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[Tawa]

Fish never had one.

[TheBiggerFish]

Fish never had one.

^^^
And I doubt I will.  Unless I can get that one panel from Darths and Droids...

[Tawa]

Which panel?

[TheBiggerFish]

Which panel?

The Summon Bigger Fish panel.

[BlackFlyme]

Something was fucky with imgur after all, apparently.

[miauw62]

That's some very sloppy coding on imgurs part, imo.

Wonder if it's related to the 100-picture 4chan dump on fp today.

[i2amroy]

I just reuploaded my avatar (which is exactly why I keep a local copy) and called it good. So far Imgur is the site I've found that keeps images the longest (which you need for avatars) and has the least problems with stupid errors in displaying their pictures on other sites, so I think I'll be sticking with it for now unless something serious continues to keep showing up.

[Akura]

Is that also related to the craptastic new upload interface? The one that doesn't generate BBCode or probably even working links anymore?



Unrelated, I found out what complete piece of crap one of my co-workers is this morning. Last Saturday, just before leaving, one of the afternoon girls is completely in tears because her boyfriend just broke up with her. Now, the other co-workers around her are trying to help her, giving her advice such as "if he's somebody that will dump you like this, he's a shitbag and you shouldn't cry over him". But this guy(clarity: co-worker, not the ex) was saying this morning about how he apparently always had a crush on her, and used the oppurtunity to make a move on her, and "spent the weekend" with her. Meanwhile, as he's practically gloating about this, he's also gifting apples to the girls who are sitting next to him listening to this crap, and talking to them in tone I might describe as "flirty".

The odd part is, this guy is a complete geek, and I wouldn't normally expect him to pull this crap. Then again, I have heard rumors that he does hit on many of the female employees, and even some customers.

[i2amroy]

Is that also related to the craptastic new upload interface? The one that doesn't generate BBCode or probably even working links anymore?

Strangely enough mine showed me the links on the right side just like normal when I uploaded the image, though it doesn't show them on the image page anymore. Maybe it only shows them right when your first upload them, since it figures that probably the uploader is the main person who wants to share them and helps cut down on "secondary sharing" of the image directly.

[Bohandas]

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.

It's not legal to "cancel out" things like that in an infinite series. (1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - ...) is both equal to zero and one, using that "cancel out" technique

Indeed, the wikipedia article even says that the series doesn't have a defined value. It's a mathematical equivalent of the liar's paradox

[Baffler]

I hate open ended writing assignments. We were basically told to "write a formal letter to somebody" and cut loose on this one, and the rubric is just as vague as the prompt. I have no idea what the professor expects from this, and we've not been given the slightest bit of direction as far as content, length, or subject. It seems like as long as it's a formal letter, it fits the parameters of this assignment as given. I suspect the professor thought everyone would have something jump to mind, but even if that's the case for others it certainly isn't for me.

[Graknorke]

Write a letter to the Commissioner of the Orion Arm, requesting that they extend the range of radio silence enforced around the Sol system. It never specified that the person had to exist.
Or just do something really ridiculous related to some dank injoke memes, while still conforming to being a formal letter.

[Baffler]

Write a letter to the Commissioner of the Orion Arm, requesting that they extend the range of radio silence enforced around the Sol system. It never specified that the person had to exist.

Fuck it, I'm doing this one. Maybe the professor will get a kick out of it, and if they don't it's not worth all that many points anyway.

[Bauglir]

I hate open ended writing assignments. We were basically told to "write a formal letter to somebody" and cut loose on this one, and the rubric is just as vague as the prompt. I have no idea what the professor expects from this, and we've not been given the slightest bit of direction as far as content, length, or subject. It seems like as long as it's a formal letter, it fits the parameters of this assignment as given. I suspect the professor thought everyone would have something jump to mind, but even if that's the case for others it certainly isn't for me.

There are two cases.

In the first, you have a good professor. In this case, the actual test here is one of your creativity. The letter itself is a formality; what you need to do is come up with some person, then start filling in the details of what they might want to hear about, what the appropriate type of address is, and so on and so forth. This is similar to the concept of a cover letter when applying for college - the actual content is basically worthless, and the real goal is to learn things about you through your approach to the instruction.

In the second case, you have a bad professor, and nothing can save you.

In either case, I recommend the wackiness. As long as you hold to the spirit of the assignment, inventing the relevant titles and so on and so forth, that sort of thing stands out in a professor's mind and tends to inflate your grade. The major risk is that you have a hardass, bad professor who has a very specific expectation and neglected to inform anybody. In which case, my condolences.

[Lord Shonus]

Writing a letter to a fictional person about fictional problems neatly sidesteps the plagiarism issue as well. It is very unlikely that such a letter already exists somewhere, and any that does exist will be easy to eliminate as something you just copied. Meanwhile a student that writes to Donald Trump or The President Of Microsoft runs a real risk of coming just close enough to an existing letter to be suspected (I've seen such things happen before, it can get messy.)