scott wrote:

> Aren't all cars upgradeable with just software nowadays?  In my car the 
> "1.6L", "1.8L", "2.0L" and "2.3L" versions all actually have exactly the 
> same engine.  You are just choosing whether you want the 116, 143, 177 
> or 204 BHP software installed when you buy it :-)

Erm... 1.6L means that the engine block has a displacement of 1.6L, 
while 2.3L means that the displacement is 2.3L - i.e., the cylinders are 
physically bigger.

The Real WTF of course is that displacement is not directly related to 
power output in the first place...

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Stephen wrote:

> Would you run that past me again, in English? :-)

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Attachments:
Download 'milnerhindley.png' (78 KB)

Preview of image 'milnerhindley.png'

Invisible wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
> 
>> Would you run that past me again, in English? :-)
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

The bit where it says take away the number you first thought of.

Nice one BTW :D


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Stephen wrote:

> Nice one BTW :D

Heh. Somebody had this printed on a T-shirt [as you can probably tell]. 
I just copied the image file. ;-)

That's apparently the Milner-Hindley type inference algorithm. But whatever.

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Invisible wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
> 
>> Nice one BTW :D
> 
> Heh. Somebody had this printed on a T-shirt [as you can probably tell]. 
> I just copied the image file. ;-)
> 
> That's apparently the Milner-Hindley type inference algorithm. But 
> whatever.

That's what the file name says :D

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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>> That's apparently the Milner-Hindley type inference algorithm. But 
>> whatever.
> 
> That's what the file name says :D

I believe the correct response is "that's what SHE said!"

And besides, I named the file. (The website does some JavaScript 
trickery to make it maximally awkward to copy the image file. But they 
didn't bargin for the PrtSrc key...)

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Kevin Wampler wrote:

> I suppose I normally view distance in Euclidean space from the same 
> definition that applies to non-Euclidean spaces, rather than the 
> sqrt(dx^2 + dy^2) form, so I didn't really consider this.  You're right 
> though, if you're starting from the pythorgean theorem view of distance 
> it does bear some thinking about how it generalizes to the non-Euclidean 
> space.
> 
> That said, I'm not sure it's necessary to actually understand the proper 
> definition of distance in order to talk about circles in other spaces -- 
> particularly if we limit ourselves to spherical and hyperbolic spaces 
> which are more or less easy to visualize.

So how *do* you compute the distance between two points in a non-Euclid 
space anyway?

For that matter, is there a way to unambiguously refer to a specific 
point in such a space?

(Normally you would of course just use Cartesian coordinates, but it is 
not clear to me that this works any more once you remove the parallel 
postulate.)

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>> Interesting fact: In elliptic geometry, pi is less than arcsine 1.
> 
> It's less than arcsine 1 where you're sitting right now. That's why they 
> say gravity bends space-time.

Space-time is an inhomogenous space anyway. I hear that gravity bends it 
with positive curvature, but the universe itself appears to have 
slightly negative curvature...

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> Erm... 1.6L means that the engine block has a displacement of 1.6L, while 
> 2.3L means that the displacement is 2.3L - i.e., the cylinders are 
> physically bigger.

It used to be like that, if you bought a "one point six" it meant the engine 
displacement was roughly 1600 cc, but nowadays car makers like to keep the 
"one point six" naming convention but actually have a standard engine 
displacement across all models.  A bit like how AMD called their processor 
an XP2400, but it wasn't 2400 MHz.  If I'd bought the "1.6" version of my 
car it would have exactly the same engine as the "2.0" version, displacement 
1998cc.

> The Real WTF of course is that displacement is not directly related to 
> power output in the first place...

There are a vast number of things that significantly affect power output 
apart from displacement.  A useful quantity is "horsepower per litre" to 
compare engines.  Really efficient road-car engines can get up to 100 
HP/litre, racing engines over 300 hp/litre.

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scott wrote:
>> Erm... 1.6L means that the engine block has a displacement of 1.6L, 
>> while 2.3L means that the displacement is 2.3L - i.e., the cylinders 
>> are physically bigger.
> 
> It used to be like that, if you bought a "one point six" it meant the 
> engine displacement was roughly 1600 cc, but nowadays car makers like to 
> keep the "one point six" naming convention but actually have a standard 
> engine displacement across all models.  A bit like how AMD called their 
> processor an XP2400, but it wasn't 2400 MHz.  If I'd bought the "1.6" 
> version of my car it would have exactly the same engine as the "2.0" 
> version, displacement 1998cc.

Sure, but AMD don't actually call it the XP 2.4GHz. That would be false 
advertising - as would claiming that an engine has a displacement of X 
when it's actually Y.

>> The Real WTF of course is that displacement is not directly related to 
>> power output in the first place...
> 
> There are a vast number of things that significantly affect power output 
> apart from displacement.  A useful quantity is "horsepower per litre" to 
> compare engines.  Really efficient road-car engines can get up to 100 
> HP/litre, racing engines over 300 hp/litre.

Or just HP if you want to know how powerful it is, MPG if you want to 
know how efficient it is... I never did understand the fascination with 
displacement. (Other than that I guess you can unambiguously measure it.)

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