On 8/20/2011 3:49 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> At the start of the book, you get to do really easy stuff like 3+7. They
> would have several pages of adding, and then a few pages of subtracting,
> then a few pages explaining how multiplication works, and then some
> pages of multiplication, then how long multiplication works, and then
> several pages of progressively harder long multiplication questions.
> Then they might get you to do sums involving multiple numbers of
> increasing size. Then they have a couple of pages explaining about
> negative numbers, then you do progressively more complicated sums
> involving multiple negative and positive quantities. Then they might
> talk about long division, and get you to do a few hundred of those. And
> then division and multiplication with negative quantities as well. Then
> maybe they start talking about fractions...
>
> Can you imagine anything more MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING than staring at a
> sheet of 40 long division problems? YES, I GET IT! I KNOW HOW LONG
> DIVISION WORKS! STOP BUGGING ME ALREADY! >_<
>
> Seriously. If you know how it works, do you really need to do it 200
> times over just to *prove* that you know how it works? It's not even
> like it's particularly important to be able to *do* long division; it
> isn't something you're going to need to do every day of your adult life.
> You just need to have a firm grasp of /how/ it works and /why/ it works.
> Once you've got that, practising it on endless question sheets is just
> an utter waste of time.
>
Uh, no. The reason you have to do sheet after sheet of utter bullshit 
like that was because your school, like mine, catered to the one idiot 
in the room that didn't grasp the idea after the first 3 times. I 
refused to do any more of them, they sent me to a school psychologist, 
where they then jumped to several screwed up conclusions, based on, of 
all things, the fact that crayons got handed out alphabetically, so I 
always ended up with the black one (they later adjusted this so people 
got the chance to use other colors, but one wonders how many others 
where misdiagnosed with some sort of disorder over that silly thing), 
and my house **actually** had boxes around the trees and windows, so I 
was "disturbed", because I, "drew boxes around things and used black to 
do it". By the time the idiots figured out that the real problem was 
that I was bored to death of the crap they kept handing me to do, they 
had managed to put me a whole year behind in math. Luckily, I was like 
6-7 years *ahead* in reading. lol

> I was always quite bad at arithmetic. I still am. The difference is that
> today, I use a frigging *computer* to do the work for me. :-P My job is
> to figure out what the actual calculation is; the computer does the
> mundane work of actually *running* it.
>
Yeah. Same here, more or less. I can't do math in my head worth shit, 
and I hate doing it by hand on paper. Shortcuts would help, but you 
don't get those in school. You are lucky if you a) stumble over one 
yourself, or b) pass the class while still having difficulty 
remembering, by rote, certain parts of the times tables. The ones that 
"are" good at math, tend to be the ones that do (a), or just have 
stupidly good memories.

> It wasn't until I got to college that I discovered, mainly due to DKJ,
> that "mathematics" consists of something other than just doing hundreds
> of identical long division calculations over and over again. Mathematics
> provides a systematic way of solving puzzles and problems. It lets you
> manipulate and analyse hypothetical entities who's identity (or, indeed,
> existence) is as-yet unknown. Through tools like FractInt, I discovered
> that mathematics can be beautiful. I spent almost all of my time at
> college sat in the library, absorbing everything I could lay my hands on.
>
Should probably do that myself. The problem is figuring out where the 
hell my gaps are to start with, then finding something that doesn't bore 
the hell out of me reading it, like, I don't know, something directed at 
"application" of the math, not just how the hell you write the 
equations. I think this is a huge damn failing in "text books", and 
classes in general. Its one thing to hand someone a formula, or even a 
stupidly simply thing you want someone to do, like graphing a line, but 
give no possible context for why the hell anyone would bother to do so, 
save maybe some historical context. Its quite a bit different when you 
"need" to know, for your own purposes, how thick a rope will get, wound 
onto a spindle, and thus how big the spindle needs to be, versus just 
having someone hand you a problem, and ask you to give them a result, 
when your only thought is likely to be, "Why the hell do I need this?" 
Mind, that was physics class, while the normal math classes don't even 
give you problems that come even remotely close to that interesting. In 
any case, I don't remember the equations. lol

> I suspect it's some combination of math being taught badly, a cultural
> expectation that math is impossible to understand, and a society where
> stupidity is seen as desirable.
>
Nah.. Stupidity desirable? How could that ever be the case. I mean, its 
not like, at least in the US, there are politicians banking on it, 
products sold based on playing fast and loose with as little information 
as possible, or active attempts to undermine education. That is just 
absurd! Or, in reality, as I put it a bit ago when talking about the US 
version of libertarianism - "The concept is simple, lower taxes, 
resulting in poorer schools, resulting in closed schools, and since its 
everyone's 'right' to choose to be ignorant, the fact that 90% of the 
population is stupid has nothing to do with the failure of the system, 
its entirely the fault of people not moving to where the only two 
schools still open are located." Dear old Madison would be having a 
heart attack at this shit, if he hadn't had the sad misfortune of dying 
in 1836.

