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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>> 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.

More like "it keeps the students quiet so we don't have to think up any 
*real* tasks for them to do".

>> 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?"

No, he told everybody they were doing really badly, regardless of how 
good or bad their work was.

And when I went over and told him I got a B, he was all like "see, I 
always said you'd do well". NO YOU DIDN'T! You told me I would likely 
fail! "I only said that to motivate you." WTF? Telling people they're 
hopeless is NOT MOTIVATION!

Self-important dick... Man, everybody hated that guy.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On 21/08/2011 10:37 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> And when I went over and told him I got a B, he was all like "see, I
> always said you'd do well". NO YOU DIDN'T! You told me I would likely
> fail! "I only said that to motivate you." WTF? Telling people they're
> hopeless is NOT MOTIVATION!
>
> Self-important dick... Man, everybody hated that guy.

Recurring dream: Going back in time to school with the knowledge and 
confidence I have now. But then I would probably see what sad examples 
of humanity the male teachers were and give up in disgust.
At least you probably weren't belted (beaten with a leather belt).

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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>> What part of
>>
>> | U x V | = |U| * |V| * cos a
>>
>> do you *not* understand? :-P

> 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.

I'm having difficulty following what you're trying to say here.

> 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

Yeah. All the textbooks advanced enough to talk about complex dynamical 
systems assume that you *already* know everything there is to know about 
complex numbers (a much less advanced topic, comparatively speaking).

The first equation *is* useable in some software packages. But usually 
you need to expand out the real and imaginary parts seperately - a step 
which isn't mentioned anywhere and isn't described in any detail because 
it's presumed to be "obvious".



I assume that was a rhetorical question, but I'll answer anyway...

Start with Z^2 + C. Assume that Z = X + Y i, and C = A + B i. For that 
is what complex numbers are: a real part, and an imaginary part. 
(Explaining *that* is a whole /other/ essay...)

Substituting into the original formula, we have

   (X + Y i)^2 + (A + B i)

We can open the second pair of brackets without changing anything:

   (X + Y i)^2 + A + B i

Now, the first pair of brackets. The binomial theorem tells us the 
answer in canned form, but it's perfectly easy to do it all by hand. 
Since K^2 means the same thing as K * K, we can say

   (X + Y i) (X + Y i) + A + B i

Opening the first pair of brackets, we have

   X (X + Y i) + Y i (X + Y i) + A + B i

Opening the first pair of brackets, we get

   X X + X Y i + Y i (X + Y i) + A + B i

Obviously X X becomes X^2:

   X^2 + X Y i + Y i (X + Y i) + A + B i

Do the same sort of thing with the last pair of brackets:

   X^2 + X Y i + Y i X + Y i Y i + A + B i

The Y i X term is of course the same thing as X Y i:

   X^2 + X Y i + X Y i + Y i Y i + A + B i

Since there are two X Y i terms, we can gather them together:

   X^2 + 2 X Y i + Y i Y i + A + B i

The Y i Y i term is the same thing as Y Y i i. And that's obviously the 
same as Y^2 i^2. Now, BY DEFINITION, i^2 = -1. And Y^2 * -1 = -Y^2. So 
we have

   X^2 + 2 X Y i - Y^2 + A + B i

If we now put all the terms containing "i" into one pair of brackets, 
and everybody else in other pair of brackets, we get

   (X^2 - Y^2 + A) + (2 X Y i + B i)

This is still the same formula, we've just added some redundant brackets 
and rearranged the order a bit. Now, if we take everything in the left 
set of brackets and divide through i, we get

   (X^2 - Y^2 + A) + (2 X Y + B) i

This is still the same formula. (If we open the brackets, we get back 
what we had a few lines ago.) But now we have two purely real 
subexpressions, which a computer can calculate:

   X := X^2 - Y^2 + A
   Y := 2 X Y + B

QED.



