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Great Math Mystery

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  Great Math Mystery Seymore4Head <Seymore4Head@Hotmail.invalid> - 2015-04-16 17:15 -0400
    Re: Great Math Mystery Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-04-17 10:47 +1000
      Re: Great Math Mystery Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2015-04-17 01:56 +0100
        Re: Great Math Mystery Matthew Barnett <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2015-04-17 03:34 +0100
      Re: Great Math Mystery "Fetchinson ." <fetchinson@googlemail.com> - 2015-04-17 11:47 +0200
        Re: Great Math Mystery alister <alister.nospam.ware@ntlworld.com> - 2015-04-17 10:23 +0000
        Re: Great Math Mystery Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-04-18 01:03 +1000
          Re: Great Math Mystery Ron Adam <ron3200@gmail.com> - 2015-04-17 14:16 -0400
    Re: Great Math Mystery Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2015-04-17 10:56 +1000

#89052 — Great Math Mystery

I am guessing that a few here might find this program interesting.
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365464997/
--
In an altercation with the police, complying with their orders greatly increases your chances of survival.

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#89054

On Fri, 17 Apr 2015 07:15 am, Seymore4Head wrote:

> I am guessing that a few here might find this program interesting.
> http://video.pbs.org/video/2365464997/

For the sake of those of us with limited access to the Internet at the
moment (say, we're behind a corporate firewall, or our browser has just
exploded) or simply don't like clicking on mystery links until we have some
idea of what the link is about, could you give us a two sentence summary
that explains why it's relevant to Python?


> In an altercation with the police, complying with their orders greatly
> increases your chances of survival.

Ah, the definition of a police state: where ordinary people, whether
breaking the law or not, are forced by fear of death to obey the police at
all times, whether the police are acting legally or not.

-- 
Steven

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#89055

Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> writes:

> On Fri, 17 Apr 2015 07:15 am, Seymore4Head wrote:
>
>> I am guessing that a few here might find this program interesting.
>> http://video.pbs.org/video/2365464997/
>
> For the sake of those of us with limited access to the Internet at the
> moment (say, we're behind a corporate firewall, or our browser has just
> exploded) or simply don't like clicking on mystery links until we have some
> idea of what the link is about, could you give us a two sentence summary
> that explains why it's relevant to Python?

It's a link to a programme titled "The Great Math Mystery -- Is math
invented by humans, or is it the language of the universe?" from Nova.
Nothing very Pythonesque.

<snip>
-- 
Ben.

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#89057

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Do you mean Pythonesque or Pythonic?

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#89059

>> In an altercation with the police, complying with their orders greatly
>> increases your chances of survival.
>
> Ah, the definition of a police state: where ordinary people, whether
> breaking the law or not, are forced by fear of death to obey the police at
> all times, whether the police are acting legally or not.

I think you are grossly mischaracterizing that sentence of the OP. He
simply makes an observation: in an altercation with the police,
complying with their orders greatly increases your chances of
survival. Is this observation/statement true or false? Based on
empirical data from the past 50 years (in the US and elsewhere) I'd
say it's true by a huge margin.

The OP didn't make any value judgements on this statement whether he
advocates for compliance or not, whether he encourages the
establishment of a police state or not, whether he thinks compliance
is a good thing or not.

For all we know he might be a flaming anarchist with a keen sense of
observing empirical facts.

Cheers,
Daniel



-- 
Psss, psss, put it down! - http://www.cafepress.com/putitdown

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#89060

On Fri, 17 Apr 2015 11:47:06 +0200, Fetchinson . wrote:

>>> In an altercation with the police, complying with their orders greatly
>>> increases your chances of survival.
>>
>> Ah, the definition of a police state: where ordinary people, whether
>> breaking the law or not, are forced by fear of death to obey the police
>> at all times, whether the police are acting legally or not.
> 
> I think you are grossly mischaracterizing that sentence of the OP. He
> simply makes an observation: in an altercation with the police,
> complying with their orders greatly increases your chances of survival.
> Is this observation/statement true or false? Based on empirical data
> from the past 50 years (in the US and elsewhere) I'd say it's true by a
> huge margin.
> 
> The OP didn't make any value judgements on this statement whether he
> advocates for compliance or not, whether he encourages the establishment
> of a police state or not, whether he thinks compliance is a good thing
> or not.
> 
> For all we know he might be a flaming anarchist with a keen sense of
> observing empirical facts.
> 
> Cheers,
> Daniel

or simply using a fortune cookie program to generate random signatures, 
just ass I do, sometimes the result is quite spooky).

