404400+ entries in 0.242s
mircea_popescu: ty internets. you might not know wtf fractals are, but you certainly spring
the goods when it comes
to naming strippers.
mircea_popescu is naming his heroes in
this game, and he decided all
the
thieves get stripper names (for obvious reasons)
that start with
the letter c.
mircea_popescu: byzantium when it fell
to
the
turks was 4-5 villages lost among pastures surrounded by ancient walls, and american english is similarly a huge complex architecture maitnained by
the remnants of a leper colony
mircea_popescu: im not even sure it's any sort of alteration above and beyond simple decay
through disuse.
trinque: and
that's exactly what we've done, more ways
than matter
to list
trinque: I believe you've made
the point many
times in your work
that language creation/alteration is *not* for everyone.
trinque: it does seem
that
the english speaking world's ability
to define anything meaningfully is deteriorating, fractals included.
mircea_popescu: as
the headcount of romanian kids
toiling with gheba during five decades.
mircea_popescu: i don't
think as many people lived
the bible as a whetstone in
their life during
the whole history of christianity
mircea_popescu: and so all
the books were called "exercitii si probleme" or "probleme si exercitii"
mircea_popescu: In fact, even
the
term “word problem” is not used in Russia, because
the word “problem” usually means a word problem, while non-word problems are called “exercises”. << exactly correct ftr.
the difference was even enshrined as such, in
the ro equiv of "standards" cca 60s.
trinque: so
this will keep
the guy going until I find
time
to write a better IRC handling core
trinque: weechat seems
to do better about knowing when
to reconnect
☟︎ trinque: gonna fiddle with it a bit, but yeah, I'm getting a little observer going
that'll go kick him in
the ass when appropriate
mod6: I created
this basic svg graph map of all vpatches
to modified files. lol,
thing is huge. ridiculous looking.
mircea_popescu: (and once you've done
that you're right over on cantor's doorstep and so forth.
this might even be
the best way
to even introduce numbers altogether.)
mircea_popescu: (and if you're doing
that, pretty much every bright 12 yo kid has been playing mentally with
the peano curve while
taking a shit and following
the
tiling, but didn't know it's called
that. so you could of course
tell him.)
mircea_popescu: (ironically,
the concept can be correctly introduced - if one's willing
to
take
the geometric route, and in so doing miss out on most understanding available in
the
topic - by first explaining what a
tangent is and
then demaning a closed continuous curve be drawn
that allows no
tangents. good enough for a bright 12yo, plus minus. but otherwise, fractals are of analytical rather
than geometrical interest.)
mircea_popescu: and with
this observation,
the world as observed suddenly makes significantly more sense.
mircea_popescu: see,
this is
the problem. we go around like we're all people and shit. but
then some of us go home
to where we know what fractals are, and some of us go
to whatever
that is, where
they don't.
☟︎ mircea_popescu: jesus fucking christ no english speaker can produce a definition of
this concept.
mircea_popescu: From: Doctor Douglas Subject: Re: Fractals Hi Boris.
The key idea in
the definition of fractal is "self-similarity". What
this means is
that
the object looks
the same no matter what power magnifying glass you use
to view it.
mircea_popescu: From: Boris Subject: Fractals What is
the definition of a fractal?
mircea_popescu: "An object whose parts, at infinitely many levels of magnification, appear geometrically similar
to
the whole. Fractals are used in
the design of compact antennas and for computer modeling of natural-looking structures like clouds and
trees."
mircea_popescu: "A fractal is a figure with repeating patterns containing shapes
that are like
the whole but of different sizes
throughout."
mircea_popescu: in what fucking alternate universe may a definition include
the word "or"
mircea_popescu: "A fractal is a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set
that exhibits a repeating pattern
that displays at every scale." via en.wikipedia. or in fucking definitions,
THIS IS ALLOWED NOW!
mircea_popescu: not
to mention
that
the number 1, as well as
the number 0 and
the number 78 are "self-similar" on all scales, in a
technical sense or not.
mircea_popescu: the geometric notion of
the point, and
the geometric notion of a line, and
the geometric notion of a plane, and
the geometric notion of wolfram's mother impaled on a
triple cheeseburger ALL SATISFY
THIS DEFINITION
☟︎ mircea_popescu: "Fractal -- from Wolfram MathWorld mathworld.wolfram.com/Fractal.html A fractal is an object or quantity
that displays self-similarity, in a somewhat
technical sense, on all scales.
The object need not exhibit exactly
the same structure ..."
☟︎ mircea_popescu: but perhaps
the spanish speakers are retarded, right ?
mircea_popescu: "fractal Definiciones web Un fractal es un objeto geométrico cuya estructura básica, fragmentada o irregular, se repite a diferentes escalas. El
término fue propuesto por el matemático Benoît Mandelbrot en 1975 y deriva del Latín fractus," blablabla.
mircea_popescu: but since
toom mentioned
the fractal problem, let us consult
the web. because
the web knows shit, right ? all human knowledge, accessible
to everyone etc, right ?
mircea_popescu: "The authors of “standards” want
to reform American mathematical education, but actually only aggravate its main shortcoming: vain ambitions and contempt for consistent, systematic and
thorough study." <<
this is a societal problem. Obama is not an accident, but an archetype.
mircea_popescu: (i am not even all
that keen on
toom's obviously very geometric
take on fractals.
they're an analytic construct, which yes can be graphed, like any other function. you don't need "dimensions", you need numeric
theory.)
