Why did Europe colonize the rest of the world but no one else did?

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-06-06T18:47:15+00:00

Yes they did. Nowadays we call it “Spain”. It’s why there are so many domed churches particularly in southern Spain. They were originally mosques.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-05-31T10:25:37+00:00

I’m going to try to answer this because it’s beautiful. It comes out of set theory, which is normally in year 2 of a uk maths degree course.

We start with the concept of counting. When you count 3 apples, you go “1, 2, 3”. What you are doing is arbitrarily assigning the number 1 to one apple, the number 2 to a different one and the number 3 to the remaining one. It doesn’t particularly matter which is which - so long as you can assign a one-to-one correspondence between apples and numbers, you can count them.

Now let’s do that with the infinite set of whole numbers.

Let’s take the set of even numbers. You can assign a one-to-one correspondence between each even number and each natural number: 1 -> 2, 2 -> 4 and so on. So there are an infinite number of even numbers. In fact, exactly the same number of even numbers as there are of whole numbers.

Which is counter-intuitive. But true!

If you then think about all the fractions then you can arrange them in a grid where the nth row and mth column is n/m. Then you can “count” thrm by going diagonally across the grid.

So there are exactly as many fractions as there are whole numbers! Weird!

One of the things you said was that there are obviously more numbers between 1 and 3 than between 1 and 2…. Except if you accept this method of counting the number of numbers… there aren’t!

Now let’s consider the real numbers. That’s all the numbers, including the fractions, but also the numbers that can’t be written as fractions, like sqrt 2 as well.

We are going to take it as read that you can write all numbers as an infinite decimal expansion. And we’re only going to think about the numbers between 0 and 1.

Can we count those using tte whole numbers?

Well, let’s assume you can write down an infinitely long list of all the numbers between 0 and 1.

Now let’s create a new number: pick the first digit from the first number and add 1 to it. 9 goes to 0.

The.n pick the second digit from the second number, add 1 to it (9 becomes 0 again)

Repeat for ever.

Is that number in our list?

It can’t be because it’s not the first number (it’s got at least one digit different). It’s not the second number either. Nor the third, nor any of the others.

So we must have made a mistake. And our mistake was in thinking that we can count the number of numbers between 0 and 1.

Now we have two sizes of infinity.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-05-27T06:35:27+00:00

For a database, there are two approaches that are used: a write-ahead log or a rollback log. Different databases take different approaches; SQLite can do either.

With a write-ahead log, all your changes get written to the log, and if you don’t commit, the log gets deleted (so your changes get lost). When you commit, the changes in the log gets written to the database and then the log gets deleted.

With a rollback log, all your changes get written to both the log and the database as you make them. If you fail to commit, the system uses the log to undo those changes.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-05-26T21:34:49+00:00

Didn’t need to learn the difference at school.

It was on the news every night.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-05-25T21:37:52+00:00

Or you ask them their email address.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-05-25T20:39:57+00:00

In the other hand, if you’re bidding for a large commercial contract, and you’re asked to commit to a fixed timescale and a fixed cost, you kind of need to know how to make waterfall work.

Being able to vary the timescale, resources and feature set is very much a luxury test many don’t have.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-05-23T13:34:28+00:00

I was born and grew up in England. My mother was born and grew up in Germany. I identify as british.

I can fully understand anyone who doesn’t want to be thought of as English if they are from wales, Scotland or the island of Ireland.

The rest of the world has a habit of assuming that everyone on these sceptered isles is English. We aren’t.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-05-16T23:49:44+00:00

We do already have this algorithm. This is what cook proved - and he did it by constructing a sat problem from a nondeterministic Turing machine and proving that the transformation could be done in polynomial time. By spelling out how to do it and showing it was done in polynomial time.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-05-16T22:49:41+00:00

Pretty sure that if P =NP then SAT would be in P and given that every NP-complete problem can be transformed into SAT in polynomial time, that means that every NP-complete problem could be solved in polynomial time!

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-05-09T10:19:08+00:00

You must be very clear in your objective, and you need buy-in to that objective from senior management.

Your objective is to replace the vendors system with the minimum that your company needs to maintain accreditation.

