Print

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

[Kuildeous]

As much fun as it is to keep a long topic going, I was trying to search for a video I posted in the Random Stuff II thread, but showing all 230 pages kept choking my browser. So it's clearly gone on too far.

My random observation: When I write the date range of this work week in American format, I write it as 1/4-1/8. My mind really wants to correct the range to 1/8-1/4. It kind of drives me nuts. It'll be better when this week is over. While 1/11-1/15 would also be mathematically improper to write as a range, I don't see those fractions as often, so my brain doesn't try to fix it.

[Infthitbox]

My random observation: When I write the date range of this work week in American format, I write it as 1/4-1/8. My mind really wants to correct the range to 1/8-1/4. It kind of drives me nuts. It'll be better when this week is over. While 1/11-1/15 would also be mathematically improper to write as a range, I don't see those fractions as often, so my brain doesn't try to fix it.

You just need to free your mind from needless orderings; 1/4 - 1/8 expresses the same range as 1/8 - 1/4. The fact that we seem to always order from lowest to highest is an arbitrary construction.

[Witherweaver]

As much fun as it is to keep a long topic going, I was trying to search for a video I posted in the Random Stuff II thread, but showing all 230 pages kept choking my browser. So it's clearly gone on too far.

My random observation: When I write the date range of this work week in American format, I write it as 1/4-1/8. My mind really wants to correct the range to 1/8-1/4. It kind of drives me nuts. It'll be better when this week is over. While 1/11-1/15 would also be mathematically improper to write as a range, I don't see those fractions as often, so my brain doesn't try to fix it.

See, it should really be an en-dash, 1/4--1/8.  Otherwise it's indistinguishable from 1/4-1/8 = 1/8. 

Also, why do you want 1/8--1/4 over 1/4--1/8? 

Edit: Oh, I see, because you want [a,b] with a < b. 

[Kuildeous]

I also sometimes look at that date range and think, "Yep, the answer is 1/8."

A dash would be more appropriate, but for quick-and-dirty ranges, I just use a hyphen.

[Witherweaver]

I also sometimes look at that date range and think, "Yep, the answer is 1/8."

A dash would be more appropriate, but for quick-and-dirty ranges, I just use a hyphen.

And a community of typesetters quietly screams in agony. 

Really, I much prefer to say Jan 1--Jan 8.  I hate that the default of spreadsheets is to adopt an mm/dd/yy (or even dd/mm/yy) representation to display dates.

[Infthitbox]

I also sometimes look at that date range and think, "Yep, the answer is 1/8."

A dash would be more appropriate, but for quick-and-dirty ranges, I just use a hyphen.

And a community of typesetters quietly screams in agony. 

Really, I much prefer to say Jan 1--Jan 8.  I hate that the default of spreadsheets is to adopt an mm/dd/yy (or even dd/mm/yy) representation to display dates.

Personally, my preferred format is 1 Jan - 8 Jan, but people here in the United States don't really feel it. I still use it when writing checks (lol, still a thing even in 2016) and signing paperwork. I don't tend to use it otherwise.

[Witherweaver]

I also sometimes look at that date range and think, "Yep, the answer is 1/8."

A dash would be more appropriate, but for quick-and-dirty ranges, I just use a hyphen.

And a community of typesetters quietly screams in agony. 

Really, I much prefer to say Jan 1--Jan 8.  I hate that the default of spreadsheets is to adopt an mm/dd/yy (or even dd/mm/yy) representation to display dates.

Personally, my preferred format is 1 Jan - 8 Jan, but people here in the United States don't really feel it. I still use it when writing checks (lol, still a thing even in 2016) and signing paperwork. I don't tend to use it otherwise.

I'm fine with either.  '8 Jan' and 'Jan 8' are equivalent for me to read, and obviously much better than '8/1' vs '1/8'.

[Kirian]

I also sometimes look at that date range and think, "Yep, the answer is 1/8."

A dash would be more appropriate, but for quick-and-dirty ranges, I just use a hyphen.

And a community of typesetters quietly screams in agony. 

Really, I much prefer to say Jan 1--Jan 8.  I hate that the default of spreadsheets is to adopt an mm/dd/yy (or even dd/mm/yy) representation to display dates.

Personally, my preferred format is 1 Jan - 8 Jan, but people here in the United States don't really feel it. I still use it when writing checks (lol, still a thing even in 2016) and signing paperwork. I don't tend to use it otherwise.

I use the 01 Jan 2016 format for just about everything even here in the US.  Haters gonna hate, but there are only three correct date formats:

01 January 2016
01 Jan 2016, for when you don't have enough space
20160101

Unix date is "correct" but rarely actually displayed because it's only readable by the computer.

[enfynet]

My favorite, usually seen on my employees request sheet, looks something like this:

M/D1-D2/Y

This was exciting to figure out during Q4 a few years ago.

[Kuildeous]

'8 Jan' and 'Jan 8' are equivalent for me to read, and obviously much better than '8/1' vs '1/8'.

Indeed, there is no confusion whatsoever with 8 Jan or Jan 8. Well, okay, if I type Jan 16, one could misinterpret that to mean January of 2016, so it's not perfect.

Kirian's dates are unambiguous. I sign my paperwork as 7 Jan 2016. When I label folders, I will use 20160107 because an alphabetical sort is identical to a chronological sort, and that's beautiful. I wrinkle my nose when people label folders as 01072016 because all the Januarys are clumped together. Also, that can be confusing when comparing it to the European format, but Jan2016 still has the problem of clumping together when sorting alphabetically.

[Kuildeous]

And a community of typesetters quietly screams in agony. 
 

Serves those little bastards right for snooping in my To-Do list on OneNote. GTFO, man.

[pacovf]

My hobby: eating something, then checking the expiry date, "15Jan16", and wonder how the rest of the week is going to go.

[Roadrunner7671]

Random Stuff III. We didn't need this.

But since I'm posting here, I'll mine as well ask people why showing your work with basic math (basic to you, not me) is so important.

[Tables]

I also sometimes look at that date range and think, "Yep, the answer is 1/8."

A dash would be more appropriate, but for quick-and-dirty ranges, I just use a hyphen.

[Tables]

Random Stuff III. We didn't need this.

But since I'm posting here, I'll mine as well ask people why showing your work with basic math (basic to you, not me) is so important.

1) If you're just doing maths to pass your exam, you will get marks for working even if you get the final answer wrong. For example if it's a 4 mark question, and you do everything right but accidentally do 23 x 4 = 82 in your working, you'll almost certainly get 3 marks for it. If you just wrote 82 as your final answer, you would likely get 0.

2) If you're actually doing maths IRL, it makes it less likely you'll make a mistake as you're writing numbers down as you go, and that makes it more likely you won't forget a number as you go and might spot an error you were about to make.

3) If you do actually make a mistake, and get a final answer you know is incorrect (e.g. you're calculating the chance of getting some card draw in Dominion and calculate it as a 120% chance) you can go back and look at what you've done, making it much more likely you'll spot your mistake.

That's just three reasons off the top of my head.

[Awaclus]

I have to do it just because it makes it so much easier to think when I don't have to worry about forgetting things (which is also why I always play Dominion with the VP counter).

[enfynet]

I use Excel the same way. I build formulas through multiple simple cells before I combine them to the final format I need.

[Kuildeous]

Random Stuff III. We didn't need this.
 

According to my choked browsers, II apparently went on too far unfortunately.

I use Excel the same way. I build formulas through multiple simple cells before I combine them to the final format I need.

I do that too. It makes it a little easier to update years later. I do like to combine formulas to avoid needless calculations, but it can be tricky to decipher a really long and convoluted formula.

Although I'm not sure that combining would reduce the calculations.

If you have IF(VLOOKUP(A1,A:B, 2)=2, TRUE, FALSE) in C1, then would that save processing time compared to having VLOOKUP(A1,A:B,2) in C1 and IF(C1=2, TRUE, FALSE) in D1? It seems the same number of steps, but is there a saving when the nested function is resolved within the main function?

[Witherweaver]

Random Stuff III. We didn't need this.
 

According to my choked browsers, II apparently went on too far unfortunately.

He just means that we don't need "Random Stuff III" because we have "KC is far more skippable than people think."

[Watno]

You should have called the thread Random Stuff Part IV

[Kuildeous]

You should have called the thread Random Stuff Part IV

Sometimes I like to change the subject in the middle of a thread and see how many people reply to it and keep the new name going. Of course, it reverts back as people reply to the original, but it'd be amusing to see an uber-post that spawns all future posts with the new subject line.

I know not of this KC thread. I honestly only come here to read the non-Dominion stuff, which is weird because I can view non-Dominion stuff literally everywhere else.

But that may explain why Random Stuff II has been quiet lately.

[Witherweaver]

You should have called the thread Random Stuff Part IV

Sometimes I like to change the subject in the middle of a thread and see how many people reply to it and keep the new name going. Of course, it reverts back as people reply to the original, but it'd be amusing to see an uber-post that spawns all future posts with the new subject line.

I know not of this KC thread. I honestly only come here to read the non-Dominion stuff, which is weird because I can view non-Dominion stuff literally everywhere else.

But that may explain why Random Stuff II has been quiet lately.

Ah, there's your problem right there.  You have to check the Dominion subforums to get the non-Dominion stuff.

[enfynet]

You should have called the thread Random Stuff Part IV

Sometimes I like to change the subject in the middle of a thread and see how many people reply to it and keep the new name going. Of course, it reverts back as people reply to the original, but it'd be amusing to see an uber-post that spawns all future posts with the new subject line.

I know not of this KC thread. I honestly only come here to read the non-Dominion stuff, which is weird because I can view non-Dominion stuff literally everywhere else.

But that may explain why Random Stuff II has been quiet lately.

You aren't missing much. It has become a meta-discussion about how we discuss things on F.DS.

[Awaclus]

I know not of this KC thread. I honestly only come here to read the non-Dominion stuff

In that case, you should check it out because it's non-Dominion stuff.

[Roadrunner7671]

Random Stuff III. We didn't need this.
 

According to my choked browsers, II apparently went on too far unfortunately.

I use Excel the same way. I build formulas through multiple simple cells before I combine them to the final format I need.

I do that too. It makes it a little easier to update years later. I do like to combine formulas to avoid needless calculations, but it can be tricky to decipher a really long and convoluted formula.

Although I'm not sure that combining would reduce the calculations.

If you have IF(VLOOKUP(A1,A:B, 2)=2, TRUE, FALSE) in C1, then would that save processing time compared to having VLOOKUP(A1,A:B,2) in C1 and IF(C1=2, TRUE, FALSE) in D1? It seems the same number of steps, but is there a saving when the nested function is resolved within the main function?

We didn't need part II, either.

[Awaclus]

Random Stuff III. We didn't need this.
 

According to my choked browsers, II apparently went on too far unfortunately.

I use Excel the same way. I build formulas through multiple simple cells before I combine them to the final format I need.

I do that too. It makes it a little easier to update years later. I do like to combine formulas to avoid needless calculations, but it can be tricky to decipher a really long and convoluted formula.

Although I'm not sure that combining would reduce the calculations.

If you have IF(VLOOKUP(A1,A:B, 2)=2, TRUE, FALSE) in C1, then would that save processing time compared to having VLOOKUP(A1,A:B,2) in C1 and IF(C1=2, TRUE, FALSE) in D1? It seems the same number of steps, but is there a saving when the nested function is resolved within the main function?

We didn't need part II, either.

Random stuff is at least 67% more skippable than people think.

[LastFootnote]

Random stuff is at least 67% more skippable than people think.

Whoa, it's 167% skippable?

[liopoil]

Random Stuff III. We didn't need this.

But since I'm posting here, I'll mine as well ask people why showing your work with basic math (basic to you, not me) is so important.

Never show your work. You know the answer, your reader knows the answer, so what's the point of showing your work? Even if your reader wants to know how you came up with the answer, that's none of their business. Even if there is a chance that you made a silly mistake, don't bother showing work because there's a risk you'll copy things down wrong. Besides, you might confuse your reader by using a method which wasn't the one they had in mind, so it's better to just give the result and have them assume you solved it the same way as them.

(Note for anyone who was going to take this post seriously: don't take this post seriously)

[Witherweaver]

The idea of "showing your work" is stupid.  Your work is the answer.

[scott_pilgrim]

Random Stuff III. We didn't need this.

But since I'm posting here, I'll mine as well ask people why showing your work with basic math (basic to you, not me) is so important.

It depends on what you mean by basic math.  I usually think in big steps.  I try to get the intuition behind a problem first, and then make sure that each step in the reasoning actually works.  When you break things down small enough, you know that something is obviously true and you don't need to show work for it anymore.  If you're in fourth grade multiplying 56 by 47, you probably don't need to show by hand that 6 times 7 is 42 (by actually adding 6+6+6+6+6+6+6), because you're at the point where you've memorized that already.  If you're in algebra you may not be expected to show how you got 15*3=45 because it's expected that you can do that easily at this point.  If you're in calculus you won't need to show every step in solving an equation like 5x+12=2x-6 because it's assumed that you can do that easily.

After a certain point, there are diminishing returns for showing your work.  There are all of the advantages Tables mentioned, but if you (and your audience) can do something so consistently that you're unlikely to make a mistake with it anyway, then writing down all the details takes more time than it will save you in the long run.

Of course, this really only applies to more computational math.  In more proof-oriented math, you could say that the entire problem itself is to show your work.  But even then, you generally assume that your audience can accept a lot of the basic details without you stating them, or else you at least refer them to other work that has worked out those details for you.

[ConMan]

Working in a place where maths (and related exercises) underpins a lot of what we do but where there are plenty of people whose job is not to understand the particularly complicated aspects of it, I've learned that it is really important to have done all your working and recorded it, but to only present what's relevant. Found an equation that will save the organisation a million dollars? Great - have a colleague double-check the working, but when you present it to management they probably don't even want to see the equation, let alone the working, they want to see the plan that will let you put it into production without unduly affecting exisiting work.

