This would be an interesting explanation of the economic success of Switzerland if it didn't contradict the facts such as: 1. Switzerland is *not* sourrounded by EFTA members (in fact, Switzerland is sorrounded exclusively by countries that are not members of EFTA) and 2. Switzerland *is* one of the four members of EFTA. Actually EFTA was established as an alternative to the EEC which since then has become the EU. See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Association.
Also, Switzerland, although not a member of the EU, has strong ties to the EU. For example, it is a member of the Schengen area, thus there are no border controls between Switzerland and neighboring (EU-member) countries. While proposals to formally join the EU have been rejected by Swiss voters, most of EU law has been adopted by Switzerland through bilateral treaties, thus Switzerland behaves like an EEA member for most practical purposes.
I think you will have to look for other reasons to explain the outstanding performance of the Swiss economy. By the way, the GDP per capita (PPP) of Switzerland is $44,864 according to the IMF. Countries with GDP per capita (PPP) over $40,000 include Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden, all EU members. So it doesn't seem to be the case that "the GDP there is double anywhere else in the rest of Europe". (Actually Norway, a non-EU EEA member, has higher GDP per capita than Switzerland.)
Yes, yes, yes, all the things that happened here are so incredibly unlikely to happen... but then again, the universe is incredibly large and here the law of the large number fits perfectly: NO matter how insignificantly unlikely something is, if there is ONE case where it is true and your sample size is (nearly) infinitely large, the chance to find another case is 1.
This is not what the law of large numbers states. I find it interesting that people cite the law of large numbers so often without knowing exactly what this theorem in probability theory is about.
There are actually two versions of the law of large numbers, a weak and a strong one. Both state that if you have a(n infinite) sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables with finite expected value, then the (X1+X1+...Xn)/n sample average converges to the expected value. The difference is that according to the weak version the convergence is in probability, whereas the strong law states almost sure convergence.
I do not see how this theorem can be applied to the case you describe. You could argue that we could assign Bernoulli random variables to planets: 1 if they have a moon they don't "deserve" (or if they are inhabitable etc.) and 0 id they don't. But obviously these are not independent and not identically distributed random variables, so the LLN cannot be applied.
I think your analogy is inappropriate. We have developed past the slavery, monarchies, etc. You're living in a democratic country, however wrong the laws or the policies of the government you consider. Just imagine what would happen if everybody unsatisfied with the current laws started their own "revolution", bringing your country into chaos.
I'm from Hungary (sorry for my English), and here some far-right groups tried to make a "revolution" and a "real political transformation" last year - of course they failed pathetically. Nevertheless, it would be terrible if everybody broke the laws they found unjust.
Well, I suppose if the data is really important, one should not rely on only one medium.
I do not have very important documents, but the documents which I don't want to lose are 1. stored on my HDD of course, 2. backed up to multiple CDs and DVDs, 3. stored on my friend's server (in which RAID-5 is used).
Unfortunately most of the computer users don't do regular backups, and when their HDD dies or they get a virus or what you have, then their work is lost. Users should simply care more about their documents.
It would be extremely important to use coding standards which make wrong code look wrong. Not only that it would be more difficult to inject malicious code, but if somebody made mistakes, it would be really easy to discover it.
Joel has a great article on this.
Slackware is the oldest maintained distribution, Slackware 1.000 was released on July 16, 1993.
The first Linux distro was MCC , which was made available to the public for download on the ftp server of University of Manchester in February, 1992, and the second was SLS (founded in mid-1992). Pat decided to modify SLS. He called the finished work Slackware. That's it.
What about using an algorythm to generate passwords for different sites?
For example, I could take the name of the site (eg. Slashdot), write any specific word after it, so I'd get for example Slasdhotasdfg, then md5 it. My password would be c03d483f205d67c7f8d5a509d55c50f7.
Seems pretty secure, doesn't it?
Slashdot Mirror
This would be an interesting explanation of the economic success of Switzerland if it didn't contradict the facts such as: 1. Switzerland is *not* sourrounded by EFTA members (in fact, Switzerland is sorrounded exclusively by countries that are not members of EFTA) and 2. Switzerland *is* one of the four members of EFTA. Actually EFTA was established as an alternative to the EEC which since then has become the EU. See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Association.