I seems only fitting that by 2036 the US might be so fucking stupid that 
they couldn't build a log cabin from his time, let alone work out why 
living in one would be preferable to huddling under a tree, or wearing 
animal skins in a cave... Or, so it sometimes seems the trajectory of 
some of this stupid shit is headed.

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On 8/20/2011 3:55 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> On 19/08/2011 11:23 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> No wonder I can't even figure out some "basic" stuff
>> I need for some 3D math.
>
> What part of
>
> | U x V | = |U| * |V| * cos a
>
> do you *not* understand? :-P
>
>
>
> Only teasing. ;-)
>
Would be a lot simpler if the damn stuff you have to use it in 
"understood" all that shit, natively. The problem I always run into is 
that you can find a perfectly comprehensible form of something some 
place, but it is only applicable is you a) do it by hand, or b) know how 
to derive some completely bloody different set of equations, that the 
damn computer will understand. Its like knowing, sort of, how to speak 
some obscure Chinese dialect, but then finding out that you need to 
*write* the information down in German, which for which the only work 
you know is the one applying to yourself, Dummkopf.

Well, not exactly the same case, but if you don't have all the other 
stuff in between the two concepts, understanding what the math is doing 
in the "human" version won't get you any closer to understanding how the 
hell the computer needs to deal with it.

The original post in this, describing deriving the two equations needed 
for Mandelbrot, from the original non-computer usable one, is a perfect 
example. My reaction is, "Show the math, step by step, because WTF?" lol

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On 8/20/2011 11:55, Warp wrote:
>    So no, you don't get it "almost for free". Not if you want a high degree
> of accuracy.

Actually, I think you do, if you keep the slope of the line positive and 
below 45-degrees. Then you use basic rotations of the algorithm to handle 
other cases. The trick is the line will never go through more than 2 pixels 
in the same column, so whatever doesn't go into the first pixel does go into 
the second picture.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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Am 21.08.2011 00:26, schrieb Darren New:
> On 8/20/2011 11:55, Warp wrote:
>> So no, you don't get it "almost for free". Not if you want a high degree
>> of accuracy.
>
> Actually, I think you do, if you keep the slope of the line positive and
> below 45-degrees. Then you use basic rotations of the algorithm to
> handle other cases. The trick is the line will never go through more
> than 2 pixels in the same column, so whatever doesn't go into the first
> pixel does go into the second picture.

Not true - unless you accept diagonal lines to appear thinner than 
horizontal or vertical ones; 45 degree lines of proper width can 
(partially) cover up to 4 pixels per column.

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Am 20.08.2011 16:56, schrieb Darren New:
> Yep. How much of your networking isn't connection oriented? Here's a
> hint: all networking is connection oriented. IP layers
> non-connection-oriented networking on top of that, and then layers TCP
> to turn it back into connection-oriented, poorly. If IP wasn't
> connection oriented, you wouldn't need routing tables on each machine.

Nonsense. There's no connection-oriented networking in the classic 
Ethernet, for instance - and IP ran fine on it. It's only the newer 
Ethernet incarnations that installed connection-oriented principles 
below IP, due to operating on point-to-point connections on the physical 
layer. (Which again shows that, as you already mentioned, having 
connection-oriented principles rooted pretty deep in the network stack 
seems to have /some/ benefits.)

You /might/ consider the current route through the internet a kind of 
IP-layer connection, but given that it can change even from packet to 
packet, and the packets can reach the receiver in arbitrary order, I'd 
call that pretty far-fetched.

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Am 20.08.2011 12:49, schrieb Orchid XP v8:

> Can you imagine anything more MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING than staring at a
> sheet of 40 long division problems? YES, I GET IT! I KNOW HOW LONG
> DIVISION WORKS! STOP BUGGING ME ALREADY! >_<
>
> Seriously. If you know how it works, do you really need to do it 200
> times over just to *prove* that you know how it works? It's not even

It's called "training", and is intended to (1) identify and iron out any 
occasional glitches, and (2) empower you to do it without needing to 
think about.

For *proving* that you know the procedure you have the so-called "tests".

> like it's particularly important to be able to *do* long division; it
> isn't something you're going to need to do every day of your adult life.
> You just need to have a firm grasp of /how/ it works and /why/ it works.
> Once you've got that, practising it on endless question sheets is just
> an utter waste of time.

Yes, but instead of a firm grasp of /how/ and /why/ it works, some 
people (and I guess they're the majority) need training to get a firm 
grasp of /how to/ actually do it - either because they never will get a 
firm enough grasp of the /how/ and /why/, or because they just don't 
give a shit.

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Am 20.08.2011 14:30, schrieb Orchid XP v8:
>>> Seriously. If you know how it works, do you really need to do it 200
>>> times over just to *prove* that you know how it works?
>>
>> Wrong, it's not to prove that it works. It is to drum into your "thick
>> little head" how to do it with out thinking. Compare it to repeating a
>> dance step until your body does not think of the individual moves. Then
>> you can build on it.
>
> Doing arithmetic "without thinking" is how we ended up with Verizon Math
> Fail.

