I don't know if that's true. If they are all built of different materials, but have the same number sequence, I would think the randomness distribution would still be the same. I just have no idea, and it's fascinating he would test this.
I actually posted on his site and also here with the exact same request.
It would also be interesting to see if there's any statistical deviation in different spindown dice because of the MTG set symbol that appears on the top, which are different for each set.
**** This is truly fascinating. However, I have a question for you. I'm wondering if you can extend your tests further to a specific type of d20 die. The game "Magic the Gathering" often makes use of d20 "spindown" dice, which are dice with the numbers going sequentially from 20 to 1. This is because these dice are used as life counters in the game (in addition for rolling for random things), and it's easier to change your life from, say, 20 to 17 if you only have to slightly adjust the die, rather than continually looking for the number on the die because it's placed (seemingly) randomly.
I once encountered a person who said he did not want to roll a spindown die to determine who would go first in the game, because he thought they were unfair. His logic, which I thought ridiculous at the time, was that dice with a greater concentration of double digit numbers on the top of the dice (i.e, 16-17-18-19-20) would be unfair, because slightly more plastic from the die had been removed to deboss (rather than emboss) those numbers onto the die, as opposed to the amount of material that had been removed to deboss the single digit numbers on the opposite side of the die (1-2-3-4-5). Thus, because there was slightly more plastic on the side of the die with single digits, the die would be ever so slightly weighted in favor of higher numbers appearing on the top. As a result, this person didn't want to roll a "random" die against a "spindown" die.
This seems somewhat ludicrous to me, because even if it's true it's probably such a slight difference as to have virtually no effect in most rolls. However, the fact that you have this machine set up means you can test this for the entire MTG community. Please do so, for SCIENCE! Go down to your local comic book store, and ask them if they have any Magic the Gathering spindown dice available. Then, please test away, and report back! People on this website would be eager to know: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/
For extra credit, you may note that the MTG spindown dice don't have a 20 on top. They have the symbol of the set from when the dice was printed; currently it's "Rise of the Eldrazi" but the spindown dice have had symbols printed on them going back ten years I think. So if you are able to get ahold of multiple spindown dice from different sets and if you can test them, the entire MTG community will know specifically which spindown die from which set is the most unfair! That is, if any of them are unfair. Thanks!
One of the drawbacks of a lot of modern sci-fi is a failure to understand the nuances of actual, real, human history. Historians have a hard time grasping what life was like in a lot of humanity's past, but it's safe to say we have a decent grip on SOME aspects of history.
It's true that technology is changing things rapidly. But if you were a peasant in Eastern Europe in the 1300's, the recurved bows of the Mongols, which you had never seen before, would be a huge shock, and your life would have been turned upside down in an instant as the Mongol hordes came in out of nowhere and slaughtered your best men and set your villages on fire with technology you had not seen before..
The arrival of the Spaniards with guns on horses, with Pizarro in the 1500's, was a shock to the Incas, so much so that he was able to conquer their empire. They had never seen that "technology" before."
In fact, one could easily argue that while current technological advances are rapid, they are not *game-changing* in the same way that guns and nukes were.
Here are some possible game-changing technologies. Wake me when we have: 1) Serious, practical, invisibility cloaks. 2) FTL drives 3) Teleportation 4) Serious advances in genetic manipulation, such that people can taiolor their offspring to be geniuses or pyshopaths. 5) Very long life-spans, as in, beyond 150 years, healthy.
When THESE things start to raise their heads, then the world will really have changed in the same drastic way as the world for the Incas did when Pizarro showed up.
Just because someone is not willing to stand trial or "accept the consequences" for their actions doesn't invalidate their initial actions.
Civil disobedience doesn't somehow become morally wrong because you don't want to go to trial, "face the music", or allow yourself to be arrested. The idea is that by breaking some laws, you call attention to the injustice of those laws. Getting arrested may or may not help with that, but it has nothing to do with whether or not the law was wrong in the first place.
