Purity

Lady Sovereign in "Love Me or Hate Me":

If you love me then thank you!
If you hate me then fuck you! (Full lyrics)

We don't need no faces, it doesn't need to be complicated...

A God That Exists

Isn't it funny how many religious people mock Hindus for believing that COWS are sacred?! They brag about having a God that is more powerful and more thoughtful and stuff... I can't help myself but laugh!! Even if those Hindus think COWS are GOD, at least we know that their God does exist!!

PS: Hindus don't actually worship cows - This is a common misconception

The Assembly Line In The Acedemic Field

Can you imagine how life would be without Philosophers, Mathematicians, Scientists, and Engineers?! It would be so dull! But which one of them is most important to society?! My answer is: All of them are equally important. The four of them integrate together to make inventions.

I want to make this analogy. In any computer system, someone has to build the computer, another develops a compiler, and a third writes code. Could one of them be useful without the other?! NO! If someone writes a C++ code, but there are no C++ compilers, whats the use?! If someone has designed a compiler, but we have no computer to run the code on, whats the use?!

This analogy gives rise to what is conventionally called "Black Box" models and "White Box" models. Where one person uses basic components to create a more complex system that can later be used without actually understanding how the component system was created in the first place.

Philosophers create the machine which drives the mathematics - They founded the basis on which mathematics can be coherently defined. Mathematicians create ready to use formulae for scientists and engineers to use. Its all "Black Boxes" handed from one to another.

But the "White Box" view gives the person more understanding of the system being used. It enables them to use that system more effectively, and even more flexibility to create more complex systems.

For that, it is not enough to have Philosophers. Not enough to have Mathematicians. Not enough to have Scientists. And even not enough to have Engineers. For a good system we need all the four combined together!

Language Acquisition - Part 5: The Problem Of Representation

The important question now is: Can we resolve all lingual non-equivalence representations?! - Superficially, yes - or better say, might be. But only superficially. Many inconsistencies will remain implicit and non-detectable, and some of those might be impossible to resolve. Consider the following scenario:

Say PersonX sees Red as Blue. He will NOT notice the difference between him and regular folks since he will start to refer to what he sees as Blue as "Red", but other people would see it as Red, thus avoiding confusion. Also say that PersonY sees Red as Green.

• Imagine PersonX and PersonY as a baby brothers (with no knowledge of language).
  
• In front of them is a red apple.
  
• PersonX sees a blue apple.
• PersonY sees a green apple.
  
• Their parents refer to the apple as "red".
• PersonX learns that the word "red", represents what he sees as blue color. (Result-1)
  
• PersonY learns that the word "red", represents what he sees as green color. (Result-2)

Now, one year later:

• Imagine PersonX and PersonY having learnt language.
• PersonX sees a blue car.
• The car is actually red. (Since PersonX sees red as blue)
• PersonX says: "This red car looks amazing". (He says "red" because of Result-1)
• When PersonY hears the term "red car", he visualizes a green car. (Because of Result-2)
• PersonY agrees that the "red car" is amazing. (Result-3)

From Result-3, notice that both PersonX and PersonY refer to the car as "red", while each one of them sees a different color. They superficially agree about the color of the car being refer to as "red", while to each one of them the word "red" refers to different visual experiences (blue for Person X, and green for PersonY).

The above mentioned scenario reveals the shocking possibility that we might use consistent notation to represent our ideas, but those representations are not the same for all people. More importantly, there is a good chance that we superficially agree!! How can anyone be sure that when they refer to a certain experience by a certain word that others actually use the same word to represent that same experience?! I guess, we cannot!

Now assume that the visual experience of the color Blue is good, and that the visual experience of the color Red is ugly.

• PersonX sees blue color as a good experience.
• Regular people see red color as an ugly experience.
• When presented by a red object, PersonX argues that its "red" color looks good. (Since he sees blue color)
• Other people disagree with PersonX stating that the "red" color looks ugly. (Result-4)
  

In this scenario, using Result-4, disagreement is only superficial, because they disagree about what the term "red" refers to, not the visual experience itself, as PersonX and other people have different visual experiences.

So when we study Wittgenstein's quote:

"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him." (source)

We realize that the "understanding" that Wittgenstein refers to deals with deep meaning, not superficial meaning.

Communication in any form -or any language- is a communication of representations. We communicate representations of our feelings and ideas NOT the ideas and feelings themselves. It is impossible to communicate ideas, only representations of those ideas. This problem of representation is the basis of Representational Skepticism. Representationalism (study of the relation between reality and representations) is the main concern of cognitive sciences in general.

In this series:
Language Acquisition - Part 1: General Discussion
Language Acquisition - Part 2: The Influence Of Physiological Formation
Language Acquisition - Part 3: Deep Structure Hypothesis
Language Acquisition - Part 4: Ambiguities
Language Acquisition - Part 5: The Problem Of Representation
Language Acquisition - Part 6: Linguistic Determinism Hypothesis
Language Acquisition - Part 7: Possible Applications For The Investigation

Language Acquisition - Part 4: Ambiguities

Lingual ambiguities have lead to numerous paradoxes; One of the more famous of these paradox is the Heap paradox that states: When one considers a heap of sand, from which grains are individually removed. Is it still a "heap" when only one grain remains?

A similar paradox arises if we ask this question: Imagine a tall man - say, 2.5 meters. If we take a millimeter of his height he'd still be a tall man; If we take another millimeter, he'd also still be tall... If we continue the process of taking one millimeter at a time, after which millimeter the man becomes no longer tall?!

The above two paradoxes emphasize the inconsistency of vague (unquantified) terms in our everyday language, such as "big", "a lot", "tall", "short", "medium" ...etc. We have generally accepted ranges of say, how tall is tall, but a lot of complexities still arise.

Other ambiguities also arise from incompatible definitions. For example, is Atheism a religion or anti-religion?! Does an atheist have a religion or lack one?! People can give different interpretations to the word religion. Personally, I would argue that Atheism is in fact a religion, consider:

According to Babylon: Religion: collection of beliefs concerning the origin of man and the universe.
According to dictionary.com: Religion: a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects.

Following the above definitions we can say that Atheism is a collection of (non-theistic) beliefs, and thus is a religion. Some might disagree.

Can we resolve all lingually ambiguous representations?! My personal conviction is: NOT REALLY!! - The reason for this conviction follows in Part 5.

In this series:
Language Acquisition - Part 1: General Discussion
Language Acquisition - Part 2: The Influence Of Physiological Formation
Language Acquisition - Part 3: Deep Structure Hypothesis
Language Acquisition - Part 4: Ambiguities
Language Acquisition - Part 5: The Problem Of Representation
Language Acquisition - Part 6: Linguistic Determinism Hypothesis
Language Acquisition - Part 7: Possible Applications For The Investigation

Emotional Rape: What Is It?

Emotional rape can be defined as: Emotional abuse characterized by patterned and purposeful behavior which purpose is to undermine and control the victim. It is an attack on the victim's personality rather than their body. The term "emotional rape" implies a horrific crime, and that is exactly what the victim is going through. In sexual rape, the term "without consent" refer to the victim having not agreed to sex. Emotional rape is the abuse of someone's higher emotions -love, self-respect- without consent. Experts agree that emotional rape is far more complex than verbal abuse. While the latter tends to be erratic and direct response to specific situations, emotional rape is, quite simply, a systematic destruction of someone's personality.

source: Cosmopolitan magazine - September 2001 (ZIP/JPG)

Awareness is the fist line of defense for many hazards. For this reason, it is important that people become more educated about issues of psychological and emotional abuse. There are several forms of psychological abuse, like: Brainwashing, emotional blackmailing, emotional exploitation, emotional rape, and sometimes even hurtful verbal insults. I bet that most people don't even know that there is something called "Emotional rape".

