mzatanoskas

thanks

So Z in that funky font is the set of integers, but is there a specific symbol for an integer or do people use Z for that as well? Also is there a symbol or a set of the integers not including 0?

Ooops, sorry!! I forgot that the breakdown featured as part of the narrative, I was imagining I had found that out independently of the book but of course there was no wikipedia in those days!

I get the general logic for rounding numbers, I just remember being told by my Maths teacher once a long time ago that numbers were always rounded in a set way in science, according to how many digits you used; 0.5 and above would be rounded to 1 (accurate to 0 decimal places) and 0.4 would be rounded to 0. (or something like that, I don't really remember which was why I was asking) So 3.14159265 could be expressed as 3.14 or 3.142 and 23.44 could be expressed as 23, 23.4 or 23.44 etc accurate to the relevant number of decimal places. However if you can also round up to the nearest "half" a decimal place, different people could over time round a number to a completely inaccurate result. Ie 3.33 rounded to the nearest "half" a second decimal point is 3.35, round that accurate to one decimal place you get 3.4, round to a half, 3.5, then to 4, then to 5 then to 10. Thinking about it again, I guess it's probably more a linguistic thing where people prefer to talk about "twenty three and a half" rather than saying "twenty three point four." I just thought the scientists would have been more pedantic. I know I would have lost marks for that at school!

When it should be either 23 or 23.4, or 23.44 or some other appropriately rounded amount?

Fair enough, thanks.

Thanks tree, so identities and equalities are just special types of equations right? Just to check though, equalities can only feature constants? (like in the wikipedia example) or can they have a variable which has to be of a certain value ie. x + 1 = 3

I'm looking at the wikipedia page on equations. But I'm getting a little confused by the different use of the terms equality, equation and identity in different situations. Amongst other stuff they say: [math] 2 + 3 = 5[/math] The equations above are examples of an equality: a proposition which states that two constants are equal. [math]x(x - 1) = x^2 - x [/math] The equation above is an example of an identity... ... Many authors reserve the term equation for an equality which is not an identity. But they said that an equality was a proposition which states that two constants are equal? What's the relationship between the three terms? Identities are a subset of Equalities which are a subset of Equations? Or Identities are subset of Equations which are a subset of Equalities? Or something else?

Sorry it seems it's an .svg file. I got it from the wikipedia page here where it is shown as a .png. But I should have looked harder earlier as I just found the main wikipedia page explaining the structure of the periodic table, which basically clarifies the color coding. The table on this page is similar to the one I had, except it doesn't predict the groups of the undiscovered ununtrium etc elements. ... And this page explains the difference between wikipedia's hybrid organisation and IUPAC approved categories. Beh, this is more complicated than I thought it would be. Why can't everything be nice and standard and simple. I guess my questions should now be: 1. Should I create a table with groupings according to IUPAC approved categories or follow the wikipedia version? 2. Which would be more helpful in the long run? Maybe it doesn't matter so much.

I am a chemistry beginner who has got it into his head to start learning all the elements of the periodic table. I'm looking at this wikipedia version which seems pretty up to date, but I'm not sure what the standard terms for all the colored groups are. Also other versions seem to group some parts of the table slightly differently. Normally I would just start reading up on the basics, but I want to put together a standard, simple, colour coded reference table for myself before I begin. As far as I can tell from left to right, top to bottom: 1. Pale Green Hydrogen (nonmetals?) 2. Red Alkali metals 3. Wheat Alkaline earth metals 4. Pink Transition metals 5. Lanthanides (Rare earth) marked on table already 6. Actinides (Rare earth) marked on table already 7. Dirty Green Metalloids? 8. Grey Poor metals? (a mini table on wikipedia includes zinc and cadmium here) 9. Pale Green Non metals? (includes Hydrogen) 10. Yellow Halogens 11. Turquoise Noble gases My questions are: 1. Is this table a standard way of grouping the elements? 2. Are the categories I've noted above correct? Thanks!

, even indie rock videos are a feminist's nightmare! I wouldn't say I have a type, but I thought the girl in pink was the most beautiful in that video. Jared Diamond mentioned some amusing correlations between specific physical characteristics such as earlobe length, breadth of nose, length of middle finger and sexual partners in his excellent book The Third Chimpanzee. I seem to remember there were a bunch of tests that suggested we chose partners based on their similarity to our parents. Some other study reported less specifically that traits such as perceived physical beauty in a potential partner were more important to children of "beautiful" parents... Diamond also speculated that the general differences between the skin colour of different ethnicities was based more on an evolutionary response to sexual preference within the groups over time rather than the common belief that it was an evolutionary response to environmental conditions such as the amount of sun.

