MarcusBrutus

The integers are totally closed under multiplication. They lack an inverse under multiplication that's why they aren't a field.

For those who had the misfortune to suffer the consquences of his folly, he is not controversial at all. He is a conceited man-child with very bad manners. There's readily accessible, amble evidence for that by looking at photos of him in various settings, both formal and relaxed. The way he dresses and, more importantly, his body language make it quite plain. His writings and interviews attest to the same. BTW, and to do him full justice, his mathy book on game theory is not bad (though hardly a classic) so he may be somewhat competent as an academic economist.

I wrote a Javascript visualization of this (using React) some time ago:

http://mperdikeas.github.io/stack-piling-and-tumbling/index....

(click "start dropping grain" to start)

Github repo: https://github.com/mperdikeas/js-react-stack-piling-and-tumb...

The problem with chess is that what makes it so addictive is the effect of memorizing openings. Opening theory adds strategic depth, flavor, and a landscape to what would otherwise be a dry, abstract, overly tactical game. It also allows psychological warfare and an element of surprise which isn't possible in variants with randomized starting positions. At the same time however everybody bemoans the fact that you need to memorize openings. I don't see an easy way to solve this conundrum. I understand the situation in Bridge is somewhat similar but I know nothing about Bridge.

Economists started using mathematics purely out of Physics Envy. I am obviously not talking about financial products which require some statistics and complex probabilistic models due to the way they're structured.

All the great economists of the liberal tradition up to and including Von Mises wrote monumental works without the need for equations. It was Keynes who first used mathematics both as a quest for respectability (Physics Envy) and as a way to convince credulous politicians like FDR that this stuff is complex and best left at "experts". The disastrous results are still with us today. And no, Keynesian politics did not end the Great Depression, they actually prolonged the misery and it took WWII and the destruction of all global competition to end it.

Not to mention that what passes as "mathematics" among the economists is laughable among mathematicians. Latin was employed towards similar ends by the Roman Catholic Church (although a plausible defense could be mounted that a standard language better preseved the Doctrine against heresy). Ditto for the complex models sometimes employed by astrologists.

A con game, 'nuff said.

I 've used both. Flow wins hands down:

(1) It is less intrusive. Flow's type system is built on annotations which are simply stripped away at runtime (as opposed to writing in another - albeit similar - language that gets transpiled to JS. Sure the transformations are always "file-local" as TS folks say but still it is another, totally unecessary level of abstraction and transpilation.

(2) Flow's type system is at least equally and quite possibly much more expressive and nuanced than TS.

(3) Flow annotations can be applied in a much more piece-meal way than TS.

(4) zero issues integrating with 3rd party libraries (because of 1) - and that includes the ability to type-check said 3rd party libraries (which is a breeze with flow-typed)

(5) To take advantage of TS you have to write JS code in the "JS with classes" style (a.k.a "JS for C# coders"). In contrast Flow allows you to take advantage of its type checking while coding: (a) in idiomatic JS (prototypes) (b) in JS with classes (c) any combination and mix of the two approaches. Flow feels a lot less opinioned as to your JS programming style.

(6) Flow it is not coming from microsoft (but hey, don't you know we've changed, please give us another chance and we won't fuck you over this time, please we love you so). TS team is trying very hard (perhaps too hard) to distance themselves from the negative brand value of microsoft

(7) Flow is not a blueprint for the Mother of all embrace-extend-extigunish strategies (see #6).

In your database always store time as seconds since the Epoch (or milliseconds since the Epoch if you need more precision). Forget about SQL date/time types, they are useless. Then convert to "civilian format" only in the presentation layer. You can't go wrong with that.

Seconds since the Epoch is unambiguous, eschews time zones, daylight savings time and other man-made concepts (it makes sense to Martians too). Plus it only requires an INTEGER type in the database which every RDBMS provides (so is migration safe). You also create demand for your future colleagues (or future self) around 2038. Or you can use BIGINT if that bothers you.

It gives me a very warm feeling to know that those simpletons now have you to care for them and prevent other people from taking advantage of them. I do hope they show some appreciation for your efforts on their behalf.