The reason that people don't recognize emotional rape is because it is not recognizable under civil laws. No-one has ever been sent to jail because they emotionally abused another! It makes sense, because emotional damage cannot be quantified, and no-one can be held responsible for another's psyche. For this reason, it is important to spot and deal with emotional offenders, because no civil law would help.

Emotional rape aims to undermine the victim's self-respect and self-image leaving that person vulnerable to abuse. The victim starts developing a sense of dependence on the abuser, and thus feels incapable of escaping the emotional abuse circle.

I will not go into further details about emotional rape; I recommend that you read the full article issued in Cosmopolitan magazine September 2001.

Brainwashing techniques are widely practiced in cults. Because of lack of awareness about brainwashing, we find that numerous people become victims to cultist organizations. Many other forms of psychological abuse exist and as mentioned above, I believe awareness is the best line of defense.

Devil's Mind The Blog Is Censored On JordanBlogs.Net

Censorship on JordanBlogs.Net has reached intolerable extents. This blog -Devil's Mind- has been suspended from that aggregator. This censorship act follows a series of questionable blog removals from JordanBlogs.Net including -but not limited to- Jordanian Issues which has been censored recently for expressing political views that are not "nice" to the Jordanian regime. Khadder, the maintainer of the blog Jordanian Issues has written a post objecting on that act of censorship.

Other fellow bloggers have also addressed this recurring issue of censorship, you can read some of them here and here.

Regarding the censorship of Devil's Mind Blog, this is the reply I got from JordanBlogs.Net maintainer:

Dear Blogger,

Please refer to our policy, your blog has been suspended till further notice for publishing porn materials.

Publishing porn?! What the fuck?! I think, he is referring to my latest entry on Valentine's Day. First of all, the entry itself contains no pornographic content. Secondly, the entry warns the reader of the explicit sexual content that follows some of the provided links.

But most importantly, this blog has always supported pornography, and will hopefully keep on supporting pornography in all of its legitimate forms. Censorship needs to be abandoned, because once we put limits on the freedom of speech, we become the pathetic nation that we already are!!

Finally, I recommend my readers to visit this blog directly without intermediate services or aggregators because only here you are assured to receive the content I publish as is - without censorship or filtering. Nonetheless, if you want to use aggregators, my blog is currently enlisted on Qwaider Planet (Thank you Qwaider, again!). Please note that Qwaider Planet also does have some policies that support censorship, although I have not noticed them being enforced.

Perfect Valentine's Gift

Disclaimer: Some links include sexually explicit content

Matchbox 20 in "Could I be you":

And I was wondering
Could I just be you tonight (Full lyrics)

On Valentine's Day boys and girls are looking for the perfect gift to give their loved ones. A perfect Valentine's gift should be able to demonstrate the love between the couple and increase their intimacy.

It is understood that many couples fantasize of walking in one another's shoes. Such experience would give intimacy its maximum boost. With that in mind, I have thought of the perfect Valentine's gift to get your loved one: A strap-on dildo.

On this special occasion, you can share with your loved one intimate moments where each one of you walks in the other's shoes - Swapping of souls you may say! For a unique life experience, girls and boys can swap their roles and see life in the eyes of the other person. If you are not sure how to use this unique tool, check this demonstration of the tool being used in action.

Language Acquisition - Part 3: Deep Structure Hypothesis

In Part 2, I asked: How closely related are the physiological and biological formation of a being with the language being used? Some hypothesis in Linguistics try to make a kind of "unified grammar" for all languages known to humankind. I will use such hypothesis to support my confirmative view that language is influenced by physiology.

All languages we learn are based on VERBS, NOUNS, ADJECTIVES, ADVERBS. All languages!! Isn't that a curious observation. So maybe this is just a coincidence?! Can you try making up your own language that defies that trend?! What could be a totally new way of language?! You might be surprised how tough answering the aforementioned question will be!

