Boris Rarden

Looking for a business partner for the idea of making a robot that climbs buildings and washes the windows, based on this invention of a vertically climbing robot: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/nov/02/1 Google search "gecko robot".

http://evoting.bismark.se/verifiable-electronic-voting/ Also, available as a TED talk.

Here's an example of good jazz: Dave Brubeck - Laura lWFpK8WEHhk Antonio Carlos Jobim - Wave 3d8y4HxW8Eg John Coltrane - Dear Lord FpoyOwKJ1A0 Thelonious Monk - Solitude raLOXN0-jx8 Hiromi Uehara - I've got Rythm 6JfKY0K_NQk Nikolay Kapustin vDWeGp4UE6M 1Gi3EsgQn10 The codes are youtube IDs.

What if every member of the community is a contractor? A contractor pays taxes only at the end of the year. Which means the problem is only a surplus money (profit) accumulated by the end of the year. If all that profit is invested into some company X just near the end of the year, and then withdrawn at the beginning of the next year, it will appear that there are no net profits to declare. And company X can be declared as non-profit.

Is there a legal loop-hole that would allow to build a physical or virtual community that can avoid paying taxes ? Let's say "income taxes" ? For example -- a community based on barter ? IRS says that barter is still income taxable. However, is there a legal way to barter in a way that there is no paper trail that IRS can latch on ? Maybe some other tricks? For example, if all members of a community are getting stock of the company, instead of money, and then use the stock as currency, among themselves -- would it still be income taxable? Ordinarily stock must be sold, to be taxed as income. Would this still qualify as barter? Perhaps, the structure can be registered in another country, say offshore zone -- but people can live in their homeland ? If there is no paper trail, and all transactions are in cash, can IRS implement an income tax system in a practical way ? If a loop-hole exists, and we discover it, would the government be able to to issue new laws, closing the community down ? What would it take to issue such new bill or ammendment ?

JJC: I will look all that info up, that you mentioned. You have understood the question correctly. I will read that book and will post an update on this forum. FeatherFall: Fixed monetary units -- is the gold standard, which Ayn Rand advocates. Am I wrong?

Proud father: I have not received any reasonable argument against the formulas and discussion in my original post.

Tyco: you are talking about deflation. Deflation has its own disatvantages (read wikipedia article). This argument is originally written in russian on this forum: http://worldcrisis.ru/crisis/620469 I took the time to translate it, and thought about it for a while, to come up with my own argument against it. I agree that capitalism is a zero sum game, that there is no net profit, in terms of money. However, there is a net "profit" of goods. While the economy is working, goods are being created and are accumulated by people, raising their standard of living. Money is only a means to make people work to create those goods, but it is impossible to accumulate it. All business expenses (B.E.) eventually get back to the business owners. The business owners don't care that net profit is zero, they care about their own profit. This extra money that they temporarily hold keeps the production going, and the money flow out to the next people. So money, are really tokens that are passed around. In modern world money is constantly inflated, which forces people to buy goods rather than accumulate money in bank accounts. What is going to stop business owners from accumulating money, when that is not prone to inflation ? I would also like to refer you the other post of mine, about MMM: http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=22724&hl=&fromsearch=1 Therefore, the understanding that in a capitalist society money flow is a zero-sum game, forces us to rethink what money should be all about. Money should help to create a chain of contracts based on which people are willing to work. Any accumulated money that sits in some account must come out sooner or later, or it damages the economy. There seems to be a problem with money altogether. Its true purpose should be a token than can be passed around to make people work (as I have just outlined). However, this enables a pyramid like MMM to exist, where people just pull all the money together and can live off money of joining newcomers -- so the pyramid will grow to occupy the Earth as long as there is enough advertising. There is as strong case to believe that MMM will take over the world. In 9 months it gained 5 million people. Any kind of anonymous currency, even gold, will be prone to the same kind of pyramid. Do you have any ideas on a better definition of money, that will serve its purpose of being a token that makes people work, however, not allowing systems like MMM exist.

- this is not a homework. - the article shows by a formula that it is impossible to sell at a higher price than business expense, statistically speaking. Meaning, we are not talking about a particular business, but we are lumping the whole business sector together, and the whole customer sector together. The math shows that there's no net profit.

