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General Discussion / Re: Brag Board
« on: July 10, 2015, 12:01:24 am »
I have been published in a peer-reviewed journal (first author as an undergrad)!
It's wrong because it's an incorrect application of what quotations are being used for.
I would use this statement of yours against your own position. The purpose of quotation marks is to delimit what is being quoted. If punctuation is included in the material being quoted, put it inside the quotation marks. If not, leave it outside the quote marks. Any other course of action is not only illogical, but inaccurate, as regards the quote itself.
Ok I have a problem that I don't really know the answer too. Or rather, I have two contradictory answers that I'm trying to reconcile. Perhaps it's more suited to the logic puzzles thread, but I think reconciling the answers might be a math issue. Anyways:
There is a king with a kingdom of countably infinite people. He decides to play a game with his subjects. This game consists of multiple rounds. In the first round, he calls one of his subjects to play. They come to the castle and he flips two coins. If they're both heads then that person wins and the game is over. Otherwise, he calls up two people, flips two coins. If they're both heads those people both win and the game is over. Otherwise, he calls up four people, etc. The game ends as soon as someone wins. In each round twice as many people come up and their fates are still decided by two coin flips.
You are called by the King. What is your probability of winning?
I was just reading some stuff and came across something implying that some people have to pay to receive texts and phone calls. Is that actually a thing anywhere in the world? It sounds pretty insane if it's true.
I don't know, I just send texts from home all day, and I'm usually safe that way, since WiFi is awesome.
....
You realize that text messages don't go through WiFi, right? SMS uses the carrier network. I truly can't tell if you were being facetious.
Hmm, okay. So if we solve it that way, the question is, what fraction of people are winners? This is always greater than .5 as you say, but it varies. Possible fraction sequence is 1, 2/3, 4/7, 8/15.... and in general if the game ends in the nth round the fraction is 2^(n - 1)/(2^n - 1). What is the probability that it ends in the nth round? 1/4, 3/16, 9/64, 27/256..., or in general (1/4)*((3/4)^(n - 1). So the expected fraction is the infinite series formed from the product of the two:
1/4 + 1/8 + 9/112 + ...
and in general the nth term of the series is 6^(n - 1)/(2^3n - 2^2n), which you can check for yourself by multiplying.
And... I'll let somebody else figure out if the series converges and if so what to. But clearly if it converges it is greater than 1/4, and after just 3 terms it is 5/112 away from 1/2, so my guess is that's where it converges. So I am very confused too, unless this series doesn't converge for some reason.
It looks to me like the apparent paradox is resolved by the fact that in the second scenario, you have an additional piece of information: the knowledge that the experiment is already over.
I am also reminded of the two-envelopes paradox, although I can't put my finger on exactly why.
If I understand right, the answer would be 1/4, simply the probability both are heads. You are called, so you will get a chance at the coins being flipped, and no other chances.
Man, you guys make me Google stuff myself.
Nexus 6 is 6", while Galaxy Note 4 is 5.7". I have the Note 4. I could go for an even bigger screen. I have big fingers. Note 4 does have a few more pixels per inch though.
This is the first I've heard of the Nexus 6, though. I didn't think there was anything competing with Note 4 in terms of phone/tablet hybrids. (I don't count Apple products.)
I love it because it has no bloatware from the manufacturer or the carrier. The screen on this guy looks great, and I can reach the corners with one hand without too much trouble.
As for courtyard, I always seemed to have more than $2 but, I guess it could have been purchased on a $3 or $4.
So, I made up a new type of logic puzzle and need help coming up with a name. I am absolutely horrible at coming up with names, and nobody I know is both good at names and logic puzzles, so I want to ask you guys. Here is an example puzzle (with a solution), and here and here and some puzzles without solutions. The rules are:
1. Divide the grid into rectangles along the grid lines.
2. Each rectangle must contain exactly two shapes.
3. Rectangles containing two circles may not be a square.
4. Rectangles containing at least one square must be a square.
Can anybody come up with a good name? I tend to like the geeky names better, but any good one will do.
So... It's about not squaring the circle? Shame. I was going to suggest "Squaring the Circle".
Hey, that one would actually work too...
Where I work everybody has a Mac, myself included, but my home laptop is a Windows.
I have learned how to systematically scroll in the opposite direction I want to.
I'm sure there's a setting on either machine that'll let you make them scroll the same way.
Yes. When they first implemented the backwards scrolling on OS X, I immediately changed it back.
