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Bonobo Conspiracy Web comic #357: The lessons of history

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:05:56 -0800

OK WTF is up with the HTML not allowing height and width tags on images here.

http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF202-Post_Apocalyptic.jpg

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 20:57:11 -0800

themusicgod1: Semester Passed!

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 20:07:32 -0800

W0000T!!
I passed my classes, my final exams were good!

Beautiful Horizons: El Mozote - 25 Years Later

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 20:03:45 -0800

Reading this spooked me somewhat. What happened here was absolutely sick.

El Mozote

It happened before I was born. These monster's children are now my age, and probably just recently out of power in El Salvador

I got into an argument, once, where my capitalist opponent suggested that all socialists are like Pol Pot, and that given a chance to get into power they will kill all the capitalists, and commit the kinds of atrocities that the capitalist right in El Salvador has committed, with the support and complicity of the Regan administration US.

There is absolutely no need for this; the rape and murder of large quantities of women and children as young as 12 should be illegal in all circumstances. This makes the hostage situation in russia look like nothing in comparison.

"They said, 'We don't want to dignify them by taking prisoners.' They wouldn't even call them prisoners, or guerrillas. They called them terroristas -- delincuentes terroristas." (General Bland�n, the former chief of staff, told me, "Before 1983, we never took prisoners
of war.") As the guerrillas were reduced to the status of terrorist delinquents, all civilians in certain zones were reduced to the status of masas, guerrilla supporters, and thus became legitimate targets"-source

Also worth mentioning is the effect of 'professionalism' here;
1) On the side of the El Salvadorans, Professionalism meant the callous rape and murder of women and children, and genocide of an entire town without anyone saying anything about it.
2) On the side of the americans, Professionalism meant the coverup of the whole thing, because it's not "Professional" to report on the truth if the truth is not "Politically Correct"

Never again, should this be allowed to happen.

Keeping An Eye On A Canadian Prize

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:58:12 -0800

Dating back to the 1700s, crown copyright reflects a centuries-old perspective that the government ought to control the public's ability to use official documents. Today crown copyright extends for fifty years from creation and it requires anyone who wants to use or republish a government report, parliamentary hearing, or other work to first seek permission. While permission is often granted, it is not automatic.

I remember reading this article when it was published. Nothing has changed--we should do something about that.

Amazon.com: How to Solve It: Modern Heuristics: Zbigniew Michalewicz, David B. Fogel: Books

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:42:42 -0800

Meant as a sort of carry-on from what G Polya started with his 'How to Solve It', this book was used as the textbook in my 'Artificial Intelligence' (CS320) course, although I do not believe that 'artificial intelligence' as a term is used in the book.

It covers methods of solving mathematical problems, much like is predecessor, and

I was kind of set back upon reading the chapter that they don't actually say how "prices are chosen at 711", but rather at the beginning of each chapter offer(along with that one) a logic puzzle relevant or solvable by the methods explained in the proceeding chapter. Some of these were enjoyable, others were done under the gun and not so enjoyable, others still were just confuzing(but still worth the effort). It was a good mix.

I'm not sure how accessible this book would be to a layperson, unlike 'How to Solve It.' Maybe I'll try to explain its contents to my parents later.

There was a lot in it. And it has a healthily thick reference section; Some of the stuff in it(like the evolutionary algorithm crossover operators) did not stick in my head, but a lot of it was internalized. Hopefully they were right, in their thinking that the approaches in the book form the currently best approaches to mathematical problems that are known.

Of course, as has been pointed out (I think by kurzweil), that knowing math isn't enough; you have to apply it. It is not enough to learn math; I know a bunch of differential calculus that I haven't done anything at all with, with no plans to in the near term--this isn't enough. I must apply this stuff, before it fades into the fuzzy haze of memory.

All in all, it was a good book, and I'd reccomend it's reading, but I'm just not sure for *who*. There's probably books you'll want to read before this one, but not too many.

themusicgod1: Vasectomy Setback

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:31:29 -0800

I just barely missed getting an appointment for a vasectomy this week. Hopefully I will shortly get another.

Beautiful Horizons: Pinochet Roundup - And Some Mythbusting

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:21:07 -0800

Since Pinochet kicked off, It is worthwhile to take a gander at all he did during his life. At least now, we can all be thankful the rat bastard is dead. It *is* delicious that he died on human rights day.

It's also worth pointing out that a lot of people are claiming that chile's economy (after years of leftist reforms, completely ignoring that under the milton friedman reforms the country nearly collapsed) is doing quite well, and that it must be because of all the horrible years under their dictator;
Perhaps there is a grain of truth in this. At the risk of invoking Godwin, the nazis also had a functioning economy, and what chile shared with them was the tendancy to 'dissapear' people and to use their dissapearance as an excuse to change wealth around. I suppose if you're willing to haphazardly kill people you can attain progress; but there is no way to justify these attrocities. You can't justify it for nazi germany, and you can't justify it for pinochet's chile. Besides that, there's got to be some long lasting psychological damage in Chile, due to the amount of torture involved. It can't be a good thing.

themusicgod1: In defence of some (DIY) pornography

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 18:55:31 -0800

Roto on pron/erotica. Couldn't say it better.

Natural number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 18:46:37 -0800

"In mathematics, a natural number can mean either an element of the set {1, 2, 3, ...} (i.e the positive integers) or an element of the set {0, 1, 2, 3, ...} (i.e. the non-negative integers). The former is generally used in number theory, while the latter is preferred in set theory and computer science. "

I figured something was up with that!! I had kept fairly close notes on my axioms and definitions of mathematics, but whenever I ran into the Naturals (N) in my CS classes, they would define it using 0, whereas in my math classes they would not. Turns out it's just a disagreement or something between CS and the rest of the Maths. It makes *sense* though, since it is *natural* in CS to count starting with 0.