Yeah, but they will probably wait for a price-drop (which will happen when Sony realizes that nobody is buying them, and then they've already lost). And really, when people whose very profession is the study of games simply refuse to go out and get one, you are in deep shit. I've heard a few people on the Gamespot podcast who've said the same thing, even though for them its a tax write-off! I mean, come on!
Ahh, man, you didn't mod me up for that? Crap.;) You are obviously right, it's very possible that the Wii will rule, atleast alot more probable than the PS3. If I were to put money on it, I'd still bet 360 (remember that both the original Xbox and PS2 was more popular than the Gamecube, even though it was cheaper). It could go either way though.
...but it will sure as hell not do very well. When seriously hardcore gamers, like the Penny Arcade guys, says that no way will they buy it at launch, you have a problem. Sure, the initial batch of consoles will sell out, they always do, but there is no way it can threaten the 360 in dominance. The Xboxs online stuff alone will probably make it more popular (and yes, I know Sony is launching its own thing (PS HUB, is it? or have they changed it?) but I doubt that it will be as good as Micrsofts).
True, the Playstation brand has some cachet in Japan, and even some in the states and Europe. But weighing that against $600 (and even more in Europe) will ensure it a perpetual second or third place in the rankings. I guarantee it.
Aside from what everyone else says, I think you are misrepresenting the target audience of these ads. They're not for the grandmas and grandpas, or anyone else that is daunted by computers. They are very specifically targeted to the 20-35 fairly rich male, someone that isn't perhaps to techy but still are very used to computers. They own iPods, they have slick cell-phones, they might own a TV-console or two. They wouldn't have any problem plugging in the cables. What they would have a problem doing though is installing things like drivers and the like. That they hate. And that is what apple is getting at with these ads, you just have start it up and its done. This is disingenous because the same thing is true for a windows-box, just install it and your done.
Exactly. Disregarding everything we know about Microsoft and the open source community, as pure apps, which one is better? It's Office 2007, easy. That's all I'm saying.
How is this relevant in any way? My point was this, when selecting an office suite for corporate or personal use, which one is superior, MS Office or OpenOffice? Right now the answer is easily MS Office.
And if you're going to rag on MS Office GUI, lets not forget that much of the OpenOffices design is clearly inspired by the MS products. They have always made the best office products.
I'm all for MS bashing, but when it comes to Office suites, they do a very good job. A very good job indeed.
Oh, yeah, the geek "Who cares about design?" defence. The fact is, design matters, it matters alot. Design makes you more productive, it makes you understand how the program works, it makes the program appealing. Have you actually used Office 2007? If you have windows, try it, I'm telling you it's really cool. It makes all the features obvious, it makes it clear what results each option does. And you can't complain about the function of MS Word, it can do pretty much everything that you ever need to do. The only exception, I guess, is PDF-exporting.
These kind of comments are pretty silly, ever heard of sour grapes? Use OpenOffice for a while. Then switch to Office 2007. I can guarantee that you will have a more pleasurable experience with it.
I used to use exclusively OpenOffice and I think it is great, but there is one thing that stands in the way of it being wildly used: design. For all it's greatness, it doesn't look very good at all, infact, it's kinda ugly. Meanwhile, I just downloaded Office 2007 which looks, and feels, amazing. Say what you will about Microsoft, but they sure as hell nailed it with Office 2007. Not only does it look great, but their revamp of the toolbar system (the ribbon) is fantastic. Very slick. Right now, I do everything with it.
OpenOffice needs like 10 professional designers to really hunker down and figure out a way to make it look better. That's easily the number one complaint I hear from people when I try to convince them of using OpenOffice.
I think Slate got it right when it comes to these ads. They're kinda funny, but really mean-spirited. They're "Haha...you suck!!"-ads that don't appeal to me. That, and the fact that they kinda make me happy that I'm running windows (not right now, right now it's Fedora all the way, I double-boot) instead of apple. It makes the PC look productive and serious, instead of the slacker Mac OS X.
