductive mathematics to describe the laws of nature in their entirety, because we know that any effort to be complete is doomed to failure - by Godel's theorems.
Also, there are some specific areas of mathematics that lead to direct examples of non-universal, but nonetheless consistent interpertations of nature. Take, for instance, Euclidean and differential geometry. Euclidean geometry is the geometry of flat planes, whereas differential geometry describes abstract mathematical notions. It was once thought that Euclidean geometry is "sufficient", and that it is the simplest way of representing spacial relationships. However, as it turns out, differential geometry is actually much more simpler when it comes to dealing with, say, the theory of relativity - even though it is not intuitively connected to our perception of the universe.
So in short, we have two different "geometries", each of which can, supposedly, explain spacial representation. Both are valid, but one is much more useful. Neither is universal. And yet, there is no contradiction.
I don't know about anyone else, but I think this stuff is interesting.
When I was learning to sail, I ran into what amounts to some of the most opaque English terminology that ever existed. I honestly haven't the slightest how some of these terms came to be.
Here is a quiz! How many of these nautical terms can you recognize:
Stanchion (n.)
Halyard (n.)
Pintle (n.)
Gudgeon (n.)
Traveller (n.)
Shroud (n.)
Transom (n.)
Gybe (v.)
Batten (n.)
Rode (n.)
Companionway (n.)
Lazarette (n.)
The list goes on and on! If you want to feel overwhelmed, try to go on a boat with a bunch of experienced sailors. They will say something like "put a bowline on the bow line" and you end up with a dumb look on your face.
I imagine that's how many people feel when some of us start spouting technobabble. You say "gigabyte", and some people think "what's a gigawiggle?"
Perhaps there is a business opportunity for someone to publish a decent pocketbook dictionary of tech terms and sell it to people entering computer stores. Next time you need to know what the sales drone means by "AGP", you at least have the book! At the very least, it might create some computer-store comedy.
Now would be a good time to point out that neither RedHat nor Caldera is actually profitable.
A brief look at the latest data available to me for bothcompanies suggests that your remarks about the viability of open-source based busienss models are somewhat on the ball. All the uproar about how rich the original owners of RedHat and Caldera is accurate, but it is entirely the fault of investors who didn't know better. There is very little reason for a company that sells a free product (I'm looking at you, RedHat!) to be valued at a price approaching $140/share.
'Nuff said.
I can't say that I agree with your opinion on the quality of open source software, or about credit for the success of the Internet. This was already rebutted pretty well by a few vocal minds.
Before everyone starts jumping up and down at how profitabl Amazon really is, lets actually look at some facts.
I direct you to their latest quarterly results. Some highlights that are discernable pretty much at a glance:
Amazon has never actually posted a profit.
To date, Amazon has amassed losses of nearly $3 billion US dollars. That's impressive. It also means the company would have to post some pretty impressive profits before you can expect a dividend. Very importantly, it's unsustainable.
Amazon currently has a stockholder deficit. That means that they have more debts than assets. Specifically, what this means is that if the company were to liquidate, the stockholders would get nothing. Nothing at all. There aren't enough assets in the firm to cover contractual debts!
This, of course, means the stock is worthless.
Now, to their credit, Amazon has actually been successful at cutting their losses. The losses are no longer absurd, they are merely irritating. This shows progress.
To all of you saying "this is merely reinvestment, and the losses are intentional!", I say pish-posh! The company is public. Moreover, the company is a for-profit organization. That means that stockholders have an expectation of profits, which manifest as either devidends (paid out of a company's retained earnings) or growth (which is really the expectation that dividends will be received at some point, or a dramatic improvement in the company's balance sheet).
Remember: when you pay taxes, you don't give up your entire profit. You give up a part. Spending money frivolously on bogus, unnecessary expenditures merely to avoid paying taxes is:
Irresponsible, because that money could be profit that is retained.
Outright theft. The money is not the management's. The money belongs to shareholders. You would not want Amazon to build an extra warehouse any more than you want the former CEO of Tyco to buy his $7000 shower curtains.
So please, next time, actually look at the facts before declaring that Amazon posted a profit. It simply isn't true. This quarter, they aren't even cash-positive.
I recently had a conversation about this very topic with a camera service technician at the Nikon office here in the Toronto area. The pros have interesting things to say.
He was basically saying that what Canon had done was combine two 5 megapixel CCDs to form something that resembles an 11 megapixel CCD. That means this is not actually new technology. It's not revolutionary. It's merely more pixels.
Also, the issue that someone else has raised is very important. When you get to higher resolution CCDs, you may see a degradation in colour sensitivity and therefore your photos will suffer. Sure, high res is nice, but not at the expense of washed out, muddy colours.
I still think that something about the instant gratification of digital cameras takes away from the joy of photography. The fact that you can't easily re-take shots with film means you have some very tangible incentive to improve your skills in a hurry!
Now, since I'm a Nikon user, I really do want to hear what Nikon has to say about all this. Since I'm a Nikon film user (yeah, yeah, yeah. I know this is slashdot and we're all supposed to love digital. Film is more fun.), my interest in this is still pretty academic.
Slashdot Mirror
-1, Fascist
-1, Draconian
This attitude is the exact reason that the US has such a problem with violent crime. Every time someone expounds publicly on the virtues of capital punishment, these "sick fucks" just become angrier.
The solution is not to institute state-sanctioned murder - much less state-sanctioned violent, gruesome, murder. The solution is to attack the problem at its root - through rehabilitation of communities that suffer from particularly severe crime.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The way to prevent crime as a whole is to help those in need (predominantly young people) establish a stable life, a career, and a family for themselves.
Fear of tyrranical punishment does not make a society safer. It only destablizes the society.