[enfynet]

Of course, this really only applies to more computational math.  In more proof-oriented math, you could say that the entire problem itself is to show your work.  But even then, you generally assume that your audience can accept a lot of the basic details without you stating them, or else you at least refer them to other work that has worked out those details for you.

You mean Proofs like this one?

[eHalcyon]

Step 1 should be addition, not multiplication.

The statement in step 4 is not axiomatic and needs further proof.  For the record, the actual line is that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil".

The proof is flawed!

[Witherweaver]

"root" does not imply square root.

[enfynet]

Step 1 should be addition, not multiplication.

The statement in step 4 is not axiomatic and needs further proof.  For the record, the actual line is that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil".

The proof is flawed!

Well of course the proof is flawed, but that doesn't make it less of a proof.

[LastFootnote]

Well of course the proof is flawed, but that doesn't make it less of a proof.

Prove it!

[Awaclus]

Step 1 should be addition, not multiplication.

But multiplication is the equivalent of "and". "Or" is the equivalent of addition.

Well, at least in some contexts.

[Qvist]

Man, the English language has sometimes some weird pronunciation, like the pronunciation of the word "gauge" makes no sense at all. It has neither an "e" nor an "i" in the word what you would expect.

[ashersky]

Man, the English language has sometimes some weird pronunciation, like the pronunciation of the word "gauge" makes no sense at all. It has neither an "e" nor an "i" in the word what you would expect.

How are you pronouncing it?

[Qvist]

ɡeɪdʒ

[ashersky]

ɡeɪdʒ

Makes sense.

Think of it as gay-eej.

Speaking of pronouncing things, while in Germany, I realized German is impossible.

[Kuildeous]

I have passing knowledge of Spanish and Japanese (well, less passable than before; I can read translation dictionaries). I am amused that I can mostly pronounce words from both languages the same way. Assuming romaji of course. There are some notable differences, such as J, and Japanese has some subtle rules for double letters.

So I like to think that I can order the dishes okay in Mexican and Japanese restaurants. From my very limited exposure to linguistics, it seems that a lot of foreign words can be BSed by using the same vowel-pronunciation scheme as Spanish and Japanese. I know not to try that nonsense in French or German restaurants.

[Witherweaver]

I like gawj.

Edit: Now that I think about it, I think gaw-j for the verb form and gay-j for the noun form.

[Kuildeous]

Quote

I see. Do go on.

[Limetime]

Quote                                                    ^^^^

[ashersky]

I like gawj.

Edit: Now that I think about it, I think gaw-j for the verb form and gay-j for the noun form.

I though the verb gawj was written gouge?  As in I'll gouge out your eyes and eat them for breakfast.

Gauge is more like gauge the distance from here to there. 

I guess I could look it up, but I feel right.

[2.71828.....]

A new random stuff thread? I noticed we got up to random stuff V in titles, why stop there?

[Kuildeous]

A new random stuff thread? I noticed we got up to random stuff V in titles, why stop there?

Why indeed?

[Tables]

On a completely unrelated note, who is watching this year's AGDQ - Awesome Games Done Quick? I tend to plug it every year and it's almost over for this year, sure, but still has 2 more days to go and has raised just shy of $600,000 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation so far. If you want to watch awesome games getting completely ruined by extremely talented and experienced gamers - or even if you don't, since chances are you'll enjoy some of it anyway - go check it out.

http://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick for the stream directly

https://gamesdonequick.com/ for their main site and the easiest place to donate.

[enfynet]

A new random stuff thread? I noticed we got up to random stuff V in titles, why stop there?

Why indeed?

I think this may be getting out of hand.

[Tables]

What kind of heretic uses capital letters in the general quadratic equation?

[Witherweaver]

What kind of heretic uses capital letters in the general quadratic equation?

When the coefficients are matrices.

[Tables]

What kind of heretic uses capital letters in the general quadratic equation?

When the coefficients are matrices.

Oh, boy. Yeah, it's been a while since I've used matrices in proper equations.

[Witherweaver]

What kind of heretic uses capital letters in the general quadratic equation?

When the coefficients are matrices.

Oh, boy. Yeah, it's been a while since I've used matrices in proper equations.

Now find the roots!

[sudgy]

On a completely unrelated note, who is watching this year's AGDQ - Awesome Games Done Quick? I tend to plug it every year and it's almost over for this year, sure, but still has 2 more days to go and has raised just shy of $600,000 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation so far. If you want to watch awesome games getting completely ruined by extremely talented and experienced gamers - or even if you don't, since chances are you'll enjoy some of it anyway - go check it out.

http://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick for the stream directly

https://gamesdonequick.com/ for their main site and the easiest place to donate.

I usually check out the TAS block afterwards.

[Titandrake]

Specific VODs you may like:

Kingdom Hearts 1.5 (good commentary, a bit long if you've never played Kingdom Hearts though)
Crypt of the Necrodancer (Unseeded Coda runs. I've never played but it's supposed to be insane.)
Animorphs (an awful game, hilarious trainwreck)
Gimmick (short and crazy)
Blaster Master race (I've never played but it was reasonably entertaining and a close race.)
Battletoads (features a donation incentive to do the end of Turbo Tunnel blindfolded)
Kaizo Mario Bros 3 (full of "are you serious" moments)
Super Mario Maker blind relay race (super silly, super fun, recommend highly)
Mike Tyson's Punch Out BLINDFOLDED RACE (if you're going to watch anything, watch this)
Mirror's Edge (lots of speed tricks)
Paper Mario (lots of neat tricks. A bit long but it has lots of sequence breaking)
Pokemon Yellow and Pokemon Blue glitch showcase (The glitch showcase is pretty great. Pokemon has lots of insane glitches, including ones that let you do arbitrary code execution)

[Teproc]

ash, what did you find hard to pronounce in German ? Aside from regional differences (like the final g, stuff like that), it's by far the most consistent language I know in terms of pronounciation. There are basically no silent letters, which makes it pretty straightforward.

[Kirian]

ash, what did you find hard to pronounce in German ? Aside from regional differences (like the final g, stuff like that), it's by far the most consistent language I know in terms of pronounciation. There are basically no silent letters, which makes it pretty straightforward.

Spanish is even more consistent than German, but yes, in general if you can pronounce it in German, you can spell it.

[Witherweaver]

So for my birthday my mom sent me a periodic table of elements rug from ThinkGeek.  The package slip had a message:

"If you're havin' code problems I feel bad for you son; I got 01100011 problems but a bit ain't one."

[ashersky]

ash, what did you find hard to pronounce in German ? Aside from regional differences (like the final g, stuff like that), it's by far the most consistent language I know in terms of pronounciation. There are basically no silent letters, which makes it pretty straightforward.

Versöhnungsgemeinde

A word like this is scary.  We don't use umlauts in English, for one, so I'm not sure what the o actually sounds like.   That's a lot of consonants in a row there in the middle.

If I was in a taxi, I'd try to break it down... versun - ungs - jem - indy.

Also, that odd letter in German that sort of looks like a fancy B but doesn't exist in English?  It's in a lot of street names (Straße) (I think it's part of the word for street, in fact).  I just say "straub" since that's what it looks like.

[faust]

Versöhnungsgemeinde

A word like this is scary.  We don't use umlauts in English, for one, so I'm not sure what the o actually sounds like.   That's a lot of consonants in a row there in the middle.

If I was in a taxi, I'd try to break it down... versun - ungs - jem - indy.

Also, that odd letter in German that sort of looks like a fancy B but doesn't exist in English?  It's in a lot of street names (Straße) (I think it's part of the word for street, in fact).  I just say "straub" since that's what it looks like.

What does that word even mean?

I mean, sure we have letters that other languages don't have, but it doesn't take a long time to memorize them I think... at least it's obvious. Other languages have letter combination that you have to memorize ("ge" in Italian, "ou" in Dutch). English doesn't even have any consistent phonetics. What usually makes German impossibleto learn for people isn't that, it's grammar.

As for pronounciation: ß is just a fancy s and is pronounced as in "mass". Ö is somewhat like "nerd".

[XerxesPraelor]

ash, what did you find hard to pronounce in German ? Aside from regional differences (like the final g, stuff like that), it's by far the most consistent language I know in terms of pronounciation. There are basically no silent letters, which makes it pretty straightforward.

Versöhnungsgemeinde

A word like this is scary.  We don't use umlauts in English, for one, so I'm not sure what the o actually sounds like.   That's a lot of consonants in a row there in the middle.

This is basically fare-son-ungs-geh-mine-deh.

[Tables]

ß is also just a shorthand for ss. Although I think there's certain cases where you do or don't use it, based on pronounciation. German speakers here can probably correct or expand on this, considering my German is extremely rusty and was never good to begin with (I only have a B at GCSE German and have barely used it for the last 7 years except for doing things like telling people "Ich esse tisch" or other similarly nonsensical phrases).

[faust]

ash, what did you find hard to pronounce in German ? Aside from regional differences (like the final g, stuff like that), it's by far the most consistent language I know in terms of pronounciation. There are basically no silent letters, which makes it pretty straightforward.

Versöhnungsgemeinde

A word like this is scary.  We don't use umlauts in English, for one, so I'm not sure what the o actually sounds like.   That's a lot of consonants in a row there in the middle.

Fun fact: "straightforward" actually has the same amount of consonants in a row in the middle. Plus three at the start.

[qmech]

We kind of do (or did) have the ß in English: it's ss where the first s is a long s.

I'm casually learning German on Duolingo.  Some of the phrases they're fond of seem a bit weird, but maybe that's to help them stick.  I can't imagine needing "Das ist nicht unsere Mutter!", and being constantly asked to repeat "Gemeinsam sind wir stark!" is frankly unsettling.

[enfynet]

The top of Valravn at Cedar Point is being installed right now. And I don't know the forum code to shrink the image.

[enfynet]

Here's a better shot borrowed from another site:

[Awaclus]

And I don't know the forum code to shrink the image.

I do.

[enfynet]

And I don't know the forum code to shrink the image.

I do.

thanks. I will edit my post.

[ashersky]

Versöhnungsgemeinde

A word like this is scary.  We don't use umlauts in English, for one, so I'm not sure what the o actually sounds like.   That's a lot of consonants in a row there in the middle.

If I was in a taxi, I'd try to break it down... versun - ungs - jem - indy.

Also, that odd letter in German that sort of looks like a fancy B but doesn't exist in English?  It's in a lot of street names (Straße) (I think it's part of the word for street, in fact).  I just say "straub" since that's what it looks like.

What does that word even mean?

I mean, sure we have letters that other languages don't have, but it doesn't take a long time to memorize them I think... at least it's obvious. Other languages have letter combination that you have to memorize ("ge" in Italian, "ou" in Dutch). English doesn't even have any consistent phonetics. What usually makes German impossibleto learn for people isn't that, it's grammar.

As for pronounciation: ß is just a fancy s and is pronounced as in "mass". Ö is somewhat like "nerd".

I don't know what it means -- it's German.

I guess I should have clarified that it's a lot of consonants in a row that we don't put in a row in English.

If B = ss, how do you write a B?  If a German word has a double s, is it pronounced as a b?

[qmech]

Versöhnungsgemeinde

A word like this is scary.  We don't use umlauts in English, for one, so I'm not sure what the o actually sounds like.   That's a lot of consonants in a row there in the middle.

If I was in a taxi, I'd try to break it down... versun - ungs - jem - indy.

Also, that odd letter in German that sort of looks like a fancy B but doesn't exist in English?  It's in a lot of street names (Straße) (I think it's part of the word for street, in fact).  I just say "straub" since that's what it looks like.

What does that word even mean?

I mean, sure we have letters that other languages don't have, but it doesn't take a long time to memorize them I think... at least it's obvious. Other languages have letter combination that you have to memorize ("ge" in Italian, "ou" in Dutch). English doesn't even have any consistent phonetics. What usually makes German impossibleto learn for people isn't that, it's grammar.

As for pronounciation: ß is just a fancy s and is pronounced as in "mass". Ö is somewhat like "nerd".

I don't know what it means -- it's German.

I guess I should have clarified that it's a lot of consonants in a row that we don't put in a row in English.

If B = ss, how do you write a B?  If a German word has a double s, is it pronounced as a b?

It's not a B: it's (historically) a ligature of a long s and a normal modern s (which differ only typographically).  There was a spelling reform in Germany about 20 years ago, and lots of ß's were replaced by ss's.  It's no more confusing in practice than capital I and lower case l.

[Kirian]

You know that weird-shaped s you see in old documents in English, like the Constitution, that looks a bit like an integral sign, or a fancy f with no cross?  Okay, now write a normal lowercase s right next to that.  Now connect their tops with a straight line down.

Now you have the German ss as it was printed in Fraktur style fonts.  It's not a B, it's just another character you have to memorize and is, if I remember correctly, entirely deprecated, no longer used in official documents etc.  It is exactly equivalent to "ss".

[faust]

Now you have the German ss as it was printed in Fraktur style fonts.  It's not a B, it's just another character you have to memorize and is, if I remember correctly, entirely deprecated, no longer used in official documents etc.  It is exactly equivalent to "ss".

This part is not true. ß is still a character that is used officially, and it would be wrong to write "Strasse" instead of "Straße". ss in German implies that the vowel preceeding the ss is short, while ß (according to current spelling) implies that the preceeding vowel is long.