They also contain alot of stuff that's plain wrong. For instance, Windows runs fine out of the box, there's virtually no advanced configuration after you've installed it. Set the date and time, account password and keyboard configuration, and bobs your uncle! Same thing with my digital camera, that works fine with windows, contrary to what one of the ads say.
Don't get me wrong, I think Mac OS X is a stellar OS, far superior to windows, I just don't like these ads.
First off, you are completely wrong about why Newton used geometry instead of calculus. He used geometry, not because it was some mysteries science of alchemy, he used geometry to be RIGOROUS! It is true that he had invented calculus, and it was ingenious, but it was in no way solid mathematics. Indeed, it wouldn't be until the 18th century, with developments by Cachy and Riemann and others. Newton understood this. He knew very well, that it is mathematically dodgy to deal with infinitesimals, and you know what, he was right. So instead of using calculus, a very new, poorly understood and mathematically dodgy discipline, he used instead a branch of mathematics that was old and very well understood. He used the language of Euclid. And you critizise him for this?
And it's also completely wrong to say that he disregarded calculus completely. Just look at lemmas I-IV of book 1 (and yes, I have read it, you obviously haven't), where he places parralellograms under a curve and let their width diminish to zero and their number to infinity. Sound like any theorem you might recognize? Since you probably don't know enough math to figure it out, I'll just tell you, it's the fundamental theorem of calculus. Before spouting things like "Have you actually read the Principia?", make sure that the person you're speaking to actually haven't, and make sure that you have atleast opened the FIRST PAGE of book 1. The theorem is on THE FIRST FUCKING PAGE! Look and see for yourself. See that little image there? Compare that to this, which is how people prove the fundamental theorem of calculus nowadays, with Riemann integrals.
You're list of accomplishments from Hooke just proves my point. Did any of them even come close to being anywhere near Newtons accomplishments? He discovered craters on the moon. Meh. He discovered that Mars is really spinning. Dobule-meh. Wave theory of light? That wasn't him, that was Huygens, and nobody had proven it till Thoman Young. The only one that really comes anywhere near Newton is the inverse square law, and that claim is dubious at best. Even if he did think of it first, he just thought of it as a hypothesis, a "what-if". Newton took that law, and explained the world an how everything works.
And yes, to the 17th and 18th century mind, he did explain everything. Science was physics, it was astronomy, it was explaining why things moved the way they did. The rest of the stuff, biology, magnetism, optics, they were the small stuff that could be dealt with once you actually find out how the world works.
Also, while I don't dispute that Leibniz was Newtons intellectual equal, when it came to physics, Newton was a giant and Leibniz....well....not so much. His monadology was a nice philosophy, but can you honestly claim with a straight face that it had a millionth of the influence on the scientific world in comparison to Principia. Even Wikipedia which you quote so extensively, agrees with me. Quote, "While he may have been Newton's peer as co-discoverer of the calculus, he was not in Newton's league as a physicist and may even deserve to be ranked below his mentor Huygens". When it comes to physics, there are two giants. Einstein and Newton. They explained the world, no one else. There are a few that comes very close (most notably Maxwell and the quantum mechanics guys), but those two have no peer, and it's ridiculous to claim that Hooke and Leibniz were even close to them.
You're obviously a big Stephenson fan (obviously your main, if not only, source of information) and I like Quicksilver too. It's a good book. But even he admits that Newton and Leibniz were the best. Over and over again, he states (well, Daniel Waterhouse does) that Newton and Leibniz are the greatest. He portrays Ho
Actually it does. Large scale agriculture, the kind that turns the 3rd world to the 1st world is 100% reliant on trade. If they cannot sell it, they cannot grow very much of it. Ergo, make no money and they cannot develop to the point where they can survive a drought. Ergo, they starve. By so heavily subsidizing 1st world agriculture (like the US and the EU does), they are indeed devastating many economies that could become quite fruitful. And for what? Making sure that 2% of the population will vote for them? This is not a "Well, it's not like we are making the situation worse" scenario, this is a "My neighbours house is on fire, but I don't want to spend a little money for water from my hose" kind of a situation.
