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It is well known that intuitive set theory (or naive set theory) is characterized by having paradoxes, e.g. Russell's paradox, Cantor's paradox, etc. To avoid these and any other discovered or undiscovered potential paradoxes, the ZFC axioms impose constraints on the existense of a set. But ZFC set theory is build on mathematical logic, i.e., first-order language. For example, the axiom of extensionality is the wff $\forall A B(\forall x(x\in A\leftrightarrow x\in B)\rightarrow A=B)$. But mathematical logic also uses the concept of sets, e.g. the set of alphabet, the set of variables, the set of formulas, the set of terms, as well as functions and relations that are in essence sets. However, I found these sets are used freely without worrying about the existence or paradoxes that occur in intuitive set theory. That is to say, mathematical logic is using intuitive set theory. So, is there any paradox in mathematical logic? If no, why not? and by what reasoning can we exclude this possibility? This reasoning should not be ZFC (or any other analogue) and should lie beyond current mathematical logic because otherwise, ZFC depends on mathematical logic while mathematical logic depends on ZFC, constituting a circle reasoning. If yes, what we should do? since we cannot tolerate paradoxes in the intuitive set theory, neither should we tolerate paradoxes in mathematical logic, which is considered as the very foundation of the whole mathematics. Of course we have the third answer: We do not know yes or no, until one day a genius found a paradox in the intuitive set theory used at will in mathematical logic and then the entire edifice of math collapse. This problem puzzled me for a long time, and I will appreciate any answer that can dissipate my apprehension, Thanks!
I have been asked this question several times in my logic or set theory classes. The conclusion that I have arrived at is that you need to assume that we know how to deal with finite strings over a finite alphabet. This is enough to code the countably many variables we usually use in first order logic (and finitely or countably many constant, relation, and function symbols).
So basically you have to assume that you can write down things. You have to start somewhere, and this is, I guess, a starting point that most mathematicians would be happy with. Do you fear any contradictions showing up when manipulating finite strings over a finite alphabet?
What mathematical logic does is analyzing the concept of proof using mathematical methods. So, we have some intuitive understanding of how to do maths, and then we develop mathematical logic and return and consider what we are actually doing when doing mathematics. This is the hermeneutic circle that we have to go through since we cannot build something from nothing.
We strongly believe that if there were any serious problems with the foundations of mathematics (more substantial than just assuming a too strong collection of axioms), the problems would show up in the logical analysis of mathematics described above.
The short answer is that there is no way to be absolutely certain that mathematics is free from contradiction.
To start with an extreme case, we all take for granted a certain amount of stability in our conscious experience. Take the equation $7\times 8 = 56$. I believe that I know what this means, and that if I choose to ponder it for a while, my mind will not somehow find a way to conclude firmly that $7\times 8 \ne 56$. This may sound silly, but it is not a totally trivial assumption, because I've had dreams in which I have found myself unable to count a small number of objects and come up with a consistent answer. Is there any way to rule out definitively the possibility that the world will somehow reach a consensus that $7\times 8 = 56$ and $7\times 8 \ne 56$ simultaneously? I would say no. We take some things for granted and there's no way to rule out the possibility that those assumptions are fundamentally flawed.
Suppose we grant that, and back off to a slightly less extreme case. Say we accept finitary mathematical reasoning without question. People might disagree about the precise definition of "finitary," but a commonly accepted standard is primitive recursive arithmetic (PRA). In PRA, we accept certain kinds of elementary reasoning about integers. (If you're suspicious about integers, then you can replace PRA with some kind of system for reasoning about symbols and strings, e.g., Quine's system of "protosyntax"; it comes to more or less the same thing.) Now we can rephrase your question as follows: can we prove, on the basis of PRA, that ZFC is consistent?
This, in essence, was Hilbert's program. If we could prove by finitary means that all that complicated reasoning about infinite sets would never lead to a contradiction, then we could use such infinitary reasoning "safely." Sounds like what you're asking for, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, Goedel's theorems showed that Hilbert's program cannot be carried out in its envisaged form. Even if we allow not just PRA, but all of ZFC, we still cannot prove that ZFC is consistent. Thus it's not just that we've all been too stupid so far to figure out how to show that ZFC doesn't lead to contradictions. There is an intrinsic obstacle here that is insurmountable.
So your scenario that someone may one day find a contradiction in ZFC cannot be ruled out, even if we take "ordinary mathematical reasoning" for granted. This is not as bad as it might seem, however. ZFC is not the only possible system on which mathematics can be based. There are many other systems of weaker logical strength. If a contradiction were found in ZFC, we would just scale back to some weaker system. For more discussion of this point, see this MO question.
Yes, in set theory whose logic is based upon naive set theory there is Berry's paradox.
Consider the expression:
"The smallest positive integer not definable in under eleven words".
Suppose it defines a positive integer $n$. Then $n$ has been defined by the ten words between the quotation marks. But by its definition, $n$ is not definable in under eleven words. This is a contradiction.
A version of Berry's paradox is called Richard's paradox. I don't see an essential difference between the two paradoxes (except that Richard's paradox was brought out by Poincaré, who was concerned with impredicative definitions and Berry's paradox by Russell, who was concerned with types). But the two Wikipedia articles offer very different explanations.
The explanation of Berry's paradox is essentially by type theory (even though it's not named); and the more specific explanation given by recursion theory also seems to fit in the framework of constructive type theory.
Richard's paradox is resolved in the framework of ZFC (and more importantly, of first-order logic). Roughly, the resolution is that not all of what makes sense in set theory whose logic is based on naive set theory should make sense in ZFC; hence in some sense the paradox is only truly resolved in "the metatheory used to formalize ZFC". I don't know any textbook on such a meta-ZFC, which makes me feel uncomfortable about this resolution; but so did Poincaré and Russell, as I understand from their writings.
For this particular purpose I think a second-order ZFC would work just as well as a "meta-ZFC". But then a higher version of the same paradox would only be truly explained by a third-order ZFC, etc. But then again I don't know any textbook on third-order ZFC. Luckily, there are quite a few textbooks on higher-order logic/type theory, and as I understand there are no problems of this kind (Richard/Berry-type paradoxes) in a modern type theory, because it serves as its own logic in essence.
On the other hand, a type theory is said to still require a meta-theory. Does it mean that there must be deeper paradoxes that would not be resolved by type theory?
Added later. I'm a bit amused by this thread, which keeps growing with "orthodox" answers and with their lively discussion in the comments, whereas the "heretical" answer you're reading now has not been challenged (nor even downvoted) as yet.
Perhaps I should summarize my points so that it's easier to object if anybody cares.
1) The OP's question might be a bit informal or vague, but it does make sense as Berry and Richard paradoxes unambiguously demonstrate. One may hold different views of these paradoxes and their resolution, but one possible view (which I believe I picked from Poincare's writings) is that they are indeed caused by the factual mutual dependence between set theory and logic referred to in the OP. ("Set theory" and "logic" meant in colloquial sense here, not referring to a specific formalization.) You cannot just ignore these paradoxes, can you?
2) Type theories may have a lot of disadvantages compared to ZFC with first order logic (including the lack of a canonical formulation and of an equivalent of Bourbaki) but they do break the circularity between set theory and logic and thus do adequately resolve the paradoxes. ZFC is perfectly able to defend itself against these paradoxes but it does not attempt to explain them; for that it sends you to the meta-level, which then ends up with informal speculations about computers and one's experience with finite strings of symbols. (There are of course issues with such speculations, including: exactly which strings are finite, halting problems for idealized computers and finite memory of physical computers, not to mention potential finiteness of information in the physical universe and one's proof-checking software potentially involving higher-order logic already.) So in this case I see type theory as providing a mathematical solution, and ZFC, at best, a metaphysical one.
3) What I don't understand is whether there might exist a kind of type theory that would not need any metatheory (i.e. would serve as its own metatheory). Perhaps someone saying "You cannot get anything out of nothing" or "You cannot have any theory without metatheory" or "we must start somewhere" or "You have to start somewhere" could as well explain why it is impossible? If indeed it is impossible, can this impossibility be witnessed by a specific paradox to completely clarify matters?
There are a few problems you seem to be having. First of all, the statement "mathematical logic depends on ZFC" doesn't make sense.
As mathematical logicians, when we study formal systems, we should imagine placing that formal system in a box. The box is full of formulas and deductions in the object language. For example, ZFC is a first-order theory with one binary predicate symbol and a bunch of axioms. It holds a privileged position since we tend to think of it as 'the' formal set theory, but there's no reason we couldn't instead use MK or NF or other set theories for the same purposes.
Mathematical logic is the act of studying formal systems using mathematical (not necessarily formal) methods, and ZFC is just one particular formal system. The important point is that mathematical logic is not a formal system, and although the statement "ZFC is consistent" is well formed, the statement "mathematical logic is consistent" is not. To claim a theory is inconsistent is to claim that there is a formal proof of false in some formal system. Russel's paradox, for example, can be cast as a formal proof of false in ZFC with unrestricted comprehension.
Without the context of first-order logic, and the collections of variables and symbols that are required to write down formulas and formal proofs, the statement "_ is (in)consistent" is not meangingful. The blank must be filled in with a first-order theory, or more generally, some formal system with a notion of formal proof. You can ask 'are we justified in forming and manipulating these collections?' But that's an informal question. As other users have pointed out, it has very good informal answers, for example, the fact that computers work gives us confidence that we shouldn't worry about doing arithmetic and manipulating strings informally.
In order to answer the question 'is the informal set theory we used to formulate first order logic consistent' either affirmitively or negatively, we must define the notion of consistency, and in doing so use the informal set theory in question. The point, again, is that consistency is only defined in the context of first order logic, where we take these collections as primitive and define consistency from there. In the same way we cannot speak of a simple group ouside the context of groups, we cannot speak about formal consistency outside the context of formal theories.
In short: One cannot provide a formal proof of anything without first defining formal proof! Hence, we must start somewhere and take the collections of symbols in first order logic as primitive, or convince ourselves informally that we are justified in forming such collections.
You cannot get anything out of nothing :-) But do not worry.
Mathematics existed long before ZFC was formulated, and well before "formal reasoning" rose to a kind of religion. Mathematically, there is nothing more formal in a "formal reasoning" than in any other "logically justified" (i.e. commonly accepted) reasoning. The true reason of encoding math in a single theory is to gather all doubts in a single place, earn confidence that our new theory is consistent (as long as the foundations are consistent), and help communicating with other mathematicians.