If Rosa Parks had decided not to allow herself to be arrested and fought back physically against the cops who arrested her, she likely would have been violently arrested, even beaten, but that would not have invalidated her initial refusal to move from her seat.
Edward Snowden's disseminating of the information he took from the NSA is valuable information everyone needs to know about how our government spies on its own citizens. His running from the law has nothing whatsoever to do with that; that information is valuable to all Americans whether or not he broke the law, so why do we care if he "faces the music"?
Nowadays the two terms are conflated because grill is not generally used as a noun in this way.
When people say "Come over to my house; I am having a July 4 BBQ", they mean they are going to grill food on July 4, not actually BBQ food. But no one actually says "Come over to my house; I am going to have a July 4 Grill" because that implies you will have an actual grill object to give or something. It's confusing. So people say BBQ. There's nothing wrong with using English in this way.
Paying attention to the fact that the government rarely uses it's firearms compared to the number of citizens who use them. There were 30,000 gun deaths last year and 90,000 injuries. Most of those (although some are) are not from the government shooting a gun.
ergo, you have more to fear from a citizen with a gun than a cop..
Who is why us liberals make fun of the libertarian and conservative fear of the government.
It wasn't about of the government to own it's own forces, as a militia wasn't considered as an extension of the government. In essence, once we got an army, there was no need for a militia.
But you are right, the 2nd Amendment should be repealed.
Funny how reasonable people can come to a different conclusion about that. The 2nd Amendment seems to say that the right shouldn't be infringed since we need a militia.
Since we no longer need a militia, because we have a standing army, we can infringe it.
More importantly, screw the 2nd Amendment. It was written during a completely different time and the Founding Fathers were not infallible. It should be rewritten to more clearly say "Individuals should not have the right to own a gun."
I'll bite. Give up your gun. You don't need it. Last year there were 100 burglaries with homicides involved; there were 18,000 suicides and 90,000 gun injuries. You are much more likely to shoot yourself or someone accidentally than you are to actually need to use your gun. Give up your gun.
Which is why most gun owners should not have guns. If you are more afraid of the "government" than you are of the possible accidental shooting of someone with your legally purchased firearm, then you aren't paying attention.
No, you should lose both. You shouldn't have a right to own handguns. The Constitution was interpreted that way in two 5-4 decisions by conservative supreme court justices, but that's not the last word on the matter by any means.
I fall into the "ban most guns" camp. Not all guns.
I think there's a huge, quite ignorant and paranoid group of people in this country who think that the government is the greatest threat, when there's no members of the government going around shooting up large numbers of innocents in schools and theaters.
It's by and large citizens, who have purchased their guns legally.
But if we had less guns, we'd have less gun violence.
I think shotguns serve a moderately useful purpose, for hunting, but even that isn't necessary in a modern society.
There's no advocates for banning cars because the main purpose of a car isn't to kill people. The main purpose of a gun is to kill. Thus, a toddler using it is doing what the gun was intended for. Just probably at the time the gun owner didn't expect.
Lessen the amount of guns in our country and you will lessen gun violence. It's pretty simple.
I am not a gun owner. I think gun ownership in general should be heavily restricted in this country, and most types of firearms should be banned outright. The only way to reduce gun violence in this country is to get rid of most guns.
Slashdot Mirror
They now exist as a clear d10 with another clear d10 actually inside the first one; the outer one is 10s and the inner one is single digits.
I don't know if that's true. If they are all built of different materials, but have the same number sequence, I would think the randomness distribution would still be the same. I just have no idea, and it's fascinating he would test this.
I actually posted on his site and also here with the exact same request.
It would also be interesting to see if there's any statistical deviation in different spindown dice because of the MTG set symbol that appears on the top, which are different for each set.
I posted this on his website, but here goes:
****
This is truly fascinating. However, I have a question for you. I'm wondering if you can extend your tests further to a specific type of d20 die. The game "Magic the Gathering" often makes use of d20 "spindown" dice, which are dice with the numbers going sequentially from 20 to 1. This is because these dice are used as life counters in the game (in addition for rolling for random things), and it's easier to change your life from, say, 20 to 17 if you only have to slightly adjust the die, rather than continually looking for the number on the die because it's placed (seemingly) randomly.
