Yep, same here - grew up with a lot of Anime on the continent, courtesy of Club Dorothée, but I'm pretty sure I have never heard of Voltron. I was briefly hoping it'd be the English name of Goldorak, but turns out that one's called Grendizer. I quite liked that one, I always found it supremely ironic that the bad guys actually managed to built a decent, fully functioning, nicely designed killer machine only to have it nicked by the good guy who then uses it to whoop their asses for the rest of the series.
Absolutely. I'd even go as far as saying you're out of line when you say 'you're probably right' - well, no, you have no way of asessing that probability. For all we know we could be the single best thing that ever happened to the universe. Hell, one could even argue that all our planet-destroying is hugely beneficial in the grand scheme of things, even if it may damage ourselves. Who are we to judge with our limited mindset?
So yeah, agnosticism is a healthy position. In the absence of strong data I find it the only logical choice. Absolute statements like that of the GP are generally nonsense. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
When that happens in an estimated 5 billion years, our sun will be so big that it will engulf the inner planets and most likely Earth.
Actually, this is incorrect. It will engulf the orbits. The planets themselves will just escape to wider orbits. Except Mercury, Mercury's pretty much buggered.
Why is this kind of product not targetted directly at the kind of user who is aware of the issues at stake?
Because the kind of user who is aware of the issues at stake can recognise a pointless gadget when he sees one and knows he's far better off with something like TrueCrypt?
The obvious way to conduct such a study would be to correlate the incidence of illness with the proximity to radio sources.
Actually, TFA is badly phrased. IIRC the study showed that people displayed symptoms even if the masts were switched off, indicating that it is a negative Placebo effect. That's why they go on so much about the importance of beliefs in TFA. As a consequence, your 'obvious' way of doing this study is flawed, because knowledge that a mast is in the vicinity is enough to induce symptoms, regardless of whether or not the mast is actually emitting - you are not controlling for a Placebo effect.
I think this is a clear indication that we're in trouble!
Neo: Whoa. Déjà vu. Trinity: What did you just say? Neo: Nothing. Just had a little déjà vu. Trinity: What did you see? Neo: A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just like it. Trinity: How much like it? Was it the same cat? Neo: It might have been. I'm not sure. Morpheus: Switch! Apoc! Neo: What is it? Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.
Snape's patronus is a doe. I understand that Snape loved Lily, but why does a doe represent Lily? Sure, James (secret!) animagus form was a stag, but that would imply that Snape cared about James. Lily's patronus was a doe, but why would Snape's be the same? I assume Lily's was a doe to represent James (even though a stag would make more sense), but again, that implies that Snape cared about James.
Yeah, I thought that was a bit contrived too but at the same time I guess there's nothing from preventing your patronus to be the same as the one you care about?
Gryffindor's sword in the Sorting Hat. I thought that Griphook took it? If he cared so much about it, why wouldn't he protect it in some way?
Agreed. I almost have the impression that we're missing a chapter about how the sword got back to Hogwarts there... unless some elf went to nick it, I guess...
The Deathly Hallows. [...] Voldemort made the ring a Horcrux without knowing its abilities? With his quest for power, I'd assume he would have at least heard of the Deathly Hallows.
Well, that one's explained in the book by Dumbledore - for all he knew Voldemort really didn't know about them, but even if he did, he would at best have cared about only one of them - the wand.
Harry not moving when Voldemort cast a Crucio on him? I understand not screaming, since the pain can be resisted somewhat. But not even twitching?
I think this is just because Harry is the actual master of the wand - it won't hurt him, like in the battle soon after.
The epilogue. If she insisted on doing an epilogue to destroy any future books, couldn't she have at least mentioned what happened to the other characters? The Ministry? Weasely Wizarding Wheezes? It mentioned that Ted Lupin wasn't living with Harry, but where else would he live if not his godfather?
If memory serves me right, I think, sometime after the first or second book this rumour made the rounds that Rowling had already written the last chapter of the last book and that it was locked away in a safe somewhere. Reading the epilogue, it is so detached from anything that happens in the book and the writing style seems cruder too - I think that rumour must have been right and I guess all the things you missed from the epilogue had simply not even been thought about by her at the time.
there probably are some numerological bits of weirdness in the Bible
There are numerological bits of weirdness everywhere if you want to find them. Remember these words of wisdom:
If you want the number 216 you can find it everywhere. 216 steps from your street corner to your front door, 216 seconds you spend in the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed you filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere. Whatever. You've chosen 216 and you'll find it everywhere in nature. But, Max, as soon as you discard scientific rigor, you are no longer a mathematician, you're a numerologist. --Sol Robeson
Never mind HD performance, she has to get that DvD from somewhere and I highly doubt that whoever is seeding can upload it is as fast as she can download.
