stiff

34 ms·

301.
by stiff 13y ago
I learnt only a bit of discrete math in my CS undergraduate degree, I had calculus and linear algebra but barely passed it by memorizing how to solve concrete problems and by having merciful professors - I was already working full time and
302.
by stiff 13y ago
What are you exactly claiming then, what would it mean that mathematics self-study is "unrealistic"? There is certainly a danger in not seeking external validation of your work (or denying it), and being at a university is very ni
303.
by stiff 13y ago
I self-studied some amount of pure mathematics, having only an undergraduate CS degree and while having a 40 hour a week day job, and while it's definitely harder and slower than learning it at a university, it's not unrealistic.
304.
by stiff 13y ago
Do you have any references to back up your claim? Stanislaw Ulam, who was the coauthor of the successful atomic bomb design, describes in his memoirs how in his students day he would think on a mathematical problem even for more than 10 hou
305.
by stiff 13y ago
There is plenty to be criticized about KA, but this has politics written all over it, if the above Freudian slip doesn't convince you, consider the following bits: Behind paywall, but someone at Khan Academy is an NCTM member, right?
306.
by stiff 13y ago
This is the exact same kind of shit that got thrown at every person ever who successfully challenged a rusty status quo, especially when job security was at risk. Quoting the original piece in Washington Post: We have great respect for the
307.
by stiff 13y ago
The parent comment seems to imply that there are some absolute mathematical truths and that there are some statements true in this absolute sense that can not be proved by mathematics. Goedels theorem shows something else: that starting fro
308.
by stiff 13y ago
Besides this being a ridiculous nit pick, it is not even true, seems like yet another misinterpretation of Goedels theorem, the favourite theorem of liberal arts students: http://www.quora.com/Mathematics/Is-there-anyth
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by stiff 13y ago
Here is a favourite passage of mine from Johns Stuart Mill autobiography (he is speaking of the demanding education his father arranged for him): I remember at some time in my thirteenth year, on my happening to use the word idea, he asked
310.
by stiff 13y ago
In 2040 someone will discover Haskell, shed tears on why C#++.cloud is so widespread instead in the industry, and use it to conclude the sorry state of the world. Seriously, don't compare what was published in papers 50 years ago with
311.
by stiff 13y ago
My understanding is that if proof by contradiction is allowed in A, Φ ∨ ¬Φ is a true sentence in A, so if you try to include the sentence "A is inconsistent" in A, it follows that A ⊢ Φ and A ⊢ ¬Φ, therefore in A Φ ∧ ¬Φ is true, b
312.
by stiff 13y ago
This is just an abstract. I think the novelty he perceives is combining all this into a proof of consistency of mathematics. Page 6 of his paper mentions everything you have just written about: https://docs.google.com/file&#
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by stiff 13y ago
You don't at all assume a logical framework to be consistent when "using" it, ie. considering the theorems that follow from it and its properties.
314.
by stiff 13y ago
The claimed paradox is that this proof contradicts Goedels result "if mathematics is consistent, then it cannot infer its own consistency.". This is not what the paper is about anyway, though.
315.
by stiff 13y ago
Carl Hewitt isn't just some random crank, he is the author of PLANNER, a breakthrough programming language in the early AI days, that gave rise to Prolog later on. This is a pretty interesting paper and it doesn't claim any big br
316.
by stiff 13y ago
Thanks, that's very interesting. Q for mortals is online and seems to be a good read, if anyone's interested: http://code.kx.com/wiki/JB:QforMortals2/contents
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by stiff 13y ago
Mind to share some of the background of yours? How did you get to know it, what were you doing with it, how did you learn it, what did you like about it?
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by stiff 13y ago
There is no shortage of excellent work being done today, too. With the large systems that are being created today I would take Python over APL or J any day, can you imagine building a company like Google or Facebook on top of APL, even assu
319.
by stiff 13y ago
In other words you're missing the plain meaning of the sections that I quoted because you try to consider it in the light of http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EW... . which w
320.
by stiff 13y ago
I try to read this paper from the perspective of his overall work and writing, and I have read through a lot of the EWDs. There is an abundance of examples that his #1 concern was about making programming more mathematical. Hence I interpre
321.
by stiff 13y ago
There are hundreds of EWDs and I haven't seen a single one where Dijkstra would talk about making programming languages simple to make comprehension straightforward, this is something that modern programming "gurus" are more
322.
by stiff 13y ago
Well, he didn't derive his algorithm using the approach he advocated, here is what he himself has to say on it: One morning I was shopping in Amsterdam with my young fiancée, and tired, we sat down on the café terrace to drink a cup o
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by stiff 13y ago
Has anyone here actually learnt what Dijkstra advocates in almost all EWDs and used it to any benefit? Basically almost all his essays in one way or another end up being about the need to prove programs correct using formal logic and specif
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by stiff 13y ago
Maybe it is so because this is a very wordy article with Dijkstra having just his usual axes to grind? The debate about this article should be a debate about the merits of proving program correctness, even though people nowadays read in Dij
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by stiff 13y ago
I am with you up to the moment you talk about people in the third world, where I completely don't understand what you are up to, care to explain?
326.
by stiff 13y ago
It would have made much more sense if you put a bit more effort into trying to interpret what I said and didn't assume I think animal-eating was invented 200 years ago... People certainly have a different emotional reaction from watc
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by stiff 13y ago
One of the biggest problem humanity currently has in general is that morality only kicks-in in most people when there is a very direct link between their actions and some negative consequences. Once there is enough degrees of separation and
328.
by stiff 13y ago
I second this, the only time I ever had wrist pain for prolonged amount of time was from having the desk too high. Ergonomics is not about buying different five different mices, but about making sure the position of your body is such that i
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by stiff 13y ago
What? The very wikipedia page you're quoting says: The original MacPaint was developed by Bill Atkinson, a member of Apple's original Macintosh development team.
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by stiff 13y ago
I have been using Gimp easily for 10 years now and Inkscape for at least 5, I know them decently well, and I appreciate they at all exist and the hard work that went into at all implementing the individual features. But the UX is terrible a

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