francisdavey

5 ms·

1.
by francisdavey 2mo ago
His second "proof" of uncountability is very poorly explained. Strictly speaking it is false, since all his reasoning applies equally to the rationals. What he shows is that a countable set would have zero measure. You have to a
2.
by francisdavey 3mo ago
You license your contributions under an open licence. You don't give up your copyright. There would be no other sensible way to operate a collaborative encyclopedia without a license of this kind. I (lawyer) have never encountered a ju
3.
by francisdavey 4mo ago
I'm not a law lecturer. I spend most of my time wrangling contracts and advising about data law. But I did a stint of part-time work teaching a masters in law. My experience then (this was back before "Attention Is All You Need&qu
4.
by francisdavey 1y ago
I was looking at the slide show, see for example: https://equal-earth.com/images/home/Slide_Show2-6.jpg It is the most obvious place to look (being on the front page of the website).
5.
by francisdavey 1y ago
On the detailed map showing Taiwan etc, the text on my image is clearly "Amani". I think that's true on the "big map" also.
6.
by francisdavey 1y ago
Is it popular though? When I studied Geography at school, we had a standard school atlas that was used by a huge number of schools throughout the country and across several generations. It had maps on essentially every page - of course. Onl
7.
by francisdavey 1y ago
The name of the island I live on (Amami) is misspelled. That does not give me a great deal of confidence about the rest of the map.
8.
by francisdavey 1y ago
When I was learning BSL (British Sign Language), I wanted to be able to note down words I had learned, or the ability to look them up. It was part of how I studied. At the time, all that was available was https://en.wikipedia.org
9.
by francisdavey 1y ago
To chime in on how English law approaches this (and perhaps amplify some of the good points already made): the common law position is that any restraint of trade is contrary to public policy and so should not be enforced unless some excepti
10.
by francisdavey 2y ago
I strongly recommend Dixon's The Rise and Fall of Languages ( https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Dixon/dp/0521626544 ) for a slightly contrary view. His experience with Australia suggests that languages ca
11.
by francisdavey 2y ago
It has (lots of) non-standard models. Or, to put it another way, there are statements that can neither be proved or disproved. This extends to any theory containing "enough" arithmetic and certainly any containing Peano Arithmetic
12.
by francisdavey 2y ago
The fact that Peano Arithmetic isn't categorical, and that if you want to nail it down you need either bigger theories (within which you can of course nail down a single model) or move to theories which don't have proof theories l
13.
by francisdavey 3y ago
I missed saying that in England (1) civil juries are essentially hen's teeth nowadays and (2) you don't tend to cross-over. Either you are in court most of the time, or advising on court proceedings, or you are a litigator (runnin
14.
by francisdavey 3y ago
One big difference in England (I'm an English barrister, so that's my jurisdiction) is that most short civil proceedings end up being effectively closed to the public, or at least unlikely to be viewed by other barristers. Longer
15.
by francisdavey 3y ago
When I used to appear in court a lot, I ran into plenty of intelligent people who managed to mess up badly because they didn't follow simple, clearly advertised, rules. So even though in theory it should be simple to do something, in p
16.
by francisdavey 3y ago
Working out whether a lawyer is good, and more specifically good for what you want, is difficult even for another lawyer. People often ask me for recommendations of a lawyer outside my field, or indeed in my field if I can't help them
17.
by francisdavey 3y ago
As a commercial lawyer, I often have to exchange drafts with another lawyer somewhere else. Almost everyone will accept Word, far fewer are happy with a Google doc. Obviously I can generate a Word document from Google, but that isn't q
18.
by francisdavey 3y ago
The best approach is that you do it like my grandma. She taught me to make pastry. You put the right amount of flour etc in the bowl and then make it. She taught me this when I was too small to understand what I was doing intellectually a
19.
by francisdavey 3y ago
Indeed. Worse, the ounce, as a unit of mass, has two different meanings in English law, one of which is so obscure and differs so very little from the internationally agreed quantity, that it is hard to believe that it could ever matter, bu
20.
by francisdavey 3y ago
Older British cookbooks - some of which were passed down to me in the family - also use cups. Sometimes volume measurements are easier and cups are fairly handy. Quite a lot of standard issue mugs in the UK are cup-sized, or roughly. Howeve
21.
by francisdavey 3y ago
It's when we met. I was doing my PhD at the time. At the computer lab we had tea breaks when people in different research groups would meet and chat. He was a very interesting person to talk to as you can imagine even by the standards