These guys did a very similar presentation on the project last weekend at FOSSCON, too [ http://fosscon.org/speakers ].
I think this is the kind of project that could use more eyes, and hands. Not just for the tech side, either - projects that have this kind of basic-underlying freedom philosophy, and are clearly seeking to enable distributed communication and computing are in everyone's interest, IMHO.
Passwords just *might* have more application than just for accessing your windows PC. Is your comment as naive as it sounds? Keeping a windows PC malware-free obviously IS harder than you suppose, being that there are plenty of people who are owned from the first time they use MSIE. Before you go and just say "well then they should be smarter", try to realize the real game being played. It's an awareness and tech-savvy arms race; Until someone can make a perfectly secure consumer machine, there will always be the sizeable gap between the ability of the Russian mob to infiltrate a PC, and the ability of the average person who has to use a PC just to fully interact with society, to keep it clean.
So, you might be missing Bruce's point, but you're also missing a view of the problem any broader than what you see right in front of you.
Good point! I've used it for a few random shareware apps here and there; a.swf unpacker, etc. I did use crossover office for quite a while, too, on boxes where I didn't need a full windows installation in a VM.
I tend to prefer having the MORE stable OS be the one with direct hardware access, and the flakier OS standing on the other's shoulders.
Vmware is the only way I've run windows at home at all in many years, and it works out just fine for me.
Tor.com is pretty good -- I think you can still sign up there to get a new ebook every week for free, plus they have a bunch of non-free books, podcasts, etc. I've been getting them for 6-8 weeks now and they're pretty good!
However, I do not believe that math in general is flawed -- although our understanding may be. Math, like physics or chemistry, is imuteable. We do not change it by understanding of it. What we consider math is just our understanding of what actually happens.
Here we maybe just have a semantic argument. (not to be confused with pedantic:) )
When I say 'Math' I don't mean "The immutable truth behind the universe, should one exist", I mean "the collection of things that have been discovered, realized, or approximated in such a way that they all got labeled 'math'". I think people with the former point of view are assuming a lot about the nature of what they're studying, with significant consequences at some point. I accept more readily the view that personal experience is the most real kind of reality, which has vast implications.
I'd argue the point that physics and chemistry don't change, too! It may just be that they change much too slowly for us to notice in our lifetimes, but that doesn't make it an insignificant point. There is a study that comes to mind that suggests that the speed of light (in a vacuum) is changing ever so slightly through time. This comes from the fact that all the major measurements (approximations) have all been increasing in direction, never backtracking! That's exciting to me, for some reason:
The notes you posted: half of it I find 'intuitively obvious', (which in my Physics classes meant the prof didn't have time or desire to prove something); the other half makes me want to read more of the original talk. If you find it let me know, I'll search otherwise.
I certainly don't find Goedel useless; Information Theory is just as useful to my mind as building bridges -- I don't consider the realm of the mind any less real than the physical world outside of it.
Translation: I latched to an early tread so many people would read my rant.
Spoken like someone who knows the technique. Is it really unreasonable that I would assume that more than just the original poster would read it? It's a public site!
Translation: If a religion says pi is 3, schools should expose pupil to both viewpoints.
Don't put words in my mouth, I said no such thing.
Translation: I don't know anything, but neither do you! Now I feel better.
Or, maybe, I don't think I have to know everything to be satisfied.. unlike some, apparantly.
Translation: I'm getting old and my brain doesn't work as well as it used to, I may turn to a religion soon because I need a comforting view of what happens after I die.
I'm 28. You keep jumping to the religion thing when it's not warranted. Math is 'universally true' only if you accept it's pretenses, which most do implicitly. That makes it SEEM 'universal'. It still has a reference frame, and is still subject to relativity.
Translation: No need to attack my swiss cheese of argument, I agree with your basic points. *waves hand*
One need not disagree 100% to reply, do they? Or is that only when you post as Anonymous? You still didn't address the argument itself, you are making assumptions and attacking then attacking them. AKA a straw-man.
. After all, it's hard to even imagine how human language could fail to describe a truth condition. And of course if that's the case, human language must be something truly and completely different than formal language.
