Spyke

Replies

Comment on

1 + 1

Reply in thread

No, it's correct. You define the operation by it's properties. It's not saying that "a plus 0 = a" but "the result of applying the binary operation '+' to any number with 0 should give the original number."

  • is just a symbol. You could instead write it as +(a,0)=a and +(a,S(b))=S(+(a,b)).

You have to have previously defined 1=S(0), 2=S(1), 3=S(2), and so on.

memes

Comment on

Ball mill them first, for best results

Reply in thread

I don't know if you want a serious answer but here you go: it has to be something done in massive numbers to shift the power balance towards the people and away from the billionaires, else it's just an individual killing a poor father of three or whatever sob story they'd like to tell that happened to be a CEO

Comment on

Multiverse

Reply in thread

Dark matter is not a thing, it's an observation, a phenomenon that was poorly named. There's so much evidence under the name "[d]ark matter" that we can't discount it as a real phenomenon. We just don't have a strong evidence for a single dark matter theory (theory in the scientific sense of the word, not the colloquial one).

Comment on

What's something you believed to be true but recently learned is actually false?

Reply in thread

The word has always had a t sound since Old English, and it's part of the reconstructed language Proto-Germanic in the form *ufta. Every other Germanic language displays a t in the corresponding word:

Scots oftin (“often”), North Frisian oftem (“often”), Saterland Frisian oafte (“often”), German oft (“often”), Pennsylvania German oft (“often”), Danish ofte (“often”), Norwegian Bokmål ofte (“often”), Norwegian Nynorsk ofte (“often”), Swedish ofta (“often”), and Icelandic oft (“often”).

Source

Comment on

What's the dumbest reason you've learned a programming language?

Reply in thread

I hate having to cater to the lowest common denominator, I had to struggle with un-engaging classes all throughout elementary and middle school. I've seriously thought about becoming a teacher so I'd like to ask, in your experience, what happens to the children that are able to process more advanced information? Can something be done to keep them engaged and nurture their development too?

Edited an unfortunate typo

memes

Comment on

Totally make sense

Reply in thread

This isn't entirely true either. The adjective "binario" has to agree with the gender of what's being talked about, either the grammatical gender of the noun or the natural gender of the person. A salient example could be the noun "piloto". Just as adjectives inflect for gender so do pronouns, so you can say "el piloto" or "la piloto" depending on the natural gender of the person, and inflect adjectives accordingly. Grammatical gender and natural gender are both distict concepts that impact gender inflection in spanish.

Comment on

The colour of the Sun is white

Reply in thread

https://www.scielo.br/j/rbef/a/mYqvM4Qc3KLmmfFRqMbCzhB/?lang=en

This is something that bothered me when I was in undergrad but now I've come to understand. The article above goes through the math of computing different Wien peaks for different representations of the spectral energy density.

In short, the Wien peaks are different because what the density function measures in a given parametrization is different. In frequency space the function measures the energy radiated in a small interval [f, f + df] while in wavelength space it measure the energy radiated in an interval [λ, λ + dλ]. The function in these spaces will be different to account for the different amounts of energy radiated in these intervals, and as such the peaks are different too.

(I typed this on a phone kinda rushed so I could clarify it if you'd like)

Comment on

Checkmate

Reply in thread

I'll add Spanish! "Alfil", taken from arabic "(al-)fil", taken from persian "pil", meaning "the elephant", since at some point in the past the piece was, evidently, an elephant.