It's an important point that multiplying and dividing temperatures in F or C makes no sense. Some people are somehow assuming half way from freezing which is arbitrary. Would a F user assume it means half way from 32F or 0F?
No I have Signal installed and also have recently came across Session Messenger. I like Signals user experience and was wondering if there are systemic risks to using it.
The problem are the countless websites breaking the law or complying in the most annoying, manipulative way possible.
All the EU is asking for is that users aren't spied on and tracked across the web without their consent.
This is as if they made stalking illegal without consent, so now you are followed all day by annoying clowns constantly interrupting you asking whether you consent to them stalking you.
The cookie law is fine, the problem is with companies who maliciously comply with it (and often "comply" with it in a way that doesn't actually comply at all).
It's sort of like how telcos in America like to comply with various sales taxes by… making something up and adding a line item to your bill purporting to be taxes, but really it's just them charging you for no reason.
Is it fine ? As a user, I consider that it's OK for websites to track my activity. This is true for every single website in the world. Is there any way for me to indicate that preference anywhere in the current framework ?
The complain here is that it's too complex to opt out of the tracking. But I have no way of opting out of that fake "protection" framework, which I consider to be useless and wrong. None at all.
As made extensively clear by the pencil pusher who came up with this grand idea of mandating an interruption for every single website I visit: those are my data. I want to have the freedom of letting websites track me if they want to, I don't need them to ask me. Give me any way to do that, and I'll be happy. But that was explicitly prevented.
The EU seems to think they know what's best for me, and won't let me make my own choices. It really doesn't, and rather than accepting that fact and giving me the freedom they claim to defend, they would rather annoy me.
So I'll keep on clicking on "Accept All" for the years to come cursing the hours of brain time lost to make a dude feel important.
If you did try to pursue the EU, I think you would quickly meet the counter argument that there are many people who are unhappy being tracked in detail systematically without consent, and would be even more if they knew the extent of it, so it would not be ok to make your preference just be how it is for everyone.
Yes they do. At minimum Mathematics have a why in that it is something that is arrived at logically, and provable. But when you learn mathematics, whether it be algebra or geometry and trigonometry or calculus or discrete, there is another why added, that of real life solutions. Why do we care about geometry? Well it ends up being useful in optics and physics. We like Trigonometry because it can help you build a building or bridge or shoot a cannon and take down said building or bridge. Calculus has innumerable uses in engineering and physics and finance and biology and everywhere.
I find this answer to be true, but misguided. In particular, this type of answer was the exact thing that turned me off of math for YEARS.
Maths DO have a why - We needed way to describe and model the world around us, and math was a requirement to do that.
Now - once the model and rules are put in place - Fine, you can bugger off and be as self-referential and contained as you'd like - "There is no why!"...
But lets be clear - there ABSOLUTELY is a why, and the second the world around you no longer matches the model of your maths, we start debating whether or not to throw the thing in the trash and make new rules (see set theory as the classic example...)
Programming languages do not have a why. The turing machine is an arbitrary model of computation, as is the lambda calculus, as is horn clauses. The 'why' is deciding which one is most convenient to solve a particular problem. Given that very good computer scientists come up with very different means of solving the same problem, it's clear there's no universal agreement upon which paradigm is better and that there's a lot of subjective reasoning as to why particular models are better.
Consider the natural numbers. There is no 'why' behind them. There are axioms behind them, and -- given those axioms -- there are statements about the natural numbers that can be logically reduced to the axioms, but the axioms have no why.
Moreover, it is provable the axioms have no why, because they cannot have a why, because the axioms cannot be proven except in relation to themselves. If you're so convinced the axioms have a why, please prove me and Godel wrong.
The 'why' behind natural numbers is a social one, and one of convenience. The natural numbers make it easy to solve and communicate about certain problems, but they are not the only way to solve those problem nor are they the only way to communicate about these problems.
For example, another way to deal with basic arithmetic, is to talk about numbers as sets. Now you can define certain operations on them, and completely ignore the axioms of the natural numbers. This model is way better than others for certain problems. However, you now have a new set of axioms.. and oh yeah, actually the most obvious ones are completely self-contradictory, so you'll need to choose Zermelo-Frankel or something else.
