I saw
this last night:
Subject: Linking to Wikipedia to explain math
Don't do it. Ever.
Wikipedia math articles are essentially penis-measurement battles between editors who try to find the most obsucre and non-obvious manner to explain even simple arithmetic. Much like Fox News, Wikipedia math articles are bad for your brain.
While I can't claim to have seen enough Fox News to say I agree on that point (but I probably do, I'm just not willing to commit to it when I've only experienced it via the filter of The Daily Show), it's nice to see that someone agrees with me about the math articles on Wikipedia.
Sadly, I think that's the only reason I read Slashdot. Rarely is there ever anything there worth reading. It's just that many of the stories are so obviously a pile of shit and I hope to find someone in the comments shares my opinion as a sign that not everyone in the world is a complete fucking moron.
Probably I should just read a different web site. As I've said before, Slashdot is essentially the Fox News of liberals. If there's a way to misinterpret something in such a way that liberals will become enraged, Slashdot will find a way to do it.
Unfortunately I'm not sure I accomplished my goal explaining how the FFT works. It still seems a bit dense. Nevertheless, I'm sure that given the same amount of time I put into trying to understand Wikipedia, I'd've actually learned something from what I wrote.
For another example of academic masturbation in Wikipedia articles, years ago I found the Wikipedia article about musical keys. Here is
a link to the article as I found it. ...and then, here's
my response on the talk page. Most amusing is further down in the talk page where someone talks about how the article just confuses them and the most understandable thing they've found about the subject is what I wrote on the talk page.
Like I said before: Smart people suck. A lot.