Moving back to your question. Let me distinguish between four cases – according to your terminology - a theory can be:
So, as you may see, being formal cannot make a theory consistent/inconsistent, but can provide additional arguments for/against the theory – simply – correctness is invariant under changes of formality. For most situations the picture of formality looks like follows:
If we would like to investigate foundations themselves than we could extend the picture by introducing one (or more) additional level:
This is an answer to another question that unfortunately has been closed just before I could post it and that essentially revolves around the same, or very similar, points as the question of the above OP.
Even if, from the point of view of a logician (which I'm not), the question is elementary, I think it's worth trying to give an answer, so to clarify things (also to myself) and settle some doubts that many non-logicians like me often have about the foundations model theory and logic.
Forget for a moment about $ZFC$. When investigating any (let's say first order) formal theory (such as Peano Arithmetic $PA$, or Algebraically Closed Fields $ACF$) logicians tacitly assume to work within the framework of a metatheory $T$, which must be some kind of "set theory" (where the term is intended loosely, possibly including certain systems of second order arithmetic like $ACA_0$ or of category theory like $ETCS$ or of class theory like $NBG$, according to personal taste) otherwise they wouldn't be able to talk (in principle with rigour, i.e. formally) of all the classical syntactic concepts, such as: languages, signatures, sets of formulas, finite strings of symbols and concatenation thereof; but also of all the classical semantic concepts, like structures, interpretations, models, isomorphisms. Or at least they wouldn't be able to codify -in principle- all the above concepts in the metatheory. The metatheory $T$ is hence momentarily assumed to embody "ontological" concepts, i.e. to formalize the concept of the "real universe of sets" (as opposed to specific concepts of sets arising from theories that are under scrutiny within $T$).
As far as I understand, logicians (even if they usually don't like to explicitely spell out the metatheory they're tacitly using) are perfectly content in assuming the metatheory is the standard set theory $ZFC$ (after all, Logic is a part of Mathematics like any other).
Anyway, I presume much less is needed to "formalize Logic"; for example I think $ZF$ would be enough, or weaker theories such as $ACA_0$ would be ok, and I think (but some professional logician should say if my guess is correct) essentially nothing would be changed in Logic in switching from one suitable metatheory to another: that's why they usually don't bother themselves specifying the metatheory.
How does this formalization work, roughly? Let's consider for example the first order formal theory of groups (call it $GT$). It must be dealt with inside a metatheory (which is a "set theory") which we call $T$. So here we have sentences of $T$ talking about the "objects" $T$ is apt talking about (it could be sets, or sets of natural numbers...), and we have some way to codify the syntactic and the semantic concepts of Logic within $T$: for example some sentences of $T$ will talk about some particular sets that we (informally) interpret as being strings of symbols of $GT$, others as being elements of the language of $GT$, and so on. Of course there will also be sentences of $T$ talking about sets that are structures for the signature of $GT$ (that is, magmas equipped with an arbitrary element $1$ that need not be a unit, and maybe with an arbitrary unary function $x\mapsto (x)^{-1}$ which need not be the inverse), and sets that are models of $GT$ (that is, plain groups).
Now let's come back to $ZFC$. As in the case of $GT$, we must deal with the first order formal theory $ZFC$ within a metatheory ("set theory") $T$. Your question is: what about if $T$ is Zermelo Frenkel set theory with Choice?
For the syntactic aspect, nothing special happens.
You have sentences of $T$ talking about sets that we take to codify various syntactic notions of $ZFC$. Example: a certain sentence of $T$ will define a unique "set" (in the sense of "object of which $T$ is apt talking about" - in this case it means "set in the sense of Zermelo Frenkel set theory with Choice") which stands for the following finite concatenation of symbols in the language of $ZFC$:
$$\forall\forall\in\in\in\to\in x \in ((y(())\in\in = = \in, $$
others will be more meaningful, e.g. displaying an axiom, a theorem (or a conjecture) of $ZFC$.
For the semantic aspect, indeed, there are some subtleties.
In the case of $GT$ we consider models which are sets of $T$ equipped with some structure: $(G,\mu,\iota,1)$. Note that, in the language of $GT$, variables stand for (i.e. are interpreted as) elements of a group, and (the support of) a model is the set of all such elements. If we were asked to prove the existence of models of $GT$, we would have no problem: we would simply exhibit any group, for example $(\mathbb{Z}/ 2 \mathbb{Z},+,-,0)$ (or even the trivial group, for what it matters!).
In the case of $ZFC$, what would be a model? A model $(X,E)$, properly, would be a set $X$ of $T$ equipped with a relation $E \subseteq X \times X$ satisfying the axioms of $ZFC$ when we interpret (via $T$) the relation symbol "$\in$" of $ZFC$ as meaning $E$. Note that variables, in the language of $ZFC$, stand for sets, and the support $X$ of the model must be interpreted as the collection of all such elements, that is $X$ has to be interpreted as the class of all sets.
So far, nothing problematic: set theorists consider models (in the framework of Zermelo Frankel set theory with Choice) of $ZFC$ all the time. For example, if $\xi$ is an inaccessible cardinal, then $(V_{\xi},\in)$ will be a model of $ZFC$ (where $V_{\xi}$ is the slice of the cumulative hierarchy defined by $\xi$).
What about proving the existence of models of $ZFC$? This is the subtlety: when we take $T$ to be Zermelo Frenkel set theory with Choice, we cannot prove in $T$ that $ZFC$ has models, because otherwise we would contradict Goedel's second incompleteness theorem! For example, we don't know, on the grounds of $T$ alone, whether there exists an inaccessible cardinal. So, seen from the point of view of the metatheory $T$, the whole "ontologic" problem of existence of models of $ZFC$ is somehow "suspended". In order to be granted the existence of those models, we have to assume stronger axioms than the ones of $T$; for example, some large cardinal axioms. The existence of an inaccessible would be sufficient for having the mere existence of a model $(X,E)$ (in which, in this case, $E$ is the restriction of the "ambient" membership relation $\in$ itself) without further requirements.
There's another subtlety. In $T$, via some Russel like paradox, one can easily prove that there is no set $V$ such that every set belongs to $V$. This implies that, if for some reason we are handled a model $(X,E)$ of $ZFC$, then either the relation $E$ is not the restriction to $X$ of the "ambient" membership relation $\in$ of $T$ (those are the so called nonstandard models of set theory), or there are properties of some set $S$ defined in $ZFC$ that are not true "ontologically" about its interpretation in the model (i.e. the corresponding sentences of $T$ are false when applied to the interpretation $S^{\mathrm{int}}$ of $S$ in $(X,E)$). For example, if $(X,\in)$ is a countable (standard) model, then of course the notion of cardinality cannot be transferred literally from $ZFC$ to $(X,E)$, because $ZFC$ proves there are uncountable sets, yet the interpretation of any set in $(X,\in)$ will be "ontologically" countable just because $X$ is. To be more concrete, define $\mathbb{R}$ in $ZFC$ in one of the usual ways, then of course $ZFC$ proves « $\mathbb{R}$ is uncountable». In a countable standard model $(X,\in)$ there is a countable set $\mathbb{R}^{\mathrm{int}}$ which is the interpretation of $\mathbb{R}$. Being $X$ a model, the sentence «$\mathbb{R}^{\mathrm{int}}$ is $($ uncountable $)^{\mathrm{int}}$ » of $T$ is true, where «$($ uncountable $)^{\mathrm{int}}$» is the interpretation of the notion of uncountability in the model, but -this is the appearent paradox, which is called Skolem paradox- the sentence of $T$ «$\mathbb{R}^{\mathrm{int}}$ is uncountable» is false. The appearent confusion comes from mixing up the notion of uncountability in the theory and in the metatheory.
You cannot have any theory without metatheory. Opposite statement is not true and is simple kind of ideology in the fundamentals of mathematics. Of course You may use the same language for both of them! Then You would build mathematics in language which is its own metalanguage - just like natural language, but it is not very useful for strict analysis regarding paradoxes and circularities. But is is how mathematics works in everyday practice;-)
Of course If You try to be strict and analise certain dilemma in fundamentals You have to build more or less strict metahteory for Your theory - here logic. So You have to separate theory and its metatheory. Assuming You agree with that, You question is: "is it possible that metalgic is inconsistent?" The answer is: Yes, it is!
Most of the logic may be performed in finite sets, but not all. The former part, which require infinite sets and quantifications over sets of symbols etc. requires to have its metatheory in order top be sure it may be consistent (and even for writing statements of a theory - mathematics is created for the people and by the people). So situation is as follows - You metatheory:
Interesting question here is: may be theory consistent even if its metatheory is not? It seems that it may be one of the possible the cases...
The old (Hilbert) idea was to have a foundation of mathematics on elementary concepts that have a "itself evidence", and there was a intuitive "halph-real" (platonic?) idea about mathematics, it live in a pseudo-realty, then cannot have antinomy (a thing cannot be a book and a no-book). Of course there was the hope of find a proof of consistency of mathematics (necessarily inside mathematics itself). After K.GOdel all these hopes crush down, mathematics is building on the set theory rock, but this rock isnt "absolute", or "itself evidence natural", but is juast a formal logical theory. Inside "set theory (in some form) you can make mathematical logic. Then before make the "Set theory" (ZFC for example) what is the mathematical foundation of the logic? ANd why logics use the concept of set (before make the Set thory)?
The paradox is evident, you cannot found mathematics from itself: 1) Is a phylosophical contadiction, for make a first step on bulding mathematics is absurd supposing that you just have a "mathematical ground"..
2) FOr GOdel theorem: cannot have a first foundation step that is its own foundation or for a faith on its natural itself-evidence (or proof of consistency in itself).
THen MAthematics could have a foundation only from something that is external. For "mathematics" we mean of course the article, the books, the ZF axioms , the various literature about mathematical fields, but is also what make all these thgis, this is the human think, cannot think to mathematics without remember that doing-mathematics (thought) is what produce mathematics (in its formalism, articles ecc.).
Then the question become phylosophical (we have just see above that cannot have a logical formal resolution..): what is the sense of thinking mathematics? What is the sence of elementary concept used for buldind mathematics before its formal logical axiomatization?
When we think that "a element belong to a set" we mean a primitive concept that has its mean before a formalizated set theory and its axioms? (I think yes), Can we found mathematics on category theory ground, without have obligation about ZF when we say "this morphisms is a element of this set, or collection..."?
(excuse mine bad English)
I think this problem shows itself at many stages of the human thinking. So we can form the expression "This expression is wrong" and immediately the liar paradox appears. So really this has nothing to do with mathematics proper, but with logic itself. And the solution is multistaged itself: at the basic level we can use Russell's (naive) type theory as a remedy. In fact when we talk about mathematics we already make sure we don't break certain rules on the metalanguage level. Next when we want to do set theory, we use the axioms of Zermelo-Fraenkel. Problem solved. Of course we can formalize the metalanguage and we can use again a ZF set theory in this task instead of type theory, but in doing so, we use an informal meta-meta-language for which no way to ignore type theory. So, type theory is the ultimate building block of "human logic" and not just "mathematical logic".
I happen to realize the same apparent circularity in mathematical logic. If it purports to establish a foundation for mathematics, it seems to me its methods need to be different from mathematical methods. However, I have the uneasy feeling that one still is doing mathematics when studying mathematical logic. In spite of all this ambivalence, I think it presents a rather satisfying foundation for other branches of mathematics such as abstract algebra. It then seems to be a pretension to think that mathematical logic offers a foundation for "all" mathematics; maybe, philosophy can help with this matter.


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Accuracy of FNA
Is a fine needle aspiration (FNA) sufficient to diagnose thyroid cancer or do should I have a biopsy of the nodule?
Kolin Hoff, MD, Endocrinologist at Penn Medicine responds,
In most cases FNA can diagnose malignancy or at least a suspicious nodule. In some cases only surgery can definitively diagnose a cancer. A biopsy that is read benign is correct about 97% of the time but may vary by institution.
This question and answer was part of OncoLink's Brown Bag Web Chat Series. View the entire transcript of Focus on Thyroid Cancer.

subset: commoncrawl


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>Brookings Oregon News, Sports, & Weather | The Curry Coastal Pilot
It appears the possible establishment of the proposed Riverside Academy Charter School in Brookings may hinge on one thing: how many people think it's needed.
Those who support the idea of a charter school – and those who don't – will have a chance to say so during a public hearing at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Brookings-Harbor High School auditorium.
The meeting is required by Oregon law and we hope the public opinions expressed Thursday will help guide the Brookings-Harbor School Board and Riverside organizers in their future decisions about the charter school.
Organizers of Riverside have done much of their homework and have presented a convincing case for such an institution. We admire their enthusiasm, tenacity and commitment to providing children with an alternative way of learning.
It's clear to us that the current public school model is not one-size-fits-all. It likely never was, and the long history of low test scores at our public schools and increasing number of home-schooled children proves that.
For some, the idea that state money would be diverted from our public schools to the charter school is a deal breaker. It shouldn't be. Regardless of whether our tax dollars are funneled to the school district or the charter school, they still benefit the students for which they were intended.
There are still some unanswered questions about the charter school. Where would it be located? Would it be a part of or separate from the school district? How many students would it serve? What would the ultimate financial impact be to the school district?
None of those questions can be addressed, however, until Riverside organizers and school officials hear, firsthand, how many people support a charter school.
See you on Thursday.
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18 Sep 2013 8:47 AM #1
Infinite scrolling problems after reloading the remote store
Hi all,
I have been working with infinite scrolling for a while with version 4.2.1 and I have noticed some strange behaviour when I perform store.reload() using a remote store. The errors I find are sometimes "PageMap asked for range which it does not have" and other times just get blocked with the icon loading and you can not continue working, the thing is that this happen randomly.
I migrated to version 126.96.36.1996 and the problem about the "PageMap asked for range which it does not have" has almost desapeared but I found another problems which are when you scroll quickly to the last page and invokes the store.reload() and the result from the server has changed for example different total count because there are serveral new rows, in this case I get sometimes "Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined" and other times it just loads correctly but scroll to the first page.
I wonder if someone in the community has encountered the same problems because for me I can not trust on the store.reload() method and if there is a workaround to avoid using this method and loads the correct pages in a buffered stored with infinite scrolling.
Thank in advance.
20 Sep 2013 7:24 AM #2
20 Sep 2013 7:39 AM #3
Thank you Gary, I will upgrade as soon as possible and give you feedback about it.
3 Oct 2013 12:22 PM #4
I think a fix for the records being undefined will help your situation, i'm pretty sure we are talking about the same thing:
And as for the store loading the first page incorrectly, I've been seeing it since 4.2.0, and i am not aware of the workaround or a proposed fix still:
Not much help, but at least you know it's not just you.
-- yu