You are drastically underestimating the genius of Newton and the influence he would have on science. Saying "Newton did a handful of big things - laws of motion and universal gravitation (although these were building on the work of others more than is generally seen)" is like saying "Yeah, Einstein fooled around with physics, but really anyone who studied Planck and Maxwell could figure out that stuff".
He didn't just develop "laws of motion" and figure out "universal gravitation". As you said, this had been worked on by many people before. What Newton did that was so extraordinary was that he was able to, with four simple laws, explain EVERYTHING. He explained why Galileos balls fell like they did, he was able to explain Keplers four laws (which took Kepler 17 years to figure out), he was able to explain how the earth was kept in orbit around the sun, he was able to explain why the moon circled the earth. You have to realise the enourmous scientific breakthrough of being able not only to explain planets and apples movements, but to actually realise and prove that they were the same force!
After Newton, most people were of the opinion that physics was basically done! The rest was small stuff, maybe clarify exactly how the laws worked in fluids, or figure out that magnetism stuff. In the 19th century, students were actually advised not to study physics, because since Newton had finished it, it wasn't really a subject for the future.
Newtonian mechanics reigned as completely unchallenge for 180 years! 180 years! Only in 1864 with James Clerk Maxwells equations did a seed of doubt become planted, but there would be no other theory for another forty years. Between 1687 and 1905, Newton had not ever been even slightly modified. I mean, imagine that. In the modern world there is general relativity and quantum physics, but they change all the time, with string theory and m-theory, and the accelarating universe and whatnot. Not so with Newton, his theories remained, completely intact. They were that good.
A wonderful quote from Lagrange (who inarguably knew more about this stuff than us two) is "Newton was the greatest genius that ever existed and the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish". Turns out he weren't entirely correct, but you can hear in that quote that impact that Newton had had. He had explained how the world worked. All of it. Simple as that.
This is not even mentioning all the other amazing stuff that he did, the optics, the telescopes (which were indeed the greatest telescopes of it's day, and is still in wide use today), etc. Yeah, I agree, Hooke was a genius, but what did he do that was comparable to Newton? Discovered and coined the word "cell"? Hooke's law of elasticity? Assorted discoveries in Biology? His architetural feats? That doesn't even come close to Newton.
And so what if he was an asshole? Sure he treated both Hooke and Leibniz (and pretty much the rest of the western world) like shit, but does that mean his scientific discoveries are somehow worth less?
Bottom line, Newton completely changed how we view the world. Him and Einstein, those are the only two that can make a claim on explain the System of the World.
Actaully, this is not true. Newton developed Calculus WAY before Leibniz did, he was basically done in 1671 and it took Leibniz more than a decade longer (even though it is his notation and words we use today). The point is that Newton didn't publish until much, much later, so this remarkable mathematical technique that would change how people do mathematics forever was known only to him. The remarkable thing about that story isn't that they came up with it simultaneously (they didn't), but that they did it independently of each other. It shows that during the second half of th 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, two giants walked the earth, two of the perhaps five most intelligent men in history. It is, truly, an extraordinary thing.
Yes, thank you, I am very aware of the different unit standards mebibytes and all, but I typed "mb" instead of "MB" for two reasons, a) I think it looks better, b) I'm lazy and c) absolutely no one is confused because a "millibit" is impossible by definition (and if you bring up this thing I'm gonna slap you hard). It's incredibly rude and petty to point something like that out. I suggest you mind your manners in the future.
"The decompressor must be a single Windows (x86 32 bit) or Linux (x86 32 or 64 bit) executable file. It is not zipped. The size of the source code (if available) is not used. The decompressor must not depend on any other files not normally part of Windows or Linux such as dictionaries, configuration files, etc.
Which means that you cannot make a 100mb library to go with your file, I guess.
Another thing to note is that the file, enwiki8, isn't actually 100mb, it's 100,000,000 byte, ie 10^8 byte, not 100*2^20 byte. So not really 100mb. To me this is strange, I mean any real CS guy would have gone with binary, right? Only a real newbie would go with the exact decimal number that make very little sense in computer terms.