In the field of Linguistics, the deep structure hypothesis states that all human languages share what is called a "deep structure". It is also stated that human languages only differ in what is called the "surface structure". So somehow, there can be a systematic match-and-replace procedure to translate one language to another. Google Translator provides one such automated translation service.

To illustrate this idea, I have provided an example. Check the picture below:

Notice that once we establish the relative positions of the lexemes (lexeme: basic construct of a language) of any language, we can replace every word with its dictionary translation to provide a whole translation. Say, in the example given below, we replace the verb "eaten" with "thrown". All we need to do is replace the verb with its equivalent verb in other languages to produce a translation.

This striking resemblance between all human languages raises my doubt whether or not, this "deep structure" is actually engraved in our biology and physiology. Could a human mind innovate a totally different method for language construction?! Could we create a language that needs some more elaborate form of processing than match-and-replace?! And the most challenging question is: Could we create a language that is impossible to translate into any of today's known human languages?! - A language that defies the rules of the "deep structure".... If not, does that mean that the "deep structure" is the only way a language can be?!

For this reason, if a professional happens to find an old scripture belonging to an ancient civilization, they naturally start by matching the language lexemes. Its almost the only way we know languages to be. The question that comes to my head, if we happen to come by a scripture made by some aliens (roughly, beings with different biological build than earthlings) would our methods of language analysis still be able to make sense of that scripture found?! Lets face it, scientists have difficulties analyzing animal language - those animals that are anatomically very similar to us. It would be a disaster to meet up with anatomically different beings!

In this series:
Language Acquisition - Part 1: General Discussion
Language Acquisition - Part 2: The Influence Of Physiological Formation
Language Acquisition - Part 3: Deep Structure Hypothesis
Language Acquisition - Part 4: Ambiguities
Language Acquisition - Part 5: The Problem Of Representation
Language Acquisition - Part 6: Linguistic Determinism Hypothesis
Language Acquisition - Part 7: Possible Applications For The Investigation

Pretending

Linkin Park in "My December":

And I give it all away
Just to have somewhere
To go to
Give it all away
To have someone
To come home to

This is my December
These are my snow-covered trees
This is me pretending
This is all I need

And I
Just wish that
I didn't feel
Like there was
Something I missed (Full lyrics)

I Think Therefore I Exist, Or Do I?

One of the famous quotes in history is the "I think therefore I am" statement by Descartes. But is this statement true?! I think not! At least not objectively. In subjective theories, that assumes cognition at some point, this statement might be justified within that context.

I think therefore I exist, is a complex statement that can be reduced to three simpler statements:

1. If it thinks then it exists
   
2. I think
   
3. I exist

This statement is in the logical deductive reasoning form:

1. p => q
   
2. p
   
3. q

Here we have two premises (1) and (2), and one conclusion (3). In order to verify the claims of Descartes we have to inquire the validity of its premises. In this post, I will not discuss the first premise, but the second one.

Do Humans have the ability to think?! Some might argue positively... Descartes apparently supports this view. I disagree. Humans cannot think.

To think is to be creative. To think is to be free. Humans are neither creative nor free! We might think we are creative and free - This is the illusion that eluded even the most reputable philosophers. This view is influenced by my pessimistic incompatibilism views.

So how do we explain those illusions?! What most humans fail to see is that our consciousness is merely an advanced form of Artificial Intelligence. Actually, its more like Naturally-Implied Intelligence, but my point is, we are no better than an intelligent machine. If we consider things more deeply, we find that an intelligent machine is not much different from a non-intelligent one. So we're no better than any machine if we consider things at the low level. I already discussed this perspective before. Our survival depends on being self-protective. This recognition of self is the source of our illusion to think and existence. We would not protect what does not exist. If we acknowledge our inexistence, then our survival will be endangered. Nature has its own ways of Natural Selection and survival of the fittest... Its ironical that an illusion is what gives us our strength, but well.. Thats how things work!

