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[Frumple]

And the only thing I can ask is... why? Are they THAT focused on short-term? I mean, seriously, the top executives are facing PRISON for this. Did they think they could get away with it forever?

Pretty much. Either get away with it indefinitely or throw someone under a bus and avoid repercussions. It's worth noting that the latter is almost certainly going to happen for a lot of the people that made substantial money off that decision :V

Honestly, there's days that I wonder if investors shouldn't be liable for charges with stuff like this, along with the direct company decision makers. Bankruptcy, debt coverage and whatnot, sure, dodge those, but if you're investing in a company that's doing skeevy shit, maybe it's time you start getting shanked for it. After a time or two getting hit with fines and/or charges, people might become a helluva' lot more careful about who and what they invest in, with a subsequent improvement in corporate ethics and oversight.

[nenjin]

I'm enjoying the situation because of the delicious paradox it shows for the German love of being factually correct. Technically, they were correct during the emissions tests, even though in reality those weren't the actual emissions they were putting out on the everyday road. They must be mortified.

[SOLDIER First]

Reminds me of the army woman who was dared to talk about cocks for as long as possible in parliament

She won

Chickens?

[BlackFlyme]

Edit: that was nasty, and I apologize.

I have way too many terrible jokes about Cameron in my head, and am giggling to myself at work. I must seem weirder than normal to my coworkers.

[Neonivek]

Ok goodness sometimes games, movies, and TVshows will give ANY excuse to have the police convict someone.

Reading this Jack Orlando letsplay and the main character was found knocked out infront of a dead guy who was shot through the stomach... So the game implies that if Jack doesn't catch the criminal in two days, that he will go to jail for sure.

Really game? Really? He was found unconscious in a back alley, without any weapons. With a guy he had no connection through. A guy who was shot without any struggle at point blank range in the front... AND there is more then enough evidence to suggest a third person at the crime scene... and that is enough to convict him? Sure that might be enough to bring him in for questions but no, the game doesn't even do that he sees the detective and he goes "Yeah, I know you didn't do it. Solve the case for me and your free to go. Don't and you will go to jail"

It is bad enough that the game is terribly anachronistic since it takes place pretty much immediately after prohibition... Yet weight watchers exists in this universe... and segregation never existed either in the 1910s in here as well. Static Dusters (AKA Synthetic Duster) also exists.

I wish that game was the exception. Yet often I am more surprised when police are reasonable about coincidences.

[Bouchart]

That reminds me of an old adventure game called Crime Time, which had a similar premise.

You were backpacking through Europe and ended up in some out of the way rural area of Switzerland or somewhere and stayed at some motel.  You got drunk that night and there was some murder committed and everyone pins it on you, and you have to prove your innocence before the police arrive.

That was a bad game too.

[Reelya]

The sum of all positive numbers is ... -1/12. Sounds crazy, but here's a mathematical proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-I6XTVZXww

[Bohandas]

I can't see this on my 4g connection but I'm gonna bet there's either a divide by zero error or an error of the "x times infinity = y times infinity, therefore x=y" in there somewhere.

[NJW2000]

Nah, is true. But infinity's not a number, so it's meaningless. And IIRC, it's more like either -1/6 or 0.

[Reelya]

No there's nothing like that. They solve other infinite series then show how the sum they're after can be broken down into those series. And at the end they link to a different mathematician giving a proof which uses a completely different basis to get the same result.

But it's not arbitrary, since you can't get any number you want out of this, only the one set value no matter what solution you try. They actually do other videos showing why 1/0 is not equal to infinity, since based on how you measure 1/0 you can get any value you want, so it's undefined. So they're not pulling a fast-one in this current video by using that as a trick.

[NJW2000]

Weeell, with the one I saw it was an assumption that -1 or 0 ending a series meant it summed -.5

[Reelya]

I looked it up, it's called Grandi's series. There are at least three proofs offered on this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandi%27s_series

Here's one easy to understand proof:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Proof through 1 / x series

The series:

1/x = 1 - (x-1) + (x-1)^2 - (x-1)^3 + (x-1)^4 - ...

Is fairly easy to prove. First, multiply everything by x. On the left side, this makes 1, and on the right side we'll represent x as (x - 1) + 1. Multiply the series by (x - 1) and 1 separately and add the two together.

1 = (x-1) - (x-1)^2 + (x-1)^3 - (x-1)^4 + ... + 1 - (x-1) + (x-1)^2 - (x-1)^3 + ...

All terms except 1 cancel out, leaving:

1 = 1

Applying this series to 2 gives:

1/2 = 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - ...

That's the critical part, if that part works, the rest of the -1/12 proof is just basic arithmetic carried out on the different series.

[Rolan7]

It's Numberphile, so I assume they know what they're talking about...  And treating that series as having a sum of -1/12 is a thing in physics...

But using the techniques presented in the video, you can come up with all sorts of obviously wrong conclusions.  The comments have plenty of examples.  The problem is that working with infinite series just isn't as easy as they presented it.  Arguably this explanation just confused the issue.

[Sergarr]

Fucking hypergeometric function, why you are suddenly appearing as a solution to all interesting differential equations I try to create?

[Bouchart]

I looked it up, it's called Grandi's series. There are at least three proofs offered on this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandi%27s_series

Here's one easy to understand proof:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Proof through 1 / x series

The series:

1/x = 1 - (x-1) + (x-1)^2 - (x-1)^3 + (x-1)^4 - ...

Is fairly easy to prove. First, multiply everything by x. On the left side, this makes 1, and on the right side we'll represent x as (x - 1) + 1. Multiply the series by (x - 1) and 1 separately and add the two together.

1 = (x-1) - (x-1)^2 + (x-1)^3 - (x-1)^4 + ... + 1 - (x-1) + (x-1)^2 - (x-1)^3 + ...

All terms except 1 cancel out, leaving:

1 = 1

Applying this series to 2 gives:

1/2 = 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - ...

That's the critical part, if that part works, the rest of the -1/12 proof is just basic arithmetic carried out on the different series.

That page links to a page called the Eilenberg-Mazur Swindle, one of the silliest names in math I've heard in some time.