kgroll

One thing I really appreciate about good authors is their ability to clearly articulate ideas or impressions that I share, but am unable to express on my own. Or in other words, I love seeing these semi-conscious ideas floating through my mind assembled eloquently in language. I think this takes an enormous amount of skill.

I agree with French author Marcel Proust, who claimed "there is no better way of coming to be aware of what one sees oneself than by trying to recreate in oneself what a master has felt." We can learn what we feel by reading material written by others. We can develop our thoughts through the thoughts of others.

Of course, one shortcoming with this idea, and in my opinion, of literature in general, is that ultimately the author is not ourselves. Despite an authors ability to help us understand our feelings and enhance our sense of perception, there inevitably is a divergence in the particulars of our personal situations and those found in writing. Trying to mold our experiences into those of a book, in hopes of finding answers or guidance, is misguided.

Proust explains better than I can myself:

'It is one of the great and wonderful characteristics of good books (which allows us to see the role, at once essential yet limited, that reading may play in our spiritual lives) that for the author they may be called 'Conclusions' but for the reader 'Incitements'. We feel very strongly that our wisdom begins where that of the author leaves off, and we would like him to provide us with answers when all he is able to provide us with is desires... That is the value of reading, and also its inadequacy. To make into a discipline is to give too large a role to what is only an incitement. Reading is on the threshold of the spiritual life; it can introduce us to it: it does not constitute it.'

Alternatively, I'd encourage you do to "stupid shit." Lots of it. Isn't that what learning is all about?

Rather than get into the ethics of it, I was simply hoping that people would pause, even if just for a second, to make sure they were comfortable being involved. I'm not trying to sway people either way.

I agree with you - you can't put Pandora back in the box. I don't, however, think that changes the classification of the leaked documents. When judging an individual's fitness for a security clearance, I imagine that they're looking more at character traits than specific instances of undesirable behavior. Sharing these documents that are already "public knowledge" is only noteworthy because it may indicate that you're not uncomfortable with the idea of releasing classified documents if it's for a cause you believe in. (Just speculating here)

>>Also if State et al. don't hire anyone interested by the cables I think we might be slightly screwed later

I disagree with this. I can think of a handful of reasons somebody lacking interest in these cables would still want to work for the government. Example: To do engineering work for a defense contractor, you'll undoubtedly need a secret+ clearance. You might seek such positions for the job security they provide. Or maybe you're interested in working with cutting edge technology that isn't necessarily available at more budget constrained (IE commercial) companies. Many of the engineers working at a high technical level are drawn to the technology, not the politics.

To reveal any bias, I should note that I do contract work for the US government.

Regardless of your favored method of distribution, make sure you consider the consequences of sharing classified documents.

Those consequences are probably negligible for the overwhelming majority here, but for anybody anticipating getting a US security clearance within the next seven years, you're likely shooting yourself in the foot. You'll either have to reveal the fact that you've disclosed classified material, or else lie under oath. Neither of those being ideal if you're trying to get that job.

It also conflicts with your clearance if you're already holding one.

I'm not saying you should or shouldn't support Wikileaks. Just make sure you give it adequate thought before jumping on a torrent.

I was really hoping for a widget to be included with this.

Are there any third party readers that include that functionality?

Edit: Just noticed that the Wolfram links break because of their syntax. HN then worsens the problem, by shortening the displayed links with '...', meaning copy/paste breaks! So I'm just removing the http prefix and you'll have to copy/paste to view any of the graphs.

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This seems to disagree with the gist of the comic, but I think the answer to the final part (largest dating pool) is 23 years old.

I arrived at that by doing the following, please correct me if you spot an error along the way!

The dating range for any age, t, would be defined as:

  lower limit = .5t + 7
  upper limit = 2t - 14

This agrees with the example in the XKCD strip. The dating range for an 18 year old is from .5(18)+7 = 16 to 2(18)-14 = 22. Because this is linear, the range will always be increasing with age.

Despite the range growing with age, we know that the proportion of singles is decreasing with age. Sigh. That's where the other model comes in. The author of this problem gives:

  S(t) = e^(-0.05*t)

That looks like this: www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Plot[E^(-0.05+x),+{x,+85,18}]

I believe the largest dating pool would correspond with the greatest area yielded by taking the definite integral of this function from .5t+7 (the lower age limit) to 2t+14 (the upper age limit). To see this in pretty print, you can visit this link: www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=integrate+(E^(-.05x))+dx+from+(.5x%2B7)+to+(2*x-14)

Evaluating that for any age would give the area under the curve corresponding to that age.

The next step, then, would be to find the maximum area for any age. To do this, we should be able to take the derivative of that previous equation, and set it equal to 0 in order to maximize it. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but for the result of that, I get:

  -2000(e^(-0.1t+0.7) - e^(-0.025t+0.35)) = 0

I plotted that to find that the max was located at age t = 23.

This graph illustrates the size of the dating pool corresponding to age along the x axis: www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Plot[-2000(e^(-0.1x%2B0.7)-e^(-0.025x%2B0.35)),+{x,+0,+100}]

Comments? Did I approach this totally wrong? Did I miss something along the way? Does that seem reasonable?