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Ash's Infernape
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this wiki
This Infernape is a Fire/Fighting-type Pokémon owned by Ash Ketchum.
It was originally Paul's Pokémon as a Chimchar but with Paul later abandoning it after deeming it to be nothing more than a weakling, Ash subsequently stepped in and offered Chimchar a chance to join his team with Chimchar accepting.
Under Ash's care, Chimchar evolved into Monferno and later Infernape while also helping Ash win many key battles in terms of Gym battles in Sinnoh or fights against other rival trainers as well as Team Rocket.
Infernape, as a Chimchar, was usually a very sweet and kind Pokémon, until Blaze was activated and it went on a rampage, ignoring everything and everyone around it, forcing Ash to personally stop Chimchar until it could calm down.
Every time Chimchar saw Paul, it would get really fired up and determined to defeat him in battle no matter what. Chimchar never gives up in battle, which is a trait that it carried with it as it evolved into Monferno, and then into Infernape.
Infernape is quite the feisty Pokémon and, in its current stage, is always looking for someone to battle and some new way to boost its skills. Its personality almost completely matches Ash, which is why these two are a perfect match for one another. It still retains some of its childlike personality from when it was a Chimchar, and, like when it was a Chimchar, always takes any advice and motivation it receives, even from its enemies, such as Meowth.
As a Chimchar, Infernape was discovered by Paul whilst trying to escape a pack of Zangoose. When it was cornered on the edge of a cliff, Chimchar used Flame Wheel and defeated all the Zangoose with Chimchar developing a huge, paralyzing fear of Zangoose.
Paul was impressed and decided to catch him. However, Paul grew disappointed because Chimchar never displayed that kind of power whilst he was training with him. Although Chimchar helped Paul win many battles, including his gym battle with Roark, Paul still considered Chimchar weak and when he defended Ash's Turtwig from a Fire Blast in Glory Blaze, Paul had had enough.
Deciding that Chimchar was too soft to use the kind of power he'd seen when it battled the Zangoose, Paul, having had enough, released Chimchar from his team for good, abandoning Chimchar.
As Chimchar prepared to return to the wild, Ash stepped in at the last second and offered Chimchar a spot on his own team but before Chimchar could give a response, it was captured by Team Rocket who intended to make Chimchar a member.
Chimchar later used a Flamethrower to escape and after Team Rocket were sent blasting off yet again, Chimchar accepted the offer, becoming a permanent member of Ash's party with Chimchar subsequently heading into its own Poke Ball.
After joining Ash's team, Chimchar overcame its fear of Zangoose and was used in many battles. Chimchar weakened Maylene's Meditite and Lucario, defeated Fantina's Drifblim and Mismagius, Byron's Steelix and Bronzor and Candice's Abomasnow.
Chimchar evolved into Monferno during Ash's first full battle with Paul after defeating Paul's Ursaring for the third time. Despite evolving and even learning Mach Punch, Monferno was defeated by Electabuzz. Later on in the series, after being knocked to the brink of fainting in a battle against Barry's Empoleon, Monferno went berserk with his Blaze ability and unleashed his full power against Team Rocket. While protecting the Pokémon, Monferno evolved into Infernape.
Infernape was later used in a battle against Flint's Infernape, but lost due to his lack of experience compared to Flint's Infernape. This was Infernape's only defeat since it evolved, and he has won every other battle it was in.
Infernape had a major role in Ash's gym battle in Sunyshore Gym where he easily defeated Volkner's Jolteon and used and fully controlled Blaze to defeat Volkner's Luxray with a powerful Flame Wheel.
Infernape learned Flare Blitz in Working on a Right Move!, knocking out Brock's Sudowoodo. He later faced off against Paul's newly evolved Aggron with Flare Blitz which burns it and proceeded to deliver a Mach Punch, defeating Aggron. Infernape later battled Paul's Ninjask. Infernape used Dig and used Flare Blitz underground which made the field burst out Infernape's flames which damaged Ninjask, canceled Paul's Drapion's Toxic Spikes effect and surrounded the field in mist which made Infernape attack Ninjask by a single Mach Punch. Infernape battled Paul's Electivire in the final battle between Ash and Paul. Electivire used Thunder and slammed its tail to the ground which made the rocks fly towards Infernape. The so-called "Field Thunder" was done because of Infernape weakening the stability of the field when it used "Underground Flare Blitz." After a lot of battling, Infernape used Mach Punch, however, Electivire's tail caught Infernape's arm. Electivire then proceeded to use Thunder for a long period of time. After Electivire let him out, the referee began to announce that Infernape was unable to battle, but Electivire stopped him from doing so. Suddenly, Infernape began to glow and activated its Blaze and fired a super-powerful blast of Flamethrower which not even Electivire's Thunder could penetrate. Infernape then attacked with a powerful Flare Blitz. Thanks to the Blaze-powered Flare Blitz, Electivire was burnt, gave way and stumbled to the ground, declared unable to battle, with Ash winning the full battle against his long-time Sinnoh rival Paul and ending their rivalry. In The Brockster Is In! it helped make the ship hot to heal several Baby Pokémon.
Known moves
|When Pokémon Worlds Collide!
|Flame Wheel
|When Pokémon Worlds Collide!
|When Pokémon Worlds Collide!
|Dig +
|Different Strokes For Different Blokes!
|Fire Spin
|Top - Down Training!
|Flamethrower +
|Tag! We're It...!
|Mach Punch +
|Evolving Strategies!
|Flare Blitz +
|Working on a Right Move!
|+ indicates this Pokémon used this move recently.*
- indicates this Pokémon normally can't use this move.
Improvised Moves
- Counter Shield was used in Shield With a Twist! and Evolving Strategies!. Chimchar/Monferno uses Flamethrower after using Flame Wheel, releasing fire whips everywhere.
- Flamethrower Wheel used in the Tag Battle against Khoury and Lyra, it starts off with Cyndaquil running ahead and using Flame Wheel and while Cyndaquil somersaults into the Flame Wheel, Monferno uses Flamethrower towards Cyndaquil causing more flames to gather and a speed boost towards the target.
- Flamethrower Skating used in Ash's Battle with Candice. It consists of Chimchar using a piece of ice as a skateboard or surfboard to gain speed and use Flamethrower to avoid being counterattacked by Abomasnow's other attacks.
- Underground Flare Blitz was used in a battle against Paul at the Lily of the Valley Conference in A Real Rival Rouser!. Infernape used Dig, and then while underground used Flare Blitz, causing the entire field to heat up and fire to burst from the ground. This canceled the effects of Drapion's Toxic Spikes and also damaged Ninjask.
Voice actors and actress
- Megumi Hayashibara (Japanese as a Chimchar)
- Yūji Ueda (Japanese as a Monferno and an Infernape)
- Bill Rogers (English)
- Infernape has used Blaze five times, twice as Chimchar, once as Monferno, and twice as Infernape.
- Infernape lost control as Chimchar and Monferno, but finally controlled it as Infernape.
- Infernape has activated its ability more times than any other Pokémon on Ash's team.
- Infernape lost control as Chimchar and Monferno, but finally controlled it as Infernape.
- Infernape's Flare Blitz seems to be stronger than Flint's Infernape's Flare Blitz, as Ash's Flare Blitz is blue instead of Flint's Flare Blitz, which is red and yellow. Blue flames are hotter than the normal ones.
- However, Flint's Infernape was seen using a blue Flare Blitz whilst battling Cynthia's Garchomp.
- Infernape is the first Pokémon owned by a rival from Ash, and which was later owned by Ash himself.
- Infernape has some similarities with Paul's Torterra.
- Both are a final evolution of a Sinnoh starter Pokémon.
- Both have only been defeated in one known battle since their final evolution, and both were knocked out with a single Fighting type move in that battle.
- Infernape also shares some similarities with Ash's Charizard and Ash's Pignite.
- All of them are Fire types that evolved from starter Pokémon.
- All of them were abandoned by their original trainer because that trainer thought they were weak.[1]
- All of them became among Ash's most powerful Pokémon, proving that their original trainers had been wrong about their strength.
- Unlike Charizard and Pignite's original trainers, Paul did not lie or fake a kind farewell to Infernape, but rather straight forwardly demanded it to leave.
- Another difference is that unlike Charizard and Pignite's original trainers, who had the audacity to ask them to rejoin their team despite the appalling way they treated them, Paul did not attempt to get Infernape to rejoin his team after seeing how powerful he was, thus sparing himself the humiliation of grovelling to Infernape.
- This could also be seen as Paul's one and only act of kindness for Infernape, as it means that Paul truly acknowledges Infernape's growth from the weak and timid Chimchar he had abandoned.
- After evolving into Monferno, it become the first time Ash had two starter Pokémon that evolved from the same region.


text:
Primary peritoneal cancer
Stephen C. Rubin, MD
Last Modified: June 9, 2002
Dear OncoLink "Ask The Experts,"
Stephen C. Rubin, MD, Professor and Chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology, University of Pennsylvania Health System, responds:
Primary peritoneal cancer is a malignant tumor arising from the peritoneum, the lining of the abdominal cavity. It tends to behave in a fashion very similar to cancer of the ovary, and can look identical under the microscope. The standard treatment is the same as for ovarian cancer. Typically, surgery is performed to remove as much of the tumor as possible, and then chemotherapy is administered. The chemotherapy drugs used are commonly carboplatin and paclitaxel, as are used for ovarian cancer, although other agents may be employed as well.


text:
Let's say I have a factory producing 28% defective bottles. A defective bottle has a 66.5% chance of breaking when dropped on the ground and a non-defective bottle only has a 9.5% chance to break.
Given that I dropped a randomly picked bottle on the ground 4 times and it didn't break (its chance to break doesn't increase with every drop), what is the chance for that bottle to be defective?
This is a homework question and I attempted to use Bayes' rule such as
$ P(Defective | IntactX4) = {P(IntactX4|Defective)P(Defective)\over P(IntactX4)} $
$ P(Defective | IntactX4) = {(1-0.665)^4 * 0.28\over (0.28*(1-0.665)+(1-0.28)*(1-0.095))^4} $
$ P(Defective | IntactX4) \approx0.011422987612 $
However, this does not appear to be the correct answer. I wonder if there is something wrong with the way I use Bayes' rule. Can anyone shed some light?


text:
Once a punch line of toilet-themed jokes, the soccer team formerly known as the Kansas City Wiz (and later the Wizards) is now the ideal franchise in all of American sports.
Their matches are also the hottest ticket in Kansas City.
After 12 years of sharing the cavernous football stadium and three more years in a tiny baseball park, rebranded Sporting Kansas City opened its first true home in 2011. Since opening Sporting Park near the Kansas Speedway in Wyandotte County, the club has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity.


text:
LEGO Minecraft 21102 for $29.70 + free shipping
Barnes & Noble offers the LEGO Minecraft Micro World 480-Piece Set, model no. 21102, for $34.95. Coupon code "U3D8U7L" makes it $29.70, With free shipping,This is a Very hard-to-find set. (It's sold out elsewhere.) Sales tax is added where applicable. The set includes two Micromob characters
9 Comments add a comment
Limit 1 per purchase
Seems to be dead: "We are sorry but the item you just added ISBN is not currently available. Please check back with us again at a later date, or search our Out of Print store."
sold out....mid-order...boom! yanked from the cart...BS
Wow, already sold out! We have 2 young boys that are totally into Minecraft. Got one with my BN account but the wife got half way through ordering one with hers and it kicked her out with a sold out notification.
That will teach me -- got up and waited an hour before logging onto woot to check the deals. I could have had this deal!
Does anyone else see the irony of Lego Minecraft?
They just put these back on line for $99 !
@wiztom: Marketplace item...
just clicked to get it and BN's site says it is now $159.99????