****************** Quick summary of overlong post that follows: :-):-):-) My goal in participating in this thread is clarification of interesting ideas/principles, not attacking anyone or point scoring! Please assume my good faith in all my posts! I'll try and address the actual meat of the issues when I can find some time later. :-):-):-) ****************** No, not really, my point was just that I thought it would be constructive to have an explicitly stated "counter" claim as such to help keep the argument on track. Although the title of the thread is about game censorship in Australia, I was focusing on the OP's only statement which is: I think adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want...... unless it's something like child porn. Which I guess is a more generic statement on censorship of all media. But this was my point about stating positions or making explicit claims so that we avoid talking past each other. Being aware who is arguing about a specific claim related to the censorship of videogames in Australia or a broader statement on censorship of the media or whatever is helpful. Here we go, now we are getting closer to isolating certain sticking points around which we can better focus the argument. Would it be fair for me to rephrase this as saying the important point for you is: Whether child pornography in games can harm children? If not, then society does not have a right to legislate censorship. A quick point here to mention (I'll make other points and give details when I have time, but seeing that similar points to this have been brought up a number of times already) is a connection between demand and supply. Simply put, if child pornography in games is not censored and can legally be sold, the financial incentives as described by economic theories of demand and supply will encourage increased production of child pornography which would harm children. Now you may have any number of objections to this argument, including for example that you meant only virtual child pornography in videogames (when no real child was abused in the production of the game) should not be censored. But of course I don't know for sure until you make them. Let's not forget we are always going to end up in a "grey area" and expecting either "side" to come up with exhaustive and absolute treatises off the bat is unreasonable, probably intrinsically impossible and would definitely exceed the maximum word count for a post on any forum board. I was arguing about consumption of child pornography (real not simulated) and the demand/supply effect, not videogames, so there we were talking past each other there as so often happens in these threads. As far as whether playing videogames can have a negative effect on people's behaviour or not, that's another very important point to be addressed, but I think the debate has to be more nuanced than framing positions as starkly as "playing games ... make them want to go out and kill real people." Look I'm not saying there aren't people who do think in infuriatingly knee-jerk and simplistic ways. However in an intelligent discussion, do we have to assume that someone who seems to be disagreeing with us is so intellectually challenged?! Let's try not to argue to the lowest common denominator! This is basically what I meant re iNow and strawmen. Apologies if I phrased it too agressively or in too accusatory a manner; it's not that I think iNow is specifically taking words out of context etc, but that I'm sure he could phrase the arguments he is attacking in a stronger form. I believe there is no point setting up a weak version of an argument (ie a straw man) that I disagree with in order to knock it down. Not on an internet thread anyway because I honestly have no interest in scoring "points" here. Again as you set forth more claims we can better identify and isolate the real sticking points around which the argument revolves. So just to clarify, here you are arguing that: 1. even if some videogames cause violence in children, the blame lies solely with the parents of the children, and censorship should not be the answer. 2. something else? Again to rephrase to ensure we are on the same page, here are you arguing that: 1. even if some videogames cause violence in adults, the adults were ill already and blame lies solely with them, therefore censorship should not be the answer (because it is unecessary, ineffectual, immoral or some combination of the above). 2. even if we find evidence of adults behaving violently after playing games, this is probably not evidence of the games negative effect, but evidence of the adult's inherent behavioural problems, therefore censorship should not be the answer (because it is unecessary, ineffectual, immoral or some combination of the above). 3. something else? Ok here I think I should lay my cards on the table and make my position a little more explicit too: 1. I normally don't touch internet debate threads with a bargepole, especially "controversial" topics such as these, because they usually almost exclusively feature name-calling, point-scoring, shouting matches, where the arguers talk completely past each other and no progress is ever made whatsoever. In other words, flame wars. 2. I decided to jump in this thread therefore precisely because I thought it showed signs that people were interested in debating for the same reasons as me. 3. Why am I interested in debating this? Because I believe a measured and disciplined discussion can ideally result in: a) clarification of all our own ideas, principles, their strengths and inconsistencies etc b) clarification of all other possible ideas, principles, their strengths and inconsistencies etc c) identification of what we need to think about/analyse further d) where disagreements amongst different people really lie etc... To me the above is what an "interesting conversation" about controversial topics looks like. It's basically a rephrasing of a concept of "ideal argumentation". Ok that can sound pompous, or unrealistic, but I don't think it's that out of place on a science forum. I would never post this on a youtube thread. 4. So as I said, in order to achieve all this lofty stuff, I have to assume that the majority of other participants share a similar goal. It is not necessarily true. Indeed it is rarely true on most "argument" threads. But it is on the basis of this assumption that I encouraged the explicit statement of claims, the avoidance of strawmen, the notion of a "constructive" devil's advocate etc... 5. Why have I concentrated on one "side" as it were? Because that is another application of the concept of "ideal argumentation" to this thread. It seems to be the most constructive way to achieve the goals I have set out. But yes, I think the points I have made are valid to everyone arguing in the thread. 6. And finally I should state something a little more immediately relevant to the controversy being discussed: I would tentatively say that for a whole wadge of reasons of varying strength and clarity, I support the general notion that in the society that I currently live in (UK, 2009) some form of censorship of media is appropriate, including censorship of child pornography. Ok I have points, responses and clarifications I need to add, but will have to save for later. Just one final thing though: Amongst other things' date=' I presumed it from the forum we are in, the position you were taking, comments you made about interesting conversation and clarifying arguments etc... It was that assumption that made me decide to contribute to the thread. Of course all these words are subjective to some degree, but we can't have any conversation without making some assumptions on what they mean. Ok so very importantly: [b']are you not interested in being constructive then?[/b] I don't mean this in an aggressive way at all, but it will save me some time coming up with a response to your earlier posts if you are not.

