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Friday, December 16th, 2005
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9:36 pm - Anywho...
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ambilevous
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I'm the new maintainer of this community.
Continue as you were.
Or indeed continue moreso.
Or however you see fit, really.
Then go here.
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(1 thought | think)
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| Sunday, October 30th, 2005
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11:36 pm - Fine tuning leads to radio silence
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tergum
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I think I have a fundamental grasp on zen, and also on the loss of ones ego.
Nothing is important, least of all myself, but least of all to myself, I am important.
I am rather cut off from myself. I'm not sure whether its a flaw or a virtue.
And of course, since I am so unimportant, it is only reasonable that I have a livejournal so as to bitch about my problems. It is also reasonable that you each pay me 10 shiny new pesos, and elect me as emperor. Just hurry up people, my worthless time is wasting.
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(1 thought | think)
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| Friday, September 23rd, 2005
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9:33 am - The Onion always cheers me up.
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tergum
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Study: Majority Of Americans Out Of Touch With Mainstream
July 21, 2004 | Issue 40•29
NEW YORK—According to a study published by the Popular Culture Research Group Monday, the majority of American citizens are out of touch with mainstream American society.
"We're not sure, at this point, whether this is a new trend or a continuation of an old trend," PCRG consultant Paul Van Lamm said. "All we know right now is that 70 to 85 percent of Americans are unfamiliar with, unaware of, or just plain don't care about what the American people are watching on television, seeing at the movie theater, listening to on their radios, wearing, rooting for, falling in love with all over again, or downloading."
According to Van Lamm, 71 percent of U.S. citizens polled had no interest in NASCAR racing, America's fastest-growing sport. Van Lamm added that 69 percent of poll respondents said they did not have a single Hispanic friend, in spite of the fact that Hispanics are the nation's fastest-growing minority group. Additionally, the majority of poll respondents did not see the final episode of Friends, television's most-watched sitcom.
"It's disturbing," Van Lamm said. "I'm uncomfortable with the number of U.S. citizens who have no interest in what interests the greater part of their fellow citizens."
[CAPTION]
A scene from NBC's Will & Grace, a TV show about which many Americans care surprisingly little.
Additional data collected by prominent forecasters, pollsters, and trend-watchers indicates that an overwhelming number of Americans have not seen this week's box-office smashes; do not own a Munsingwear penguin-logo golf shirt, the country's hottest fashion item; and not only do not own the must-have Apple iPod, but have never even participated in the runaway fad of downloading the nation's top albums, many of which they've never heard.
Interviews with average Americans seem to support such findings.
"Kanye West? He's in one of those shows. Or was in. It's off the air now, is that it?" said Pewaukee, WI resident and HVAC technician Carl Danford. "Huh... DaVinci Code, you say. I know: Is it a movie? What's Nordic Walking? I mean 'who.' Who is Nordic Walking?"
"I know The White Stripes is a band that younger people like," Danford added.
When asked to name the latest and most buzzworthy figures in entertainment, Tempe, AZ daycare provider Tina Jefferson said, "A lot of the children here saw the Harry Potter movie. And Yao Ming plays sports. How is that?"
"Oh, wait!" Jefferson added. "I know that Anna Nicole Smith lost a lot of weight and people are talking about it. Well, not me or people I know, but other people."
Carson Mannheim, lead statistician and founder of Mannheim Media Research, said he is trying to make sense of the confusing data.
"We're unsure exactly what these figures may mean, but the implications must be far-reaching," Mannheim said. "We're used to Americans not knowing the capital of the next state over, or who their congressman is, or how a bill becomes a law. But the idea that most residents of this country don't know anything about 'Fit But You Know It,' Usher, Dragonball Z, or the WWE is terrifying. No one seems to care that these are the things that influence the everyday life of most Americans."