text:
HOME NBA Minnesota Timberwolves Gear Minnesota Timberwolves Mens Minnesota Timberwolves Mens Hats $20 to $40 (19 items) Product ID: 1223881
Main Content
When you're at a job site, you want a safe way to show your awesome Timberwolves fanaticism. You can protect your head and showcase your Minnesota pride with this team-colored hard hat that complies with OSHA regulations! It features team decals on the crown and side, and it will show those around you that your team always stays on your mind. Let your passion for the Timberwolves keep you safe with this protective hard hat!
- Officially licensed NBA product
- Tough, lightweight protection
- Anti-glare peak
- Team decals
- Approximately 6" x 8.75" x 11.5"
- Designed for head sizes 6.5 to 8
- Made in the U.S.A.
- Patented shock absorbing suspension
- Slotted to accept attachments
- Complies with OSHA safety regulations
- Made in the USA
- Brand: WinCraft
Timberwolves Customers also liked:
Special event items are produced by manufacturers only after the outcome of a game or event. These are advanced sale items and will ship immediately after they are received in our warehouse.
Manufacturer direct items are shipped directly from the manufacturer. These items are not available for international or expedited shipping.
Customized items can be personalized with options such as your name, your favorite number, and/or designs. Some options may be limited by league rules.


text:
History |
View |
Annotate |
Fixed dll compilation in Windows. Now works with VS and mingw
Store compiler and linker options in windows batch files.
Revert file, I commited the wrong one
Made DLL linking work for VS compiler. Now admb -d modelName will create a DLL properly.
Change order of linking libraries for mingw and cygwin.
Update mingw scripts for linking just two libraries.
Start combining scripts.
Allow multiple object files for adlink.bat script.
Need two contriblib library includes for gcc linker on windows.
fix contrib link problem
Added support for linking user contributed libraries.
Copied revision 1006 from shibi to nceas. Old version control will now be only read only. This will be the primary version control.


text:
WRD Maps
The Wildlife Resources Division manages a wide variety of resources across Georgia, ranging from Wildlife Management Areas, Public Fishing Areas and Natural Areas to access points such as boat ramps and hiking trails. As a user of these resources, maps can serve as valuable tools for locating and enjoying these recreational opportunities. Within this section of the WRD Web site, you will currently find maps, guides and resource locators for some of the Division's managed areas. These include the freshwater boat ramp locator, trout stream maps by county, some Public Fishing Area maps, reservoir and river fishing guides and a sampling of the new Wildlife Management Area maps.
Ranger Hotline
Report poaching and wildlife violations. You can receive a cash reward if your tip leads to an arrest—even if you wish to remain anonymous.


text:
Confessions of a white male
They say confession is good for the soul, so here it is: I am a white male. Ever since the election, all I've heard is that our day is done. It's all our fault. My kind drove America ... in fact, the whole world plus the moon, too, because 12 of us landed there — to perdition. The election was our comeuppance. I read it in The New York Times:
"Mitt Romney is the president of white male America," wrote Maureen Dowd. "Maybe the group can retreat to a man cave in a Whiter House, with mahogany paneling, brown leather Chesterfields, a moose head over the fireplace. ... In its delusional death spiral, the white male patriarchy was so hard core, so redolent of country clubs and Cadillacs, it made little effort not to alienate women."
Read more of this story and more!
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- Now GOP is in on fiscal debacle
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- Some sessions of Congress deserve names
- Flight of the French entrepreneurs
- Some advice for the college bound


text:
SAN ANTONIO (April 11, 2013) – San Antonio Rampage General Manager Mike Santos announced today that the club has reassigned forward Zach Hamill from the San Antonio Rampage (AHL) to the Milwaukee Admirals.
Hamill, 24, leads the Rampage with 24 assists this season and is tied for second on the team with 40 points on the year. The 5-foot-11, 180-pound forward was acquired via trade from the Hersey Bears on Jan. 31 and has posted five goals and 13 assists in 26 games for the Silver and Black. In addition, Hamill recorded a team high six game point scoring streak for the Rampage from March 2-17 in which he tallied one goal and five assists.
Hamill tallied 11 goals and 11 assists in 40 games for Hersey before being acquired by the Rampage. The Vancouver, British Columbia native was drafted eighth overall in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft by the Boston Bruins. Hamill has suited up for the Bruins in 20 NHL games since the 2007-08 campaign, tallying four assists.
The Rampage travel to Houston for a two-game series tonight (Thursday) and Saturday in the team's final two road games of the year. Puck drop for both contests against the Aeros is 7:05 p.m. The Silver and Black will return home on Sunday for a 3:30 p.m. tilt against the Texas Stars in the final Express-News Sunday Funday of the year.
Tickets for all remaining Rampage home games start at $10 and can be purchased at the AT&T Center Southeast Box Office, by calling a Rampage representative at 210-444-5554 or online at sarampage.com.


text: Here is the second character from Bravest Warriors and if you follow the show you should know who this really is. Up next, we will learn "how to draw Emotion Lord", step by step. The Emotion Lord is a figure in the web comic that is very old and full of compassion. Even though this character is still in development, it was revealed that he cares for his old team mates. It is also reveled that Emotion Lord is actually Chris from 184 years in the future. Anyways, I do hope you guys enjoy this lesson, I will be back with more for you all. Peace out people.


text:
Does learning COBOL still make sense?
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locked by Yannis♦ Sep 3 '14 at 11:28
This question exists because it has historical significance, but it is not considered a good, on-topic question for this site, so please do not use it as evidence that you can ask similar questions here. This question and its answers are frozen and cannot be changed. More info: help center.
closed as not constructive by Mark Trapp Jan 14 '12 at 11:46
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
I don't think so, unless you are already in the niche market where COBOL is still maintained.
Nooo, of course not. COBOL is a dead language, after all. Or is it?
The problem with that view is that programmers at sites like this one usually work with high tech, fast-running (and equally fast burning-out) companies. For them COBOL is a dead language - it is nowhere to be seen. Has not been for some time now, 'tis true.
But COBOL was not meant for them. There is more to the software industry than this. Computers were not invented for people with some irrational need for upgrading and replacing old with new all the time. They were made for business purposes.
You want to see COBOL? Go to a company that processes payroll, or handles trucking of goods, or shipping (as in ships), or handles your bank account. There is a huge invisible system of code out there that's practically invisible to the users, and most of them never think about it although they encounter it in one way or another everyday (ATMs?)
No, it is not dead. But it is "legacy" for sure... or is it?
Again, depends how you look at it. Nowadays, a lot of people will use Java, C, or anything else instead of COBOL, rewriting from scratch... introducing new bugs as they go along, naturally. That is not saying COBOL doesn't have bugs, and quirks. It does, as much as the next language. Of course it does. But in "COBOL times", companies which took bugs more seriously than usual (insurance, banks) tended to produce higher quality code with special quality service groups; today, there are deadlines where time and budget always wins over quality. Also, these systems were originally developed for longer periods back then compared to the equivalent now.
If some software has been working for 30+ years, where is the incentive to switch? Whole companies went out of business because they ignored the old adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Many tried to rewrite the thing... then the first rewrite cost a lot, then the second one cost even more... and none of those new & improved managed to replace it. As I said, this industry is fast-burning, and it also tends to forget fast.
In the 70s COBOL was dead or dying soon, C/C++ were going to rule. Then again in the early 80s Pascal was taking over. Then in the 90s it was Java as THE Language...
Think of Unisys Mapper, dBase, Clipper, Cold fusion... do people even remember those? Each one of them was going to be the gravedigger for COBOL.
Taking that into account, and the fact that it is great for processing high volumes of transactions, batch processing or record/transaction-oriented processing, and that one can compile (without errors) a subroutine written 30 years old as managed COBOL code and call it from a managed COBOL.NET should one wish to go Windows and .NET, I'm having trouble finding a suitable replacement for it. (I'm also having trouble finding a Microsoft technology that lasted more then a decade.)
Yes, new COBOL code is being written today. One just has to know where to look.
For those laughing at COBOL, IMHO, it is like laughing at the Egyptian Pyramids, they are there from 5000 years and they still will be there in next 5000 years, while today's "hello world" housing needing 24 controls to work will be deleted, replaced, forgotten next month.
So where are all those COBOL programmers?
Ah, for here lies the rub. The thing is that a lot of them don't have any computing science background. A lot of them are not professional programmers (as in university graduates from a CS/SE program). For the most part, they are people in their late 30's-50's, from all areas of expertise, trained entirely by the company specifically for that job. So they aren't "COBOL programmers" - the training they got is specific to the company which so heavily promotes from within. And that makes them pretty much invisible.
If you can see yourself as COBOL programmer, then go for it. There are still billions of lines written in COBOL that require maintenance.
Actually, there is no such thing as unnecessary knowledge, so broaden the knowledge and wider opportunities you (will) have.
Does learning it make sense?
However, if you're interested in creating new solutions, rather than slowly improving those that have been around since decades, COBOL probably isn't the right language.
A lot of european companies still rely heavily on mainframes running like z/vse and cobol programs. There is a demand for skilled cobol programmers that noone thinks the market will fill which drives up the salary, a lot.
The question should be, "will I ever develop something new using cobol?" since pretty much everything is maintenance or variations of existing mission critical stuff.
I used to work for IBM where COBOL and PL/I code was written every day. Also from big companies relying on IBMs mainframes like many banks which require thousands of transactions per second those languages are still heavilly used.
If you don't want to work in a place like that (That's why I just worked there for 6 months) then don't even think of learning those languages.
We write new Cobol code every day, and we are on a constant lookout for new programmers. The supply is too small around here.
If you want to have a job as a COBOL programmer, then sure, go ahead and learn it.
For any other reason, like trying to learn something useful that might help you with modern programming techniques, no, don't bother.
In the year 2000 I read a statistic that there were more lines of COBOL written than all other languages combined.
I can tell you how I "learned" it:
So, if you need it you can learn it. No need to overload yourself with useless knowledge. There is nothing interesting in it or its engagements unless you have real practical need for it.
The generic answer: learn coding principles, not their specific implementations (like languages, etc.)
I would not spend time over it.
Learn it if you like, after all, knowing how things work (or used to work) cannot be a bad thing.
However I would recommend against emphasizing your COBOL skills too much in your resume.
In some places (for example, in the Silicon Valley where I live) having COBOL in your resume is going to be a liability. Oh sure, you might find a place here and there who need your expertise, and in that case go ahead and advertise it to those places only. But in general, do yourself a favor and forget to mention that you know COBOL.
So yes, learn it if you're curious, just don't tell anyone.
Maybe not worth from a work market perspective, but you might want to have a look at it just to get a feel of how stuff was done "in the good ol' day". ^^
From a personal perspective I would say that there are better things to learn first. However, many large companies have very large investments in their COBOL code base which they'll probably never really be able to leave behind, creating an industry for COBOL programmers to maintain the code base as well as write new code. The company I work for is a large financial company and our technology split for developers is roughly 30% COBOL, 40% Java and 30%C#.
I just did a search for "cobol" on Australia's largest job website. It returned 87 results, and (from a quick skim) they mostly seem to be legacy maintenance positions in banks and financial institutions. Mostly distinctly better paid than more "modern" language based jobs - presumably due to the rarity of Cobol experience.
So yeah, it seems like Cobol would be worth learning if you 1) don't mind doing legacy maintenance and 2) you want to get into a niche which is well paid and probably not very competitive since it's something few people are learning anymore.
(I'm assuming the Cobol market would be similar in most First World economies, but could be wrong?)
Think about the kinds of problem domains you want to work in. Typically those domains have a set of languages that are generally used for the purpose. If COBOL matches that then go ahead.
There is no way I would touch either cobol or the problem domain(s) that use it heavily with a 10 foot pole. I'd rather flip burgers.
Also consider if the language offers some bonus/improvment to your programming ability/concepts. I can't think of anything COBOL can do/implements/features that isn't done better or can be demonstrated better in another language.
You and others may feel differently.
There are still plenty of legacy system out there written in COBOL. Whether you want to maintain them or port them to other programming languages, it is still worth learning COBOL.
No matter what it is, some knowledge in multiple programming languages will be a plus because the knowledge you have allows you to choose a programming language or approach for different project needs. You can use your knowledge in programming languages to construct better, cleaner and more efficient codes and to avoid pitfalls.