So far, I have considered "thinking" in a very strict notion. A notion that requires creativity and freewill. To ease things up, one can consider a less strict concept of thinking. Such model would be even more tolerant, that it might even include machines as being able to think. Personally, I got no problem with this view. If a machine was so sophisticated in a way that is comparable to humans, I guess we have to acknowledge it as a being of worthy existence. If we adopt this view, maybe few years later, we will see "Machine Rights" activists!! Seriously!

Back to the fist premise... Does ability to think imply existence?! I will leave this question open for the time being...

Is God Just? - A Christian Universalist View

Universalism is the belief that all humans will be saved. That no human will suffer for eternity, because God -the creator- loves us and will save us. Christian Universalism is a belief that encompasses both Christianity and Universalism. Christian Universalism states that God is all-loving, that Jesus is the son of God, that Jesus is a spiritual leader, and finally that all humans will be saved by the greatest sacrifice in history: The crucifixion of Jesus.

According to Christian Universalism, Jesus has a deeper understanding of the nature of God. Some interpretations of the New Testament reveal that Jesus, through his understanding of God, revealed to humans that God is not Just, but rather Generous. Generosity and Justice are contradicting terms. Justice is to give each exactly what he deserves. Generosity is to give each more than he deserves. Some argue that Jesus through his teachings revealed a generous God rather than a just one.

To inquire the validity of those blatant interpretations, those Christian Universalists provide biblical stories from the New Testament.

One such story is the parable of the "prodigal son" (Luke 15:11-32). A man had two sons. The younger asked his father to divide his father's fortune between the two of them. The man divided his fortune between his two sons. The elder son stayed with his father, helped his father, and was very obedient. On the other hand, the younger son took the fortune and moved out of his father's mansion and started spending the money on luxury. The day came when that youngster lost all his money and was in dire need. He thought to himself that he'd better get back to his father's mansion. He thought that working as a servant at his father's mansion was better than how he is living now. The youngster headed back home, and when his father saw him from a distance, he ordered his servants to make a feast. The father joyfully welcomed his returning son and asked him to join the feast to celebrate the return of his son. The elder son was confused, he asked his father: "I have been always by your side. I have been always your obedient son. You never made a feast in my honor.". The father answered: "You have been always with me, and all I have is you. But your brother was dead and now alive, he was lost and now found."

The injustice in the parable of the "prodigal son" is evident. The elder son was surprised by the obvious injustice, and reported to his father. The father in that story is being generous to his youngster. He didn't deserve his father's compassion, but the father gave it anyways. So if Jesus wanted to teach humans something by that parable, it would be that God is generous, not just.

I believe Jesus had a greater understanding of God than perhaps any other man. In turning to his parables, I believe that Jesus teaches us that God is not just. In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20: 1-16) the landowner (God) is not just, he is generous. In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) the elder brother is quick to point out the injustice of his younger brother’s being welcomed back home. But the father’s love and compassion for both his sons outweighs any concerns for justice. When the woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus (John 8:1-11) he came to her defense, even though the just law of Moses would have had her stoned. And as Jesus hung on the cross, he did not call down justice upon his persecutors, but forgiveness (Luke 23: 34).

Justice would have us say, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But Jesus said, “Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” (Matthew 5: 39) Justice would have us do to others as they have done to us. But Jesus said, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) He also said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven: for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5: 44-45) Justice must have its roots in judgment. But Jesus said, “Do not Judge.” (Matthew 7: 1) All this indicates to me a God of love and mercy; not justice. (source)

PS: Inspired by this article [recommended-read]
PS: For biblical references, download the New Testament (PDF)

Seeing Is Believing?!

So seeing is believing?! You judge for yourself....

The Nature Of Resonance

In conclusion of my paper on resonance, I find that resonance is the natural effect of the natural delay time of any system. Every system responds to the frequencies that are close enough (rather than equal) to its natural frequency. The question that arises, how close is "enough"?!

