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Petrovsk Mizinski View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Petrovsk Mizinski Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 08 2008 at 00:08
Can you explain these 'household products' to me?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vompatti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 05 2008 at 20:17
What is ink anyway? Is it possible to make ink out of household products?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Petrovsk Mizinski Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 03 2008 at 02:02
Can it print without ink?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 22 2008 at 19:53
the way the economy is going, the paper may be worth more unprinted.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vompatti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 22 2008 at 19:51
What if I want to make the kind of imaginary money that banks use?

Wait, is there a way I can edit the number that appears on the ATM machine?

Can I get more money on my account by withdrawing a negative sum?


Edited by Vompatti - October 22 2008 at 20:01
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote progaeopteryx Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 22 2008 at 19:47
A printer should do the job.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vompatti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 22 2008 at 17:45
What's the best way for an intelligent person to make money? I want to make some.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 17 2008 at 05:49
I have three apple trees, working on the principle that I would be self-sufficient in apples for some part of the year at least. Unfortunately the result is far from satisfactory with some years bearing more fruit than I can cope with, and others, such as this year, yielding nothing of any worth. Give a hungry man an apple tree and he'll have apples sometimes, but give him money and he can buy apples every day.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vompatti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 16 2008 at 15:51
I don't really have that many apples. I wish I did, but I don't. Still - no matter how many apples I have - I always wish I had more. Yet I have so many apples that I feel guilty for wanting more. I wish apples didn't exist so I wouldn't have to worry about how many of them I have. Also, I feel sad for all the people who don't have any apples at all. How much less sorrow there would be if there weren't any apples! This is true of most things, not just apples. People would be much happier if nothing would exist.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 25 2008 at 18:19
No, it makes you someone without a spell checker;
No, it makes you someone with too many apples;
No, you don't make idiots, they are born that way;
No, at least you didn't use oranges;
No, an idiot would use a calculator;
No, idiot would count on their fingers, but only if they could find another 8 idiots to help;
 
however,
 
Yes, intelligent people would only need 24 apples.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vompatti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 25 2008 at 17:17
I just realized that I might not be quite as intelligent as I thought I was: I can't subtract! For example,

86 - 49 = ?

To subtract would be to take 49 apples out of 86 apples and the answer would be the number of apples left. But instead of subtracting I keep adding to 49 apples until I have 86 apples and the answer is the number of apples I've added.

Does this make me an iddiot?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vompatti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2008 at 11:50
If you touch your thumb with the other fingers, isn't it one hand clapping?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 14 2008 at 17:03
is that the sound of one and clipping?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vompatti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 14 2008 at 14:24
Originally posted by Syzygy Syzygy wrote:

Off at a tangent from empty spaces, it's been silent in my flat for a while now. What I'm wondering is this; is it one long silence, or a series of silences of indeterminate length punctuated with very short silences lasting 1 - 2 seconds?

It's one infinite silence, otherwise you'd hear clipping every once in a while.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Syzygy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 07 2008 at 18:19
Off at a tangent from empty spaces, it's been silent in my flat for a while now. What I'm wondering is this; is it one long silence, or a series of silences of indeterminate length punctuated with very short silences lasting 1 - 2 seconds?
'Like so many of you
I've got my doubts about how much to contribute
to the already rich among us...'

Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 07 2008 at 17:31
Only if they are apple-shaped.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vompatti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 07 2008 at 16:19
What shall we use to fill the empty spaces? Apples?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote progaeopteryx Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 05 2008 at 19:44
I've got three nothings and five empty spaces in my room. I don't see any zeros yet.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Vompatti Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 05 2008 at 17:25
Zero may be taken to represent an empty space, but it may also be taken to represent a quantity of none. Consider the following situation:

There is one apple on the table. You remove the apple. The table is empty. If a = apple, we can write this as:

1a - 1a = 0

But we could also write:

1a - 1a = 0a

Do these mean the same? The first one says that when you take away the apple, there's nothing left. The second one says that there are no apples left. (We read it as "No apples" or "Zero apples", not "Nothing" or "Empty space." If we like, we may add that there are no bananas and no oranges either:

1a - 1a = 0a + 0b +0o

How is "no apples" the same thing as "nothing" or "no bananas"? How is "nothing" the same as "two nothings" or "an empty space" the same as "two empty spaces"?


Edited by Vompatti - September 05 2008 at 17:26
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Dean Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 05 2008 at 16:41
Originally posted by Vompatti Vompatti wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Vompatti Vompatti wrote:

You cannot divide by zero. Is this because it's impossible to present the correct result for X / 0 (because there isn't any), or is it because it's logically impossible to imagine the operation you should perform to come to the correct result?
Zero, by definition, does not exist as a quantity, so division by it is not an issue. In any practical application where division by zero is potentially involved (for example if you divided a sine wave by a cosine wave) the results do not fail because true zero can never be achieved.
 
If you divide a real number by increasingly smaller real numbers such that they tend towards zero then the results will become increasingly larger and tend towards infinity, however if you divide that same number by increasingly smaller negative numbers then the results will tend towards negative infinity, so as we approach the point where these two increasingly smaller divisors meet (ie zero) the results are moving further apart by a factor of two. Since the result cannot instantaneously change sign and infinity and negative infinity are not the same value then the result of a number divided by zero is not infinity nor is it negative infinity it is simply "undefined".
 
The concept of division by zero is actually easy to imagine and depict:
The%20function%20y%20=%20.%20As%20x%20approaches%200,%20y%20approaches%20infinity%20%28and%20vice%20versa%29.
 

If zero does not exist as a quantity, it must have been defined so to avoid the confusion in dividing by zero. In any other situation zero acts just like any other number. (I could say "There are zero apples on the table" and be understood, but if I said to someone "Share these apples equally among zero people", he wouldn't understand what he's supposed to do with the apples.)

So we must ask: "Why can't we divide by zero? What makes zero different from other numbers?" (This question, I think, is somewhat similar to "Why can't there be a transparent white?")

If we could divide by zero, there would have to be one and only one result, just like with any other division. So it would have to be either infinity or negative infinity, but not both. Perhaps neither would suffice. But why do we understand the logic behind every division except division by zero? The agreement that division by zero is undefined does not solve the problem, it merely escapes it. Why can't we divide by zero?
Zero is a concept not a quantity because if there is one apple on the table and you remove it then there will be zero bananas, oranges, lemons, pineapples, elephants, clouds, planets and ice-cubes on the table as well as zero apples, so in that respect zero is not acting like a number. Similarly if we multiply any real number by zero the result will be zero, and by that, zero cannot be represented by the multiplication or division of two numbers - this is not the behaviour of a quantitative number. Oddly, this idea was not lost on ancient civilisations, who did not consider zero to be a number, but represented it by what it was: an empty space.
 
By accepting that zero is not a number, but the lack of a number, then the issue of not being able to divide by zero fails to be a problem in the same way that you cannot divide by altruism or any other imaginary concept is not seen as a problem.
 
So if you reform the questions as 'Why can't we divide by an empty space', then the answer 'Because you can't' is not one that is going to cause any concern.
 
What?
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