It was interesting to read how sage developed. I use it all the time, but had never known...

The Magma stuff sounds nasty. All the more reason to avoid proprietary software.

>theorem proving is mechanical

I have to disagree. As theorems become more complicated, proving them becomes anything but mechanical: one must choose between an infinite variety of approaches, many of which are equally valid.

It would be neat if we could use something like this to render equations on HN...

It's fine for me, but you can always use the Google cache: http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:Xm1IG5QALKUJ:www.mathjax...

This came up on the sage (FOSS alternative to Mathematica and freinds) mailing lists and I thought I'd post it here.

It always surprises me how difficult math on the Internet has turned out to be. Hopefully this can help...

MathML was supposed to be the answer, and we all know how that went. Just goes to show how over the top people were going with XML in the late 1990s. I mean,

  <math mode="display" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
  <mrow>
    <mi>x</mi>
    <mo>=</mo>
    <mfrac>
      <mrow>
        <mo form="prefix">&#x2212;<!-- &minus; --></mo>
        <mi>b</mi>
        <mo>&#x00B1;<!-- &PlusMinus; --></mo>
        <msqrt>
          <msup>
            <mi>b</mi>
            <mn>2</mn>
          </msup>
          <mo>&#x2212;<!-- &minus; --></mo>
          <mn>4</mn>
          <mo>&#x2062;<!-- &InvisibleTimes; --></mo>
          <mi>a</mi>
          <mo>&#x2062;<!-- &InvisibleTimes; --></mo>
          <mi>c</mi>
        </msqrt>
      </mrow>
      <mrow>
        <mn>2</mn>
        <mo>&#x2062;<!-- &InvisibleTimes; --></mo>
        <mi>a</mi>
      </mrow>
    </mfrac>
  </mrow>
  </math>

to typeset the fucking quadratic formula?

MathML is not a human input language! MathML is a representation. While comparisons with TeX and LaTeX are inevitable, they serve different purposes. Look at the HTML/CSS used to render a dynamic menu sometime. I'm sure it is pretty ugly too.

I just read the Wikipedia entry for his views on woman. There's an interesting part at the end:

After the elderly Schopenhauer sat for a sculpture portrait by Elisabet Ney, he told Richard Wagner's friend Malwida von Meysenbug, "I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man."

He might be a misogynist, but at least he recognised exceptions.

It's also interesting (in the context of his time) to note that he was a strong supporter of abolitionism and animal rights.

There's also the small matter of whether they should be using tax payers dollars to fund the development of a proprietary product. I realise that most people use Windows but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And I'm not even American!

I get where you're coming from, but let me play devil's advocate. The NSA has a possibly unique position of being able to protect the United States' information infrastructure from emerging threats, on account of their well funded, top-secret research in this field.

Now for better or for worse, Microsoft Windows plays a major role in US business infrastructure. So isn't it a good thing for the NSA to use its position to strengthen the USA against new attacks that, perhaps, only this agency has the ability to see coming?

Aren't Microsoft tax payers themselves?

Probably not. I would be surprised if their accounting department has not found ways to completely offset all of their tax liabilities.

I know they don't pay state tax: http://crosscut.com/2008/02/02/microsoft/11167/

It'd be cool to make a whole desktop UI around that. Very cool.

The Internet is killing storytelling? What?

http://www.fanfiction.net/ http://www.fictionpress.com/ http://www.scribd.com/ (And lots of others...)

I rest my case.

Though, to be fair, fanfiction.net is its own argument against internet literacy.

I'm a high school student presently. The Math is trivial.

The only way to learn anything is to read by myself and audit university courses.

I'm actually trying to write a math textbook that will actually teach math. If you're interested email me at christopherolah.co@gmail.com and I'll email you a copy. Please include `math textbook' in you subject (I get lots of emails).