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(think)
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| Monday, August 8th, 2005
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6:49 pm - Recursive directories
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gmalivuk
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Something tells me this shouldn't be a valid directory on any computer:
H:\Private\MATHLAB\Desktop\IFS Home\Private\MATHLAB\Desktop\IFS Home\Private\MATHLAB\Desktop\IFS Home\Private\MATHLAB\Desktop\IFS Home\Private\MATHLAB\Desktop\IFS Home\Private\MATHLAB\Desktop\IFS Home\Private\...
(As far as I can tell, it can just keep going.)
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(4 thoughts | think)
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| Friday, July 8th, 2005
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3:07 pm
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tergum
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Open all doorways and follow me through the halls of dementia, where you can find a reason without reasonability, and follow a dream from point A to point B without ever passing through the long middle. We can all find a point without a place, and live their throughout our long happy lives until only the maggots delight in our hollow company. We are the brotherhood without arms, reaching out to each other in the long dusty night.
...But I would much rather sit down and put on a party hat.
Would anybody like some candy?
current mood: Restless
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(3 thoughts | think)
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| Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004
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5:08 pm - Recursive phrase structure rules
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gmalivuk
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I don't know where I heard it, but I think I remember someone on Livejournal once saying that, chances are, any sentence you make with simple words that have existed for awhile is going to express the same meaning as some sentence previously uttered in the history of mankind. After all, we've had language for something like 100,000 years, and that's a lot of talking. Most senseful combinations of simple concepts have probably been covered.
Obviously this statement is bullshit, though, because it was made with no restriction on the length of a sentence. There are a couple very simple phrase structure rules in English that are recursive and thus allow for infinitely long sentences. Take, for instance, the following rules:
Sentence -> Noun + Verb (Phrase)
Verb Phrase -> Verb + Sentence
And combine them with the following words:
knew - verb
he - noun
I - noun
You can keep adding a level on top to get an infinite sequence:
I knew.
He knew [I knew].
I knew [he knew [I knew]].
He knew [I knew [he knew [I knew]]].
.
.
.
And even though an infinitely long sentence cannot have sensible meaning in English, a sentence of the above form of any arbitrarily large (even) number of words can be unraveled, complex as it may be. So to make absolutely sure you're uttering something never said before, simply count up the number of words ever spoken in human history, and apply the pair of recursive rules that many times, and you'll get a sentence with twice as many words as have been cumulatively spoken in the past 100,000 years, so obviously that sentence has never been uttered before.
What I want to know is if there are any languages with complex enough word-formation rules to allow for a *meaningful* single word longer than any arbitary number of syllables...
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(9 thoughts | think)
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| Saturday, October 25th, 2003
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1:29 am
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| Friday, October 24th, 2003
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1:37 am - How about that recursion?
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teamnoir
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Sure. I'll talk about something. Despite being either not here or not a person.
I've been looking for real world examples of recursion. Not code, not contrived examples, not simple circular definitions, but naturally occurring instances of recursion that might be used to explain recursion by example.
Anyone, (or no one), got any, (or none)?
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(8 thoughts | think)
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8:49 pm - So let me get this straight..
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ambilevous
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There are people here, who say there are no people here; despite the fact that there must be people here, otherwise there would be no people here to say there are no people here.
Which really begs the question.. are the people who claim they aren't here, but seem to be here to say they aren't here; interested in talking about anything aside from them not being here (which they aren't; otherwise they wouldn't be talking about not being here)?
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(18 thoughts | think)
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| Thursday, October 23rd, 2003
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10:32 am - *tappity-tappity-tap*
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| Saturday, September 6th, 2003
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3:59 pm - Word salad?
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teamnoir
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Is word salad welcome here?
While not exactly logical rollercoasters, it's damned close. More like logical whippets, I'd think.
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(3 thoughts | think)
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| Tuesday, July 8th, 2003
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1:26 am - Religious debate/discussion
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bygrace
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Hi all,
I'd like to invite anyone interested to  questionofgod
For the discussion of Christianity.
(Open to all, regardless of faith or lack of, to voice your thoughts, opinions and questions etc).
Note to maintainer: If you'd like me to remove this promotion, lemme know :)
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(think)
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