Science News Online - Past Issues - 5/4/96
Speaking of splitting the cake, who gets the trim? http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arch/5_4_96/bob1.htm -- -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Tuesday, August 21, 2001, at 08:00 PM, Jim Choate wrote:
Speaking of splitting the cake, who gets the trim?
That's a 5-year-old cite. You obviously used a search engine to search for related articles from a post of mine. Have you no shame? --Tim May
On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
On Tuesday, August 21, 2001, at 08:00 PM, Jim Choate wrote:
Speaking of splitting the cake, who gets the trim?
That's a 5-year-old cite.
You obviously used a search engine to search for related articles from a post of mine. Have you no shame?
It was the first cite I cam across that mentioned the 'gets so small that nobody cares' aspect...suited my purposes just dandy. Within that sentence is another whole aspect of the 'fair n-slice problem', for example; how does it get small? Consider the situation where you have a cake and n-people and use a scale to measure the slices. The goal being to get them all weighing the same <i>within some measure of error</i>. An associated question is, given a starting quantity (q), a number of players (n), and a given error (dq), what is the maximum number of 'slice and dices' you will need to go through? How does that change when it's a fixed percentage by volume error (ie %g/g)? Or perhaps (as likely with people) a fixed minimum volume that one can resolve (while this reduces for homogenious quantities, what happens when it's heterogenous)? From a applications perspective this seems like a pretty important issue. -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Not sure I get the point. Is there a five year statute or limitations on what you say, or is the article so outdated in context as to be irrelevant? MacN On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
On Tuesday, August 21, 2001, at 08:00 PM, Jim Choate wrote:
Speaking of splitting the cake, who gets the trim?
That's a 5-year-old cite.
You obviously used a search engine to search for related articles from a post of mine. Have you no shame?
--Tim May
On Tuesday, August 21, 2001, at 09:08 PM, Mac Norton wrote:
Not sure I get the point. Is there a five year statute or limitations on what you say, or is the article so outdated in context as to be irrelevant? MacN
On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
On Tuesday, August 21, 2001, at 08:00 PM, Jim Choate wrote:
Speaking of splitting the cake, who gets the trim?
That's a 5-year-old cite.
You obviously used a search engine to search for related articles from a post of mine. Have you no shame?
Think about the issue. If someone takes a post of mine, or yours, or anybody's, and says something _honest_ like, for example, "That's an interesting point. Doing some digging I found this article from several years ago...." then there would be no issue. I think this is the way Bill Stewart, for example, would begin an article. Choate, however, never does this. He just regurgitates cites he has found with search engines. I called him on this. That's all. Finding a 5-year-old cite, obviously the result of searching on a them, but without even commenting on context or relevance, is phony. It's the equivalent of a nonlawyer like me taking some scrap of legal comment and then quoting a legal precedent without any context. For example, "But Lopez v. Quesedilla, 16th, 3B, IIc established decedent's writ of certiori, am I not correct?" Phoniness squared. If you don't see this, you should become a lawyer. --Tim May
On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
then there would be no issue.
I think this is the way Bill Stewart, for example, would begin an article.
Choate, however, never does this. He just regurgitates cites he has found with search engines.
Actually it was a little more than that. I had added a query which in your haste to bitch you just jumped right over. Oh, yeah, it's not in the 'TCM Approved' format...<sigh> -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
participants (3)
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Jim Choate -
Mac Norton -
Tim May