Really?! How close is "enough"?! The answer to this question depends on the sensitivity of the system, and its natural delay time. This issue is discussed in more details in my paper.

As a simple practical example, suppose that the electricity was disconnected at your house for one tenth of a second (0.1 sec). Two electrical components were running at that time. The first component is the computer. The second component is a small motor, like the refrigerator. We can observe that the computer will respond to the disconnection and restart. The motor will not respond to the disconnection and will continue its operation uninterrupted. We can say that, the computer is more “sensitive” with a short natural delay time.

PS: Download the paper: PDF DOC
PS: Download supportive Matlab code here
PS: The scientific validity of the claims is NOT asserted

Values In The Continuous Spectrum

It is understood in the field of mathematics that values in the continuous spectrum CANNOT be proved to be equal. In other words, five is NOT NECESSARILY equal to five!

Some people might ask: If no two values can be proved to be equal, how does mathematics handle values?! It's a good question... And the answer is simple: Thats why calculus was formed!! Mathematics is based on limit theorems. We can say that five sometimes equals five, yet five never equals six!! I say that five sometimes equals five, because this might not be true all the time!!

I have provided a FORMAL MATHEMATICAL PROOF of these claims. I have published the proof in PDF format (140 KB) and MS WORD format (56 KB).

I urge you to print the proof, and double check the validity of every statement and transformation. I have taken like three hours of my time to write this proof, in order to check and re-check every statement I put... Yet it is important to have peer reviews!!

I also urge you to look at the proof to learn the good way to prove a point... Always start with 1- definition of notations, then 2- definition of terms, followed by 3- axioms and assumptions. The three mentioned parts are crucial to a good proof! Finally, always follow logical inferencing, and then all should be good.

Now, apart from formalities, allow me to explain the claims informally:
First consider the value of ZERO/ZERO. It is well-known that the answer is ANY VALUE!! Some people think that the answer is "no value", but thats mathematically wrong statement!

Now, ZERO/ZERO is any value. Is One a value?! Yes, it is. Is Two a value?! Yes, it is. But we all know that any two equal values when divided the result is One... Right?! Well, in one case ZERO/ZERO in fact gave the value of One. But also, in a second case ZERO/ZERO had the value 2... Obviously this means that ZERO is not equal to ZERO in that case. Combine the above two phenomenas, we find that ZERO is sometimes equal to ZERO, and sometimes not so!!

Since we showed that ZERO is NOT NECESSARILY equal to ZERO, we can generalize this result to all values by adding assumed equal values to both sides of [0!=0]...

Another argument goes like this: ZERO*INFINITY is any value (just like ZERO/ZERO). We can think of multiplication as a magnification operator. Even the ZERO when magnified "enough" can be shown to deviate from ZERO!!! This also demonstrates the above claims about the continuous spectrum.

PS: For additional insight, read the "physical justification" in my comment here
PS: Download the formal mathematical proof: PDF DOC

Einstein And God

God does not play dice.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

Morality is of the highest importance - but for us, not for God.

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.

Albert Einstein (source)

Amen to all of that!

A Mathematical Challenge: Integrating A Sinusoidal Signal

Introduction:
For the past two days my head has been processing at maximum load!! Thanks goes to an anonymous poster. Mr. Anonymous has brought my attention to an older post, titled "Inconsistent Circuits Formula". His comments triggered my thoughts, and as some do notice, our thoughts aren't clear all the time. At the time I posted my old entry, I had a limited vision - Today, I come with new understanding: An understanding of the nature of the phenomena of resonance.

I will not post my newly-reached understanding in this post. I have a clear vision of the phenomena of resonance, but I want to support it with some mathematical justification, and more importantly, numerical analysis data. The results should be ready within two weeks depending on my free time - No promises though! You can read the results here.

