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Argh!
Posted Jul 1, 2003
Am going to anglesey, which means i'm going to be out of the loop until Friday. Any particular research you want doing there, contact me, will try to do it. Also, anyone selling versions of Mandrake Linux, please contact me, am desperate to get version 9.1 on CD.
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Latest reply: Jul 1, 2003
Done and dusted!
Posted Oct 9, 2002
09.10.02 22:21pm
Well, thats all done, I guess, sorted the GuideML out myslef. Found that onion analogy really useful. Anyway, now it's submitted, I need your feedback. tell me what you think!
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Latest reply: Oct 9, 2002
Done and dusted!
Posted Oct 9, 2002
Well, thats all done, I guess, sorted the GuideML out myslef. Found that onion analogy really useful. Anyway, now it's submitted, I need your feedback. tell me what you think!
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Oct 9, 2002
My First piece.
Posted Oct 9, 2002
Have just witten my first guide entry, however, am having some trouble with the GuideML, any experts out there like to help me? Here it is:
Randomness
Randomness, then. Collins English Dictionary (Comprehensive BUT Concise) describes it as made, done etc in an aimless, or haphazard way.
But, I hear you cry, is this the real deal? Possibly.So what is Randomness All About, Then? Ah, a "how long is a piece of string" question. A pedant would argue that the length of a piece of string is the perpendicular distance from one end of the string to the other. Yet no such pedantic wit can be applied to randomness, because it cannot be measured, though many theories of measurement do claim to exist. These theories express randomness as infinity; anything divided by zero, or just simply ties it down to chaos theory (this theory is widely supported by many undergraduate physicists at the union bar). The beauty of randomness, however, is that if it eclipses all probabilities at one time or other, all the theories must be wrong, and yet, occasionally right. Think about it. This One's a Hard nut to crack...Yes indeedy, but if you followed the last line of argument, you're really gonna get lost here. What we have is an all probability-encompassing device, which could, theoretically be applied to anything, to either refute it or prove it. However, randomness is meaningless, purely mathematical. I pose this question: "If it began to rain dogs now, what would you say?". Well you'd probably say, "Jesus!", or "Bloody hell!" or something similar, but it is very unlikely that you would say "Ahh, it must be random", because, although you would be correct in that observation, you would, as we have already proved, be very much wrong. And the reason you would be wrong, is there would be something causing the raining of the dogs. The dogs were raised, reared and up until this point have lead normal lives, but a freak force has caused them to be in the air, and due to gravity, falling down. Now due to this mystery force, the nature of randomness has been fully negated, as this is the cause. It can be explained. Perhaps it was some freak air stream, or a really powerful tornado. Genuine randomness cannot be explained, as it has no explanation!So, Randomness doesn't exist, does it then?Ah, err…. That’s very much a matter of opinion. Is it a concept, or fact? In theory, it works, but so does raining dogs, so that’s not much to go on. Genuine randomness is very difficult to find in the world, as most living organisms confirm to the Fibonacci sequence at some fundamental level. Even humans, conform both due to social conditioning (though many of them deny it), and these base patterns, not only in their genes, but in all their cells. If an organism was truly random, it probaBRy would be a gelatinous BRob (or would it? Could all of it be gelatinous if it was truly random?) The immense relative predictability of the human species and of their behavior waves (known as Elliot waves)
Means that it cannot be random. Nature is not random. So what is? Well as far as pi has been calculated, it seems to be a random number. 3.1415926535 are the first eleven digits of pi, but yet in this “random sequence” 5 occurs three times. The chances of this are remote. But if this was random, there would be no way of proving it. It may just be that way. The point is, it may exist, it may not do. All we can do is have a good time being ambiguous. So what about people who claim to be Random? Not so Random now, are they, eh? What we have here is random behavior, which is different to pure randomness. It’s randomness, under certain specified parameters. Not genuine random, I grant you, but to the best of their ability, they’re trying BRess 'em. Social conditioning has given them the intelligence to be sensiBRe, but they are refusing it. If your local fool runs down the corridor with a silly hat on bellowing, “free the pineapple pizza”, and claims to be random, point them in my direction and I will gladly disprove them. However, genuine diseases and disorders may lead to seemingly random behavior, and we must look at ways to treat these people, with an approach to the disease or disorder, not the random behavior. Let’s correct the abuse of the word “random”, then! Well we have. If we go back to the original text at the beginning of this passage, you will see that it describes random as “haphazard”. Which means that when sloppy work is done, it can be described as random. Why? So we can give it a human connotation that it needs to be something more than just a wild theory in the minds of the ENIGMA code-breakers and deranged mathematicians. When someone says random, they do not mean the pure mathematical random, they mean the kind of “random within set parameters” that you and I are likely to encounter. So what’s next? What we could do with is some really concrete evidence to prove that randomness exists, so I can show it is wrong. Because, as we have already discussed, we can use pure randomness to prove anything wrong or right. Mweh! The end. Hope it’s been Informative. By GammaRay, Aged 16. Queries, questions, comments to GammaRay, at http://www.H2G2.com. I have given this a lot of thought, so any input would be greatly appreciated.
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Latest reply: Oct 9, 2002
Right Ho!
Posted Oct 9, 2002
09.10.02
Right, am just about sorting this page out, and am starting to learn GuideML, this all seems very exciting. (and time absorbing), and would love to get more involved. But what I could do with now is a few friendly ideas on what i should write about for my first subject. Suggestions?
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Latest reply: Oct 9, 2002
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GammaRay
Researcher U205749
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"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."