I once encountered a person who said he did not want to roll a spindown die to determine who would go first in the game, because he thought they were unfair. His logic, which I thought ridiculous at the time, was that dice with a greater concentration of double digit numbers on the top of the dice (i.e, 16-17-18-19-20) would be unfair, because slightly more plastic from the die had been removed to deboss (rather than emboss) those numbers onto the die, as opposed to the amount of material that had been removed to deboss the single digit numbers on the opposite side of the die (1-2-3-4-5). Thus, because there was slightly more plastic on the side of the die with single digits, the die would be ever so slightly weighted in favor of higher numbers appearing on the top. As a result, this person didn't want to roll a "random" die against a "spindown" die.
This seems somewhat ludicrous to me, because even if it's true it's probably such a slight difference as to have virtually no effect in most rolls. However, the fact that you have this machine set up means you can test this for the entire MTG community. Please do so, for SCIENCE! Go down to your local comic book store, and ask them if they have any Magic the Gathering spindown dice available. Then, please test away, and report back! People on this website would be eager to know: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/
For extra credit, you may note that the MTG spindown dice don't have a 20 on top. They have the symbol of the set from when the dice was printed; currently it's "Rise of the Eldrazi" but the spindown dice have had symbols printed on them going back ten years I think. So if you are able to get ahold of multiple spindown dice from different sets and if you can test them, the entire MTG community will know specifically which spindown die from which set is the most unfair! That is, if any of them are unfair. Thanks!
And what deity or god do atheists worship again?
My username reveals nothing about me. :-( So I can be obnoxious online in anonymity.
One of the drawbacks of a lot of modern sci-fi is a failure to understand the nuances of actual, real, human history. Historians have a hard time grasping what life was like in a lot of humanity's past, but it's safe to say we have a decent grip on SOME aspects of history.
It's true that technology is changing things rapidly. But if you were a peasant in Eastern Europe in the 1300's, the recurved bows of the Mongols, which you had never seen before, would be a huge shock, and your life would have been turned upside down in an instant as the Mongol hordes came in out of nowhere and slaughtered your best men and set your villages on fire with technology you had not seen before..
The arrival of the Spaniards with guns on horses, with Pizarro in the 1500's, was a shock to the Incas, so much so that he was able to conquer their empire. They had never seen that "technology" before."
In fact, one could easily argue that while current technological advances are rapid, they are not *game-changing* in the same way that guns and nukes were.
Here are some possible game-changing technologies. Wake me when we have:
1) Serious, practical, invisibility cloaks.
2) FTL drives
3) Teleportation
4) Serious advances in genetic manipulation, such that people can taiolor their offspring to be geniuses or pyshopaths.
5) Very long life-spans, as in, beyond 150 years, healthy.
When THESE things start to raise their heads, then the world will really have changed in the same drastic way as the world for the Incas did when Pizarro showed up.
I never understood comments like yours.
Just because someone is not willing to stand trial or "accept the consequences" for their actions doesn't invalidate their initial actions.
Civil disobedience doesn't somehow become morally wrong because you don't want to go to trial, "face the music", or allow yourself to be arrested. The idea is that by breaking some laws, you call attention to the injustice of those laws. Getting arrested may or may not help with that, but it has nothing to do with whether or not the law was wrong in the first place.
If Rosa Parks had decided not to allow herself to be arrested and fought back physically against the cops who arrested her, she likely would have been violently arrested, even beaten, but that would not have invalidated her initial refusal to move from her seat.
Edward Snowden's disseminating of the information he took from the NSA is valuable information everyone needs to know about how our government spies on its own citizens. His running from the law has nothing whatsoever to do with that; that information is valuable to all Americans whether or not he broke the law, so why do we care if he "faces the music"?
