tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50015552834690417642012-02-16T02:24:21.978-05:00A bunch of stuff.Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.comBlogger321100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-5749398666651738582012-01-04T17:23:00.000-05:002012-01-04T17:23:38.628-05:00

3 The logical picture of the facts is the thought. Introduction of the 'think' concept. So now what does 'think', thought' etc mean. Is it the mini-activity of the mind/brain? 3.001 “An atomic fact is thinkable”—means: we can imagine it. presumably a picture is imaginable too. Who knows...picture, fact, thought, 3.01 The totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world. Are there other

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-89651652523251364972012-01-04T16:46:00.000-05:002012-01-04T16:46:21.839-05:00

7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. A classic aphorism. Essentially 'Faire et se taire', 'say what you mean and mean what you say, then say nothing else. This I take to be a meaningful aphorism, a truth hidden in it's tautology, that is nothing more than tautologous. I take this as the corollary of Schopenhauer's: You may also puzzle and bewilder your opponent by mere

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-35367442090729737452012-01-04T14:43:00.002-05:002012-01-04T16:37:54.762-05:00

Maimonides/Rambam in the lintroduction to his "Guide for the Perplexed' gives a big disclaimer for the possible confusions that might follow in from his text, a list of seven possible causes of contradiction. What I particularly about the list, even the existence of the list, is the attempt at implicit self-judgment; that is, here are the possible problems that you the reader may find (I, the

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-79278537147854750842011-11-02T16:34:00.002-04:002011-11-02T16:34:56.671-04:00

If given the choice between getting the same information by reading text or by looking at a picture, you will choose the picture. Face it, you don't like to read.

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-77192900371517013122011-08-28T14:21:00.000-04:002011-08-28T14:21:12.426-04:00

I heard an egregious math error the other day on NPR (from the morning of Friday, August 26. The story was about divorce statistics in the United States, regional differences, and changes over time. The statement in questions was worded something like this: The South has one of the highest rates of divorce in the country. One reason is that it has more marriages than elsewhere. Sounds

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-20691556192732052492011-08-28T13:56:00.000-04:002011-08-28T13:56:47.417-04:00

1 The world is everything that is the case. Right off the bat he starts off with an empty tautology. Is 'empty tautology' an empty tautology? No, a tautology is a statement that is true under all interpretations. Something is empty when there is nothing instructive to be gained. This is collegiate late-night study-avoiding intellectual bullshit (I remember it well!). In my high school yearbook

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-19130810509993001722011-08-10T12:52:00.000-04:002011-08-10T12:52:16.851-04:00

Chapter 7. Why Did the Tower of Babel Fail? (cursory comments here, there is hardly any discussion to be made  because it is too easily true; needs to be said, but I can't really add anything). 7.1 The Tower of Babel project failed because of lack of communication and of its consequent, organization. This is the same as noting the benefits of standards. There's having a

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-40431418043843145502011-08-10T12:50:00.000-04:002011-08-10T12:50:03.352-04:00

(As things get longer, I won't comment on everything, I'll just quote those things I comment on) 2 What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts. Twelve words to say "let's dance around defining 'atomic'". -Atomic- facts? Are these facts that are unanalyzable/unsplittable? Prime facts?...Isn'tthat just axiomatics? Did Euclid (and Eudoxus etc) figure do that taxonomy

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-40243319013534243812011-08-08T15:19:00.000-04:002011-08-08T15:19:51.389-04:00

I'll begin here with comments on the motto and Russell's introduction. Motto: . . . und alles, was man weiss, nich bloss rauschen und brausen gehört hat, lässt sich in drei Worten sagen.  To translate loosely, "pretty much everything can be explained in three words". A justification of aphorisms and the style of the book, which is certainly written aphoristically. As long as the

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-84395468357808798852011-08-08T14:58:00.000-04:002011-08-08T14:58:52.148-04:00

You read things and you want to vent about it. Wittgenstein has been on my bedside table forever (which means for me that I totally ignore it). But every so often I'll pick up something or read online. So I'm going to do another interlinear comment stream on a classic, Wittgenstein's Tractatus. I am not a scholar of philosophy, but I am interested, have read naively a fair amount, and have lot's

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-60288310250493104432011-08-03T14:26:00.000-04:002011-08-03T14:26:53.380-04:00

Deploying web applications - like doing open heart surgery on someone in the swimming stage of a triathlon Fixing bugs - like trying to open a locked door, with no keyhole or handle, the sign says 'push' but