That said, I still think murderers and rapists should not see the light of day, and penalties for violent crime should be tough. Tough, in this case, does not include flogging, stoning, hanging, or electrocution. Having to spend a few years all by your lonesome is quite sufficient.
The fundamental question is this: is, or isn't, mathematics an extension of logic? A smart man named Frege (read about him here) said, yes, it is. He showed a way to connect formal logic with set theory, which is the basis for mathematics as we know it.
There was only one problem: Russell's Paradox. Bertrand Russell showed that, using Frege's axioms that defined set theory, we have a contradiction - Russell's Paradox. And as any student of logic knows, a contradiction can be used to prove anything at all, which means that mathematics as Frege defined it was not viable.
To make a very long and very interesting story short, Russell (with Alfred Whitehead) attempted to create a foundation for mathematics that would not give rise to Russell's paradox - the Principia Mathematica. And everyone thought the world was cool.
Then, in the 1930s, Kurt Godel came along and smashed a hole in Russell's approach by showing that, given a sufficiently powerful formal system, one will always find unprovable truths and irrefutible falsehoods. So mathematics was, by that line of reasoning, incomplete.
This leaves the door open to a variety of critiques, the most relevant of which is that it is automatically not universal. After all, how could it be - there are things missing! We can't prove everything that is true, and we can't disprove everything that is false!
Godel's argument tells us that we are unable to describe the universal laws of nature using non-universal and incomplete mathematics. That dosen't make mathematics useless - it just places a limit on what we can or cannot do. For instance, we cannot use deductive mathematics to describe the laws of nature in their entirety, because we know that any effort to be complete is doomed to failure - by Godel's theorems.
Also, there are some specific areas of mathematics that lead to direct examples of non-universal, but nonetheless consistent interpertations of nature. Take, for instance, Euclidean and differential geometry. Euclidean geometry is the geometry of flat planes, whereas differential geometry describes abstract mathematical notions. It was once thought that Euclidean geometry is "sufficient", and that it is the simplest way of representing spacial relationships. However, as it turns out, differential geometry is actually much more simpler when it comes to dealing with, say, the theory of relativity - even though it is not intuitively connected to our perception of the universe.
So in short, we have two different "geometries", each of which can, supposedly, explain spacial representation. Both are valid, but one is much more useful. Neither is universal. And yet, there is no contradiction.
I don't know about anyone else, but I think this stuff is interesting.
It means that our brilliant technical minds will continue being brilliant, since the overwhelming majority are in no danger of becoming married.
Here is a quiz! How many of these nautical terms can you recognize:
- Stanchion (n.)
- Halyard (n.)
- Pintle (n.)
- Gudgeon (n.)
- Traveller (n.)
- Shroud (n.)
- Transom (n.)
- Gybe (v.)
- Batten (n.)
- Rode (n.)
- Companionway (n.)
- Lazarette (n.)
The list goes on and on! If you want to feel overwhelmed, try to go on a boat with a bunch of experienced sailors. They will say something like "put a bowline on the bow line" and you end up with a dumb look on your face.I imagine that's how many people feel when some of us start spouting technobabble. You say "gigabyte", and some people think "what's a gigawiggle?"
Perhaps there is a business opportunity for someone to publish a decent pocketbook dictionary of tech terms and sell it to people entering computer stores. Next time you need to know what the sales drone means by "AGP", you at least have the book! At the very least, it might create some computer-store comedy.
A brief look at the latest data available to me for both companies suggests that your remarks about the viability of open-source based busienss models are somewhat on the ball. All the uproar about how rich the original owners of RedHat and Caldera is accurate, but it is entirely the fault of investors who didn't know better. There is very little reason for a company that sells a free product (I'm looking at you, RedHat!) to be valued at a price approaching $140/share.
'Nuff said.
I can't say that I agree with your opinion on the quality of open source software, or about credit for the success of the Internet. This was already rebutted pretty well by a few vocal minds.
Before everyone starts jumping up and down at how profitabl Amazon really is, lets actually look at some facts.
I direct you to their latest quarterly results. Some highlights that are discernable pretty much at a glance:
This, of course, means the stock is worthless.
Now, to their credit, Amazon has actually been successful at cutting their losses. The losses are no longer absurd, they are merely irritating. This shows progress.
To all of you saying "this is merely reinvestment, and the losses are intentional!", I say pish-posh! The company is public. Moreover, the company is a for-profit organization. That means that stockholders have an expectation of profits, which manifest as either devidends (paid out of a company's retained earnings) or growth (which is really the expectation that dividends will be received at some point, or a dramatic improvement in the company's balance sheet).
Remember: when you pay taxes, you don't give up your entire profit. You give up a part. Spending money frivolously on bogus, unnecessary expenditures merely to avoid paying taxes is:
So please, next time, actually look at the facts before declaring that Amazon posted a profit. It simply isn't true. This quarter, they aren't even cash-positive.
He was basically saying that what Canon had done was combine two 5 megapixel CCDs to form something that resembles an 11 megapixel CCD. That means this is not actually new technology. It's not revolutionary. It's merely more pixels.
Also, the issue that someone else has raised is very important. When you get to higher resolution CCDs, you may see a degradation in colour sensitivity and therefore your photos will suffer. Sure, high res is nice, but not at the expense of washed out, muddy colours.
I still think that something about the instant gratification of digital cameras takes away from the joy of photography. The fact that you can't easily re-take shots with film means you have some very tangible incentive to improve your skills in a hurry!
Now, since I'm a Nikon user, I really do want to hear what Nikon has to say about all this. Since I'm a Nikon film user (yeah, yeah, yeah. I know this is slashdot and we're all supposed to love digital. Film is more fun.), my interest in this is still pretty academic.