[schadd]

"-"; the hyphen, press the hyphen button on your keyboard. this is for things that you think of as 'hyphenated' (compound surnames, words that bunch together like seven-year-old)

"–"; the en dash, hold alt and press 0-1-5-0 on your numpad. this is for ranges, subtractions, and other things that don't feel like hyphens/em dashes. use your best judgement

"—"; the em dash, hold alt and press 0-1-5-1 on your numpad. this is for the grammatical usage—it indicates a longer pause that can sort of be a proxy for a colon, comma, or semicolon i think

("what is this, two days ago?"
–you, the reader)

[Kuildeous]

"-"; the hyphen, press the hyphen button on your keyboard. this is for things that you think of as 'hyphenated' (compound surnames, words that bunch together like seven-year-old)

"–"; the en dash, hold alt and press 0-1-5-0 on your numpad. this is for ranges, subtractions, and other things that don't feel like hyphens/em dashes. use your best judgement

"—"; the em dash, hold alt and press 0-1-5-1 on your numpad. this is for the grammatical usage—it indicates a longer pause that can sort of be a proxy for a colon, comma, or semicolon i think

("what is this, two days ago?"
–you, the reader)

Still useful.

I'll still do quick-and-dirty for my notes. I reserve punctuation precision for more detailed documents.

[ashersky]

You know that weird-shaped s you see in old documents in English, like the Constitution, that looks a bit like an integral sign, or a fancy f with no cross?  Okay, now write a normal lowercase s right next to that.  Now connect their tops with a straight line down.

Now you have the German ss as it was printed in Fraktur style fonts.  It's not a B, it's just another character you have to memorize and is, if I remember correctly, entirely deprecated, no longer used in official documents etc.  It is exactly equivalent to "ss".

I guess.

I'm just arguing that, to me, German seems incredibly difficult as a foreign language as compared to something super simple like Japanese.  I know a lot of non-native English speakers find English difficult -- this is the same as that, I guess.

[Awaclus]

You know that weird-shaped s you see in old documents in English, like the Constitution, that looks a bit like an integral sign, or a fancy f with no cross?  Okay, now write a normal lowercase s right next to that.  Now connect their tops with a straight line down.

Now you have the German ss as it was printed in Fraktur style fonts.  It's not a B, it's just another character you have to memorize and is, if I remember correctly, entirely deprecated, no longer used in official documents etc.  It is exactly equivalent to "ss".

I guess.

I'm just arguing that, to me, German seems incredibly difficult as a foreign language as compared to something super simple like Japanese.  I know a lot of non-native English speakers find English difficult -- this is the same as that, I guess.

You think Japanese is super simple and your main complaint about German is one letter that English doesn't have?

[Watno]

Also, ß never appears at the beginning of a ward. There's also no capital version of it.

[Witherweaver]

I only took two German courses in college (foreign languages are not fun to learn for me), but it seemed extremely simple, given that you knew English.  I took French in high school, and that was also easy to learn (to the extent required for the course---I never became fluent).

Edit: I mean, all languages are easy to learn, if you simply take the effort to learn them.  But I imagine a language that borrows from a lot of different sources (like English) is more challenging. 

[ashersky]

You know that weird-shaped s you see in old documents in English, like the Constitution, that looks a bit like an integral sign, or a fancy f with no cross?  Okay, now write a normal lowercase s right next to that.  Now connect their tops with a straight line down.

Now you have the German ss as it was printed in Fraktur style fonts.  It's not a B, it's just another character you have to memorize and is, if I remember correctly, entirely deprecated, no longer used in official documents etc.  It is exactly equivalent to "ss".

I guess.

I'm just arguing that, to me, German seems incredibly difficult as a foreign language as compared to something super simple like Japanese.  I know a lot of non-native English speakers find English difficult -- this is the same as that, I guess.

You think Japanese is super simple and your main complaint about German is one letter that English doesn't have?

I don't think Japanese is super simple, I know it is.  I speak English, Japanese, and Italian, having learned the second two.  Japanese was the easier to learn, by far.

I am sure I could learn German if I studied.  But just plopping in the middle of it, it's clear to me that it is much harder than the languages I've learned.

If you were to drop a person in the middle or Tokyo or Berlin with no knowledge of either language,  or a related language, the one dropped in Tokyo would have a much easier time picking it up.

[ashersky]

Also, ß never appears at the beginning of a ward. There's also no capital version of it.

Good to know.  Any reason?

[LastFootnote]

I don't think Japanese is super simple, I know it is.  I speak English, Japanese, and Italian, having learned the second two.  Japanese was the easier to learn, by far.

I am sure I could learn German if I studied.  But just plopping in the middle of it, it's clear to me that it is much harder than the languages I've learned.

If you were to drop a person in the middle or Tokyo or Berlin with no knowledge of either language,  or a related language, the one dropped in Tokyo would have a much easier time picking it up.

You are in the minority, dude. Most native English speakers find German way easier than Japanese. They're sister languages, German and English. Several words are the same, and the grammar's way closer.

[ashersky]

I don't think Japanese is super simple, I know it is.  I speak English, Japanese, and Italian, having learned the second two.  Japanese was the easier to learn, by far.

I am sure I could learn German if I studied.  But just plopping in the middle of it, it's clear to me that it is much harder than the languages I've learned.

If you were to drop a person in the middle or Tokyo or Berlin with no knowledge of either language,  or a related language, the one dropped in Tokyo would have a much easier time picking it up.

You are in the minority, dude. Most native English speakers find German way easier than Japanese. They're sister languages, German and English. Several words are the same, and the grammar's way closer.

Maybe?  I'd assume you'd have a hard time proving that unless there's been a study done of language students somewhere of native English speakers who have studied both Japanese and German.

Japanese is easier to pronounce and has simpler and more sensible grammar rules than English (and therefore German, I assume).  The only "hard" part is reading, but that's rote memorization anyway.

Compare that long German word I wrote earlier to something of similar length in Japanese:

kyakushitsujoumuin

I think that is much easier to figure out than the German word, because the phonetics are so simple and consistent.

[Awaclus]

I don't think Japanese is super simple, I know it is.  I speak English, Japanese, and Italian, having learned the second two.  Japanese was the easier to learn, by far.

I am sure I could learn German if I studied.  But just plopping in the middle of it, it's clear to me that it is much harder than the languages I've learned.

If you were to drop a person in the middle or Tokyo or Berlin with no knowledge of either language,  or a related language, the one dropped in Tokyo would have a much easier time picking it up.

Japanese is like the easiest thing ever to pronounce and the grammar is more intuitive than that of German languages a lot of the time, but surely learning thousands of Chinese characters is more difficult than learning one ß.

Compare that long German word I wrote earlier to something of similar length in Japanese:

客室乗務員

FTFY.

[ashersky]

I don't think Japanese is super simple, I know it is.  I speak English, Japanese, and Italian, having learned the second two.  Japanese was the easier to learn, by far.

I am sure I could learn German if I studied.  But just plopping in the middle of it, it's clear to me that it is much harder than the languages I've learned.

If you were to drop a person in the middle or Tokyo or Berlin with no knowledge of either language,  or a related language, the one dropped in Tokyo would have a much easier time picking it up.

Japanese is like the easiest thing ever to pronounce and the grammar is more intuitive than that of German languages a lot of the time, but surely learning thousands of Chinese characters is more difficult than learning one ß.

Compare that long German word I wrote earlier to something of similar length in Japanese:

客室乗務員

FTFY.

Learning thousands of Chinese characters would in fact be very difficult, as well as unfortunate given I was discussing Japanese.

The characters are related, and some are the same, but they are not the same language.

[Awaclus]

Learning thousands of Chinese characters would in fact be very difficult, as well as unfortunate given I was discussing Japanese.

The characters are related, and some are the same, but they are not the same language.

Well, the argument could be made that it's unfortunate that Japanese uses thousands of Chinese characters in its writing system, but I doubt they're going to change that any time soon.

[Teproc]

I don't speak Japanese, but I do speak German and English, and the idea that an English speaker would have an easier time learning Japanese is ludicrous. English is basically an easier to learn version of German (except in the pronounciation field, English pronounciation makes zero sense).

I don't care how complex German grammar is, the simple fact that you basically know half of the vocabulary already has to make it much easier.

[ashersky]

Learning thousands of Chinese characters would in fact be very difficult, as well as unfortunate given I was discussing Japanese.

The characters are related, and some are the same, but they are not the same language.

Well, the argument could be made that it's unfortunate that Japanese uses thousands of Chinese characters in its writing system, but I doubt they're going to change that any time soon.

Relevant: https://eastasiastudent.net/regional/hanzi-and-kanji/

Anyway, if you learn to read Chinese, you still won't be able to speak, or understand, Japanese.

[ashersky]

I don't speak Japanese, but I do speak German and English, and the idea that an English speaker would have an easier time learning Japanese is ludicrous. English is basically an easier to learn version of German (except in the pronounciation field, English pronounciation makes zero sense).

I don't care how complex German grammar is, the simple fact that you basically know half of the vocabulary already has to make it much easier.

I haven't tried to learn German, but I learned both Japanese and Italian fluently, and the latter was exponentially harder to learn, even though Latin languages are supposed to be easier.

We are arguing about a subjective measure of difficulty that is literally different for every brain in the world.  I'm assuming I won't convince you, and you won't convince me.

Have you, or any of you other Japanese haters, tried to learn it?  Maybe you wouldn't be so critical if you gave it a shot.

I cannot say for certain that German is harder to learn, but spending many days within its confines impressed me with its very difficult pronunciation.

[Witherweaver]

There wasn't any criticism.

[scott_pilgrim]

I'm sure it varies from person to person, and I have no idea about how the languages compare overall, but the specific complaint that you made seems pretty ridiculous to me.  Your complaint seems to be that German is phonetically complicated, which maybe it is, I know almost nothing about German.  But my understanding is that there are at least some phonetic rules to go by.  Hiragana and katakana are very straightforward phonetically, but kanji is basically as difficult as a written language could get (I imagine Chinese is harder, but they're in the same ballpark), because the only way to learn it is to memorize thousands of characters.  Even if German had no phonetic rules at all, it would be equally difficult as kanji, because you could just memorize which words correspond with which pronunciations (which is what you have to do with kanji).

[ashersky]

Maybe we are talking past each other.  We are writing on a forum, so writing and reading is required, but I'm talking about speaking out loud -- and German just seems so obviously harder to speak than Japanese.  The way it is written is a visual representation of that when the language is written phonetically -- like when I romanized the Japanese word -- which is what the argument is.  Learning to make the sounds that match their phonetic representations is the thing we are discussing but SP and Awaclus are trying to muddy the waters with kanji.

Sure, it's hard to memorize 1800 or 5000 kanji.  But speaking Japanese is really, really easy.  Memorizing a funny SS might be simple, but speaking German is not.

[Teproc]

The weird thing is that pronounciation is, like, the simplest thing about the German language. Of the languages I know, the difficulty in pronouncing goes this way (left = hard)

English >>>>>>> French >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>German

And this isn't that subjective. German is simple to pronouncebecause it has clear rules and mostly holds to it. As opposed to English wich has basically no rules, and you have to learn how to pronounce every single word. French is somewhere in between : there are rules, but there are many, many of them, and they're not as universally true as the ones in German.

The word you highlighted above is actually very simple to pronounce, and, as someone pointed out, much easier than the word you negatively happened to us to describe it (straightforward).

Now Japanese seems pretty easy to pronounce as well, I'll give you that.But in the grand schme of things, German is very much on the easy side.

[Witherweaver]

Maybe we are talking past each other.  We are writing on a forum, so writing and reading is required, but I'm talking about speaking out loud -- and German just seems so obviously harder to speak than Japanese.  The way it is written is a visual representation of that when the language is written phonetically -- like when I romanized the Japanese word -- which is what the argument is.  Learning to make the sounds that match their phonetic representations is the thing we are discussing but SP and Awaclus are trying to muddy the waters with kanji.

Sure, it's hard to memorize 1800 or 5000 kanji.  But speaking Japanese is really, really easy.  Memorizing a funny SS might be simple, but speaking German is not.

It sounds like you're saying that, if you spell things phonetically, then they're easier to pronounce from their spelling. 

[IsotropicWasBetter]

A new random stuff thread? I noticed we got up to random stuff V in titles, why stop there?

Why indeed?

I think this may be getting out of hand.

This post is discriminatory to those without hands.

[ashersky]

The weird thing is that pronounciation is, like, the simplest thing about the German language. Of the languages I know, the difficulty in pronouncing goes this way (left = hard)

English >>>>>>> French >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>German

And this isn't that subjective. German is simple to pronouncebecause it has clear rules and mostly holds to it. As opposed to English wich has basically no rules, and you have to learn how to pronounce every single word. French is somewhere in between : there are rules, but there are many, many of them, and they're not as universally true as the ones in German.

The word you highlighted above is actually very simple to pronounce, and, as someone pointed out, much easier than the word you negatively happened to us to describe it (straightforward).

Now Japanese seems pretty easy to pronounce as well, I'll give you that.But in the grand schme of things, German is very much on the easy side.

I can't defend English here -- I know full well it's a mess.  I think French is very hard to pronounce, given what seems to me to be a lot of extra letter that serve no purpose in most words.

When Germans speak German, I can't mimic the sounds they make.  Have you heard an American say Goethe?  When Germans say it, it sounds kind of like Gurkha?  I still can't pronounce the guy's name.

But we can all say Murakami without a problem.

My rankings, then, would go:

Tonal languages such as Vietnamese and Chinese >>> French >>> German >>> English >>> Portuguese >>> Spanish >>> Italian >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Japanese.

[ashersky]

Maybe we are talking past each other.  We are writing on a forum, so writing and reading is required, but I'm talking about speaking out loud -- and German just seems so obviously harder to speak than Japanese.  The way it is written is a visual representation of that when the language is written phonetically -- like when I romanized the Japanese word -- which is what the argument is.  Learning to make the sounds that match their phonetic representations is the thing we are discussing but SP and Awaclus are trying to muddy the waters with kanji.

