but it is not statistics that rule chance, it is probability. the previous poster, as well as myself in a different post, are trying to point out -- we thing those numbers are misleading and based on long-term statistics, and should not be treated as probability.
If, on average, a certain even over the course of a long time has some chance of happening, like, say, a plane crash or an asteroid hitting, then it's reasonable to compare them
except if the 'long time' in which the certainty needs to happen exceeds a person's lifespan. that is why I bring up statistics vs. probability. statistically, over this 'long time' there might be as many people die from planes as meteorites.
but, that 'long time' is almost definately much much longer than your lifespan or mine. therefore the probability of me dying from a plane crash is much greater than my probability of dying from a meteorite.
now I'm no math expert, this is just my opinion generated from my limited knowledge. But probability is what defines every instance, versus statistics which are used to find out general patterns. This is where my coin analogy came from.
To look at this with another example, take the Black Death. It was a significant event, with large variance. Lots of people died. So, the history of the last 1000 years might show that 1 in 400,000 people die of the black plague. So does that mean that my odds are 1/400,000 in dying of the black plague? No, the probability is much smaller than that because probability must look at my lifespan, and events happening in my lifespan. Things that happened 700 years ago are as unconsequential to my lifespace as things that will happen 700 years in the future.
though you do bring up good points:) especially the fact of variance
Apparently we are just as likely to die by asteroid impact as in a plane crash
Except one of the situations happens often enough to make headlines multiple times every year...and the other doesn't. So why are they listed as the same?
My guess is that somebody was considering that a great number of people would die as a result of a large meteorite impact. Taking this into consideration, then over a long period of time (long enough to include one or two significant meteorite impacts), then yes. If you counted the number of people that die from meteorite impacts and those that die from the sum total of all plane crashes, then they might be equal. But this is statistics, not probability. The probability of being killed by a meteorite would be much much lower.
The same thing is seen in a coin toss. For instance, say that you have flipped a coin six times, and each time it has landed on 'heads'. Statistically, you know that only 50% of flips will result in 'heads', so you might think that the odds are very low for the coin to land on 'heads' a seventh time -- 1 in 32 or so. BUT the seventh flip has the same 50/50 chance of landing on heads that any other flip had. That's probability.
and then it turns out that they just chose some poor shmoe's email address at random and put it on the website with the form........and then the poor guy created a webpage to talk about his misfortune, how he received hundreds of bounced emails and somehow got signed up to some cooldeals.com newsletter........and then the new website was slashdotted
I would worry about it's compatibility with a lot of all-in-one computer desks I've seen. Many desks have standardized compartments for the case, and this is 1) possibly too wide, and 2) has the cables oriented in the wrong direction.
Also I would worry about it's capacity to add more fans. I've got an SC750a now, and I love having mounts at just about every point in the case for more fans. I guess that the manufacturor isn't as worried about more fans, though, because of the airflow design (which looks very efficient).
Those worries aside, I think this is a terrific concept and if the price is right, I'll build my next computer from it. I wish it came with round cables though, that would help airflow even more.
You forgot to mention how the one day of vacation in Winter quarter is affectionately called "Suicide Prevention Day" by us students/alum. After all, UofC (or have they completely the trasition to being referred to as "Chicago" yet?) had the second highest suicide rate in private universities when I was there.
I was an item in a scav hunt one year -- the list called for a "blinking Jesus", so they dressed me up in a robe, I let my hair down, and blinked at the judge. Full points:) Although I think it was definately overstaged when John Whitmer and all the others who dared to chug a can of cold creamed corn started spewing all over Ida Noyes...
While USPTO.gov does state that Visa's Trademark application was roughly 2.5 weeks prior to the defendant's, the JSL (the defendant) application includes dates for first use and first use in commerce:
Visa's application: August 19th, 1999 JSL's application: October 6th, 1999 JSL's First Use/in Commerce: December 27, 1997
This handily beats out Visa's information, which doesn't include these dates at all. IANAL, but as far as I know the date of established use trumps date of application.
In fact, it could even be argued that JSL Corporation (the defendant) could sue Visa for dilution of trademark.
