Scotty didn't exchange the formula for a small run of transparent aluminum. The exchange was the formula for a run of plexiglass panels. You are hereby ordered to watch Star Trek IV three times before Sunday.
In all fairness to your valid point, the difference here is that the grandparent substantiates the fact that the guy is a "fucking moron," whereas Thompson's name-calling was apparently unsubstantiated and resulted solely from being unable to rebut the arguments of a 14-year-old kid.
It's the difference between saying "I can't stand up to you in an argument, so therefore you are an idiot." and saying "You can't stand up to a 14-year-old kid in an argument without resorting to ad hominem attacks, so therefore you are a moron."
The problem is that he isn't Swift. Very few people can write satire that effectively. Unfortunately, the people who can't are those who keep trying.
I think that there is a case for promissory estoppel here, under contract law. If his satire were good, then maybe he could get away with calling it that, but his satire sucked really bad and it should be treated seriously as a result.
I wonder how much less time it takes to get to, say, a 90% certainty that you're right. It seems to me that the entire thing relies on random choices by the king for you to have any real certainty of escaping. After all, he has so much discretion that he can foil your plan just by calling people in a maliciously non-random way. I think it's a crap problem and the best bet is for a female prisoner to seduce the king at the earliest opportunity.
Re:Yes, but is it better than emacs??
on
Vim 6.4 Released
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· Score: 1
Mine looks like that a lot. I like Emacs for its Lisp editing features and SLIME. TeX work is also easier in Emacs, as is writing a plain text file of prose. Just about everything else (including editing.emacs) is better done in vim.
Re:Yes, but is it better than emacs??
on
Vim 6.4 Released
·
· Score: 1
I wonder if any of the VIM developers use emacs to develop VIM.
I don't know, and I'm not a developer of Vim or Emacs, but I have hacked Emacs with vim.
Assuming that the prisoners know k, that they will be called sufficiently randomly over time (the constraints on the king's choices are not clear from the way the riddle is stated - can he call one guy over and over again or what?), and that they are aware of when another prisoner is called to the central room without knowing who got called, here is a solution:
1. The prisoners number themselves sequentially from 1 to n; call the prisoners P.1 to P.n
2. The prisoners all keep track of the number of prisoners who have been called (mod n); call this m
3. If you are P.m, set the chalice upright; otherwise, set it upside-down
4. If you are P.n when m = 0 (mod n) and the chalice is upright, increment i, which started out 0; if i > k, say "Yes." Otherwise, say "I don't know." and set the chalice upside-down.
The only problem is that everyone is going to die of old age before this works out. Assume random choices. There are n! ways to pick an ordered set of n prisoners. Of these, only 1 will increment i. So we have a 1/n! chance of getting the right order out of n choices of people by the king. So it will take n x n! choices to increment i, and that has to happen k + 1 times. It will take the king (k + 1) x n x n! choices for the prisoners to go free; again, assuming random choices.
For 20 prisoners and k = 5, it takes about 2.92 x 10^20 choices to go free. Even if the king makes one choice per second, it will take over 9 billion years to go free. It doesn't matter when the king uses his k flips, whether his choices are maliciously non-random, or anything else - he will die of old age before it becomes a concern for him. So will you.
This sounds very much like a similar problem I solved in college, involving a light switch instead of the chalice and omitting the king's ability to manipulate the communications tool of the prisoners. I have the following questions:
1. Do the prisoners know k?
2. Define "arbitrary number of times."
These are my sticking points. Based on my questions, I'm sure you can guess the strategy I'm going after from the problem I solved before. My other question is this: Am I on the right track by iterating that strategy k+1 times, or is it completely different?:)
Furthermore, it is likely that on average the people who who study to be lawyers are more intelligent than those studying to be florists.
I am a law student. This is questionable.:P Yes, the comparison is a bit skewed because lawyers go to school for 3 very hardcore years before taking the bar exam, and some still fail, whereas florists probably do not have a 3-year graduate degree to get before taking the florist licensing exam. However, the pass rate is still lower, so it obviously isn't easy.
The really ridiculous thing is that the LA florist laws are "health and safety" laws. Presumably, those who fail the licensing exam would have had a very high probability of selling you a flesh-eating rose or a poison hibiscus.
My understanding (imparted to me by a lawyer working to get that retarded law overturned) is that the pass rate for the Louisiana florist certification is actually lower than the pass rate for the Louisiana bar exam. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but it still seems bizarre: In Louisiana, it is harder to become a florist than a lawyer.
