5 ms·

Good: I got rejected, I get a second shot. Bad: How can the State Department be so incompetent as to fuck this up? Also, why does it take months to generate th

by SeoxyS 15y ago

Good: I got rejected, I get a second shot. Bad: How can the State Department be so incompetent as to fuck this up? Also, why does it take months to generate this? I could do it with 15min and a simple script. Granted, any code generator is never truly random (Newtonian laws of physics pretty much forbid randomness,) but for all intents and purposes they're more than capable of handling a simple lottery.

aramadia 15y ago
Uhh, Newtonian laws have really nothing to do with this. Its more information theory, you can't get more entropy from what you put in. Also, it is clear now that the Newtonian model is not an accurate view of the universe, and that there are fairly random events such as radioactive decay.
- SeoxyS 15y ago
  There's an interesting article on random.org that talks about just that. http://www.random.org/randomness/ http://www.random.org/randomness/ This is dwelling into philosophy, but some argue that the universe is deterministic. With absolute knowledge of every particle in the universe, you could predict the entire course of everything that would happen in the future. The key is not to find true true randomness, which can reasonably be argued not to exist, but rather to find a system that is chaotic enough to be beyond control or predictability, and use that to generate random numbers. Weather systems, radioactivity, etc. are examples of this. Now I don't know much about quantum physics, and I hear that that might be an alternative to that—but my point is that I don't think it matters. A generator doesn't have to be truly random, it should just be random enough.
  - scott_s 15y ago
    With absolute knowledge of every particle in the universe... That's not possible, as stated by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The more you know about a particle's position, the less you know about its momentum, and vice-versa. This property is largely agreed upon to be an inherent property of the universe, and not just a technical limitation.
    - ComputerGuru 15y ago
      You need to look even deeper. Waaaay deeper, beyond the science, more into the realm of philosophy. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is about the here and now, but when you go deeper, with more dimensions, then you're looking past that. At that point, you're seeing the mechanics that makes the HUP work, the formulas that govern everything, the forumulas that make things un-formulable... Basically, beyond comprehension :)
      - scott_s 15y ago
        I've read your comment several times, but each time I am unable to attribute any meaning to your words.
        Locke1689 15y ago
        It sounds like a very poor description of hidden variable theory[1]. Hidden variable theory hasn't been in favor in a very long time, nor is it "beyond comprehension." In fact, I really hate the phrase "beyond comprehension" applied to almost anything because it has a tendency to mystify science, which can always be comprehended and expressed in the language of mathematics. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory
  - Locke1689 15y ago
    This is dwelling into philosophy, but some argue that the universe is deterministic. With absolute knowledge of every particle in the universe, you could predict the entire course of everything that would happen in the future. Actually, this is impossible. There's an elegant proof of this statement based on Cantor's diagonalization argument which shows that the computational device required to perform such an analysis cannot exist in the universe, via contradiction.
    - scott_s 15y ago
      Can you give me a google-able name (or description) for this proof?
      - jacobandreas 15y ago
        Better: http://www.astro.uhh.hawaii.edu/documents/Binder_nv-toae.pdf http://www.astro.uhh.hawaii.edu/documents/Binder_nv-toae.pdf
PonyGumbo 15y ago
Clearly we need to import better programmers.
protomyth 15y ago
State is better than Interior, read some articles on their "use" of technology.

by SeoxyS 15y ago

aramadia 15y ago

Uhh, Newtonian laws have really nothing to do with this. Its more information theory, you can't get more entropy from what you put in. Also, it is clear now that the Newtonian model is not an accurate view of the universe, and that there are fairly random events such as radioactive decay.

SeoxyS 15y ago
There's an interesting article on random.org that talks about just that. http://www.random.org/randomness/ http://www.random.org/randomness/ This is dwelling into philosophy, but some argue that the universe is deterministic. With absolute knowledge of every particle in the universe, you could predict the entire course of everything that would happen in the future. The key is not to find true true randomness, which can reasonably be argued not to exist, but rather to find a system that is chaotic enough to be beyond control or predictability, and use that to generate random numbers. Weather systems, radioactivity, etc. are examples of this. Now I don't know much about quantum physics, and I hear that that might be an alternative to that—but my point is that I don't think it matters. A generator doesn't have to be truly random, it should just be random enough.
- scott_s 15y ago
  With absolute knowledge of every particle in the universe... That's not possible, as stated by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The more you know about a particle's position, the less you know about its momentum, and vice-versa. This property is largely agreed upon to be an inherent property of the universe, and not just a technical limitation.
  - ComputerGuru 15y ago
    You need to look even deeper. Waaaay deeper, beyond the science, more into the realm of philosophy. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle is about the here and now, but when you go deeper, with more dimensions, then you're looking past that. At that point, you're seeing the mechanics that makes the HUP work, the formulas that govern everything, the forumulas that make things un-formulable... Basically, beyond comprehension :)
    - scott_s 15y ago
      I've read your comment several times, but each time I am unable to attribute any meaning to your words.
      - Locke1689 15y ago
        It sounds like a very poor description of hidden variable theory[1]. Hidden variable theory hasn't been in favor in a very long time, nor is it "beyond comprehension." In fact, I really hate the phrase "beyond comprehension" applied to almost anything because it has a tendency to mystify science, which can always be comprehended and expressed in the language of mathematics. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory
- Locke1689 15y ago
  This is dwelling into philosophy, but some argue that the universe is deterministic. With absolute knowledge of every particle in the universe, you could predict the entire course of everything that would happen in the future. Actually, this is impossible. There's an elegant proof of this statement based on Cantor's diagonalization argument which shows that the computational device required to perform such an analysis cannot exist in the universe, via contradiction.
  - scott_s 15y ago
    Can you give me a google-able name (or description) for this proof?
    - jacobandreas 15y ago
      Better: http://www.astro.uhh.hawaii.edu/documents/Binder_nv-toae.pdf http://www.astro.uhh.hawaii.edu/documents/Binder_nv-toae.pdf

PonyGumbo 15y ago

Clearly we need to import better programmers.

protomyth 15y ago

State is better than Interior, read some articles on their "use" of technology.