anatoly

39 ms·

1. 301.▲
   by anatoly 17y ago

   1. It's notorious for clashing with many people's intuitions and being very confusing. Many smart people who are experts in probability theory answer it incorrectly at first and then it takes them a while to convince themselves they were wr
2. 302.▲
   by anatoly 17y ago

   Sounds like a really bad idea to me.
3. 303.▲
   by anatoly 17y ago

   Think about it. What would be the hypothetical benefit? Being able to say "Hi, yes, we're being evil, but it's OK because we never officially promised otherwise"? Do you think such a statement heralds a clear PR win for any company? Disclai
4. 304.▲
   by anatoly 17y ago

   The unofficial Google motto is "Don't be evil", not "Do no evil". It's a subtle, yet important, difference.
5. 305.▲
   by anatoly 17y ago

   Thanks, this clears things up considerably.
6. 306.▲
   by anatoly 17y ago

   Sorry to butt in all pedantic, but I was unable to confirm that Borges wrote this poem (it's usually presented as a poem), and found a few online conversations where it's claimed it has been attributed to several different writers and is of
7. 307.▲
   by anatoly 17y ago

   I think that's slightly incorrect. The proof M is looking for is of the following statement: "P is an algorithm that solves the problem and T is an algorithm that is guaranteed to output, for any input, an upper bound on the running time of
8. 308.▲
   by anatoly 17y ago

   Good summary. As I finished working through his algorithm description, I wondered at the sentence in the summary that motivated me to read closely: 'An algorithm M is described that solves any well-defined problem p as quickly as the fastes
9. 309.▲
   by anatoly 17y ago

   this is useful: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/11/all-are-unaware.html
10. 310.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    There are several reasons to allow comments in your blog, but the one that speaks most to me personally is learning from people who are smarter/wiser/more knowledgeable on a given topic than you are. If you're blessed with readers who're ab
11. 311.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    I did. I think it's because the post's titled "A Rant About Women", and starts with a description of what's probably supposed to be a typical case of something or other. This connection, even if tenuous, was strong enough to build an image
12. 312.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    I wonder if you've read Roy Andrew Miller's "Japan's modern myth: the language and beyond" and what you thought of it. I know next to nothing about Japan and the Japanese, but I was very much impressed by this book when I read it a few yea
13. 313.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    I've plans to write about both as I review the books I read in 2009 on my blog, but nothing I can put into coherent form here and right now, sorry.
14. 314.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    I read a lot in high school and college. After that, I continued to think of myself as reading a lot, but the reality slowly diverged from the self-image. A few years ago, I noticed the gap and decided to fix it. I realized that while I abs
15. 315.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    I got myself a Sony Reader mid-2009 and started reading about twice more than I had been before. 2009 was also the first year in which I wasn't too lazy to document which books I read (I'm really glad I wasn't). Here're some of the favourit
16. 316.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    Why are you repeating the points Egan already made as though they were novel? He says in his review the same things as you're saying. "Sometime in the next twenty years or so, the technology that enabled Avatar will become cheap enough to
17. 317.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    Thank you for the kind words. Understanding is always more valuable than agreement.
18. 318.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    Well, let's agree to disagree on the recommendation of Manin's book. I think it's confusing, rambling and often downright unhelpful. The reason Godel's theorem is proved as (little other than) a corollary to Tarski's in Manin's book is that
19. 319.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    >You are confused by the implications and meanings of the results of Godel. No, I'm really not. >There are two (popular) axiom systems of the natural numbers. Both are from Peano. One system is first order and the other is second or
20. 320.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    I hesitate to say this, because it sounds harsh, but your comment is a heap of confusion. You're using words like "first order", "second order", "axiom system", "true statements", "refuted", with confused understanding of what they mean. Th
21. 321.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    I'm sure that Smullyan's not confused. In fact, his _Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems_ is the most lucid and brillian exposition (a mathematical and rigorous one) of the theorems I've ever seen. I absolutely adore that book. However, I also
22. 322.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    An axiomatic system is complete if it can either prove or refute every possible statement. "Refute" means "prove the negation of". So a complete axiomatic system is as powerful as possible w/o being inconsistent (if you prove both X and not
23. 323.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    This is only approximately true. What really is a straightforward formalized version of the liar paradox is Tarski's undefinability theorem, which is what's demonstrated in the blogpost. Goedel's incompleteness sentence is more like inspire
24. 324.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    This isn't a proof of Goedel's incompleteness theorem. It's a demonstration of Tarski's undefinability theorem. Goedel's theorem is far stronger and more difficult to prove. The confusion between the two is widespread. Goedel's first incomp
25. 325.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    This is a version of the Liar paradox, not Goedel's theorem.
26. 326.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    Thanks! I take it there's no reference to Bel Air either?
27. 327.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    I don't see how this means that Gladwell wasn't in error. All it says is that the webmaster missed the error when he uploaded the text version to the site. So what? he/she's a webmaster, not a copyeditor. The error had to come from somewher
28. 328.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    I can't, dammit. I'm trying to read the article, but all I'm seeing is "igon value igon value igon value". Damn you, Steven Pinker! I will never enjoy Gladwell again.
29. 329.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    Thanks, much appreciated.
30. 330.▲
    by anatoly 17y ago

    I have no recollection of reading this paragraph when I first read the submission. Maybe I skipped it somehow. Anyway, this doesn't make it clear whether this is done face-to-face as part of the interview, or offline. I also doubt it's prac