What is Sentience?
In the previous post (Ineffability of Qualia) we saw that the meaning of a color cannot be expressed objectively, because it is inherently subjective. The same goes for sentience. What is it like to see orange? What is it like to be sentient? Let’s try some definitions: Orange is the color of oranges. Orange is [...]
Ineffability of Qualia
This post is the first part in short series on philosophy of the mind. At the end of each part, there is a link to the next. Suppose you and I experienced red and blue differently: You: red blue Me: red blue We would never be able to prove this, or even realize it. It [...]
Utility Function of Wealth
It is often assumed that wealth has linear utility. For example, it is taken for granted that $2 is worth exactly double of $1. In most real-world scenarios, where the amount of wealth available is finite, this is not exactly true. Imagine, for example, three travellers in identical situations, except Traveller A has $2000 Traveller [...]
CircularArrayList for Java
Java applications sometimes need a “sliding window” view on a stream/sequence of data. This can be provided by a List with fast element insertion and removal at opposite ends (like a queue) fast access to random elements in the list (like an array) Unfortunately, no existing implementation of the List interface in the Java Collections [...]
Funny Tax Laws
Humour is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of accountants and lawyers, but somehow, a joke has slipped into the South African Tax Code. It concerns depreciating assets, but before you can depreciate… ahem… appreciate the joke, you need a little accounting background. In the world of accounting, assets depreciate [...]
6-DOF Rigid Body Dynamics
If you throw an arbitrarily-shaped rigid object into the air with some random rotational motion, the motion can proceed semi-chaotically, unless it happens to be spinning purely around one of its “principle axes”. (You could try your mobile phone, for example – give most spin around its tall axis for interesting results.) General rigid body [...]
Expressing 3-DOF Rotation
The pose of a rigid body is a 6-DOF quantity, consisting of translational position (3-DOF) and rotational position, or orientation (3-DOF). Translational position is straightforwardly expressed by a triplet (x, y, z). Rotational position, or orientation, is not so simple. Rotation Vector Rotations, like translations, can be represented by a 3D vector. The rotation vector’s [...]