If you read the rules of the contest it states that a submission has to be a single executable that produces the 100 mb file. It's the size of that decompressor that counts. So no, you couldn't do that.
Aside from an incorrect spelling, what was wrong with his use of "inconceivable"? The dictionary defines it as "So unlikely or surprising as to have been thought impossible" and the thesaurus lists "unimaginable" and "unthinkable" as synonyms. We also have the antonyms "fathomable" and "likely", which means pretty much exactly the opposite of the grand-parents intended meaning.
So, do you have anything to say for yourself, or do you just enjoy being mean on/.?
Re:Come on people, give the moon a break...
on
Moon's Bulge Explained
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· Score: 3, Interesting
If that is true, it is a baaad mythology. The moon has always in the human mind been female, for basically every known religion. It was a good long while since I studied this, so I apologise if I make any mistakes.
In most (almost all I think) mythologies there exists a goddess that is identified with the moon (and a god that is identified with the sun, although he is rarely as important). For instance in greek mythology, it's Artemis, the goddess of the new moon. See, it has everything to do with phases. That's a funadmental theme in many religions, the cycle of birth-life-death-rebirth. The moon is the perfect symbol for this, first being very small (new moon), to becoming brilliant (full moon) to eventually dying (dark moon), and then being reborn (new moon again). This is closely tied to another classic mythological motif (a favourite of mine), that of the descent to the underworld. This one is everywhere in mythology and literature, Inanna does it, Jesus does it, Gandalf does it (when he fights the Balrog), frickin' Harry Potter does it. The motif is basically where a "hero" (Inanna/Jesus/Gandalf/Harry!) descends to the land of the dead (sumerian underworld/hell/beneth the mines of Moria/the Chamber of secrets), on the way he/she gets "undressed", either metaphorically or literally (Inanna loses her armour i think/Jesus is whipped and put on a cross/Gandalf skipped that part of the mythology/Harry loses both Ron and Hermione), faces the dark side of himself/herself (Erishkigal/the Devil/the Balrog/Voldemort), dies and is reborn (Inanna comes back/Jesus gets resurrected/Gandalf becomes Gandalf the white/Harry is resurrected by the Pheonix). Anyway, this is a tangent, back to the point.
This montly cycle does not only symbolize life and death, but also a decidedly more feminine cycle (if you can't guess what it is, I ain't gonna tell ya). While this connection is rarely explicit, it is certainly present. The moon also symbolizes many aspects that we as humans connect with femininity, such as darkness, magic, mystery and death, wheras the sun symbolizes typically male attributes such as ligth, reason, strength and life (it's so sexist that I can barely type without gagging, but that is the way the archetypes work). Therefore, the moon is often assigned to a female deity. Infact, because of the phases thing, it is sometimes assigned several. Artemis is the virgin goddess of life, the hunt and rebirth, and is the goddess of the new moon. Hecate, the dark witch-queen of sorcery is essentially the dark side of Artemis, is the dark moons goddess. One interpretation of this is that once a month, the beautiful, lively, and wonderful goddess (=a woman) turns into a raging witch-queen (=a bitch). (I'm telling you, this is so god-damn sexist, I want to vomit!) This female connection with the moon is the reason that many dark and mysterious concepts are frequently connected to women, such as intuition. You never hear anyone mention male intuition, do you? This is also why there are much more witches than warlocks in mythology and literature.
Anyway, I've been rambling on for a while now, and I should stop. The point is, if Tolkien chose to make the moon male, he made the wrong choice. In the human mind the moon is, and has always been, female.
I wasn't actually referring to you (ie. the little note in the parenthesis), I was referring to the other people on this story that has made some rather bad comments. I apologise if you took offence, I meant none to you.
Anyway, you have a point, the title is misleading. It should be "Making art out of spam" or something like it.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but they will probably wait for a price-drop (which will happen when Sony realizes that nobody is buying them, and then they've already lost). And really, when people whose very profession is the study of games simply refuse to go out and get one, you are in deep shit. I've heard a few people on the Gamespot podcast who've said the same thing, even though for them its a tax write-off! I mean, come on!
