In theory the Web Crypto API might interact with data encrypted with non-Web Crypto API applications. They may want to preserve compatibility with other APIs.
I was at DefCon this year (for the third straight time). It didn't feel like attendance was 9,000, but that's a really hard number to guess. There are:
- five lecture rooms running at all times (seating, I would estimate, between 1,000 and 3,000 per)
- a couple game rooms (about 150 and 300 in each at any given time)
- a few "villages" (with an average of maybe 150).
- hallways, always people in transit
- the "chillout" area
- the nearby eateries
- hotel rooms, because many people don't attend every minute of the conference
So making a good estimate from personal experience is hard.
9,000 is probably a good guess, though, according to the guy who runs the event. According to DarkTangent in the closing cerimony, there were 8,500 official badge passes sold, with lesser quality badges going to those who showed up after the official badge supply was depleted. All 8,500 badges sold out, and I saw quite a few people wearing the backup plastic badges. So 9,000 seems like a good estimate.
> That's true only if there is a statistically random chance for any girl or boy to take the test. I believe the argument is actually that the test participants are pre-selected such that those more likely to score low don't take it at all, AND that more of the would-have-scored-lower boys didn't take the test skewing the boys average higher than the girls.
I mentioned that. If that is indeed the case, it serves as the underlying assumption for their entire argument. That itself should be the focus of the paper, it shouldn't be some side-note.
There are some disturbing quotes from that article that cast doubt on their conclusion that boys and girls are completely equal in math abilities:
>> Among students with the highest test scores, the team did find that white boys outnumbered white girls by about two to one. Among Asians, however, that result was nearly reversed.
They're reaching cross-culture and cross-ethnicity to find data pairs that cancel each other out. Statistically, I raise a wary eyebrow. But that's nothing compared to:
>> Another portion of the study did confirm that boys still tend to outscore girls on the mathematics section of the SAT test taken by 1.5 million students interested in attending college. In 2007, for instance, boys' scores were about 7% higher on average than girls'. But Hyde's team argues that the gap is a statistical illusion, created by the fact that more girls take the test. "You're dipping farther down into the distribution of female talent, which brings down the score," Hyde says. It's not clear that statisticians at the College Board, which produces the SAT, will agree with that explanation.
If girls have an average score, then no matter how many of them take the test that average should remain the same. That's what *average* means practically by definition. If you keep adding values from a population sample to an average, if that sample is well-chosen, those samples will consistently fall along a certain distribution and continue to do their job to hold the average where it should be.
If you have the scores 5, 10, 10, and 15, does doubling the population sample to get *another* set of scores of 5, 10, 10, and 15 change the average? Of course not.
And yes, 7% IS a statistically noticeable deviation. From a population sample that large, a deviation of 7% is significant.
I think the only way for their argument to hold would be to argue that there are many would-be low-scoring boys who fail to take the test. But that itself should be the subject of study, not just a side observation.
Not only are they wrong, but the College Board practically told them they were. They collected data, performed flawed analysis, and then ignored the fact that the people who administer the bloody test disagree with their results.
Regarding the program caching point, a more effective solution would be to just add a statistic for how much RAM is actively in use, and how much is used by the cache, like how unix(-like) systems do it.
I have my own request of Microsoft to add: Advanced user options. So many minor tweaks in the form of extra options would make Windows more tolerable, but I bet Microsoft doesn't provide them because they're afraid the options will confuse their users. Giving user the choice to enter "advanced mode" or even just to activate an "advanced options" option somewhere would make life much easier for those of us used to being able to customize and tweak real operating systems.
My position (as an undergraduate math major) has always been simple:
The laws of the universe are governed by mathematics. In physics, F=MA regardless of what I wished F equaled. In pure math, d(5)/dx = 0 regardless of what I wished the slope of 5 were with regard to x. Math exists, indeed, it *is* the study of pure logic with an extension into the world of computation. Math can no more be invented than you can choose yourself to be born. It is, and why it is how it is is beyond us.