GREAT point. I meant to bring this up with the original Parent post, but didn't want to get too off-topic. The idea from linguistics that our thoughts have some inherent limits due to the language we think in (and also our skill with that language) has always rang true for me. aWhen I was in school and taking Spanish I often dreamed in fluent Spanish (and spoke it in my sleep, reportedly). A linguistics professor in college brought up this idea, and I realized that I don't always think in ENGLISH (or Spanish) but sometimes just abstract forms. I wondered if this was an echo of the linguist's "formal language".
First let me say that I am not an opponent of mathematics, and hope you aren't calling me an 'intellectual':)
Second, I agree with what you're saying -- Goedel's statements have more value to the intersection of math and philosophy than in the work of a Mathemetician. My own feeling as to why that is, is this: Realizing that using the framework we have established, within the limits of our own understanding, as Math (or substitute Logic) means that we might be precluding our own understanding of some OTHER things, but it's not always clear what those things are. (Because we're stuck in the box of the Math we know). It's a bit like having the uneasy feeling that by taking one course of action, you prevent yourself from discovering others that were options at the time you started down the path you're on.
Some bits of quantum theory seem to echo this.. we change the forward possibilities of the universe in ways that we don't perceive, even by OBSERVING something happen, or not. The many possibilities for reality collapse to one with the passing of time.
I agree that Goedel, like much of science, raises more questions than it answers.
My background is an undergrad degree in Mech. Eng + Comp Sci; I don't claim to be a professional mathematician. You could call me a math enthusiast.. I apply it at every opportunity and spend a good bit of time thinking about math.
I certainly didn't mean to imply that math is an invention like the telephone is an invention; But it is an invention nonetheless. From the fact that we can make new mathematical systems, we can see that we limit our own understanding by putting it in any particular mathematical reference frame. It's always a trade-off, and there's an art to picking the right trade-off for any given problem. Physics equations give us a way to understand physical phenomena ON AVERAGE within a given set of assumptions -- it's still based on empiricism.
'Math' itself may not be 'limited' because anytime someone develops a new branch of mathematical thought, it gets put under the Math umbrella. But it's also useless to us except as it helps us understand the world around us, or model something we've obvserved, etc. There are still things it is wholely unconcerned with (but can be applied to in various situations).
I do have a pretty useful understanding of P/NP and information theory, it doesn't preclude what I've said about limitations of logic.
Is there a recording or notes from that seminar? It looks interesting.
I didn't necessarily mean you personally, just 'readers in general'.. But at any rate, my point was you should no more stand by Math and Logic as an -ism than anything else! I'm perfectly comfortable not tying myself unto death to anyone claiming to know The Real Ultimate Truth (tm). The longer I go on, the more I think that the only "universal truth" is that there is NO "universal truth".
Also, by knee-jerk reaction I was more anticipating other's super-rational zealotry responses, not referring to your initial post. I quite agree with the initial post, as I've had the same kind of experience in my own life.
And so I slowly started to realize that mathematics were the underlying principle to everything. Maybe you've seen the motion picture Pi and remember the part where the main character has a revelation that everything can be described by math. In my opinion, he was dead right.
I'm a math/sci geek too (do you have to SAY that on/.?) but I want to point out that we are well served to be aware of the limitations of math and logic. Some people put as much faith in logic and our own mathematical knowlege as any fundamentalist zealot puts in their own religion. Reasonable people (and the smartest mathematicians and scientists I've ever seen) realize that math and even logic are human's own inventions, and are limited in what they can be applied to. That said, they are a hugely useful system of describing the natural world and even abstract ideas in a very communicable way -- we've often heard and said that Math is the true international language. Yet, there are statements in math that we know we can neither prove nor disprove -- and conversely, there are things we know to be true (by experience, which Einstein referred to as the ultimate truth) but we know for sure can't be proven!
Google for "Gödel's theorem", or maybe "metamathematics" before knee-jerk replying, please.
hey say, the curser rarely spews obscenities and insults at random, but rather will assess the object of his wrath, and adjust the content of the 'uncontrollable' outburst accordingly."