The trick is to do the thinking part on such smart questions as "is that 
cents or dollars?", rather than on such boring arithmetical questions as 
"how much is 1 divided by 100?".

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Am 20.08.2011 20:05, schrieb Orchid XP v8:
> Admittedly it was a school for mentally retarded people such as myself...

I don't know the background of that diagnosis, but - fun fact: A lot of 
highly intelligent people are diagnosed as stupid and poor learners, for 
no other reason than them getting bored by the stuff they try to teach 
the normal people.

>>> Can you imagine anything more MIND-NUMBINGLY BORING than staring at a
>>> sheet
>>> of 40 long division problems? YES, I GET IT! I KNOW HOW LONG DIVISION
>>> WORKS!
>>> STOP BUGGING ME ALREADY! >_<
>>
>> You realize that most people aren't that smart, right?
>
> Pro tip: If I can answer 20 long-division questions correctly, I can
> probably answer 2,000 long-division question correctly. It'll just take
> me 100 times longer. :-P Thus, there's no real point to actually
> *making* me answer 2,000 questions...

Yes, but if you (ok, well, some other poor sod) can answer only 10 out 
of 20 long-division questions correctly, then doing 2000 of them might 
help to push that ratio to maybe 19 out of 20.

And because even maths teachers don't usually base their way of teaching 
on stochastical methods, they'll just let every pupil do the 2000.

> I was just having a chuckle about my science teacher whining about how I
> "don't apply myself" in class. His final comment was "more effort
> required". I notice he was the only teacher who forgot to actually fill
> out the performance ratings in the school report. MORE EFFORT REQUIRED! :-P
>
> This amuses me, of course, because I got a B grade for my science, a
> grade which is apparently unprecedented in the history of the school.
> Yeah, I really need to "apply myself" more. :-P Self-important idiot of
> a teacher...

Heh, maybe he only tried to keep up the morale of the other pupils.

"Why do we have to do all the homework when Andrew doesn't?"

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On 8/20/2011 17:38, clipka wrote:
> Nonsense. There's no connection-oriented networking in the classic Ethernet,

What machines does the broadcast address connect to? Guess what? That's what 
they're connected to.

That's the sort of connection I'm talking about, which is important for 
management and maintenance and routing. Indeed, the lack of management 
features is exactly why people went to star topology ethernet, precisely 
because ethernet, like IP, wasn't really connection oriented in that sense, 
and when something broke (like beaconing or disconnecting), it was 
impossible to isolate and diagnose.

Now, of course, IP treats each ethernet network as something separate from 
the routers that link to other ethernet networks. IP isn't really needed if 
you run over ethernet without routers.

I'll grant that IP also runs over non-CO networks like alohanet. Other than 
that, there's a pretty clear idea of whether you're connected or not to 
adjacent machines. IP also isn't needed if you run your network over alohanet.

> You /might/ consider the current route through the internet a kind of
> IP-layer connection,

I believe you misread me. I'm saying IP layers non-connection-oriented on 
top of network connections. I don't need to explain how IP can be 
interpreted as connection-oriented, because I'm saying IP makes 
connection-oriented networks non-connection-oriented.

> but given that it can change even from packet to
> packet, and the packets can reach the receiver in arbitrary order, I'd call
> that pretty far-fetched.

But in practice, it generally doesn't. That's why things like path MTU work. 
However, you're reading me in the wrong direction. IP takes something 
connection-oriented (dial-up, star topology ethernet, etc) and turns it into 
non-connection-oriented. And then layers on top of IP are almost invariably 
used to turn it back into a connection-oriented conversation. The most 
commonly used reason to not have something connection-oriented is that IP 
drops packets and you can't reliably know it happened. I.e., the reason to 
use UPD instead of TCP is often that the underlying IP has made the 
connection unreliable (non-reservation, etc) compared to something that's 
actually connection-oriented.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

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Le 21/08/2011 06:03, Darren New nous fit lire :
> I believe you misread me.

I believe you have an issue of vocabulary.
Below IP is not a network (in IT terminology), but links.

Links can be connection-oriented or connectionless.
They can be point to point (like current rj45/c8p8 cables) or they can
be broadcasting media (like 10base5 and other ethernet coaxial cable).
They can even be multipoint (like ISDN and X.25).

The fact that most transmission occurs using TCP should not hide that
there is some other transport protocols above IP which do have their own
interest.

TCP is reliable and ordered. So it is often used.
But there is application who do not care about reliability and order
(such as video distribution: better skip a frame than freezing. same
goes for VoIP: delivery in time is more important; Such application then
use RTP, a protocol above UDP/IP (or when possible, directly above ATM)).

TCP covers 95% of applications, but there is more than TCP under the sun.

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