Sure, it's hard to memorize 1800 or 5000 kanji.  But speaking Japanese is really, really easy.  Memorizing a funny SS might be simple, but speaking German is not.

It sounds like you're saying that, if you spell things phonetically, then they're easier to pronounce from their spelling.

I'm saying that, some sounds, even spelled phonetically, are harder to make with your mouth than others.

Danish is another ridiculously hard to pronounce language.  Ever drink Carlsberg beer?  You (and I) are saying it wrong.

[Limetime]

I don't speak Japanese, but I do speak German and English, and the idea that an English speaker would have an easier time learning Japanese is ludicrous. English is basically an easier to learn version of German (except in the pronounciation field, English pronounciation makes zero sense).

I don't care how complex German grammar is, the simple fact that you basically know half of the vocabulary already has to make it much easier.

I haven't tried to learn German, but I learned both Japanese and Italian fluently, and the latter was exponentially harder to learn, even though Latin languages are supposed to be easier.

German and English are not Latin they are germanic.

[Kirian]

Maybe we are talking past each other.  We are writing on a forum, so writing and reading is required, but I'm talking about speaking out loud -- and German just seems so obviously harder to speak than Japanese.  The way it is written is a visual representation of that when the language is written phonetically -- like when I romanized the Japanese word -- which is what the argument is.  Learning to make the sounds that match their phonetic representations is the thing we are discussing but SP and Awaclus are trying to muddy the waters with kanji.

Sure, it's hard to memorize 1800 or 5000 kanji.  But speaking Japanese is really, really easy.  Memorizing a funny SS might be simple, but speaking German is not.

It sounds like you're saying that, if you spell things phonetically, then they're easier to pronounce from their spelling.

I'm saying that, some sounds, even spelled phonetically, are harder to make with your mouth than others.

Danish is another ridiculously hard to pronounce language.  Ever drink Carlsberg beer?  You (and I) are saying it wrong.

But those sounds are only easier due to the language you grew up with.  Asimply someone who has studied German and listened to a lot of Japanese and Korean, I'm certain that German and Japanese have around the same number of sounds that are different from English.

Certainly for some people the velar fricative /x/ (final ch in German) is going to be harder than the alveolar flap that is halfway between /r/ and /l/ in Japanese... but for some people the opposite is true.

[Kirian]

Meanwhile in English, none of bough, cough, dough, rough, and through rhyme... and slough has two different meanings, one of which rhymes with through, and one with rough.

[eHalcyon]

This is relevant to language, right?

[2.71828.....]

Since when did relevance matter in this thread?

[Tables]

A new random stuff thread? I noticed we got up to random stuff V in titles, why stop there?

Why indeed?

I think this may be getting out of hand.

This post is discriminatory to those without hands.

Okay DXV's post #10 there is amazing and deserves more than 23 respect.

[Awaclus]

Maybe we are talking past each other.  We are writing on a forum, so writing and reading is required, but I'm talking about speaking out loud -- and German just seems so obviously harder to speak than Japanese.  The way it is written is a visual representation of that when the language is written phonetically -- like when I romanized the Japanese word -- which is what the argument is.  Learning to make the sounds that match their phonetic representations is the thing we are discussing but SP and Awaclus are trying to muddy the waters with kanji.

Sure, it's hard to memorize 1800 or 5000 kanji.  But speaking Japanese is really, really easy.  Memorizing a funny SS might be simple, but speaking German is not.

Romanizing Japanese words isn't comparable to German spellings of German words. You need to compare the IPAs if you want to make that argument, and it's true that you would find that the IPA for German words is more complicated than it is for Japanese, but it's not as complicated as you seem to think.

[ashersky]

I don't speak Japanese, but I do speak German and English, and the idea that an English speaker would have an easier time learning Japanese is ludicrous. English is basically an easier to learn version of German (except in the pronounciation field, English pronounciation makes zero sense).

I don't care how complex German grammar is, the simple fact that you basically know half of the vocabulary already has to make it much easier.

I haven't tried to learn German, but I learned both Japanese and Italian fluently, and the latter was exponentially harder to learn, even though Latin languages are supposed to be easier.

German and English are not Latin they are germanic.

Please read my post again.  I said I learned Japanese and Italian, and the latter was harder despite being Latin.  Nowhere did I tie together either English or German with Latin.

And yet you get the upvotes.

[ashersky]

Maybe we are talking past each other.  We are writing on a forum, so writing and reading is required, but I'm talking about speaking out loud -- and German just seems so obviously harder to speak than Japanese.  The way it is written is a visual representation of that when the language is written phonetically -- like when I romanized the Japanese word -- which is what the argument is.  Learning to make the sounds that match their phonetic representations is the thing we are discussing but SP and Awaclus are trying to muddy the waters with kanji.

Sure, it's hard to memorize 1800 or 5000 kanji.  But speaking Japanese is really, really easy.  Memorizing a funny SS might be simple, but speaking German is not.

Romanizing Japanese words isn't comparable to German spellings of German words. You need to compare the IPAs if you want to make that argument, and it's true that you would find that the IPA for German words is more complicated than it is for Japanese, but it's not as complicated as you seem to think.

So I made an incorrect comparison but had the right conclusion.  You just disagree with the degree.

[Awaclus]

Maybe we are talking past each other.  We are writing on a forum, so writing and reading is required, but I'm talking about speaking out loud -- and German just seems so obviously harder to speak than Japanese.  The way it is written is a visual representation of that when the language is written phonetically -- like when I romanized the Japanese word -- which is what the argument is.  Learning to make the sounds that match their phonetic representations is the thing we are discussing but SP and Awaclus are trying to muddy the waters with kanji.

Sure, it's hard to memorize 1800 or 5000 kanji.  But speaking Japanese is really, really easy.  Memorizing a funny SS might be simple, but speaking German is not.

Romanizing Japanese words isn't comparable to German spellings of German words. You need to compare the IPAs if you want to make that argument, and it's true that you would find that the IPA for German words is more complicated than it is for Japanese, but it's not as complicated as you seem to think.

So I made an incorrect comparison but had the right conclusion.  You just disagree with the degree.

Well, concluding that a language is difficult to pronounce if it's more difficult than Japanese is like concluding that Woodcutter is a complicated Dominion card because it's more complicated than Silver. That way, you'd conclude that Finnish is difficult to pronounce as well, but that would be a very wrong conclusion considering that comparing other languages to Finnish would still be an unfair comparison given how remarkably easy Finnish is.

[ashersky]

I concluded that, to me, German is far harder (to pronounce/learn) than Japanese.  Everyone seems united against me to prove that I am wrong, for some reason.  You don't even know me, but you do know that I found Japanese extremely easy to learn and Italian extremely hard to learn.  I also recently spent time I'm Germany, noting the difficult to pronounce words and phrases everywhere around me.

I don't see why everyone wants to change my opinion, given how short life is.

[Awaclus]

I concluded that, to me, German is far harder (to pronounce/learn) than Japanese.  Everyone seems united against me to prove that I am wrong, for some reason.  You don't even know me, but you do know that I found Japanese extremely easy to learn and Italian extremely hard to learn.  I also recently spent time I'm Germany, noting the difficult to pronounce words and phrases everywhere around me.

I don't see why everyone wants to change my opinion, given how short life is.

Originally you concluded that German is hard to pronounce. Then you concluded that German is a more difficult foreign language than Japanese. Being harder to pronounce than Japanese doesn't mean it's hard, and I'm fairly sure that having to memorize 2000 new characters does make Japanese pretty obviously more difficult to learn as a foreign language than any language that uses the Latin alphabet or another similar writing system.

[blueblimp]

But we can all say Murakami without a problem.

This is a bad example to pick, because an English native speaker is not going to pronounce the Japanese R correctly without practice.

That said, spoken Japanese is indeed among the easiest-to-pronounce languages. It has relatively few sounds and most of them are easy. Too bad that the writing system is one of the hardest in the world.

As far as objective difficulty of learning a language overall for a native English speaker, there's the Foreign Service Institute's ranking.

[enfynet]

I concluded that, to me, German is far harder (to pronounce/learn) than Japanese.  Everyone seems united against me to prove that I am wrong, for some reason.  You don't even know me, but you do know that I found Japanese extremely easy to learn and Italian extremely hard to learn.  I also recently spent time I'm Germany, noting the difficult to pronounce words and phrases everywhere around me.

I don't see why everyone wants to change my opinion, given how short life is.

Would you say Japanese is 90_93% easier than people think?

And that was a cheap way to get +1s, considering how short life is.

[ashersky]

I concluded that, to me, German is far harder (to pronounce/learn) than Japanese.  Everyone seems united against me to prove that I am wrong, for some reason.  You don't even know me, but you do know that I found Japanese extremely easy to learn and Italian extremely hard to learn.  I also recently spent time I'm Germany, noting the difficult to pronounce words and phrases everywhere around me.

I don't see why everyone wants to change my opinion, given how short life is.

Would you say Japanese is 90_93% easier than people think?

And that was a cheap way to get +1s, considering how short life is.

I really don't think it helps anyone to make up a statistic, even as a way to create a starting point for discussion.

[silverspawn]

does through really rhyme with cough?

[A Drowned Kernel]

does through really rhyme with cough?

No. "Through" is pronounced the same as "threw." "Cough" rhymes with "off".

Yes English is weird.

[silverspawn]

yeah, that's what I thought too

Meanwhile in English, none of bough, cough, dough, rough, and through don't rhyme

[A Drowned Kernel]

yeah, that's what I thought too

Meanwhile in English, none of bough, cough, dough, rough, and through don't rhyme

I think that's a double negative probably, what Kirian meant to say is that none of those words rhyme with each other.

[Witherweaver]

[Witherweaver]

yeah, that's what I thought too

Meanwhile in English, none of bough, cough, dough, rough, and through don't rhyme

I think that's a double negative probably, what Kirian meant to say is that none of those words rhyme with each other.

I definitely read this in my mind the first time as:

"bō, co, doe, row, throw"

[Kirian]

Dammit.

[silverspawn]

yeah, that's what I thought too

Meanwhile in English, none of bough, cough, dough, rough, and through don't rhyme

I think that's a double negative probably, what Kirian meant to say is that none of those words rhyme with each other.

oh, in that case I just learned that I always pronounced cough wrong

[eHalcyon]

I concluded that, to me, German is far harder (to pronounce/learn) than Japanese.  Everyone seems united against me to prove that I am wrong, for some reason.  You don't even know me, but you do know that I found Japanese extremely easy to learn and Italian extremely hard to learn.  I also recently spent time I'm Germany, noting the difficult to pronounce words and phrases everywhere around me.

I don't see why everyone wants to change my opinion, given how short life is.

I think people were arguing because you started off making a general claim (or seemed to) instead of a personal one, and it seemed to be about learning languages overall rather than just ease of pronunciation.

[Roadrunner7671]

I guess I'll post this here. I learned about 'Omer,' a user who was banned several years ago. Maybe you remember him, he had 25 postd and a Cultist avatar? I don't understand why he got banned so quickly but Goon Garden went on for 13 pages before he was banned.

[LastFootnote]

I guess I'll post this here. I learned about 'Omer,' a user who was banned several years ago. Maybe you remember him, he had 25 postd and a Cultist avatar? I don't understand why he got banned so quickly but Goon Garden went on for 13 pages before he was banned.

It matters how fast theory notices. This ain't a science.

[Roadrunner7671]

I guess I'll post this here. I learned about 'Omer,' a user who was banned several years ago. Maybe you remember him, he had 25 postd and a Cultist avatar? I don't understand why he got banned so quickly but Goon Garden went on for 13 pages before he was banned.

It matters how fast theory notices. This ain't a science.

Okay, a follow up question: What was Omer's offense/offenses that caused him to get banned? Sure, he wasn't the most polite person I've ever seen, but I think a ban was very cruel.

[Donald X.]

Okay, a follow up question: What was Omer's offense/offenses that caused him to get banned? Sure, he wasn't the most polite person I've ever seen, but I think a ban was very cruel.

I don't remember, but maybe there are posts that were deleted.

[eHalcyon]

Okay, a follow up question: What was Omer's offense/offenses that caused him to get banned? Sure, he wasn't the most polite person I've ever seen, but I think a ban was very cruel.

I don't remember, but maybe there are posts that were deleted.

Or maybe it had to do with private messages.

[Tables]

Someone tell me about why Goon Gardens got banned, and what happened. I don't want to read through 15 pages of content to figure it out.

[ashersky]

Someone tell me about why Goon Gardens got banned, and what happened. I don't want to read through 15 pages of content to figure it out.

I understand, given how short life is.

[Roadrunner7671]

Someone tell me about why Goon Gardens got banned, and what happened. I don't want to read through 15 pages of content to figure it out.

Being very disrespectful when his point was countered and he gave estimates that were probsbly not accurate, frequent swearing and personal attacks on F.DS members, and he asked to be banned once or twice.

[Awaclus]

Someone tell me about why Goon Gardens got banned, and what happened. I don't want to read through 15 pages of content to figure it out.

Good thing there's only 8 pages then!

Anyway, the best part starts around here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14521.200

He gets banned on the next page.

"Considering how short life is" and ridiculously specific percentage estimates (especially 90-93%) are references to that thread.

[Donald X.]

When someone asks to be banned, the move is always to ban them. They can easily think of ways to make you wish you had.

[silverspawn]

classic proof by example

(the thread that is)

[ConMan]

My rankings, then, would go:

Tonal languages such as Vietnamese and Chinese >>> French >>> German >>> English >>> Portuguese >>> Spanish >>> Italian >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Japanese.

You know Japanese is a mildly tonal language too, right? With regional and contextual variation, for the fun of it.