mircea_popescu: if you want fractals, first go away and get rich i mean, figure out what a number is,
then come back
mircea_popescu: but yes,
the man has a point. fractals aren't for everyone. just like bitcoin isn't for everyone.
mircea_popescu: "I asked several school
teachers who were enthusiastic about
teaching fractals
to define a fractal and none of
them mentioned
the idea of dimension, least defined it. Usually
they emphasized “repeating patterns”. When I asked why
they were not satisfied with wall-paper,
they
took offence." << yes, because who needs
to
take a breather and
think when
they could
take offence instead and flail!
mircea_popescu: "The idea
to
teach fractals in school has already found many supporters. (Everything is possible for
those who are not competent enough
to understand how difficult it is.)" << heh. "But fractals are cool man, like
the universe's all connected and everything"
mircea_popescu: it is, however, very inefficient (ie, costs a lot more per joule
than pretty much any alternative)
mircea_popescu: the utility of
the process in various industrial lines is due
to
the relative high heat, readily controllable
total energy and relatively low latency.
mircea_popescu: the idea
to use
this as a heat source is older
than
the aeroplane. i had perfectly functional schematics in books published in
the fucking 60s.
mircea_popescu: so : some chemical reactions are strongly exothermic (they give out heat). aluminum salts chief among
them.
☟︎ assbot: Logged on 12-09-2015 03:24:57; pete_dushenski: asciilifeform: you around ? can you educate me on what
the nytimes is referring
to here : "The schematics, prosecutors said, revealed
the design of a device known as a pocket heater.
The equipment is used in semiconductor research, and Dr. Xi had signed an agreement promising
to keep its design a secret."
mircea_popescu: under
the guard of some old prune
too dessicated
to fuck
them in
the first place. Not waste MY fucking
time with it.
mircea_popescu: Oh, god. Such pain and suffering. When I
took usian slavegirls, attempts
to discuss art and philosophy and so forth quickly floundered over a basic inability
to remember sentences and build logic
trees, which resulted in beatings and many
tearful hours spent over grammatical analysis of sentences. Something
they should have spend
their 12th and 13th year of life on, back before anyone could possibly want
to fuck
them,
mircea_popescu: "When I came
to America, I
taught several classes of problem solving and started
to appreciate much more
the basic education, because my new students dramatically lacked it.
They understood advanced ideas but floundered in algebraic
transformations, which
turned solution of interesting problems into painful struggle with basics."
mircea_popescu: more million man marches plox, clearly
they fix problems.
mircea_popescu: thank you mustachjioed nigger what's his name, you
totally helped
those people
pete_dushenski:
http://www.pewresearch.org/quiz/science-knowledge/ << "The median was eight correct answers out of 12 (mean 7.9).
The data show
that adults with higher education levels are more likely
to answer questions about science correctly. Men score an average of 8.6 out of 12 correct answers, compared with women's 7.3 correct answers.Whites score a mean of 8.4 items out of 12 correct, compared with 7.1 among Hispanics an
mircea_popescu: i mean for fucks sake, what's even
the point of knowing math like
that
mircea_popescu: " E.g., my graduate students in differential geometry could calculate quite hard integrals
to know
the area or
the length of a curve but were not able
to answer
the question what
the geometric sense of
the roots of
the quadratic equation x^2 − 2Hx + K = 0 is, where H and K are
the average and
the Gaussian curvature of a surface."
mircea_popescu: trinomial. Most American students whom I ever met were not even aware of most of
these facts.
mircea_popescu: sum of roots equals −b/a and
that
their product equals c/a and
to use
these facts
to factorize
the
mircea_popescu: children
to derive
the formula for roots of a quadratic equation ax2 + bx + c = 0 ,
to prove
that
the
mircea_popescu: function in a rather complete manner. In particular it was obligatory for all Russian schools
to
teach
mircea_popescu: anything
too advanced. Let me give an example. When I was in high school, we studied
the quadratic
mircea_popescu: because
TIMSS followed
the anti-theoretical bias of American educators. By “theory” I don’t mean
mircea_popescu: I
think
that
the real situation in American mathematical education is even worse
than
TIMSS shows
punkman: oh
the israelis are also on kickstarter
punkman: they did
this scam on kickstarter already
punkman: "does not need physical contact with
the substance being
tested because it uses a beam of light in what is known as Near Infrared Spectroscopy."
mircea_popescu: "i used
to be an entrepreneur but
then i
took a fatter
to
the knee"
mircea_popescu: holy shit
this fatass notion of equality for some
things only.
mircea_popescu: it's
that
they do not show up for work,
they get
the same per hour pay (which on
the strength of
that alone
they should not, for
the record, as i'm not paying
the same an hour
the guy who works 16 hours and
the gal
that works 6.5) and so logically at
the end of
the year
they get less.
mircea_popescu: it's not
that
they show up
to work and still
take home less money.
mircea_popescu: "4. You
think it’s pretty unfair
that women effectively work from 4 November until
the end of
the year for free because of
the gender pay gap; and
that female managers “work for free” for nearly
two hours a day; and
that
the pay gap is even wider for women of colour and disabled women."
pete_dushenski: Bingo_VACAY: i'm gonna go out on a limb and say
that you're away atm and
that
there's no point in sending you
the same piece
pete_dushenski: "using
too much concrete and
trying
to bankrupt
the great state" vs. "using
too little concrete and jeopardising
the security of
the great state"
assbot: Logged on 30-04-2015 22:04:14; mircea_popescu: you know,
the "wrecker" who was "trying
to make
the
train
tracks run down faster"