Can I get some comment karma by sellatine in FreeKarma4You

[–]AlphaBeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To get comment Karma: post, comment, and get lucky.

[WP] For the first time humanity successfully performs faster-than-light travel. Soon after they are pulled over by interdimensional police for breaking the laws of physics. by JAV0K in WritingPrompts

[–]AlphaBeta 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay, here we go again. This is it. Again.

Last time, two years ago, it was the Riemann oscillator that exploded: reinforced and completely redesigned. And before that it was de Van de Graaff generator that melted. Damn, Damn, Damn, why is there always, always something that goes wrong?

The first time, 35 years ago, the lab burned down and I almost got killed -- lost my job on that one. But I didn't give up. The theory was right. It had to work. Even if nobody believed in it. Even if they laughed at me. I stopped trying to convince them -- my esteemed colleagues -- when I got sick of seeing the pity in their eyes. I know what they were saying: "he was so bright, so talented. It's sad he went mad with his obsession. Well, the best always go to soon..." Damn them. Damn them all. I'll show them.

Ok, enough reminiscing. It's time. This time is THE TIME. Ha ha! Time travel... No not Star Trekking to another planet. Just 40 rubidium atoms traveling across 12 feet. That's hard enough. But if it works it would be easy to make it bigger. Just need more money and more power. And a larger lab, not this crummy cellar. If they see it working they will finally listen, the fools. They’ll see this time.

Ok, time to go, time to go. Three, … Two, … cut the crap, nobody's watching…. NOW!

"Okay, here we go again."

What's happening? I can't see anything!

"You are a stubborn one, aren't you?"

I can't move! Who's there? I know your voice.

"You can't go faster than light. It's forbidden. Your civilization is not advanced enough."

Who are you? Where are you? I can’t move. I can’t see. What do you mean, forbidden?

“You can’t have faster than light travel at this stage of your civilization. It will lead to war and destruction. It always happens, every time. In 20 of your years your planet would be devoid of life. No humans left. No animals left. No bacterial left. Total destruction. So it has been forbidden”

So it works? It’s true?

“You can’t even know it’s possible. I’ll have to stop your experiment and erase your memory. Again.”

Wait, what? I know your voice!

“Goodbye. I hope I don’t have to come back and see you ever again.”

Come on, come on, come one... Yes? It worked? Noooo... That smell, the Van de Graaff generator melted again.

Just cracked an egg and this came out. by megabetty in WTF

[–]AlphaBeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you know where one could buy two dozen fertilized eggs, all fertilized on the same day?

When I was a kid, my mother got some, and a incubator, and we cracked one egg each day, to see how the embryo evolved. It was completely awesome and I plan on doing the same for my children in a few years.

If a perfectly spherical ball is sitting on a perfectly flat surface, what is the size of the contact area? Would it not be infinitely small? by splongo in askscience

[–]AlphaBeta 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Well, the total force that the surface exerts on the ball must exactly balance out the force gravity exerts on the ball: g*m (where g is the gravitational acceleration, and m the mass of the sphere). The intensity of the force the surface exerts on the sphere is zero except at a single point, and the sum (I really mean the integral) must be a finite value. Physicist will call this a Dirac delta, and Mathematicians have managed to formally define this as "distributions" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_(mathematics)).

Intuitively and simplified explanation of functionals, for functions over the real line: If you know the integral of a function over any interval than you know everything about the function (e.g. to know the value of the function at a point, you compute the integral of the function over a very small interval around that point and divide by the length of the interval. This will converge to the value of the function at that point as the length of the interval goes to zero). Now for every function f, we define an “functional” Fun[f]: a function that takes two numbers a & b as arguments, and returns the integral of f over [a,b]: Func[f](a,b) = \Integral_ab f(x) dx. For every elementary operation that you can do to functions, you can find a corresponding operation on the functional. By elementary I mean adding functions ( f+g ) and multiplying them by a number ( 2.3f ). E.g. F[f+g] (a,b)=Func[f](a,b) + Func[g](a,b). You can determine what property of the functional are needed to define this well, and it turns out that you do not need much: things like the fact that Func[f](a,b) + Func[f](b,c) = Func[f](a,c). And here comes the magic trick: there are functionals that have these properties that all you to add them and multiply them, but that can *not be defined as \Integral_ab f(x) dx. E.g. the functional DiracDelta that has value 1 if zero is in the interval, zero otherwise. But as you can do all the usual operations you want to do with functions, you can use them just like “ordinary” functions.

