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Comment Re:Esperanto (Score 1) 535

[troll mode on]

The language evolves according to usage by people. Only the core grammar/10 rules remain fixed.

Sure, so much fixed that it hasn't accepted any change, not even changes by its own commission who recommended modifications to make it a better language. That better language was named Ido. But the Esperanto zealots rejected it. Read the Wikipedia page about it.

What I don't like in Esperanto, mainly:

  • Its use of specially accented letters which are non standard (look at difficulties people have to post on /. in Esperanto!)
  • Its over-use of negations. So much that many words only exist in their negatively-constructed form (good -> "bona", bad -> "mal-bona"). This is counter-intuitive, why would I think negatively for 50% of words?
  • Not really used in any useful places

To summarize, Esperanto is a (successful, compared to Ido) fork of the main line which changed it name to Ido. [troll mode off]

Books

Super Principia Mathematica 325

An anonymous reader writes "This is not an ordinary book and extraordinary would still be an understatement. Robert Louis Kemp has built a plateau of quod erat demonstrandum (Q.E.D.) in math, physics and logic; defined as his Super Principia Mathematica. Beyond brilliant, Kemp has worked on his book for over two decades, sacrificing personal comfort and financial security to laboriously bring to fruition his textbook style, hardback, expertly illustrated principles to the understanding level prevailed by most people. By 'most people' he means those who have a basic understanding of mathematics, geometry, algebra, calculus, physics and most importantly possessing the curiosity to learn." Read on for the rest of Gary's review.

Comment Re: Hairy-ball not a troll ;-) (Score 2, Informative) 429

Actually it's a real diff. geom. theorem (2nd-year math undergraduate stuff) which is indeed applicable to tokamaks, since ionized particles stay (up to diffusion) "stuck" in magnetic field lines.

The Wikipedia article is indeed accurate, although very terse.

-- and yes, I AM a plasma physicist (or at least, was one for 4 years)

Comment Re:Mistranslations? (Score 1) 3315

You are revising your statement from pretending to know ALL(sic) that the Bible is good for, to observing that the Bible includes false terms. I would not have challenged your competence to make that revised statement.

Moreover, finding false terms in the Bible is straightforward and does not require anything as far fetched as saying that the weapon of the crime plays no role when determining guilt in a murder trial.

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