http://search400.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid3_gci551314,00.html
I'm bullish about this. Humans working for IBM invented this, and it's in ALL of our Personal Computers. Nuff said :)
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Moral vs Rational
RICHARDSON, Texas, March 26 (AScribe Newswire) -- In an awesome display of power and mastery, chess players from The University of Texas at Dallas thoroughly dominated their opponents to win the 2007 Final Four of Chess tournament, held this weekend in Fort Worth, Texas.
With the victory, UT Dallas won the President's Cup trophy, emblematic of the Final Four champion, as well as the right to continue calling itself the best collegiate chess team in the land, a title the university reclaimed last December by winning the 2006 Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, the most prestigious college chess competition held each year in the Western Hemisphere.
UT Dallas finished the round-robin Final Four without a loss and beat the closest competitor, archrival University of Maryland, Baltimore County, by a margin of five and one-half points (10.5 versus 5)- a huge gap in chess competition and the widest margin ever in the seven-year history of the Final Four. In the three rounds held over two days, UT Dallas compiled an overwhelming record of nine wins and three draws. The other two competitors, Miami Dade College (4.5 points) and Duke University (4 points), finished third and fourth, respectively.
Easy money indeed :)
+++
Pride? Stubbornness? Fear?
Yes we have strong urge to be righteous. Just look at kids, they love to be proven correct and they usually assume they are correct. One of life's hard lessons is learning that we're often not correct and that people will often have different opinions from us and want to fight us to prove they are right and we are wrong. This is the basis of competitive sports. Of course one would expect a creature born of natural selection/survival of the fittest to have this characteristic strongly ingrained. We want to get one up on our fellow man, to have some advantage.
Imagine if you worked in an office and one worker had a simple message on his door :
"I know the secret !"
How would you feel?
+++
On another subject, when do you think moral reasons for taking a particular decision outweigh rational reasons for the decision? Always? Thoughts please!
With the victory, UT Dallas won the President's Cup trophy, emblematic of the Final Four champion, as well as the right to continue calling itself the best collegiate chess team in the land, a title the university reclaimed last December by winning the 2006 Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, the most prestigious college chess competition held each year in the Western Hemisphere.
UT Dallas finished the round-robin Final Four without a loss and beat the closest competitor, archrival University of Maryland, Baltimore County, by a margin of five and one-half points (10.5 versus 5)- a huge gap in chess competition and the widest margin ever in the seven-year history of the Final Four. In the three rounds held over two days, UT Dallas compiled an overwhelming record of nine wins and three draws. The other two competitors, Miami Dade College (4.5 points) and Duke University (4 points), finished third and fourth, respectively.
Easy money indeed :)
+++
Pride? Stubbornness? Fear?
Yes we have strong urge to be righteous. Just look at kids, they love to be proven correct and they usually assume they are correct. One of life's hard lessons is learning that we're often not correct and that people will often have different opinions from us and want to fight us to prove they are right and we are wrong. This is the basis of competitive sports. Of course one would expect a creature born of natural selection/survival of the fittest to have this characteristic strongly ingrained. We want to get one up on our fellow man, to have some advantage.
Imagine if you worked in an office and one worker had a simple message on his door :
"I know the secret !"
How would you feel?
+++
On another subject, when do you think moral reasons for taking a particular decision outweigh rational reasons for the decision? Always? Thoughts please!
Monday, March 26, 2007
Slavery
How Christian nations ever allowed slavery is odd, but then again I guess there are slaves mentioned in The Bible - did Jesus ever campaign against slavery? I don't recall so, but then again He knew Wilberforce would do so some 1800 years later.
Mark Steyn, a columnist here in the United States (but whose work appears in Canadian and UK publications), wrote a review of the movie "Amazing Grace." He didn't really care much for the movie, preferring instead the book of the same title by Eric Metaxas. Nevertheless, Steyn offers the following in his review which I found interesting:
It was Wilberforce's Christianity that was the flame behind his passion. The movie does a fair job presenting it as such. It could easily have scrubbed from the script the religious context, making his motivation being more "doing the right thing" rather than doing God's will. But they did not, though some evangelical types have taken exception to the downplaying of the strictly Christian elements. I think that criticism is misguided. I think there's enough Christian theme to be effective without being off-putting.
It's like my opinion of street corner Bible-thumping preachers, all red of face and spewing spittle in their righteous indignation -- for every one person they attract to Jesus, they send 99 away. They justify their way by pointing to John the Baptist, who was portrayed as something of a wild man. Times are different. And Jesus himself, except for the driving of the moneychangers from the temple, is portrayed as more gentle and humble, more calm and sensible.
* * *
I liked the movie "Amazing Grace," but I did not think it was a great movie. I liked it because of its general tone and tenor -- quiet, dignified. But it had some flaws.
* * *
I often wonder if any American folk actually think English people in England are really like that? I would bet "yes", and I think it's those folk that The Simpsons is making light fun of.
I think there's a large swath of America that does think England is Buckingham Palace, the changing of the guard, and Big Ben. Just like some people in other parts of the world think America is just people in huge cars with lots of money and cowboys dotting the horizon.
* * *
It's really hard not to fight sometimes isn't it?
You're right. There's a powerful driver within our souls to prove ourselves right ... even when it doesn't really matter if we do. Pride? Stubbornness? Fear?
Mark Steyn, a columnist here in the United States (but whose work appears in Canadian and UK publications), wrote a review of the movie "Amazing Grace." He didn't really care much for the movie, preferring instead the book of the same title by Eric Metaxas. Nevertheless, Steyn offers the following in his review which I found interesting:
What did Wilberforce 'cure'? Two centuries ago, on March 25, 1807, one very persistent British backbencher secured the passage by Parliament of an Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade throughout His Majesty's realms and territories. It's not that no one remembers the disease ever existed, but that we recall it as a kind of freak pandemic -- a SARS or bird flu that flares up and whirs round the world and is then eradicated. The American education system teaches it as such -- as a kind of wicked perversion the Atlantic settlers had conjured out of their own ambition. In reality, it was more like the common cold -- a fact of life. The institution predates the word's etymology, from the Slavs brought from eastern Europe to the glittering metropolis of Rome. It predates by some millennia the earliest laws, such as the Code of Hammurabi in Mesopotamia. The first legally recognized slave in the American colonies was owned by a black man who had himself arrived as an indentured servant. The first slave owners on the North American continent were hunter-gatherers. As Metaxas puts it, 'Slavery was as accepted as birth and marriage and death, was so woven into the tapestry of human history that you could barely see its threads, much less pull them out. Everywhere on the globe, for 5,000 years, the idea of human civilization without slavery was unimaginable.'And then this:
'What Wilberforce vanquished was something even worse than slavery,' says Metaxas, 'something that was much more fundamental and can hardly be seen from where we stand today: he vanquished the very mindset that made slavery acceptable and allowed it to survive and thrive for millennia. He destroyed an entire way of seeing the world, one that had held sway from the beginning of history, and he replaced it with another way of seeing the world.'That, to my eye, seems to explain why Christian societies would have permitted slavery. Summed up -- it's always been that way.