I would echo the mention of the Foreign Service Institute's Language Difficulty Ranking, measure by the amount of intensive training required to gain a limited working proficiency in a language. German is in Category 2, requiring 750 hours of study. Japanese is in Category 5, along with Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese and Korean, with 2200 hours of study required to gain working proficiency. And Japanese is considered one of the harder languages even *in* that category.

[Tables]

Someone tell me about why Goon Gardens got banned, and what happened. I don't want to read through 15 pages of content to figure it out.

Good thing there's only 8 pages then!

Anyway, the best part starts around here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14521.200

He gets banned on the next page.

"Considering how short life is" and ridiculously specific percentage estimates (especially 90-93%) are references to that thread.

Well. That was quite something. I went in with an open mind, thinking maybe he was treated poorly or someone sparked him off to start replying badly. Instead I get someone who just seemed to get angry at and insult everyone, despite... being treated in a fairly civil manner. I'm wondering if he was trolling now, but that'd be some very subtle trolling if he was.

Edit: He was also moving the goalposts on what he was arguing as early as post 11, possibly even post 8.

[schadd]

first day of your women's studies class
"hello, class. i am professor anthony garboni, but you can call me tony garboni."
after the lecture is over you go up to him to ask a question
"hello, professor garboni?"
"please, that was my mother's name. call me tony garboni, as previously discussed."
you're the most excited you've ever been for a women's studies class

[Kirian]

http://www.pockettactics.com/news/ios-news/knights-of-pen-and-paper-2-goes-looking-for-dragons/

This entire post looks like news about a game, but it's really a long list of references to Alan Rickman.

[Tables]

There's a special place in Hull for the inventor of autocorrect.

[Kuildeous]

So because I'm feeling pedantic, I offer up for discussion a riddle I saw posted on Facebook. As it's supposed to be tricky, I suspect I'll see it making the rounds. 

As I recall, the riddle says that there is a fish tank with 10 fish.
Two fish drowned
Four fish swam away
Three fish died

How many fish are left?



[thinking gap, but I propose there is no single right answer so don't think too hard on this]




The "correct" answer is all ten are left. The reasoning is that fish can't drown, there's no place for fish to swim to, and the dead fish are still in the tank.

Okay, so I can accept the dead fish still being there. Saying how many are left implies surviving fish, but that's semantics. Obviously, people need to define what is meant by "left."

I can see the attempted trickery with fish not being able to drown, but fish can totally suffocate due to lack of oxygen in the water. And one definition of drowning is to die of suffocation while under liquid. This definition can get tricky, as it's generally understood that an air-breathing animal drowns by having fluid in its lungs, which causes the suffocation. It depends on how contrary you want to be. Someone could state whether a fish can technically drown, and someone else could come up with a viable argument for the opposite.

But I must say that the away part is unequivocally bullshit. The premise says nothing about the state of the tank. Are there exit tunnels? Is it submerged in a lake? Can fish successfully jump out of the tank? There is no indication that the tank is escape-proof. So you cannot say that there is no place for the fish to swim to if the premise itself specifically says that the fish swam away. You're contradicting the premise, which makes for a lousy riddle. It's the equivalent to asking what has four legs, flies, and barks—a dog; I lied about it flying. Okay, that contradiction is done for humorous effect because it's such a short riddle. It does not work here.

There's also the point that the two drowned fish could be grouped in with the three dead fish, so if you were to ask how many surviving fish remained, one could answer one or three.

Fortunately, I did not fall for this riddle, but it's hard to say that anyone truly fell for it since the answer I saw violates the premise as well the definition of drowning. I raised an eyebrow at the drowning part, so I had to look up whether fish can in fact drown. But it was the part of fish leaving but apparently they can't leave that bugged me. Don't put it in the premise if you aren't going to count it.

[Witherweaver]

I'm pretty sure you could drown a fish. 

[Limetime]

I'm pretty sure you could drown a fish.

you can drown a fish in a lot of non water liquids I think

[Kuildeous]

Yeah, there are some assumptions about drowning that don't take into account the definition.

I guess many people would define drowning as dying due to having water in lungs. In that case, no, you cannot drown a fish. But the definition I found that says drowning is suffocating while under a liquid would still count, though the method of dying is different for a fish versus a human. The human dies because of the water preventing the intake of air, so he suffocates that way, regardless of oxygen content. If a fish drowns, it's not because there is water there; it's because the oxygen content of the water is poor.

I'm happy with the definition I found, but I'm sure someone out there would dispute it. I would likely accept the definition given by a marine biologist.

[Witherweaver]

Yeah, there are some assumptions about drowning that don't take into account the definition.

I guess many people would define drowning as dying due to having water in lungs. In that case, no, you cannot drown a fish. But the definition I found that says drowning is suffocating while under a liquid would still count, though the method of dying is different for a fish versus a human. The human dies because of the water preventing the intake of air, so he suffocates that way, regardless of oxygen content. If a fish drowns, it's not because there is water there; it's because the oxygen content of the water is poor.

I'm happy with the definition I found, but I'm sure someone out there would dispute it. I would likely accept the definition given by a marine biologist.

Basic definition of drowning is what you say, death caused by respiratory impairment from immersion in a fluid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning.  I think it's pretty standard despite what some average person on the street may say.  Water is only our common thing because, well, water is an abundant liquid here on earth. 

[Kirian]

Question:  mammals can "breathe" temporarily in a perfluorocarbon.  Would fish also be able to do so, or would they "drown" in an otherwise oxygen-rich environment?  (Ignore for a moment the density; fish would float straight to the surface in current PFCs.)

[Titandrake]

Today I found out that when a forecast says "75% chance of rain", it doesn't mean "there is a 75% chance it will rain today." What it really means is "Given a uniformly random point in the city, the probability that point gets any rain today is 75%"

So for example, if there is huge storm covering half the city, and there is sunshine over the other half, then there's a 50% chance of rain in that city.

Somehow, I feel cheated, but after thinking about it more it's a reasonable reporting system. I'm not convinced it's the best one though.

[Kirian]

Today I found out that when a forecast says "75% chance of rain", it doesn't mean "there is a 75% chance it will rain today." What it really means is "Given a uniformly random point in the city, the probability that point gets any rain today is 75%"

So for example, if there is huge storm covering half the city, and there is sunshine over the other half, then there's a 50% chance of rain in that city.

Somehow, I feel cheated, but after thinking about it more it's a reasonable reporting system. I'm not convinced it's the best one though.

Eh, not quite.  By the time it's raining over half the city, the 50% forecast is far in the past.  Also note that the reality is that "75% chance of rain" really means "given the current conditions, decades of data placed into models suggest that rain will happen on 75% of days that are preceded by these conditions."

And it's not just uniformly over a single city; prediction down to the kilometer just isn't a thing yet.  More like "within 40 km of selected coordinates."  Only once the system actually starts producing rain will you get a forecast resolution under 5 km, and even then it's for 15-30 minutes in the future.

[Awaclus]

And it's not just uniformly over a single city; prediction down to the kilometer just isn't a thing yet.  More like "within 40 km of selected coordinates."

Aren't "within 40 km of the selected coordinates" and "over a single city" not all that different, though?

[yuma]

http://dogeweather.com/

totally accurate up to this one time I have used it thus far...

[Kirian]

And it's not just uniformly over a single city; prediction down to the kilometer just isn't a thing yet.  More like "within 40 km of selected coordinates."

Aren't "within 40 km of the selected coordinates" and "over a single city" not all that different, though?

Where do you live that single cities are that big?  There are half a dozen large (>50k population) within 40 km of me, and another twenty or more with >25k population.  In my old place (less urban), there were only about 10 cities of >25k within 40 km, but it was a much less urbanized area... and the entire city plus true suburbs only covered about a 15 km square...

[Awaclus]

Where do you live that single cities are that big?  There are half a dozen large (>50k population) within 40 km of me, and another twenty or more with >25k population.  In my old place (less urban), there were only about 10 cities of >25k within 40 km, but it was a much less urbanized area... and the entire city plus true suburbs only covered about a 15 km square...

Here.

[Kirian]

Where do you live that single cities are that big?  There are half a dozen large (>50k population) within 40 km of me, and another twenty or more with >25k population.  In my old place (less urban), there were only about 10 cities of >25k within 40 km, but it was a much less urbanized area... and the entire city plus true suburbs only covered about a 15 km square...

Here.

Ah.  What you're calling a city is the size of of what we call a county.  The county I currently live in has a land area just about twice what Joensuu is... but 90% of it is uninhabited, and the 10% that's inhabited has 10 times as many people, divided among 20-ish cities, large and small.  Previously, I lived in a county about half the size of your city, with 90% of the people living in about a third of that area.

The largest city proper in the US is significantly smaller in area than your city.

[sitnaltax]

Question:  mammals can "breathe" temporarily in a perfluorocarbon.  Would fish also be able to do so, or would they "drown" in an otherwise oxygen-rich environment?  (Ignore for a moment the density; fish would float straight to the surface in current PFCs.)

My uninformed biology-enthusiast speculation is yes. My best googling suggests that fish die if you take them out of water because their gills collapse, so there's not enough surface area to transfer oxygen. So in an appropriate-density environment, a fish would be fine. I'm making the unfounded assumption that gills and lungs transfer oxygen in fundamentally the same way, differing mostly in the way they're adapted to handle the density and oxygen concentration of water vs. air.

Like mammals, I can't speak to the longer-term effects for fish. You wouldn't have the "this thick fluid is damaging the delicate lung tissue" issue, though.

[Kirian]

Best unboxing video ever:  The newest Mersenne prime!

[Tables]

I already had that number memorised by the time that video came out. The short form, not the long form, obviously. Ah well, I still feel geeky.

As an aside, how would you round 0.095 to one significant figure? Would you leave the answer as 0.1 (which has 1 significant figure) or as 0.10 (which seems to have two significant figures, but shows the level of accuracy you get from rounding the previous number to one significant figure)?

[Witherweaver]

I already had that number memorised by the time that video came out. The short form, not the long form, obviously. Ah well, I still feel geeky.

As an aside, how would you round 0.095 to one significant figure? Would you leave the answer as 0.1 (which has 1 significant figure) or as 0.10 (which seems to have two significant figures, but shows the level of accuracy you get from rounding the previous number to one significant figure)?

It seems pretty obviously 0.1.  Rounding to 0.10 would exactly be rounding to two significant figures.  It doesn't matter how many significant figures you start with. 

[Kirian]

Depends on how you want to look at things.

For typical coursework, the correct answer is 0.1 rather than 0.10.  The second one indicates two significant digits, as WW notes.

Outside of the classroom, the correct answer is really 0.10.  You want to indicate for your customer/client/whatever that the measurements made were precise to the hundredths place, even though rounding would nominally chop it to the tenths place.  This is because rounding is addition/subtraction, and addition can generate an extra significant digit when there's a carry.

On the other hand, you can also easily write 0.09(5) and be done with it.

[LastFootnote]

I don't understand. If you're going to specify two significant digits (0.10), then why would you round it at all!? 0.095 is also two significant digits and is more accurate!

[Kuildeous]

On the other hand, you can also easily write 0.09(5) and be done with it.

0.45?

[Witherweaver]

On the other hand, you can also easily write 0.09(5) and be done with it.

0.45?

0.45!

[enfynet]

On the other hand, you can also easily write 0.09(5) and be done with it.

0.45?

0.45!

So, half of 0.9 is 0.45!?

[Witherweaver]

On the other hand, you can also easily write 0.09(5) and be done with it.

0.45?

0.45!

So, half of 0.9 is 0.45!?

Not quite, 0.45! is about .8856613803.

[Kirian]

I don't understand. If you're going to specify two significant digits (0.10), then why would you round it at all!? 0.095 is also two significant digits and is more accurate!

Well, here's the thing.  Significant digits are a fiction.  They're a shorthand for something much more useful, but rather than deluging chemistry students (and let's face it, this is almost always first introduced in chemistry) with yet another complex calculation, we simplify it.

The reality is that "one significant digit" has the same meaning as "+-~10%".  Two significant digits is +-~1%, and so forth.  These aren't exactly right, as 40 +- 5 is different from 90 +- 5, but they're close

So if you multiply 0.3 (1 sd) by 0.32 (2 sd), you get 0.096, but should only keep 1 sd.  0.1 and done, right?  Well...

The reality is that these measurements really "mean" 0.3 +- 0.05, and 0.32 +- 0.005.  Or, as bounds, 0.25 to 0.35, and 0.315 to 0.325.  If we multiply the bounds, we have a range in the final answer of:

0.25 x 0.315 = 0.07875 to 0.35 x 0.325 = .11375 = 0.09625 +- 0.0175

When chopped down to the maximum sd (2) from earlier, this is 0.096 +- 0.018

Now, here's where significant digits become a problem:

One sd is 0.1, which implies 0.1 +- 0.05
Two sd is 0.096, which implies 0.096 +- 0.0005
If we write 0.10, that implies 0.1 +- 0.005

The actual uncertainty is somewhere between the first and the third.  What to use, then?  Let's use the actual answer, 0.096 +- 0.018.  That eliminates our uncertainty with respect to... uncertainty.

--------

So what's the real problem here, then?  Well, there are two.

First, if you only have one significant digit in one of your measurements, you don't need to use significant digits anyway; your measurement is all but useless.  In reality, "one significant digit" means "using the wrong measuring implement."

Second, significant digits are best used when all values being used have similar uncertainties.  If we were multiplying 0.35 (0.345 to 0.355) and 0.47 (0.465 to 0.475), with typical sd usage the answer is 0.16 (0.155 to 0.165), and with properly described uncertainty, the range is 0.1604 to 0.1686, or 0.164 +- 0.004.  Those ranges overlap a lot better than the ranges we had in the other problem.