I remember being mesmerised by the book a good, oh dear, 15 years or so ago... my how time flies. I remember really identifying with the author's concerns, attitudes and way of thinking and then getting really worried when I found out he had recently suffered a nervous breakdown and had been diagnosed with clinical depression and paranoid schizophrenia! But most depressing of all is that now I barely remember a thing about the content of the book at all... I'll have to pick it up again when I have the time.

I always find the standard forum format is really not that great for these kind of debate threads. It's a pity because there's a lot brain power to be harnessed out there and a lot of interesting debates to be had. When I have time I shall surely come up with a better system. In the mean time a few general comments: We are dealing with informal reasoning here, not formal logic. Pointing out that something is not certain or absolute or immutably true is almost a truism. So while having a devil's advocate is great, it shouldn't mean they just get to ask the questions and don't have their burden of proof/refutation to fulfill as well! We have the OP's eloquently phrased position : "I think adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want...... unless it's something like child porn." So I'd ask iNow or dudde to come up with a position in response. It would give others the chance to examine the consistency of their position and the reasoning behind it and should make the thread more disciplined and more fruitful. And now for some more specific comments for our devil advocator in general, iNow: I disagree with that characterisation. I would say that the producer directly harms the child, and the consumer indirectly harms the child.They both contribute and both have moral responsibility. (I'm sure you could split up the process even further into things such as perpertrator/facilitator/accessory etc, but it doesn't seem very helpful in this case) This is a fairly common pattern of argument though not always applied as consistently as it might. It sometimes rears its head in arguments on the so-called "war on drugs", proliferation of guns, sweat shops, child labour, human trafficking etc... At the end of the day though, it's the specifics of the case that make the difference. Again I dispute your characterisation of the fictive law. It is unreasonable to suggest that the censorship's purpose (the reasoning behind those who legislated it) was to "punish the consumers" of child pornography. I would suggest a better characterization would be that the law "seeks" to protect children, given that that is the reason which those who would implement such a law would give. because it helps protect children because it helps protect children Because consumption of child pornography encourages the manufacture of child pornography which in turn harms children. The basic tenet of demand and supply. I don't think we agree. The harm to the children comes from the whole process/industry of child pornography of which the consumer is an integral part. Establishing scientific data for such correlation and causal effects is practically and ethically problematic in the extreme in these kind of cases. How would you propose a double-blind test of the correlation between child pornography and the sexual abuse of children? Given the severity of the risk and the difficulty/impossibility of obtaining the full data, this particular claim comes down to a more pragmatic appraisal. Ie the probability of a link vs the severity of the problem if there is a link. Regardless of my previous comments, the difference in the two situations comes down to the details of course. But I feel you are coming up with unnecessarily weak analogies here. You phrased your analogy as: There are also a large number of people who eat cornflakes in the morning who go on to harm women. Well obviously a correlation of this sort is not the point of the argument here. Even if the OP hasn't phrased the argument as accurately as you might have liked, it would be more interesting/helpful for the thread if you were to point out how it could have been phrased better, where ambiguities lie. Instead of setting up strawmen. Also you don't seem to answer responses other posters have made to your points. In fact re-reading the thread, it seems that most of my rebuttals have already been made and ignored. That is a scatter-gun approach worryingly reminiscent of certain individuals of a creationist bent... ahem, poorly disguised ad hominem Anyway I absolutely agree that we should examine our assumptions and think why we draw lines where we do. We can't expect certainty though and I think that you are being slightly too trigger happy to be a really constructive devil's advocate!