Ahh, man, you didn't mod me up for that? Crap. ;) You are obviously right, it's very possible that the Wii will rule, atleast alot more probable than the PS3. If I were to put money on it, I'd still bet 360 (remember that both the original Xbox and PS2 was more popular than the Gamecube, even though it was cheaper). It could go either way though.
...but it will sure as hell not do very well. When seriously hardcore gamers, like the Penny Arcade guys, says that no way will they buy it at launch, you have a problem. Sure, the initial batch of consoles will sell out, they always do, but there is no way it can threaten the 360 in dominance. The Xboxs online stuff alone will probably make it more popular (and yes, I know Sony is launching its own thing (PS HUB, is it? or have they changed it?) but I doubt that it will be as good as Micrsofts).
True, the Playstation brand has some cachet in Japan, and even some in the states and Europe. But weighing that against $600 (and even more in Europe) will ensure it a perpetual second or third place in the rankings. I guarantee it.
You can kiss my shiny metal 2003 UB313-sized ass!
I've never done math, so I can't comment on that but Word 2007 exports to PDF just fine. Three clicks and yer done!
Ahh, yes you are correct ofcourse. I keep windows for the games and a few random pieces of software, otherwise it's Fedora all the way.
Aside from what everyone else says, I think you are misrepresenting the target audience of these ads. They're not for the grandmas and grandpas, or anyone else that is daunted by computers. They are very specifically targeted to the 20-35 fairly rich male, someone that isn't perhaps to techy but still are very used to computers. They own iPods, they have slick cell-phones, they might own a TV-console or two. They wouldn't have any problem plugging in the cables. What they would have a problem doing though is installing things like drivers and the like. That they hate. And that is what apple is getting at with these ads, you just have start it up and its done. This is disingenous because the same thing is true for a windows-box, just install it and your done.
Exactly. Disregarding everything we know about Microsoft and the open source community, as pure apps, which one is better? It's Office 2007, easy. That's all I'm saying.
How is this relevant in any way? My point was this, when selecting an office suite for corporate or personal use, which one is superior, MS Office or OpenOffice? Right now the answer is easily MS Office.
And if you're going to rag on MS Office GUI, lets not forget that much of the OpenOffices design is clearly inspired by the MS products. They have always made the best office products.
I'm all for MS bashing, but when it comes to Office suites, they do a very good job. A very good job indeed.
Oh, yeah, the geek "Who cares about design?" defence. The fact is, design matters, it matters alot. Design makes you more productive, it makes you understand how the program works, it makes the program appealing. Have you actually used Office 2007? If you have windows, try it, I'm telling you it's really cool. It makes all the features obvious, it makes it clear what results each option does. And you can't complain about the function of MS Word, it can do pretty much everything that you ever need to do. The only exception, I guess, is PDF-exporting.
These kind of comments are pretty silly, ever heard of sour grapes? Use OpenOffice for a while. Then switch to Office 2007. I can guarantee that you will have a more pleasurable experience with it.
I used to use exclusively OpenOffice and I think it is great, but there is one thing that stands in the way of it being wildly used: design. For all it's greatness, it doesn't look very good at all, infact, it's kinda ugly. Meanwhile, I just downloaded Office 2007 which looks, and feels, amazing. Say what you will about Microsoft, but they sure as hell nailed it with Office 2007. Not only does it look great, but their revamp of the toolbar system (the ribbon) is fantastic. Very slick. Right now, I do everything with it.
OpenOffice needs like 10 professional designers to really hunker down and figure out a way to make it look better. That's easily the number one complaint I hear from people when I try to convince them of using OpenOffice.
I think Slate got it right when it comes to these ads. They're kinda funny, but really mean-spirited. They're "Haha...you suck!!"-ads that don't appeal to me. That, and the fact that they kinda make me happy that I'm running windows (not right now, right now it's Fedora all the way, I double-boot) instead of apple. It makes the PC look productive and serious, instead of the slacker Mac OS X.
