Wikimedia Fundraising C.O.R.E.


  • Considered Harmful

    Under "Breakdown by currency," it says they have received 0.00 in currency type "The," which is worth $48.35 in USD.

    The The is apparently worth an infinite amount.  It's the most valuable currency in existence.  We should all switch over to using Thes for all our transactions.  For anyone who is interested, I will gladly convert your US Dollars to 0.00 Thes, free of charge.


  • Considered Harmful

    The The is worth even more than the Hou.  Or the same.  I can't remember, does nullary == nullary?



  • Or maybe it means the opposite.

     
    US currency has lost all value! 

     But then that would mean all currency accross the globe has lost all value!

     

    I don't know how I'm going to scrounge up the 2 chickens and a hog for my internet connection.
     



  • There is no value == to nullary. Not even nullary. So nullary != nullary. If you really need to check this, though, nullary === nullary.



  • Also, USD is the only one without a thousands delimiter... scratches head... hmm...



  • The -- isn't that the operating system Edsger Dijkstra invented at the Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven?

     



  • It's not worth an infinite amount, it's worth three nullities.



  • [quote user="CDarklock"]

    There is no value == to nullary. Not even
    nullary. So nullary != nullary. If you really need to check this,
    though, nullary === nullary.

    [/quote]

      You've not
    only spelt it wrong (well, actually you've spelt a completely different
    word correctly), but you've missed the entire point of it in the
    act.  Sorry to be so straitlaced, but your joke is b0rken!

      
    Assuming you're talking about 'nullity', the recently-invented batshit
    idea for how to divide by zero made up by an incompetent self-publicist
    professor in England, the one and only thing that the concept has that
    makes it any different from NaN is that it DOES equal itself!  The
    idiot insists that it IS a number, that it does have a value of some
    kind (even though it cannot be expressed in any cardinal
    place-numbering system), and that that value can be compared to itself
    and other values.

       Of course, there's a real good reason why NaN is defined as not equal to NaN, and that's because without defining it that way the nullity madness infects your entire system of mathematics and suddenly you have to invent all these ad-hoc rules that say things like, "Well, even though nullity is equal to nullity, if you subtract them from each other you don't get zero".  What kind of 'equal' this is where two things which are equal nonetheless have a very great *difference* between them, I don't know.

      (This is why saying that two NaNs don't compare equal makes perfect sense, because they are Not Numbers, and hence we have no way of saying what equality would mean for them, nor even whether they are the same kind of thing at all - we know what they are not, but that doesn't tell us what they are, or that whatever they both are is commensurable.)

      Once you've gone through the whole of mathematics, and invented a new meaning for the word 'equal' that sometimes means equal and sometimes means 'equal or different', and a new kind of subtracting that sometimes tells you the difference between things, and sometimes doesn't, and new meanings for all the existing words along with new special cases for all the existing arithmetic rules, what you actually end up with is something that actually is a qNaN in all but name.

      Of course, you don't get to be on TV or to publish a book or attempt to claim that you're some kind of fricken' genius if you use the existing names for standard concepts.  As every kook knows, it's so much easier to communicate if you make up your own personal private word salad schizophrenic gibberish rather than use the same language as everyone else!

     



  • [quote user="joe.edwards@imaginuity.com"]

    Under "Breakdown by currency," it says they have received 0.00 in currency type "The," which is worth $48.35 in USD.

    [/quote]

     
    I don't see any problem with that THE 0 == USD 48, I simply hand all my 0 THE coins/bills/clam shells over the register and receive ~$50 for each of those. The real problem is figuring out what THE 1 equals in USD.

     Perhaps is as simple as that the Theorians' currency is zeroth-based, then THE 1 ~= USD 96.70.
     



  • [quote user="DaveK"][quote user="CDarklock"]

    There is no value == to nullary. Not even
    nullary. So nullary != nullary. If you really need to check this,
    though, nullary === nullary.

    [/quote]

      (This is why
    saying that two NaNs don't compare equal makes perfect sense, because
    they are Not Numbers, and hence we have no way of saying what equality
    would mean for them, nor even whether they are the same kind of thing
    at all - we know what they are not, but that doesn't tell us what they
    are, or that whatever they both are is commensurable.)

    [/quote]

    Mathematics doesn't actually have the concept of "not a number" like engineering does, because in pure math everything is legitimate and workable, if not always in a straightforward way, as long as such things can be theorized around. Currently accepted terms include "hyperreals" "superreals" and "surreal numbers" for numbers outside the normal useful range (mathematicians can be geeks about their terms), and of course limits themselves, among many other constructs computers have no particular use for.

    I agree the guy's either deluded or in dire need of funding. To claim that the whole field of mathematics has been held back for centuries because no one had the vision to come up with a way of dealing with divisions by zero, is an insult to tens of thousands of brilliant people who have just never seen something so simple as an obstacle (and occasional heated debates over what it really means), and misleading to students who may now never discover why math treats such things in an odd way instead of using pat answers.



  • @foxyshadis said:

    @DaveK said:
    @CDarklock said:

    There is no value == to nullary. Not even
    nullary. So nullary != nullary. If you really need to check this,
    though, nullary === nullary.

      (This is why
    saying that two NaNs don't compare equal makes perfect sense, because
    they are Not Numbers, and hence we have no way of saying what equality
    would mean for them, nor even whether they are the same kind of thing
    at all - we know what they are not, but that doesn't tell us what they
    are, or that whatever they both are is commensurable.)

    Mathematics
    doesn't actually have the concept of "not a number" like engineering
    does, because in pure math everything is legitimate and workable, if
    not always in a straightforward way,

     Actually, it
    does have such a concept, although it is only used in very advanced and
    fairly far-out areas of abstract number theory, but look up "Bottom
    Type" on wikipedia/google.

    @foxyshadis said:

    I agree the guy's either deluded or in dire need of funding.

      ... Or in dire need of medication!

    @foxyshadis said:

    To claim that the whole field of mathematics has been held back for centuries because no one had the vision to come up with a way of dealing with divisions by zero, is an insult to tens of thousands of brilliant people who have just never seen something so simple as an obstacle (and occasional heated debates over what it really means), and misleading to students who may now never discover why math treats such things in an odd way instead of using pat answers.

      It's bog-standard obsessive/delusional kook behaviour.  Get a firm hold of the wrong end of a stick, discover a non-sequitur,  proclaim yourself a genius, get so over-excited by the idea of your own brilliance that you overlook the holes in your reasoning, when people point them out claim it's a conspiracy by the establishment wanting to suppress your obviously brilliant new idea, claim your idea is too advanced for anyone but you to understand, etc. etc etc....  

      Remember, they laughed at Einstein.  They laughed at Galileo.  And they laughed at Christopher Columbus.

      But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

     ;-)



  •  

     

    Currency

    Donation Equivalent in USD

    USD

    1,214,748.79 1,179,082.79

    Boy, inflation's a bitch!



  • Damn. Beaten to it. But yes, while one WTF has gone (the spurious currencies are now absent), another has appeared in its place, like the Hydra.

    And there is yet another: Compare the amounts on these two pages:

    http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/en/fundcore/browse

     http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/

    Yup, the 'live contributions' that is prominently displayed at the top of wikipedia also is reporting less than CORE does. Substantially so. An attempt to have Wikipedia visitors give more because they think less has been given perhaps? 



  • There's also the delightful donation given later this year...

     http://fundraising.wikimedia.org/en/fundcore/browse/2007/12/27
     


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