And that expectation (which we all have) is why it's so damn funny in Office Space when Samir, the non-native English speaker, is cursing completely inappropriately. SON OF A F$*(!
No, it's more the arrogance of their approach; almost assuming that if offered a job there, ANYBODY would just JUMP at the chance -- it implies a one-way kind of relationship. Also, the 'quizzes' they offer are much less like a CS proficiency exam than you might think. Getting the 'right' answers is a strong function of having read/heard that one before, or are open ended questions designed to see the thinker's thought process, willingness to attack a large problem, see the big picture without neglecting the details, etc.
So no, he doesn't think he should be hired without showing his ability, it's that the questions they ask don't actually show those abilities, and the whole thing wasn't even his idea:)
Ay, but a 2d-bar code like this could easily be printed in the center of the nail, as to be less susceptible to damage. Keep a copy on the other hand, for backup! This could easily be used as an access key for doors, computers, etc; a person's password could be the barcode itself, or some combination (right index, followed by left pinky, or some crap like that) of them. You don't WANT those keys to stay around forever anyway, so nail growth would enforce password changes!
In a fluids class we often approximated humans as cylinders. Not too bad of an approximation either, but horses:: spheres is a bit more of a stretch IMHO:)
First, one assumes that the horses are perfectly spherical and moving through a vacuum...".
The only problem I have with that joke comes from the fact that the horses have little need to be spherical if they are in a vacuum. Unless the physicist is considering radiation, or mass distribution somehow matters, they could just as well say the horse is a point mass.
Well the thing about that is, governments should be in the business of long-term thinking; ours are stuck with a short-term perspective, largely because of elections and term limits. If you are only interested in the short term, then don't develop anything new that you don't have to, and don't have any competition -- just buy it and move on. But if you are interested in things like:
a) having tax money benefit the taxpayers before corporations b) encouraging an active culture of competition (which *should* lower prices while increasing value) c) remaining independant of corporate interests d) All of the above, so that the overall cost in the long term will be much less
Then you would do quite well to fund an 'open' ideology and not line Billy Boy's pockets...
Just a question of perspective, not short term costs.
If only other politicians had enough backbone to use tax money in ways that benefit all the people who paid for it, instead of ingraining a monopoly...
Slashdot Mirror
These guys did a very similar presentation on the project last weekend at FOSSCON, too [ http://fosscon.org/speakers ].
I think this is the kind of project that could use more eyes, and hands. Not just for the tech side, either - projects that have this kind of basic-underlying freedom philosophy, and are clearly seeking to enable distributed communication and computing are in everyone's interest, IMHO.
Is that really so hard?
Passwords just *might* have more application than just for accessing your windows PC. Is your comment as naive as it sounds? Keeping a windows PC malware-free obviously IS harder than you suppose, being that there are plenty of people who are owned from the first time they use MSIE. Before you go and just say "well then they should be smarter", try to realize the real game being played. It's an awareness and tech-savvy arms race; Until someone can make a perfectly secure consumer machine, there will always be the sizeable gap between the ability of the Russian mob to infiltrate a PC, and the ability of the average person who has to use a PC just to fully interact with society, to keep it clean. So, you might be missing Bruce's point, but you're also missing a view of the problem any broader than what you see right in front of you.
Thick socks and cocoa butter.
Good point! I've used it for a few random shareware apps here and there; a .swf unpacker, etc. I did use crossover office for quite a while, too, on boxes where I didn't need a full windows installation in a VM.
I tend to prefer having the MORE stable OS be the one with direct hardware access, and the flakier OS standing on the other's shoulders. Vmware is the only way I've run windows at home at all in many years, and it works out just fine for me.
Tor.com is pretty good -- I think you can still sign up there to get a new ebook every week for free, plus they have a bunch of non-free books, podcasts, etc. I've been getting them for 6-8 weeks now and they're pretty good!
