"As long as this tradition was uninterrupted, authority was inviolate; and to act without authority and tradition, without accepted, time-honored standards and models, without the help of the wisdom of the founding fathers, was inconceivable."
- Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future
Number theory has important applications for cryptography - which is important for secure commercial transactions online. The point of the documentary however is that sometimes engaging in maths (even without the applications) is in itself a worthwhile intellectual journey. Just because *you* never appreciated maths, or never found a way to make it relevant to your everyday life, doesn't justify an educational policy of dumbing down everyone else.
I've always found it ridiculous how easy it is for R2D2 to find open data ports in military installations, interface with systems, and then pwn critical components.
From The Atlantic:
Whether the fault lies with theorists for getting carried away, or with nature, for burying its best secrets, the conclusion is the same: Theory has detached itself from experiment. The objects of theoretical speculation are now too far away, too small, too energetic or too far in the past to reach or rule out with our earthly instruments. So, what is to be done? As Ellis and Silk wrote, “Physicists, philosophers and other scientists should hammer out a new narrative for the scientific method that can deal with the scope of modern physics.”
So it's down to the philosophers now. I didn't know that the crisis was that bad.
From Stephen Wolfram's Blog (yes, the Mathematica/Wolfram Alpha guy):
It’s charming to read Ada’s letter as she works on debugging her computation of Bernoulli numbers: “My Dear Babbage. I am in much dismay at having got into so amazing a quagmire & botheration with these Numbers, that I cannot possibly get the thing done today. …. I am now going out on horseback. Tant mieux.” Later she told Babbage: “I have worked incessantly, & most successfully, all day. You will admire the Table & Diagram extremely. They have been made out with extreme care, & all the indices most minutely & scrupulously attended to.” Then she added that William (or “Lord L.” as she referred to him) “is at this moment kindly inking it all over for me. I had to do it in pencil…”
More than an interesting peek at the life of Computer Science's historical figures, it's a testament to the nobility of all mathematics (not just "business" or "practical" mathematics).
From jwz:
When a multi-billionaire puts out a press release saying that eventually they will transfer all-but-a-billion-or-so into a "charitable foundation" that they also completely control, that is not a donation, that is just moving your money from one bank account to another! And it's not even that, it's claiming that he's fixin' to get ready to do that some day.
From The Verge, a flipside to this networked, algorithmic future:
The company wanted to counter the portrait painted last year by the New York state attorney general, which accused Airbnb of enabling illegal hotels, allowing a small number of hosts to earn millions while cutting down on the amount of affordable housing available to the average citizen.
From The Verge
Nintendo still isn't talking about its next big console, codenamed NX, in detail until next year. But new company president Tatsumi Kimishima, who took over for the late Satoru Iwata in September, has revealed that the device won't just be a new take on the Wii like the Wii U was. "I can assure you we're not building the next version of Wii or Wii U," Kimishima explained in an interview with Time. "It's something unique and different. It's something where we have to move away from those platforms in order to make it something that will appeal to our consumer base."
We decided to celebrate the end of the first school quarter by spending a weekend in Nagasaki. Ruby and I just hopped on a train and we arrived in less than two hours - I think I'm going to enjoy Japan's railway system.
The first day was a somber - if grim - pilgrimage through the "Peace Course" - the cluster of museums and parks that commemorate the atomic bombing of the city. It is a bit depressing, but these difficult moments have to be confronted.
I'm sort of a military otaku, but I never liked nuclear weapons. From a tactical standpoint - they're just too messy. You're likely to harm your own troops and resources in the process of employing them (and poison the terrain, which sort of moots the point of tactics). The strategic "options" that nukes give you (apocalypse or not apocalypse) are so inflexible and horrifying that they can't be used as leverage. Meanwhile, their very presence makes the world a very dangerous place. So, I never liked the ghastly things.