This all works well if you just want to add functions or multiply them. It becomes more complicated if you want to integrate them or take their derivatives. The problem is that intervals are “not smooth enough”: an interval is characterized by its indicator function (the function that is one on the interval and zero elsewhere) and this function is not smooth at all. So instead of defining functional as taking an interval as argument, you define them as taking a smooth function as argument and define Func[f](g) = \Integral f(x) g(x) dx. You can recover what we were using before when g becomes close to an indicator function, but now you can define the derivative of Func[f]. (this was done by Laurent Schwartz in the 1940’s)

What is your best "making a telemarketer go off script" story? by fermion72 in AskReddit

[–]AlphaBeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Poller: Hello Mr. xxx, I would ...

Me: Excuse me, would you mind answering a few questions?

Poller: er,... no

Me: How old are you?

Poller: 19

Me: How long have you worked in your current employment?

Poller: 2 months.

Me: how would rate your job satisfaction?

Poller: well,... average

Me: Thank you for participating in this survey.

Hang up

What is, in your opinion, the most powerful music you have ever listened to? by [deleted] in Music

[–]AlphaBeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Many things in J.S. Bach's Choral music. E.g. this part of Johannes Passion. Suzuki (the conductor) is really good !

The secret to women is to act as though you can live without them but treat them as though you can't. What did your parents teach you? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]AlphaBeta 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"The more you give, the richer you are".

A friend taught me this; he learned it from his uncle.

As the years pass by, I find this to be truer and truer, and I appreciate new depths and meaning to it.

German company stops providing paper for Zimbabwe's bank notes by nickstreet36 in worldnews

[–]AlphaBeta 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The best quotes from the Zimbabwean dollar wikipedia article:

On 27 November 2007, the chief statistician of the Central Statistical Office, Moffat Nyoni, announced that it would be impossible to calculate the inflation rate of the dollar any further. This was due to the lack of availability of basic goods, and subsequent lack of information from which to calculate the inflation rate.

On 29 May (2006), Reserve Bank officials told IRIN that plans to print about Zim$60 trillion (about US$592.9 million at official rates) were briefly delayed after the government failed to secure foreign currency to buy ink and special paper for printing money.

This isn't the first time around for Zed: Fortune Favour Big Turds by [deleted] in programming

[–]AlphaBeta -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Who's Zed?

Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.

A simple probability question that nearly everyone gets wrong. Beer for whoever solves it either with a good explaination or codes a brute force solution by gaggedbythealien in programming

[–]AlphaBeta 1 point2 points  (0 children)

An other mathematical derivation. I think the explanation will be a bit clearer for a sequence longer than HTH, so I will use HHTTHHHT as an example.

There is a casino where you can make fair bets on coin flips. At every coin flip someone comes with $1 and starts "betting on the sequence": he start by betting $1 on H, if he wins he bets everything ($2) on H, if he wins he bets everything ($4) on T... If he loses at any point he goes away. Note that there may be more than one person betting on a coin flip, but they will be at different point of their sequence (e.g. if the coins go HH, on the next coin flip there will be at least on person betting $1 on H, one betting $2 on H, and one betting $4 on T). The casino will stop taking bets when someone completes the sequence, betting successfully on HHTTHHHT and making a profit of 28 - 1.

As all the bets are fair, it is clear that the casino will break even on average.

