Even vs odd numbers are not as important as we think they are. We could do the same to any other prime number. 2 is the only even prime (meaning it is divisible by 2) 3 is the only number divisible by 3. 5 is the only prime divisible by 5. When you think about the definition of prime numbers, this is a trivial conclusion.
With 2, the natural numbers divide into equal halves. One of which we call odd and the other even. And we use this property a lot in math.
If you do it with 3, then one group is going to be a third and the other two thirds (ignore that both sets are infinite, you may assume a continuous finite subset of the natural numbers for this argument).
And this imbalance only gets worse with bigger primes.
So yes, 2 is special. It is the first and smallest prime and it is the number that primarily underlies concepts such as balance, symmetry, duplication and equality.
But why would you divide the numbers to two sets? It is reasonable for when considering 2, but if you really want to generalize, for 3 you’d need to divide the numbers to three sets. One that divide by 3, one that has remainder of 1 and one that has remainder of 2. This way you have 3 symmetric sets of numbers and you can give them special names and find their special properties and assign importance to them. This can also be done for 5 with 5 symmetric sets, 7, 11, and any other prime number.
Not sure about how relevant this in reality, but when it comes to alternating series, this might be relevant. For example the Fourier series expansion of cosine and other trig function?
True, but normally, you’d introduce trig functions before complex numbers. Anyhow: I appreciate the meme and the complete over the top discussion about it :D
I’m definitely in the “for almost everything” camp. It’s less ambiguous especially when you consider the DD/MM vs MM/DD nonsense between US dates vs elsewhere. Pretty much the only time I don’t use ISO-8601 is when I’m using non-numeric month names like when saying a date out loud.
In Canada we use MM/DD and DD/MM so you never quite know which it is! There’s an expense spreadsheet I fill out for work that uses one format in one place and the other format in another…
Yes, MM DD YY only makes sense when you're speaking.
In written language it should always follow the order of smallest to largest, meaning day, month, and then year. Imo.
Though I personally try to use YYYY-MM-DD as much as possible in day to day life, if not applicable I use DD MM YYYY. YYYY-MM-DD of course doesn't follow the order of smallest to largest, instead following the opposite order, though at least it has an order.
When does saying the month first ever help when you’re speaking? The month doesn’t change for like 30 days. The only thing that matters is dd which changes daily. If someone asks me what the date I’ll give them the day date and nothing else.
I don’t need to say it’s the 9th and watch them panic that maybe it’s January.
So if you made an appointment for the 2nd of September you'd tell 'em "yeah let's meet on the 2nd" or "yeah let's meet on the 245th" you're gonna need the month somewhere.
Of course if it's the same month it wouldn't make a difference if you said "let's meet on the 10th" or "let's meet on the 10th of August" but if you're making appointments for different months which in everyday life or in a work environment is not unusual you can't just say "yeah the 2nd" and expect them to know which month. "Yeah you can expect delivery by the 4th".
Tl;Dr:
I didn't even say "it's the only way to say it when speaking" I said "only makes sense when you're speaking." because in written form MM DD YY is just shit for everyone except Americans, to the point where context sometimes is the only saving grace. Vice versa applies.
Yep you’re 100% right. My job start date was miscommunicated because of this, they were like “you start on the 17th”… turns out it was the next month. Better than getting it wrong in the other direction though for sure!
Largest to smallest is way more logical than smallest to largest. You start general and get more specific as you progress. It is in general a better approach to conveying information and cataloging data. Not just dates.
Yeah but if you’re communicating a date, then it’s likely that the larger chunks of time will match and can be ommitted, so it’s natural to go up the chain in until you hit the day/month/year that matches the current one. Although I guess that’d imply using minutes before hours… I guess you could go large to small and skip anything that matches too. Nvm lol
Yes, MM DD YY only makes sense when you’re speaking
For many people it doesn’t. It’s something that’s exclusive to the US. In British English it’s day before month when speaking.
It’s something that is taught in school as “remember that the Americans say date before month so you don’t get confused”. But in a business context it’s bloody annoying you don’t switch to the international standard.
Like I replied to someone else in this thread: I wasn't saying "it's the only way that makes sense when speaking" I said "it only makes sense when speaking". That doesn't make any other way of saying dates make less sense when speaking though.
Sadly no. (You can prolly create drop down menu in a hacky way by creating some script that would launch a drop down looking menu and have your wm’s window rules display it under the module when clicked)
Btw waybar supports tooltips(hover text thingy) but its wayland only
I’m honestly not 100% sure, but I don’t think so. Waybar does though, with the tooltip option.
Waybar is similar to Polybar, but only works on Wayland rather than X11. Configuration is a bit different, but similar in many respects. If you’re using i3 with Polybar now, you can install Sway as the window manager and drop your i3 config into ~/.config/sway/, it should work exactly the same as i3 after a few minor tweaks. Once Sway is set up, you can install and configure Waybar. The config file is not a drop-in replacement like Sway was for i3, but if you can figure out Polybar, you can figure out Waybar.
The meme works better if it’s 1 instead of 2. 1 is mostly not considered a prime number because a bunch of theorems like the fundamental theorem of arithmetic would have to be reworked to say “prime numbers greater than 1.” However, just because 1 is not a prime number doesn’t mean it’s a composite number, so 1 is a number that is neither prime nor composite.
2 is a prime number, but shit ton of theorems only apply to odd prime numbers, and a lot of other theorems treat 2 as a special separate case, because it behaves weirdly.
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