It was Wilberforce's Christianity that was the flame behind his passion. The movie does a fair job presenting it as such. It could easily have scrubbed from the script the religious context, making his motivation being more "doing the right thing" rather than doing God's will. But they did not, though some evangelical types have taken exception to the downplaying of the strictly Christian elements. I think that criticism is misguided. I think there's enough Christian theme to be effective without being off-putting.
It's like my opinion of street corner Bible-thumping preachers, all red of face and spewing spittle in their righteous indignation -- for every one person they attract to Jesus, they send 99 away. They justify their way by pointing to John the Baptist, who was portrayed as something of a wild man. Times are different. And Jesus himself, except for the driving of the moneychangers from the temple, is portrayed as more gentle and humble, more calm and sensible.
* * *
I liked the movie "Amazing Grace," but I did not think it was a great movie. I liked it because of its general tone and tenor -- quiet, dignified. But it had some flaws.
* * *
I often wonder if any American folk actually think English people in England are really like that? I would bet "yes", and I think it's those folk that The Simpsons is making light fun of.
I think there's a large swath of America that does think England is Buckingham Palace, the changing of the guard, and Big Ben. Just like some people in other parts of the world think America is just people in huge cars with lots of money and cowboys dotting the horizon.
* * *
It's really hard not to fight sometimes isn't it?
You're right. There's a powerful driver within our souls to prove ourselves right ... even when it doesn't really matter if we do. Pride? Stubbornness? Fear?
Foreign
There's something quite lonely about spending a weekend in a hotel in a generic business location. Particularly one that is so close to where I lived for 10 years. It's like I sense this used to be "home" but now I'm just a visitor.
Yes, hotels on the weekends are in that changeover period, gearing up for the next business week and hosting wedding receptions or the odd בר מצוה.
I can see how it must be strange travelling back to old stomping grounds. New environs cause some tension within us, when we live in a place for a while we become familiar with it and the tension eases. How long do you have to be away from a place to feel that tension again when you return to it? 2-3 years perhaps I think.
These days I do like the odd trip stateside to stay in a hotel but I've had to decline two offers already this year, plus as offer to go to Amsterdam - for family reasons - so enjoy it while you can! Everything in moderation :)
and where relatively obscure English actors are allowed to quietly project a personality onto the screen -- is my favorite kind of movie.
Heh those are good movies. I will have to check out Amazing Grace. I recall a lesson on Wilberforce at school in the late 70's, all about the emancipation of slaves. How Christian nations ever allowed slavery is odd, but then again I guess there are slaves metioned in The Bible - did Jesus ever campaign against slavery? I don't recall so, but then again He knew Wilberforce would do so some 1800 years later.
It occurs to me that in some ways we are all slaves.
A very different type of movie I saw recently is Pans Labyrinth ((El Laberinto del fauno) a Spanish movie by Guillermo del Toro. I cannot recommend it highly enough, I get DVDs sent to me all the time by the rental company and this one really stands out. It's set at the end of the second world war in Spain, it's about the Spanish civil war and how that pits neighbour against neighbour. It is so well done, and you're left with the realization that the only real monsters out there are humans.
If I have such a cause, I'm not sure what it is. Your cause right now is your daughter.
Maybe your cause is to enlighten the world with your clarity of vision? You're very good at taking complicated things and boiling them down so that non-rocket-scientists can understand them.
Caring for a child is very rewarding and is indeed a good reason to "keep going", but I'm not sure if I have "a cause". If anything it would be along the lines of encouraging humans to live in harmony and to make the best of their abilities without necessarily seeking an advantage over their fellow man -- that is my wish, not sure what I am doing for it as a cause though.
Are the British stereotypes shown amusing? Or annoying?
I love that episode by the way, only having seen it about five times now ;) One of the best Bart quotes ever are in that episode here. I love it when the lady behind Barts voice does her "Old English" way of speaking. Such stereotypes don't annoy me at all, especially when they are done in a parody of the way that some Americans might think of the English. I often wonder if any American folk actually think English people in England are really like that? I would bet "yes", and I think it's those folk that The Simpsons is making light fun of.
There was a chorus of "That's great!" and "She deserved it!" from others on the forum.
That's what we do isn't it?
We have a preference for the familiar and this has the benefit of leading us into group behaviour (pool resources, fight predators, etc)
The trouble is, this same behaviour which benefits our survival also creates wars between the groups -- they are unfamilar - "not us" so cause stress. So the group of "bikers" fight the group of "mobile phone users". It doesn't matter who the groups are, they will fight. Natural selection in action.
I am so tempted to argue back on the forum ... but a little birdy in my conscious is telling me to walk away
What would fighting achieve here? If you can convince the biker group not to be slaves to their DNA then that would be a miracle. Mind you, Wilberforce did get that bill through Parliament :)
It's really hard not to fight sometimes isn't it?
Yes, hotels on the weekends are in that changeover period, gearing up for the next business week and hosting wedding receptions or the odd בר מצוה.
I can see how it must be strange travelling back to old stomping grounds. New environs cause some tension within us, when we live in a place for a while we become familiar with it and the tension eases. How long do you have to be away from a place to feel that tension again when you return to it? 2-3 years perhaps I think.
