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Post by sapientcoffee on Mar 1, 2015 6:38:11 GMT
Does anyone here read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality? If so, please PM me. We must compare notes! If you've read today's update, you'll know why. Tried (to finish/read it). Amused that he's holding chapters hostage. 'DANCE MY PUPPETS, DAAAAAAAAAAAAAANCE.' |
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Post by Chancellor on Mar 2, 2015 8:39:50 GMT
I'd be far more partial to Dresden Codak if there was any assurance that I won't die of old age before the current chapter ends. I only really discovered the thing a few months ago, and if I'd started reading when he started making it, I for certain would have given up after the nearly two year long gap between Hob and Dark Science.
The story is unremarkable but I'd pretty well enjoy it if I could get more than a page per month at best. Kim has honestly been done better by Tom himself in Kat.
Hob was, for my part, almost incomprehensible, and in a way I'm not entirely convinced is completely my fault. Dark Science has presented a far more coherent narrative, but his update schedule is still a massive deterrent to reading.
The fact that his Patreon promises an update every two weeks, looks like the most blatant "Not happening, son" I've seen in a good long while. He's already crossed that threshold of money per month, and my opinion of Mr. Diaz will dim considerably if he fails to deliver on that promise while still accepting the requisite contributions from his readers. But, this is a-mostly-still new month, and I'm willing to give him March to make good on his pledge before I spit on his name.
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Post by Chancellor on Mar 4, 2015 6:41:52 GMT
And I suppose I officially half-recant my doubts about him updating on a regular basis. I'll hold off on a full "Well, I'm rather impressed with you Mr. Diaz" until he delivers again in two weeks.
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Post by fwip on Mar 5, 2015 20:12:41 GMT
Anyone else see the DDOS protection on Proboards on the way in? I tried to load the webpage from a new computer and it gave me a five-second delay. I would have screenshotted it if I were faster. I wonder if they'll put in better spam filters as well *fingers crossed*
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Mar 5, 2015 22:48:49 GMT
Anyone else see the DDOS protection on Proboards on the way in? I tried to load the webpage from a new computer and it gave me a five-second delay. I would have screenshotted it if I were faster. I wonder if they'll put in better spam filters as well *fingers crossed* I got in and made this post without any issues, so their protections and filters clearly need work.  |
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Post by Daedalus on Mar 20, 2015 16:05:24 GMT
Interestingly, for my exam in my robotics class today, I was assigned seat 113. Huh.
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Post by hypixion on Mar 25, 2015 14:42:37 GMT
Archonia.com lists volume 5 to be released on 03/06/2015
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Post by Daedalus on Mar 25, 2015 21:57:04 GMT
Archonia.com lists volume 5 to be released on 03/06/2015 "Expected Release: 3/6/15. Preorders must be placed by 11-May-2015." Huh. I'm guessing that this is one of those date-format confusion issues, and that it's actually going to be released on June 3rd. |
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Mar 25, 2015 23:30:12 GMT
Archonia.com lists volume 5 to be released on 03/06/2015 "Expected Release: 3/6/15. Preorders must be placed by 11-May-2015." Huh. I'm guessing that this is one of those date-format confusion issues, and that it's actually going to be released on June 3rd. June 3rd, 2115? Darn Y21Hundred bug! Will we ever learn? |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 26, 2015 5:20:46 GMT
For anyone who I introduced to American Ghost Jack via this forum: Its gigapause ended a little while ago, FYI.
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Post by hypixion on Mar 26, 2015 14:42:19 GMT
Archonia.com lists volume 5 to be released on 03/06/2015 "Expected Release: 3/6/15. Preorders must be placed by 11-May-2015." Huh. I'm guessing that this is one of those date-format confusion issues, and that it's actually going to be released on June 3rd. In june yes, I knew this because that's how we write it here but didn't think about the different formats we have worldwide. |
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Post by warrl on Mar 26, 2015 20:52:25 GMT
"Expected Release: 3/6/15. Preorders must be placed by 11-May-2015." Huh. I'm guessing that this is one of those date-format confusion issues, and that it's actually going to be released on June 3rd. In june yes, I knew this because that's how we write it here but didn't think about the different formats we have worldwide. Ah, the stupid European date format with the least significant part first. As opposed to the even stupider American date format with the least significant part in the middle. (I like yyyy/mm/dd. It sorts easily.) |
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Post by hypixion on Mar 27, 2015 10:46:25 GMT
In june yes, I knew this because that's how we write it here but didn't think about the different formats we have worldwide. Ah, the stupid European date format with the least significant part first. As opposed to the even stupider American date format with the least significant part in the middle. (I like yyyy/mm/dd. It sorts easily.) It's simple logic  it's the 3rd day of the sixth month in the year 2015  |
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Post by freeformline on Apr 21, 2015 1:50:35 GMT
In june yes, I knew this because that's how we write it here but didn't think about the different formats we have worldwide. Ah, the stupid European date format with the least significant part first. As opposed to the even stupider American date format with the least significant part in the middle. (I like yyyy/mm/dd. It sorts easily.) I also like year/month/day, but it recently occurred to me that the even stupider American date format mirrors that classic long form of writing dates, as in letters, in which today's date would be written "April twentieth, 2015," or some similar format in the same order. In my youthful confidence in my unconfirmed knowledge, I assume that format was standard when writing something dignified enough to use actual words, and thus the numerical form of it was the natural shortening for time-pressed or lazy American writers. |
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Post by Gotolei on Aug 8, 2015 7:16:31 GMT
Gunnerkrigg Court confirmed for anime?  google translate to the rescue
This community is asking the post of your such a fan!
