Positive random number

[Johannes Bauer]

Reminds me of all these stupid US Americans who [...] become angry
when you tell them that Mexico is a part of America.

Have you actually met any such people? What are the circumstances that
result in you telling them that?

I have met *dozens* of such people while spending one year abroad. And,
do not misunderstand me here please, I do not at all think all US
Americans are stupid. I think all of them, who think that Mexico doesn't
belong to the continent America are stupid. And, as I said: I've met
plenty of those.

Greetings,
Johannes

 

[Johannes Bauer]

If you don't have a problem referring to
Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos as just "Mexico",
then you shouldn't have too much of a problem referring to
The United States Of America as just "America".

America is a continent.
United States of America are a country.
Mexico is a country.

Continent America != Country America

Big difference.

Greetings,
Johannes

 

[Johannes Bauer]

"America", as a geographic entity,
is the same type of thing that "Eurasia" is.

It depends on your view of the earth. There are models which state that
there are four continents: Antarctica, Australia, America,
Africa-Eurasia. Then there is also the Antarctica, Australia,
Northamerica, Southamerica, Europe, Asia, Africa variant. And there are
inbetween.

Greetings,
Johannes

 

[Johannes Bauer]

Europe?

Ah yes, The capital of that country is London isn't it?

No. It's Paris, where they eat fogs and the Leaning Tower of Pisa is
located!

Greetings,
Johannes

 

[CBFalconer]

.... snip ...

Europe?

Ah yes, The capital of that country is London isn't it?

True. Since 1814 (or is it 1815?)

 

[CBFalconer]

Reminds me of all these stupid US Americans who [...] become
angry when you tell them that Mexico is a part of America.

Have you actually met any such people? What are the
circumstances that result in you telling them that?

I have met *dozens* of such people while spending one year abroad.
And, do not misunderstand me here please, I do not at all think
all US Americans are stupid. I think all of them, who think that
Mexico doesn't belong to the continent America are stupid. And,
as I said: I've met plenty of those.

There is an appreciable portion of USAnians who consider that a
passport is needed to visit New Mexico. I am pleased to hear that
all Europeans are well educated and completely knowledgeable. That
should avoid many arguments.

 

[CBFalconer]

s/google/googol/

Why this disregard for the venerable googolplex?

 

[Golden California Girls]

Dang. Good thing this isn't school and I don't have to write out
"googol" one googol times!

No, you have to arrange electrons to spell it out one googolplex times!

 

[Richard Bos]

If you don't have a problem referring to
Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos as just "Mexico",
then you shouldn't have too much of a problem referring to
The United States Of America as just "America".

There is no greater entity which is called Mexico, so calling Mexico
Mexico is unambiguous. There _is_ a greater entity called America, whose
existence as well as whose naming far predates the USA, and which
therefore has the right of precedence to the name America both by age
and by pre-eminence.

The USA will just have to get used to being part of a greater world. I
know, it's hard for USAliens to imagine that something greater than
their impossibly perfect country can exist, but hey, I don't get to
decide on facts of history or geography, and neither do they.

Richard

 

[James Kuyper]

Richard Bos wrote:
....

The USA will just have to get used to being part of a greater world. I

Actually, no it doesn't. The USA is large enough and powerful enough to
get away with considering itself as separate from the rest of the world,
and that is precisely how most USA citizens feel about it. I'm not
advocating this, just pointing it out.

 

[Philip Potter]

Well at exactly *that* problem (zero positive or not) there's *no*
"common opinion". Impressively demonstrated by the fact that even Peano
himself (Peano Axioms! A *great* mathematician in the field of integer
arithmetic) had a reason to change his opinion.

Individual mathematicians often differ from orthodoxy. But the "zero
nonpositive" crowd still far outnumber the rest.

Which fits your analogy nicely, as people in Great Britain drive on the
left side of the road and people in the US on the right side. So there
is obviously no dogmatic "correct way", but you have to ask: where
should I drive? In which environment is it *useful*? I will drive on the
left/right side because I an $WHEREEVER.

And everywhere I have been, 0 is nonpositive.

You just did.

Do you consider it to be intrinsic to the number or just a useful
definition?

I've never met a person speaking Aymara, therefore I consider nobody is
speaking Aymara. Everyone who does is obviosly speaking the wrong language.

Not the same thing at all. It's not in my interests to even consider
learning a word of Aymara, but if people want to speak it then I don't
care, so long as they don't try and speak it with me, and if they do
they should expect not to be understood.

It's not something to argue about, actually: it's a definition (clear by
the meaning of the word "axiom", actually). It's just frustrating to
meet people over and over again who have never heared of any discussion
about this topic and therefore believe their opinion is the only/best
one. Reminds me of all these stupid US Americans who believe Europe is a
country and who become angry when you tell them that Mexico is a part of
America.

Who said I'd never heard discussion on this topic before?

0 is not positive unless stated otherwise. It doesn't have to be this
way, and may in fact change over time [1] but currently it is.

Why get so angry?

Phil

[1] I might have this wrong, but I believe 1 was once considered prime.
Back then it was definitely prime, and these days it is definitely not.

 

[santosh]

Richard Bos wrote:
...

Actually, no it doesn't. The USA is large enough and powerful enough
to get away with considering itself as separate from the rest of the
world, and that is precisely how most USA citizens feel about it. I'm
not advocating this, just pointing it out.

But the more powerful it becomes, the more it seems to feel the need to
link itself into everyone else' affairs.

 

[James Kuyper]

But the more powerful it becomes, the more it seems to feel the need to
link itself into everyone else' affairs.

Of course; every powerful country does this; it's not peculiar to the USA.

 

[Dik T. Winter]

> Johannes Bauer wrote: ....
>
> And everywhere I have been, 0 is nonpositive.

Apparently you have never been in France, French speaking Belgium or
French speaking Switzerland (and probably quite a few other places with
strong influence from French mathematics).

 

[Tim Prince]

Apparently you have never been in France, French speaking Belgium or
French speaking Switzerland (and probably quite a few other places with
strong influence from French mathematics).

Not to mention the number of cases where machine instructions follow
your plan. The first machine I learned on, 30 years ago, designed in
USA, had 2's complement integer and float, and considered 0 as positive.

 

[Richard Harter]

America is a continent.

Well, yes and no. Some people classify North America and South
America as a single continent. However, geologically speaking,
they are two separate continents on separate plates that are
connected by a (geologically) recent land bridge. The existence
of a single continent called America is a by no means universal
linguistic convention

[snip]

 

[Philip Potter]

Not to mention the number of cases where machine instructions follow
your plan. The first machine I learned on, 30 years ago, designed in
USA, had 2's complement integer and float, and considered 0 as positive.

How do you know? Most machine instruction sets don't need any definition
of "positive". If you're defining "positive" to mean "sign bit clear"
then I could see where you were coming from, but there's no benefit to
doing this.

 

[pete]

Well, yes and no. Some people classify North America and South
America as a single continent.

It makes sense for the Afroeurasians and the Eurasians
to classify it that way, but not for the Europeans.

 

[pete]

Cross posted and Followup To: alt.religion.kibology
where I think there's some possibility that this may be on topic.

 

[David DeLaney]

Cross posted and Followup To: alt.religion.kibology
where I think there's some possibility that this may be on topic.

Oh, ever so much of a possibility!

And the Austrians, of course, are being distracted by poisonous nanomegafauna.

Dave "reunite gondwanaland!" DeLaney