>That's what mathematics isâ"obscure and non-obvious stuff is everywhere.
But it doesn't have to be that way. There needs to be more Vi Harts as Wikipedia article editors than Benoit Mandelbrots with communication difficulties (not saying that people like Mandelbrot or Penrose are lacking in communication, Mandelbrot was, and Penrose is a brilliant writer, but rather there appear to be many WP math editors who are "high in clock cycles, low in I/O").
I swear, the difference between people getting turned on by math or scared away from it is a direct result from who one gets as a teacher in the early grades and WP math articles are examples of the nightmare instructor.
And just because something is factually correct doesn't necessarily mean it is edifying.
Because if you look in all other commercial encyclopedias (encyclopediae?), you get a more english (well, natural language) translation of the concepts of a math article. But not even that, Wikipedia on this subject fails even at the post-secondary textbook level. I don't count myself among the dumbest of the population, but when I go to a Wikipedia page for something that is on my level for math, the articles on things like cycloids and such are much better explained by Machinery's Handbook or any other source, really, than there.
I am not saying that Wikipedia should dumb its articles down to the point where even the most innumerate among us would understand all of them, but the "spam equations on the wall with little explanation" model doesn't work very well unless you are immersed in the subject. For example, concepts covered in Algebra I and II in high school should be written for that level.^1 Also, this "write for the grad-student and mathemetician for everything" model does little to help people who use applied mathematics. Indeed, this whole focus on grad-student and up writing in the math articles is at odds with the rest of the Wikipedia.
As a result, anyone wishing to *learn* anything about math is better off using anything but Wikipedia.
Your response to me that the articles are written by grad students and mathemeticians (not all mathemeticians are jerks, btw) for grad students and mathemeticians reinforces the fact that it certainly seems like a giant circle jerk.
-- BMO
Footnotes:
1. I had to explain to a high school student that she should not be using Wikipedia for help in her Algebra II class. Because all it did was confuse her. I mentioned that Wikipedia math pages are a "dick measuring contest for experts on the subject" and the light went on behind her eyes and she laughed and agreed. There are far better resources and I suggested she ask her teacher for them.
Which makes it even more non-sensical to post it here, on slashdot, a general-interest geek site, where only very few are working mathemeticians or grad students.
A page like this: http://abcathome.com/conjecture.php would have been more apropos. No reaching for the jargon, and an actual mini-tutorial on what an ABC triple is and what the conjecture is.
Wikipedia math articles are essentially penis-measurement battles between editors who try to find the most obsucre and non-obvious manner to explain even simple arithmetic. Much like Fox News, Wikipedia math articles are bad for your brain.
Sure they know full well there will always be first victims. They weigh that against the reality of the government effectively "validating" what is or is not a legitimate PAC or charity.
The fantasy of the free market is pure lessaiz-faire without government at all, but that only worked when you knew everyone and societies were tribes in the jungle with less than 300 people. Because you know for a fact when Timmy caught those 30 bass that he's trying to sell you and that they are his to sell.
We live in a complex society where there are "innovators," to borrow a sociological term, that will exploit the lack of information that would not be tolerated in that 300 person tribe and regulation through government and official standards is the result. Anywhere you see an ineffective government in regards to this you see a hellhole. We need rules so that everyone is on the same page, and that markets are fair along with being as free as possible. Unfair markets are markets where people get tired of being screwed over and eventually say "fuck this" and try to stay out of the market as much as possible. This is what the supposed free-marketers don't get - that in the end, lack of regulation is self-defeating if you want a prosperous market.
They just arenâ(TM)t directly affiliated with the politician whoâ(TM)s picture is on the site.
And that's the problem. If one can't be assured where one's money is going, why donate? Enough of these deceptive PACS and people will simply stop donating even to real PACS. Regulation helps *everyone.*
>explaining to me what a free market is and what it depends on
I'm not stupid.
However, the free market is only free when all parties to a transaction have equal knowledge.
Then why do the Republicans and other purported free marketers dislike regulation that evens out the knowledge? An informed consumer contributes to a free market and helps weed out the bad companies. Why, for all the tea in China, is this fucking bad according to the Paulites, Randroids, and Republicans?
>this isnt' regulations >criminal law
Criminal law is a kind of regulation.
Should we get rid of all administrative and tort law and deal with these things in a purely criminal manner? That's absurd.
It's fine if *you* get fucked over with a credit card contract because of tiny print buried on page 42, but woe be unto the person who deceives a Republican donor. Hell hath no fury.
I completely understand their point of view. It is market anarchism requiring social network effects so that there are always "first victims" before word gets around, but there is no recourse for those "first victims who should have known better." A kind of vicious market Calvinism. That somehow the "invisible hand of the free market" by itself solves things is a point of view based in fantasy logic, troll physics, and feline engineering.
They are all about putting a person who robs you of your wallet in jail, but heaven forfend putting a corporation or PAC in "jail" for the equivalent.