Let's edit the article. ➡ |
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speaker
New Member
thoughtful soul
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Post by speaker on Feb 4, 2016 9:16:54 GMT
Necropost, engage! Anyone want to see my late-night musings on the state of politics in the US of A? You seem like pretty reasonable people, and I'd love to get your opinion. Be forewarned that I'm liberal  but I'm interested in reasonable discussion. 1) Sanders sticks to his ideals, and hasn't shown much compromise in his time as a senator. Clinton is very calculating, and she's flip-flopped many times on issues (notably, marriage equality). That's somewhat to do with how long she's been in politics, but it also reflects a willingness to compromise with her opponents. This is a necessary part of the political process, but it's kind of an open question whether or not it's a desirable quality in a candidate. Good arguments can be made either way – without compromise, nothing gets done and political divisions deepen, but with compromise, a candidate won't necessarily represent their constituency as well.
(IMO, since the Legislature actually makes most of the legal decisions I care about, and the Legislature is currently controlled by the Right, and since there is undeniably a large political divide at the moment (leading to the Right proposing things that appeal strictly to the Right's interests), I suspect that I will want most of the bills they pass to be vetoed, and I'm worried that Clinton won't do so. Long sentence, sorry.)
2) There are actually kind of two issues in play here: how a candidate would perform in office, and how a candidate would perform during the election, and we've kind of been conflating them. I believe (personally) that Sanders would be better in office, and Clinton would be better in the election against whatever Republican candidate is chosen (using my own definition of "better" of course). And although in theory we vote based on the first, the second (electability) is actually a prerequisite before the first (in-office performance) becomes an issue at all – unelected candidates' in-office performance never happens.
(Personal interlude: since I'm okay with either candidates POV on most issues, and I think Hillary is more electable, this suggests I should try to support Hillary to maximize the chances of having someone I at-least-sort-of agree with in power. I'm more interested in Sanders' stated position, but not terribly so. More details below...)
3) Should one's vote be based on one's prediction of others' votes, or should one vote based entirely on one's personal opinions? The former is what I expressed above, but my friend rightly pointed out that it's a slippery slope. It leads to a sort-of-might-makes-right conclusion, and compromises the abstract political process (since the whole idea of the thing is to gauge individuals' opinions, THEN make decisions). It also makes me part of a hive mind in making such decisions, which my friend assures me is a bad thing. But on the other hand, one should try to make long-ranging decisions based on as much data as possible, and general predictions of the actions of my wider party is a valid source of information (psychohistory, anyone?), and presumably one would want to act in light of that very real knowledge. And...
4) My actual goal is to have a Democratic candidate reach the White House, to avoid the disastrous outcome of the Legislative and Executive branches being BOTH controlled by a party that I largely disagree with. My goal is NOT to personally maintain the integrity of the political system or mend the rift between parties in our society. From a statistical point of view, and assuming my assumptions are correct in point 2 about the relative strengths of the candidates, choosing to vote for Hillary is more likely to reward me with an outcome I can live with. From this perspective, I should take the action that will lead to the greatest expected result: the product of the quality of the actual outcome and the likelihood of it actually taking place. A future with Bernie as president is slightly better, but slightly less likely to happen. The reverse is true with Hillary. I'm not sure which has a greater expected result, but considering point 2 (that one factor is predicated on the other), I'm leaning towards the latter.
