Print

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

[Arx]

I was watching a seagull balancing on the point between landing and flight in the wind, and I knew exactly how it felt to be doing it. I've never done anything remotely like it, but I know exactly how it would feel.

The isn't the first time I've had such a disorienting flash of insight either.

Arx, is this you?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have no idea who this person is.

Greek philosophers.

According to legend, a bunch of Greek philosophers were once debating on how many teeth a horse has in its mouth. A farmer happened by and suggested they get a horse and count its teeth. The philosophers got angry and chased the farmer off.

Sounds about right. I mean, what does a poor farmer know?

[Orange Wizard]

By the looks of it, they seem to have thought that the host opened the goat door before the contestant picks, which is Very Wrong.

What the hell would even be the point of having that door then?

"Red herring" (direct quote)

_{i will not be surprised by the stupid i will not be surprised by the stupid}

[hops]

I was watching a seagull balancing on the point between landing and flight in the wind, and I knew exactly how it felt to be doing it. I've never done anything remotely like it, but I know exactly how it would feel.

The isn't the first time I've had such a disorienting flash of insight either.

Arx, is this you?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have no idea who this person is.

Asenath Waite. She's a character from H.P Lovecraft's The Thing on the Doorstep. People who looks at her in the eyes can see from her point of view.

...Now that I think of it, that makes her the seagull.

[Neonivek]

Trying to watch a movie.

And for a rare thing I am trying REALLY hard to like it... But it seems to defy my please of goodness.

Only a hour to go, come on me! I can do it! Let the movie speak for itself.

I mean it was only a weak start. It can easily pick up.

[Mechatronic]

I was watching a seagull balancing on the point between landing and flight in the wind, and I knew exactly how it felt to be doing it. I've never done anything remotely like it, but I know exactly how it would feel.

The isn't the first time I've had such a disorienting flash of insight either.

Well mirror neurons, which fire both during an action and while observing an action by another, are hypothesised to account for being able to observe an action and empathise with the actor.

[Neonivek]

As well the human mind is capable of those levels of imagination (as in, the mind is capable of registering drastically different stimuli then is possible for a human being).

[Arx]

It's probably that.


One of those 'Top 10 X!' articles linked to another 'Top 10 X!' article as a source, which in turn linked to an online article... which wasn't there.

[Graknorke]

One of those 'Top 10 X!' articles linked to another 'Top 10 X!' article as a source, which in turn linked to an online article... which wasn't there.

At least it wasn't a "How [POPULAR THING] is secretly [NEGATIVE ADJECTIVE]."

[Neonivek]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ok...

Yeah the movie isn't good.

It just completely misses the point of its source material and removes the heart of it.

Like it took liberties and some of it, I could understand as they weren't important. The main character being middle class instead of poor, the villain being a lush instead of vindictive, and the romantic lead being a lonely loser who needs to be saved instead of being a strong character... But changing the entire point of the book which is finding happiness within yourself into "Aww someone find the wambulence"... You can't replace the emotional center of the story with unimportant drama.

I am depressed now.

What is probably even worse is the movie has a "Take that!" to the source material in a "Our movie is WAY better then the original". No movie... just no...

---

I don't get it honestly.

Why make a movie, an adaptation of a book or play... Then remove the point but keep the basic outline... But never really give anything back to replace what was lost?

Why make a cheaper version? It is like baking a cake with chalk instead of sugar, what is the point?

Ok I have recovered. I was really looking forward to that movie and I heard it was bad... but I really liked the source material so I was hoping it was just a under-rated movie or at least underwhelming (as opposed to "missed the point")

[Bohandas]

One of those 'Top 10 X!' articles linked to another 'Top 10 X!' article as a source, which in turn linked to an online article... which wasn't there.

They listed a source? I always assumed those kind of articles just made shit up.

[Arx]

It was a reliable site running a sketchy-looking article.

[Rolan7]

I still don't understand the Monty Hall problem.  It's not that I doubt it - I've followed it step by step and sure enough switching is better.  I understand it's better to basically pick a door *not* to open, since that gives a 2/3 chance of success.  It still seems really weird that switch accomplishes that, mechanically.

[Neonivek]

I still don't understand the Monty Hall problem.  It's not that I doubt it - I've followed it step by step and sure enough switching is better.  I understand it's better to basically pick a door *not* to open, since that gives a 2/3 chance of success.  It still seems really weird that switch accomplishes that, mechanically.

It is just taught badly, don't worry.... Like almost all math... and science... and history... and well everything you learn in school.

Seriously if there is one thing I dislike about school it is the whole "We will teach you the wrong way, until we think you are ready for the less wrong way" mentality.

But there are many ways to understand it.

Another way to think about it is that you are actually given two options.
1) You can chose 1 out of 3 doors, only 1 is right.
2) You can chose 2 out of 3 doors and only 1 is right.

[Flying Dice]

They still started the war. I'm not arguing that it wasn't justified, or that I wouldn't have advocated for it, but that doesn't change the fact that Israel attacked first. Which was, incidentally, damned fine work -- they prosecuted that war damned near perfectly. However, you're missing the point I was driving at. Not only did Israel manage to pull that off, they did it in six days with absurdly imbalanced losses. They're also an unofficial nuclear power. Things are well past the point where Israel's survival as a state is in question. That's all more or less irrelevant to the real issue.

I don't really have anything against Zionism in principle (though it's laughable to call what happened after the last, successful revolt against British rule anything but ethnic cleansing). But AIPAC is arguably the strongest lobby in the U.S., which is a pretty damned strong statement, considering how much weight a number of interest groups have. And that's what it comes down to; I don't particularly like home-grown interest groups and lobbyists having that much power, but when they're explicitly working for the interests of a foreign power? Hah, no. Can you imagine the fucking uproar if there was a successful, public lobby for supporting, say, Russian interests? (There wouldn't be one, because a lobby which enjoys that degree of success can suppress a hell of a lot.)

I wasn't responding to you so much as I was working out frustration over the number of times I've heard people with a tiny bit of knowledge of the issue declaring the Six Days War an unprovoked massacre of the poor, innocent. defenseless Arabs by Big Bad Israel, or denying that Israel ever was (at any point in history) in any genuine of being overrun and destroyed. It's an example of what I call the "Might Makes Wrong" fallacy that seems to lead a lot of people assuming that the stronger party in any dispute is automatically in the wrong, because "obviously" the weaker party wouldn't start things, never mind that the stronger one might be stronger specifically *because* of the dispute in question.

Fair enough. I've heard that brand of stupidity often enough to sympathize. Though, despite it holding true in this case, we should also steer clear of assuming that "threatening action" is always a valid casus belli for a preemptive strike. The really scary vision of the Middle East for me is for proof positive of an Iranian nuclear weapons program to emerge at the same time that a far-right government is holding the keys in Israel. One would hope they'd take the enlightened path of Pakistan and India and just slaughter each other conventionally and/or make threatening gestures over the border without escalating completely, but you never know for sure.

The real miracle would be a second revolution in Iran.

[Lightningfalcon]

I still don't understand the Monty Hall problem.  It's not that I doubt it - I've followed it step by step and sure enough switching is better.  I understand it's better to basically pick a door *not* to open, since that gives a 2/3 chance of success.  It still seems really weird that switch accomplishes that, mechanically.

Think of it this day.  Instead of three doors, you have one hundred.  You pick one, and the host opens 98 doors.  Your door still has a 1% chance to be correct, but the one other door still there has a 99% chance.