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kenstauffer

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About kenstauffer

  • Birthday 01/01/1906

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  1. You're quite right. It just occured to me, that my argument is just a special case of a more general argument that could be leveled against any new formalism. Since the church-turing thesis claims that all formal systems can be mapped to number theory, then EVERY formal system claim can be countered by saying it is just artithmetic? (Which was essentially my previous argument) So unless an advocate of a new formalism can disprove the church-turning thesis, their new formalism is just number theory with different symbols. Is this right?
  2. Ummm, then we have always had "fuzzy logic", or atleast since numbers were invented. So really fuzzy logic is what we call "arithmetic". I like the original, 2,000 year old name better. 1/2 cooked, 1/3 cooked, .999 cooked, .5 cooked, etc.... This is what all these PHD computer scientists are refering to when they discuss fuzzy logic???
  3. It can't be me, as I have consistently failed to spell Intelligent properly. Oh well. :-)
  4. If ID is true, who is the intellegent designer?
  5. I'm glad religion is making this issue important to them, because the facts are so clearly contrary to intellegent design. This is religions last pathetic stand. I for one would not care if they succeed in having intellegent design "taught" along side evolution, because the innocent children will make the correct choice. And they will leave school with a much better appreciation for science and disdain for religion. (And it also might have the added benfit of making people question the value of state run education -- a favorite liberal cause. Let us see how eagerly the liberals encourage public education when a republican run government gets to inject "intellegent design" into their beloved public schools)
  6. If you really want random & incomprehensible data use Kant(), not Rand()
  7. Hee hee hee. Can god make a mountain that is so heavy that he cannot lift it? Just one of the many condradictions in the notion of an "all powerful god".
  8. A dictator could make so many things felonies that only he and a few other can vote. Think of all the smugglers through history that would have voted for leaders that advocated free trade policies? Or viewing this point darwinistically: A positive feedback loop is setup that excludes from voting those people that violate certain laws, the remaining voters by definition have not broken these laws. Since these laws are not being broken by the voters, the laws must not cramp their style too much, and therefore they are less motivated to change the law (since the status quo works for them). Darwinistically, this would not be considered and evolutionary stable setup, and in the long-term must result in the elimination of all voters. I seriously doubt this would happen (or is happening), but it made me go, "hmmmmm..."
  9. kenstauffer

    Tattoos

    Wearing a tattoo is really a neutral cultural decoration, like ties, nose piercing, thong underwear. What bugs me is the pierced/tattoo crowd walking around with an attitude that they are rebels/individualistic. I think that is a far from the truth. I wear ties because it is an unfortunate cultural requirement for working in business. I don't pretend I am doing anything more than copying this standard in order to earn a living. Would Howard Roark get a tattoo? I think he might, if he lived in some wierd culture that thought tatoos were like ties in our culture. He would get a tatoo on the grounds that it will enable him to achive his goals. Even in this example, he might struggle to find other ways to achieve his goals without a tatoo. Cultural norms change, tattoos don't. A rational person knows this and acts accordingly. If you think tattoos look good, then you can claim to be a first hander. I think the human body is too beautiful naked. I don't think it can be improved upon with gangreen-ish coloration. And when I see a tattoo I immediately wonder what mental problem the person suffers from to make them mutilate their body in order to conform (a generalization that I am willing to ammend with further information).
  10. Q: What is the name of the first satellite put into synchronous orbit around the moon?
  11. I loaded it earlier today, and I am testing driving it. Thanks everyone for advice/feedback on this topic. My first impression is similar to my first impression using Firefox. I am excited and impressed with the smoothness of the tools, and for free you cannot go wrong. The drawing program is a huge plus in my job (technical diagrams), and VISIO was always out my price range (unless I ripped off a copy from a client). The few word documents I regularly use seem to load fine and edit fine. The spread sheet also looks nice. Of course, since I am upgrading from Office98, it doesn't take much to impress me. The funny thing is, on client sites their latest/greatest edition of Office looks pretty much like my 7 year old version. Part of the reason is (as mentioned earlier) that MS has focused on all kinds of "groupware", mega-features, instead of just making the core programs easy to use. Again, this very much reminds me of how Firefox has been able to upstage Internet Explorer. Also, the download was a 65MB zip file. Installation was very easy and straight forward. When I launch the tools I don't get the feeling it is taking over my computer, unlike how I feel when I run the Office suite. And of course its completely free. Cheers all from a happy hacker.
  12. Judge Judy Simpsons King of the Hill Malcom in the MIddle King of Queens Boston Legal Fear Factor Antique Road Show Nanny 911 Apprentice Dr. Phil Law & Order Dharma & Greg Bull Sh*t!
  13. I am seeking opinions about OpenOffice for windows? I am getting kind of annoyed with MSOffice (especially Word). Also MSOffice is very expensive, I am still running MSOFFICE 1998! And I do not want to spend mucho dollars to upgrade. This OpenOffice sounds really neat, as it is totally free. So anybody try it? I am most interested in experiences with running on windows XP, and how easy the tools are, and how well they inter-operate with Word files. Here's the website: www.openoffice.org Thank's in advance.
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