text: I'm on a roll this week. Another tutorial already done for you and I still got others waiting in the wings. This time I'm going to show you how to draw a phone. To be more specific, "how to draw a blackberry phone'. I know that quite a few people have these and I kind of wish that I had one too. I just have a really crappy samsung flip phone, you know the ones you get with a prepaid plan.Anyways...Here we go now,let's get started. I hope that this tutorial will come in handy for you and don't forget to post your results, I can't wait to see them!


text:
I've been looking for some 20 minutes now and can't find any pertinent information. Where can I find the official school holiday calendar for Japan, 2013?
Japanese schools differ by area. In Hokkaido, the long winter means longer winter holidays. Opposite applies in the south. Public holidays are universal though, inc Golden Week. From my experience holidays are usually end Mar / start April, August and mid / end Dec to early January. New school year starts in April.
Strangely enough I have been looking for ages as well today for this information. Have just rung the Japanese embassy here in Sydney and hoping they will come up with it. I work at a Japanese school in Australia and we are trying to link our term dates with there's and we still cannot find. roughly I have 10 April - July 20 for term 1, Sept 1 Dec 20 for term 2 and Jan 10 march 20 for term 3. But this was for 2008, not for 2012/13.
According to this site, schools seem to differ depending on where they are.
The basics are on Wikipedia.
If it's for travel, this should give you some idea at least.
The golden week starting 29 of April and ending 5th of May, and some National holidays are not on the calender.


text:
A place for petifiles to scout out potential victims. Place of choice for snatching is generally the ball pit.
Hey Derrick how about we go down to Chucky Cheese and hang out in the ball pit?
by Kayleen August 16, 2006
Trending Now
Top Definition
Hell hole full of assholes, talking vermin, and shitty pizza. Bars pumping blaring annoying techno music have a better atmosphere.
I have to go to Chucky Cheese, and afterwords I'm gonna get drunk and drive off a cliff.
by Teh Bucky September 15, 2004
Chucky Cheese's is an establishment characterized by debauchery aimed to attract children who ask their parents to throw them birthday parties there.
by Ted Lewis December 28, 2003
A spamtastic place to spend your best friends 15th birthday! Actually spelled Chuck E. Cheese
"Last night at my son's 3rd birthday party, I met a couple of hookers at Chucky Cheese."
by Alien Girrrrl. October 07, 2006
Originated from the childrens good time character Chucky Cheese. Used to refer to a fake azz person. Immature and stupid as hell.
Son: Mom, why daddy always cutting us short on the support.
Mom: Cuz his Chucky Cheese azz aint got no god damn sense.
Mom: Cuz his Chucky Cheese azz aint got no god damn sense.
by hypnautic September 08, 2004
A guy is straddled, creamed and blooded in the face, punched and gets pepperoni thrown at his face.
He was being an asshole so he got a chucky cheese.
by berenstein bear February 17, 2008
he like to plesure girls with his cheese
please chucky more cheese
by art vandlia October 09, 2003


text:
In the movie Jonah Hex, the super-weapon that Turnball builds fires (seemingly) ordinary canon balls, followed by an orange ball.
The orange ball is not only highly explosive (even more explosive that something like C4!), but they seemed to send out an explosive "detonation wave" that explodes the "ordinary" canon balls.
Was it ever explained what the orange balls were and how they worked, other than a plot-device?


text:
Source: Hark! A Vagrant
The fact that women aren't paid as fairly as men isn't news to anyone. But this is the first time I've seen that stat approached as a highly controlled purely scientific study, and directed at the very people conducting the study.
Continue reading "Sexist-Proving Scientists Prove Scientists Sexist"