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-1969607261705894212011-07-01T15:25:00.002-04:002011-07-01T15:26:27.001-04:00

In the compartmentalization of philosophy, there are major some visible and populated conceptual sub faculties all of which touch and are touched by mathematics. There's: mathematical philosophy, philosophy from a mathematical perspective, mathematics from a  philosophical point of view: metaphysics, epistemology (especially philosophy of mind and philosophy of language and logic), philosophy of

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-35175115135965133242011-01-28T16:22:00.000-05:002011-01-28T16:22:47.428-05:00

Chapter 6. Passing the Word 6.1 Even when a design team is large, the results must be reduced to writing by one or two, in order that the mini- decisions be consistent. I think this is all hopelessly unjudgeable because 'large' is not defined (or it is self-defining). But the concept is important; the concept of a larger number of mini-decisions is salient, thousands of small decisions in

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-62777552457131769002011-01-17T17:11:00.000-05:002011-01-17T17:11:03.497-05:00

Chapter 5. The Second-system Effect 5.1 Early and continuous communication can give the architect good cost readings and the builder confidence in the design, without blurring the clear division of responsibilities. This is somewhat bland. Was it a problem in his time that communication was restricted so much? 5.2 How an architect can successfully influence implementation:

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-72937257967814720592011-01-17T16:07:00.001-05:002011-08-03T14:24:33.716-04:00

Fiction writers create a world through their narrative seqeunces you follow a path through their speech and it little by little fills out a landscape. But when we read we're not necessarily so rational and certain ancillary, inconsequential, non-essential details unnaturally blow up into -making- the feel of the entire narrative. For example, physical descriptions of roles in the narrative, like

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-20339177027527075202011-01-10T14:08:00.003-05:002011-01-10T14:09:06.814-05:00

Chapter 4. Aristocracy, Democracy, and System Design 4.1 ''Conceptual integrity is the most important consideration in system design." What is conceptual integrity? is it consistency? is it simplicity? Is it understandability by others? The locution is pretty empty, meaning anything you want that is something like 'really good stuff', or some other self-supporting, empty phrase.The more I try

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-22407774262707688922011-01-06T16:48:00.000-05:002011-01-06T16:48:08.721-05:00

Chapter 3. The Surgical Team 3.1 Very good professional programmers are ten times as productive as poor ones, at same training and two-year experience level. (Sackman, Grant, and Erickson) Intuitively, I grant that, and so am very willing to accept the data. 3.2 Jackman, Grant, and Erickson's data showed no correlation whatsoever between experience and performance. I doubt the

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-24703161060442384642011-01-06T16:39:00.003-05:002011-01-06T16:39:49.089-05:00

Chapter 2. The Mythical Man-Month 2.1 More programming projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined. I agree. The cause is lack of connect between desire and implementation. Because of other reasons (non-repeatability inherent as a design consideration, mentioned in chapter 1). Also, it is easier to think of a thing than it is to create a thing. This

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-18622485290999366422011-01-06T16:22:00.000-05:002011-01-06T16:22:59.517-05:00

Anybody can say anything about anything. a cat can look at a king. But you got a point, how does one trust, put weight, care about things said? So what possible way can I justify that what I say anecdotally or with the scent of authority has any potential to be extrapolated successfully? We all have many layers of what we do: the accountant has to manage people in addition to being a whiz at

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-68348312910941863902011-01-06T16:20:00.000-05:002011-01-06T16:20:02.752-05:00

Analysis of Brooks' bullet points from Mythical Man-Month chapter 1. (note: these will all be interlinear) Chapter 1. The Tar Pit 1.1 A programming systems product takes about nine times as much effort as the component programs written separately for private use. I estimate that productivity imposes a factor of three; and that designing, integrating, and testing components into a

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-31699949670014711502011-01-06T16:16:00.002-05:002011-01-07T10:33:59.947-05:00

What Brook's expects for Mythical Man-Month's last chapter...the last chapter of his book (a recent edition/some 25th anniversary republication) is a linear bullet list of all the claims made in the original, chapter by chapter. I think his intent was to encourage what I am about to do which is take each of those points and comment: were they right or wrong, do they still hold, is it relevant at

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-1623865982643371052010-10-11T15:46:00.005-04:002010-11-09T21:50:45.657-05:00

Somehow, links to a 4 year-old paper by the logician Edward Nelson, "Warning Signs of a Possible Collapse of Contemporary Mathematics" has been passed around on the web, as I have just done. The title is provocative. In so many ways, it is at the same time interesting and no big deal. The sky is not falling. And neither are bridges. To summarize, the short polemical but still technical paper