They also contain alot of stuff that's plain wrong. For instance, Windows runs fine out of the box, there's virtually no advanced configuration after you've installed it. Set the date and time, account password and keyboard configuration, and bobs your uncle! Same thing with my digital camera, that works fine with windows, contrary to what one of the ads say.
Don't get me wrong, I think Mac OS X is a stellar OS, far superior to windows, I just don't like these ads.
First off, you are completely wrong about why Newton used geometry instead of calculus. He used geometry, not because it was some mysteries science of alchemy, he used geometry to be RIGOROUS! It is true that he had invented calculus, and it was ingenious, but it was in no way solid mathematics. Indeed, it wouldn't be until the 18th century, with developments by Cachy and Riemann and others. Newton understood this. He knew very well, that it is mathematically dodgy to deal with infinitesimals, and you know what, he was right. So instead of using calculus, a very new, poorly understood and mathematically dodgy discipline, he used instead a branch of mathematics that was old and very well understood. He used the language of Euclid. And you critizise him for this?
And it's also completely wrong to say that he disregarded calculus completely. Just look at lemmas I-IV of book 1 (and yes, I have read it, you obviously haven't), where he places parralellograms under a curve and let their width diminish to zero and their number to infinity. Sound like any theorem you might recognize? Since you probably don't know enough math to figure it out, I'll just tell you, it's the fundamental theorem of calculus. Before spouting things like "Have you actually read the Principia?", make sure that the person you're speaking to actually haven't, and make sure that you have atleast opened the FIRST PAGE of book 1. The theorem is on THE FIRST FUCKING PAGE! Look and see for yourself. See that little image there? Compare that to this, which is how people prove the fundamental theorem of calculus nowadays, with Riemann integrals.
You're list of accomplishments from Hooke just proves my point. Did any of them even come close to being anywhere near Newtons accomplishments? He discovered craters on the moon. Meh. He discovered that Mars is really spinning. Dobule-meh. Wave theory of light? That wasn't him, that was Huygens, and nobody had proven it till Thoman Young. The only one that really comes anywhere near Newton is the inverse square law, and that claim is dubious at best. Even if he did think of it first, he just thought of it as a hypothesis, a "what-if". Newton took that law, and explained the world an how everything works.
And yes, to the 17th and 18th century mind, he did explain everything. Science was physics, it was astronomy, it was explaining why things moved the way they did. The rest of the stuff, biology, magnetism, optics, they were the small stuff that could be dealt with once you actually find out how the world works.
Also, while I don't dispute that Leibniz was Newtons intellectual equal, when it came to physics, Newton was a giant and Leibniz....well....not so much. His monadology was a nice philosophy, but can you honestly claim with a straight face that it had a millionth of the influence on the scientific world in comparison to Principia. Even Wikipedia which you quote so extensively, agrees with me. Quote, "While he may have been Newton's peer as co-discoverer of the calculus, he was not in Newton's league as a physicist and may even deserve to be ranked below his mentor Huygens". When it comes to physics, there are two giants. Einstein and Newton. They explained the world, no one else. There are a few that comes very close (most notably Maxwell and the quantum mechanics guys), but those two have no peer, and it's ridiculous to claim that Hooke and Leibniz were even close to them.
You're obviously a big Stephenson fan (obviously your main, if not only, source of information) and I like Quicksilver too. It's a good book. But even he admits that Newton and Leibniz were the best. Over and over again, he states (well, Daniel Waterhouse does) that Newton and Leibniz are the greatest. He portrays Ho
Actually it does. Large scale agriculture, the kind that turns the 3rd world to the 1st world is 100% reliant on trade. If they cannot sell it, they cannot grow very much of it. Ergo, make no money and they cannot develop to the point where they can survive a drought. Ergo, they starve. By so heavily subsidizing 1st world agriculture (like the US and the EU does), they are indeed devastating many economies that could become quite fruitful. And for what? Making sure that 2% of the population will vote for them? This is not a "Well, it's not like we are making the situation worse" scenario, this is a "My neighbours house is on fire, but I don't want to spend a little money for water from my hose" kind of a situation.
You're welcome
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(the other guy started it!)