These days I do like the odd trip stateside to stay in a hotel but I've had to decline two offers already this year, plus as offer to go to Amsterdam - for family reasons - so enjoy it while you can! Everything in moderation :)
and where relatively obscure English actors are allowed to quietly project a personality onto the screen -- is my favorite kind of movie.
Heh those are good movies. I will have to check out Amazing Grace. I recall a lesson on Wilberforce at school in the late 70's, all about the emancipation of slaves. How Christian nations ever allowed slavery is odd, but then again I guess there are slaves metioned in The Bible - did Jesus ever campaign against slavery? I don't recall so, but then again He knew Wilberforce would do so some 1800 years later.
It occurs to me that in some ways we are all slaves.
A very different type of movie I saw recently is Pans Labyrinth ((El Laberinto del fauno) a Spanish movie by Guillermo del Toro. I cannot recommend it highly enough, I get DVDs sent to me all the time by the rental company and this one really stands out. It's set at the end of the second world war in Spain, it's about the Spanish civil war and how that pits neighbour against neighbour. It is so well done, and you're left with the realization that the only real monsters out there are humans.
If I have such a cause, I'm not sure what it is. Your cause right now is your daughter.
Maybe your cause is to enlighten the world with your clarity of vision? You're very good at taking complicated things and boiling them down so that non-rocket-scientists can understand them.
Caring for a child is very rewarding and is indeed a good reason to "keep going", but I'm not sure if I have "a cause". If anything it would be along the lines of encouraging humans to live in harmony and to make the best of their abilities without necessarily seeking an advantage over their fellow man -- that is my wish, not sure what I am doing for it as a cause though.
Are the British stereotypes shown amusing? Or annoying?
I love that episode by the way, only having seen it about five times now ;) One of the best Bart quotes ever are in that episode here. I love it when the lady behind Barts voice does her "Old English" way of speaking. Such stereotypes don't annoy me at all, especially when they are done in a parody of the way that some Americans might think of the English. I often wonder if any American folk actually think English people in England are really like that? I would bet "yes", and I think it's those folk that The Simpsons is making light fun of.
There was a chorus of "That's great!" and "She deserved it!" from others on the forum.
That's what we do isn't it?
We have a preference for the familiar and this has the benefit of leading us into group behaviour (pool resources, fight predators, etc)
The trouble is, this same behaviour which benefits our survival also creates wars between the groups -- they are unfamilar - "not us" so cause stress. So the group of "bikers" fight the group of "mobile phone users". It doesn't matter who the groups are, they will fight. Natural selection in action.
I am so tempted to argue back on the forum ... but a little birdy in my conscious is telling me to walk away
What would fighting achieve here? If you can convince the biker group not to be slaves to their DNA then that would be a miracle. Mind you, Wilberforce did get that bill through Parliament :)
It's really hard not to fight sometimes isn't it?
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Sunday Musings
I'm in the Hilton hotel in Gaithersburg this Sunday ... I've spent the weekend in G'burg since I had to be in town these two weeks. I saw no sense in flying all the way back to Tucson just to come back a few days later.
There's something quite lonely about spending a weekend in a hotel in a generic business location. Particularly one that is so close to where I lived for 10 years. It's like I sense this used to be "home" but now I'm just a visitor.
* * *
Yesterday I went to see the movie "Amazing Grace," a biography about William Wilberforce, the MP back in the early 1800's who fought to abolish slavery. It was a very good -- but not perfect -- film. That general style of movies -- the relatively quiet movie where character portrayal trumps action, and where relatively obscure English actors are allowed to quietly project a personality onto the screen -- is my favorite kind of movie.
I got to thinking about the portrayal of William Wilberforce and William Pitt ("The Younger" -- I just learned his father also served as PM ... thanks, Wikipedia). In particular, I was thinking about men who "think big," who have a vision and strive towards that vision. And I compared that to myself. I am no big thinker. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, as we can't all be broad visionaries, out tilting at our particular windmills.
Still, I think there's something within the male of our species that yearns to have a cause bigger than himself. Whatever the spiritual or biochemical motivations for that are, I believe it to be true. If I have such a cause, I'm not sure what it is. Your cause right now is your daughter.
* * *
I was watching an episode of the Simpsons the other day where the family goes to England. Tony Blair meets them at the airport, Homer acts the typical boorish American and later rear-ends the Queen, landing himself in London Tower. I got to thinking: "What does N think about this episode?" Are the British stereotypes shown amusing? Or annoying?
* * *
On the motorcycle forum I frequent there was a thread posted yesterday in which someone with straight pipes (unbaffled exhaust) pulled up next to a woman in a car at a stop light and on her phone. The rider revved the engine, making a very loud noise, for no reason by (his own admission). The woman barked back at him about keeping quiet. So the rider did it again ... this time for an extended period of time.
There was a chorus of "That's great!" and "She deserved it!" from others on the forum.
I saw it different. I didn't see why he had to intentionally aggravate the situation by gunning his engine at a stop light. (Frankly, I don't see the purpose of straight pipes at all, other than to create the impression of being tough, and a "biker.") She could have rolled up her window, so barking back was simply adding to the combined aggression. But the returned revving of the engine, all done in spite, was not an attractive thing to do in my mind.
I see this attitude quite a bit on this forum. Many say "I don't care what people think of me!" They take that as a justification to be quite obnoxious. I think they do care ... when their attitude has consequences. But of course they'll never admit that. It's easier to blame others than take responsibility.
Motorcyclists have a generally poor reputation in the U.S., mostly because of people riding around in an unsafe fashion (sport bike riders), or with the excessively loud pipes (cruiser riders), or who project a thug image (the "motorcycle gang" thing so many seek to play with their black leather. They bemoan the "disrespect" they get from "cagers" (people in cars), yet much of it is of their own making.
I am so tempted to argue back on the forum ... but a little birdy in my conscious is telling me to walk away.
There's something quite lonely about spending a weekend in a hotel in a generic business location. Particularly one that is so close to where I lived for 10 years. It's like I sense this used to be "home" but now I'm just a visitor.
* * *
Yesterday I went to see the movie "Amazing Grace," a biography about William Wilberforce, the MP back in the early 1800's who fought to abolish slavery. It was a very good -- but not perfect -- film. That general style of movies -- the relatively quiet movie where character portrayal trumps action, and where relatively obscure English actors are allowed to quietly project a personality onto the screen -- is my favorite kind of movie.
I got to thinking about the portrayal of William Wilberforce and William Pitt ("The Younger" -- I just learned his father also served as PM ... thanks, Wikipedia). In particular, I was thinking about men who "think big," who have a vision and strive towards that vision. And I compared that to myself. I am no big thinker. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, as we can't all be broad visionaries, out tilting at our particular windmills.
Still, I think there's something within the male of our species that yearns to have a cause bigger than himself. Whatever the spiritual or biochemical motivations for that are, I believe it to be true. If I have such a cause, I'm not sure what it is. Your cause right now is your daughter.
* * *
I was watching an episode of the Simpsons the other day where the family goes to England. Tony Blair meets them at the airport, Homer acts the typical boorish American and later rear-ends the Queen, landing himself in London Tower. I got to thinking: "What does N think about this episode?" Are the British stereotypes shown amusing? Or annoying?
* * *
On the motorcycle forum I frequent there was a thread posted yesterday in which someone with straight pipes (unbaffled exhaust) pulled up next to a woman in a car at a stop light and on her phone. The rider revved the engine, making a very loud noise, for no reason by (his own admission). The woman barked back at him about keeping quiet. So the rider did it again ... this time for an extended period of time.
There was a chorus of "That's great!" and "She deserved it!" from others on the forum.
I saw it different. I didn't see why he had to intentionally aggravate the situation by gunning his engine at a stop light. (Frankly, I don't see the purpose of straight pipes at all, other than to create the impression of being tough, and a "biker.") She could have rolled up her window, so barking back was simply adding to the combined aggression. But the returned revving of the engine, all done in spite, was not an attractive thing to do in my mind.
I see this attitude quite a bit on this forum. Many say "I don't care what people think of me!" They take that as a justification to be quite obnoxious. I think they do care ... when their attitude has consequences. But of course they'll never admit that. It's easier to blame others than take responsibility.
Motorcyclists have a generally poor reputation in the U.S., mostly because of people riding around in an unsafe fashion (sport bike riders), or with the excessively loud pipes (cruiser riders), or who project a thug image (the "motorcycle gang" thing so many seek to play with their black leather. They bemoan the "disrespect" they get from "cagers" (people in cars), yet much of it is of their own making.
I am so tempted to argue back on the forum ... but a little birdy in my conscious is telling me to walk away.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Inside Out
My point is, this is the stuff we see in the results of high energy particle collisions all the time, no-one really knows why, we have the same question as the ants.
Do you think we'll ever figure it out? Or will we always scratch our heads and wonder exactly how and why ... just like we do now with aspirin. From what I understand, the exact biochemical process that makes aspirin beneficial is still unknown. :-)
I wonder what a human plucked out of 4D spacetime, rotated in 5D and placed back into 4D spacetime would look like? Inside out?
I can't conceive of what the "5D" would be! Darn you and your expansive imagination! Perhaps they'd look fuzzy ... as their five dimensional state struggled to fit within four dimensions?
Not sure who is in their team but they better be good. It will be interesting to see who wins.
When you asked the question about the universities ... I was answered back on the basis of who enjoys the loftiest reputation overall. As to their chess teams ... that I don't know.
Duke University has an awful football team and a very good basketball team. It's been that way or quite some time.
Do you think we'll ever figure it out? Or will we always scratch our heads and wonder exactly how and why ... just like we do now with aspirin. From what I understand, the exact biochemical process that makes aspirin beneficial is still unknown. :-)
I wonder what a human plucked out of 4D spacetime, rotated in 5D and placed back into 4D spacetime would look like? Inside out?
I can't conceive of what the "5D" would be! Darn you and your expansive imagination! Perhaps they'd look fuzzy ... as their five dimensional state struggled to fit within four dimensions?
Not sure who is in their team but they better be good. It will be interesting to see who wins.
When you asked the question about the universities ... I was answered back on the basis of who enjoys the loftiest reputation overall. As to their chess teams ... that I don't know.
Duke University has an awful football team and a very good basketball team. It's been that way or quite some time.
Inversion
Oh, Duke University ... by a country mile.
Not sure who is in their team but they better be good. It will be interesting to see who wins.
+++
Ok back to my really bad ant drawings. So the ants are stuck on the ground they don't know about up, so they live and die in those 2 dimensions. One day, two ants are strolling (do ants stroll?) along and they see an ant (dead or otherwise) on it's back legs in the air. Nobody has ever seen this before, it looks very strange (ugh!) The ants start to think "how could this have happened?" (assuming they can wonder)
What ideas might they come up with as to how the ant got like that?
This happenstance could be one of those "miracles" that are indistinguishable from science/technology?
My point is, this is the stuff we see in the results of high energy particle collisions all the time, no-one really knows why, we have the same question as the ants.
I wonder what a human plucked out of 4D spacetime, rotated in 5D and placed back into 4D spacetime would look like? Inside out?
Not sure who is in their team but they better be good. It will be interesting to see who wins.
+++
Ok back to my really bad ant drawings. So the ants are stuck on the ground they don't know about up, so they live and die in those 2 dimensions. One day, two ants are strolling (do ants stroll?) along and they see an ant (dead or otherwise) on it's back legs in the air. Nobody has ever seen this before, it looks very strange (ugh!) The ants start to think "how could this have happened?" (assuming they can wonder)
What ideas might they come up with as to how the ant got like that?
This happenstance could be one of those "miracles" that are indistinguishable from science/technology?
My point is, this is the stuff we see in the results of high energy particle collisions all the time, no-one really knows why, we have the same question as the ants.
I wonder what a human plucked out of 4D spacetime, rotated in 5D and placed back into 4D spacetime would look like? Inside out?
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Top Universities
Miami Dade
University of Maryland Baltimore County
University of Texas-Dallas
Duke University
From a purely ivy-league USA perspective, which of these colleges is the "best"? (Like is one or more an "Oxford" or a "Cambridge" ?)
Oh, Duke University ... by a country mile. The University of Texas is a well respected university, but it mostly applies to the Austin campus, not Dallas. The same for the University of Maryland. The main campus is in College Station, not the satellite location in Baltimore County. Miami Dade is, from what I understand, a community college.