I know very well what these systems are and, more importantly, I also know what they have in common (with German National Socialism, Maoism and Arab Islamism too): contempt for the rights of individuals and belief in the right of the state to impose its worldview even to the extent of trumping voluntary contracts and arrangements between consenting adults. It is that mindset, the thin edge of the wedge, that I see everywhere, not witches. Of course France (and most of the EU dystopia) is a socialist basketcase beyond redemption so the "thin edge" metaphore is not entirely applicable here.

... asks the one who can't write 11 words without a syntactic error (in case you edit it: "Do you even know the meaning of the words to use ?"). Also be advised that it's not correct typography to prepend the question mark with a space.

If a business is willing to offer me free soda refills and I freely choose to patronize thar business, then it takes a hardcore Stalinist to dare stand between us two and prevent by the force of guns this peacefull, voluntary exchange. Does one really need to explain that in the 21st century?

The US did it by virtue of it being a lot more homogeneous when it was first created. Last time I checked they didn't need any translators when they were debating the constitution, nor is the US constitution printed in 17 official translations like all EU documents and treaties are. Also, most people actually came to these shores having nothing but bad memories (if not outright contempt) for the countries they left behind and they were eager to embrace a new identity. The new land had a dominant cultural identity and they quickly aligned to it. Finally, the experience of the revolutionary war and a few more major wars down the road helped with "bonding" - to use a cute phrase. None of above conditions hold for Europe. The French are not eager to shun their national character and start speaking German and the last time they went to war they fought against the Germans and the Italians, not alongside them.

Additionally, crossing the Atlantic served as a filter to select only those people that were truly desirous of becoming Americans. Disgruntled EU voters have the nasty habit of lingering around.

It most definitely is and it takes a very starry eyed sort of person to expect otherwise. The idea that 20 or so different people with different languages, religions, mores, histories, frames of reference, economies could somehow achieve monetary or much less political union under the rule of an un-elected and un-accountable bureaucracy of "commissioners" who rule by means of "directives" (you couldn't make it sound more soviet-y even if you tried) was beyond ludicrous from day 1. A modest trade union with some freedom of movement for qualified workers was achievable and maybe in the end it will settle to just that. In fact I think the soviety approach to building the whole thing ensured its demise. Diverse people can collaborate productively and profitably under win-win free market arrangements. But in the EU system there's too many zero-sum games being constantly played and decided on a purely political level (rather than by market forces) and that creates a lot of bad blood pretty quickly. The reluctance of Germans to bail out southern Europeans is just an instance of that.

Yep, obviously.

For a man, a brothel operator, a private detective, or a drugs purveyor would make more sense for blackmail. How would a waiter in a nondescript location gain access to information that would allow him to blackmail? It's not like the hotel was placed near a military base or was frequented by diplomats or generals. Not to mention placing tapping devices in the Queen's furniture. The story, as presented, does not compute.

The story doesn't explain how a spy working as a waiter, purchase manager or "artist" can gain access to military secrets.

Ubuntu LTS with i3 window manager. Community size matters and after having experienced i3wm I find it impossible to use any other window manager.

Scarcity, fungibility, divisibility, durability are not societal constructs. Plus all metals have some inherent value. On top of that you have desirability which you could perhaps explain as a societal construct although I think there is something ingrained in the human psyche about valuing very smooth and shiny things (perhaps there is even an evolutionary explanation). At any rate a societal construct that has persisted for milenia across vast swathes of the globe is not your typical societal construct.

Bitcoin fails to satisfactorily answer von Mises' regression theorem. It also has no scarcity since it can face competition by an infinite number of similar conceivable algorithms / block-chains / virtual currencies that offer much the same features, regardless of how hard its own mining gets. Not to mention that once it is perceived as more than just a nuisance by some major government it will be shut down in a heartbeat. Future generations will laugh at our incredulity just like we make fun of the Tulip mania (which had more substance to boot). There is real, almost insatiable global demand for a currency with intrinsic value and scarcity that cannot be inflated by fiat. But given that such a currency will antagonize major governments it will likely not be a crypto-currency but rather a currency backed by some sufficiently powerful country. I am actually expecting the Russians or Chinese to launch a 100% gold-backed currency within the next 5 years. Failing that, when the EU breaks up the new Deutsche mark will be a good alternative. Any of these developments will pop Bitcoin's bubble.