Why would they even do something like that?
To be contrary.
Actually, to make it the same as on a touchscreen.
Scrolling on a mouse is a different motion though. Reversing the scroll direction still doesn't make them the same.
The "contrary" comment was just snark, but I really don't see the benefit of making reverse scroll the default. Out just confuses people.
My reading is that he was just very dumb.
In any case, I don't understand the fixation on Columbus. His -personal- influence was extremely small scale.
It just seems like things would be simpler if the "it" inAs I pointed out earlier, it would also cause a Golem (or a Herald) that had played a Duration to stay out, so it's not a good solution.QuoteIf you play or modify a Duration card with another card, that other card also stays in front of you until it's no longer doing anything.
referred to the duration card and not the other card. If a card directly plays a duration, it stays out with the duration. Simple. This would obviously mean a reversal of TR-Tac, but would just make everything so much simpler. Sometimes you'd end up with an extra TR staying out sure, but I feel like this clears up more issues than it creates.
If a card plays a Duration and thereby causes that Duration to set up its future effect an extra time that turn, keep that card in play until the Duration has fewer than two of those future effects outstanding.
If you play or modify a Duration card with another card, that other card also stays in front of you until it's no longer doing anything.
does anyone know if there is a way to quickly get the entire content of a thread without losing BBC formatting?
You can go print -> CTRL + A -> Copy, which does almost what I need except that way, well, bolded letters get lost
edit: preferably something without the html tags which you get if you go print -> view source
It's not even sexist to use 'he'. I don't think it's a problem.
I like having titles that just last for one post - you have ones for 666, 1337, etc.; numbers that are special in some way. 401, Poster Not Found.
So then, say uh in the 3000's you were a Cartographer, but you wanted 3333 to be So Many 3's. You change the title at 3333, then have the Cartographer title for 3334. So it's two new title entries for each new title, one just reinstating what was going on.
I looked at the faces of the Thief and the Spy, and they looked pretty male. I did the same for some other cards, and found they looked female, mostly in Adventures I guess.
I guess this is a thing I might never have thought through unless I had written my own similar list, but the question I came to is what actually signifies male?
Thief and Spy are good examples, in that they are intimidating, brutish faces, but with no facial hair, no male pattern baldness, and no visible junk-bulge. Yes, brutishness is a masculine quality, but it isn't really a male quality. Thief has broad shoulders, but is also clearly wearing a cape or something that is exaggerating their shoulders.
I guess an argument could be made that Spy looks like they have stubble, and I guess I would respect that, but for Thief I can't see that at all.
I would argue that in these cases (as well as comparable Adventures cases you ruled as female but I haven't really looked), the absence of biological signifiers should outweigh the presence of cultural signifiers... otherwise you might as well just decide that most thefts are performed by men so Thief is a male card.
I think the real characterization of when you have "resolved" an Action is, an Action is resolved at the time after playing it at which you can either play more Actions or proceed to your Buy phase. That's not a definition, but a description.
This sounds correct to me. Whenever you would otherwise be able to play another action card (if playing that card isn't part of the instructions of playing a card), or whenever you could choose to start your buy phase (or your buy phase would automatically start via having no actions left), this is when you can call Coin or Carriage. In other words, we may not be able to define "resolve", but we all know it when we see it.
Hey, playing with RC the first time, I thought I'd have to wait until a Duration card's next turn before I could call RC on it, because, hey, it's still doing stuff then, so it hadn't resolved.
This is because JSH incorrectly explained it to us that way.
I think the real characterization of when you have "resolved" an Action is, an Action is resolved at the time after playing it at which you can either play more Actions or proceed to your Buy phase. That's not a definition, but a description.
This sounds correct to me. Whenever you would otherwise be able to play another action card (if playing that card isn't part of the instructions of playing a card), or whenever you could choose to start your buy phase (or your buy phase would automatically start via having no actions left), this is when you can call Coin or Carriage. In other words, we may not be able to define "resolve", but we all know it when we see it.
I still see this being a circular definition: "How do I know when I can play more Actions or move on to my Buy phase?"
What's wrong with "An Action is resolved after you execute all its on-Play effects"? Next turn effects, Clean-up phase effects, on-Call effects, etc. are all instructions for future times and are resolved at those future times. But once those future instructions are queued-up, the on-Play effects are resolved.
What about a Rats type card promo?
$6
+3 Cards
+2 Actions
gain a Curse
gain a Ruin
...okay, Rats-ish