I am not concerning myself with representations of mathematical values, except to show the parallels of why it works. IEEE 754 defines a positive and negative infinity, because it has a specific signed bit. Thus, it's easier to define a positive and negative infinity than to produce special code to handle "exceptions"... note also that IEEE 754 defines a positive and negative 0 separately. No, they really do.

My model is a theoretical one that hasn't reached mathematical consensus, and it likely never will. I just note that this is an argument for infinity being signless.

Ah it doubles as a nice Chromebook!

It's too bad the US has no real authority to review advertising for matters of whether its truthful or not. For example, calling their plans "unlimited" when they aren't would not fly in the UK.

But in the US you can call anything anything and modify it as needed with tiny disclaimers.

It would be fun one day to see an add for a new phone with a disclaimer saying you actually get a paving stone and some wadded up paper, ala the faked game console/iPad boxes that always appear in stores during the holidays.

Let's assume that the set of integers is Z_\inf. K? We can now define negative numbers as the 1's compliment of the number plus 1. 1 = 999...9998. then plus 1 = 999...9999. This plus 1 results in an infinite carry out, and the value 0. Awesome.

Now, let's look at 1/0, we see that from the right it's approaching \inf from the bottom, while we see that from the left, it's approaching \inf from the top. Now, at 0, obviously these two will be coincident, because we're working in Z_\inf, that value is the same value. Namely, -\inf = \inf. But that doesn't make sense, only 0 can be it's own negative!

But we've already known for a long time about Z_n where n is even, -(-128) in Z_256 is -128. -(-65536) in Z_2^16 = -65536. So, there's no trouble in making -\inf = \inf ...

Basically, 1/0 grows so fast that it manages to wrap around the entire infinite series of numbers. Which is exactly what it does...

Dude... you perhaps haven't heard, but computers run entirely upon theoretical mathematics... I know, it's popular to say it's engineering, rather than mathematics, but it's mathematics. It's always been mathematics.

So..nobody got the OCP joke?

OCP, the evil corp from the Robocop movies, headquartered in Detroit? Come on where is your geek cred, people?

I get why Amazon wants to/has to make their own video content: People expect it these days and they have to compete with Netflix and HBO. But in gaming, there are already a ton of publishers and a ton more developers in all shapes and sizes and for all markets and kinds of games.

It is a great time to be a PC gamer. There's so much choice. If you don't think there is, try playing something new instead of the same old things.

Anyway, there are a lot of people making games. Some great, some good, some bad. What is Amazon going to bring to this that isn't already being done? It's not like the video service where they have to meet expectations, and it's not an unmet need since there already are tons of games.

Amazon is hiring some heavy hitters and spending A-level cash on game engines. This says they intend to bring out an epic franchise brand, which means they will have to spend a LOT on making it, and take years, and after all the work, maybe people won't want to play it. Most games end up like that, especially the big, grand, spendy grand attempts. Very few of those command lasting presence. So they're basically betting a lot on what will probably be ONE title and the odds are it won't be huge hit. Maybe a moderate hit. Why do this? Why take on that financial risk when there are plenty of existing companies and people who already do that?

Amazon already sells their games, and now they have Twitch to show them off too. Amazon doesn't need to make content in this space.
 

There was another Tron mostly nobody saw, an animated series called Tron: Uprising which ran on various Disney cable networks.

It was.. excellent. Beautiful art, great music (improved versions of Daft Punk plus new stuff), really good casting and decent writing and plotting. All in all, one of the best animated anything that the American animation industry has yet produced. It was rather similar to an anime. Nobody would have been surprised if it had in fact come from Japan, but it didn't: it was Disney.

And of course a show like this made no sense to Disney so they killed it after one season. Boom.

Highly recommended viewing. Only 19 episodes so go for broke and watch them all at once. It will probably make you sad this was the last Tron, perhaps forever.

Most, I hate the Sparta icon... it's white, with no contrast border... which makes everything that is assigned to it being the default program, show a white globe on a white background... it's like, "way to go, Microsoft!" followed by a slow clap.

"clean" "modern" design... which will never work decently on all backgrounds... you know... like good logos, and designs...

I work in a white collar office with 11 cameras installed, last time I counted. I work under them every day. They watch everything I do, along with all my coworkers. And the video is uploaded out of the country so it cannot be tampered with locally.

Who installed this 11-eyed monster? Me.

It's not for me. It's because we have an office full of expensive computers full of sensitive data. The cameras aren't the only thing we do but they are a visible deterrent. We have cleaning crews and other vendors in the office. And we have an honest system snack area with an unsecured open cup of money for people to pay or make change. Guess what's NEVER been pilfered? Yep, the money cup, in part because THAT spot is cross-covered by four cameras.

But mostly the cameras watch us working, or not working. They have been mainly inconvenient for the people who want to sneak off for a nap. I made sure there are no blind spots left.

My house is the same way, covered by a "number" of cameras. I get more emails with images and video from my cameras every day than I get from anyone else. There's a dashcam in my car too. It caught a truck accident 2 weeks ago today. Good stuff, great time to have a camera rolling.

So I live, work, and drive with cameras on ALL the time. My life is fine.

This is why excursion trains with old equipment should always have a modern locomotive attached to act as the hub for ATC or signalling. And also for pulling the old engine off the line when it breaks down.

Does it ruin things to have a diesel in the consist? No. It's still a train.

Oh no, I'm totally willing to cut some slack. This stuff is not easy, be it reverse engineering OR inventing it with original research.

We're on the edge of unlocking a whole new realm of material science where we can do things that would have looked like magic even 50 years ago. Alien or not, this does show that science can do a lot in a very short period of time.

My first thought exactly. So it took us 60 years or so to figure it out.

"it was a sheet of metal, very light weight, but you could crush it up like a ball and it would bounce right back no matter what you did, and it would not cut or burn"

Not even sure about a bank as so many banks still use BBM. They might not like having another bank in charge of the company, though there are probably ways around that with a holding company or something.

My feeling is some kind of Canadian consortium can come to BlackBerry's rescue Despite FairFax taking a look and walking away, I still think they could do it with Canadian money without needing foreign partners. Canadian investors are as good as any, have plenty of money to invest and they can read the tea leaves as well as any. It comes down to what they think the value is. If not FairFax, perhaps somebody else.

Canada considers BlackBerry as a national Canadian treasure of sorts. It's a huge success story and has been the backbone of just an immense number of high-tech jobs. BlackBerry is a flagship company. As such, Ottawa will never allow it to be sold to outsiders like Microsoft or anyone else.

It's just not going to happen.

This means the value of the company is a lot less than it seems since the value can't be taken out of Canada in any meaningful way.