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-48677381764179153152009-12-21T10:00:00.003-05:002010-06-23T12:32:57.379-04:00

From an old Language Log post about misunderstanding of the concept 'long tail' (hidden in the middle somewhere with some classic snark about commentators): When I took probability and statistics as an undergraduate in 1966 or so, we spent the whole first semester deriving several different versions of the Central Limit Theorem in several different ways from several different sets of axioms. It

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-69282594500012884072009-10-28T11:15:00.004-04:002009-10-28T13:30:44.355-04:00

Please pardon my commenting on reality (or my view of it) but... Bagels at Finagle-a-Bagel suck Or to be more politic about it, in my view, the bagels at said convenience are shaped like bagels, but the composition is much sweeter and well the texture is different enough from, let's say, Bruegger's Bagels bagels (to compare with another commercial establishment rather than, say, the heaven of a

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-7068843615257812642009-08-11T13:27:00.003-04:002010-11-09T21:50:45.657-05:00

Translation Party looks for translation fixed points in the English-to-Japanese-to-English transformation. curious green ideas sleep furiously gets to a cycle of length 3 after 3 steps.

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-56505332186471827132009-07-21T14:33:00.002-04:002010-11-09T21:50:45.657-05:00

Actually I noticed this error first (before the SciAm error). In the July 20 New Yorker in an article about Sarah Palin they said It may be inferred from this that Palin sees a certain parallel between the events of July 3, 2009, and those of July 4, 1776. And, indeed, her speech had echoes of the document signed in Philadelphia two hundred and thirty-three years and one day earlier. Notice

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-24654916684208042062009-07-21T13:54:00.002-04:002010-11-09T21:52:10.025-05:00

Look, I'm only doing this because it is 'so obvious'. In the August 2009 issue of Scientific American there was an article about some longstanding unsolved problem in topology having been solved. The intro paragraph said: Relax. Until recently, lurking in the dark recesses of mathematical existence, there might have been a really weird sphere of 254 dimensions, or 510, or 1,026. In fact, for

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-20184918818317762592008-06-13T12:43:00.004-04:002008-06-13T13:54:20.714-04:00

Computers suck. In this case... I have a file that ostensibly has really long lines, or rather the original data has really long lines, but what I have the lines are split, with a '-' to show that the line was split, plus a new line. e.g. a file like this: dfasdfasdfaasdfsregaregeagrerg242342423ytuyutuy qqweqweqweqsdadsasdasdasdzxczcxzcx I get it like this: dfasdfasdfaasdf-

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-22884412734074059602007-10-29T10:56:00.000-04:002010-11-09T21:52:10.026-05:00

Here's my official opinion on the subject after a cursory review of blogs (Computational Complexity, google for em...), newsgroups (sci.logic, sci.math), the FOM mailing list, and (BTW) the paper itself) First my prejudices about Wolfram. A New Kind of Science (ANKS), the book by Wolfram, is a mixed message. It is not new at all, the text is filled with intellectual arrogance (even the

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-45590244368937978242007-10-10T21:30:00.000-04:002007-10-10T21:35:48.385-04:00

For the record, I have mentioned the following idea for years (let's say since about 2000). The following -should- be invented: The microwave-like cooling-appliance: a machine that fills in the analogical gap of 'oven is to refrigerator as microwave is to ??'. Purely from a blackbox functional perspective, it is an object that is needed. Some things need to be cooked for health/taste

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-52200851881869201662007-03-12T20:45:00.000-04:002007-03-13T11:27:05.909-04:00

Once again, this afternoon I had the strangest feeling, yawning without being tired, hungry at the wrong expected time of day... which reminds me of a proposal I had thought out years ago. To relate... Daylight Saving Time (DST) is intended to save energy by shifting the labels of the day cycle ("hours") back and forth each spring and fall so that more daylight is available towards the end of

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5001555283469041764.post-71500268355118797512007-02-06T17:18:00.000-05:002010-11-09T21:52:43.002-05:00

An opinion piece by Jeannette Wing (COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM March 2006/Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 33-35) about how 'computational thinking' (whatever that is...well, actually that's what she -does- explain) is really an intellectual skill that is, to oversimplify terribly, good for everybody. Sort of like humanities for scientists/engineers. She says it would be good for non-majors, but I'm guessing

Mitchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06352106235527027461noreply@blogger.com0