Mr. Anonymous has argued about my bold statement "We cannot prove two physical (even mathematical) quantities to be equal". This post should indirectly justify my position. I am still considering to post a more direct argument can be found here. Just keep in mind, my position is strictly regarding inclusion of equalities for continuous quantity spectrum.

Finally, this mathematical challenge question was tailored by me in order to clarify a point I want to make, so try to solve it, and tell me your results.

The Mathematical Challenge:

The Final Answer:
ZERO (assuming that no noise exists in the signal)
ANY VALUE is the general solution
[+] Show\Hide

Explained Answer:
The interval [0, 2*PI/a] represents one period of the sinusoidal signal cos(ax). When integrating a sinusoidal signal over one period the answer is ZERO. In short, the answer is ZERO regardless of the value of a.

A source of confusion might arise due to the use of the value ZERO for 'a'. The easiest approach is to devise an answer which is independent of 'a', as has been explained above. Note that the sinusoidal signal has a constant value of ONE over the finite region. The interval of the integration extends to ( 2*PI/a ), which also extends to the infinity. For this reason, the transformation of cos(ax) to ONE is NOT valid, because the sinusoidal signal is equal to 1 ONLY in the finite region, but the integration extends to the infinite region which implies that this transformation leads to incorrect results.

This solution applies only if we consider that there is NO NOISE in the sinusoidal signal. If we consider the possibility of existence of noise, then the integration will take the value of the integral of noise over the whole interval.
[+] Show\Hide

Update 1: The answer to the challenge has been posted.
Update 2: The paper about resonance has been posted here.

Life In The Eyes Of Douglas Adams

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." (source)

"Man [has] always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much-the wheel, New York, wars and so on-while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man-for precisely the same reason." (source)

"In the beginning, the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad idea." (source)

Douglas Adams

That guy really has a point!!

What Constitutes Prostitution?

Most people would roughly define prostitution as "selling the body". It is generally viewed as objectionable to make a sex-for-money kind of deal. The question that arises, why can't that deal be view as any other deal. The thing is: If we consider "selling our body" to be ethically wrong, then ALL work is ethically wrong.

As some might notice, we lend our bodies everyday in way that are viewed as "acceptable". Working in general implies that we use our body functions to produce a service or a product in exchange for money or an equivalent service or product. Consider a construction worker, he is using his physical strength and muscles to serve a building. A receptionist is using their physical existence to serve customers. A dentist uses his hands to fix teeth, and an engineer uses his mind and hands to come up with designs. So whats different when a person uses his physical form and genitalia to please?! It is not intrinsically different than commodifying any other part that an employer might make use of.

If we consider a more basic view, (considering Hedonism) we find that "pleasure" is the only service of real value. At the end of the day, every product sold or service offered is finally converted into a comfort commodity. Money is of no value at all if it cannot be converted into pleasurable items. So we can say, prostitution provides a service of usable value, something that will not undergo further transformations. A property that doesn't apply to many services offered on the market!

If we look at things from a more abstract level, we can see that many sex-for-a-service instances occur without being deemed objectionable. What about sex-for-love? Why is sex-for-love generally viewed as less problematic? Why is it that two "love-birds" making out viewed less objectionable than making out for the money?!

Don't you think "monogamy" is a kind of prostitution?! Isn't preserving the genitalia for "one true love" a type of accommodating one's body?! Some people suggest that prostitution makes people see others as commodities, doesn't monogamy imply that consequence?!

What about a wife that refuses to have sex with her husband because, say, he has been neglecting her. Isn't that a kind of prostitution? Doesn't that kind of behavior imply a sex-for-attention kind of deal?!

At the end of the day, prostitution is one of the oldest professions known to mankind; If we consider respect for the elders, then prostitution deserves just that!!

PS: Partly inspired by this entry
PS: Check this funny cartoon loosely related to the topic [Thanks No Angel]

A New Year - Just Like The One Before It

(source)

Its now 2007, wishing all a happy 2007! A year hopefully better than expectation!