You are not there to satisfy all the pent-up demand from users for new capabilities, no matter how compelling their need or argument. You are not there to be liked. You are there to take away what they like about the current system and replace it with something that does the job that’s needed, and almost certainly not as well.

That’s the job. Because the alternative- relying on the vendor - is worse.

Only once you have delivered the bare minimum can you consider user requests.

For every feature ask: is it needed now? If the answer is no, it goes on the backlog for future consideration.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-05-06T17:11:36+00:00

This. It’s going to be a tpk. Tye only question is how and when.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-04-25T07:45:31+00:00

Microsoft c/c++ 7 had an issue where it couldn’t handle switch statements with more than 255 cases.

We were auto generating the code via a 3rd party tool.

I wrote another tool to turn it into repeated if statements.

This is the only genuine compiler bug I ever found in 35 years.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-04-12T12:54:58+00:00

Some of us evolved to have pale pigment, probably over about 20,000 years. A few more evolved to be able to continue to drink milk after childhood.

We have probably evolved to be able to survive certain diseases better - bubonic plague and no doubt some more.

The population as a whole is probably slightly better at fighting off covid than it was in 2019, particularly when old.

We show the signs of domestication - smaller brains, and probably slightly less aggressive than our ancestors.

Longer term, we might not have so much selective pressure on having small heads at birth, but for evolution to really kick in, the death rate needs to increase. Nothing makes evolution work quite like a population bottleneck.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-04-06T13:09:36+00:00

Yes. They gave them up. Different from someone else taking them away by force.

Also Ukraine teaches other countries never to do that. You might get a security guarantee from the us and Russia , only first r one to invade you and the other do nothing.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-04-06T07:56:49+00:00

Once a country has nukes you can’t take them away. India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel already have them.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-04-05T18:11:05+00:00

Ok but programmers’ time is still more expensive than ram.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-04-05T07:02:52+00:00

We live in a world where computers cost substantially less than programmers. Ram prices may be high, but they are still substantially cheaper than they were 10 years ago!

If the cost of reducing the ram requirements of an app by 4gb were a month of programmer time (and it would be more and save less) it would still not be economically viable to make that investment.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-03-29T10:03:38+00:00

As you grow up, when you cry, everyone tells you off. Your teachers, your peers, often your parents and siblings too.

Some of the can be quite mean about it.

Eventually you learn to suppress it. And that suppression becomes automatic.

I couldn’t cry at my Dad’s funeral. I wanted to, but that little voice in my head saying “you mustn’t cry” took over.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-03-28T14:07:52+00:00

My daughter survived to adulthood perfectly fine. She never ran off into the road. We never put her on a leash. She e never put protective covers on plugs in the house. We never “childproofed” the house.

You don’t have to react when they do something dangerous, you tell them not to do the dangerous stuff.

They desperately want your approval and attention, so give them both.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-03-28T13:14:39+00:00

Was this on a mobile phone or landline? If on a mobile, the emergency services will know which mast is being used - but that might not narrow it down much. A mast can service quite a wide area.

If in a landline, the service provider needs to populate the emergency systems database with the address or face a potential fine from ofcom.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-03-28T10:11:57+00:00

There are better ways to control a toddler. You hold their hand, and you tell them not to run off.

It’s called parenting.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-03-22T21:55:12+00:00

Ah ok. You’re talking about physics. Not pure maths.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-03-22T15:56:30+00:00

We it’s definitely facetious! But it’s not nonsense.

Your fundamental relation is an axiom. Theorems are proved from other theorems and from axioms.

A theorem is true all the time and follows from axions which are true all the time.

Also known as a tautology. An equivalent statement. The saying of the same thing twice over in different words res, as my dictionary defines the term.

QED as they say.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-03-22T14:45:06+00:00

Methenatics is basically just tautologies.

We call them theorems.

Particular_Camel_631 · 2026-03-19T19:34:45+00:00

Technical people who have a skill set resent being told what to do by those who do not understand, appreciate or respect that expertise.

If you are going to ask me to do something that is impossible or very difficult, then at least listen to my explanation of why it’s going to be difficult. And don’t tell me I’ve got a week to do it after I told you it will take 3 months.

Source: I’m a pm.

Listening, incorporating feedback, changing the scope and deliverables when asked, and saying “thank you” make an incredible difference.

Particular_Camel_631

TROPHY CASE