I've not paid much attention to which schools are the best in the U.S., but I'm going to guess the following are on everyone's top 10 somewhere:
University of Maryland Baltimore County
University of Texas-Dallas
Duke University
From a purely ivy-league USA perspective, which of these colleges is the "best"? (Like is one or more an "Oxford" or a "Cambridge" ?)
Oh, Duke University ... by a country mile. The University of Texas is a well respected university, but it mostly applies to the Austin campus, not Dallas. The same for the University of Maryland. The main campus is in College Station, not the satellite location in Baltimore County. Miami Dade is, from what I understand, a community college.
I've not paid much attention to which schools are the best in the U.S., but I'm going to guess the following are on everyone's top 10 somewhere:
- Harvard
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
- Stanford
- University of Pennsylvania
Dallas Cowboys ?
Okay that page was very interesting - it said the four finalists this weekend are:
Miami Dade
University of Maryland Baltimore County
University of Texas-Dallas
Duke University
From a purely ivy-league USA perspective, which of these colleges is the "best"? (Like is one or more an "Oxford" or a "Cambrigde" ?)
Googling, if I were a betting man I would say Texas have a good chance:
"The UT Dallas team will be represented at the Final Four by two grandmasters on boards one and two — arts and technology major and sophomore Alejandro Ramirez and computer science graduate student Magesh Chandran Panchanathan. On boards three and four will be international masters Marko Zivanic, a junior computer science major and Drasko Boskovic, a junior business administration major. Alternates will be international masters Dmitri Shneider, a senior finance major, and Davorin Kuljasevic, a sophomore business administration major"
Easy money :)
Miami Dade
University of Maryland Baltimore County
University of Texas-Dallas
Duke University
From a purely ivy-league USA perspective, which of these colleges is the "best"? (Like is one or more an "Oxford" or a "Cambrigde" ?)
Googling, if I were a betting man I would say Texas have a good chance:
"The UT Dallas team will be represented at the Final Four by two grandmasters on boards one and two — arts and technology major and sophomore Alejandro Ramirez and computer science graduate student Magesh Chandran Panchanathan. On boards three and four will be international masters Marko Zivanic, a junior computer science major and Drasko Boskovic, a junior business administration major. Alternates will be international masters Dmitri Shneider, a senior finance major, and Davorin Kuljasevic, a sophomore business administration major"
Easy money :)
Roses Are Red, My Love ... Violets Are Blue
I imagine space to be a like a folded origami rose, folded in on itself again and again (and again) - everything is touching.
See ... I can't picture that. It's just beyond my limited mind. Space is a big sphere with no limit. That's my view. Wrong, no doubt, but that's all I can picture.
* * *
I've seen traveling windscreen repair people, but never traveling bodywork people like that. That's actually pretty cool. It would save many hours sitting in the dealer's waiting room. Though the Toyota dealership in Tucson has free WiFi, so it's not too bad.
* * *
If I "saw" it all I'd feel overwhelmed (awe) and then, as you said perhaps fear. And if the sense and awareness faded away (like it did for Dr. McCoy in the "Spock's Brain" episode) I'd probably be filled with an incredible sadness. Not because I wasn't omniscient anymore, but rather I suspect having access to that sudden awareness would be like being close to God himself ... in some way, anyway.
See ... I can't picture that. It's just beyond my limited mind. Space is a big sphere with no limit. That's my view. Wrong, no doubt, but that's all I can picture.
* * *
I've seen traveling windscreen repair people, but never traveling bodywork people like that. That's actually pretty cool. It would save many hours sitting in the dealer's waiting room. Though the Toyota dealership in Tucson has free WiFi, so it's not too bad.
* * *
If I "saw" it all I'd feel overwhelmed (awe) and then, as you said perhaps fear. And if the sense and awareness faded away (like it did for Dr. McCoy in the "Spock's Brain" episode) I'd probably be filled with an incredible sadness. Not because I wasn't omniscient anymore, but rather I suspect having access to that sudden awareness would be like being close to God himself ... in some way, anyway.
Yin and Jung
I can't see something traversing 93M miles instantly. My imagination isn't wide enough. :-)
Sure it is.
Take my badly drawn ant (please!)
I am highly suspicious that it is like this for us. If we could only "look" in a direction we don't normally look ("up" for the ant) and jump in a direction we normally don't go ("up" for the ant) then we could get to where we are going a lot quicker (from A to B in my example).
I imagine space to be a like a folded origami rose, folded in on itself again and again (and again) - everything is touching. Unfortunately though for us we have to traverse the paper (rose petals) we don't know how to jump across the folds.
It's amazing the complexities you can get from a single sheet of folded paper (or folded space :) I wonder what group describes the symmetries of a rose?
+++
I had a small prang in the car a few weeks ago trying to squeeze into a space outside of Katherine's school. Just dented the bodywork of my car a little, these days though they have a new service, they bring the bodyshop to the car. So the car is parked outside of my house and some guy has erected a tent around it and is repairing the damage - saves days of losing the car to the body shop. Progress! Although you probably have had the same service in the USA for years. Here are some pics taken just now outside of my house:
+++
Can you imagine being granted the ability -- miraculously, of course -- to "see" all the mysteries of creation revealed in your mind. Let's assume you had the capacity for emotional reaction for that moment. What would be your reaction?
Wow tough question, I really have no idea, could be anything. If I had any comprehension of the truth at all then I imagine I could feel like I felt when I was a small child. Fear and awe. Of course "outrageous laughter" could be another response, depending on what the truth was :)
How do you think you'd take it?
Sure it is.
Take my badly drawn ant (please!)
I am highly suspicious that it is like this for us. If we could only "look" in a direction we don't normally look ("up" for the ant) and jump in a direction we normally don't go ("up" for the ant) then we could get to where we are going a lot quicker (from A to B in my example).
I imagine space to be a like a folded origami rose, folded in on itself again and again (and again) - everything is touching. Unfortunately though for us we have to traverse the paper (rose petals) we don't know how to jump across the folds.
It's amazing the complexities you can get from a single sheet of folded paper (or folded space :) I wonder what group describes the symmetries of a rose?