What is wrong with this argument? The Argument Consider a closed capitalist society, say Earth. There are four kinds of entities: business men workers of capitalists workers of government people who can't work Both government workers and those who can't work receive money from the government (salary and social programs). Government, in turn, receives money from taxes which businesses pay. Note that to business men taxes are necessary expenses in order to create a certain product. We may group worker salaries, taxes and other business expenses as BE (business expenses). Lets call the total spending ability of all the people except businessmen as Spend(customers). Whatever money those people have must have come from expenses of the businessmen, so we have an equality: Spend(customers) = BE However, in practice, people tend to save money, so the formula is: Spend(customers) = BE - Savings(customers) In order for businessmen to create a profit, they have to sell their products at a price higher than their expense, which is BE. However, the above formula shows that this is impossible since the spending ability of workers is at most BE. So how can business men create profit? Perhaps business men can buy from other business men, thus creating profit for each other. To quantify this we can write a formula for profit: Profit(businesses) = Spend(businesses) + Spend(customers) - BE Combining the preceding two formulas by substituting for Spend(customers) and simplifying we have: Profit(businesses) = Spend(businesses) - Savings(customers) There are three special cases in above formula: Ideal businessmen (don't spend their money); customers don't save and spend everything on products. Then, Spend(businesses) = 0 and Savings(customers) = 0 and hence the profit is also zero. Ideal businessmen (don't spend their money); customers are not ideal: they have savings. Then, Spend(businesses)=0 and Savings(customers) > 0. In this case businesses have a loss! Non-ideal businessmen but ideal customers. Then Spend(businesses) > 0 and Savings(customers)=0. In this case the net profit of businesses is exactly equal to the net spending of businesses. Profit(businesses) = Spend(businesses). It follows that businessmen can't grow their business since the only profit they make is what they spend. Conclusion: in a closed global economy business men can not grow their companies since the spending ability of people is equal to the business expenses. How companies grow, then? Two methods: Horizontal: Expand into new population areas where people have some savings (new customers). This is no longer going to be possible in a global economy were Earth is the country. Vertical: convince customers to buy products on credit. This has two flavors: Case A: People take loans themselves (credit cards) Case B: government takes loans from the financial systems and injects into the market through various programs, allowing people to buy more. Case A: profit to businesses based on credit to customers Suppose all customers together got a credit of $1 billion. Now customers can spend $1 billion more money than business expenses BE, so when the buy products the businesses will make a profit of $1 billion. The businessmen put that money into their bank accounts. The next year, the same $1 billion was given out again to the customers in form of more credit, and again returned to the businessmen. Now the businessmen have a capital of $2 billion, and the customers have a debt of $2 billion. If the original $1 billion will cycle around like this 20 times, then the capital of the businessmen will be $20 billion, and the debt of the customers will be $20 billion. However, the capital of $19 billion ($20 billion minus the original $1 billion) exists based on the trust that the customers will eventually pay of their $20 billion debt. However, this is impossible since the system works only in one direction -- in the direction of increase of the debt towards the bank by the customers. This is because that is the only way that business men can have profits. How long can the credit cycle last ? The credit can grow while customers can pay the interest on the credit. For example, suppose that a family spends $1000 per month to pay the interest on all of their credit cards. If today it is possible to take a credit at smaller interest than last year, than the family can take a bigger credit while keeping net monthly expense at $1000, pay off the previous debt, and on the left-over difference buy a new laptop. This creates a cycle where old loans are covered by new bigger loans. How long can this cycle last? It can until the interest rate will decrease all the way to zero. At this point the debt of customers towards banks stops growing, since they are not taking new loans. But this means also that the profit of business men also reduces to zero. Attempt to sell products at profit will mean that not all the products will be sold. In turn, business men begin to reduce their expenses (BE) by firing workers. But by reducing BE, so is reduced the spending ability of customers Spend(customers). Furthermore, fired workers can no longer pay off their debt and the bank balance secured by those debts starts to loose its value. The virtual $19 billion begins to evaporate like it was never there. This leads to a financial crisis. Case B: financing businessmen through government programs In this case government itself takes a loan from the bank and redistributes it in form of government sponsored projects. This leads to favoritism and corruption -- which business gets the money? No longer the market decides which business survives, but government officials. All this while the debt of the government increases indefinitely. This is no longer capitalism but a totalitarian regime which will eventually crash because of its financial debt. At that point, a reboot is made -- all is cleared (new currency) and the whole process starts from the beginning.

Can you elaborate please ? What is wrong with it ?