Also, Switzerland, although not a member of the EU, has strong ties to the EU. For example, it is a member of the Schengen area, thus there are no border controls between Switzerland and neighboring (EU-member) countries. While proposals to formally join the EU have been rejected by Swiss voters, most of EU law has been adopted by Switzerland through bilateral treaties, thus Switzerland behaves like an EEA member for most practical purposes.
I think you will have to look for other reasons to explain the outstanding performance of the Swiss economy. By the way, the GDP per capita (PPP) of Switzerland is $44,864 according to the IMF. Countries with GDP per capita (PPP) over $40,000 include Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden, all EU members. So it doesn't seem to be the case that "the GDP there is double anywhere else in the rest of Europe". (Actually Norway, a non-EU EEA member, has higher GDP per capita than Switzerland.)
Yes, yes, yes, all the things that happened here are so incredibly unlikely to happen... but then again, the universe is incredibly large and here the law of the large number fits perfectly: NO matter how insignificantly unlikely something is, if there is ONE case where it is true and your sample size is (nearly) infinitely large, the chance to find another case is 1.
This is not what the law of large numbers states. I find it interesting that people cite the law of large numbers so often without knowing exactly what this theorem in probability theory is about.
There are actually two versions of the law of large numbers, a weak and a strong one. Both state that if you have a(n infinite) sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables with finite expected value, then the (X1+X1+...Xn)/n sample average converges to the expected value. The difference is that according to the weak version the convergence is in probability, whereas the strong law states almost sure convergence.
I do not see how this theorem can be applied to the case you describe. You could argue that we could assign Bernoulli random variables to planets: 1 if they have a moon they don't "deserve" (or if they are inhabitable etc.) and 0 id they don't. But obviously these are not independent and not identically distributed random variables, so the LLN cannot be applied.
For more explanation, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers
http://xkcd.com/552/
You guys are so geographically challenged, I cannot believe it!
Swiss is a country, located between France, Italy and Germany, where chicks are definitely not hot (unless you are into Big Berthas).
(emphasis mine) Let me guess: do you live in American or English, Mr. Geography Expert?
I think your analogy is inappropriate. We have developed past the slavery, monarchies, etc. You're living in a democratic country, however wrong the laws or the policies of the government you consider. Just imagine what would happen if everybody unsatisfied with the current laws started their own "revolution", bringing your country into chaos.
I'm from Hungary (sorry for my English), and here some far-right groups tried to make a "revolution" and a "real political transformation" last year - of course they failed pathetically. Nevertheless, it would be terrible if everybody broke the laws they found unjust.
Well, I suppose if the data is really important, one should not rely on only one medium.
I do not have very important documents, but the documents which I don't want to lose are 1. stored on my HDD of course, 2. backed up to multiple CDs and DVDs, 3. stored on my friend's server (in which RAID-5 is used).
Unfortunately most of the computer users don't do regular backups, and when their HDD dies or they get a virus or what you have, then their work is lost. Users should simply care more about their documents.
I don't think that it is such a good idea to back up important data to CD/DVD/Blu-Ray. HDDs are much more reliable imho.
Ever heard of GNUstep?
And bananas are 50% genetically identical to humans. Really.
Really? I use bash as my shell on my FreeBSD box, and I compile programs with gcc. Then maybe I should call it GNU/FreeBSD?
No. Mac OS X is based on BSD (mainly FreeBSD). It has nothing to do with RMS.
Apple is a hardware vendor. Apple only makes OS X because it makes easier to sell Apple hardware.
As I recall, the color iPod wasn't more expensive than its black-and-white precedessor.
At least, we know that it hasn't died in the last 4 months.
It would be extremely important to use coding standards which make wrong code look wrong. Not only that it would be more difficult to inject malicious code, but if somebody made mistakes, it would be really easy to discover it.
Joel has a great article on this.
Slackware is the oldest maintained distribution, Slackware 1.000 was released on July 16, 1993. The first Linux distro was MCC , which was made available to the public for download on the ftp server of University of Manchester in February, 1992, and the second was SLS (founded in mid-1992). Pat decided to modify SLS. He called the finished work Slackware. That's it.
What about using an algorythm to generate passwords for different sites? For example, I could take the name of the site (eg. Slashdot), write any specific word after it, so I'd get for example Slasdhotasdfg, then md5 it. My password would be c03d483f205d67c7f8d5a509d55c50f7. Seems pretty secure, doesn't it?