Pretty good, actually. We have lots of new high rises here being built or in the final stages that are entirely devoted to housing.
Nowadays the two terms are conflated because grill is not generally used as a noun in this way.
When people say "Come over to my house; I am having a July 4 BBQ", they mean they are going to grill food on July 4, not actually BBQ food. But no one actually says "Come over to my house; I am going to have a July 4 Grill" because that implies you will have an actual grill object to give or something. It's confusing. So people say BBQ. There's nothing wrong with using English in this way.
Fresh mead from the butcher? That's quite medieval. Lucky guy. I have to make my own mead these days.
You. When was the last time a cop went into a theater and shot up innocent civilians in the dozens?
When was the last time a cop or a government representative went into a school and shot up classrooms full of children in the US?
I know it's cool to hate cops these days, but pay attention:
If you are more afraid of the government doing these things than citizens who own guns, YOU have not been paying attention. Pay attention.
Paying attention to the fact that the government rarely uses it's firearms compared to the number of citizens who use them. There were 30,000 gun deaths last year and 90,000 injuries. Most of those (although some are) are not from the government shooting a gun.
ergo, you have more to fear from a citizen with a gun than a cop..
Who is why us liberals make fun of the libertarian and conservative fear of the government.
It wasn't about of the government to own it's own forces, as a militia wasn't considered as an extension of the government. In essence, once we got an army, there was no need for a militia.
But you are right, the 2nd Amendment should be repealed.
Funny how reasonable people can come to a different conclusion about that. The 2nd Amendment seems to say that the right shouldn't be infringed since we need a militia.
Since we no longer need a militia, because we have a standing army, we can infringe it.
More importantly, screw the 2nd Amendment. It was written during a completely different time and the Founding Fathers were not infallible. It should be rewritten to more clearly say "Individuals should not have the right to own a gun."
If you folks wish to repeal Obamacare, by all means try to do so.
Oh wait...you did already. 54 times.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Fail.
Because you can run from a knife. This stupid strawman is always brought out when people talk about guns.
We don't have a knife problem. What self-respecting thug would use a knife when he can use an easily obtained gun?
We don't have a baseball bad slaying problem. Nor a crossbow problem.
We have a gun problem. Less guns means less gun violence.
That's true, but you can't ban people.
You can't even ban stupid.
You can ban guns.
I'll bite. Give up your gun. You don't need it. Last year there were 100 burglaries with homicides involved; there were 18,000 suicides and 90,000 gun injuries. You are much more likely to shoot yourself or someone accidentally than you are to actually need to use your gun. Give up your gun.
Less guns means less gun violence.
Which is why most gun owners should not have guns. If you are more afraid of the "government" than you are of the possible accidental shooting of someone with your legally purchased firearm, then you aren't paying attention.
No, you should lose both. You shouldn't have a right to own handguns. The Constitution was interpreted that way in two 5-4 decisions by conservative supreme court justices, but that's not the last word on the matter by any means.
I fall into the "ban most guns" camp. Not all guns.
I think there's a huge, quite ignorant and paranoid group of people in this country who think that the government is the greatest threat, when there's no members of the government going around shooting up large numbers of innocents in schools and theaters.
It's by and large citizens, who have purchased their guns legally.
But if we had less guns, we'd have less gun violence.
I think shotguns serve a moderately useful purpose, for hunting, but even that isn't necessary in a modern society.
There's no advocates for banning cars because the main purpose of a car isn't to kill people. The main purpose of a gun is to kill. Thus, a toddler using it is doing what the gun was intended for. Just probably at the time the gun owner didn't expect.
Lessen the amount of guns in our country and you will lessen gun violence. It's pretty simple.
Except totalitarians aren't going around shooting up schoolrooms or theaters.
Gun owners are. Ban guns.
I am not a gun owner. I think gun ownership in general should be heavily restricted in this country, and most types of firearms should be banned outright. The only way to reduce gun violence in this country is to get rid of most guns.
Less guns means less gun violence.