text:
If you were to design a programming language, how would you do it? What features would you put in? What would you leave out? Statically or dynamically typed? Strongly or weakly typed? Compiled or interpreted? Justify your answers.
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closed as not constructive by Yannis♦ Feb 25 '12 at 3:15
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
So my language would be like the concurrency in Erlang but with the typing as in Haskell and a GUI framework as in WPF.NET.
Note: I've used C-like syntax to describe features in this post, but I'm not picky about the syntax itself as long as it's not something ridiculous like all keywords being CAPS.
1. Typing system
The number one feature that I would want in a language is static typing with optional dynamic typing. The reason is that static typing allows you to a) catch errors early rather than late and b) most code is implicitly statically typed, whether or not the language makes the distinction. However, there are several use-cases where dynamic typing is extremely useful. For example, when reading data from a file, you often have fields of varying types, and dynamic typing makes heterogeneous containers easy. So, my ideal language would have something like this:
2. Compiled vs. Interpreted
I'd like the language to be either compiled ahead of time, or JIT compiled, but not purely interpreted, speed being the reason. This ties in to point 1, since an optimising compiler/jitter will have a much easier time optimising statically typed code, and dynamically typed code could simply be left as-is.
3. Closures
The language must support functional programming constructs, and functions should be first-class objects.
4. Object-oriented
The language should allow you to write object-oriented code, but simple imperative code should be allowed too. i.e., it should be possible to write a hello world program like so:
5. Namespaces
Namespaces are a good thing. Very little stuff should go into the global namespace. But if you must put stuff in the global namespace, you can (ala C++).
6. Built-in datatypes
The language must have, as built-in datatypes, the following constructs:
7. Call by value and by reference
You should be able to call functions by both value and reference, with the default being value (i.e., a copy of the argument is made and operated upon in the function).
8. Pointers
The language should have pointers and allow pointer arithmetic. Pointers can only be statically typed (to avoid the nightmare that is a
9. Inline assembly
In connection with 8., The language should allow inline assembly language code for those situations where it is necessary.
10. Safety
The language should be mostly safe to use, supporting exception handling etc. Pointer arithmetic and inline assembly can be relegated to portions of the code explicitly marked as unsafe. Unsafe code is allowed, but strongly discouraged.
11. Undefined behaviour
The language standard should specify how the program is to behave under all circumstances except in code explicitly marked unsafe, i.e., there should be no undefined behaviour outside of unsafe blocks. This allows the language to be used as a viable application development language, while still allowing you to say, write an OS in it.
That's all I can think of at the moment, but I'll edit/update the post as I think of more things.
This is how my dream programming language would look like:
I would have designed it pretty much like C#, but Microsoft beat me to it. :)
(Except of course that mine would have been less well thought through and more amateur.)
I don't mind much whether it is compiled or interpreted, so I don't need to justify that bit.
As regards to strong static typing, I find it hard to appreciate why this even requires justification. Static typing is a feature which catches bugs during compile-time. Dynamic typing is the lack of that feature and defers the bugs until runtime. In my personal experience I had few use-cases where dynamic dispatch made sense and was useful, so the convolutions I had to go through in C# before 4.0 to get it were easily justified then. With C# 4.0 I don't even need to justify that anymore because we have dynamic dispatch now.
However, I probably would have created a new syntax instead of sticking as religiously to old C syntax as C# did. The switch statement is particularly horrible, and I also dislike the cast syntax (it is the wrong way around). I don't make a big fuss about the details of syntax though, so I don't need to justify it in detail, except that I wouldn't want it as verbose as Visual Basic.
What else would you like me to justify?
Well here's a list of features I'd put in:
Lisp like syntax
Lisp style
Functional Programming
Haskell style
Strong dynamic typing
Python style
Allow function overloading based on types, similar to CL's
Compilable and Interpretable
Systems programming
C style
Hygienic macros (CL style and Scheme style)
Come to think of it, this more or less defines scheme, except for the compilation and systems programming bit. That can be worked around by using libguile and writing those bits in C.
There are several languages out there that I consider pretty damn good (C# being my current favorite). Since this is my fantasy language, here's what I really want it to have:
Compiler hints
I'm talkin out of me bum since I don't know that much about language design, but I think the feature I'm talking about is called hints in other languages. Compiler hints, maybe?
I don't know if I read this in a Perl6 draft or was just high at the time, but I imagine a language where everything by default is loosy goosy and automagical. But if you wanted to really crank out performance and say, hey, this value is always an integer or it's never null, or this can be parallel, or this is stateless, things like that... That the compiler could automatically go to town on these specifically marked areas.
E: I'd appreciate comments clarifying what I'm asking for or citing examples where this already exists.
To try new ideas:
I would make a dynamic-typed functional programming language, it allows you to do all the statement expression tricks and the simplest lambda syntax with pattern matching. Off-side rule enabled.
Here is an explanation:
and in
Variables are actually storages, which can be functionally passed, and storage tables can be references, created and destroyed as scopes change.
Hashes and such will be like in Lua and JavaScript's.
If I'm going to make a compiled language, I'm going to make an F# for Java, with Haskell-like features. It's a pure functional language, except there is a feature that mixes Quotations and Comp Exprs together to achieve imperative programming by writing pseudocode-like blocks.
Bearing in mind that the only languages I know are PHP and javascript, and that I really should learn a few more before designing a language:
Syntax: Think carefully about function names and argument order (i.e., be less messy than PHP).
Have a set of
I think I like the idea of strong static typing, but I've never used it, so I can't really say.
Before designing a programming language, I would find a good answer to the question: why do we need yet another programming language? Rosetta Code at the time of this writing lists 344 languages. If none of those met my needs, the specifics of why they didn't would determine the starting point (languages that come the closest) and what would be added to it.
If I won the lottery and for some reason had nothing better to do, I would start with Liskell and make it a full-fledged language as opposed to a GHC front-end, then make FFI easier (and automated) so I could use any C/C++ library.
A good language is a language which is:
It's pretty hard to turn this into a list of features, but I think Functional Programming, despite not feeling natural, is closer to this than imperative programming (especially in hiding the nitty gritty details)
At the moment, the language closer to this list is probably Haskell, though:
To your first question, "how would you do it" - short answer, I wouldn't. I don't have enough parser/compiler theory to pull that off. But I have been programming for 25 years, so I do have some ideas and opinions to share.
First off, I would try to come up with an OOP approach that lets you create truly connected models. What I mean by that is, models are one of the most important things in almost any kind of programming project - it's always a lot of grunt-work and continuous refactoring to get it right, and I blame that on a lack of real connectivity in OO languages.
Permit me to demonstrate. Let's say a class House has a Door property.
You now have a local variable with a reference to the Door instance.
But consider what just happened: You just ripped the Door off the House, and now you're quite happy passing the Door around, and the rest of your code is ignorant of the fact that this Door is actually attached to a House.
To me, this is fundamentally wrong.
And yes, I know, this is "easily" fixed on a case-by-case basis - in this case by maintaining a reverse reference from every Door to the House it's currently attached to. This of course opens your model to errors, since it's now your duty to accurately maintain two reverse references, so you make the House.Doors and Door.House properties private, and you add methods like House.AddDoor(), House.RemoveDoor(), Door.SetHouse() etc. and wire it all up, and unit-test it to make sure it actually works.
Isn't this starting to sound like a lot of work to model such a straight-forward relationship? A lot of code to maintain? A lot of code to refactor as the model evolves?
The problem is pointers. Every OO language I've seen, inherently suffers from the fact that an object-reference is really a pointer, because that's what computers use.
Pointers are not a good way to model the real world. Regardless of what world you're trying to model, it's almost guaranteed that any relationships in that world are going to be two-way relationships. Pointers point in one direction only.
I would like to see a language where the fundamental data-model is a graph - where all relationships, by default, have two ends. This would almost certainly provide a much more natural fit for modeling the real world, which is really the only thing we need computers for in the first place. (that and video games.)
I have no idea what syntax for such a language would look like, or whether it can even conceivably be expressed using text. (I've wondered if such a language would have to be graphical, somehow...)
I would also like to see all forms of accidental state eliminated.
For example, in web-development, we spend a lot of time shaping data from databases, into business-models, into view-models for presentation... then some of that data is presented on forms, which is really just another transformation... and state comes back from form-posts, and then we reshape that data and project it back onto the view-model, e.g. view-model binders and such... we then project from the view-model back onto the business-model... we then use object-relational mappers (or grunt work) to transform the data from the view-model and project it onto a relational database...
Is this starting to sound redundant? At what point during all of this madness did we really accomplish anything useful? And by useful I mean, something tangible - something the end-user can understand and cares about. At the end of the day, the hours you spent actually building something the users can even understand, are really the only hours well spent. Everything else is side-effects.
I would want a highly dynamic language. The write/compile/run-cycle is a tedious waste of time. Ideally, the language should just figure out what changed, and compile/load transparently, in the background, as needed.
Ideally, you shouldn't even have to hit "run" - things should happen on-screen, as you make changes, immediately reflecting the changes you make. The problem with the write/compile/run-cycle, or even for that matter the more direct write/run-cycle, is that you're too disconnected from what you're doing - in order to feel connected with our work, we need immediate feedback, instant results. Any wait is too long!
Again, I don't even know if this could be accomplished with a traditional IDE, or if this would require an entirely new kind of interface.
You should be able to use a mix of weak and strong typing, whatever is most suitable for the problem you're working on.
State in general should be something the language fully manages for you. Why should you need to rely on a database for persistence? Ideally, I'd like to be able to simply specify the life-term of any variable in the model: one web-request, one session, 24 hours, permanently.
Why do we have to choose between a whole array of storage solutions for different media and life-terms? - not to mention transforming and shaping the data to fit each media; browser cache, database, memory, disk, who cares! Data is data. Where you store your data (and for how long) should be a simple choice, not a battle against the Gods!
Well, good luck with that.
It would probably be a multi paradigm language, supporting the following:
Why these? Object oriented because it is a great way to organize large programs, especially for organizing the data. Structured because you don't always want/need that (OOP), people should have choice. Functional because it makes it easy for programmers to debug and it makes programs more clear.
I would use Python's model with indented blocks to mark code blocks. It is very clen and nice to read.
I would steal quite many ideas from Python actually because Python is a very nice language. I would take it's for statement and I would copy its maps, list and tuples.
Now, I would probably not take the dynamic concepts from Python: for one thing, it would probably be explictly and statically typed. I think programs become more clear with that. The variables would probably all be objects with methods, then you could do something like
Let's go back to copying from Python ;-). I love it's way to have optional procedure arguments so I would probably have that. Python doesn't however support procedure overloading, I would want that.
Let's look at classes, I would ditch multiple inheritance; to easy to abuse. I would implement private and similar scopes and I would probably implement that the way it is done in C++. I would also have abstract classes and interfaces; I don't believe Python has that.
It would support inner classes, in fact, I would want a very powerful object oriented language.
It would probably be interpreted. It is possible to get it really fast using good JIT compilation (I would want a fast language, though programmer productivity would come first) and compilation is just bad for productivity at many times. Interpreted languages also promote platform independance, something which matters more and more for each day.
It would have builtin Unicode support; these days internationalization matters a lot.
It would definitely be garbage collected. Damn I hate doing the memory management myself; not good for productivity either.
Finally, it would have a good standard library.
Wow, just realized how much I really love Python.
First of all, I would buy a few books on compilers, a few standards, and take a course or two in languages and compilers. I'd contribute PEPs and visit C++ standards committee meetings. I'd contribute patches to the compilers I use, hopefully both for features and bugs.
Then I'd go back and look in horror at this list that I've come up now, which is of what directions I'd go in with a language if I started right now:
Seeing as even these fairly broad points would probably quickly change if I started implementing the language, so I think that going into further detail is unnecessary.
If I had the time, I would design a localizable programming language that is based on Scala, so it would have most of its features, except probably for XML. My goal is to make a language that reads almost naturally in languages with a different structure than English, such as Arabic (my mother-tongue). I am thinking of the following features:
I believe that these minimal changes to the pre-processor and compiler would make programming much simpler to non-English speakers.