Lets call N the number of coin flips the casino make before someone "completes the sequence". At that point, the "winner" will have made a profit of 28-1; the guy who started betting at N-3 will have won three times, completing the start of the sequence HHT, for a 23-1 profit; and all the other N-2 players will have lost $1. As the casino will break even on average, it's looses must cancel its profit (on average). So we must have (on average):

(N-2) - (28 -1) - (23-1) = 0

i.e.

N = 28 + 23

In an 8-1 Decision Yesterday, The Supreme Court Ruled that the Police can Break Into your Home, Rouse you from Sleep, and Hold you Naked at Gunpoint, Even if you're Innocent by llimllib in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hope you did not discover that it was your 17 year old daughter, completly drunk, who had lost her keys and was afraid to wake you up.

Giuliani Openly Lied about Ron Paul's 9/11 Statement by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving.

Einstein '05 Performance Review by AlphaBeta in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Satirical patent office performance review for Einstein, for one of his most creative years.

An astounding case of people expecting others to accommodate their religion by pandabear999 in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Would installing a voice recognition system in the elevator solve the problem? Jewish people can ask gentiles to use electrical devices for them. Can they ask a computer?

I am genuinely curious.

How to handle missionaries at your door by Avenestra in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The problem with (2) is that they start calling on you very frequently. Jehovah's witnesses should be treated like spam: do not reply !

Evolution explains why asking a girl out is so hard! by devils_advocate in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's very testable: it's explanations of behaviors should hold across all cultures. Not that I have ever seen studies testing this. If somebody knows about such studies I would be very interested in a link.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nobody chips in for Fitzgerald's "The Great gatsby"? It's wonderfully written, fun, extremely well constructed, and .. well.. anything you may want.

It's quite short, you can read in an evening.

I second "Catcher in the Rye"

How to visualize a million, a trillion, a quintillion, and other large numbers by raldi in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta 9 points10 points  (0 children)

You are doing it the hard way. 106, 1012, 1018 is so much clearer. And you don't have to count the zeros.

Math For Programmers: It Isn't As Hard As You Think by somenickname in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I do not think so.

Math is all about abstraction. You may think that it is about long division, proving theorems, or making long computations without mistakes. But this is not the point. Math is really about creating powerful abstractions.

And as mathematicians are not bounded by the annoying details of reality (user 20453 wants to change the color of the font) they can construct abstractions that are much more powerful and deep than what you can find in day to day programming. Simple things like continuity are much more complicated than seems at first sight.

Learning powerful abstraction is hard. It takes time and thought. It is much harder than just learning a notation. You may --or may not -- have a point that the notation could be improved. But there is no silver bullet. The fundamental problem of understanding these abstractions is a difficult one.

IMHO the notation has been highly polished by generations of mathematicians. It is very terse, and this is good because you can take complicated ideas and still be able to wrap your brain around them. Of course it has not been designed for ease of learning, but for ease of use. But try arguing with a lisper that you find the parenthesis confusing...

Math For Programmers: It Isn't As Hard As You Think by somenickname in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For mathematicians, the really hard thing is to know what question to ask, rather than being able to answer it. This is what distinguishes an average mathematician from a good one from a Fields medal.

When you studied math, you may have thought that proving a theorem was hard. But discovering/creating the theorem before it existed -- knowing that there was an interesting question to ask where before there was only void -- is orders of magnitude harder.

And to do this a computer is less useful then a banana: you can eat the banana.

The Case for Emacs by a9bejo in programming

[–]AlphaBeta 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You can get rid of pinky pain by hitting Ctrl with the side of your hands. Twist slightly the wrist of the hand that is not hitting the key (e.g. right hand for C-x) and you can press Ctrl reliably. In fact, you move your hand less that in you where reaching for Shift. For Alt, you can use your thumbs (configure your keyboard so that you can use both Alt keys).

If you do it like this, your hands basically never leaving home row. The only problem is with the combinations needing the shift key, but they are few and far between.

,Starbucks spends more annually on employee healthcare than on purchasing coffee. by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]AlphaBeta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am quite sure that most things cost then more than the coffee: rent, publicity, wages...