I agree with your general point, but only in cases where the consumer then goes on to buy something at Dell that he did not originally want. Also, I fail to see why whining in either case, especially on slashdot, would be a bad thing.
Before whining on slashdot:
someone at Dell and the OP were aware that he intended to buy a Dell but did not because Dell refused to sell him the computer he wanted.
After whining on slashdot:
the OP, more than one person at Dell and half the friggin' computer-buying world are aware that Dell did not sell him what he wanted. I guess that if Dell cares at all, this is going to make them address the issue faster than some random bloke telling them he's gonna go and buy an HP instead.
Besides, I doubt telling a sales rep that you are going to the competition will have any effect whatsoever. What's he gonna do, go to the manager and tell him that he lost another 100 potential clients to HP? Would the manager say anything other than 'well, you're not very good at your job then, are you? Go clean your desk.'?
Dude, if you wanna warn about the dangers, don't link a random petition, link the Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division web page.
Just some dangers related to dihydrogen monoxide listed on that webpage:
Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.
Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere, and in hurricanes including deadly storms in Florida, New Orleans and other areas of the southeastern U.S.
At last! A scoring method that will naturally penalise me for my lack of self-confidence!
Surely this method will, in fact, naturally reward you for justified lack of self-confidence?;) Imagine the insecure nerd with big glasses in high school, he comes to the test only to realise that he's revised for the wrong topic. He knows sweet FA, guesses 50 True/False questions but admits to being unsure. He is likely to end up with a score of 25ish.
Next, here comes Johnny Bling, the nerd's arch-nemesis. Johnny looks cool, has had more girlfriends than the nerd had level-ups and he sweats testosterone and self confidence. He simply has not revised for the exam because he is just that good. So he too guesses all the answers, obviously confident. Result? 0ish.
So there you go, lack of self confindence wins. Doesn't that make you feel confident about your lack of self confidence?;)
P.S. Yes, I am aware that if the nerd actually knew all the answers, confidence would have been better. But then this is a nice test for checking confidence levels. Consider only the answers for which a student was unsure. If he is really guessing, you'd expect only 100/(number of answers)% of his answers to be correct. If more are correct than chance would predict, consistently and repeatedly across tests, then you may want to have a chat with the guy. Conversely, if someone consistently has a significantly lower accuracy than 100% on his confident answers, you may want to tell him to either share or stop smoking whatever he's smoking and have a reality check:)
As for the involvement of lawyers, it has only occurred in a very few cases. In cases with a strong legal mandate, ReputationDefender has in some cases been able to get law firms interested in representing clients who otherwise might not have been able to afford legal representation, and certainly not of the caliber than has become involved.
Translation:
Even when we had strong cases, which does not happen often, we have failed to get law firms interested except in a select few cases but I am not going to tell you we won, which you can take to mean that we lost.
I don't mean to rain on your parade, but since you're specifically inviting critiques: this doesn't exactly sound like you've been very useful at all now, does it? You may want to work on the sales pitch here.
Damn, I just realised it's not 97 anymore, goes to show the accuracy of my own time machine...make that 35 years and recalculate the error as required:) Will still be in the order of 10^(-8) though I expect
For all those who think about making fun of this gentleman for not actually having made first post, remember that the post has travelled for 25 years and has arrived within 1 minute of its designated arrival time. That's an error of approximately 7.6x10^(-8) times total time travelled... and that is better than what i can achieve at darts:)
Second, the very point the administration tries to make on this particular facet is that the agreement was in 1997, not 1990, thus 1997 is what should be used. 1990 favors other countries, because industries do this cyclical thing; starting at the date the agreement was reached seems the most logical regardless, to pick any date other than then is what is "cherry picking."
I find it interesting that given how much you cited from TFA just to go on about a rant why 1990 should not be used, you chose not to quote to us the sentence immediately following the text you quoted:
Article 3 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change specifies that all greenhouse gas emissions analyses are to use 1990 as the base year
So I don't care who tries to make what point by choosing 1997 or whatever, it seems we have a convention on which year to use - sticking to that is acceptable and even expected, changing it because it makes you look bad to something that makes you look good is cherry-picking and that's the end of that.