For example, I don't think anyone (even the hardcore so-called "anarchists") would be against a regulation that says, "Don't dump radioactive waste into the rivers. Punishment: Life in prison and all of your assets."
But the clean air and clean water acts, both passed by Nixon(R) are what Republicans have been trying to repeal for 30 years.
How about requiring that the destination of the money is in just as bold print at the top of the page as "obama sux"?
You know, informed consent and all that, which is supposedly the basis of a free market. I know what you're selling and you know what I'm giving you in return.
so long as Neusner is just telling people about the site and why it should not be used, he really isn't be inconsistent.
As long as he supports a political platform that embraces absolute "caveat emptor" as a matter of faith, he is being completely inconsistent.
The Republicans constantly rail against consumer information and, well, anything that gives the customer (in this case a donor) even a smidge of informed consent.
"There's another old saying, Senator: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining." - Fletcher "The Oulaw Josey Wales."
"Clearly, it's deceptive and it's wrong and it's hurting good, Republican conservative candidates," Neusner said. He has since asked for a refund, which he said the group is processing.
Yet the disclaimer was right there at the bottom of the page.
I went to NAI's opt out page and tried it. I have Adblock-plus. To get all of them, you have to turn off Adblock-Plus, hit the "all of them" button, and then re-enable. Otherwise, you only get 50-some-odd out of 95.
Slashdot Mirror
>too many furries.
Fixed.
--
BMO
>That's what mathematics isâ"obscure and non-obvious stuff is everywhere.
But it doesn't have to be that way. There needs to be more Vi Harts as Wikipedia article editors than Benoit Mandelbrots with communication difficulties (not saying that people like Mandelbrot or Penrose are lacking in communication, Mandelbrot was, and Penrose is a brilliant writer, but rather there appear to be many WP math editors who are "high in clock cycles, low in I/O").
I swear, the difference between people getting turned on by math or scared away from it is a direct result from who one gets as a teacher in the early grades and WP math articles are examples of the nightmare instructor.
And just because something is factually correct doesn't necessarily mean it is edifying.
--
BMO
Because if you look in all other commercial encyclopedias (encyclopediae?), you get a more english (well, natural language) translation of the concepts of a math article. But not even that, Wikipedia on this subject fails even at the post-secondary textbook level. I don't count myself among the dumbest of the population, but when I go to a Wikipedia page for something that is on my level for math, the articles on things like cycloids and such are much better explained by Machinery's Handbook or any other source, really, than there.
I am not saying that Wikipedia should dumb its articles down to the point where even the most innumerate among us would understand all of them, but the "spam equations on the wall with little explanation" model doesn't work very well unless you are immersed in the subject. For example, concepts covered in Algebra I and II in high school should be written for that level.^1 Also, this "write for the grad-student and mathemetician for everything" model does little to help people who use applied mathematics. Indeed, this whole focus on grad-student and up writing in the math articles is at odds with the rest of the Wikipedia.
As a result, anyone wishing to *learn* anything about math is better off using anything but Wikipedia.
Your response to me that the articles are written by grad students and mathemeticians (not all mathemeticians are jerks, btw) for grad students and mathemeticians reinforces the fact that it certainly seems like a giant circle jerk.
--
BMO
Footnotes:
1. I had to explain to a high school student that she should not be using Wikipedia for help in her Algebra II class. Because all it did was confuse her. I mentioned that Wikipedia math pages are a "dick measuring contest for experts on the subject" and the light went on behind her eyes and she laughed and agreed. There are far better resources and I suggested she ask her teacher for them.
Which makes it even more non-sensical to post it here, on slashdot, a general-interest geek site, where only very few are working mathemeticians or grad students.
A page like this: http://abcathome.com/conjecture.php would have been more apropos. No reaching for the jargon, and an actual mini-tutorial on what an ABC triple is and what the conjecture is.
--
BMO
Don't do it. Ever.
Wikipedia math articles are essentially penis-measurement battles between editors who try to find the most obsucre and non-obvious manner to explain even simple arithmetic. Much like Fox News, Wikipedia math articles are bad for your brain.
--
BMO
Perhaps that if you read Adam Smith and the others that every single economic theory depends on two things:
Enlightened self interest
Equal amounts of information on both sides of demand and supply.
Because if you lack either one, you don't have a free market.
--
BMO
Fine, then move to Somalia.
They have a perfect free market there.
--
BMO
Sure they know full well there will always be first victims. They weigh that against the reality of the government effectively "validating" what is or is not a legitimate PAC or charity.
The fantasy of the free market is pure lessaiz-faire without government at all, but that only worked when you knew everyone and societies were tribes in the jungle with less than 300 people. Because you know for a fact when Timmy caught those 30 bass that he's trying to sell you and that they are his to sell.
