Viewing profile — zzless

The choice of pi as a number whose sequence of digits is random is a bit of a weak point of the argument in the post. It is not even known whether every digit 0-9 appears infinitel…

His definition of Kolmogorov complexity is a bit loose. The rigorous definition uses Turing machines (or Minsky, or Post, or some sort of lambda expression, etc.) so the size is so…

With all due respect, no, it isn't. His drivel against set theory shows that he didn't even read the basic axiomatic set theory texts. In one of his papers, he is ranting against t…

I have a couple of EB6s to show to my students but ever since scientific calculators were allowed in written tests, I have never used one myself. Law of cosines is good enough for …

I am not sure why you are being downvoted but you are absolutely right: it is even in the name (WD stands for 'Water Displacement'). My reaction to this article was a huge: 'why?'.…

>Also, possessive pronouns are exactly like in English, concording in gender with the owner, not the object. This is only true in third person singular. For example, in first perso…

Army PIT? Ah, this is not a good name...

This is a fine opinion, here is another one. Calling everyone who uses LaTeX cultists is a bit insulting. I do not particularly like LaTeX and use it only when a journal requires i…

With all due respect to your perspective on TeX, isn't it the whole point? There are weaknesses in TeX (like using $ for both beginning and ending the math mode) but they are quite…

On the other hand here is a Long-EZ that gets 40 mpg flying at over 250 mph (so not quite 250 knots but still). The actual savings will be higher since one can fly in a straight li…

I was wandering the same thing. Quite often the insurance sets a much higher standard than what is legal. I had a lot of fun flying a local police helicopter as a commercial helico…

In my experience a more appropriate title for this book would be: 'Linear algebra done ok if this is your second time doing it'. I have seen way too many students who, after having…

I have the same sentiment about TeX. The fact that the language has been stable for over 30 years is incredibly important to me. I also feel like I can do anything in TeX: I have w…

I am also doubting his claim that he had several students land without assistance on the first try. I have had a few students land with minimal assistance on the first try but I am…

I understand this is a (good) attempt at humor but this might be an interesting idea to see if Bluetooth leaks from inside the microwave oven (or from the outside in). Of course, t…

True, though this may mean many things. The only part of CFR 14 that mentions that a certificate is required for operating aircraft is CFR 14 61.3 which states that an unexpired ce…

As I mentioned above it is not that the FAA waves their requirements as much as the FAA does not have jurisdiction over such operations (under appropriate circumctances).

Here is a quote from AC No: 00-1.1A (Public Aircraft Operations): What Oversight of PAO Does the FAA Have? The FAA has limited oversight of PAO, though such operations must continu…

Police in the US do not have to have a license to operate anything, including aircraft. In this case, insurance requirements take over though. They may have a legal right to fly bu…

This is indeed a nice idea, unfortunately the university (mine) gets kick backs from the book store. At the beginning of every semester every faculty gets an email asking us to 'en…

Just wanted to say thanks as well. I host a private Jitsi server for my online teaching. It took a bit of effort to set up but worked well for me since.

From what I have seen in TeXmacs documentation, they have implemented pretty much every feature of TeX's linebreaking algorithm and more (microtypography, global page breaking, etc…

As a fellow mathematician you may then appreciate the fact that local and global maxima may differ dramatically which pretty much precludes true WYSIWYG (not just in TeX) in that y…

It tells me that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, i.e. what one may perceive as ugliness, countless others will view as beauty or, at least functionality. I personally think …

> This would be impossible unless the reader have my LaTeX source code and compile it themselves. But it is super simple for epub, or html webpage (by modifying the css). Well ...,…