While I think you are correct that VPs are chosen to swing elections, I doubt they have ever swung an election. Their best use is as a bird dog. Want to find out if something will fly, sent in the VP with a speech. If it bombs, the VP takes it in the neck and you can move on to the next issue your pollsters say you believe this week. If it does fly, then you quickly take the credit by giving a speech putting your VP's speech "in context" and claiming victory with honor...errr..or whatever passes for political leadership these days.
"Also, the market determines the merit of everything!".
That's silly, the market determines the value of everything...as long as we are talking about fiat money. And the market misses many things, or at least there's such a time lag that it can be considered to miss, e.g., pollution, fish in the sea, etc.
How about Einstein's physics, how does the market determine the merit of that? Quantum mechanics? Hell, at the time they were developed, the market would even have valued those as worthless, much less been able to determine any merit.
Your viewpoint should be more widespread, many people misunderstand capitalism as anarchy. No modern economy can run without sufficient laws to govern the powerful as well as the weak. M$'s problem is that they are spoiled brats who have been allowed to get away with too much for years because the laws are either not enforced or not complete enough.
A prime example is M$'s use of OEM agreements which are built just to freeze out competition. Those kind of agreements are antithetical to capitalism which requires free and equal access to markets.
Can we all please have some of what you are smoking? MS has never played nice with anyone, ever. Their reason for acting so open-sourcey now is because they've failed to beat FOSS head on. Now they figure they will corrupt FOSS from the inside. Be nice to those criminals? Never!
That's not really a good way to view math. Where does the game plan for a proof come from? It is not hiding in the premises of a theorem for you to merely pull out and make explicit. Math is a science but maybe not like unto any other.
Not quite: Curry-Howard posits a (iso)morphism between proofs in Intuitionistic Logic and closed terms (i.e., well-typed as in type theory) terms of the lambda calculus. It says nothing about computer programs.
Many computer programs have no ending (like an OS), proofs always end and typed lambda terms always yield an answer (they never loop).
The untyped lambda calculus does allow for never-ending loops (Y combinator). And there are (fixpoint) logics for such a calculi.
Your general point can be made to hold if we take it as writ that every computer program can be modeled using some sort of mathematical formalism. This however must avoid the slippery slope of just about any patentable device can be modeled mathematically. That is the crux of the argument. Where is the dividing line between mathematical method and patentable device, or put another way, how do we take Bezo's One-Click Patent and shove it down his throat.
No, it is a reflection that were one of these idiots to become president and a terrorist attack occurs that could have been prevented if only fisa "protections" were in place, their opposition in 2012 will use it to deny them their place in history...for the good of America.
"He thinks Microsoft is offering a great deal to Yahoo's shareholders,..."
There is no basis of fact for this statement. Right now, it isn't clear (given the discussion) whether it is best for Yahoo's shareholders or for Carl Icahn.
My own belief is that Icahn is only interested in Icahn. He's not a young man. He thinks short term, but he's certainly not the only one and sometimes it makes sense to think short term. I do not believe this is one of those times. A good management could make Yahoo again a rising force. I'm not convinced Yang is that management. However, I do not believe Microsoft is that management either. Icahn certainly is not.
(in my opinion again) let's consider what Icahn actually is. Is he a technophobe? I see no evidence. His track record is basically acting like a vulture. He sees companies he thinks are undervalued, for whatever reason even if he does not understand the reason, calculates what chance he has of selling the company to an entity who will give him a decent return were he to buy enough stake in the company to make that happen, and then decides what to do. Is this the man who has the best interest in Yahoo, their shareholders , and last but apparently least here, their employees? I think not.
M$ Pimp Bureaucrat: Ye must use an ISO standard for documents.
M$ Business School Product: We have an M$OOXML implementing thingy that produces docs and M$OOXML is an ISO standard.
M$ PB: (checking bank account) I see here that you have not yet implemented yon standard.
M$ MSB: Check your bank account again, you'll find we have indeedy implemented something like what you are suggesting.
M$ PB: (checking bank account again) Why yes, I see it says right here that you have implemented the moral equivalent of yon standard and we declare it to be passed in virtual spirit if not in actual reality.