I saw pictures in books of the "cubic Mandelbrot", and tried all sorts 
of modifications of the formula to make it cubic instead of quadratic. 
Of course, I didn't know about the binomial theorem yet. In order to get 
a cubic, you need to do this:

   (X + Yi)^3 + (A + Bi)
   (X + Yi)(X + Yi)(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X(X + Yi)(X + Yi) + Yi(X + Yi)(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X^2(X + Yi) + XYi(X + Yi) + Yi(X + Yi)(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X^3 + X^2 Yi + XYi(X + Yi) + Yi(X + Yi)(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X^3 + X^2 Yi + X^2 Yi + X Y^2 i^2 + Yi(X + Yi)(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X^3 + X^2 Yi + X^2 Yi - X Y^2 + Yi(X + Yi)(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X^3 + 2X^2 Yi - X Y^2 + Yi(X + Yi)(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X^3 + 2X^2 Yi - X Y^2 + XYi(X + Yi) + Y^2 i^2(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X^3 + 2X^2 Yi - X Y^2 + XYi(X + Yi) - Y^2(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X^3 + 2X^2 Yi - X Y^2 + X^2 Yi + X Y^2 i^2 - Y^2(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X^3 + 2X^2 Yi - X Y^2 + X^2 Yi - X Y^2 - Y^2(X + Yi) + A + Bi
   X^3 + 2X^2 Yi - X Y^2 + X^2 Yi - X Y^2 - X Y^2 + Y^2 i + A + Bi
   X^3 + 2X^2 Yi - X Y^2 + X^2 Yi - 2 X Y^2 + Y^2 i + A + Bi
   X^3 + 2X^2 Yi - 3 X Y^2 + X^2 Yi + Y^2 i + A + Bi
   X^3 + 3X^2 Yi - 3 X Y^2 + Y^2 i + A + Bi
   (X^3 - 3 X Y^2 + A) + (3 X^2 Y i + + Y^2 i + Bi)
   (X^3 - 3 X Y^2 + A) + (3 X^2 Y + Y^2 + B)i

   X := X^3 - 3 X Y^2 + A
   Y := 3 X^2 Y + Y^2 + B

As you can see, the result looks *nothing like* the quadratic case. If 
you didn't know what the derivation procedure was, you would have no 
idea why this is so.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> 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! >_<
>>
> 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.

That still doesn't make sense. We each got given a textbook. We each 
work through that textbook as quickly or slowly as we please. (Although 
if you're too slow, you get yelled at.) If you get too much stuff wrong, 
they make you redo it, or redo something from a similar textbook.

Which should *still* mean that you only have to do 2,000 questions if 
you're actually that slow at getting it. But noooo...

When math is treated as some kind of punishment, why is anybody 
surprised that nobody wants to do it?

> 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

Did you just say "the education system is fundamentally broken"?

I remember seeing a psychologist. Part of the conversation went like this:

"What were you thinking about just now?"
"Crystals."
"OK. Tell me about crystals."
"Nah, you wouldn't really be interested. I can tell."
"How can you tell?"
"The frames of your glasses are grey."

Now, considering I was, like, 9 years old, most people would have just 
laughed that off. This guy looked actually terrified that I was able to 
READ HIS MIND just by the colour of his glasses. Literally, he was 
desperately trying to figure out how I knew. Obviously, I didn't "know" 
anything. I was just being daft.

It's like nerd-sniping. http://xkcd.com/356/ Apparently psychologists 
are really, *really* easy to confuse.

>> 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.

I find doing /arithmetic/ on paper to be trivially easy. It's just not 
particularly interesting. I quite often do /math/ on paper - mainly due 
to the difficulty of typing most of the notation on a computer.

> Shortcuts would help, but you don't get those in school.

I haven't been to school in a long time. I hear they no longer teach 
"mathematics". They teach "numeracy". And it doesn't involve knowing how 
to add and subtract and multiply and divide. They only teach you how to 
/estimate/ results.

I have no idea whether this is true, or just what the media tells us.

>> 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

My problem is that I know a lot of quite advanced (i.e., interesting) 
mathematics, but I don't know some of the stuff that comes before that. 
Normally you would learn the simple stuff first, gradually moving on to 
the more advanced stuff. Which means there are books full of simple 
stuff, and books full of advanced stuff. And to fill the gaps in my 
knowledge, I'd have to read one of the "introductory" books where I 
already know 95% of what it says, just to learn the 5% that I haven't 
stumbled across yet.

> 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

It depends.

Sometimes I just want to solve a specific problem. But I do also enjoy 
reading about mathematical objects and their properties just for the 
hell of doing so. It's interesting. (I suspect if you had to do this for 
an actual *test*, it would become much less interesting...) For example, 
reading about polynomials and all the patterns and symmetries they have. 
And /then/, when you find yourself needing to solve some problem that 
happens to involve polynomials, you already know quite a bit about them, 
and therefore where to start looking for a solution.

> 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."

WOW. O_O

> Dear old Madison would be having a
> heart attack at this shit, if he hadn't had the sad misfortune of dying
> in 1836.

...irony...

> 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.