+++
I had a small prang in the car a few weeks ago trying to squeeze into a space outside of Katherine's school. Just dented the bodywork of my car a little, these days though they have a new service, they bring the bodyshop to the car. So the car is parked outside of my house and some guy has erected a tent around it and is repairing the damage - saves days of losing the car to the body shop. Progress! Although you probably have had the same service in the USA for years. Here are some pics taken just now outside of my house:
+++
Can you imagine being granted the ability -- miraculously, of course -- to "see" all the mysteries of creation revealed in your mind. Let's assume you had the capacity for emotional reaction for that moment. What would be your reaction?
Wow tough question, I really have no idea, could be anything. If I had any comprehension of the truth at all then I imagine I could feel like I felt when I was a small child. Fear and awe. Of course "outrageous laughter" could be another response, depending on what the truth was :)
How do you think you'd take it?
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Moon Bomb Experiments
And your Moon Bomb started this train of thought!
I can assure you we had no such esoteric thoughts at the time! In fact, we gave almost no thought to any scientific questions.
I applaud your ability to think at such a level. I can't bring my mind to expand that far. My mind is hindered by what I view as physical limits. I can't see something traversing 93M miles instantly. My imagination isn't wide enough. :-)
Can you imagine being granted the ability -- miraculously, of course -- to "see" all the mysteries of creation revealed in your mind. Let's assume you had the capacity for emotional reaction for that moment. What would be your reaction?
I can assure you we had no such esoteric thoughts at the time! In fact, we gave almost no thought to any scientific questions.
I applaud your ability to think at such a level. I can't bring my mind to expand that far. My mind is hindered by what I view as physical limits. I can't see something traversing 93M miles instantly. My imagination isn't wide enough. :-)
Can you imagine being granted the ability -- miraculously, of course -- to "see" all the mysteries of creation revealed in your mind. Let's assume you had the capacity for emotional reaction for that moment. What would be your reaction?
Speculation
I'm just wondering if your scenario is like our "assumed axioms" -- "assume a rigid steel bar that transfers energy immediately ..." Sure, if that were true, then the earth would "move" before the light reached it. But is our axiom true?
I don't think these "rods" I am postulating would be made out of anything we know (like steel) - if they were then clearly they would be seen by ordinary instruments in vacuo. I am wondering if they are mathematically rigid (ie. don't transmit energy through a lattice of particles, like in steel) but can oscillate as waves pass through them. As they are truly "rigid" they might have this apparently superluminal effect.
My concern with all this is our definition of the term now.
For instance, in science books for kids you might read:
"If a planet was orbiting a star 2,000 light years away from the Earth, if they took a telescope and looked at the Earth now they would see it as it was in the times of Jesus".
This is the common mistake. Now means now, ie. Mar 21 2007 for us. As we live in spacetime rather than just space, it is non-sensical to say if they looked back at the Earth now. Our now is not their now. As you travel away from the Earth in space you actual time travel also.
Which I suspect is what would happen to the end of the rigid rod if it exsited only in our 4D spacetime. The end of the rod near to the Sun would be in a different now, so information would not be passed at greater speed than that of light.
So if the rod exists it might exist in a higher dimension, this would give it the properties of making it a) invisible to us and b) able to transmit information faster than lightspeed (as we see in quantum entaglement).
I can't think of any experiment to find the rod though. I guess the same problem is with "string theory" - there aren't any experiments you can do to look at a string.
Still, this is purely conjecture in an attempt to explain forces and quantum entanglement: all matter in the Universe is connected together right now through invisible hyperdimensional non-compressing rods.
And your Moon Bomb started this train of thought !
I don't think these "rods" I am postulating would be made out of anything we know (like steel) - if they were then clearly they would be seen by ordinary instruments in vacuo. I am wondering if they are mathematically rigid (ie. don't transmit energy through a lattice of particles, like in steel) but can oscillate as waves pass through them. As they are truly "rigid" they might have this apparently superluminal effect.
My concern with all this is our definition of the term now.
For instance, in science books for kids you might read:
"If a planet was orbiting a star 2,000 light years away from the Earth, if they took a telescope and looked at the Earth now they would see it as it was in the times of Jesus".
This is the common mistake. Now means now, ie. Mar 21 2007 for us. As we live in spacetime rather than just space, it is non-sensical to say if they looked back at the Earth now. Our now is not their now. As you travel away from the Earth in space you actual time travel also.
Which I suspect is what would happen to the end of the rigid rod if it exsited only in our 4D spacetime. The end of the rod near to the Sun would be in a different now, so information would not be passed at greater speed than that of light.
So if the rod exists it might exist in a higher dimension, this would give it the properties of making it a) invisible to us and b) able to transmit information faster than lightspeed (as we see in quantum entaglement).
I can't think of any experiment to find the rod though. I guess the same problem is with "string theory" - there aren't any experiments you can do to look at a string.
Still, this is purely conjecture in an attempt to explain forces and quantum entanglement: all matter in the Universe is connected together right now through invisible hyperdimensional non-compressing rods.
And your Moon Bomb started this train of thought !
Non-Infinite Symmetry
I have to confess I just flat-out do not understand all that stuff. E8? 248 dimensions? What?
* * *
Also it would seem that an economy such as the UK's could absorb an extra 1 million printed GBP without too much of a devaluation of the currency, I don't think anyone would notice - so her idea is probably sound, but not repeatable (much).
It could. What makes it more complex is that the amount it can absorb is not based on the number itself, but rather based on people's perception of the quantity of money. It's when we reach a point where people start sensing that more money is floating around that the inflation cycle starts. It's a very macro thing ... not a specific formula.
* * *
Then I was thinking, if you could attach a rigid steel rod from the Earth to The Moon and pushed the Earth end slightly towards The Moon, would The Moon end move immediately?
I understand what you're getting at here ... but let me fall into a pragmatic role here for a moment. If I have a lever with a rigid rod 1 meter long that pushed another lever, does the other lever truly move "immediately?" Or is there an imperceptible time lag as the force on one end results in molecular and atomic compression and the transfer of that energy through the bar to the other? Extend that out to 93M miles ... might the transference of energy travel along the bar at some rate perhaps slower than the speed of light?
I'm just wondering if your scenario is like our "assumed axioms" -- "assume a rigid steel bar that transfers energy immediately ..." Sure, if that were true, then the earth would "move" before the light reached it. But is our axiom true?