Been reading the Baroque Cycle, have we? ;)
You are drastically underestimating the genius of Newton and the influence he would have on science. Saying "Newton did a handful of big things - laws of motion and universal gravitation (although these were building on the work of others more than is generally seen)" is like saying "Yeah, Einstein fooled around with physics, but really anyone who studied Planck and Maxwell could figure out that stuff".
He didn't just develop "laws of motion" and figure out "universal gravitation". As you said, this had been worked on by many people before. What Newton did that was so extraordinary was that he was able to, with four simple laws, explain EVERYTHING. He explained why Galileos balls fell like they did, he was able to explain Keplers four laws (which took Kepler 17 years to figure out), he was able to explain how the earth was kept in orbit around the sun, he was able to explain why the moon circled the earth. You have to realise the enourmous scientific breakthrough of being able not only to explain planets and apples movements, but to actually realise and prove that they were the same force!
After Newton, most people were of the opinion that physics was basically done! The rest was small stuff, maybe clarify exactly how the laws worked in fluids, or figure out that magnetism stuff. In the 19th century, students were actually advised not to study physics, because since Newton had finished it, it wasn't really a subject for the future.
Newtonian mechanics reigned as completely unchallenge for 180 years! 180 years! Only in 1864 with James Clerk Maxwells equations did a seed of doubt become planted, but there would be no other theory for another forty years. Between 1687 and 1905, Newton had not ever been even slightly modified. I mean, imagine that. In the modern world there is general relativity and quantum physics, but they change all the time, with string theory and m-theory, and the accelarating universe and whatnot. Not so with Newton, his theories remained, completely intact. They were that good.
A wonderful quote from Lagrange (who inarguably knew more about this stuff than us two) is "Newton was the greatest genius that ever existed and the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish". Turns out he weren't entirely correct, but you can hear in that quote that impact that Newton had had. He had explained how the world worked. All of it. Simple as that.
This is not even mentioning all the other amazing stuff that he did, the optics, the telescopes (which were indeed the greatest telescopes of it's day, and is still in wide use today), etc. Yeah, I agree, Hooke was a genius, but what did he do that was comparable to Newton? Discovered and coined the word "cell"? Hooke's law of elasticity? Assorted discoveries in Biology? His architetural feats? That doesn't even come close to Newton.
And so what if he was an asshole? Sure he treated both Hooke and Leibniz (and pretty much the rest of the western world) like shit, but does that mean his scientific discoveries are somehow worth less?
Bottom line, Newton completely changed how we view the world. Him and Einstein, those are the only two that can make a claim on explain the System of the World.
Actaully, this is not true. Newton developed Calculus WAY before Leibniz did, he was basically done in 1671 and it took Leibniz more than a decade longer (even though it is his notation and words we use today). The point is that Newton didn't publish until much, much later, so this remarkable mathematical technique that would change how people do mathematics forever was known only to him. The remarkable thing about that story isn't that they came up with it simultaneously (they didn't), but that they did it independently of each other. It shows that during the second half of th 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, two giants walked the earth, two of the perhaps five most intelligent men in history. It is, truly, an extraordinary thing.
And, oh yeah, they couldn't stand eachother.
Yes, thank you, I am very aware of the different unit standards mebibytes and all, but I typed "mb" instead of "MB" for two reasons, a) I think it looks better, b) I'm lazy and c) absolutely no one is confused because a "millibit" is impossible by definition (and if you bring up this thing I'm gonna slap you hard). It's incredibly rude and petty to point something like that out. I suggest you mind your manners in the future.
This is the exact rule (from http://cs.fit.edu/~mmahoney/compression/textrules. html ):
"The decompressor must be a single Windows (x86 32 bit) or Linux (x86 32 or 64 bit) executable file. It is not zipped. The size of the source code (if available) is not used. The decompressor must not depend on any other files not normally part of Windows or Linux such as dictionaries, configuration files, etc.
Which means that you cannot make a 100mb library to go with your file, I guess.