[ashersky]

So what's the real problem here, then?  Well, there are two.

It's that no one cares.

[Witherweaver]

So what's the real problem here, then?  Well, there are two.

It's that no one cares.

Only no one to one significant digit, though.  Could be anywhere in [-0.5,0.5) people caring.

[Awaclus]

So what's the real problem here, then?  Well, there are two.

It's that no one cares.

90-93% of people care far more than people think.

[silverspawn]

So what's the real problem here, then?  Well, there are two.

It's that no one cares.

90-93% of people care far more than people think.

73,3% of all statistics are made up!

[Awaclus]

So what's the real problem here, then?  Well, there are two.

It's that no one cares.

90-93% of people care far more than people think.

73,3% of all statistics are made up!

Are you referring to my 90 - 93% estimate?

It's just an estimation but its probably not far off, its not important to be precise to the second decimal point here

In case you've missed it: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=14521.0

[Tables]

I already had that number memorised by the time that video came out. The short form, not the long form, obviously. Ah well, I still feel geeky.

As an aside, how would you round 0.095 to one significant figure? Would you leave the answer as 0.1 (which has 1 significant figure) or as 0.10 (which seems to have two significant figures, but shows the level of accuracy you get from rounding the previous number to one significant figure)?

It seems pretty obviously 0.1.  Rounding to 0.10 would exactly be rounding to two significant figures.  It doesn't matter how many significant figures you start with. 

See, now that's interesting, because my intuition says 0.10 is the better answer here. You're still rounding to 1 sf, but the extra 0 implies an accuracy to within 0.005 either way - which is what you're actually within. The 0.1 answer has 1 sf but implies an uncertainty of 0.05, which is much larger than what you actually started with. On the other hand, it does only specify 1 significant figure, so I guess that it's a more true answer in the abstract sense - although usually less useful. So... I dunno. I can kinda see both sides though, I was wondering if there was an actual standard convention here.

I don't understand. If you're going to specify two significant digits (0.10), then why would you round it at all!? 0.095 is also two significant digits and is more accurate!

Same question but rounding 0.0952341245 instead then.

Edit: Now I think about it a little more though, considering that could also be rounded to 0.095 it doesn't really make much sense to use 0.10 over 0.95, even if 0.10 seems better than 0.1. Hmm. I think really this is just because rounding anything up to  the next order of magnitude just makes things horrible accuracy wise, most of the time. So yeah, 0.1 sounds like the best answer to me now, or at least it should be about 90-93% of the time.

[Witherweaver]

I already had that number memorised by the time that video came out. The short form, not the long form, obviously. Ah well, I still feel geeky.

As an aside, how would you round 0.095 to one significant figure? Would you leave the answer as 0.1 (which has 1 significant figure) or as 0.10 (which seems to have two significant figures, but shows the level of accuracy you get from rounding the previous number to one significant figure)?

It seems pretty obviously 0.1.  Rounding to 0.10 would exactly be rounding to two significant figures.  It doesn't matter how many significant figures you start with. 

See, now that's interesting, because my intuition says 0.10 is the better answer here. You're still rounding to 1 sf, but the extra 0 implies an accuracy to within 0.005 either way - which is what you're actually within. The 0.1 answer has 1 sf but implies an uncertainty of 0.05, which is much larger than what you actually started with. On the other hand, it does only specify 1 significant figure, so I guess that it's a more true answer in the abstract sense - although usually less useful. So... I dunno. I can kinda see both sides though, I was wondering if there was an actual standard convention here.

I mean, if you say 0.10 to one significant figure, that's not correct, you should be saying 0.1.  Saying 0.10 is giving two significant figures (by the regular school definition of significant figure).  Saying 0.100 would be three (though in this case you'd have 0.0950), etc.

[Limetime]

We shouldn't talk about significant digits, considering how short life is.

[Roadrunner7671]

I have a pro tip if you want to live a better life: don't mix grapefruit juice, flat club soda and tonic water then attempt to ingest it. It will end badly.

[enfynet]

A little something for Sunday brunch

[Witherweaver]

[Witherweaver]

So I was playing some Diablo III some time ago, and I noticed there was a name elite called "Alot" (i.e., from here).  It even looks a bit like the image in the comic.  It's pointed out as an Easter Egg:

http://www.diablowiki.net/Diablo_III_Easter_Eggs#Alot

They don't have a picture there, but:

[pacovf]

Hyperbole and a half is one of the funniest things on the Internet. So sad it's not updated anymore. Anybody know if the author is doing anything similar now?

[ashersky]

Is that Chumlee getting slapped?

[Kirian]

Hyperbole and a half is one of the funniest things on the Internet. So sad it's not updated anymore. Anybody know if the author is doing anything similar now?

Last I saw her, she was on Tabletop with Wil Wheaton... and disappeared again.  Depression is hell.

[Kuildeous]

Hyperbole and a half is one of the funniest things on the Internet. So sad it's not updated anymore. Anybody know if the author is doing anything similar now?

Last I saw her, she was on Tabletop with Wil Wheaton... and disappeared again.  Depression is hell.

Why must hilarious people suffer from depression? It's a cruel cosmic joke.

Her bit on moving with two dogs still gives me a mighty chuckle.

[Witherweaver]

Hyperbole and a half is one of the funniest things on the Internet. So sad it's not updated anymore. Anybody know if the author is doing anything similar now?

She's doing ALL THE STUFF

[Seprix]

Are you scared yet?

[silverspawn]

I just saw this thing. Not that I know much about Trump, but this made a lot of sense to me, and fits basically in what I suspected.

Thoughts?

[Teproc]

It just occured to me that Tactician really should be called Strategist.

[enfynet]

I just saw this thing. Not that I know much about Trump, but this made a lot of sense to me, and fits basically in what I suspected.

Thoughts?

That is impressive. I rarely understand what he is trying to say.

[eHalcyon]

I want to buy a new USB 3.0 cable for my Galaxy S5 charger (the cable that came with the phone is starting to fray).  There are lots of entries on Amazon for amazing prices... except many of the reviews suggest that they are actually cheap knock-offs.  Is there an easy way to find something that is verified authentic?

At this point I'm probably going to buy a non-Samsung cable from Best Buy.

Edit: Bahh, I'm just going to go buy the cable locally.  Even if I found something authentic, I don't want to keep using the frayed cable while waiting for shipping.

[Kirian]

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/nobody-has-been-able-solve-gchqs-christmas-card-puzzle

Come on, f.DS, I'm sure you brilliant minds can do this.

[Roadrunner7671]

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/nobody-has-been-able-solve-gchqs-christmas-card-puzzle

Come on, f.DS, I'm sure you brilliant minds can do this.

It's just a giant nonogram puzzle.

[Kirian]

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/nobody-has-been-able-solve-gchqs-christmas-card-puzzle

Come on, f.DS, I'm sure you brilliant minds can do this.

It's just a giant nonogram puzzle.

That's part 1, yes.

[Roadrunner7671]

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/nobody-has-been-able-solve-gchqs-christmas-card-puzzle

Come on, f.DS, I'm sure you brilliant minds can do this.

It's just a giant nonogram puzzle.

That's part 1, yes.

Oh, yes. You have to get through all the parts. I'm out.

[Kirian]

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/nobody-has-been-able-solve-gchqs-christmas-card-puzzle

Come on, f.DS, I'm sure you brilliant minds can do this.

It's just a giant nonogram puzzle.

That's part 1, yes.

Oh, yes. You have to get through all the parts. I'm out.

Notably, Part 5 actually has eleven separate parts.  But there's no part 6!

Part 5 at the Torygraph Telegraph:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12125576/GCHQ-Christmas-quiz-30000-entries-not-one-perfect-answer.html

[eHalcyon]

[sitnaltax]

I want to buy a new USB 3.0 cable for my Galaxy S5 charger (the cable that came with the phone is starting to fray).  There are lots of entries on Amazon for amazing prices... except many of the reviews suggest that they are actually cheap knock-offs.  Is there an easy way to find something that is verified authentic?

At this point I'm probably going to buy a non-Samsung cable from Best Buy.

Edit: Bahh, I'm just going to go buy the cable locally.  Even if I found something authentic, I don't want to keep using the frayed cable while waiting for shipping.

Monoprice is the place to go for cables and adapters of any kind. Inexpensive and fair quality.

[eHalcyon]

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/nobody-has-been-able-solve-gchqs-christmas-card-puzzle

Come on, f.DS, I'm sure you brilliant minds can do this.

Dunno about these puzzles, but I just purchased The Witness.  I'll see how that goes.

[Kuildeous]

Odds are that no one else will see this, but I inserted a comment in my code explaining a bit of an error check as, "Say, nice function you got here. Be an awful shame if something endless looped it."

[qmech]

An uncompromising way to deal with rhino poachers:

"They operate in four-man teams comprising a sniper, two riflemen, and a signaller," says Dyer. "They've got night vision gear and digital radios so if they need to, they can call in ground and air support."

The teams monitor 102 rhinos, but when they spot poachers, they don't arrest them. They don't even invite them to lay down their arms. Instead, they kill them - 19 so far, in split-second ambushes during which their victims probably never knew what hit them.

Dyer says this is the safest way to deal with men facing 25 years in prison if convicted.

"Technically we do have to offer them the opportunity to surrender," he adds, "but this tends to happen after they've been, er, incapacitated."

[Tables]

Man, I wish I could use this method to deal with kids causing problems in the new building at work. Would make things so much easier. A little paperwork to deal with maybe, but whatever no biggie.

[Awaclus]

Happy Chinese new year and may you all be prosperous in the year of the Monkey!

[blueblimp]

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600689/we-have-the-technology-to-destroy-all-zika-mosquitoes/#/set/id/600732/

A controversial genetic technology able to wipe out the mosquito carrying the Zika virus will be available within months, scientists say.

[...]

With Zika sowing fear across Latin America and beyond, the technology is likely to get a closer look. “Four weeks ago we were trying to justify why we are doing this. Now they’re saying ‘Get the lead out,’” says James.

The pace of genetic tech progress at the moment is pretty amazing.

[Tables]

Guitar Hero Live is pretty fun. I highly recommend not buying it.

[Kuildeous]

At first I was thrilled with the possibly new trend of morphing old-timey PSA videos into the stuff of nightmares. Then I saw that this was done 5 years ago. I'm kind of sad it didn't catch on.

[Kirian]

You Don't Know Jack is now old enough to drink, yet is still the only trivia game worth playing.

[eHalcyon]

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/nobody-has-been-able-solve-gchqs-christmas-card-puzzle

Come on, f.DS, I'm sure you brilliant minds can do this.

Dunno about these puzzles, but I just purchased The Witness.  I'll see how that goes.

The Witness was great.  Has anybody else played?

[Elanchana]

The adventures of Ela playing King of Sopio


My first time near the top of the leaderboard (that 33333 user must be a hacker)


Well, 'least I'm in good company...


Oh, cOME ON!!!!


hashtag got there

[Witherweaver]

[silverspawn]

 

I can relate to that.

[Roadrunner7671]

Why is Ela assuming that 'Roadrunner' is me? There could be any number of Roadrunners running around out there!

[Burning Skull]

Why is Ela assuming that 'Roadrunner' is me? There could be any number of Roadrunners running around out there!

I bet Ela was actually referring to that Kai guy.

[sudgy]

Once, somebody mentioned that where they were from it was zero degrees, and I asked whether it was Fahrenheit or Celsius.  Zero degrees makes so much more sense to be Celsius, so that's why I asked, even though I'm in America.  Everybody was like, "What?!?  That doesn't even make sense!"  Somebody even got kind of mad at me for "showing off how much I know".

[Awaclus]

Once, somebody mentioned that where they were from it was zero degrees, and I asked whether it was Fahrenheit or Celsius.  Zero degrees makes so much more sense to be Celsius, so that's why I asked, even though I'm in America.  Everybody was like, "What?!?  That doesn't even make sense!"  Somebody even got kind of mad at me for "showing off how much I know".

Why does zero degrees make so much more sense to be Celsius? Unless they were talking about how hard it was to drive or something.

[Witherweaver]

Once, somebody mentioned that where they were from it was zero degrees, and I asked whether it was Fahrenheit or Celsius.  Zero degrees makes so much more sense to be Celsius, so that's why I asked, even though I'm in America.  Everybody was like, "What?!?  That doesn't even make sense!"  Somebody even got kind of mad at me for "showing off how much I know".

0F is a significant cutoff for talking about extreme temperatures in Winter.  (It's arbitrary, but still notable because of 0 as a number itself.) Reaching negative Fahrenheit is pretty cold, so it's of note when it happens.  Hitting 0C is much more common unless you're fairly far south (in the US).

[ashersky]

Fuck celsiums

[2.71828.....]

Watching ashersky go through checking f.ds while drunk. Starts in forum games, moves to random stuff, before going to "Interview with Donald X"

Can't wait to see where he goes next.  *insert popcorn eating guy meme but I am on my phone and that is too much hassle*

[2.71828.....]

And yes, sitting in an airport for 5 hours or so gets boring.

[LastFootnote]

Watching ashersky go through checking f.ds while drunk. Starts in forum games, moves to random stuff, before going to "Interview with Donald X"

Can't wait to see where he goes next.  *insert popcorn eating guy meme but I am on my phone and that is too much hassle*

For a second I thought you meant ashersky was drunk. I was like, "How do you know this?" Maybe he's in the airport too and you're watching over his shoulder as he browses f.DS?

[ashersky]

Watching ashersky go through checking f.ds while drunk. Starts in forum games, moves to random stuff, before going to "Interview with Donald X"

Can't wait to see where he goes next.  *insert popcorn eating guy meme but I am on my phone and that is too much hassle*

For a second I thought you meant ashersky was drunk. I was like, "How do you know this?" Maybe he's in the airport too and you're watching over his shoulder as he browses f.DS?