* * *
Also it would seem that an economy such as the UK's could absorb an extra 1 million printed GBP without too much of a devaluation of the currency, I don't think anyone would notice - so her idea is probably sound, but not repeatable (much).
It could. What makes it more complex is that the amount it can absorb is not based on the number itself, but rather based on people's perception of the quantity of money. It's when we reach a point where people start sensing that more money is floating around that the inflation cycle starts. It's a very macro thing ... not a specific formula.
* * *
Then I was thinking, if you could attach a rigid steel rod from the Earth to The Moon and pushed the Earth end slightly towards The Moon, would The Moon end move immediately?
I understand what you're getting at here ... but let me fall into a pragmatic role here for a moment. If I have a lever with a rigid rod 1 meter long that pushed another lever, does the other lever truly move "immediately?" Or is there an imperceptible time lag as the force on one end results in molecular and atomic compression and the transfer of that energy through the bar to the other? Extend that out to 93M miles ... might the transference of energy travel along the bar at some rate perhaps slower than the speed of light?
I'm just wondering if your scenario is like our "assumed axioms" -- "assume a rigid steel bar that transfers energy immediately ..." Sure, if that were true, then the earth would "move" before the light reached it. But is our axiom true?
Order for 248 and 248 only
"What's attractive about studying E8 is that it's as complicated as symmetry can get",
This is a very sobering thought isn't it?
Symmetries are not infinite.
Therefore if matter is truly different ways of looking at the same thing, then there are not infinitely different types of matter (particle).
Perhaps the Universe is finite.
This makes me happy as I am scared of infinity :)
This is a very sobering thought isn't it?
Symmetries are not infinite.
Therefore if matter is truly different ways of looking at the same thing, then there are not infinitely different types of matter (particle).
Perhaps the Universe is finite.
This makes me happy as I am scared of infinity :)
Shapes
Somehow -- and I honestly don't know how to do this -- we need to come up with a way to show that the value of some commodity diminishes as the quantity of that commodity increases.
Yes this is what I am struggling with. Also it would seem that an economy such as the UK's could absorb an extra 1 million printed GBP without too much of a devaluation of the currency, I don't think anyone would notice - so her idea is probably sound, but not repeatable (much).
Or we could just let her be a little girl. :-)
Yes! She's gone off early to London this morning, part of her year (year 5) are visiting The National Gallery and The British Museum, I hope she has fun, she was very excited !
+++
It was a very clear dusk last night and The Moon was a tiny crescent, but one could see that The Moon was round due to prominent Earthshine, Katherine liked the idea that we were seeing the shape of The Moon through Sun light entering our eyes after it had already bounced off of The Earth, rather than directly bouncing off of The Moon. I got to thinking about a couple or three of things:
First, I was thinking more about your Moon Bomb idea; question - would the cable as it was reeling in due to the Earth's rotation, damage the Earth as it wrapped around? Possibly damaging other countries other than the intended target in the process? Or did I get the idea wrong?
Thirdly, I was wondering how different we would be as a race without these strange objects in the skies to look upon, they make us wonder and look for answers to their movements.
Secondly, and this takes longer thus the odd order, I was thinking about The Moon's progress around The Earth. The description Einstein came up with about 4D curved spacetime as an explanation is so beautiful, it made me think it must be correct. My intuition tells me this but I could be wrong, how can I know? I can't. Anyway I got to thinking that if spacetime can be curved then what exactly is "a vacuum"? If a vacuum is nothing then how can you curve it? So my conclusion was that spacetime must have a fabric and the vacuum of space is not simply "nothing".
Then I got to thinking about magnets. As a child I played with and was fascinated by magnets, but how do they work? So then I got to thinking about electromagnetic forces, and forces in general. Somehow these forces act across distances with seemingly nothing in between, but hang on, if a vacuum has a fabric then maybe they are acting on something in between the objects, perhaps the same something?
Then I was thinking, if you could attach a rigid steel rod from the Earth to The Moon and pushed the Earth end slightly towards The Moon, would The Moon end move immediately? Thus signaling the transfer of information in a way that was faster than light? Maybe The Moon is a bad example, take The Sun, put a rigid rod between The Earth and The Sun. Push the rod towards The Sun, does it move immediately at The Sun end thus negatating the fact that The Sun is 9 light minutes away?
Then I thought perhaps the whole concept of "immediately" or "time" was relative, but that's another discussion.
My thoughts were perhaps "forces" are propagated through waves travelling at the speed of light along the rods connecting particles. Maybe two "particles" represent the two ends of a rod. We can't see the rod but it's there and these rods can curve, so perhaps spacetime is made of rods?
Perhaps the pushing of the rod (rather than a wave travelling along it) is what is happening in quantum entaglement where you get what Einstein called "Spooky action at a distance", ie. do something here and something immediately happens over there.
Depending on how you look at rods depends on how you see them, symmetries of rods, but we can only see the ends. I think this big E8 number mathematicians just worked out might have something to do with it. What if there are really 248 dimensions rather than the 10 the M-brane theory has come up with? 248 is the Lie-group limit for some reason, not sure why.
Yes this is what I am struggling with. Also it would seem that an economy such as the UK's could absorb an extra 1 million printed GBP without too much of a devaluation of the currency, I don't think anyone would notice - so her idea is probably sound, but not repeatable (much).
Or we could just let her be a little girl. :-)
Yes! She's gone off early to London this morning, part of her year (year 5) are visiting The National Gallery and The British Museum, I hope she has fun, she was very excited !
+++
It was a very clear dusk last night and The Moon was a tiny crescent, but one could see that The Moon was round due to prominent Earthshine, Katherine liked the idea that we were seeing the shape of The Moon through Sun light entering our eyes after it had already bounced off of The Earth, rather than directly bouncing off of The Moon. I got to thinking about a couple or three of things:
First, I was thinking more about your Moon Bomb idea; question - would the cable as it was reeling in due to the Earth's rotation, damage the Earth as it wrapped around? Possibly damaging other countries other than the intended target in the process? Or did I get the idea wrong?
Thirdly, I was wondering how different we would be as a race without these strange objects in the skies to look upon, they make us wonder and look for answers to their movements.
