Posts by Amy Gale
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
...no, wait, that totally wasn't what I meant. Brain not awake yet. Oh, the shame.
-
Hard News: Science: it's complicated, in reply to BenWilson,
Yes, I remember a poignant example of this, when a friend was telling me he had been studying fast Fourier transforms…
[…]
…it was highly likely that the result he was talking about would have been very useful to me in computing.Nah, it’s way more EE-ish than CS-y. Signal, schmignal, I say.
The one cent version is something like: a complicated waveform can be approximated by a linear combination of simpler waveforms. A Fourier transform maps a complicated waveform onto its decomposition (and sometimes back again). A fast Fourier tranform is an algorithm for doing this “fast”. Whatever that means. Better than quadratic, maybe.
If you want to DO any transforming then, yeah, algebra awaits.
-
Southerly: Things to be Grateful For: A…, in reply to Jolisa,
Perhaps it’s because I’m in upstate New York at the moment, remembering the long grey winters here...
How're you liking the unbearable heat we have right now, then, eh? Gaaah. I would happily - happily - donate a good twenty or thirty degrees to the good people of Christchurch.
On the plus side, I can now tell you the closest ice cream purveyor to any point in town, and have finally figured out what the "mist" setting on the hose is for.
-
That is such a nasty little piece of propaganda. Our taxes buy beer, huh? Recreational, frivolous, not especially healthful? And the wealthy are subject to physical violence?
It would be more honest to set the story somewhere like a community center with a sliding scale entry fee and a 9:30pm dinner of baked beans every night.
-------
"Aren't you having any baked beans?" asked Four.
"Nah", said Ten. "I don't like waiting till 9:30 to eat. I had a nice piece of fish and some salad earlier. I'm not here for the baked beans, I'm here for the company."
Nine was a little less sanguine. "I don't like baked beans so I had fish too. But it was quite expensive. The fees here should be lower."
One concentrated on her baked beans and wondered what liking had to do with anything.
One week the fee scale had been adjusted up a bit at the top end and down a bit at the bottom.
"Blech", said Eight.
Two toyed briefly with the idea of observing that the servings of baked beans were somewhat smaller than they used to be, but decided it would ruin the mood.
"I might start going to a different community center," said Ten thoughtfully.
"Which one?" asked Seven. "The next one over has even higher fees at the top end. They do have macaroni cheese on Fridays, though."
"I quite like the look of the one on the other side of town," said Nine. "They have almost no fees".
Six snorted. "No ENTRY fees. You have to pay for a drink of water. You have to pay to use the toilets. It's pretty nasty."
Nine defended her choice. "They have an emergency longdrop that's free. And the pay toilets might be expensive but they are the nicest in town."
Five rolled his eyes. "You haven't noticed that it...smells a bit worse over there? Besides which, if you add up all your drinks of water and bathroom visits, have you actually saved any money?"
Nine wrote some figures on the back of a napkin and looked disgruntled. "Yeah, nah."
Ten sat for a moment. "I'm rethinking this a bit. I don't want the upper end of the scale to go up any more, in fact maybe it should come down a bit. I think I'll try to get on the community center board. Shouldn't be hard. I know a guy."
-------------
-
Dr Bollard eyed the bourgeois chickpeas with loathing. “Normal people don’t do that kind of crap”, he said.
#tropetastic
-
Cracker: Another Capital Idea..., in reply to Damian Christie,
Sometimes its created by having a fucking good idea that lots of people want, hopefully lots of overseas people. And we could use more of these types of people, and we could use more of them staying here too I reckon. And I don’t think any of the ideas I’ve heard further either of these goals.
Well, for starters, if there's any money left over from repairing education/health/welfare, we could put a bit more into funding research. That would substantially improve the likelihood that this particular CS/software household could relocate.
(Tax rates? Not in the top ten reasons we're not there now. Not on the list of reasons at all.)
-
Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Emma Hart,
Okay, we are obviously WAY overdue for a PAS Wham! appreciation party.
...in November? (she asks hopefully)
-
Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
I asked about someone my age and they would allow 4-5 years anything else was eeck
Well, sure. It's gross that old people even want to date in the first place. We are all supposed to be off knitting and hanging out with our cats and drinking cups of tea. Instead of, not as well as.
-
Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to bmk,
Perhaps the ideal would be a two-tiered consent age. A lower consent age but a limit on age separation ie. a 16 year old and a 14 year old is ok but a 14 year old and a 25 year old is not ok.
I think there is also value in encouraging preteens (and up) to evaluate this kind of major age discrepancy from both sides.
It's easy, when you're 14, to see a relationship with someone much older as reflecting positively on you. It means you are mature! Attractive! Special! It doesn't necessarily occur to you to think about how it reflects on the older person. Maybe it reflects well, sure. But...probably not.
Relatedly, I also believe we do others a disservice if we know they believe there is One Perfect Person for them in the whole world and don't challenge both the 'one' and the 'perfect'. With this particular example: a 14 year old who believes that the 25 year old is The One is likely to be more vulnerable than a 14 year old who believes the 25 year old is - at best - A One.
-
Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Emma Hart,
I'd like to see ONE discussion where people talk about what they - and everyone else - can do about rape prevention.
I know at least one person who volunteered with Men Stopping Rape. They did things like going into schools and having group discussions with (preteen?) boys, talking about topics such as Mindreading Doesn't Actually Work. Seems like a fantastic idea.
