Bully

What is a bully?  Clearly some one who forcefully intimidates you into giving them your lunch money or homework is a bully.  But what about saying something you consider derogatory or using words you do not like?  Does having to be so careful about what you say all of the time increases internal tension and stress.  The old saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me?" may be untrue but have we went to far in restricting free speech and ideas?

Is it bullying:

• For someone to call you a nerd because you do better than them on test?
• For someone to say you dress funny?
• To parody your speech?
• For someone to encourage you to do better?
• To call you tall (Wilt the stilt) or short (Oh, you are standing)?
• To parody your appearance?
• To laugh when you fall funnily?
• To show disgust when you tell a bad pun joke?
• To run a race faster than you?
• Refer to you by skin color?
• To make something you do or say humorous? 
• Call you a bully?
  

Who should decide if something is bullying?  The person talked to, the person talking or an unbiased reasonable person?

Where do you draw the line between teasing in fun versus bullying?

Why is different bad?

As humans grow up they adapt to sounds.  Very early in life we learn that some sounds are not important and ignore them.  This way we can concentrate on important sounds.  We normally do not hear a gentle breeze, our heartbeat, our breathing, electric hum pof lights and transformers and a host of other quiet sounds.  Our minds would get overloaded if we paid attention to each and every sound.

Like wise we tend to generalize people.  There are people different than us and people similar to us.  People like to think of themselves as good so it seams they think of everybody else as bad.  But just because someone else is bad does not mean you are good.

A lot of the things that make people different are ideas, world view, and opinions.  People tend to categorize others and place them in a group for the strangest things.  Placing people in a group makes judging them easier.

Think about your own categorization of bad people based on :

• Religion
• Denomination
• Politics
• Wealth
• Health
• Tattoos
• Music
• Cloths
• Voice
• Hair
• Skin color
• Sports team
• School
• Job
• World view
• Education
• Smoking
• Drugs
• Sex
• Accent
• Jewelry
• Language
• Country
• Race
• Home
• Neighborhood
• Smell
• Criminal record
• Sports

Is it sinful to be rich?

Jesus said "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." from Matthew 19:23. But the passage continues with the disciples asking “Who then can be saved?” and Jesus answered “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” from Matthew 19:25. There are also numerous bible passages about giving and generosity. 

Political parties throughout the world try to use these as excuses to gain power by taking from the "rich". It never seams to work out because making everyone equally poor results in a poor economy. The power hungry politicians become the oppressors. The observation that "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely" by Lord Acton has shown to be true many times. Samuel also warned the people of Israel when they wanted a King that "He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves" 1 Samuel 8:17. 

A few questions to consider: 

• Should hard work be rewarded?
  
  
• Is the only way to get rich by oppressing others?
   
• If you need a lot of money who do you go to? 
  
  
• Is buying something, giving to the poor? 
  
  
• Does the desire to make money drive innovation? 
  
  
• Does innovation improve everyone's lives? 
  
  
• Is it a sin to be greedy? 
  
  
• Can you be poor and greedy? 
  
  
• Can you be rich and generous?

Closing with a quote from a rich person who made money by making things cheaper

The Andrew Carnegie Dictum: To spend the first third of one’s life getting all the education one can. To spend the next third making all the money one can. To spend the last third giving it all away to worthwhile causes. Galli, A. ( Aug. 20, 2018) How to Maximize Your Life with the Andrew Carnegie Dictum, retrieved from  https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-maximize-your-life-with-the-andrew-carnegie-dictum-b7fcb862e6f0  6/14/20

Two Perspectives on Racial Conflict

This is a time when violent protest are occuring because of careless actions of a single police officer in Minneapolis resulting in deaths. The news coverage appears to be very biased. Big surprise here. Below are two perspectives related to the situation.

Perspectives

1. Police officers are unfair in their treatment of African Americans.
2. African Americans are violent and have no respect for the law.

Some Related Questions :

• Are these perspectives independent of each other ?
• Is there any truth to either perspective ?
• Is either perspective exaggerated ?
• Was the police officers actions based on racism ?
• Is the NAACP more or less racist than the KKK ?
• How many people feel they have been treated unfairly ?
• Why can't people just be people, accept that life is not fair in all perspectives and love each other?

Why take math?

I have been teaching math class and get the frequent math student question, "When will I ever use this stuff?".

I have made the following image / poster to help answer that question.

Math is not just about math, it is about developing skills.

What's on my desktop?

I run Linux and sometimes people ask what are the best Linux applications to install. So I will list the programs I have installed and linked on my desktop and describe what I do with them.

Javascript Factorial

I have added an additional language of html/javascript to the Factorial Fun page (at right)

Factorial Using Javascript

Enter a natural number to compute the factorial of :

2! = 2

I don't do Windows

Why I don't support Microsoft Windows

I do support Fair and Open Competition, Freedom of (product) Choice, Checks and Balances, Open Standards, Freedom of Speech, Security and Individualism.