Secondly, and this takes longer thus the odd order, I was thinking about The Moon's progress around The Earth. The description Einstein came up with about 4D curved spacetime as an explanation is so beautiful, it made me think it must be correct. My intuition tells me this but I could be wrong, how can I know? I can't. Anyway I got to thinking that if spacetime can be curved then what exactly is "a vacuum"? If a vacuum is nothing then how can you curve it? So my conclusion was that spacetime must have a fabric and the vacuum of space is not simply "nothing".
Then I got to thinking about magnets. As a child I played with and was fascinated by magnets, but how do they work? So then I got to thinking about electromagnetic forces, and forces in general. Somehow these forces act across distances with seemingly nothing in between, but hang on, if a vacuum has a fabric then maybe they are acting on something in between the objects, perhaps the same something?
Then I was thinking, if you could attach a rigid steel rod from the Earth to The Moon and pushed the Earth end slightly towards The Moon, would The Moon end move immediately? Thus signaling the transfer of information in a way that was faster than light? Maybe The Moon is a bad example, take The Sun, put a rigid rod between The Earth and The Sun. Push the rod towards The Sun, does it move immediately at The Sun end thus negatating the fact that The Sun is 9 light minutes away?
Then I thought perhaps the whole concept of "immediately" or "time" was relative, but that's another discussion.
My thoughts were perhaps "forces" are propagated through waves travelling at the speed of light along the rods connecting particles. Maybe two "particles" represent the two ends of a rod. We can't see the rod but it's there and these rods can curve, so perhaps spacetime is made of rods?
Perhaps the pushing of the rod (rather than a wave travelling along it) is what is happening in quantum entaglement where you get what Einstein called "Spooky action at a distance", ie. do something here and something immediately happens over there.
Depending on how you look at rods depends on how you see them, symmetries of rods, but we can only see the ends. I think this big E8 number mathematicians just worked out might have something to do with it. What if there are really 248 dimensions rather than the 10 the M-brane theory has come up with? 248 is the Lie-group limit for some reason, not sure why.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
I Got Satisfaction
Upon reflection, the CD analogy is actually flawed. The problem with it is that once a friend has traded for a particular CD, they'd have no need for another of the same thing. So if K had 1 more to trade or a 100 it wouldn't matter ... her friend would rightly say, "I don't want it, I have one. I won't trade you anything for it." That's an example of instant devaluation due to complete satisfaction of desire.
This is really hard ... another thought that came to mind was trying to "buy" from K something she really values, but using a scrap of paper. But that's too abstract ... she'll say "But that's just paper, while a pound note is real money!" The pound note is also just paper, but it carries value because we people agree to view it as valuable.
Somehow -- and I honestly don't know how to do this -- we need to come up with a way to show that the value of some commodity diminishes as the quantity of that commodity increases.
Or we could just let her be a little girl. :-)
This is really hard ... another thought that came to mind was trying to "buy" from K something she really values, but using a scrap of paper. But that's too abstract ... she'll say "But that's just paper, while a pound note is real money!" The pound note is also just paper, but it carries value because we people agree to view it as valuable.
Somehow -- and I honestly don't know how to do this -- we need to come up with a way to show that the value of some commodity diminishes as the quantity of that commodity increases.
Or we could just let her be a little girl. :-)
Supply and Demand
"Hey! I'm not going to trade 5-for-1 any more. You have so many of those I won't even trade 1-for-1 any more."
A good analogy/thought. So, I tell this to my daughter and follow up with: "So the African person with his newly printed money goes to the shop to buy some goods, but the shopkeeper says ...
a) The price has gone up, give me even more money
b) No I don't want your money at all, I can get money from someone else there is lots of it
c) Something else'
"?
The CD lesson might point to b) above. But would a) be the actual fact? If it is then she'll say, but the African person has a LOT of money now so he can afford to give as much money to the shopkeeper as is necessary. For an extra 1 million printed dollars (which must be negligible compared to the currency in circulation) I would say she would be right to think that.
Thanks for your ideas, teaching small ones is not easy!
A good analogy/thought. So, I tell this to my daughter and follow up with: "So the African person with his newly printed money goes to the shop to buy some goods, but the shopkeeper says ...
a) The price has gone up, give me even more money
b) No I don't want your money at all, I can get money from someone else there is lots of it
c) Something else'
"?
The CD lesson might point to b) above. But would a) be the actual fact? If it is then she'll say, but the African person has a LOT of money now so he can afford to give as much money to the shopkeeper as is necessary. For an extra 1 million printed dollars (which must be negligible compared to the currency in circulation) I would say she would be right to think that.
Thanks for your ideas, teaching small ones is not easy!
The Currency of Kids
but the problem is the one you already mentioned earlier - abstracting the value of goods/items to being represented by paper money that causes the difficulty I think.
I agree. Which is why introducing the concept of paper money is too difficult. Keeping the language in the currency of what kids use -- whatever that may be for an English girl -- is probably the key.
Here's one possible approach. Imagine K and her friends collected and traded music CD's. Let's say K had a popular new CD and her friends really wanted it. They wanted it so bad they would be willing to trade five of their other CDs for it.
Now imagine you fired up your CD burner and burned hundreds of copies of that CD. Would K's friends still be willing to trade at five CD's per one of the new CD? Or would the flood of copies of the CD drop the value? My guess is soon her friends would see K with all her copies of the new CD and say, "Hey! I'm not going to trade 5-for-1 any more. You have so many of those I won't even trade 1-for-1 any more."
Just a thought.
I agree. Which is why introducing the concept of paper money is too difficult. Keeping the language in the currency of what kids use -- whatever that may be for an English girl -- is probably the key.
Here's one possible approach. Imagine K and her friends collected and traded music CD's. Let's say K had a popular new CD and her friends really wanted it. They wanted it so bad they would be willing to trade five of their other CDs for it.
Now imagine you fired up your CD burner and burned hundreds of copies of that CD. Would K's friends still be willing to trade at five CD's per one of the new CD? Or would the flood of copies of the CD drop the value? My guess is soon her friends would see K with all her copies of the new CD and say, "Hey! I'm not going to trade 5-for-1 any more. You have so many of those I won't even trade 1-for-1 any more."
Just a thought.
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