-----------------
my story, or how I didn't get sued on my birthday
on
Helping Your Ex-Employer?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Several years ago, I had a small contract to do flash design for the website for a small indie film. The pay structure was divided 25%, 25%, and 50% for the final. The first two were fine, and the project was going smoothly. After finishing the project though, I kept getting the run around about my final payment.
Eventually they had the premiere of the movie, and I was invited. At this premiere I was told that, sorry, they had no more money, and couldn't pay me. They had overestimated the $$ in their bank, and it turns out the last of their money was spent on the refreshments for their premiere party. Sucks to be me, but I didn't counter them legally, it was less than $1000 and I just wrote it off as a loss and broke all connections.
About a year later, the same people thought that they were finally getting a bite on their movie, and decided they desperately needed to update their website. They contacted me and asked why they had never received the source code for their movie, as per the contract--they needed it so that so-and-so's cousin, who 'knew flash' could update the website. I told them, because I had never gotten paid, also per the contract. When they didn't pay me, I said, the contract was broken.
At this point they got really upset and brought in so-and-so's uncle the lawyer and told me that what I had made was a piece of crap and the money they already paid more than covered the value of the project. And that if I continued to resist, they would sue me.
This was on my birthday. I've never had a bad birthday since. No matter what happens, I will always remember how this one was worse.
Eventually, after spending half my birthday on the phone, I knew what I had to do. Like I said, the original amount just wasn't enough to call a lawyer about, and I decided this wasn't either. Also, I had no money and even if I won this case it would be on the other side of the country which was just more money out of my pocket. So I told them, ok, I'll give you the source code exactly as it is right now, and you'll leave me alone for good and neither one of us ever talks to the other one. Ok, they said.
What was my trick? My code (and my flash movies are highly dependant on actionscript) was completely uncommented. It would have been a beast for me to figure out, and more so for somebody else that knew flash as well as I did. And much more so for so-and-so's cousin that 'knew flash'.
In the end, they got off my back, I wasn't sued on my birthday, and I came out feeling like I had won anyway. Because they were never able to figure out my source, and were never able to update their website. (and incidentally, never sold their movie)
And after turning it on, we start noticing some problems with the Earth's rotation. Pretty soon we find the Earth rotating using an east-west axis because we've just built a big stinking electric motor!!!
Oh sure, the governments that sponsored the project might act all innocent, but the fact is, tourism to Ecuador and Bali will just never be the same, considering that one never has day and the other never has night...
they were good books for the science-minded youth. Of course a lot of it was unrealistic, but I think (at least this was the impression I remember having) it was all rather well founded. Sort of a good step for kids on their way to reading the more-believably written sci-fi books.
Does this make anyone else think of one of the books from the old Danny Dunn series, where the trouble-bound kid is nephew of a brilliant scientist? I loved these books when I was a kid! The one titled Danny Dunn on a Desert Island tells of Danny, his best friend, his uncle, and one of his uncle's peers, getting caught on a desert island.
They turned being stranded into a competition and distributed points for whoever made the most useful inventions, such as a hot-water bath and homemade soap.
take a non-elastic rope 500,000 miles long and create a simple pulley that stretches from your backyard to the moon and back. Tie a bucket of water to one end and pull on the other. Even if the material is 100% non-elastic, the transfer of motion can't move faster than light, so you'll still see a few seconds lag time before the other side of the pulley responds.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh no! I was hiding all of my financial information in Sector 33! Now I've installed TurboTax and it's all goooonnnnee!!!
and this was supposed to help me with my finances...
.
but it is not statistics that rule chance, it is probability. the previous poster, as well as myself in a different post, are trying to point out -- we thing those numbers are misleading and based on long-term statistics, and should not be treated as probability.
If, on average, a certain even over the course of a long time has some chance of happening, like, say, a plane crash or an asteroid hitting, then it's reasonable to compare them
:) especially the fact of variance
except if the 'long time' in which the certainty needs to happen exceeds a person's lifespan. that is why I bring up statistics vs. probability. statistically, over this 'long time' there might be as many people die from planes as meteorites.
but, that 'long time' is almost definately much much longer than your lifespan or mine. therefore the probability of me dying from a plane crash is much greater than my probability of dying from a meteorite.
now I'm no math expert, this is just my opinion generated from my limited knowledge. But probability is what defines every instance, versus statistics which are used to find out general patterns. This is where my coin analogy came from.
To look at this with another example, take the Black Death. It was a significant event, with large variance. Lots of people died. So, the history of the last 1000 years might show that 1 in 400,000 people die of the black plague. So does that mean that my odds are 1/400,000 in dying of the black plague? No, the probability is much smaller than that because probability must look at my lifespan, and events happening in my lifespan. Things that happened 700 years ago are as unconsequential to my lifespace as things that will happen 700 years in the future.
though you do bring up good points
Apparently we are just as likely to die by asteroid impact as in a plane crash
Except one of the situations happens often enough to make headlines multiple times every year...and the other doesn't. So why are they listed as the same?
My guess is that somebody was considering that a great number of people would die as a result of a large meteorite impact. Taking this into consideration, then over a long period of time (long enough to include one or two significant meteorite impacts), then yes. If you counted the number of people that die from meteorite impacts and those that die from the sum total of all plane crashes, then they might be equal. But this is statistics, not probability. The probability of being killed by a meteorite would be much much lower.
The same thing is seen in a coin toss. For instance, say that you have flipped a coin six times, and each time it has landed on 'heads'. Statistically, you know that only 50% of flips will result in 'heads', so you might think that the odds are very low for the coin to land on 'heads' a seventh time -- 1 in 32 or so. BUT the seventh flip has the same 50/50 chance of landing on heads that any other flip had. That's probability.
hey look!!
no, over there, to your left!
no, your other left
there it goes, hurry!
awwwwww...you missed it!
it was THE POINT!
and then it turns out that they just chose some poor shmoe's email address at random and put it on the website with the form.... ....and then the poor guy created a webpage to talk about his misfortune, how he received hundreds of bounced emails and somehow got signed up to some cooldeals.com newsletter.... ....and then the new website was slashdotted
and I worry about glare on my television screen now!
Of all the new internet technologies you need to catch up on, which are you most excited about and most eager to research first, and why?
It is as legal as if they made the "tiny print" in legal documents in invisible ink....
I would worry about it's compatibility with a lot of all-in-one computer desks I've seen. Many desks have standardized compartments for the case, and this is 1) possibly too wide, and 2) has the cables oriented in the wrong direction.
Also I would worry about it's capacity to add more fans. I've got an SC750a now, and I love having mounts at just about every point in the case for more fans. I guess that the manufacturor isn't as worried about more fans, though, because of the airflow design (which looks very efficient).
Those worries aside, I think this is a terrific concept and if the price is right, I'll build my next computer from it. I wish it came with round cables though, that would help airflow even more.
Now the real question in the matter is: who gave it to him, and how can we thank them?
You forgot to mention how the one day of vacation in Winter quarter is affectionately called "Suicide Prevention Day" by us students/alum. After all, UofC (or have they completely the trasition to being referred to as "Chicago" yet?) had the second highest suicide rate in private universities when I was there.
:) Although I think it was definately overstaged when John Whitmer and all the others who dared to chug a can of cold creamed corn started spewing all over Ida Noyes...
I was an item in a scav hunt one year -- the list called for a "blinking Jesus", so they dressed me up in a robe, I let my hair down, and blinked at the judge. Full points
While USPTO.gov does state that Visa's Trademark application was roughly 2.5 weeks prior to the defendant's, the JSL (the defendant) application includes dates for first use and first use in commerce:
Visa's application: August 19th, 1999
JSL's application: October 6th, 1999
JSL's First Use/in Commerce: December 27, 1997
This handily beats out Visa's information, which doesn't include these dates at all. IANAL, but as far as I know the date of established use trumps date of application.
In fact, it could even be argued that JSL Corporation (the defendant) could sue Visa for dilution of trademark.