Even in OO languages (such as Java and C#) people are routinely advised to favor composition over inheritance whenever given half a chance. Classes definitely smell (or rather reek) of the infamous 90s that inflicted such atrocities on humanity as the Rational Rose "products" and the UML "methodologies". It also goes to show why the "typescript" Microsoft strategy is ill thought. Unless of course it's simply (as I think it is) the Mother of all Embrace Extend Extinguish strategies in which case it is very cleverly thought. Sadly ECMAScript has also jumped on the OO bandwagon by offering "classes" syntactic sugar but at least it is left to the developer to use it or not, whereas in the Microsoft-land of "typescript" you get classes rammed down your throat.

I've used Clojure in a few cases and I totally adore the simplicity of its Lisp syntax as opposed to the baroquesque abomination that is Scala. However, lack of strong typing is sorely felt. I 've done a little playground-style OCaml coding and the feeling you get with OCaml is that once your program compiles, it most likely also runs correctly. Is a Lisp language with strong typing for the Java ecosystem too much to ask? Apparently it is or else we would have had it by now.

Herd immunity is a "tragedy of the commons" type of game. Case closed. Unless you can prove that a rational actor would chose in his own self-interest to cooperate in which case you might get considered for a Nobel prize in economics.

Whenever I read the words "herd immunity" my eyes roll over. It sure feels good to be a free loader every once in a while. And let's not forget that medicine is not engineering or mathematics. I 've met quite a few doctors and my impression is that their average IQ does not compare very favorably with that of coders or engineers. And let's not forget that the medical profession has a very long history of suppressing inconvenient truths or adopting a condescending attitude towards anyone who dare challenge their authority. Plus when I pay a "doctor", I expect him to advise me what's best for me, in my narrow little case, not what's best for the society as a whole. But then again I suppose that if the Government wants me to take those shots it must be for my own good, right? I mean, who am I to decide what chemicals and "weak" viruses get injected into my own body?

People will not be amazed, at least for more than a day, by anything that's widely shared. Never had, never will. Human beings, being what they are, a few enlightened souls excluded, derive happiness by the advantages they enjoy and the power they hold __over other people__. Henry VIII lived in an age before anesthesia, dentistry, where bathrooms were appalling by today's standards, where palaces where rat-infested and where life could be cut short in often agonizing ways. Yet, I am sure he would trade all the advances of the last 400 years for being able to sent men to their deaths for no reason other than angering him and being able to have any woman that attracted his gaze. Most of us would.

Shouldn't that be 1.5X instead? Unless you are factoring in that limestone's permeable.

I am not convinced that the Egyptians could build watertight channels at this scale, especially those shown climbing up the slope of the pyramid which would have to be watertight at the top too, and under great pressure. Also one or two packages could easily get stuck in the "pipe" jamming the whole thing. Finally, the video likely downplays the number of floaters necessary to lift a block of stone.

Maybe it can't buy happiness but it can definitely buy off unhappiness, some of it anyhow (adapted from a line in "Psycho").

Perhaps, in a broader sense. One particular account I've read in a autobiographical book by a person who fought in a distant civil war and had been on both sides of the table, so to speak, recalls how he felt the same kind of bonding - "closeness" as he puts it - both with the people who tortured him and those who he, himself, tortured.

I find it strange that if Mr. Nagase had been a rather indifferent PoW camp "administrator" who did not actively participate in torturing him, the late Mr. Lomax would likely feel no great urge to meet him and make friends with him. I' ve read that a kind of bond is almost always formed between the tortured and the torturer. Something for psychologists to explore I guess.

There's physics and there's metaphysics. That's known since the times of Aristotle and Plato. Attempts by physicists to solve the "hard problem of consciousness" are doomed to fail. Different tools are necessary for each "magisterium". Philosophers and Theologians are better equipped to address that problem and write more coherent and logically consistent papers. A transcendental problem should have a transcendental / fundamental answer and there's nothing fundamental about a bunch of equations. I lack the ability and the time to express the last point more eloquently.