Here we maybe just have a semantic argument. (not to be confused with pedantic
When I say 'Math' I don't mean "The immutable truth behind the universe, should one exist", I mean "the collection of things that have been discovered, realized, or approximated in such a way that they all got labeled 'math'". I think people with the former point of view are assuming a lot about the nature of what they're studying, with significant consequences at some point. I accept more readily the view that personal experience is the most real kind of reality, which has vast implications.
I'd argue the point that physics and chemistry don't change, too! It may just be that they change much too slowly for us to notice in our lifetimes, but that doesn't make it an insignificant point. There is a study that comes to mind that suggests that the speed of light (in a vacuum) is changing ever so slightly through time. This comes from the fact that all the major measurements (approximations) have all been increasing in direction, never backtracking! That's exciting to me, for some reason:
The notes you posted: half of it I find 'intuitively obvious', (which in my Physics classes meant the prof didn't have time or desire to prove something); the other half makes me want to read more of the original talk. If you find it let me know, I'll search otherwise.
I certainly don't find Goedel useless; Information Theory is just as useful to my mind as building bridges -- I don't consider the realm of the mind any less real than the physical world outside of it.
Translation: I latched to an early tread so many people would read my rant.
.. unlike some, apparantly.
Spoken like someone who knows the technique. Is it really unreasonable that I would assume that more than just the original poster would read it? It's a public site!
Translation: If a religion says pi is 3, schools should expose pupil to both viewpoints.
Don't put words in my mouth, I said no such thing.
Translation: I don't know anything, but neither do you! Now I feel better.
Or, maybe, I don't think I have to know everything to be satisfied
Translation: I'm getting old and my brain doesn't work as well as it used to, I may turn to a religion soon because I need a comforting view of what happens after I die.
I'm 28. You keep jumping to the religion thing when it's not warranted. Math is 'universally true' only if you accept it's pretenses, which most do implicitly. That makes it SEEM 'universal'. It still has a reference frame, and is still subject to relativity.
Translation: No need to attack my swiss cheese of argument, I agree with your basic points. *waves hand*
One need not disagree 100% to reply, do they? Or is that only when you post as Anonymous? You still didn't address the argument itself, you are making assumptions and attacking then attacking them. AKA a straw-man.
. After all, it's hard to even imagine how human language could fail to describe a truth condition. And of course if that's the case, human language must be something truly and completely different than formal language.
GREAT point. I meant to bring this up with the original Parent post, but didn't want to get too off-topic. The idea from linguistics that our thoughts have some inherent limits due to the language we think in (and also our skill with that language) has always rang true for me. aWhen I was in school and taking Spanish I often dreamed in fluent Spanish (and spoke it in my sleep, reportedly). A linguistics professor in college brought up this idea, and I realized that I don't always think in ENGLISH (or Spanish) but sometimes just abstract forms. I wondered if this was an echo of the linguist's "formal language".
First let me say that I am not an opponent of mathematics, and hope you aren't calling me an 'intellectual' :)
.. we change the forward possibilities of the universe in ways that we don't perceive, even by OBSERVING something happen, or not. The many possibilities for reality collapse to one with the passing of time.
Second, I agree with what you're saying -- Goedel's statements have more value to the intersection of math and philosophy than in the work of a Mathemetician. My own feeling as to why that is, is this: Realizing that using the framework we have established, within the limits of our own understanding, as Math (or substitute Logic) means that we might be precluding our own understanding of some OTHER things, but it's not always clear what those things are. (Because we're stuck in the box of the Math we know). It's a bit like having the uneasy feeling that by taking one course of action, you prevent yourself from discovering others that were options at the time you started down the path you're on.
Some bits of quantum theory seem to echo this
I agree that Goedel, like much of science, raises more questions than it answers.
Is there a recording or notes from that seminar? It looks interesting.
I didn't necessarily mean you personally, just 'readers in general' .. But at any rate, my point was you should no more stand by Math and Logic as an -ism than anything else! I'm perfectly comfortable not tying myself unto death to anyone claiming to know The Real Ultimate Truth (tm). The longer I go on, the more I think that the only "universal truth" is that there is NO "universal truth".