Bullshit, when manufacturers routinely ship OS-free boxes and people have to buy their OS or download it separately, then we'll see whether Linux supplants Windows. Even then, there would be the headwind of years of forced MS conventions simply because they've not allowed any other.
Ancillary to these notions, is the distinction between correlation and model. To derive a correlation is not to derive a model. There is no theory behind a mere correlation whereas a model fits or realizes a particular theory. We consider the theory (think "theory of operation") as the information, or better, "the information that". One way to think of the definition between information and data is that data, no matter what internal correlations it has, is not connected with any relationship such as a theory would provide. When one has the connection of data to a relationship in a theory, one has "the information that". A model is an idealized version of "the information that".
Knowledge is a relationship between information and an individual, something the users of "knowledge workers" *cough*..Bill Gates...*cough* consistently misinterpret.
Another way to see how Googling does not derive models is to think of what people mean when they say, "I see it but I cannot interpret it". "Interpretation" means "connection" in the sense of connecting data with information.
Wow, I guess we should simply take your word for it, right, given the strength of the evidence you've given. Could you please give it again so we can save it for future reference?
How about we let everyone test and approve which drugs they can take. Any drug company can put out there anything they like, no FDA for them and we'll all live free and happy.
How about no NTSA and the FAA? We'll let everyone ignore the airlines that kill too many of their customers.
No need for OSHA either, everyone can decide to stay away from companies that are dangerous to their workers' health.
Let there be no SEC because those nice capitalists on Wall Street will happily treat everyone with equality and fairness.
And no more of these state department of motor vehicles. If 5 year olds want to drive, they should be allowed. While we're at it, let's get rid of those pesky state agencies who guarantee the octane rating on gasoline sold in their states. No one will buy gas from companies that scrimp on the octane and there'll be octane testing kits available (to buy) for anyone who doesn't trust them.
Let there be no FDIC, if people want to put their money in Fly-By-Night Banking Thing, they should be allowed to lose everything they put in there, serves them right for making the wrong decisions.
Hear, hear! Basic research is just that, basic and almost impossible to draw a straight from that to some widget the proles can enjoy. Should we fund Mathematics? Gee, I don't know, most modern industry is using the results of investment in Math. How about Logic? Ever hear of computers? Quantum theory? Maybe them chips were built by elves following plans supplied by the Spaghetti Monster.
You are making too big of mountain out of changing the coding language. The fact is they replaced a rather large blob of crud with something small that worked much better. It matters little what language it was done in except that if it is a obscure language (which Java isn't), it would be bitch to maintain simply because people move on.
Errr...just my guess but Obama and McCain didn't vote because this was a House vote and they being senators, decided it didn't involve them? Shame on them....
The term for MBA graduates is Business School Product. They are taught business principles that should apply everywhere since they don't produce them for particular industries or companies. The problem is that a business is intimately tied to what they produce, so MBA programs are more or less built on a totally ignorant view of business.
You mean the state of Israel that grew despite the animosity of most of Europe, most of USSR, most Muslim countries, and officially the U.S. (go look at what Truman thought of the Jews). There was no misplaced guilt, the Europeans after WWII were in no condition to feel guilt having more pressing concerns with food, water, shelter, etc. The rest of the world knew no guilt for the Jews.
"nvestment banks, retirement funds, etc", yes, and these are the very same institutions and funds that are neck deep in risky mortgages. They simply view Yahoo as a way to cover their bad loans. They figured it was easy money with M$ on the prowl for anything short of innovation to compete against Google. Yahoo's customers, employees, management are merely cannon fodder.
Slashdot Mirror
While I think you are correct that VPs are chosen to swing elections, I doubt they have ever swung an election. Their best use is as a bird dog. Want to find out if something will fly, sent in the VP with a speech. If it bombs, the VP takes it in the neck and you can move on to the next issue your pollsters say you believe this week. If it does fly, then you quickly take the credit by giving a speech putting your VP's speech "in context" and claiming victory with honor...errr..or whatever passes for political leadership these days.