-----------------
Several years ago, I had a small contract to do flash design for the website for a small indie film. The pay structure was divided 25%, 25%, and 50% for the final. The first two were fine, and the project was going smoothly. After finishing the project though, I kept getting the run around about my final payment.
Eventually they had the premiere of the movie, and I was invited. At this premiere I was told that, sorry, they had no more money, and couldn't pay me. They had overestimated the $$ in their bank, and it turns out the last of their money was spent on the refreshments for their premiere party. Sucks to be me, but I didn't counter them legally, it was less than $1000 and I just wrote it off as a loss and broke all connections.
About a year later, the same people thought that they were finally getting a bite on their movie, and decided they desperately needed to update their website. They contacted me and asked why they had never received the source code for their movie, as per the contract--they needed it so that so-and-so's cousin, who 'knew flash' could update the website. I told them, because I had never gotten paid, also per the contract. When they didn't pay me, I said, the contract was broken.
At this point they got really upset and brought in so-and-so's uncle the lawyer and told me that what I had made was a piece of crap and the money they already paid more than covered the value of the project. And that if I continued to resist, they would sue me.
This was on my birthday. I've never had a bad birthday since. No matter what happens, I will always remember how this one was worse.
Eventually, after spending half my birthday on the phone, I knew what I had to do. Like I said, the original amount just wasn't enough to call a lawyer about, and I decided this wasn't either. Also, I had no money and even if I won this case it would be on the other side of the country which was just more money out of my pocket. So I told them, ok, I'll give you the source code exactly as it is right now, and you'll leave me alone for good and neither one of us ever talks to the other one. Ok, they said.
What was my trick? My code (and my flash movies are highly dependant on actionscript) was completely uncommented. It would have been a beast for me to figure out, and more so for somebody else that knew flash as well as I did. And much more so for so-and-so's cousin that 'knew flash'.
In the end, they got off my back, I wasn't sued on my birthday, and I came out feeling like I had won anyway. Because they were never able to figure out my source, and were never able to update their website. (and incidentally, never sold their movie)
aha! I knew it -- they really are big gumdrops!
oh wait, or maybe it was all the eyecandy in OSX?
And after turning it on, we start noticing some problems with the Earth's rotation. Pretty soon we find the Earth rotating using an east-west axis because we've just built a big stinking electric motor!!!
Oh sure, the governments that sponsored the project might act all innocent, but the fact is, tourism to Ecuador and Bali will just never be the same, considering that one never has day and the other never has night...
(haha)
I have only one question that I'm dying to ask a flat-earther.
Why does the southern hemisphere see different stars?
This is exactly what I was thinking.
I think it was either in Leon Lederman's The God Particle or one of the Feynman books
I believe the link that you found was at badastronomy.com, an article by Ian Goddard. There is another great page at badastronomy that goes point by point to debunk the Fox special
heh -- me too!
they were good books for the science-minded youth. Of course a lot of it was unrealistic, but I think (at least this was the impression I remember having) it was all rather well founded. Sort of a good step for kids on their way to reading the more-believably written sci-fi books.
Does this make anyone else think of one of the books from the old Danny Dunn series, where the trouble-bound kid is nephew of a brilliant scientist? I loved these books when I was a kid! The one titled Danny Dunn on a Desert Island tells of Danny, his best friend, his uncle, and one of his uncle's peers, getting caught on a desert island.
They turned being stranded into a competition and distributed points for whoever made the most useful inventions, such as a hot-water bath and homemade soap.
I'm amazed and how good this radio telescope must be to pick up waves from the visible light spectrum...
I'm familiar with a similar analogy:
take a non-elastic rope 500,000 miles long and create a simple pulley that stretches from your backyard to the moon and back. Tie a bucket of water to one end and pull on the other. Even if the material is 100% non-elastic, the transfer of motion can't move faster than light, so you'll still see a few seconds lag time before the other side of the pulley responds.
I've already got one of those on my digital camera.
It's neat, when I turn on the screen on the back, it's like the middle of the camera is invisible and I can see right through it!
well somebody tell that to the music industry, if they're making internet radio sites pay up for the past few years of unenforced infringement