19 December 2011

North Korean "god" dies

Kim Jong-il, died today. He was a vile dictator. His country is a hell-hole. People are starving. Gulags, concentration camps. Torture. Total lack of freedom. You name it. And yet, the cult of personality enjoyed by Kim Jong-il is amazing. North Koreans are grieving. They lost their god. Look at this:

And a similar video at BBC news.

This is religion. The same kind of unreasonable attachment to the irrational which makes people revere gods and obey, like sheep, is the one which makes the young woman in the first video declare:
I will change sorrow into strength and courage and remain faithful to respected comrade Kim Jong-un [Kim Jong-il's son, who is expected to be his successor; she has already chosen her next god.]

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T H E B O T T O M L I N E

What measure theory is about

It's about counting, but when things get too large.
Put otherwise, it's about addition of positive numbers, but when these numbers are far too many.

The principle of dynamic programming

max_{x,y} [f(x) + g(x,y)] = max_x [f(x) + max_y g(x,y)]

The bottom line

Nuestras horas son minutos cuando esperamos saber y siglos cuando sabemos lo que se puede aprender.
(Our hours are minutes when we wait to learn and centuries when we know what is to be learnt.) --António Machado

Αγεωμέτρητος μηδείς εισίτω.
(Those who do not know geometry may not enter.) --Plato

Sapere Aude! Habe Muth, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!
(Dare to know! Have courage to use your own reason!) --Kant