I think sometimes it's hard to tell whether the entire world is stupid, 
or just a vocal minority.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> Self-important dick... Man, everybody hated that guy.
>
> Recurring dream: Going back in time to school with the knowledge and
> confidence I have now. But then I would probably see what sad examples
> of humanity the male teachers were and give up in disgust.

There was a kid at school who used to bully me constantly. I used to 
dream about doing terrible things to him.

And then one day I thought to myself "Wait a minute. Your dad is an 
alcoholic, your whole family lives on welfare in a rundown council 
flat... there is basically NOTHING I COULD DO that would make your life 
anybody miserable than it already is. HAVE A NICE DAY!" :-D

> At least you probably weren't belted (beaten with a leather belt).

I do remember two kids got the slipper. (You're probably not allowed to 
do that, but they did.) The first kid stood there and took it like a 
man. The second was a screaming wreck.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On 8/21/2011 0:41, Le_Forgeron wrote:
> Below IP is not a network (in IT terminology), but links.

It depends on what IP travels over. If it's IP-over-ATM, there's most 
certainly a network there. If it's IP over dial-up, less so.

> (such as video distribution: better skip a frame than freezing.

Sure. And the point I was trying to make is that it's better to reserve 
bandwidth than skipping a frame, but IP doesn't support that.

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

Yep. And I'm saying that the primary reason people don't use TCP is to 
compensate for a lack of things like bandwidth allocation and routing 
assurance. Nobody used TP4 over a network that will work fine with TP0.

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

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On 8/21/2011 2:37, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> More like "it keeps the students quiet so we don't have to think up any
> *real* tasks for them to do".

I will say that I never had an art class before grad school that actually 
wasn't of the busywork type. Very few of those sorts of classes actually 
taught anything. I would have loved to go to music class where they actually 
taught some music theory or something, or an art class where they talked 
about the proportions for drawing people or the golden rectangle or 
something like that.

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

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On 8/21/2011 3:38, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> NOTHING I COULD DO that would make your life anybody

Sounds like a Holly Lisle book.

Gabriel: "But God, the devils are breaking their contract. Thay're cheating!"

God: "Of course they are, Gabriel. They're devils."

Gabriel: "But ... but ... you should punish them!"

God: "They're already damned to hell, Gabriel. What would you have me do?"

A very amusing book, overall. I recommend at least the first 2 or 3 for 
silly light reading.

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

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On 21/08/2011 04:06 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 8/21/2011 2:37, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> More like "it keeps the students quiet so we don't have to think up any
>> *real* tasks for them to do".
>
> I will say that I never had an art class before grad school that
> actually wasn't of the busywork type. Very few of those sorts of classes
> actually taught anything. I would have loved to go to music class where
> they actually taught some music theory or something, or an art class
> where they talked about the proportions for drawing people or the golden
> rectangle or something like that.

In our music class, they made us play musical instruments.

Oh, until the old teacher left and we got that *other* person, who 
couldn't make kids do stuff for toffee...

We didn't even *have* art classes. Though we did have pottery classes, 
where we actually made pots. I still have some of them.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Le 21/08/2011 17:04, Darren New nous fit lire :
> Nobody used TP4 over a network that will work fine with TP0.

Unless the "network" is only a part of the path.
(Interconnecting 2 Lan/Ethernet with pair of X.25 links: the system on
the lan are probably better using TP4 and the X.25 gateways just have to
push the clnp packets in the X.25 links. On these gateways, it's
probably simpler to have the application use also a TP4, even if they
could simplify the connections crossing only X.25 to use only a TP0).

Now, if I could have convinced the customer to use IS-IS on the
redundent four gateways per lan, that would have saved a few nightmares
about the routing table on the lan... and less money for my company on
the long run ;-)

Regarding IP-over-ATM, it depends from where you look (as you are
smashing the model inside another instance):
From IP (layer 3), ATM is simply a link (or set of links) (layer 2)
From ATM, it is providing nearly level 4 service. (and even more)

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On 8/21/2011 3:19 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>> 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.
>
> I think sometimes it's hard to tell whether the entire world is stupid,
> or just a vocal minority.
>
Vocal minority, plus a big non-vocal minority, who just want shit to 
work, but not why or how. Just had one bozo on MSNBC last night all but 
*admit* that Rick Perry, the Texas governor, who has driving his state 
into a worse condition than the rest of the country, but now wants to 
run to be president, is selling his constituents his own ideas, based on 
fear, deception, and misinformation, because, "people are reacting to 
what they feel is wrong, not the facts. The facts, such as Bush's last 
days being a hemorrhaging of jobs, while Obama managed to at least 
stabilize things, are basically irrelevant to the process of deciding 
who the next Republican candidate is, or whether he will be elected."

The mans entire argument seemed to hinge in this being perfectly OK, 
nothing wrong with it, for the most part, and entirely irrelevant to the 
well being of the country. It was just how the right wing had to "sell" 
the problem to their ignorant, stupid, angry, and wanting things to get 
better, constituents. The fact that none of what was being sold to them 
can or will solve the problems, most of it is stuff that caused them in 
the first place, and that actually basing your policies of reality is 
*necessary* to fix things, where all meaningless. My jaw would have 
dropped, but it still hadn't receded from the floor from earlier, when 
Bachman claimed that people where still afraid of the rising power of 
the USSR (yeah, Soviet Russia), which she apparently failed to not the 
fall of, while working cleverly inside the IRS to undermine the federal 
tax system, before she decided to run for office some place else.

Fact is, most people don't want to know anything. Its inconvenient to do 
so. So, the end game of that is that what sells, i.e., what speaks to 
the gut at the time, matters, and silly things like facts, statistics, 
truth.. well, those just don't sell as well, so fewer people will listen 
to them. As long as people, "trust their gut", which has the brains of 
Homer Simpson...

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On 8/21/2011 3:16 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> What part of
>>>
>>> | U x V | = |U| * |V| * cos a
>>>
>>> do you *not* understand? :-P
>
>> 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.
>
> I'm having difficulty following what you're trying to say here.
>
Just that, in such a case, the problem isn't just translating between 
languages, its knowing "which" of perhaps dozens of words might 
correctly convey the original details. You could, without a lot of 
problems, pick German words that muddle the meaning so badly its hard to 
work out what the original even meant. This is actually even more the 
case if you went from German to Chinese, since there is like a small 
handful, and one major, written form of it, but like I don't know how 
many dialects. Its the only language in the world where you write dog 
nearly the same way in every single case, but there are 20 ways to "say" 
it, some of them nothing at all alike.

If you don't know what the "intended" meaning is, i.e., the stuff in 
between, the result is going to end up being complete nonsense.

>> 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
>
> Yeah. All the textbooks advanced enough to talk about complex dynamical
> systems assume that you *already* know everything there is to know about
> complex numbers (a much less advanced topic, comparatively speaking).
>
> The first equation *is* useable in some software packages. But usually
> you need to expand out the real and imaginary parts seperately - a step
> which isn't mentioned anywhere and isn't described in any detail because
> it's presumed to be "obvious".
>
>
>
> I assume that was a rhetorical question, but I'll answer anyway...
>...

Uh.. Will go over that some time and try to work out what you did. lol 
Though, I could probably, based on the stuff he already gave, at least 
make an attempt at it without you having helped. I did get far enough in 
math to do some of that. I just am not sure I remember all the factoring 
and other stuff clearly enough to get it right.

But, yeah, exactly. If you don't know all the stuff "between", you won't 
get any place, other than confused.

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On 8/21/2011 3:58 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Vocal minority, plus a big non-vocal minority
That should have been "plus a big non-vocal majority".

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On 20/08/2011 03:43 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 8/20/2011 4:11, Warp wrote:
>> Drawing an accurate antialiased line (of certain width) is not a trivial
>> problem. Basically for each pixel you need to calculate how much of it is
>> covered by the line. Doing this accurately with integer math only can be
>> complicated.
>
> I am not sure you can do it accurately with integer math at all, given
> that there's a "portion of a pixel" involved in there somewhere. At best
> you'd be working in scaled fixed-point.

You realise that all of the quantities involved are rational, right? And 
that a rational number is just two integers?

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>> Nobody ever needs to compute the exact quotient of two 4-figure numbers
>> mentally. It's not necessary. You just need to be able to estimate the
>> answer with sufficient accuracy.
>
> True.
>
>> (Something which apparently a great
>> many people can't do for some reason...)
>
> Again true.

I hypothesize that this is due to their being far too much emphasis on 
memorising the algorithms for (say) computing a quotient, and far too 
little emphasis on getting a feel for what all the symbols *mean*, and 
*why* you manipulate them in this way.

>> Practising something you're going to need to do every single day of your
>> life is worth while. Practising something which you will never, ever
>> need to actually do is pointless.
>
> Well it surprises me that you never need to calculate something when you
> are away from some form of calculator.