At the heart of this discussion, I believe, lies a misconception about what math is. There is a difference between math and our representation of math. We make up all of our math symbols, but math is not symbols. We make up our number system, but math is not numbers. We make up all of our vocabulary, but math is not vocabulary. We discover inefficient ways of doing things before we discover more efficient ways of doing things, but math is itself not efficiency.
And -- this is the one that trips most people up, especially amongst the replies I'm seeing in this thread -- we make up representations and models for the universe and concepts in the universe, but mathematics is not a representation or a model of the universe. It is what allows us to create/make-up a representation or model of the universe. Most people, I believe, err in recognizing the distinction here. They argue that models are not absolute and mere representations. They are correct, but see a limited picture.
Math is an existence, not a process or a tool. Math is logic. The absence of an absolute mathematics is the absence of logic.
Yes, this does require the fact that there exists something beyond our physical world. But to any mathematician, this is not a hard concept to grasp. Many do not think of it as an inconvenience, but as a requirement.
Without making personal attacks, I would like to point out that the majority of people who claim mathematics is "invented" are themselves not mathematicians -- and I do not count amature hobbyists as mathematicians. It strikes me as the naive and/or ego-centric viewpoint, these people either cannot see that there exists something greater than themselves, or they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the fact that they study something greater and more fundamental to the universe than they can even understand, let alone that they are themselves.
Now, on the speculative side, here's some flame-bait: I believe that an understanding of math is, in part, dictated by how one is born. It is so abstract that hopes of communicating it to someone without that understanding or changing another's view of math is close to impossible. One is either born understanding it or one is not. If one is not, age and time may help them understand the inherent existence of math better, but they cannot be persuaded by anyone else.
Has it occured to anyone that Apple and Linux are aimed at two VERY, VERY different audiences?
Look at who uses Apples, and look at who uses Linux. I have yet to see the two user groups meet.
Thanx goodness someone else here can see this flaw.... It's a great tech toy for now, but we sure aren't going to hiding army's or starships with it half as soon as some think....
Slashdot Mirror
In theory the Web Crypto API might interact with data encrypted with non-Web Crypto API applications. They may want to preserve compatibility with other APIs.
I was at DefCon this year (for the third straight time). It didn't feel like attendance was 9,000, but that's a really hard number to guess. There are:
- five lecture rooms running at all times (seating, I would estimate, between 1,000 and 3,000 per)
- a couple game rooms (about 150 and 300 in each at any given time)
- a few "villages" (with an average of maybe 150).
- hallways, always people in transit
- the "chillout" area
- the nearby eateries - hotel rooms, because many people don't attend every minute of the conference
So making a good estimate from personal experience is hard.
9,000 is probably a good guess, though, according to the guy who runs the event. According to DarkTangent in the closing cerimony, there were 8,500 official badge passes sold, with lesser quality badges going to those who showed up after the official badge supply was depleted. All 8,500 badges sold out, and I saw quite a few people wearing the backup plastic badges. So 9,000 seems like a good estimate.
> That's true only if there is a statistically random chance for any girl or boy to take the test. I believe the argument is actually that the test participants are pre-selected such that those more likely to score low don't take it at all, AND that more of the would-have-scored-lower boys didn't take the test skewing the boys average higher than the girls.
I mentioned that. If that is indeed the case, it serves as the underlying assumption for their entire argument. That itself should be the focus of the paper, it shouldn't be some side-note.
There are some disturbing quotes from that article that cast doubt on their conclusion that boys and girls are completely equal in math abilities:
>> Among students with the highest test scores, the team did find that white boys outnumbered white girls by about two to one. Among Asians, however, that result was nearly reversed.
They're reaching cross-culture and cross-ethnicity to find data pairs that cancel each other out. Statistically, I raise a wary eyebrow. But that's nothing compared to:
>> Another portion of the study did confirm that boys still tend to outscore girls on the mathematics section of the SAT test taken by 1.5 million students interested in attending college. In 2007, for instance, boys' scores were about 7% higher on average than girls'. But Hyde's team argues that the gap is a statistical illusion, created by the fact that more girls take the test. "You're dipping farther down into the distribution of female talent, which brings down the score," Hyde says. It's not clear that statisticians at the College Board, which produces the SAT, will agree with that explanation.