Also, by knee-jerk reaction I was more anticipating other's super-rational zealotry responses, not referring to your initial post. I quite agree with the initial post, as I've had the same kind of experience in my own life.
And so I slowly started to realize that mathematics were the underlying principle to everything. Maybe you've seen the motion picture Pi and remember the part where the main character has a revelation that everything can be described by math. In my opinion, he was dead right.
/.?) but I want to point out that we are well served to be aware of the limitations of math and logic. Some people put as much faith in logic and our own mathematical knowlege as any fundamentalist zealot puts in their own religion. Reasonable people (and the smartest mathematicians and scientists I've ever seen) realize that math and even logic are human's own inventions, and are limited in what they can be applied to. That said, they are a hugely useful system of describing the natural world and even abstract ideas in a very communicable way -- we've often heard and said that Math is the true international language. Yet, there are statements in math that we know we can neither prove nor disprove -- and conversely, there are things we know to be true (by experience, which Einstein referred to as the ultimate truth) but we know for sure can't be proven!
I'm a math/sci geek too (do you have to SAY that on
Google for "Gödel's theorem", or maybe "metamathematics" before knee-jerk replying, please.
hey say, the curser rarely spews obscenities and insults at random, but rather will assess the object of his wrath, and adjust the content of the 'uncontrollable' outburst accordingly."
And that expectation (which we all have) is why it's so damn funny in Office Space when Samir, the non-native English speaker, is cursing completely inappropriately. SON OF A F$*(!
If podcasts are going to replace radio, google wifi will replace ? (a question for all those who recently took the sat)
I thought they removed analogies from the SAT like 10 years ago?
As a *nix nerd in my fifth year managing mainframe developers, I need some insight into mainframe programmers.
:)
So you have been managing a group for five years, and have no idea what makes them tick? Sounds like you're definitely management material
No, it's more the arrogance of their approach; almost assuming that if offered a job there, ANYBODY would just JUMP at the chance -- it implies a one-way kind of relationship. Also, the 'quizzes' they offer are much less like a CS proficiency exam than you might think. Getting the 'right' answers is a strong function of having read/heard that one before, or are open ended questions designed to see the thinker's thought process, willingness to attack a large problem, see the big picture without neglecting the details, etc. So no, he doesn't think he should be hired without showing his ability, it's that the questions they ask don't actually show those abilities, and the whole thing wasn't even his idea :)
Ay, but a 2d-bar code like this could easily be printed in the center of the nail, as to be less susceptible to damage. Keep a copy on the other hand, for backup! This could easily be used as an access key for doors, computers, etc; a person's password could be the barcode itself, or some combination (right index, followed by left pinky, or some crap like that) of them. You don't WANT those keys to stay around forever anyway, so nail growth would enforce password changes!
In a fluids class we often approximated humans as cylinders. Not too bad of an approximation either, but horses :: spheres is a bit more of a stretch IMHO :)
First, one assumes that the horses are perfectly spherical and moving through a vacuum...".
The only problem I have with that joke comes from the fact that the horses have little need to be spherical if they are in a vacuum. Unless the physicist is considering radiation, or mass distribution somehow matters, they could just as well say the horse is a point mass.
Where Apple was very geometric, we were going to be smooth and curvy.
In what country are smooth curves not understood in terms of geometry?
Now when this is incorporated into maps.google.com I'll be even happier..
Well the thing about that is, governments should be in the business of long-term thinking; ours are stuck with a short-term perspective, largely because of elections and term limits. If you are only interested in the short term, then don't develop anything new that you don't have to, and don't have any competition -- just buy it and move on. But if you are interested in things like:
a) having tax money benefit the taxpayers before corporations
b) encouraging an active culture of competition (which *should* lower prices while increasing value)
c) remaining independant of corporate interests
d) All of the above, so that the overall cost in the long term will be much less
Then you would do quite well to fund an 'open' ideology and not line Billy Boy's pockets...
Just a question of perspective, not short term costs.
If only other politicians had enough backbone to use tax money in ways that benefit all the people who paid for it, instead of ingraining a monopoly ...