Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[pingpongsam]

Agreed, the best definition I have for science is "the search for disproof".

[blueblimp]

Everything needs to be questioned.

At the same time, if there is lots of evidence that something is helpful, and no evidence that it's harmful, it's probably better to act on the assumption that it's helpful. I have never, ever heard of a legit general safety concern with getting a flu shot, whereas plenty of people die from the flu every year.

Concerns over vaccinations seem to me mostly about the reaction "ew needles" and then inventing post hoc rationalizations for not getting them.

[florrat]

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/

This might be relevant.

That is pretty depressing... I knew statistics in psychology (and other fields) is messed up, but not that it is so messed up to get 9 out of 9 positive results...

[pacovf]

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/

This might be relevant.

That is pretty depressing... I knew statistics in psychology (and other fields) is messed up, but not that it is so messed up to get 9 out of 9 positive results...

Parapsychology. The "para" is important.

That article (and others it links to that discuss the same issue) point out that the methology* used in that publication was actually above average for research in general, but that if they made rigour conditions more stringent so as to avoid that this kind of thing gets published, a lot of relevant research would never get published either.

I thought that it was a fantastic read by the way, both because of the discussion on rigour - innovation, and because I didn't even know that parapsychology was a research field at all. And the fact that an article can be "flawless" (in a sense) and prove something that is considered ridiculous is fantastic, because it forces people to think about what it means; and usually the unexpected makes science advance faster than the expected. Not saying that the human race was secretly psionic all along, but it can point out that there can be other unknown effects at play here.

Thanks for linking!

*Here I mean the part of the methodology that is concerned with eliminating noise, in a sense. One of the articles examines in detail this aspect of the publication and notices that, while it is good compared to what is usually considered "enough", there are still some flaws that mean that it could just be noise and preselection bias. Others accept that it is improbable that it was just noise, and try to find a problem in the experiment itself that would lead to a systematic error.

[qmech]

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/

This might be relevant.

Thanks for linking!

You don't need me to tell you what to do, but I will anyway: Scott is an excellent writer, and you could do far worse than read through some old posts on his blog.

[silverspawn]

i just had a game  where i bought possession turn 3 with CCCSP and a coin token from baker, and my opponent instantly resigned. that was by far the best possession game I've ever played.

[pacovf]

Nice.

Is there any way to get a possession turn 3 without baker? I can think of at least one.

EDIT: I can think of a couple of ways, but only one of them that lets you do it as the first player. That one is kinda boring though.

[qmech]

I guess Beggar/Potion is boring.

[silverspawn]

Nice.

Is there any way to get a possession turn 3 without baker? I can think of at least one.

EDIT: I can think of a couple of ways, but only one of them that lets you do it as the first player. That one is kinda boring though.

well, there are the 3 cards that make your opponent draw, soothsayer, council room, and governor. then there are gold equivalents... I think beggar is the only one for 3$. smithy, baron, and death cart would do it, but they cost 4$. with Noble brigands and more than 2 players, that certainly works. and, your opponent could play a swindler and trash your overgrown estate.

beggar is the only one I see that works as #1 player.

[pacovf]

That covers everything as far as I know, yes. As the first player, the only way to do it is with beggar, or -if there are more than two players- noble brigand shenanigans that let player 3 play council room (or equivalent) in turn 2.

As player 2, either you benefit from player 1 T3 council room (or equivalent), or from player 1 T1 noble brigand shenanigans. You need a drawer or sifter in that case if you want both the bought card and the potion to get to your hand somewhere during T3. You can do it with envoy for example, assuming a strangely collaborative opponent.

[silverspawn]

i just realized, you can open death cart/silver, get 10$ in T3, buy stonemason and get 2 Prince's, then prince both ruins.

[Joseph2302]

i just realized, you can open death cart/silver, get 10$ in T3, buy stonemason and get 2 Prince's, then prince both ruins.

Or you can open Death Cart/potion, and get 8+P turn 3 and get 2 possessions (with stonemason)!!

[enfynet]

[Witherweaver]

<image>

[Kuildeous]

Did someone mention bacon?

[Witherweaver]

http://www.housespecial.com/all/#cgwork

[Witherweaver]

This feels relevant to the science discussion:

http://imgur.com/gallery/ZpgQz

[2.71828.....]

[Kuildeous]

Finally finished watching Caprica, the spin-off of the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

I enjoyed it. A couple of times things did seem too soap opera-ish, but it was couched in a sci-fi wrapper, which is generally interesting. I'm actually kind of glad it didn't survive past the first season. I think it told the story just fine in those 20 episodes. If it had been allowed another season, I fear it would have struggled to maintain consistency in the universe (the danger of telling prequel stories) while trying to remain interesting.

I read an interesting article about why the show didn't rate so highly. Soap opera fans didn't want to watch sci-fi, and sci-fi fans didn't want to watch soap operas. The latter part kind of amuses me, because I think the real point is that sci-fi action fans would not be interested. I actually found the ethical and philosophical points to be interesting, and those feature prominently in many sci-fi works.

I have to admit that it's funny that the near-universal destruction of humanity blossomed from an angsty teenaged girl. Maybe too funny to be taken seriously?

[pingpongsam]

I have to admit that it's funny that the near-universal destruction of humanity blossomed from an angsty teenaged girl. Maybe too funny to be taken seriously?

I think it is quite a good metaphor but I won't bother explaining why as this is not RSP (it's RSP2).

[eHalcyon]

[sudgy]

StrongRhino, I will catch up to you in post voting eventually!

[2.71828.....]

StrongRhino, I will catch up to you in post voting eventually!

Less than 1000 to go!  Upvoting this will get you there faster

[AndrewisFTTW]

So tonight I'm a judge at Guitar Center's Drum Off competition. As to why anyone would think I was qualified to be a judge is beyond me.

[pacovf]

StrongRhino, I will catch up to you in post voting eventually!

Less than 1000 to go!  Upvoting this will get you there faster

But that's only one post...

You could upvote all my posts instead, and you would be halfway there.