To me the sentence "Coffee makes life a bit brighter." is the strangest thing. Your reality is differenet than mine.

update: English version of the MMM site is: http://i-mmm.com/en

There is a new internet pyramid scheme called MMM-2011. The website is e-mmm.com and it is appears to be completely in Russian with no English option. I know Russian so I could read it. Here it is in a nutshell. People deposit money expecting a return of 20% to 60% percent per year. It is working while new members join, since there is a large inflow of money into the system. It is the same thing as a bank, only it is structured as a pyramid, where each person begins to be a new bank branch. The system can grow until it will take all of the people in the world. In 9 month since its inception it has 5 million people and large sums of money. The money is distributed, and not stored in a central account. It can not be shut down. The previous attempt was in 1994, where in half a year MMM had 15 million people. It was shut down by the government because all the money was in a central location. The creator claims that we already live in a pyramid, the pyramid of ever increasing credit. We pay old debts by taking a larger credit at a lower percentage. His goal is to destroy the financial market as it is today, by launching his pyramid against the current one. According to the modern definition of money -- anonymous tokens -- a pyramid seems to make clear a paradox inherent in its definition. Such pyramid will destroy both corruption as well as means to have a proper capitalist society, since it is destroying money. I have translated some of the arguments found on e-mmm.com site from Russian to English, on my blog: http://rarden.blogsp...apocalypse.html Will MMM take over the world? If yes, what will happen afterwards. How could we define money to stop pyramids from being created again?

I don't like it -- she is depressed in your version. In the original the girl has dumb look.

If this works, we can start Galt's gulch. Today, the biggest limitation to starting Galt's gulch somewhere in the middle of a desert, or up north, is power requirements. Well, here's an invention that is being tested now that can provide a solution, not unlike the Galt's motor. A factory that produces a 1-megawatt power output is the size of a trailer, and works on water. http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/10/reports-on-rossi-1-mw-october-28-2011.html http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=516&cpage=1#comments

Hi, I have written an article on my blog about addiction. http://rarden.blogsp.../addiction.html In this article I present the information about the following addictions: Smoking, Coffee, Alcohol, TV, popular music, and something I called "Laziness to Think".

In my opinion you should tell him like this: "I'm going to tell you this only because you are so paranoid and want to know all the details. Ordinarily, I don't have to share with you about my previous relationship. So I am prepared to tell you exactly how it was, second by second, if you wish to know. What do you want to know?". Then if he proceeds to ask you, just answer. If he can't handle the truth that he asked for, just move on. You didn't do anything wrong, so you don't have to feel guilty about anything.

There is only one correct theory -- the theory of reality. Explanation means explaining what is really going on. You assume shrodinger equation is correct way to explain what is going on, but in fact quantum physics doesn't have solid experimental evidence. It interprets the cat paradox as that there are two cats, one dead, and one alive. That is absurd, as far as my understanding is. It takes a comfortable position that it can't be disproved, by definition, and that is a circular argument.

http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Crash_course_on_OSE "We are building the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) – a low-cost, high-performance, open source, DIY platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 industrial machines that it takes to build a small civilization with modern comforts." What do you think of this project ? What about the fact that this is open-source, and not done as a business ?

Allow me to point out an alternate explanation of Double Slit experiment, that is not based on wave-particle duality: http://www.blacklightpower.com/theory/DoubleSlit.shtml

My email is [email protected] -- contact me if you want to meet. I have at least one friend who is interested in Objectivism as well, and read Ayn Rand, who may join us.

Unfortunately, this is the way it is taught in university, and many people don't feel 2.718 as clearly as they do 3.14. Many know of "e" but don't know or forgot how much it is, and don't really know what it is for. They remember the formulas of integration and differentiation, D(ln(x)) = 1/x, D(exp(x)) = exp(x) without appreciating that number 2.718.. that stands behind them.