We live in a complex society where there are "innovators," to borrow a sociological term, that will exploit the lack of information that would not be tolerated in that 300 person tribe and regulation through government and official standards is the result. Anywhere you see an ineffective government in regards to this you see a hellhole. We need rules so that everyone is on the same page, and that markets are fair along with being as free as possible. Unfair markets are markets where people get tired of being screwed over and eventually say "fuck this" and try to stay out of the market as much as possible. This is what the supposed free-marketers don't get - that in the end, lack of regulation is self-defeating if you want a prosperous market.
They just arenâ(TM)t directly affiliated with the politician whoâ(TM)s picture is on the site.
And that's the problem. If one can't be assured where one's money is going, why donate? Enough of these deceptive PACS and people will simply stop donating even to real PACS. Regulation helps *everyone.*
--
BMO
>largest print on the page should be the legalese?
>dipshit
You can say where the money is going without resorting to legalese.
Go attempt to asexually reproduce.
--
BMO
Over in IRC, one of the denizens of the channel I frequent has neen running a chatbot that snarfs conversation from all over IRC.
It is like Siri, but drunk and insane, and knows all your secrets.
00:18 ? ascaris
00:18 Ascaris lumbricoides, or "roundworm", infections in humans occur when an ingested infective egg releases a riot on facebook
20:57 bmo, what is the survival length of cats in yogurt
20:57 I don't know, I never tried
--
BMO
>explaining to me what a free market is and what it depends on
I'm not stupid.
However, the free market is only free when all parties to a transaction have equal knowledge.
Then why do the Republicans and other purported free marketers dislike regulation that evens out the knowledge? An informed consumer contributes to a free market and helps weed out the bad companies. Why, for all the tea in China, is this fucking bad according to the Paulites, Randroids, and Republicans?
>this isnt' regulations
>criminal law
Criminal law is a kind of regulation.
Should we get rid of all administrative and tort law and deal with these things in a purely criminal manner? That's absurd.
--
BMO
It's only strict if there is enforcement and consequences.
If there are, you'll definitely see fewer of them.
Regulations are *not* useless.
--
BMO
>But are they complaining about it?
Yes, it's called hypocrisy.
It's fine if *you* get fucked over with a credit card contract because of tiny print buried on page 42, but woe be unto the person who deceives a Republican donor. Hell hath no fury.
--
BMO
but you have misunderstood their point of view.
I completely understand their point of view. It is market anarchism requiring social network effects so that there are always "first victims" before word gets around, but there is no recourse for those "first victims who should have known better." A kind of vicious market Calvinism. That somehow the "invisible hand of the free market" by itself solves things is a point of view based in fantasy logic, troll physics, and feline engineering.
They are all about putting a person who robs you of your wallet in jail, but heaven forfend putting a corporation or PAC in "jail" for the equivalent.
--
BMO
For example, I don't think anyone (even the hardcore so-called "anarchists") would be against a regulation that says, "Don't dump radioactive waste into the rivers. Punishment: Life in prison and all of your assets."
But the clean air and clean water acts, both passed by Nixon(R) are what Republicans have been trying to repeal for 30 years.
--
BMO
And regulation would have prevented this how?
How about requiring that the destination of the money is in just as bold print at the top of the page as "obama sux"?
You know, informed consent and all that, which is supposedly the basis of a free market. I know what you're selling and you know what I'm giving you in return.
Only thieves think that's a bad idea.
--
BMO
so long as Neusner is just telling people about the site and why it should not be used, he really isn't be inconsistent.
As long as he supports a political platform that embraces absolute "caveat emptor" as a matter of faith, he is being completely inconsistent.
The Republicans constantly rail against consumer information and, well, anything that gives the customer (in this case a donor) even a smidge of informed consent.
"There's another old saying, Senator: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining." - Fletcher "The Oulaw Josey Wales."
--
BMO
What you don't understand is that the party that rails against regulations is now the victim of fraud.
Which makes the schadenfreude especially sweet.
Why do you hate the free market?
--
BMO
Yet the disclaimer was right there at the bottom of the page.
Why do you hate the free market, Neusner?
--
BMO
>The involvement of government bureaucrats in this process should not be necessary.
>should
You use that word, but we don't live in that fantasy land.
--
BMO
is entirely ignorant of baby monitors and all sorts of other Part 15 devices.
This ruling harmonizes unencrypted WiFi with every other Part 15 device out there.
Kerr is a moron.
--
BMO
"All quotes on the internet are true" -- Andrew Jackson
--
BMO
>(-1 Completely Ignorant)
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." --Bertrand Russell
--
BMO
Just a FYI.
I went to NAI's opt out page and tried it. I have Adblock-plus. To get all of them, you have to turn off Adblock-Plus, hit the "all of them" button, and then re-enable. Otherwise, you only get 50-some-odd out of 95.
--
BMO
http://news.discovery.com/human/uk-government-study-homeopathy-worthless.html
>I don't need to show you anything.
Well, fuck you too.
--
BMO