Gerry
"Also, the market determines the merit of everything!".
That's silly, the market determines the value of everything...as long as we are talking about fiat money. And the market misses many things, or at least there's such a time lag that it can be considered to miss, e.g., pollution, fish in the sea, etc.
How about Einstein's physics, how does the market determine the merit of that? Quantum mechanics? Hell, at the time they were developed, the market would even have valued those as worthless, much less been able to determine any merit.
Gerry
Your viewpoint should be more widespread, many people misunderstand capitalism as anarchy. No modern economy can run without sufficient laws to govern the powerful as well as the weak. M$'s problem is that they are spoiled brats who have been allowed to get away with too much for years because the laws are either not enforced or not complete enough.
A prime example is M$'s use of OEM agreements which are built just to freeze out competition. Those kind of agreements are antithetical to capitalism which requires free and equal access to markets.
Gerry
Can we all please have some of what you are smoking? MS has never played nice with anyone, ever. Their reason for acting so open-sourcey now is because they've failed to beat FOSS head on. Now they figure they will corrupt FOSS from the inside. Be nice to those criminals? Never!
Gerry
You forget that government have to put up with the most obnoxious, demanding, self-absorbed people around...us.
Gerry
Don't forget Kennedy, they covered up that too.
Gerry
That's not really a good way to view math. Where does the game plan for a proof come from? It is not hiding in the premises of a theorem for you to merely pull out and make explicit. Math is a science but maybe not like unto any other.
Gerry
Turing machines assume an infinite tape. So when you build one, please get back to us.
Gerry
Not quite: Curry-Howard posits a (iso)morphism between proofs in Intuitionistic Logic and closed terms (i.e., well-typed as in type theory) terms of the lambda calculus. It says nothing about computer programs.
Many computer programs have no ending (like an OS), proofs always end and typed lambda terms always yield an answer (they never loop).
The untyped lambda calculus does allow for never-ending loops (Y combinator). And there are (fixpoint) logics for such a calculi.
Your general point can be made to hold if we take it as writ that every computer program can be modeled using some sort of mathematical formalism. This however must avoid the slippery slope of just about any patentable device can be modeled mathematically. That is the crux of the argument. Where is the dividing line between mathematical method and patentable device, or put another way, how do we take Bezo's One-Click Patent and shove it down his throat.
Gerry
No, it is a reflection that were one of these idiots to become president and a terrorist attack occurs that could have been prevented if only fisa "protections" were in place, their opposition in 2012 will use it to deny them their place in history...for the good of America.
Gerry
"He thinks Microsoft is offering a great deal to Yahoo's shareholders,..."
There is no basis of fact for this statement. Right now, it isn't clear (given the discussion) whether it is best for Yahoo's shareholders or for Carl Icahn.
My own belief is that Icahn is only interested in Icahn. He's not a young man. He thinks short term, but he's certainly not the only one and sometimes it makes sense to think short term. I do not believe this is one of those times. A good management could make Yahoo again a rising force. I'm not convinced Yang is that management. However, I do not believe Microsoft is that management either. Icahn certainly is not.
(in my opinion again) let's consider what Icahn actually is. Is he a technophobe? I see no evidence. His track record is basically acting like a vulture. He sees companies he thinks are undervalued, for whatever reason even if he does not understand the reason, calculates what chance he has of selling the company to an entity who will give him a decent return were he to buy enough stake in the company to make that happen, and then decides what to do. Is this the man who has the best interest in Yahoo, their shareholders , and last but apparently least here, their employees? I think not.
Gerry
That and it would be embarrassing to have to return any "items" which M$ entrusted to their perpetual care.
Gerry
I think the whole ISO thing is irrelevant:
M$ Pimp Bureaucrat: Ye must use an ISO standard for documents.
M$ Business School Product: We have an M$OOXML implementing thingy that produces docs and M$OOXML is an ISO standard.
M$ PB: (checking bank account) I see here that you have not yet implemented yon standard.
M$ MSB: Check your bank account again, you'll find we have indeedy implemented something like what you are suggesting.