I was asked a question on an interview, what is my favorite number. My Answer: my favorite number is 2.718 approximately. I will try to describe what it is and why it is my favorite, in the not-so-short explanation that follows. a) The exact number can't be written out explicitly, since it is irrational. I am going to call it B, and will describe how to calculate it exactly. b ) For this number B, the curve y = B^x has a rate of change curve (derivative) that is the same curve again: y = B^x. So if you start to work out a derivative of y=2.718^x, you will get again the curve y=2.718^x approximately. Here's this curve plotted: http://www.wolframal...i=y%3D2.718%5Ex You can see in a lower section on that page that the "Derivative" formula is about the same. It is y = 0.999*2.718^x. (When you multiply something by 0.999 it doesn't change much.) What is a derivative anyway, and how can I get a feel of this curve in a practical sense? Well, suppose you are driving a car and keep track of your speed by plotting a curve of how fast you were going. As well, you also plot a curve of how much gas you were using up. Gas usage has to do with how much you press on the pedal. Let's think about those two curves. Ordinarily these curves will look different. Why? Doesn't more gas mean more speed ? Yes and no. In the city when you go slow you use a lot of gas because you constantly stop and start. However, on a highway when you keep a steady high speed, you don't use much of it. So the curves for speed and gas usage will look different because you need gas to change the speed, but you don't need gas to keep the speed steady. Is it ever possible that these two curves would look the same? Yes, they would look the same if you accelerate according to the special curve with the shape y=2.718^x. Then, the speed will also change according to the same formula. This is because acceleration is a derivative of speed curve and B, approximately equal to 2.718, is a magic number for which derivative of y=B^x stays y=B^x. c) How did I find and calculate B in the first place? I assumed that such number exists for which the derivative of y=B^x still stays y=B^x. Given this assumption, I worked out a very simple Taylor series for a function f(x) = B^x. Recall that Taylor series for function "f" at center 0, is an alternative expression for this function through its derivatives. It is a sum of terms [c_k*x^k] where c_k is equal to the k-th derivative of f, evaluated at 0 and divided by k factorial. The k runs through all positive natural numbers. In our case, since the derivatives are equal to the same thing, which is B^x, and zero to any positive power is 1, it works out that the Taylor series is just a sum of terms [ x^k / k! ] for all natural numbers k. This means that at x=1, f(1) = B and B is sum of inverse of all factorials. To approximate B, I can take k up to very large numbers and then stop. That is how I figured out that B is approximately equal to 2.718. d) I also found it very convenient to calculate angles using B. First, I'm going to play a game that whenever I see (x^2 + 1) I can remove it. In other words, in this game x^2 + 1 = 0. It turns out that if I take all polynomials in x where coefficients are real numbers, then I can, sort of, work modulo (x^2+1). A random example of a kind of polynomials I am talking about is [ 7 * x^21 + 5 * x^10 + 0.333 * x^14 ]. I can add and subtract and divide these polynomials, and I just keep in mind that x^2 + 1 = 0. Working mod (x^2+1) I get a system that works in a consistent manner and I can't easily produce some kind of contradiction like 5 = 3, for example. So whenever I work, I just have to remember that I can add to any equation x^2 + 1 without changing it, cause it is equal to 0. Alternatively, if I see x^2 somewhere I can replace it with -1. This is because x^2 = x^2 + 1 - 1 = 0 - 1 = -1. Continuing with the same idea, I can replace x^3 with -x, because x^3 = x^2 * x = -x. So I can never have any integer power of x in my system since it just gets reduced to either x or -x. For convenience I will use letter "i" instead of "x", so that I can use "x" for other things. So now i^2 + 1 = 0, and "x" is unused. I can only ever see -i or i in my formulas. Of course, we must remember that this is restricted to the game of working with polynomials modulo (i^2+1). I am now going to use "i" to look at expression B^(i*a), where "a" stands for angle. It is a bit surprising to use "i" inside exponent, since our setup involved "i" only as the polynomial variable. However, since we know that B^x can be expanded in terms of power series, we will in a moment see that we get back to the polynomial domain. More precisely, in part © I got an expression for B^x in terms of power series (x^k / k!). Well, if I stick in that series formula "i*a" instead of "x" then I will get power series for B^(i*a). I am going to show in a moment that that power series is equal to a sum of two other power series, the one for cosine and the one for sine multiplied by "i". Lets work out Taylor series for sin(a) and cos(a). It is not hard to do that because the derivative of sin(a) is cos(a) and the derivative of cos(a) is -sin(a). The derivatives just alternate among themselves. Also, when we evaluate them at 0 they are going to give zeros and ones because cos(0) is 1 and sin(0) is 0. So you can imagine that we will get some kind of simple regularity in the power series. Consequently, sin(a) works out to be a simple