Lurker > RetuenOfDevsman

I swear the race part is rigged.

I can win the race ten times in a row for practice with zero losses even though I haven't played the game in a decade, and I will still lose the race when it's for score guaranteed.

But it's not like Riku goes faster or anything. Somehow they screw with the collision detection or something so that I end up falling when I shouldn't.

Pikachuchupika posted...

This is an interesting takeaway. However, we don't actually know if there are other Roberts out there in human history. There could have been other 8'11 people out there for all we know, we just never discovered them. Also, Earth-like planets aren't as rare as really tall people. We've already found many earth-sized planets out of the 4000 or so planets that we have discovered. That increases the probably by a lot. Multiply it by the amount of estimated planets that are out there, and chances are there's probably life out there.

Right, but there was definitely one tallest person.

I'm not convinced the probabilistic argument is the right way of looking at it. There are a whole slew of biases in our dataset by the simple fact that we can observe ourselves because we are ourselves. Imagine you are Robert Wadlow. You are eight feet and 11 inches tall. Why you are taller than everyone else in human history, you do not know. You see no reason why it shouldn't happen to anyone else. Because you happen to be the world's tallest human, it seems strange to you that everyone else is short. If you were to try to determine an experimental probability for people growing to 8'11", your dataset would grow like this:

Favorable outcomes | Samples | %
--------------------------------------------------------
1 | 1 | 100%
1 | 2 | 50%
1 | 3 | 33%
1 | 10 | 10%
1 | 1000 | 0.1%
1 | 100000 | 0.001%

Why? Because only one guy ever grew that tall (that we know of--fkr purposes of the illustration, he is). He might assume if it happened to him, there should be others too, but no matter how many people he samples, he never finds this because he is the tallest person.

If you were not Robert Wadlow, you wouldn't be specifically looking for 8'11" at all. You might be looking for "people over 7 feet" or just gathering statistics on people's height, and in either case, if you came across Robert, you'd be surprised. You'd record it, of course, but it would definitely seem like an outstanding case.

I don't pretend to know whether it's really the case, but if there really were only one celestial body hosting life--one Robert Wadlow who just happens to be the only one that made it to 8'11", so to speak--it would experimentally always count itself, as a sort of built-in selection bias.

Or look at it this way. Suppose we threw a dart at a dart board and recorded the exactly location where it landed, down to infinite digits of precision. Obviously, we can't really do this, but supposing we could. Now, suppose we try again to hit that exact spot. It will almost never happen. That is to say, the probability is zero because there are infinite other points it can land. And yet, it happened once, right?

All of this is not to say I'm convinced there are no aliens. Far from it, actually. I just think there are ways to look at the problem that allow for the possibility that there aren't.

Murphiroth posted...

Do you?

Probably not, now that you mention it.

UnsteadyOwl posted...

He's a state Representative in Colorado who's running for Congress.

I see.

I'm so glad you informed me some random guy has an opinion you don't like. I bet if you wanted you could even put together one of those logic things that proves when his opinion is wrong. Let me know if you do; I'm on the edge of my seat to hear how this drama with this random guy who posted on Twitter plays out.

TheHoldSteady posted...

So if you add milk to the cereal, it's a soup.

I don't though

The general factionization of American politics.

I mean, when you have news stories of people punching each other for wearing MAGA hats and pulling guns over being asked to wear masks during a pandemic, and when campaigning ads are almost exclusively "vote for my guy because THAT guy is a buttface" this really shouldn't surprise anyone.

Trump does scummy, illegal shit

Must be a day that ends in y.

*shrugs*

I'm just a singer in a rock and roll band.

Karovorak posted...

Now the other side of the issue:

Customer: "Hey, I have a question, is it possible to change that textfield?"

Me: "Ofc, just a second. Done, here"

Boss: "Wtf, don't do this, this isn't covered within the included free support"

Now I'm supposed to involve Retail / Accounting, so they create a quote for this, senting it out back and forth, bill at least two hours of worktime, for a simple parameter change.