5) Since individual votes are minuscule, and I'd presumably vote for either Bernie or Hillary if they win the nomination, it actually doesn't matter too much which I were to choose, haha. But from a morally Kantian point of view (epistemology FTW), a correct decision should be expandable to others – ie, my logic should be lead to a good outcome if everyone were to apply it, which it would NOT (since no one would elect the person who they actually agree with, and the political process would break down). But if I take into account the decisions of others, my vote is more statistically likely to lead to a place I'd want to go (see point 4). It's exactly as if politics were a Prisoner's Dilemma played on a grand scale, with 300 million participants! That's actually a really, really interesting thought.
This has been a good talk. |
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Post by Daedalus on Feb 4, 2016 9:32:51 GMT
*prepares for flame war*
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Post by TheClockworkCoyote on Feb 4, 2016 22:15:25 GMT
*prepares for flame war*
*reaches through the portal Legendary Showdown has torn between the Girl Genius and Gunnerkrigg universes, grabs a bunch of Calming Pies* Pie cannon at the ready, Daedalus. Shall we commence fire? |
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Post by Daedalus on Feb 5, 2016 0:42:46 GMT
*prepares for flame war*
*reaches through the portal Legendary Showdown has torn between the Girl Genius and Gunnerkrigg universes, grabs a bunch of Calming Pies* Pie cannon at the ready, Daedalus. Shall we commence fire? For now, no conflagrations have begun. Let us remain at Defcon 4: Nervous Anticipation. |
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Post by TheClockworkCoyote on Feb 5, 2016 1:50:37 GMT
*reaches through the portal Legendary Showdown has torn between the Girl Genius and Gunnerkrigg universes, grabs a bunch of Calming Pies* Pie cannon at the ready, Daedalus. Shall we commence fire? For now, no conflagrations have begun. Let us remain at Defcon 4: Nervous Anticipation. As you wish. I will have the armory begin issuing tranq rifles to the forum guards, however. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2016 6:26:57 GMT
A Letter to the Gunnery, from speaker (contents abridged): Leaving aside the bizarre intricacies of a voting system I am unfamiliar with, I think you should determine, with the highest possible accuracy (i.e. start with a Fermi guess), the number of people that would vote for Clinton rather than for the Republican candidate, but rather for the Republican candidate than for Sanders. Base your vote on whether this figure is likely to decide the election. I'm making the assumption that nobody who would vote Sanders would prefer the Republican candidate -- or not voting at all -- over Clinton. If that isn't the case, you must also subtract these votes from the aforementioned figure before making your decision. That's all. I find it funny that presidential elections are explicitly being compared to a Prisoner's Dilemma by a self-professed democrat. The comparison is, as you can see from the answer, misapplied, but I would agree that this essentially constitutes a strategy game. |
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Post by TheClockworkCoyote on Feb 5, 2016 15:16:24 GMT
I'm making the assumption that nobody who would vote Sanders would prefer the Republican candidate -- or not voting at all -- over Clinton. You haven't had to deal much with the online Bernie fanatics, I'm guessing.... Leaving aside the candidate himself and his policies entirely: He's got a rather vocal online group of fans who are getting as bad as Rand Paul's were last election cycle, and nearly as bad as the Trump fanatics. If you disagree with Bernie on any issue whatsoever? "You're a tool of the establishment! You're the enemy!" I'm having to block a half-dozen new "BERNIE IS GOD!" Facebook groups each morning because a former coworker keeps finding new ones to spam me with, while another former friend's cut off all contact whatsoever. For anyone reading this who's a Bernie supporter and _doesn't_ behave like that: Good! I'm not talking about you, I'm not saying _all_ his supporters are like that, just a _very_ vocal group of them. ....and given the person who started this discussion (speaker) has posted in no threads before suddenly trying to spring a completely unrelated political post on a general discussion thread, I'm giving it a 50/50 chance it's one of those types -- if not a paid campaign employee -- who's decided to just find forums to post campaign-related stuff on to get people talking about him. Basically the human equivalent of a spam bot. (Either that or the spambot programs are evolving to become more subtle, in which case we're going to have to spray again before they set up a nest.) Subjects like politics or religion are best left to specialized forum sections rather than general discussion because, as Daedalus noted: there will inevitably be flame wars and we should all do our part to _not_ give the forum staff headaches. Giving headaches to the staff is Coyote's job. ....and that's all I'm going to say on this subject. So, let's start a conversation on a topic I'm sure we can all agree on and that will cause no controversy whatsoever: The Oxford comma. *runs and hides from thrown objects* |
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Post by Gotolei on Feb 5, 2016 16:46:08 GMT
(Either that or the spambot programs are evolving to become more subtle, in which case we're going to have to spray again before they set up a nest.) Offtopic (heh), but they're getting pretty damn advanced. I watched a bot from an essay writing site going around a different forum ~five years back.