pattern: (a - a^3/3! + a^5/5! - a^7/7! ...). You get only the odd terms since in the every other term we get sin(0) = 0. For cos(a) we get a similar expression cos(a) = 1 - a^2/2! + a^4/4! - a^6/6! ... etc. Now it is time to connect what I have been discussing. The curious thing is that B^(i*a) = cos(a) + i*sin(a). Please read this formula several times because it is a very famous one. We can verify this equality if we match up the series expressions for both sides of the equation and work out the terms, taking into account that i^2 = -1. If I replace "i" with "-i", I get B^(-i*a) = cos(a) - i*sin(a). This gives me a second formula, which together with the first can help me find a shortcuts for doing trig calculations. Lets solve for cos(a) using the two equations derived above. If the two equations are combined, the sine part cancels out and I get cos(a) = 0.5 * B^(- i*a) + 0.5 * B(i * a). This is the first shortcut formula --- it gives me a way to avoid working with cosine and instead work with exponents of B. I can get a similar formula for sine, by subtracting the two equations and getting: sin(a) = 0.5 * B^(- i*a) - 0.5*B^(i*a). In conclusion, I have two formulas that enable me to make shortcut calculations with sine and cosine. I just turn them into exponents using B with above two formulas, and use basic algebra to simplify expressions before I turn them back into real cosine and sine. It turns out to be pretty useful trick, especially for integration of trigonometric expressions. Too bad I didn't know about it when I was in grade 11 high-school, and had to make trig calculations. e) For a special angle a = Pi, since sin(Pi) = 0, and cos(Pi) = -1, and using formula B^(i*a) = cos(a) + i*sin(a), I get equation B^(i*Pi) = -1. If I move the -1 to the left side, I get a pretty formula B^(i*Pi) + 1 = 0. Why do I find the formula B^(i*Pi) + 1 = 0 pretty ? Well, because it has cool numbers in it. B is a cool number that we have been discussing all along, and which I claim to be my favorite. The number "i" is the one that we invented and is not really a number, since in our game we have i^2 = -1. That means that "i" can't be any real number, since any real negative number, when squared must be positive. Remember the rule that negative times negative equals positive. So the thing "i" is imaginary, but it helps in calculation of real functions like sine and cosine. Some people believe that "i" is not an abstract number but actually exists in nature, inside atoms. In any case, we can interpret the non-real nature of "i" in the same way as we think of the non-real nature of negative numbers -- negative numbers don't exist in nature, everything you could measure is a positive thing (time, distance, weight, etc). However, we have learned to understand that negative numbers represent an intermediate step in calculation, and once we use them or interpret them properly, we get back positive numbers. For example, a negative temperature of -3 degrees Celsius is really a positive quantity because we assumed that 0 Celsius is 273 degrees of true temperature in Kelvin. If we interpret the negative sign of -3 degrees Celsius according to its meaning and assumptions, we would get +270 kelvin. In a similar fashion, we try to think of "i" as intermediate step in calculation or representation. When final answers are needed we expect that "i" will magically cancel out. Unfortunately, this does not happen for quantum physicists. The "i" doesn't cancel out and they are forced to conclude that "i" really exists. However, since quantum physics and relativity theory are still in contradiction, we may assume there's a mistake somewhere so "i" may not be a real thing after all. The number "1" is also a great number, since it is the main building block to make all other natural numbers. Just add many ones enough times to get any natural number. Actually, 1 is a representative of a "block", because we like to group things into blocks or units. When moving apartments, we put all our stuff into boxes, so that we can just count the boxes, and not the individual items. Also, all measurements and prices are given in terms of 1: price per 1 pound, meters per 1 second. Another example is price per square meter for ceramic tile. If 1 ceramic tile is 50 centimeter wide, then 4 of them arranged in a square make 1 square meter. From this point, we can work with a unit of 1 square meter and forget that 4 ceramic tiles go into it. For example, we can convert between square meters and square feet directly, without considering that there are 4 ceramic tiles in there, or that an integer amount of tiles doesn't fit into 1 square foot. This is important, since in Canada price is given per 1 square foot, however, for me it is much easier to measure out my apartment in meters and centimeters. So, we can conclude that 1 is a very basic, natural, and important number. Now we get to the number "0" that shows up in that formula. The number "0" was the last number invented or discovered. It is different from all other numbers since it has a property of uniqueness: 1 apple is not equal to 1 plum, but 0 apples is equal to 0 plums. It was discovered when people tried to calculate the number of years that has passed between 1 BC and 1 AD. It is actually two years, and not 1 year. Clearly, something must be in the middle, and that is 0. The invention of 0 also gave the ability to solve equations by moving stuff from one side to the other. As well, it gave us a positional number system that we use today: ... 