( i just took a look at mine for this post & was pleasantly surprised to 
see it is programming related)


-- 
((lambda (foo) (bar foo)) (baz))

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#89075

On Fri, 17 Apr 2015 07:47 pm, Fetchinson . wrote:

>>> In an altercation with the police, complying with their orders greatly
>>> increases your chances of survival.
>>
>> Ah, the definition of a police state: where ordinary people, whether
>> breaking the law or not, are forced by fear of death to obey the police
>> at all times, whether the police are acting legally or not.
> 
> I think you are grossly mischaracterizing that sentence of the OP. He
> simply makes an observation: in an altercation with the police,
> complying with their orders greatly increases your chances of
> survival. Is this observation/statement true or false? Based on
> empirical data from the past 50 years (in the US and elsewhere) I'd
> say it's true by a huge margin.

Which is *exactly my point*.

"Failure to obey arbitrary commands from random police officers, whether
legally justified or not, may carry the penalty of summary execution at the
discretion of the officer" is a defining characteristic of police states.

I made no comment on the OP's intention for making that statement. Perhaps
he was making an ironic comment on the state of US law enforcement; perhaps
he thinks he is being genuinely helpful; perhaps this is his way of mocking
those killed. I don't know. Whether he is a fascist who thinks police
states are wonderful, or a liberal who thinks they are terrible, he
described a police state. Whether he knew it at the time or not.



-- 
Steven

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#89085

On 04/17/2015 11:03 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Apr 2015 07:47 pm, Fetchinson . wrote:
>
>>>> >>>In an altercation with the police, complying with their orders greatly
>>>> >>>increases your chances of survival.
>>> >>
>>> >>Ah, the definition of a police state: where ordinary people, whether
>>> >>breaking the law or not, are forced by fear of death to obey the police
>>> >>at all times, whether the police are acting legally or not.
>> >
>> >I think you are grossly mischaracterizing that sentence of the OP. He
>> >simply makes an observation: in an altercation with the police,
>> >complying with their orders greatly increases your chances of
>> >survival. Is this observation/statement true or false? Based on
>> >empirical data from the past 50 years (in the US and elsewhere) I'd
>> >say it's true by a huge margin.
> Which is*exactly my point*.
>
> "Failure to obey arbitrary commands from random police officers, whether
> legally justified or not, may carry the penalty of summary execution at the
> discretion of the officer" is a defining characteristic of police states.

This is but one subset of the possibilities that could lead to the same 
valid advise.

Keep in mind that many officers are citizens too, at least where I live, 
who have jobs that put them in extremely dangerous situations fairly often. 
  Taking too long to rationally think about a situation could mean the 
police officer is shot instead of the criminal with a gun.

There are some combinations of conditions that will result in a certain 
percentage of outcomes of a certain kind.  I think the original statement 
(Quite possibly from a fortune cookie program.) recognises that concept (as 
well as yours.)  Take a thousand officers, each who respond to a thousand 
calls a year, and there will be a few (very tragic) mistakes.  (and 
hopefully many more fortunate interventions.)  We can maybe shift the 
proportion of mistakes vs interventions, but I don't see how training 
officers to shoot after being shot is a good idea.  We will likely need to 
pay a whole lot more to get people to take those jobs.

Of course it does not excuse willing abuse of authority. Most cases of 
police power abuse here are more likely to be related to an individual 
officers state of mind and/or motives at the time rather than being due to 
instructions higher up.

Possibly there is a way to use Python and statistics to calculate some of 
these values.  With data of course...

    Number of officers.
    number of responses.
    Percent of responses where suspects have deadly weapons.
    Percent of incorrect judgements within some critical time frame
       by people in safe conditions.
    Percentage of incorrect judgements of people in dangerous conditions.
    Percentage of incorrect judgements of people in safe, but perceived
       dangerousness conditions.. etc...

Would be possible to calculate a norm or average from that kind of info?

It is also the type of number people don't want to know about or discuss.

    -Ron


> I made no comment on the OP's intention for making that statement. Perhaps
> he was making an ironic comment on the state of US law enforcement; perhaps
> he thinks he is being genuinely helpful; perhaps this is his way of mocking
> those killed. I don't know. Whether he is a fascist who thinks police
> states are wonderful, or a liberal who thinks they are terrible, he
> described a police state. Whether he knew it at the time or not.

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#89056

Seymore4Head <Seymore4Head@Hotmail.invalid> writes:

> I am guessing that a few here might find this program interesting.

Without any context to say what it's about or why it's relevant in this
forum, that message is effectively noise. Please take more care to
consider your audience.

-- 
 \        “You can't have everything; where would you put it?” —Steven |
  `\                                                            Wright |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney

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