Some more similar tech, albeit applied in a very different domain:
The Reactable, basically a glorified synthesizer developed at the UPF in Barcelona, but very cool indeed. It also has a homepage and is used for instance by Björk.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, same here - grew up with a lot of Anime on the continent, courtesy of Club Dorothée, but I'm pretty sure I have never heard of Voltron. I was briefly hoping it'd be the English name of Goldorak, but turns out that one's called Grendizer. I quite liked that one, I always found it supremely ironic that the bad guys actually managed to built a decent, fully functioning, nicely designed killer machine only to have it nicked by the good guy who then uses it to whoop their asses for the rest of the series.
Absolutely. I'd even go as far as saying you're out of line when you say 'you're probably right' - well, no, you have no way of asessing that probability. For all we know we could be the single best thing that ever happened to the universe. Hell, one could even argue that all our planet-destroying is hugely beneficial in the grand scheme of things, even if it may damage ourselves. Who are we to judge with our limited mindset?
So yeah, agnosticism is a healthy position. In the absence of strong data I find it the only logical choice. Absolute statements like that of the GP are generally nonsense. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
More Red Giant trivia at Wikipedia.
Because the kind of user who is aware of the issues at stake can recognise a pointless gadget when he sees one and knows he's far better off with something like TrueCrypt?
What, like, they stay pretty much constant?
Yeah, I thought that was a bit contrived too but at the same time I guess there's nothing from preventing your patronus to be the same as the one you care about?
Agreed. I almost have the impression that we're missing a chapter about how the sword got back to Hogwarts there... unless some elf went to nick it, I guess...
Well, that one's explained in the book by Dumbledore - for all he knew Voldemort really didn't know about them, but even if he did, he would at best have cared about only one of them - the wand.
I think this is just because Harry is the actual master of the wand - it won't hurt him, like in the battle soon after.
If memory serves me right, I think, sometime after the first or second book this rumour made the rounds that Rowling had already written the last chapter of the last book and that it was locked away in a safe somewhere. Reading the epilogue, it is so detached from anything that happens in the book and the writing style seems cruder too - I think that rumour must have been right and I guess all the things you missed from the epilogue had simply not even been thought about by her at the time.
Never mind HD performance, she has to get that DvD from somewhere and I highly doubt that whoever is seeding can upload it is as fast as she can download.
I agree with your general point, but only in cases where the consumer then goes on to buy something at Dell that he did not originally want. Also, I fail to see why whining in either case, especially on slashdot, would be a bad thing.
Before whining on slashdot:
someone at Dell and the OP were aware that he intended to buy a Dell but did not because Dell refused to sell him the computer he wanted.
After whining on slashdot:
the OP, more than one person at Dell and half the friggin' computer-buying world are aware that Dell did not sell him what he wanted. I guess that if Dell cares at all, this is going to make them address the issue faster than some random bloke telling them he's gonna go and buy an HP instead.
Besides, I doubt telling a sales rep that you are going to the competition will have any effect whatsoever. What's he gonna do, go to the manager and tell him that he lost another 100 potential clients to HP? Would the manager say anything other than 'well, you're not very good at your job then, are you? Go clean your desk.'?
Next, here comes Johnny Bling, the nerd's arch-nemesis. Johnny looks cool, has had more girlfriends than the nerd had level-ups and he sweats testosterone and self confidence. He simply has not revised for the exam because he is just that good. So he too guesses all the answers, obviously confident. Result? 0ish.
So there you go, lack of self confindence wins. Doesn't that make you feel confident about your lack of self confidence?
P.S.
Yes, I am aware that if the nerd actually knew all the answers, confidence would have been better. But then this is a nice test for checking confidence levels. Consider only the answers for which a student was unsure. If he is really guessing, you'd expect only 100/(number of answers)% of his answers to be correct. If more are correct than chance would predict, consistently and repeatedly across tests, then you may want to have a chat with the guy. Conversely, if someone consistently has a significantly lower accuracy than 100% on his confident answers, you may want to tell him to either share or stop smoking whatever he's smoking and have a reality check
Or just stop long enough so the people can move a few feet or so and then create a people-less picture from the shots thus obtained.
Some more similar tech, albeit applied in a very different domain: The Reactable, basically a glorified synthesizer developed at the UPF in Barcelona, but very cool indeed. It also has a homepage and is used for instance by Björk.
No lawsuit today, maybe tomorrow.
I've got a bad feeling about this....
There's no try/catch in C, I'm afraid.... you're thinking C++.