Another thing to note is that the file, enwiki8, isn't actually 100mb, it's 100,000,000 byte, ie 10^8 byte, not 100*2^20 byte. So not really 100mb. To me this is strange, I mean any real CS guy would have gone with binary, right? Only a real newbie would go with the exact decimal number that make very little sense in computer terms.
If you read the rules of the contest it states that a submission has to be a single executable that produces the 100 mb file. It's the size of that decompressor that counts. So no, you couldn't do that.
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Ahh, crap....
Ahh, crap, I'm an idiot. I just thought it was some strange /. meme. I apologise, I'm terribly sorry.
Aside from an incorrect spelling, what was wrong with his use of "inconceivable"? The dictionary defines it as "So unlikely or surprising as to have been thought impossible" and the thesaurus lists "unimaginable" and "unthinkable" as synonyms. We also have the antonyms "fathomable" and "likely", which means pretty much exactly the opposite of the grand-parents intended meaning.
So, do you have anything to say for yourself, or do you just enjoy being mean on /.?
If that is true, it is a baaad mythology. The moon has always in the human mind been female, for basically every known religion. It was a good long while since I studied this, so I apologise if I make any mistakes.
In most (almost all I think) mythologies there exists a goddess that is identified with the moon (and a god that is identified with the sun, although he is rarely as important). For instance in greek mythology, it's Artemis, the goddess of the new moon. See, it has everything to do with phases. That's a funadmental theme in many religions, the cycle of birth-life-death-rebirth. The moon is the perfect symbol for this, first being very small (new moon), to becoming brilliant (full moon) to eventually dying (dark moon), and then being reborn (new moon again). This is closely tied to another classic mythological motif (a favourite of mine), that of the descent to the underworld. This one is everywhere in mythology and literature, Inanna does it, Jesus does it, Gandalf does it (when he fights the Balrog), frickin' Harry Potter does it. The motif is basically where a "hero" (Inanna/Jesus/Gandalf/Harry!) descends to the land of the dead (sumerian underworld/hell/beneth the mines of Moria/the Chamber of secrets), on the way he/she gets "undressed", either metaphorically or literally (Inanna loses her armour i think/Jesus is whipped and put on a cross/Gandalf skipped that part of the mythology/Harry loses both Ron and Hermione), faces the dark side of himself/herself (Erishkigal/the Devil/the Balrog/Voldemort), dies and is reborn (Inanna comes back/Jesus gets resurrected/Gandalf becomes Gandalf the white/Harry is resurrected by the Pheonix). Anyway, this is a tangent, back to the point.
This montly cycle does not only symbolize life and death, but also a decidedly more feminine cycle (if you can't guess what it is, I ain't gonna tell ya). While this connection is rarely explicit, it is certainly present. The moon also symbolizes many aspects that we as humans connect with femininity, such as darkness, magic, mystery and death, wheras the sun symbolizes typically male attributes such as ligth, reason, strength and life (it's so sexist that I can barely type without gagging, but that is the way the archetypes work). Therefore, the moon is often assigned to a female deity. Infact, because of the phases thing, it is sometimes assigned several. Artemis is the virgin goddess of life, the hunt and rebirth, and is the goddess of the new moon. Hecate, the dark witch-queen of sorcery is essentially the dark side of Artemis, is the dark moons goddess. One interpretation of this is that once a month, the beautiful, lively, and wonderful goddess (=a woman) turns into a raging witch-queen (=a bitch). (I'm telling you, this is so god-damn sexist, I want to vomit!) This female connection with the moon is the reason that many dark and mysterious concepts are frequently connected to women, such as intuition. You never hear anyone mention male intuition, do you? This is also why there are much more witches than warlocks in mythology and literature.
Anyway, I've been rambling on for a while now, and I should stop. The point is, if Tolkien chose to make the moon male, he made the wrong choice. In the human mind the moon is, and has always been, female.
I wasn't actually referring to you (ie. the little note in the parenthesis), I was referring to the other people on this story that has made some rather bad comments. I apologise if you took offence, I meant none to you.
Anyway, you have a point, the title is misleading. It should be "Making art out of spam" or something like it.