If girls have an average score, then no matter how many of them take the test that average should remain the same. That's what *average* means practically by definition. If you keep adding values from a population sample to an average, if that sample is well-chosen, those samples will consistently fall along a certain distribution and continue to do their job to hold the average where it should be.
If you have the scores 5, 10, 10, and 15, does doubling the population sample to get *another* set of scores of 5, 10, 10, and 15 change the average? Of course not.
And yes, 7% IS a statistically noticeable deviation. From a population sample that large, a deviation of 7% is significant.
I think the only way for their argument to hold would be to argue that there are many would-be low-scoring boys who fail to take the test. But that itself should be the subject of study, not just a side observation.
Not only are they wrong, but the College Board practically told them they were. They collected data, performed flawed analysis, and then ignored the fact that the people who administer the bloody test disagree with their results.
Regarding the program caching point, a more effective solution would be to just add a statistic for how much RAM is actively in use, and how much is used by the cache, like how unix(-like) systems do it.
I have my own request of Microsoft to add: Advanced user options. So many minor tweaks in the form of extra options would make Windows more tolerable, but I bet Microsoft doesn't provide them because they're afraid the options will confuse their users. Giving user the choice to enter "advanced mode" or even just to activate an "advanced options" option somewhere would make life much easier for those of us used to being able to customize and tweak real operating systems.
My position (as an undergraduate math major) has always been simple:
The laws of the universe are governed by mathematics. In physics, F=MA regardless of what I wished F equaled. In pure math, d(5)/dx = 0 regardless of what I wished the slope of 5 were with regard to x. Math exists, indeed, it *is* the study of pure logic with an extension into the world of computation. Math can no more be invented than you can choose yourself to be born. It is, and why it is how it is is beyond us.
At the heart of this discussion, I believe, lies a misconception about what math is. There is a difference between math and our representation of math. We make up all of our math symbols, but math is not symbols. We make up our number system, but math is not numbers. We make up all of our vocabulary, but math is not vocabulary. We discover inefficient ways of doing things before we discover more efficient ways of doing things, but math is itself not efficiency.
And -- this is the one that trips most people up, especially amongst the replies I'm seeing in this thread -- we make up representations and models for the universe and concepts in the universe, but mathematics is not a representation or a model of the universe. It is what allows us to create/make-up a representation or model of the universe. Most people, I believe, err in recognizing the distinction here. They argue that models are not absolute and mere representations. They are correct, but see a limited picture.
Math is an existence, not a process or a tool. Math is logic. The absence of an absolute mathematics is the absence of logic.
Yes, this does require the fact that there exists something beyond our physical world. But to any mathematician, this is not a hard concept to grasp. Many do not think of it as an inconvenience, but as a requirement.
Without making personal attacks, I would like to point out that the majority of people who claim mathematics is "invented" are themselves not mathematicians -- and I do not count amature hobbyists as mathematicians. It strikes me as the naive and/or ego-centric viewpoint, these people either cannot see that there exists something greater than themselves, or they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the fact that they study something greater and more fundamental to the universe than they can even understand, let alone that they are themselves.
Now, on the speculative side, here's some flame-bait: I believe that an understanding of math is, in part, dictated by how one is born. It is so abstract that hopes of communicating it to someone without that understanding or changing another's view of math is close to impossible. One is either born understanding it or one is not. If one is not, age and time may help them understand the inherent existence of math better, but they cannot be persuaded by anyone else.
Has it occured to anyone that Apple and Linux are aimed at two VERY, VERY different audiences? Look at who uses Apples, and look at who uses Linux. I have yet to see the two user groups meet.
Thanx goodness someone else here can see this flaw.... It's a great tech toy for now, but we sure aren't going to hiding army's or starships with it half as soon as some think....