granite_scones

You clearly can't have 2i + 3 dollars, so by that logic, complex numbers aren't real numbers.

Your analogy is off. With number theory, even if no one had an external use for it, progress was (is) made, new theorems were proved, so time was not wasted in that regard. The problem with the Collatz conjecture is whether the effort spent on it is actually generating any insights into the problem.

Not really. This is about being able to access the specific papers written; it is not about being able to read an aggregate of the research without necessarily being able to look at the original source (which is what Wikipedia is).

(EDIT: grammar)

Then you choose "Other UNIX Based".

Important to whom? What people find remarkable and notable varies wildly. What may be notable to one group (say the residents of X-town may find the mayoral election notable) might not be to another (Y-town doesn't care).

Something remarkable or notable may happen every day, but it's not necessarily the case that something remarkable or notable to a specific person happens every day.

I'm curious to see the smooth infinitesimal analysis approach to complex analysis. Using the limit definition (the dreaded epsilon-deltas), you get the correct definition of continuity (for the usual topology).

How (if at all) do you do the same thing with dz's?

That just pushes the problem back to whether perfect circles can exist in reality.

"This example uses the simplest possible set of prime number — 1, 3, and 7."

1 is not a prime number. Also, the "simplest" possible set of primes would be 2, 3, and 5.

The "Power" section made me think of Blub. http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

If you (re)define a word to be sufficiently broad, it's particularly difficult to find positive aspects to it.

I think there's some merit to this proposal, but it's too riddled with an infatuation with a certain brand of Christian monasticism for me to separate out what is good and what is bad.

"As we all know, for the virtuous student, college life has become a variation on The Temptation of Saint Anthony—a never-ending assault by the demons of gluttony, envy, sloth, lust, and pride."

That's confusing "virtue" with something actually relevant to academic involvement. I agree there's a lot wrong with the current system, but it's not that students are having too much sex and sleeping in on.

"Members should cultivate nonviolence, humility, and ungrudging obedience to just authority. Speech should be used in moderation, and only for some purpose. Instead of gossiping at meals, edifying books are read aloud. There are no private possessions, only two meals a day, and vegetarianism is the norm. Clothing is simple, utilitarian, and uniform."

That's not going to happen. Once again, we have some confusion between this weird form of self-denial with caring about education. It's perfectly possible to be committed to learning/research/etc. while still wanting to talk to your friends during dinner.

This isn't even getting at the daily ritualistic prayer, the claim the current academic zeitgeist is "decadent", the fact that a lot of research requires expensive equipment, something unaccounted for under this scheme, the suggested "withdrawal" from the rest of the world, etc.

EDIT: Not to mention, there's the problem of people with families. Does the rest of the family have to join in also? What about children? If they don't, how does the member provide for them? Are only single people allowed to join? What?

I cannot be the only person who thought this would be about the free software movement (e.g. GNU) rather than the movement towards software being released gratis.

In his defense (despite an apparent lack of understanding of what "socialism" actually means), the author wasn't talking about state socialism, which isn't the only form of socialism.