Holy shit lol duck lip lol

[Roadrunner7671]

Watching ashersky go through checking f.ds while drunk. Starts in forum games, moves to random stuff, before going to "Interview with Donald X"

Can't wait to see where he goes next.  *insert popcorn eating guy meme but I am on my phone and that is too much hassle*

For a second I thought you meant ashersky was drunk. I was like, "How do you know this?" Maybe he's in the airport too and you're watching over his shoulder as he browses f.DS?

Nah he said so in our mafia game.

How dare you mention current Mafia games!!!

[Roadrunner7671]

Watching ashersky go through checking f.ds while drunk. Starts in forum games, moves to random stuff, before going to "Interview with Donald X"

Can't wait to see where he goes next.  *insert popcorn eating guy meme but I am on my phone and that is too much hassle*

For a second I thought you meant ashersky was drunk. I was like, "How do you know this?" Maybe he's in the airport too and you're watching over his shoulder as he browses f.DS?

Nah he said so in our mafia game.

How dare you mention current Mafia games!!!

Good point I deleted it

It wasn't a big deal!

[liopoil]

It's been quoted in the last several posts, so.

[2.71828.....]

It's been quoted in the last several posts, so.

Yeah, you quoted it in the post saying you deleted it....

[Roadrunner7671]

It's been quoted in the last several posts, so.

So it's a good thing it wasn't a big deal.

[liopoil]

It's been quoted in the last several posts, so.

Yeah, you quoted it in the post saying you deleted it....

Good point, I have now deleted that post and reported posts by other people which I'm sure will be deleted any second now.

[Roadrunner7671]

It's been quoted in the last several posts, so.

Yeah, you quoted it in the post saying you deleted it....

Good point, I have now deleted that post and reported posts by other people which I'm sure will be deleted any second now.

What?

[KingZog3]

Didn't realize random stuff went into a third thread...

[liopoil]

It's been quoted in the last several posts, so.

Yeah, you quoted it in the post saying you deleted it....

Good point, I have now deleted that post and reported posts by other people which I'm sure will be deleted any second now.

What?

You clearly didn't see anything.

[Roadrunner7671]

It's been quoted in the last several posts, so.

Yeah, you quoted it in the post saying you deleted it....

Good point, I have now deleted that post and reported posts by other people which I'm sure will be deleted any second now.

What?

You clearly didn't see anything.

What was there to see?

[iguanaiguana]

It's been quoted in the last several posts, so.

Yeah, you quoted it in the post saying you deleted it....

Good point, I deleted it.

[Teproc]

Fahrenheit is awful, as are all imperial systems.

That being said, the guy in the xkcd comic should definitely use Fahrenheit in that case, using Celsius accomplishes nothing if everyone around you is used to Fahrenheit, it's not like you're going to change the world by being a douche.

[Ichimaru Gin]

Any tips for someone going away to university for the first time?
It'll be my first time living on my own and all.

[pacovf]

Will you be living in a residence?

[Ichimaru Gin]

Will you be living in a residence?

Yeah. I'll be living on campus.

[Tables]

Does anyone even really use Fahrenheit nowadays? I know the conversion from Celsius to Farenheit is F = 9C/5 + 32 (and vice versa) but... I couldn't tell you how hot something like 70F or 50F or whatever was intuitively, I'd need to actually shove it into the formula to get it in a quantity that I understand and that people actually use.

[liopoil]

Does anyone even really use Fahrenheit nowadays? I know the conversion from Celsius to Farenheit is F = 9C/5 + 32 (and vice versa) but... I couldn't tell you how hot something like 70F or 50F or whatever was intuitively, I'd need to actually shove it into the formula to get it in a quantity that I understand and that people actually use.

Yes, in America I only had intuition for Farenheit until recently. Now I've done the conversion enough times that I have a decent intuition for Celsius too, but all the weather stations etc. are in Farenheit here.

[Kirian]

Does anyone even really use Fahrenheit nowadays? I know the conversion from Celsius to Farenheit is F = 9C/5 + 32 (and vice versa) but... I couldn't tell you how hot something like 70F or 50F or whatever was intuitively, I'd need to actually shove it into the formula to get it in a quantity that I understand and that people actually use.

Come visit the United States, though check your vaccinations first and be prepared for a stay in a third-world backward country.

[Witherweaver]

Fahrenheit is awful, as are all imperial systems.

That being said, the guy in the xkcd comic should definitely use Fahrenheit in that case, using Celsius accomplishes nothing if everyone around you is used to Fahrenheit, it's not like you're going to change the world by being a douche.

You an make the world a cleaner place.

[pacovf]

Will you be living in a residence?

Yeah. I'll be living on campus.

You'll be fine. Socialize with the people on your floor, get into a club/association or two, try new things, know your limits with alcohol, don't overspend, don't forget to talk to your parents from time to time, enjoy the best years of your life, etc., etc.

[LastFootnote]

Fahrenheit is awful, as are all imperial systems.

I think a very persuasive argument can be made that most imperial systems are way worse than the corresponding metric systems. Not so much for temperature. The real metric system there would be to report all temperatures in Kelvin. But that's not as useful for the range temperatures that we actually experience in day-to-day life. Celsius is better for that, but so is Fahrenheit. It's way easier to convert between Kelvin and Celsius than it is to convert between Kelvin and Fahrenheit, but that doesn't matter at all if you're not doing that conversion.

[Kirian]

Will you be living in a residence?

Yeah. I'll be living on campus.

You'll be fine. Socialize with the people on your floor, get into a club/association or two, try new things, know your limits with alcohol, don't overspend, don't forget to talk to your parents from time to time, enjoy the best years of your life, etc., etc.

Just make sure to use the prevailing temperature system for your country/region.

[iguanaiguana]

Will you be living in a residence?

Yeah. I'll be living on campus.

You'll be fine. Socialize with the people on your floor, get into a club/association or two, try new things, know your limits with alcohol, don't overspend, don't forget to talk to your parents from time to time, enjoy the best years of your life, etc., etc.

Just make sure to use the prevailing temperature system for your country/region.

fuck celsiums!

[Ichimaru Gin]

Will you be living in a residence?

Yeah. I'll be living on campus.

You'll be fine. Socialize with the people on your floor, get into a club/association or two, try new things, know your limits with alcohol, don't overspend, don't forget to talk to your parents from time to time, enjoy the best years of your life, etc., etc.

Just make sure to use the prevailing temperature system for your country/region.

I'm in the US, but I had chem last semester. SI units are sooooooooo much nicer to use for dimensional analysis.

[liopoil]

The real metric system there would be to report all temperatures in Kelvin. But that's not as useful for the range temperatures that we actually experience in day-to-day life. Celsius is better for that, but so is Fahrenheit.

I get that Kelvin is more fundamental scientifically because its 0 actually means something, but I don't see why it would be the 'real metric system'. Celsius has a better argument to make for the whole base-10 thing because of 0 and 100, and well the properties of water at one atmosphere of pressure are relevant for every day life. It's not like the meter or kilogram are special scientifically either, the thing which makes them better is the easy conversion by changing the exponent of 10.

[scott_pilgrim]

Any tips for someone going away to university for the first time?
It'll be my first time living on my own and all.

1. The most important thing, I think, is to remember that you're there to learn.  You're not there to get grades, or get a degree, or make friends, or do fun stuff.  You should do those things too, but that's not why you're going to university.  So you should take classes in areas that you like, even if they're hard, or if you hate the professor.  One of my biggest regrets in college was dropping an analysis class in the first week because some people said it was the hardest class in the school.  Another one of my biggest regrets was giving up on learning abstract algebra because I (and everyone else) hated the professor.  I don't regret it because I did badly in the class, but because I still had access to textbooks and classmates that could have helped me to learn the material better, and I didn't take advantage of that to learn something that I really love.  So even if you can't improve your grades, if you like the subject content in the class, take advantage of your university's resources to learn that material as best you can.

Sort of along with this point, you should find opportunities to build skills related to your major outside of classes.  There was a math club at my school that I never participated in, because I thought, I'm majoring in math, why would I make myself do more math.  But now I wish that I had done so, because a. it gives you opportunities to learn things or solve problems you would never get to do in class, b. it gives you chances to meet people with similar interests, and c. leading into my next point, it might give you opportunities to make good impressions on a professor.

2. Try to pick one or two professors that you get along with, and/or whose class(es) you know you're doing well in, and make an effort to make sure they know who you are (by asking lots of questions/giving lots of answers/contributing to discussions in class, and/or by speaking to them outside of class).  That way, when you're applying for jobs and/or grad school, you have someone you know will write you a strong recommendation.  It may sound hard if you're shy (like me), but if you're shy, it'll be harder to approach professors who don't know you and ask for recommendations.  (That being said, if you don't take this advice, don't feel discouraged about asking professors for recommendations later if you need them.)

3. Make some friends, and spend time studying with them and hanging out with them.  You don't have to make a lot of friends.  Personally I think a few really close friends is better than a lot of distant friends, but this is sort of an introvert vs. extrovert thing I think.  Studying with friends is a really good habit to get into.  It's more fun than studying by yourself, and both you and the friend(s) you're studying with will learn more than when you study by yourself, AND you'll finish whatever you're working on faster.

Okay so how do you make friends?  For me, I joined a few clubs and made almost all of my friends through those.  That was easy because my school had an insane amount of clubs and organizations (in the 200's I think), so pretty much anything you could be interested in (like board games and Smash Bros.), my school had a club for it.  It's easy to make friends who share common interests.  But outside of clubs, you can also make friends just by hanging out somewhere and doing things you enjoy.  Just go play Dominion online in a public place, and if someone else who likes Dominion sees you, they'll stop and talk to you about it.  For some reason my experience is that college students are friendlier and easier to get along with than other people.  I was playing sporcle before class one time and some guy behind me I'd never met before just started whispering answers to me.  I'm not sure why I brought up that example, I just thought it was funny.

4. Don't go into college expecting to meet your dream girl (or guy if you're homosexual, but girl again if you're a girl, but guy if you're a straight girl, or either one if you're bisexual, I think I've covered all my bases).  You might, a lot of people do, and if you do that's great.  But it's not necessary for having a good time in college, and it's bad to have a perspective of "I need a girl/boyfriend to be happy".

I don't drink or party in general, so it's not really fair for me to say this, but I think that aspect of college is overrated.  If you spend time with friends doing stuff you love, college will be the best time of your life.

I'm just going to reiterate my first point because I think it's really important.  You're not at school to get good grades or get a degree.  Those are just formalities that tell potential hirers or grad schools that you've learned what you say you've learned.  You're there to learn new stuff.  Having this perspective should help to relieve you from some of the stress that comes with difficult classes and tough workload, while also helping you to learn more efficiently (because you'll be studying for the sake of learning, and not for the sake of passing a test).

[Ichimaru Gin]

Wow. Thanks for the great advice! I've actually never drank before...and I'm not really planning on it I guess? I agree that it seems like a hugely overrated part of college life, though of course I've never experienced it myself. I'm straight (thanks for covering all those bases though  ), and I appreciate the admonition about the expectations of meeting a possible life partner in school--as I definitely have/had that expectation. I must admit, I'd probably be a bit sad if I was finished with college without meeting someone "special" or whatever. I'm not a terribly outgoing person, and it seems like it's difficult to meet people once you're out of school? Or so it seems to me at least.

Up to this point in my academic career, I have been really focused on my GPA. I really appreciate your take on the true purpose of education, as I sometimes do feel a bit cynical about things and have almost certainly avoided some courses in order to protect my grades. I do feel really passionate about my major though (computer science). It took me a while in community college to really settle on what felt right for me, but I find the subject matter incredibly engaging, so that's a positive.

[Kirian]

Dammit, I just realized I'm supposed to be the high school teacher giving out life advice.  Falling down on the job here.  Tomorrow, perhaps, though scott_pilgrim said a lot of good things already.

[enfynet]

Once, somebody mentioned that where they were from it was zero degrees, and I asked whether it was Fahrenheit or Celsius.  Zero degrees makes so much more sense to be Celsius, so that's why I asked, even though I'm in America.  Everybody was like, "What?!?  That doesn't even make sense!"  Somebody even got kind of mad at me for "showing off how much I know".

0F is a significant cutoff for talking about extreme temperatures in Winter.  (It's arbitrary, but still notable because of 0 as a number itself.) Reaching negative Fahrenheit is pretty cold, so it's of note when it happens.  Hitting 0C is much more common unless you're fairly far south (in the US).

I like to think -40° is quite significant too. But you've got to travel pretty far north for that.

[Teproc]

Fahrenheit is awful, as are all imperial systems.

I think a very persuasive argument can be made that most imperial systems are way worse than the corresponding metric systems. Not so much for temperature. The real metric system there would be to report all temperatures in Kelvin. But that's not as useful for the range temperatures that we actually experience in day-to-day life. Celsius is better for that, but so is Fahrenheit. It's way easier to convert between Kelvin and Celsius than it is to convert between Kelvin and Fahrenheit, but that doesn't matter at all if you're not doing that conversion.

I almost concluded that post by saying Kelvin was the best anyway, Celsius simply being the more convenient in everyday life version of Kelvin.

[Tables]

The real metric system there would be to report all temperatures in Kelvin. But that's not as useful for the range temperatures that we actually experience in day-to-day life. Celsius is better for that, but so is Fahrenheit.

I get that Kelvin is more fundamental scientifically because its 0 actually means something, but I don't see why it would be the 'real metric system'. Celsius has a better argument to make for the whole base-10 thing because of 0 and 100, and well the properties of water at one atmosphere of pressure are relevant for every day life. It's not like the meter or kilogram are special scientifically either, the thing which makes them better is the easy conversion by changing the exponent of 10.