Or if you want to be even more general, you can simply talk about the lambda calculus, but good luck trying to 'prove' the lamba calculus theorems in itself, because you'll quickly hit the halting problem.
Of course you can then say... well let's get rid of that and use the typed lambda calculus, but then oh yeah you can't do anything interesting. Why are these choices made? Can the choices be justified in the systems themselves? No of course not. The idea that you can use 'logic' to derive these systems is also ridiculous because formal logic is itself a system with axiom (and a very controversial system at that).
But if you look at the lambda calculus, ZF set theory, and the natural numbers as simply models and systems that are sometimes useful, then it makes sense as to 'why'. But the 'why' exists independent of them and is not provable in them and is social and cultural in nature. It is certainly not mathematical as in order to 'do mathematics' (symbolic manipulations) you first need axioms.
Mathematics education in this country has been replaced by rote dogmatism which is why many Americans cannot handle this ambiguity.
What must be explained is that mathematics is a language and in order to communicate with other educated humans about these abstract concepts it behooves everyone to speak the same language. It is the same reason the word for 'dog' in English is taught as being spelled D-O-G. There is no why behind it. It's just the result of thousands of years of culture. Except mathematics is a more global language and more useful for different kinds of manipulations.
Again - correct but misguided in the general sense.
> It is the same reason the word for 'dog' in English is taught as being spelled D-O-G. There is no why behind it.
I agree with you completely, but I think you're guilty of speaking the wrong language in response to the question (and it would behoove you to consider it from the perspective of someone outside the field).
The question "Why" in maths almost always gets asked by someone new to the field, and they are not asking from a mathematical perspective - They are not asking you for a formal/provable "why", they're asking you what is the utility of learning this thing.
So lets go back to D-O-G. The utility is clear - I have this hairy, 4 legged animal that keeps licking me that I'd like to discuss with you. We can agree that D-O-G (or perro, or 개) refers to it.
But with math, SO MANY PEOPLE (especially those established in the field) jump right into the "Here are the rules of this system of math" without ever taking the time to talk about why someone might give a flying fuck.
It would be like me going and making up my own language and forcing you to learn it. No one else speaks it, it's got no books/literature/history, there are no works of art that reference it - it's literally the language this random person made up that serves ZERO purpose except for talking to that person.
No wonder so many kids don't like math!
Instead you need to explicitly start with the utility of math - ideally in ways that are entertaining and fun. Once a person has an application for some of the rules, they become SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING! Suddenly I care about why this rule might impact that rule over there, or why A and Z are related, or what sin/cos/tan mean.
Basically - sell me on the value proposition of your fucked up whacky language - That's what "why" is asking. Once you know those rules do something useful, it becomes a much more engaging field of study.
You are correct, but this explanation is cultural and sociological, not logical.
We must motivate math, absolutely. And to do so in my opinion starts with socratic questioning. You must convince the student that such an inquiry is even worthwhile.
One thing I'll point out is that we're not just seeing this in math. We see it in every field. More and more kids every year are insisting ( and their teachers are agreeing) that we can do away with inquiries into the English language and the humanities as well. There is a small, but continuing, effort to remove the knowledge of English masters like shakespeare and classic philosophers and treatises from the curriculum.
As a whole, American schooling fails to motivate learning of any kind. Math was the first victim, but the other subjects are also failing.
Sure, but we're in a thread talking about why some folks are choosing to send kids to "Russian" style maths teachers.
The whole discussion is from the perspective of the cultural and sociological.
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As an aside, I generally agree with you about american schooling. I think it's less a concerted effort, and more a sad reality of the fact that modern schools have essentially become federally funded child care in the US.
Indeed... As my mother was told by her principal in her inner city school for poor minority kids... "We're just here to watch them until they go to prison".
Not at all Catalan is the first language for a large part of the population. In Scotland, even for most native Scots speakers English is in fact the first language.
Well, this example is quite curious. Catalan is understood and used by most of the people who live in Catalan speaking regions, but it isn't the first language of most of the people who live there. Pretty much the 95% are bilingual (Catalan and Spanish).
In fact, more people speak Spanish as their mother tongue than Catalan but they switch between them when required.
Maybe the Scots situation is similar, people learn and use both languages and change to the one they feel most comfortable with.