I don't support discrimination, ethnic cleansing or tyranny.

Factorial Fun - Page

I combined the post about factorial to a single page that can be reached from the link at the right of the blog main page. Click "Factorial Fun" under Main at right.

Numbers in Computers

I uploaded a revised presentation on computer math at http://www.slideshare.net/PDE1D.  This was originally targeted at advanced middle school students.  It includes where digital numbers are used, binary numbers (including binary bean counting project and pick a number trick).     

Linux DVD Production with kdenlive

I have finally finished the DVD for my Daughters wedding. This post is about experiences with this DVD creation. The primary tools were kdenlive and Imagination.

Linear Interpolation

Interpolation involves finding an estimate for a function value between known values of the function.  Lets say someone has recorded the temperature every hour of the day and you need to know the temperature at 4:30 PM.  A reasonable approach would be to look up the temperature at 4:00 and 5:00 and take the average.  This is interpolation.  However, interpolation can be significantly improved but gets more complicated.  Interpolation is the backbone behind almost all numerical methods.

My favorite proof, x=0 for all x

This proof uses the imaginary number $ i = \sqrt{-1} $

Factorial Summary

Time to summarize the factorial study and move on to other fun topics.

Computer representation of numbers

The key issue with large numbers like factorials, is how they are represented on the computer.  For performing mathematical operations the computer hardware has fixed size numbers.  For integer number types, this is related to the size of registers and number of wires connecting devices.  Each bit of a number is held in a flip-flop.  A flip-flop is an electronic device with two stable states, one representing a 0 and the other a 1.

X11 factorial code with Xft and GMP

/*
This is the factorial code using X11 with Xft and GMP.  Xft provides anti-aliased fonts and can be toggled on or off with an 'a' or 'x' keys.  The results from the Gnu Multi-Precision Library can have the precision reduced by bit masking the results to 8, 4, 2 or 1 Byte by pressing the 'p' key.  The results can also be presented in binary or hexadecimal by pressing the 'b' key.  The number digits are entered with number keys.  The 'delete' or 'backspace' keys remove the last digit.  The 'enter' or 'return' keys clear the number.

The code listing is color highlighted -
  gray - is comments, ignored by the compiler
  green - pre-processor directives
  blue - native primitive variable types
  black - normal code
  bold pink / bold light green - documentation key words
  bold light blue - documentation key word targets
  light brown - integer constants
  red - constant character arrays ( strings )
  purple - character constant
  
  The code should copy into an editor without color highlighting.

Factorial, getting gui with X11

Factorial with a X Windows user interface

With this post I looked at programming for the X Window System (X11). X11 is hardware-independent application programming interface (API) for graphical user interface (GUI) programming that includes commands for drawing to a screen and user interaction through key board, mouse or other input devices.   The interface provides a means for software to communicate with graphics hardware including over a network.  X11 was designed with local GUI interaction for programs running on a remote computer as a major issue.  The X Window System was started at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984 and quickly became the de facto standard for networked workstations.  The X Window System is constantly being improved, but the default X11 is a pixel based system which produces ugly text without anti-aliasing.   A pixel based system draws a color to pixels so that object's edges appear jagged.  Anti-aliasing reduces the jagged edges by drawing varying colors around the border of objects to blend the object color with the surrounding colors. 

To access the code which is amply commented see the post C code for factorial program using X11, Xft and GMP.  A screen shot of the program with anti-aliased fonts.

Factorial - Spreadsheets

Spreadsheet Factorials

Spreadsheets can be used for programming computations.  Without scripts or macros a spreadsheet does not have a loop capability.  But, it can perform computations referencing cells to provide a sequence of cells with factorials.  Cells are much like variables in other programming languages, they store values.

Factorial - scripts - sh, csh, dc, bc

More Factorial Fun, Python and Lisp

This continues the factorial study started in the prior post.  The factorial increases rapidly and can be programmed as a simple loop.  The factorial, indicated with an exclamation point after a positive integer number is the product of all integers from 1 up to and including the integer.

Factorial Programs (Fortran and C Family)

Factorial Fun

 There are many computer programming languages and many more being developed all the time.  Usually the first program when learning a new language is "Hello World!", which outputs the text "Hello World!" to the screen.
For engineers, scientist and mathematicians the next program should be the factorial.  The factorial is symbolized with an exclamation point, !, after a positive integer.  It occurs often in probability and series.  The factorial is the product of all integers from one up to and including the number.

• 1! = 1
• 2! = 1*2 = 2
• 3! = 1*2*3 = 6
• 4! = 1*2*3*4 = 24
• 5! = 1*2*3*4*5 = 120

 The factorial increases rapidly showing computer artifacts due to limited precision.

The following example programs in various computer languages take a number from the user, without checking if it is valid, to keep the code simple, and returns its factorial.  Each example includes an introduction and detailed description.