In metric systems, correct me if I'm wrong, but multiplying something always means you that multiple amount of it. Double 10 metres and you're travelling twice as far. Triple 10 kilograms and you have something three times as massive. Double 10 degrees Celsius and you don't get something twice as hot. But if you multiply 30 Kelvin by 3, you do get something three times as hot. So that's a pretty reasonable argument for using Kelvin as the standard unit.

[Witherweaver]

(snip)

Very important.  Learning is really all that matters.

[Witherweaver]

Once, somebody mentioned that where they were from it was zero degrees, and I asked whether it was Fahrenheit or Celsius.  Zero degrees makes so much more sense to be Celsius, so that's why I asked, even though I'm in America.  Everybody was like, "What?!?  That doesn't even make sense!"  Somebody even got kind of mad at me for "showing off how much I know".

0F is a significant cutoff for talking about extreme temperatures in Winter.  (It's arbitrary, but still notable because of 0 as a number itself.) Reaching negative Fahrenheit is pretty cold, so it's of note when it happens.  Hitting 0C is much more common unless you're fairly far south (in the US).

I like to think -40° is quite significant too. But you've got to travel pretty far north for that.

It is, but it doesn't happen much in most of America.

[silverspawn]

Probably the most interesting thing I read about for university was a differentiation of the existing type of scales. I don't know the english terms, but...

type 0 - distribute things to other things (e.g. persons to their nationality)
type 1 - also have a defined order (e.g. ranks after a tournament)
type 2 - also have sensible distances (e.g. degree celsius)
type 3 - also have zero be the real zero, which gives you sensible proportions (e.g. other metric units, degree Kelvin)
type 4 - also have your number be the real number rather than a measure (e.g. # of people in a region)

The book also said that school grades (at least in Germany) are only type 1, making it mathematically nonsensical to calculate their mean. Instead, they suggest you add up points of all tests during the year and then map their sum onto a grade.

so yeah, celsius is inferior to kelvin in that way.

[Witherweaver]

Wow. Thanks for the great advice! I've actually never drank before...and I'm not really planning on it I guess? I agree that it seems like a hugely overrated part of college life, though of course I've never experienced it myself. I'm straight (thanks for covering all those bases though  ), and I appreciate the admonition about the expectations of meeting a possible life partner in school--as I definitely have/had that expectation. I must admit, I'd probably be a bit sad if I was finished with college without meeting someone "special" or whatever. I'm not a terribly outgoing person, and it seems like it's difficult to meet people once you're out of school? Or so it seems to me at least.

Up to this point in my academic career, I have been really focused on my GPA. I really appreciate your take on the true purpose of education, as I sometimes do feel a bit cynical about things and have almost certainly avoided some courses in order to protect my grades. I do feel really passionate about my major though (computer science). It took me a while in community college to really settle on what felt right for me, but I find the subject matter incredibly engaging, so that's a positive.

I never drank until I was 29, almost 30.  It has helped a lot for dating (well, maybe).. a little bit for other social life.  Otherwise, it's highly overrated.

If you do decide to start drinking, do so for actual taste and not just for the sake of drinking alcohol.  Avoid people that want to 'get drunk'.  At least, that's my advice. 

[Kuildeous]

And if you're sensitive to the taste of alcohol like I am, then you won't be in much mood to drink much anyway.

So I generally don't drink for the taste, though I confess a pretty high tolerance for White Russians and Amaretto Sours. Most drinks I can taste the alcohol, which ruins it for me. If I do go for the alcohol, I just do shots. Might as well get that bad taste all over with in a quick gulp.

But I agree that it's not necessary to get drunk just to get drunk. Yeah, it can feel good and loosen you up, but one shouldn't have to rely on it. Everybody handles stress differently. My wife likes to drink a margarita after a rough day at work. I guess I'm perfectly content chilling in front of the computer and playing a game to unwind.

[iguanaiguana]

Wow. Thanks for the great advice! I've actually never drank before...and I'm not really planning on it I guess? I agree that it seems like a hugely overrated part of college life, though of course I've never experienced it myself. I'm straight (thanks for covering all those bases though  ), and I appreciate the admonition about the expectations of meeting a possible life partner in school--as I definitely have/had that expectation. I must admit, I'd probably be a bit sad if I was finished with college without meeting someone "special" or whatever. I'm not a terribly outgoing person, and it seems like it's difficult to meet people once you're out of school? Or so it seems to me at least.

Up to this point in my academic career, I have been really focused on my GPA. I really appreciate your take on the true purpose of education, as I sometimes do feel a bit cynical about things and have almost certainly avoided some courses in order to protect my grades. I do feel really passionate about my major though (computer science). It took me a while in community college to really settle on what felt right for me, but I find the subject matter incredibly engaging, so that's a positive.

If your university has a climbing wall, go climbing!!!

[yuma]

Any tips for someone going away to university for the first time?
It'll be my first time living on my own and all.

Some good advice has already been given, but I'll add a couple of additional points that I feel somewhat strongly about. Keep in mind that I have spoken to others who feel completely the opposite of what I am about to say, but I will try to back up my statement with an argument that I believe to be convincing.

Get a job (if possible). If it isn't possible explore the possibility. If it isn't possible. Volunteer, a lot!

I didn't work for money. I mean, I got paid and that was nice. But I already had a scholarship and living expenses were covered as well. So money wasn't an issue. I know it is for some people and part-time jobs are necessary for getting an education, hopefully you aren't in that boat.

The experience I received was extremely beneficial. More so to the point that it stopped me from pursuing careers that I would have ended up absolutely hating. I had four jobs during my college years.

One working for the university paper when I thought I wanted to be a journalist. One working as a TA when I thought I wanted to be a teacher/professor. One working a secretary in a law office when I thought I wanted to go into law. One as a lab assistant when I thought I wanted to be a laboratory scientist and the career I ultimately stuck with and continue to really enjoy.

While I didn't hate the first three jobs I quickly saw and realized that I would not enjoy a long, lasting career in those professions and was quickly able to course correct my education/major/job to something different.

My wife (who I ended up marrying toward the end of college did the same, but that is a separate situation and one that others have already talked about) and it was just as beneficial to her. We both refused to work full time. I for one saw way too many students as a TA who did work full time either fail classes or drop out completely. But we were able to graduate with $10,000 saved between us. That allowed enormous flexibility when it came to actually choosing a job to get into as neither of us felt compelled to say yes to the first crappy job that came along offering really low pay and was part of the chunk that we used to make a large(r) down payment on our first house. But the money was just a fridge benefit.

As others have said, the purpose of college is to learn. So if a college job starts to become more important than learning, it isn't being done right. But if you can use a job to learn about a prospective career and make some money on the side while enhancing your education, I say absolutely go for it.

[Witherweaver]

Regarding job, most colleges have some sort of work study program, where you can work at one of the college offices.  That's what I did, through the tutoring center.  The pay was small, but it's also manageable hours, and it was something I liked doing.

Additionally, the learning center at my undergrad college had a bulletin board for external tutoring opportunities (not current students).  They'd call and leave their number, and anyone could take the info and contact them, and set up independent things.  That's how  I earned a lot of my money in undergrad.

Of course, Yuma has a point of looking into careers that you're actually interested in.  For me, I new I was going to grad school pretty soon after I started, and already knew what I intended with my degree, so it wasn't as important to look into particular industries. 

Edit: On the other hand, I had no savings when I graduated college, nor when I finished grad school. 

[liopoil]

The real metric system there would be to report all temperatures in Kelvin. But that's not as useful for the range temperatures that we actually experience in day-to-day life. Celsius is better for that, but so is Fahrenheit.

I get that Kelvin is more fundamental scientifically because its 0 actually means something, but I don't see why it would be the 'real metric system'. Celsius has a better argument to make for the whole base-10 thing because of 0 and 100, and well the properties of water at one atmosphere of pressure are relevant for every day life. It's not like the meter or kilogram are special scientifically either, the thing which makes them better is the easy conversion by changing the exponent of 10.

In metric systems, correct me if I'm wrong, but multiplying something always means you that multiple amount of it. Double 10 metres and you're travelling twice as far. Triple 10 kilograms and you have something three times as massive. Double 10 degrees Celsius and you don't get something twice as hot. But if you multiply 30 Kelvin by 3, you do get something three times as hot. So that's a pretty reasonable argument for using Kelvin as the standard unit.

Oh hey - it's like it's actually a measure! (well, in the sense of additivity; total kinetic energy (heat) would work better since it isn't averaged). That's certainly a good reason to call it metric. Thanks, it just clicked. In fact I remember always having to convert Celsius to Kelvin in chemistry class for this very reason.

[pacovf]

Oh, something else about university: you might feel very lost in your courses for a term or two, the difference with high school can be quite a shock. It's perfectly normal! Don't despair or think that you are worthless and everybody else is smarter than you. I mean, obviously there will always be people that are smarter than you, but most will feel just as lost as you do. Just keep calm and carry on. I'll repeat scott_pilgrim's advice about working with other students, it really helps with productivity and motivation.

[Witherweaver]

Oh, something else about university: you might feel very lost in your courses for a term or two, the difference with high school can be quite a shock. It's perfectly normal! Don't despair or think that you are worthless and everybody else is smarter than you. I mean, obviously there will always be people that are smarter than you, but most will feel just as lost as you do. Just keep calm and carry on. I'll repeat scott_pilgrim's advice about working with other students, it really helps with productivity and motivation.

Fun story from my first analysis course.  This was the first course I ever had that was actually difficult.  My first homework got utterly torn apart by the instructor because I had written like you might for a basic Calculus course or something, not using real sentences or anything.  I was also heavily overloading that semester, so I was pretty sleep deprived all the time.  Anyway, four or five of us in the class used to get together to work on the homework, and we were all pretty equally lackluster.  (We were allowed to collaborate in such a manner, by the way.)  Maybe if the homework had 50 points, we were getting low or mid 30's.  I don't remember gaining anything from those study sessions.  For the last two or three homeworks, I ended up just not going with the other people and going off by myself to work on the problems.  All of the sudden, more scores jump up like 10 points and I actually understand what's going on.

Working with other students can be helpful, but it can also be a distraction. 

[Joseph2302]

Wow. Thanks for the great advice! I've actually never drank before...and I'm not really planning on it I guess? I agree that it seems like a hugely overrated part of college life, though of course I've never experienced it myself. I'm straight (thanks for covering all those bases though  ), and I appreciate the admonition about the expectations of meeting a possible life partner in school--as I definitely have/had that expectation. I must admit, I'd probably be a bit sad if I was finished with college without meeting someone "special" or whatever. I'm not a terribly outgoing person, and it seems like it's difficult to meet people once you're out of school? Or so it seems to me at least.

Up to this point in my academic career, I have been really focused on my GPA. I really appreciate your take on the true purpose of education, as I sometimes do feel a bit cynical about things and have almost certainly avoided some courses in order to protect my grades. I do feel really passionate about my major though (computer science). It took me a while in community college to really settle on what felt right for me, but I find the subject matter incredibly engaging, so that's a positive.

I never drank until I was 29, almost 30.  It has helped a lot for dating (well, maybe).. a little bit for other social life.  Otherwise, it's highly overrated.

If you do decide to start drinking, do so for actual taste and not just for the sake of drinking alcohol.  Avoid people that want to 'get drunk'.  At least, that's my advice.

Agree, I spent most of uni not drinking, and worked fine for me (other than living in a house with Tables).
And if you do want to start drinking, I recommend trying different things out, to see what you like.
Also, don't leave your assignments until the last day before starting them- lots of people do, but it's just unnecessary stress.

[Awaclus]

If you do decide to start drinking, do so for actual taste and not just for the sake

I see what you did there.

[Ichimaru Gin]

Oh, something else about university: you might feel very lost in your courses for a term or two, the difference with high school can be quite a shock. It's perfectly normal! Don't despair or think that you are worthless and everybody else is smarter than you. I mean, obviously there will always be people that are smarter than you, but most will feel just as lost as you do. Just keep calm and carry on. I'll repeat scott_pilgrim's advice about working with other students, it really helps with productivity and motivation.

Yeah. I've already been going to community college for a while,  and I'm transferring in as a junior. I'm sure university classes will still be significantly more difficult though. I'm sure it will take me a while to be ok with not getting A's.

[iguanaiguana]

Oh, something else about university: you might feel very lost in your courses for a term or two, the difference with high school can be quite a shock. It's perfectly normal! Don't despair or think that you are worthless and everybody else is smarter than you. I mean, obviously there will always be people that are smarter than you, but most will feel just as lost as you do. Just keep calm and carry on. I'll repeat scott_pilgrim's advice about working with other students, it really helps with productivity and motivation.

Yeah. I've already been going to community college for a while,  and I'm transferring in as a junior. I'm sure university classes will still be significantly more difficult though. I'm sure it will take me a while to be ok with not getting A's.

You seem like a smart guy, you can probably still get mostly A's if you try hard enough.

[enfynet]

The only effort increase I saw between Community College and University was in travel time. However, the larger difference was in the lack of flexibility offered by the university. I had multiple classes either cancelled or had their days changed after I registered. As I was focused on my major, my three options were: pay for useless credits and maintain health insurance, work two days less per week and hope I could not go broke, or take less classes and throw off my plan to complete the necessary (once-per-year) courses.

Needless to say, I have been on a University hiatus for nearly 10 years, with my BS degree waiting. The downside of my college->university transition is that I spent 6 years, full time, in school and still need 2 full years of courses to complete my major.

[pacovf]

If you do decide to start drinking, do so for actual taste and not just for the sake

I see what you did there.

WW had the right spirit.

[Seprix]

So I heard Dominion: Empires was coming out...



(EDIT: I was not aware of any drama at the time of creating this. If I knew, I would have done something completely different.)