When I woke up this morning, the above sequence came to me. Apparently I was thinking about this in my sleep. It’s so cool that you can form 2013 as a countdown using only simple arithmetic of 10 separate numbers. I’m starting to suspect there are many solutions for any given year. Maybe I’m just a nerd. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Speaking of which, a recent encounter reminded me of the following snatch of conversation from the film “The Matrix”:<\/p>\n
| \n <\/p>\n | |||
| \n | Neo:<\/p>\n | \n | “Can you fly that thing?”<\/p>\n |
| \n | Trinity:<\/p>\n | \n | “Not yet.”<\/table>\n <\/p>\n This is the scene in which Trinity, the female lead, instantly downloads to her mind the ability to pilot a helicopter, and the entire audience thinks (to quote Keanu) “Whoa!”<\/i><\/p>\n I attended a holiday party the other week at which I was introduced to a clearly very interesting and intelligent woman whom, I was told, wrote for the New York Times. I found out only later, when I did a Google search, that she had written a number of features about research topics I have worked on, which I would have loved to discuss with her.<\/p>\n I might have figured that out at the party, but pumping people for questions about their work while they are holding a drink can be socially awkward. If it had come up in the flow of conversation, that would have been ok.<\/p>\n If we really had the capability posited in “The Matrix” — if I could have simply stood there and acquired, from one moment to the next, the knowledge I later looked up, I might have been able to start that conversation in a fun and interesting way. But would that have been better?<\/p>\n In a way, this is like asking whether a world with cars and trains and airplanes is better than a world where people just walk. Of course such a capability would be enormously empowering, but would it be better<\/i>?<\/p>\n In other words, would you prefer to live in a world where any body of information could be acquired instantly, even during the flow of conversation? Or would the disadvantages of such a universal ability outweigh the advantages?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I woke up this morning, the above sequence came to me. Apparently I was thinking about this in my sleep. It’s so cool that you can form 2013 as a countdown using only simple arithmetic of 10 separate numbers. I’m starting to suspect there are many solutions for any given year. Maybe I’m just … Continue reading “(-10 + 9 – 8 + 7 * 6) * (5 * 4 * 3 + 2 – 1)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10999"}],"version-history":[{"count":88,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11087,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10999\/revisions\/11087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |