Math is not simply following instructions like a recipe. Maybe if you put your cookbook through a paper shredder then what the author says may apply...
I get the author's Maddox like style and all, but such things do not belong on HN.
I disagree with this post. There are professors out there who do in fact teach code style in a very hands on and personal manner.
Chris Riesbeck [1] at Northwestern University has made a great system to teach good coding practices in a number of languages. Many of my fellow alumni have learned good coding practices from him. Its an inside joke to talk about "Riesbeck crying" when messy code is written.
The first line says it all:
"That's how The Associated Press describes the way scientists are describing..."
That's a lot of description without much proof.
Too bad what he suggests requires skills that most people don't have, at least not yet. To achieve this utopic vision we need to drastically change our education from being job-driven towards being production-driven (e.g. teaching more practical programming to younger audiences, encouraging self-motivated thinking rather than homework burn-out). This is not an easy task.
I like his vision but I fail to see how it can work out. The reality is that people are lazy. While making stuff because you want to is awesome, most people would rather sit on the couch and consume. Its because they have to feed themselves and buy nice TVs that they go to work in the morning.
Many of my friends doing phds in math are terrible at mental arithmetic. Higher level Mathematics does not have much to do with how fast you can calculate tip in your head.
your post is wrong in its claim that all civilizations have used gold as currency. In fact most civilizations until recently didnt really have an official currency. Furthermore, raw materials such as food were far more commonly traded. Taxes, until recently, were collected in raw goods.
Im not really sure why you want to go back to the gold standard so badly. Do you realize that the reason technologies like the internet have grown so fast is because we have a fiat currency? This allows people, especially small and new businesses, to borrow effectively.
I like to think about money this way: when the world ends and we are left in some of post-apocalyptic zombie epic society do you think that gold will still be valuable? Gold cannot feed you, protect you, or help you survive in any way. Besides being very resistant to corrosion and very malleable, gold really doesn't have that many special properties.
Really the only reason gold is considered to be so valuable is because its rare. But if you really want to talk about money, then goods and materials have far more intrinsic value than gold.
In fact, your post is totally wrong. Most currency was very nonstandard, with all sorts of alloys and rare metals being used.
This guys has a major stick up his ass. His comment that Google fails in the tablet market because they have silly beta names is ridiculous. Google does not even manufacture the hardware and as such cannot guarantee the UX.
On top of that his suggestion is blatantly obvious - Apple dominates tablets. So if you want to make money its probably easier if you go for the lower lying fruit.
to paraphrase: steve jobs is so frickin' awesome its not even worth trying to compete with him. So go and find greener pastures.
The legal problem is that most software patents are plans for instructions for how to construct something tangible (albeit that is an abstract view). Which basically means that they lie in some grey area in between written works and designs for something.
I would argue that maybe a good rule is to force patents to applicable only on systems of certain size or complexity. That way algorithms and data structures would not be patentable but a method for mining large datasets would be. Similar to how a new dimension of a nut and bolt is not patent-able but putting a bunch of them together in a innovative way is.
His main idea is that the way software patents are classified now does not make sense. He then suggests that a new class of patents be created just for software with special rules and regulation.
I'm not too sure why his title blames people because in the end he ends up blaming the current laws.