If you read the article, you'll see that it's just the state Public Service Commission "exploring" whether this is a good idea. I doubt they'll implement it - the PSC just has nothing better to do this week.
Haha...how did I know that would get modded down by the musical theater*-loving moderators whose sense of humor pretty much got maxed out by Star Wreck last week?
* - Yeah, I spelled it like that on purpose. Got a problem, boy?:P
My undergraduate university's Aerospace department has a product that competes directly with Blackboard, called HTMLeZ. The main college has Blackboard, while the Aerospace college (which includes the Computer Science department I graduated from) uses HTMLeZ. Students who have to use both (most anyone at some point) vastly prefer HTMLeZ. There are other competing products out there, so this doesn't give Blackboard a monopoly on the market - it just gives them a better cornering of the market for crap.
Just wait. The Feds will see that California's law doesn't accomplish anything, claim it's because California lacks the wherewithal to make it effective, and pass a federal law that is even more insane.
That's what this law is about - it makes it illegal for kids to buy violent games for themselves, so the parents have to buy them if the kids want them. The "whole entire mess" is that parents do such a shitty job of raising and monitoring their children that the state has to step in.
The mapping for the gene sequence was found on a victim frozen in Alaskan permafrost.
So you're telling me that this guy was walking around rural Alaska with the gene sequence all mapped out and written down on paper, died from the flu whose gene sequence for which he was carrying the mapping, was frozen with the paper on him, was found 87 years later, and credited with having the gene mapping all along?
I'm sorry, that just sounds a little far-fetched. Isn't it more likely that the mapping for the gene sequence was produced by modern scientists using genetic material found on a victim frozen in Alaskan permafrost?
That's kind of what I meant - there is no written constitution, but instead you have a... what, 500-year?... history of common law that takes the place of one. The Restatements of the Law by the ALI are just that - distilled versions of the common law. They look like codifications but are not legislatively adopted (well, they could be, but that would be silly and very un-English-common-law of us;). That's what I was getting at. But the more you can tell me about your crazy system, the better, mate.;-D
Slashdot Mirror
F the CC
Scotty didn't exchange the formula for a small run of transparent aluminum. The exchange was the formula for a run of plexiglass panels. You are hereby ordered to watch Star Trek IV three times before Sunday.
You're welcome, Scott. :)
In all fairness to your valid point, the difference here is that the grandparent substantiates the fact that the guy is a "fucking moron," whereas Thompson's name-calling was apparently unsubstantiated and resulted solely from being unable to rebut the arguments of a 14-year-old kid.
It's the difference between saying "I can't stand up to you in an argument, so therefore you are an idiot." and saying "You can't stand up to a 14-year-old kid in an argument without resorting to ad hominem attacks, so therefore you are a moron."
Otherwise, we'd be ... blowing him away with my machine gun.
Dude! You have a machine gun and you're going to let us all shoot it? Awesome! Thanks, dude!
The problem is that he isn't Swift. Very few people can write satire that effectively. Unfortunately, the people who can't are those who keep trying.
I think that there is a case for promissory estoppel here, under contract law. If his satire were good, then maybe he could get away with calling it that, but his satire sucked really bad and it should be treated seriously as a result.
I wonder how much less time it takes to get to, say, a 90% certainty that you're right. It seems to me that the entire thing relies on random choices by the king for you to have any real certainty of escaping. After all, he has so much discretion that he can foil your plan just by calling people in a maliciously non-random way. I think it's a crap problem and the best bet is for a female prisoner to seduce the king at the earliest opportunity.
Mine looks like that a lot. I like Emacs for its Lisp editing features and SLIME. TeX work is also easier in Emacs, as is writing a plain text file of prose. Just about everything else (including editing .emacs) is better done in vim.
I wonder if any of the VIM developers use emacs to develop VIM.
I don't know, and I'm not a developer of Vim or Emacs, but I have hacked Emacs with vim.
I didn't check your math - are you saying 5000(k+1) days? That's still a lot of years, but at least some of the prisoners might survive that long. :)
Assuming that the prisoners know k, that they will be called sufficiently randomly over time (the constraints on the king's choices are not clear from the way the riddle is stated - can he call one guy over and over again or what?), and that they are aware of when another prisoner is called to the central room without knowing who got called, here is a solution:
1. The prisoners number themselves sequentially from 1 to n; call the prisoners P.1 to P.n
2. The prisoners all keep track of the number of prisoners who have been called (mod n); call this m
3. If you are P.m, set the chalice upright; otherwise, set it upside-down
4. If you are P.n when m = 0 (mod n) and the chalice is upright, increment i, which started out 0; if i > k, say "Yes." Otherwise, say "I don't know." and set the chalice upside-down.
