Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Jewish monotheism god is beyond time and space, probably because the concept of God tries to encompass the infinity of the universe in time and space and the lack of understanding of those things, us being humans. Therefore when we ascribe some will to god, specifically the will for humans to follow all those rules, we believe that this god "exists" in every time and every space, past present or future. That's why…
Oh, I do get that; I'm more asking why a timeless god wouldn't tell the Jews 4000 years ago to e.g. not construct or partake of social-networking apps (and other such things where they'd have no idea what their God was on about.) An intercessor god dreamed up today would certainly give commandments like that; so why wouldn't a god giving commandments 4000 years ago, but who "exists outside of time", do the same?
List of Special Elevator Modes
191–200 of 214 posts
Re: List of Special Elevator Modes
#192Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming has, in its first volume, a lengthy section on simulating an elevator. It is a single regular elevator (nothing "special" going on as in the post here), but even so, as he tries to make things precise, you realize how much detail is involved, and get some appreciation for the task of programming. It occupies about 15 pages (plus several pages of exercises and solutions).…
Hm. I've always thought that the algorithm of operation of a single elevator is fairly simple? While passing each floor, if a button of that floor was pressed (is lit up), or if the button of the direction it's going on that floor is pressed, then stop. If the elevator is not in use and someone presses any call button, go to that floor. That's mostly it. At least that's how I have that algorithm in my head. Now, if t…
- The elevator has a "home floor" (the lobby/ground floor) that it returns to by default, if it has nothing else to do. (Apparently many elevators do this; see "Up peak" in the linked post or on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elevator&oldid=10... .)
- To set up such a discrete event simulation on a computer, you also need to model timing (how much time it takes to open and close doors, to move between floors with acceleration/deceleration, etc), and users (how many arrive at each floor and when, and where they want to go to, how long they wait before giving up).
- So you end up with a fair amount of state (the "up" and "down" call buttons on each floor, the buttons inside the elevator, whether the elevator is going up or down or neither) and control (when to open or close doors: what to do if someone presses a button while the doors are closing, etc).
- The purpose of that section of TAOCP is to show in detail how to use doubly-linked lists to simulate such things on a computer (which here means getting down to the level of memory layout and assembly code: MIX/MMIX). So overall there are ~5.5 pages of describing the algorithm, ~1.5 pages for memory layout etc, ~7 pages of assembly code, and a page of higher-level stuff mentioning programming languages and profilers etc.
I'm aware of two repositories on GitHub that reproduce this simulation in a higher-level language: https://github.com/meatfighter/knuth-elevator (700-odd lines of Go code including comments from TAOCP) and https://github.com/Quuxplusone/KnuthElevator (500-odd lines of C++14 code without the copied comments). (Learned of the latter via https://www.meetup.com/theartofcomputerprogramming/ a meetup for reading TAOCP.)
Re: List of Special Elevator Modes
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe your story highlights precisely why more elevators don't include that functionality.
No it doesn't. You can't prevent people from being a-holes and stealthily pressing 10 buttons before leaving the elevator. The feature as described is as useful as pressing a floor to stop on. Perhaps it makes more sense on smaller elevators than it does in large ones. Or perhaps it would make more sense to allow undoing a press only within the first few seconds.
Re: List of Special Elevator Modes
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the mind in question exists outside of time.
What is the reasoning behind that tho? If the big dude created the universe, why couldn't he also experience time?
Re: List of Special Elevator Modes
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the mind in question exists outside of time.
God cannot be both omnipresent and only exist outside of time. And God does change his mind more than once in the Bible, so clearly that God at least exists within the temporal universe.
How so? God exists simultaneously at all the moments that exist. Time was created by God, just like the universe was.
> so clearly that God at least exists within the temporal universe.
Imagine you are writing a book, where you, as the author, are also a character. You can interact with your characters as they do things - but you can also go back and change anything you want, and you can see the ending as well.
(Keep in mind that God always maintains free will - God doesn't force any human to act in any particular way, it's always their own choice.)
Re: List of Special Elevator Modes
#196I found a "mode" in an elevator in India that I have not seen anywhere else: if a destination floor number is highlighted, and you press it twice, it gets cancelled. I have used this magic power just once, when an obnoxious man got on and insisted on having a loud conversation on his phone. Since he wasn't paying attention, I double-tapped his floor number and made him skip. I happened to get off at the floor before…
Re: List of Special Elevator Modes
#197Re: List of Special Elevator Modes
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
As if they were so clever they could trick God. Pretty presumptuous and irreverent. Why worship a God you believe is such a gullible chump?
Shabbat observance is a massive world unto itself. It originates in Biblical sources (i.e. "the word of God"), but has developed throughout the entire rabbinic tradition, from the time of the prophets through the Talumdic era, and subsequently to the modern day. Today, it is universally accepted in Orthodox Judaism that direct active interaction with electrical appliances is forbidden on Shabbat. However, one may ben…
They also have just as many stubborn closed-form rationalizations for their outrageously neanderthal sexism, too. Just blame it on centuries of tradition and scholarship ultimately based on chump-god's commandments, not the frustrated angry misogynistic old men who originally invented and still perpetuate it.
How about putting all that energy and ingenuity into coming up with clever exceptions and work-arounds to the traditional misogynistic commandments of a sexist god, that allow you to get away with respectfully treating women as clean and equal human beings seven out of seven days of the week, even while they're menstruating, instead of smugly obsessing on inventing intellectually and physically lazy tricks to cleverly ride elevators without pressing buttons one day a week?
Re: List of Special Elevator Modes
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are they allowed to go down? Also, depending on the counterweight and the current load of the elevator, adding an extra person to it might tax the motor less even when ascending.
Generating electricity is equally forbidden. The prohibition is not work, but rather creation. In this case creating electrical energy.
The only way I can think of to completely avoid creating anything would be to remain unconscious the entire time, thus preventing yourself from making any choices.
Re: List of Special Elevator Modes
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Orthodox Judaism, the letter of the law typically is the spirit of the law. Not a perfect analogy, but think of the talmud as similar to the tax code. There are things that are black, things that are white and things that are gray. If the tax code said there's a 5% sales tax on tangerines, clementines, navel oranges, lemons, and grapefruit, I'm probably not gonna volunteer to pay taxes on my Sumo Citruses, because…
> acknowledge something to be technically allowed according to the divine rules, but they forbid it anyway, either because they felt there was some societal benefit to doing so, or because they felt that adding an additional prohibition would prevent people from accidentally breaking the divine rule There are of also cases where a societal benefit outweighed new knowledge about biology. Spontaneous generation meant t…