RIP Apple Bloom

clouds31 · 1 day

So RD is going to be a zombie? Cause he did promise a RD episode.

ilovecomputers · 1 day

As one person pointed out in another thread, she is just using this as a teaching opportunity. You're right though, there might be a pineapple that doesn't follow the fibonacci pattern because a slight biological mutation might break the pattern.

This reminds me an interesting article about people looking for mathematical patterns in the natural world: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/pseudo/fibonacc.htm

ilovecomputers · 1 day

That's the thing. A hypothetical alternate universe exists in the realm of thought.

When I stated physical impossibility, I ment that literally. In that, no matter how hard I try, I just can't start a fire underwater. Sure, I can use the laws of physics to my advantage to make it so that I can start a fire underwater, but that'll probably be difficult and expensive. Right now all I have is a household match, I have no hope of starting a fire in my bathtub.

The distinction I am making really comes down to the physical and the human thought. I'm probably stating impossibility in a practical sense in that, I can very easily imagine starting a fire underwater, but I'm going to have a really hard time replicating it in real life.

ilovecomputers · 2 days

Curiosity abound: has there been moments when a physical phenomenon has been noticed to be mathematically impossible and so a new mathematical system is formulated to describe the phenomenon?

ilovecomputers · 2 days

The awesome thing is Kenny was good natured enough to create a fix. When different disciplines cross-fertilize, interesting results are abound. Sure you might not have found spirals on Pineapples to be interesting, but consider how math can make doodles interesting: http://youtu.be/heKK95DAKms

ilovecomputers · 2 days

You'll find her videos pleasant to watch if you keep in mind that her strong held belief of math is done with tongue-in-cheek.

rspeer · 3 days

I looked into the cover art some more. Turns out the photographer who worked for the label was responsible for the idiosyncratic covers: http://www.westminstergold.com/

rspeer · 4 days

That is the greatest classical music cover of all time.

Mellowed · 4 days

I have the same problem and have asked here before if there's an essential book to drawing like animators have with the book you mentioned. Many told me to practice, but I need something a bit more rigorous and so I did my own research to find a book to provide myself some sort of curriculum.

I found that Keys to Drawing was a highly regarded book and it turned out to be a good compliment to life drawings: http://amzn.com/0891343377

rspeer · 4 days

Thanks for introducing me to Glenn Gould. He reminds me of Julian Bream, a kind of musician who adds personality to what is normally the dry world of classical music. I hope there are more people like them.

MadSusie · 9 days

I misworded my statement above, there is some benefit an employer can enjoy.

The kind of "internships" that I'm criticizing are those that are disguised "fetch me some coffee" labor work. The kind of work where you learn nothing and make no connection.

MadSusie · 9 days

I prefer to have legitimate internships rather than exploiting people for free labor.

MadSusie · 9 days

This blog touches a point that most businesses seem to forget: an internship should benefit you, not the employer. An NPR article, I read a while back, linked to this 6-point test that the US Department of Labor published on what constitutes as a legal unpaid internship.

rspeer · 10 days

Can someone elaborate by what Hofstadter means by decision procedure?

ilovecomputers · 11 days

I request /r/animation, yes we're small and niche, but can we get some love from a fellow cartoonist :)

rspeer · 13 days

I really enjoyed the idea that, back when Babbage was working on his computational machine, Lady Ada was describing the computer in such poetic ways. I feel like the complexity of my field (CS) has reached a point where people speak of it in technical terms rather than humanistic. The closest I've seen, where a programmer explains his field in a humanistic manner, is _why's Poignent Guide, Land of Lisp (somewhat), and GEB of course.

This leads me to ask: is there a computer science communicator (like Carl Sagan)? Someone who does a good job explaining computer science in a romantic way or in terms that people can understand and have a strong connection to?

rspeer · 16 days

You're not alone. I had the same feeling when I made my last two comments.

ilovecomputers · 16 days

I'll be honest, that front page post is where I got the link from. Reddit is a strange loop!

Sorry, I'm currently active in /r/GEB.

rspeer · 16 days

When I look at this video you posted and reading Hofstadter's explanation, I feel like Escher had to cheat a bit to achieve the strange loop. To achieve the paradox of whether the painting is in the town or the town in the painting.

Let me explain a bit. With Ascending and Descending, I see how the illusion of a ever-ascending stair is produced: the staircase on the lower right is going down to reconnect with the loop, but the illusionary effect makes me see it going up. With the Shepard scale, I can kind of spot where the loop restarts itself. With a Möbius strip, when I make my own with paper, when I connect the papers together, it will never be a perfect connection no matter how well I tape it together.

I think what I'm trying to say is that when it comes to these representation of loops, you have to try to mask the awkward hinges when the loop reconnects with itself. Coming back to the Print Gallery painting, the compromise there is that you have a giant frame surrounding the town and the poor man in the canoe has the water cut off infront as the town reappears in front of him.

rspeer · 16 days

Actually I fell into this "trap" (which is simply being naive, you're only human) with René Magritte's artwork. Then I went to the LACMA exhibition of René's artwork and I paid for a taped tour narrated by Pierce Brosnan. The tour explained the deeper concepts that René tried to convey. These concepts were easily missed by the gimmickry most people noticed at the artwork's surface.

Ever since then I looked at artwork differently. I looked at it, trying to figure out what deeper meanings the artist is trying to convey because, in the end, an artist went through a process to create her work. Ideas might come and go during this process and maybe the central concept will remain through out it. Nonetheless, all us art gallery attendees view is the final product, the "surface" of the art piece.

Now when I read Hofstadter's explanation of Escher's pieces, I wasn't as surprised by the fact that Escher had deeper meanings in his artwork. However, I was happy to know these deeper concepts. Still, I think it is silly that if we were to go up a level, eventually we'll enter an imaginary realm. I don't know what physicists have to say about that.

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