The only problem is that everyone is going to die of old age before this works out. Assume random choices. There are n! ways to pick an ordered set of n prisoners. Of these, only 1 will increment i. So we have a 1/n! chance of getting the right order out of n choices of people by the king. So it will take n x n! choices to increment i, and that has to happen k + 1 times. It will take the king (k + 1) x n x n! choices for the prisoners to go free; again, assuming random choices.
For 20 prisoners and k = 5, it takes about 2.92 x 10^20 choices to go free. Even if the king makes one choice per second, it will take over 9 billion years to go free. It doesn't matter when the king uses his k flips, whether his choices are maliciously non-random, or anything else - he will die of old age before it becomes a concern for him. So will you.
It's also much funnier because it is diametrically opposed to something which is true but next to impossible to prove.
This sounds very much like a similar problem I solved in college, involving a light switch instead of the chalice and omitting the king's ability to manipulate the communications tool of the prisoners. I have the following questions:
:)
1. Do the prisoners know k?
2. Define "arbitrary number of times."
These are my sticking points. Based on my questions, I'm sure you can guess the strategy I'm going after from the problem I solved before. My other question is this: Am I on the right track by iterating that strategy k+1 times, or is it completely different?
Furthermore, it is likely that on average the people who who study to be lawyers are more intelligent than those studying to be florists.
:P Yes, the comparison is a bit skewed because lawyers go to school for 3 very hardcore years before taking the bar exam, and some still fail, whereas florists probably do not have a 3-year graduate degree to get before taking the florist licensing exam. However, the pass rate is still lower, so it obviously isn't easy.
I am a law student. This is questionable.
The really ridiculous thing is that the LA florist laws are "health and safety" laws. Presumably, those who fail the licensing exam would have had a very high probability of selling you a flesh-eating rose or a poison hibiscus.
My understanding (imparted to me by a lawyer working to get that retarded law overturned) is that the pass rate for the Louisiana florist certification is actually lower than the pass rate for the Louisiana bar exam. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but it still seems bizarre: In Louisiana, it is harder to become a florist than a lawyer.
Holy crap, we made Slashdot! Take that, Wyoming!
If you read the article, you'll see that it's just the state Public Service Commission "exploring" whether this is a good idea. I doubt they'll implement it - the PSC just has nothing better to do this week.
Haha...how did I know that would get modded down by the musical theater*-loving moderators whose sense of humor pretty much got maxed out by Star Wreck last week?
:P
* - Yeah, I spelled it like that on purpose. Got a problem, boy?
Slashdot: News for nerds.* Stuff that matters.*
* - Nerds = queers. Matters = gives the staff a chub.
My undergraduate university's Aerospace department has a product that competes directly with Blackboard, called HTMLeZ. The main college has Blackboard, while the Aerospace college (which includes the Computer Science department I graduated from) uses HTMLeZ. Students who have to use both (most anyone at some point) vastly prefer HTMLeZ. There are other competing products out there, so this doesn't give Blackboard a monopoly on the market - it just gives them a better cornering of the market for crap.
Just wait. The Feds will see that California's law doesn't accomplish anything, claim it's because California lacks the wherewithal to make it effective, and pass a federal law that is even more insane.
That's what this law is about - it makes it illegal for kids to buy violent games for themselves, so the parents have to buy them if the kids want them. The "whole entire mess" is that parents do such a shitty job of raising and monitoring their children that the state has to step in.
*Whoosh* goes the joke as it flies over your head.
The mapping for the gene sequence was found on a victim frozen in Alaskan permafrost.
So you're telling me that this guy was walking around rural Alaska with the gene sequence all mapped out and written down on paper, died from the flu whose gene sequence for which he was carrying the mapping, was frozen with the paper on him, was found 87 years later, and credited with having the gene mapping all along?
I'm sorry, that just sounds a little far-fetched. Isn't it more likely that the mapping for the gene sequence was produced by modern scientists using genetic material found on a victim frozen in Alaskan permafrost?
I'm not saying it's the One True Way (TM). I'm just saying that there appears to be no measure by which it is not a sufficiently good way.
That's kind of what I meant - there is no written constitution, but instead you have a ... what, 500-year? ... history of common law that takes the place of one. The Restatements of the Law by the ALI are just that - distilled versions of the common law. They look like codifications but are not legislatively adopted (well, they could be, but that would be silly and very un-English-common-law of us ;). That's what I was getting at. But the more you can tell me about your crazy system, the better, mate. ;-D