Today I was diagnosing some HTTP/HTTPS issues, and firefox was being a bitch by not showing me whether I was on a HTTPS or HTTP connection in the address bar. Turns out that in order to show the URL scheme you can change the setting in about:config. You need to change browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false, and then you’re back in business.
The amount of spam I’m receiving on this blog has just started to sky-rocket. I think shortly that comments will be disabled. It’s such a shame there are low-life spammers in the world.
If you’re interested in this article about the difference between absolute growth and relative growth, you might also be interested in How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff.
I searched the other day for the difference between an absolute growth rate and a relative growth rate, and didn’t easily find a helpful answer. I didn’t look too hard though.
Anyway, I figured it out just by thinking about it a little bit.
An absolute growth rate is given in units, while a relative growth rate is given as a percentage.
So, for example, I could have a growth rate of $100 per annum, or a growth rate of 10% per annum. The first growth rate is an absolute growth rate of $100 per annum, and the second rate is a relative growth rate of 10% per annum.
The difference is that an absolute rate just grows linearly, whereas a relative growth rate grows exponentially. So as the table below shows with $1,000 and an absolute growth rate of $100 per annum, after one year I’d have $1,100, after 2 years $1,200, after 3 years $1,300, and so on. Whereas with a relative growth rate of 10% after 1 year I’d have $1,100, after 2 years I’d have $1,210, after 3 years I’d have $1,331, and so on.
| $100 pa | 10% pa | |
|---|---|---|
| Start | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| After 1 year | $1,100 | $1,100 |
| After 2 years | $1,200 | $1,210 |
| After 3 years | $1,300 | $1,331 |
| After 4 years | $1,400 | $1,464.10 |
| After 5 years | $1,500 | $1,610.51 |
Maybe this explanation will help for someone the next time someone searches for the difference between absolute growth rates and relative growth rates.
I’ve always wondered about the metaphor “like the deserts miss the rain”… what is that supposed to mean? On the one hand, it doesn’t rain in the desert, so maybe the deserts miss the rain a lot. On the other hand, if it rained in the desert, then it wouldn’t be a desert any more, and that would destroy what the desert is, so a desert doesn’t miss the rain at all.
I don’t get it. Nice track though.
I had a problem with MediaWiki math sections not always displaying as a PNG. For simple expressions HTML was used instead. This lead to a very non-uniform look and feel where some images had a green background and large fonts (for PNG expressions) compared to a black background and different fonts (for HTML expressions). I wanted a uniform look and feel so I went looking for a configuration setting.
I haven’t been able to figure out how to force mediawiki to always display a PNG as a global setting, but in your user settings on the math preferences section you can change from the default “HTML if very simple or else PNG” to “Always render PNG” which fixes the problem on a per user basis, which is good enough for me.
Tears for Fears — Shout
Shout, shout, let it all out.
These are the things I can do without.
Come on. I’m talking to you, come on.
Shout, shout, let it all out.
These are the things I can do without.
Come on. I’m talking to you, come on.
In violent times, you shouldn’t have to sell your soul.
In black and white, they really really ought to know.
Those one track minds… that took you for a working boy.
Kiss them goodbye, you shouldn’t have to jump for joy.
You shouldn’t have to… (jump for joy)
Shout, shout, let it all out.
These are the things I can do without.
Come on, I’m talking to you, come on.
They gave you life, and in return you gave them hell.
As cold as ice… I hope we live to tell the tale.
I hope we live to tell the tale!
Shout, shout, let it all out.
These are the things I can do without.
Come on. I’m talking to you, come on.
Shout, shout, let it all out.
These are the things I can do without.
Come on. I’m talking to you, come on.
Shout, shout, let it all out. (Let it all out!)
These are the things I can do without.
Come on. I’m talking to you, come on.
And when you’ve taken down your guard…
If I could change your mind… I’d really love to break your heart.
I’d really love to break your heart!
Shout, shout, let it all out.
(Break your heart) These are the things I can do without.
(I’d really love to break your heart) Come on.
I’m talking to you, come on.
Shout, shout, let it all out.
These are the things I can do without.
Come on. I’m talking to you so come on.
Shout, shout, let it all out.
These are the things I can do without.
Come on. I’m talking to you, come on.
(They really really ought to know) Shout, shout, let it all out.
(Really really ought to know) These are the things I can do without.
(They really really) Come on. I’m talking to you, come on.
(They really really ought to know…)
Today I watched reddit.com Interviews Noam Chomsky and in the video you can see a laptop in the background that pops up various words. I’m not sure why these words are there, it looks like some sort of screensaver. Anyway, I wrote down all the words that I could see properly and then wrote a program to put them in the following table:
The thing that impresses me about George Lakoff is not that he’s right, so much as it is that he realises that most of traditional (and even contemporary) Western thought is wrong, and he has a go at fixing it.
Sometimes I’m impressed by things I did when I was younger. This image still holds truth and insight for me, my opinion or perspective hasn’t really changed much in the way I regard it. I wonder if that’s a bad thing?
The more I learn about Artificial Intelligence the more I worry about actual human intelligence.
It seems like objective reality is constrained in significant ways, and I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to know or speak the whole truth.