100, 10, 0.1, 0.01 ... etc. This positional system is the foundation of the binary, octal, and hexadecimal system that allows us to program computers by working with two voltage levels, represented by "off" and "on". The zeros in 1000 represent empty buckets into which blocks of different amounts can be placed. Conversion between different position systems, is arranged by relabeling those boxes and making more or less of them, adjusting whats in them accordingly. So to conclude, 0 is an important number. The last number in the formula that we haven't talked about is Pi. Well, Pi is a famous number. It was first observed that in any circle the ratio between its circumference and diameter is the same. If you make the circle bigger, both the diameter and the circumference grow by just the right amount so that if one is divided by the other, you get the same number, about 3.14. During the last 10 thousand years every civilization tried to calculate this number as precisely as possible. Today we can calculate it to thousands of digits, but as this number is irrational it can't be written out precisely in full. It can also be approximated as power series, just as well as B, of course, with a few math tricks. Unfortunately, two thousand years ago those tricks were still unknown, and those people had a hard time figuring Pi out. That is why we can link historic scientific development with how many digits of Pi were known at that time. Pi is now used to measure angles in radians. Imagine, cutting an extra-large pizza with a diameter of two feet into four slices, so that one slice is a quarter of a circle. The round edge of the pizza slice is a quarter of the circumference, which is Pi * D / 4, because Pi * D is the circumference of the whole pizza. In a circle with diameter equal to 2 this works out to be Pi / 2. Thus, it is taken that 90 degrees (a quarter of a circle) corresponds to the angle of Pi /2 radians. The reason that using Pi is better than using degrees, is because taking that a circle has 360 degrees, is a rather arbitrary thing -- we could have taken the circle to have 400 degrees for example, so that a quarter would be 100 degrees. Alternatively, working with radians represents a true property of a circle that the diameter and the circumference are related in their sizes in a fixed ratio. This turned out to make all the math formulas that use Pi to work better, rather than if they used degrees. You can see how Pi get's into all the math formulas, since cos(Pi) = 0, and sin(Pi) = 1, and cos(a) = sin(Pi - a) for any angle, and we can expand sin(Pi - a) in terms of individual angles of Pi and a, through working with shortcut formula worked out in part (d). As well, many shapes have areas and volumes that can be expressed with Pi. For example, the volume of a sphere (our Earth) is 4/3 * Pi * r^3, where r is the radius, which for Earth is about 6370 km. The radius of Earth was calculated by measuring the shade length from two posts located far apart, at the same time. This calculation was done by Eratosthenes, an ancient greek librarian of the Alexandria, who knew that Earth is round and that sun's rays arrive parallel to each other, because the sun is so far. Knowing the radius of Earth also gives a way to calculate the length of the equator, which turns about to be about 40 thousand kilometers. Too bad that with the rise of Christian religion the knowledge that Earth was round was lost, and was replaced by the belief that the Earth is flat.So you can agree with me that Pi is a pretty important number, and probably most widely known special number in math. I'd like to conclude that I really like the number B = 2.718.... As I have shown, it leads to very useful and unusual formulas, one of which brings together many important numbers in mathematics: i, Pi, 0, 1. Please note that most people don't use the letter B for the number 2.718. I leave it to you to find out what is the standard letter. It plays an important role in many other formulas and applications an mathematics, physics and engineering.

The short answer is that Pliant is the first combination of C and Lisp. It has the benefits of both at the same time. It is a dynamic compiler, that outputs binary, yet has 'eval' support. It also allows the programmer to change the compiler at three different stages -- lexer, parser, and most importantly code generation (think of bytecode rewriting, although there is no bytecode). This gives great flexiblity to allow to create powerful libraries, that have 'meta' functions that add features to the language -- giving an appropriate level of abstration without sacrificing efficiency. An example is implementation of 'a^b mod c' syntax that will interatively calculate the result without overflowing the registers through the identity = '(a mod c)^b mod c'. You can read http://www.fullpliant.org/doc/language/meta for more information. As well, pliant is not merely a language, it is an object database, a web server, a GWT-like service, an AIR-like client/browser, a perl interface; a set of components implementing services such as vnc, smtp, pop, dns, pdf reading, font renderer, ui engine, advanced color management, client server, server-push support (comet), threads, operating system interface for linking dlls, sockets. Pliant was created over 25 years, by one man who used the system to run a printing factory. For further questions, please refer to www.fullpliant.org