26 July 2015

Grooming tribal monarchs

When institutions (states,  businesses,  etc.) need cash they forget their principles.  My French friends are upset at the recent decision of the state to forget the principle of equality of all citizens and close a beach in Vallauris for the pleasure of a tribal king and his entourage of 1000 people. They've even constructed a lift (=elevator) for the use of the monarch.
● Story in French here.
● Story in English here.
Sucking up to Arabs has been around for a while.  But, now,  financial circumstances will make the presence of oil money (and private beaches and elevators) welcome in tourist areas,  in businesses,  in education, and many other sectors.  And if women have to walk a meter behind men or not allowed to drive cars or stoned in case they do something "bad", well,  Europe will temporarily forget its principles because money, be it tribal or not, is above principles or laws.

P.S. 100 thousand people have complained in writing against this. But the income brought by the tribal king will be greater than 100 thousand euro.  So the complaints don't count.

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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.
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Sapere Aude! Habe Muth, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!
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