It's not that I never need to calculate something. It's that I never 
need to calculate something to 6 figures. Usually I just need to 
estimate the answer. If I really do need an *exact* answer, I can use a 
calculator (given that there is *always* one in my pocket), or use 
pencil and paper if it matters that much.

Post a reply to this message

>> 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.

It's a well-established fact that meaningful things are far easier to 
remember than meaningless things. Hence, if you understand why a 
procedure works, it's much easier to recall it.

This doesn't change the fact that some people don't give a damn about 
maths. Then again, when "maths" just means memorising a bunch of stuff 
for no other reason than "it's in the test", who can blame them?

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Am 22.08.2011 10:14, schrieb Invisible:
> On 20/08/2011 03:43 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> On 8/20/2011 4:11, Warp wrote:
>>> Drawing an accurate antialiased line (of certain width) is not a trivial
>>> problem. Basically for each pixel you need to calculate how much of
>>> it is
>>> covered by the line. Doing this accurately with integer math only can be
>>> complicated.
>>
>> I am not sure you can do it accurately with integer math at all, given
>> that there's a "portion of a pixel" involved in there somewhere. At best
>> you'd be working in scaled fixed-point.
>
> You realise that all of the quantities involved are rational, right? And
> that a rational number is just two integers?

But in the end you want to paint a pixel a particular color, which is a 
/single/ integer. That's where the precision you might be able to keep 
with rational representation ultimately breaks down.

Post a reply to this message

>>> I am not sure you can do it accurately with integer math at all, given
>>> that there's a "portion of a pixel" involved in there somewhere. At best
>>> you'd be working in scaled fixed-point.
>>
>> You realise that all of the quantities involved are rational, right? And
>> that a rational number is just two integers?
>
> But in the end you want to paint a pixel a particular color, which is a
> /single/ integer. That's where the precision you might be able to keep
> with rational representation ultimately breaks down.

That's where the precision with ANY POSSIBLE REPRESENTATION will break 
down. :-P

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Le 2011-08-19 09:25, Invisible a écrit :
>>> (Come to think of it, *all* of the networking stuff at college was done
>>> by Novel Netware. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time...)
>>
>> They're still around.
>
> Novel is clearly still around. I meant Netware.

Netware, the OS, is pretty much gone.  Novell still sells its NDS 
(Novell Directory Services) and file servers, but they're now using 
Linux for the OS (SuSE, if I recall)


-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
/*    flabreque    */L)polygon{5,F,F+z,L+z,L,F pigment{rgb 9}}#end union
/*        @        */{P(0,a)P(a,b)P(b,c)P(2*a,2*b)P(2*b,b+c)P(b+c,<2,3>)
/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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On 22/08/2011 01:35 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
> Le 2011-08-19 09:25, Invisible a écrit :
>>>> (Come to think of it, *all* of the networking stuff at college was done
>>>> by Novel Netware. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time...)
>>>
>>> They're still around.
>>
>> Novel is clearly still around. I meant Netware.
>
> Netware, the OS, is pretty much gone.

That's what I suspected.

> Novell still sells its NDS (Novell Directory Services) and file servers

Interesting...

> but they're now using Linux for the OS (SuSE, if I recall)

Yeah, that's the one.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> 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.

  If the line is anything else than 0 or 90 degrees, it can cover a
triangular area of a pixel, not just a trapezoidal one.

  Also, likewise, both edges of the line can go through the same pixel
(unless the width of the line is at least sqrt(2).)

  Symmetries do not help here at all.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> You realise that all of the quantities involved are rational, right? And 
> that a rational number is just two integers?

  In practice the integers have a maximum value they can hold, so too much
precision in your rational value can easily overflow either (or both) of
the integers.

  (If you were to use integers of unbounded size, you might just as well
use floating point values. They would be faster too.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 22/08/2011 04:09 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> You realise that all of the quantities involved are rational, right? And
>> that a rational number is just two integers?
>
>    In practice the integers have a maximum value they can hold, so too much
> precision in your rational value can easily overflow either (or both) of
> the integers.

Yes. But if the quantities you're calculating with are pixel 
coordinates, overflow is highly unlikely to be a problem.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 22/08/2011 04:09 PM, Warp wrote:
> > Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
> >> You realise that all of the quantities involved are rational, right? And
> >> that a rational number is just two integers?
> >
> >    In practice the integers have a maximum value they can hold, so too much
> > precision in your rational value can easily overflow either (or both) of
> > the integers.

> Yes. But if the quantities you're calculating with are pixel 
> coordinates, overflow is highly unlikely to be a problem.

  Except that we are talking about antialiasing here, which by definition
is calculating at subpixel accuracy.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 19-8-2011 17:44, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:32:22 +0100, Invisible wrote:
>
>>>> ...but it was somewhat baffling to walk into a classroom and discover
>>>> that I know more about the subject than the lecturer does.
>>
>>> Oh c'mon now!  Anyone who can think his way out of a wet paper bag has
>>> had this experience repeatedly. We're just socially trained not to say
>>> so.
>>
>> What, that the person being paid to teach you something knows less about
>> it than you already do?
>
> Yes, it's not that uncommon.  In my case, it was an assembly language
> class I took in college - it started from how to use MASM, but I'd
> already used TASM quite extensively - but the course was a required
> course in my degree program.

Mine were e.g. in computer graphics related subjects. We had one teacher 
that tried to keep ahead of the class by one week, but failed because of 
over consumption of C2H5OH. To this day he is also the only person I 
have ever met with a technical university degree that did not understand 
the equation for a straight line.
The practical part was more fun, but we had a japanese arts student to 
help us there...
The exam was a joke too, we could use our book and the questions were 
like 'give the definition of...', 'what two problems are there when 
using technique X'.
Aside: my main surprise in this was that the students from CS simply 
accepted this level of teaching, many did not even notice.

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On Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:21:45 +0200, andrel wrote:

> Aside: my main surprise in this was that the students from CS simply
> accepted this level of teaching, many did not even notice.

That was something that surprised me as well - but then again, when I 
took my Assembly class, I had programmed in something like 15 different 
languages - more than anyone else in the class - and had been programming 
(even was paid to write code) since I was about 10.

So many CS students need that level of teaching, because they have 
(perhaps) math aptitude, but not (a lot of) hands-on experience writing 
code.

Jim

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On 24-8-2011 21:51, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:21:45 +0200, andrel wrote:
>
>> Aside: my main surprise in this was that the students from CS simply
>> accepted this level of teaching, many did not even notice.
>
> That was something that surprised me as well - but then again, when I
> took my Assembly class, I had programmed in something like 15 different
> languages - more than anyone else in the class - and had been programming
> (even was paid to write code) since I was about 10.
>
> So many CS students need that level of teaching, because they have
> (perhaps) math aptitude, but not (a lot of) hands-on experience writing
> code.

A low level would be acceptable for that reason. But a guy that writes a 
straight line and axes on the blackboard with a formula that does not 
match what he has drawn? Adding that there is a problem with either 
horizontal or vertical lines, because something might become infinitive 
and choosing the wrong one (matching neither his formula, nor his 
graph)? Or the assistant at the practical part that does not know the 
difference between a variable and a parameter?
Nobody needs that level of teaching.


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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On Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:39:30 +0200, andrel wrote:

> On 24-8-2011 21:51, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:21:45 +0200, andrel wrote:
>>
>>> Aside: my main surprise in this was that the students from CS simply
>>> accepted this level of teaching, many did not even notice.
>>
>> That was something that surprised me as well - but then again, when I
>> took my Assembly class, I had programmed in something like 15 different
>> languages - more than anyone else in the class - and had been
>> programming (even was paid to write code) since I was about 10.
>>
>> So many CS students need that level of teaching, because they have
>> (perhaps) math aptitude, but not (a lot of) hands-on experience writing
>> code.
> 
> A low level would be acceptable for that reason. But a guy that writes a
> straight line and axes on the blackboard with a formula that does not
> match what he has drawn? Adding that there is a problem with either
> horizontal or vertical lines, because something might become infinitive
> and choosing the wrong one (matching neither his formula, nor his
> graph)? Or the assistant at the practical part that does not know the
> difference between a variable and a parameter? Nobody needs that level
> of teaching.

That's certainly true - what's being taught has to be taught effectively 
*and* correctly.

Jim

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On 8/22/2011 8:07, Warp wrote:
>    Symmetries do not help here at all.

After further consideration, I think you're right, yes. :-)

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

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On 8/22/2011 1:14, Invisible wrote:
> You realise that all of the quantities involved are rational, right?

Uh, no?  Sqrt(2) for a 45-degree line thru a pixel sort of thing?

> that a rational number is just two integers?

That would be the "fixed point" part of my comment. Of course, if you want 
high precision rationals, you might wind up with multi-word integers, at 
which point you might as well just use floating point unless you're back on 
8-bit hardware or something.

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

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On 8/22/2011 5:17, clipka wrote:
> But in the end you want to paint a pixel a particular color, which is a
> /single/ integer.

Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
removes the colors from our sight,
red is gray and yellow white,
and we decide which is right,
and which is a quantitization error.

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

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On 8/21/2011 8:28, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> We didn't even *have* art classes. Though we did have pottery classes, where
> we actually made pots. I still have some of them.

Making a pot is rather different from the art of pottery making, tho. We 
give kids fingerpaints in kindergarden and we don't call it "art class". Or, 
at least, we don't think we're teaching them anything about art.

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

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On 26/08/2011 01:18 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 8/22/2011 8:07, Warp wrote:
>> Symmetries do not help here at all.
>
> After further consideration, I think you're right, yes. :-)

Symmetries help in that they reduce the number of cases you have to code 
for. They don't make the math itself any simpler.

Post a reply to this message

On 26/08/2011 01:24 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 8/21/2011 8:28, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> We didn't even *have* art classes. Though we did have pottery classes,
>> where
>> we actually made pots. I still have some of them.
>
> Making a pot is rather different from the art of pottery making, tho.

Sure. But it /was/ a school for stupid people... I have no idea what 
they have in real schools.

Although, my sister's school did a production of Joseph and the 
Technicolour Dreamcoat. And it was almost worth paying good money to 
see. (!)

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On 19/08/2011 01:00 PM, Invisible wrote:

> (Come to think of it, *all* of the networking stuff at college was done
> by Novel Netware. Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time...)

By coincidence, I lent one of our laptops to an employee yesterday. She 
set it up with her ISP's install disk, and now the laptop appears to 
have "Services for NetWare" installed. o_O

I'm still trying to figure out whether that's because they wanted to be 
compatible with anyone still using NetWare, or whether the ISP is 
actually powered by NetWare...

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On Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:00:24 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> I have nobody to impress anymore. :'{
> 
> (Although... I wonder how much of the praise I received was actually
> justified. Especially at college, when I was in a class full of chavs
> who went out and got drunk *every day*. They'd be hung over for the
> morning classes, and mildly drunk for the afternoon ones. Is it any
> wonder the lecturers though I was brilliant?)


Believe it or not ...

  """
  Well, I was once a prolific poster on this group, but that was
  about six years ago. Not sure what, if anything, you'd remember
  about me, but I can assure you that "believe it or not" is
  warranted.
  """

... I heard a lot of the same crap as you from my teachers, even though I 
never went to "Uni". And often from teachers, like yours, who did not 
understand the subjects they were teaching.

No, I didn't spend my time scribbling formulae into notebooks[1], but I 
was well known since grade school for my own set of tricks.

What I wonder is how destructive this praise from (molding by) 
unqualified teachers ends up being to their students.

I imagine you were encouraged to "work with computers" and that this has 
worked out decently for you, but it may be overall not an optimal fit.

I know enough programmers to know that "working with computers" means a 
lot more than figuring out clever bits of code. It's an environment and a 
lifestyle to which many clever people may not be well suited. Would Frank 
have known this?

I know from my own experience that there are many affable people I would 
not recommend become salesmen, many strong people I would not recommend 
become carpenters, many hard-working people I would not recommend become 
entrepreneurs, and many fit people I would not recommend become 
roughnecks.

And I know that I wouldn't hire you as a programmer. I would prefer 
someone, perhaps less encyclopedic, with a better work ethic; someone who 
does what he's told by the person paying him to do it and who spends less 
time on this forum; someone who's more interested in keeping the wheels 
turning than it reinventing the wheel.

I might hire you as a tech writer.

At least "working with computers" is good practical advice. (My brother 
just got his Doctorate in EE and will make a lot more money than most 
people―though I'll bet he still ends up working for someone dumber than 
himself.) How about those poor kids who are pushed into liberal arts?

 -Shay

[1] I do that now. But I'm sure I'm not reinventing the wheel, because 
what I'm trying to figure out are the subtleties of a personal "sacred 
geometry" for my pictures: NOT draw_picture() algorithms, just subtleties 
of form that I find satisfying. You really /should/ try POV-Ray.

ps. One example of some ludicrous praise I recently received: After 
hearing that I had ridden my bicycle 150 miles on the previous day, my 
wife's friend commented that I should "try" the MS-150 (A 150 miles in 
TWO days bike ride). TRY?!! TRY to ride 150 miles in two days when I'd 
just ridden it in one?!

Post a reply to this message

On 26/08/2011 04:17 PM, Shay wrote:

> ... I heard a lot of the same crap as you from my teachers, even though I
> never went to "Uni". And often from teachers, like yours, who did not
> understand the subjects they were teaching.