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I will admit that I am not the biggest Sonic the Hedgehog fan out there by any means, yet I am a person who has always enjoyed the series. For the longest time, I always assumed that the games took place on an alien world (often referred to as Mobius) and that most of the inhabitants of this world were anthropomorphic animals. This was much easier to believe with early installments in the series because Dr. Robotnik was the only human you really came in contact with. Yet, the Dreamcast title "Sonic Adventure" (released in 1999 in the U.S.) really changed things up. The game contained a lot of humans, most of whom lived in the never-before-seen city of Station Square but most of whom were all well-aware of who Sonic and his friends were.
I did some reading about this a while back (mainly to determine why Dr. Robotnik is called "Eggman" in subsequent games) and found out something interesting: The Japanese story is a bit different from that presented in the American adaptations. The American localization teams stuck with the idea of the games being set on Mobius (and whether this was simply due to a translation issue from an interview regarding "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" is still under debate) and chose to refer to the evil scientist as Robotnik. In Japan, however, Robotnik was always nicknamed as "Eggman" or "Dr. Eggman" right from the get-go, which naturally made him being called "Eggman" for the first time in "Sonic Adventure" a little strange to non-Japanese players. Furthermore, the Japanese developers were always fairly clear that the games were set in a fictional version of Earth. Indeed, even Sonic is mentioned as having been born on Christmas Island, which is a place in the real-world.
Beyond that, it never is crystal clear when the games take place and what happened to the Earth in the interim. It does seem likely though that the games are set in a rather distant future – sometime when animals have evolved into intelligent creatures and the shape of the world is slightly altered. States within our current world don't seem to exist anymore, yet new governments have taken their place. The primary government for the Americas seems to be something called the "United Federation" – a government which even has a flag fairly similar to that of the United States. Yet, the Federation itself isn't really a singular entity; rather, it is composed of smaller sovereign states that ally under a uniform government (perhaps somewhat like the United Nations).
Even the Sonic the Hedgehog wiki (for the actual series, not the comics) describes the United Federation as "a future version of the USA."
This, of course, begs some questions: When do the games take place? What happened to alter the shape of the Earth itself (as seen in the map at the start of this article from "Shadow the Hedgehog")? How are there anthropomorphic animals in the world?
Sadly, most of this isn't directly talked about in the games themselves. However, Archie Comics (which started their series back in 1992) has taken a stab at explaining all of this over the twenty years of its publication. According to the story presented in the comics, sometime in the 21st century AD the planet Earth is visited by an alien species called the Xorda. However, because one of their emissaries is dissected by Dr. Ivan Kintobor, the Xorda launch an attack on the planet using a type of weapon called a "gene bomb" in order to wipe out existing human populations while keeping other life intact. The result was that those humans exposed to the weapon were slightly changed and animals had the side-effect of evolving into intelligent beings. These changed humans became known as Overlanders (they had only four fingers as opposed to five, which was mainly done to explain the artistic differences seen throughout the series) while those few humans who survived did so only because they hid in isolated cities during the attack (such as Station Square, in the comics said to be an underground city with an artificial environment) and only eventually were made known to the other peoples of the planet.
By the reckoning of Archie Comics, "Sonic the Hedgehog" takes place in the year 14,016 AD and Mobius is Earth.
While the maps seen in the comics are similar to the one seen in "Shadow the Hedgehog," there are quite a few differences. Also, places like the Kingdom of Acorn are only seen in the "Saturday AM" series and were not present in the games. Archie seems to have simply based most of the world pre-1999 on the cartoon series and only interwoven some of the actual game stories as they saw fit. Attempts to draw correlations between the comics and the games are further complicated by the fact that the original Robotnik is killed but a version of him from an alternate universe known as "Dr. Eggman" takes his place (obviously meant to correspond to Robotnik's name in Japan and the fact that he goes by Eggman from "Sonic Adventure" and beyond).
So, while it is tempting to say that the games and the comics coexist in the same world, I personally feel like far too many liberties were taken with the comics to consider them part of the same universe. It would seem, then, that the comics are a reimagining of the story and must exist in their own separate continuity. The story about the Xorda gene-bombing Earth, the idea that Station Square is a subterranean city, and all the other nations from the comics really don't line up with the games as well as they could.
It's a shame, too, because the comics would have done a good job explaining why there were evolved animals on the Earth of the series and why the world changed as it did.
If we are forced to discount the comics as being directly related to the games, we are left to interpret a few things ourselves. First, just looking at the official maps we've seen it is pretty evident that the Sonic the Hedgehog series does, in fact, take place on Earth. Next, it is very likely that this is several thousand years (perhaps more, possibly even the year 14,016 AD if we borrow that date from the comics) given the fact that some animals have evolved into intelligent human-like beings and the continents, though very similar, have altered a bit (perhaps due to some sort of ecological event between now and the time of the games). Unfortunately, so far we don't know what caused the evolution of animals in the future (obviously it was likely not an attack by an alien species) and we have no idea what ecological event caused the changes in landmasses, but we are also likely not to get direct answers to these questions for some time (if ever).
Personally, I like to think that the games and the comics take place in the same approximate time period in the future but the events that brought about this future seem to be slightly different. It is also possible that something like the gene-bomb incident did occur in the games' version of Earth, but rather than wiping out the human population it created some ecological events over time and also helped animals slowly evolve into higher beings. One thing is clear though: While civilization is somewhat advanced (space fortresses, some limited space travel, all manner of flying vehicles, and obviously higher-end robotics), the world isn't quite as developed as you might expect it to be 12,000 years from now, so likely some kind of disaster (the Xorda, or something similar) happened.
Of course, you can always argue that we are over-thinking all of this and that even the creators themselves haven't gone to this level of detail worrying about it all, yet I do like to think that there is some kind of plan in mind when they make these games.
Ah well…Meanwhile, I am curious to know what any of you out there reading this think. Do you have any thoughts on some of the lore of the Sonic universe that could have brought about the world seen in the games?
NOTE: The Canon Questions category was newly created in order to envelop some of these other discussions I've had in the past regarding the continuities seen in different games. Some of these older articles have been recategorized to fit into this new category, if appropriate. Going forward, all similar editorial-style articles of this nature will fall into this category.


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I was having a discussion with a colleague and we couldn't recall how they both worked. Does 一人以上 mean a) 1 or more persons or b) more than one person?
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According to the Wikipedia article on these two, 以下 and 以上 include the number that precedes them.
If you want to exclude the number on the upper end (instead of 以下) use 未満(みまん).
I had a few different discussions (and taking Ito-san's point below as well) about this - 超 seems to be used (?) but I've never really heard it. In this case we would probably go back to standard grammar using a verb instead:
If there was really a need to exclude a certain number in the case of 以上, you could always add 1 to it -- e.g.
Although that seems strange too. Maybe there's not much of a use for that kind of term?
I think 以上 and 以下 are inclusive above and below. 超 and 未満 are exclusive.
As makdad and Axioplase stated in their answers, the "correct" usage is that X以上 and X以下 (where X is a number) include X. However, the "incorrect" usage with X excluded is not rare, and therefore it is better to be aware of this possibility, too. For example, when talking about a ski lift, some people may well say:
when they really mean "This lift cannot carry more than one person."


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ok, I have 49 numbers, from 1-49. I will draw 7 numbers. Each time I draw the number out, it won't appear again. For example, the first one is "1", and I won't put the "1" back, so that it won't appear again. I would like to draw 7 numbers randomly, but I would like to draw it in this order:
If the draw is like this
It will regards invalid. The number MUST be in this order..... How to cal the probability of drawing
? Thanks.


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Living here in Taunton, I am a subscriber to Verizon Fios for my cable television. If you too have Verizon for your cable TV, I invite you to take a look at the channels from 24 through 31. These are the local origination channels. If you don't know what they are, they are set aside for local community broadcasting, programs such as School Committee meetings and local government broadcast.
Channel 31 is for Lakeville town meetings. Channel 27 is for Mansfield town meetings, and Channel 24 is for city of Taunton public meetings. On Tuesday, Feb. 18, I tried to watch the city meetings but found it quite difficult. It seems that no matter how high I turned up the volume on the television set, I was unable to hear a word anyone was saying.
The reason I listed the other towns channels is that, scanning through those channels, it amazes me how the program quality of both Lakeville and Mansfield broadcasts have exceptional picture and sound. Here in Taunton, it is mediocre.
Every Saturday, the Taunton Daily Gazette prints a small feature, "Project Tracker, Rebuilding City Hall."
We get an update of the progress, (or the lack thereof) and of the insurance problem and the steps being taken to restore our City Hall to its previous glory. Of course, as it always happens in Taunton, the officials here spent what insurance money, meager at it may have been, on the temporary City Hall on Oak Street. I digress.
Why can we not have quality equipment, both audio and video for the production of our city meetings?
Is it because we the residents are not supposed to hear what goes on. Or is it that the residents of our government offices have squandered what pride and money they may have had to guide our fair city onward.
Martin Bernier
East Taunton
Location, ST | website.com