It actually introduced itself in the proper board. and got better from there. It eventually fell apart when confronted with the in-house web irc, but damn was that thing eloquent otherwise |
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Post by TheClockworkCoyote on Feb 5, 2016 16:56:09 GMT
(Either that or the spambot programs are evolving to become more subtle, in which case we're going to have to spray again before they set up a nest.) Offtopic (heh), but they're getting pretty damn advanced. I watched a bot from an essay writing site going around a different forum ~five years back.
It actually introduced itself in the proper board. and got better from there. It eventually fell apart when confronted with the in-house web irc, but damn was that thing eloquent otherwise Are you familiar with the poetry slam Shadowland thread in Shadowrun: Hong Kong? Short short version: Shadowland's a somewhat hidden corner of the Matrix used by runners to discuss various things, legal and otherwise. In SR:HK, you can check it between missions as your character's computer has been programmed to search it for certain key words regarding the plot and various characters. Someone starts up a poetry slam topic and is warned the SysOps crack down on those. It goes on for a few posts and an argument over style breaks out. It's shut down by one of the moderators. Later, someone starts up another such thread. It's also shut down. A third thread, this time someone's created a poetry-creating bot program. ....by the next incarnation of the thread, the bot program's gone rogue, evolved into an AI, and joined forces with an AI opponent from one of the prior games in the series. |
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Post by l33tninja on Feb 5, 2016 17:32:34 GMT
I'm making the assumption that nobody who would vote Sanders would prefer the Republican candidate -- or not voting at all -- over Clinton. So, let's start a conversation on a topic I'm sure we can all agree on and that will cause no controversy whatsoever: The Oxford comma. *runs and hides from thrown objects* I would prefer that GC not become a political forum. I read webcomics to ESCAPE from that stuff. For 1% of my week, I don't have to think it. Please don't bring it into my (our) sanctuary. It is notable to me that the actual comic we discuss on this forum is relatively devoid of the general politics of its own world even. It only delves into the political gyrations between the Woods and the Court, and leave the governments and the politicians of the "real world" to themselves.
So let's talk about Annie, Kat, and Robot, instead (or is it Annie, Kat and Robot . . . or we could go new-age with #anniekatandrobot to avoid the whole Oxford comma discussion altogether)
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Post by keef on Feb 5, 2016 19:44:46 GMT
- the person who started this discussion (speaker) has posted in no threads before suddenly trying to spring a completely unrelated political post - ..... I would prefer that GC not become a political forum. I read webcomics to ESCAPE from that stuff. Escapism is my favourite ism. |
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Post by TheClockworkCoyote on Feb 5, 2016 20:20:28 GMT
- the person who started this discussion (speaker) has posted in no threads before suddenly trying to spring a completely unrelated political post - ..... I would prefer that GC not become a political forum. I read webcomics to ESCAPE from that stuff. Escapism is my favourite ism. *points* Keef's an ESCAPIST! *begins picketing outside Keef's window* |
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Post by keef on Feb 5, 2016 20:45:48 GMT
..... Escapism is my favourite ism. *points* Keef's an ESCAPIST! *begins picketing outside Keef's window* If you're willing to fly all the way to the Netherlands to do that, I'll buy you a beer. |
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Post by TheClockworkCoyote on Feb 5, 2016 21:46:38 GMT
*points* Keef's an ESCAPIST! *begins picketing outside Keef's window* If you're willing to fly all the way to the Netherlands to do that, I'll buy you a beer. Hear that, everyone? Free beer at Keef's place! |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2016 3:25:22 GMT
Since I assumed that speaker's post didn't actually touch on politics (ignoring marginal fluff such as "the Left", "the Right", "the Strange" and "the Charming") and rather presented a simple riddle -- maybe I should have replaced Sanders and Clinton's names with "x" and "y" to make my intentions clear -- I thought it was all right to answer.
Old Zealand must be roughly as far as Sjælland from where I now live. My favourite ism is any kind of prism and my favourite sea is the Wadden Sea. Maybe we'll meet there one day, wrestling baby seals at low tide, with the sunken bells of Rungholt tolling. We will also all dress in squid hats.
Trivia: I've heard that the North Frisian population of Nordstrand was largely replaced by Dutch settlers, many of them carpenters or engineers with knowledge of dike construction, after the Second Grote Mandränke had ravaged the island and divided the flanks of its horseshoe shape into distinct landmasses, as the Danish king would not allot funds to the rebuilding effort due to the ongoing Thirty Years War.
(In imitating a human spam bot, you must not omit how strangely disjointed the messages appear to be. "The evolution of sense is the evolution of nonsense", etc.)
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it's the 3rd day of the sixth month in the year 2015 
but I'm interested in reasonable discussion.