The Real WTF is: What the *hell* is somebody who doesn't know about the 
subject doing teaching it to people?! In what universe is that a 
remotely good idea?

> What I wonder is how destructive this praise from (molding by)
> unqualified teachers ends up being to their students.

This is the operative question, yes.

> I know enough programmers to know that "working with computers" means a
> lot more than figuring out clever bits of code. It's an environment and a
> lifestyle to which many clever people may not be well suited. Would Frank
> have known this?

Would Frank have cared? I highly doubt it.

> And I know that I wouldn't hire you as a programmer. I would prefer
> someone, perhaps less encyclopedic, with a better work ethic; someone who
> does what he's told by the person paying him to do it and who spends less
> time on this forum; someone who's more interested in keeping the wheels
> turning than it reinventing the wheel.
>
> I might hire you as a tech writer.

Somebody *did* hire me as a tech writer. And liked my work. (And had no 
problem with my "work ethic" - then again, it wasn't a big project...)

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On 27/08/2011 1:26 AM, Invisible wrote:
>
> Somebody *did* hire me as a tech writer. And liked my work. (And had no
> problem with my "work ethic" - then again, it wasn't a big project...)

Could be bigger if you are interested.

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On 19/08/2011 01:00 PM, Invisible wrote:

> ...and now I'm feeling all nostalgic about the long-lost days when I
> could just sit in a corner reading about Gaussian elimination or
> something while the lecturer blathers on about the role of middle
> management or whatever. I could do crazy math stuff, and people would be
> *impressed* and stuff. My college notes are literally a fermenting sea
> of equations. Serious work mixed up with doodles and advanced math. I
> have nobody to impress anymore. :'{

http://www.xkcd.com/664/

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> http://www.xkcd.com/664/

  I wonder how many great programmatical inventions have been lost
because they were made within the programming industry rather than
the academia.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 27/08/2011 06:23 PM, Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> http://www.xkcd.com/664/
>
>    I wonder how many great programmatical inventions have been lost
> because they were made within the programming industry rather than
> the academia.

After reading TFWTF, I'm tempted to say "not many". But then again, who 
really knows?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 27/08/2011 06:23 PM, Warp wrote:
> > Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
> >> http://www.xkcd.com/664/
> >
> >    I wonder how many great programmatical inventions have been lost
> > because they were made within the programming industry rather than
> > the academia.

> After reading TFWTF, I'm tempted to say "not many". But then again, who 
> really knows?

  The industry does often make quite advanced discoveries and development,
even if it ends up being properietary and burdened by approximately half a
million patents. I'm just wondering how many of such discoveries never
become public knowledge for example because the company decides to discard
the feature from their software (but still keeps a tight hold to the rights,
of course) or the solution just goes unnoticed (and the programmer is not
allowed to divulge it).

  Of course the academia and the industry often tend to solve different
types of problems. The industry tries to solve mostly practical problems,
while the academia often tries to solve mostly theoretical problems (most
of which may or may not have a practical application). For example, where
the academia tries to solve problems like "what is the fastest algorithm
to determine if two connected graphs are strongly bisimilar", the industry
tries to solve problems like "what's the fastest way of making millions of
database accesses" or "how do we make these graphics look realistic in
real time.

  Both goals sometimes overlap (especially nowadays with all this fad with
multithreaded programming, which has strong theoretical foundations), and
at both venues there are sometimes excursions to the other side (with the
industry solving theoretical problems and the academia practical ones), but
it's probably not the norm.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:23:43 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> http://www.xkcd.com/664/
> 
>   I wonder how many great programmatical inventions have been lost
> because they were made within the programming industry rather than the
> academia.

Indeed, and of course there are some concepts that nobody can use because 
they're made in the industry and patented by companies with armies of 
lawyers rather than in academia.  I wonder how different the software 
landscape would be today if some of the utterly stupid patents there are 
outstanding lawsuits about weren't covered by a patent.

Jim

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On 8/27/2011 10:23, Warp wrote:
>    I wonder how many great programmatical inventions have been lost
> because they were made within the programming industry rather than
> the academia.

Given the impact of academic inventions on practical programming, I wonder 
as well. (Consider, for example, relational databases, P/V semaphores and 
deadlock prevention techniques, parsing/language theory, etc.)  I'm thinking 
that the really big academic discoveries do indeed tend to have a stunning 
impact on practical business, in the form of stuff like RDBMS and parser 
generators and public key encryption and etc.

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

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