M$ PB: (checking bank account again) Why yes, I see it says right here that you have implemented the moral equivalent of yon standard and we declare it to be passed in virtual spirit if not in actual reality.
Gerry
Bullshit, when manufacturers routinely ship OS-free boxes and people have to buy their OS or download it separately, then we'll see whether Linux supplants Windows. Even then, there would be the headwind of years of forced MS conventions simply because they've not allowed any other.
Gerry
Ummm....this your post really just a document in the M$ format and we get to parse it just as long as we don't do it commercially?
Gerry
Ancillary to these notions, is the distinction between correlation and model. To derive a correlation is not to derive a model. There is no theory behind a mere correlation whereas a model fits or realizes a particular theory. We consider the theory (think "theory of operation") as the information, or better, "the information that". One way to think of the definition between information and data is that data, no matter what internal correlations it has, is not connected with any relationship such as a theory would provide. When one has the connection of data to a relationship in a theory, one has "the information that". A model is an idealized version of "the information that".
Knowledge is a relationship between information and an individual, something the users of "knowledge workers" *cough*..Bill Gates...*cough* consistently misinterpret.
Another way to see how Googling does not derive models is to think of what people mean when they say, "I see it but I cannot interpret it". "Interpretation" means "connection" in the sense of connecting data with information.
Gerry
Wow, I guess we should simply take your word for it, right, given the strength of the evidence you've given. Could you please give it again so we can save it for future reference?
Gerry
How about we let everyone test and approve which drugs they can take. Any drug company can put out there anything they like, no FDA for them and we'll all live free and happy.
How about no NTSA and the FAA? We'll let everyone ignore the airlines that kill too many of their customers.
No need for OSHA either, everyone can decide to stay away from companies that are dangerous to their workers' health.
Let there be no SEC because those nice capitalists on Wall Street will happily treat everyone with equality and fairness.
And no more of these state department of motor vehicles. If 5 year olds want to drive, they should be allowed. While we're at it, let's get rid of those pesky state agencies who guarantee the octane rating on gasoline sold in their states. No one will buy gas from companies that scrimp on the octane and there'll be octane testing kits available (to buy) for anyone who doesn't trust them.
Let there be no FDIC, if people want to put their money in Fly-By-Night Banking Thing, they should be allowed to lose everything they put in there, serves them right for making the wrong decisions.
Gerry
Hear, hear! Basic research is just that, basic and almost impossible to draw a straight from that to some widget the proles can enjoy. Should we fund Mathematics? Gee, I don't know, most modern industry is using the results of investment in Math. How about Logic? Ever hear of computers? Quantum theory? Maybe them chips were built by elves following plans supplied by the Spaghetti Monster.
Gerry
You are making too big of mountain out of changing the coding language. The fact is they replaced a rather large blob of crud with something small that worked much better. It matters little what language it was done in except that if it is a obscure language (which Java isn't), it would be bitch to maintain simply because people move on.
Gerry
No but it will prevent variations such as this on the fucking joke that is Ballmer from being repeated ad nauseum.
Gerry
Errr...just my guess but Obama and McCain didn't vote because this was a House vote and they being senators, decided it didn't involve them? Shame on them....
Gerry
The term for MBA graduates is Business School Product. They are taught business principles that should apply everywhere since they don't produce them for particular industries or companies. The problem is that a business is intimately tied to what they produce, so MBA programs are more or less built on a totally ignorant view of business.
Gerry
You mean the state of Israel that grew despite the animosity of most of Europe, most of USSR, most Muslim countries, and officially the U.S. (go look at what Truman thought of the Jews). There was no misplaced guilt, the Europeans after WWII were in no condition to feel guilt having more pressing concerns with food, water, shelter, etc. The rest of the world knew no guilt for the Jews.
Gerry
"nvestment banks, retirement funds, etc", yes, and these are the very same institutions and funds that are neck deep in risky mortgages. They simply view Yahoo as a way to cover their bad loans. They figured it was easy money with M$ on the prowl for anything short of innovation to compete against Google. Yahoo's customers, employees, management are merely cannon fodder.
Gerry