Yet everytime I ask "hey, that customer has some issue, and wants a 30 minute webmeeting, should we bill that and how?" it goes "That's fine, no need for that"

The amount of time (ie, money) people would save by simply being allowed to click and drag their own shit is depressing.

I'm not saying production control isn't important; just that I really see no difference in clinking and dragging myself vs having someone else do it, except for more paperwork.

TyVulpine posted...

There's one episode of Gomer Pyle where he's supposed to be driving a truck but he keeps yanking the steering wheel from side to side. The truck would be all over the road if he really was doing that.

Conversely, sometimes they have the road on the blue screen being all twisty and stuff but the driver doesn't move the wheel at all.

In a press conference, some guy at Boeing comments on the merger:

We are very happy to add this new member of our family who has for decades been known for delivering high quality software. We believe their results are indicative of a great testing and quality assurance workflow and would like to apply those techniques to our of products in light of recent circumstances. However, as we have no interest in entering the electronic entertainment business at this time, we encourage you to support other industry participants as we move in a new direction with the new Nintendo.

_Valigarmanda_ posted...

Yeah this is horrible and it plagues some of my favorite movies - I gotta turn my shit up to hear the dialogue and then HERE'S MUSIC AT FULL VOLUME WITH MASSIVE GUNFIRE

https://youtu.be/LLHWxVJyc08?si=qCvOxi8zDyuBR8Dq

i swear that they were trolling with the Blu-Ray release, this scene destroys my speakers

I have to listen with subtitles at home, since I don't want complaints from the other side of the neighborhood.

Ah, this problem again. I thought my controller got stiffer over time, but I guess newer games just accounted for it better and the MGS3 port didn't change anything about it.

So basically, when you let go of the left stick, it snaps back to center, right? Well, it actually bounces a little bit. Just a tiny bit that almost never matters.

Well, it just ruined two of my attempts at Bolshaya Past in a row, lol. See, the game is actually designed so you don't ever have to actually walk or stalk. You can just run up behind an enemy full tilt and clobber him before he can turn around. He'll hear your footsteps and turn around, but then he's got a couple tenths of a second before he actually triggers an alert, so really you have plenty of time.

Unless, that is, you are playing on PS3 and going for the interrogation, which requires you to return the stick to neutral before grabbing the enemy. In which case, sometimes Snake will turn the other way because of the joystick bounce problem.

But I need the interrogation move for two reasons:
1. Healing radio frequencies.
2. Grounded holdup.

For those who don't know, the grounded holdup is the non-ammo way to deal with enemies. Tranq'd enemies require ammo. Unconscious enemies wake back up and raise the alarm. Dead enemies come back to haunt you. But grounded holdup enemies are effectively removed from the equation unless somebody sees them. And you're not going to let anybody see them, right?

Can't break a few eggs without making an omelette

This sounds bad.

Really bad.

Ah, I got ninja'd after watching the feed forever and not refreshing.

Well, I don't look like an idiot but here we are.

Giant_Aspirin posted...

is this a 'coffee mug'?

https://www.amazon.com/Volar-Ideas-15oz-Elephant-Green/dp/B071HLGYN9

Looks like it. Teacups are usually pretty small and thinner.

Of course, there's no reason you can't drink tea from a coffee mug, just like there's no reason you can't drink soda from a beer mug.

Giant_Aspirin posted...

well, i brew 500mL of coffee every morning and have at least an inch left. sometimes when i only have a few grams left in the bag (of coffee beans), i'll make extra and do 550mL and it still fits in there.

so if it's not the mug capacity that differentiates a "coffee mug", what is it?

Well, like I said, there's some gray area.

DrizztLink posted...

If you slit the bee guy's throat, do bees come out?

You know, I've always assumed you can't reach him to try that, but now that I think about it, you might be able to go up the ramp and dive into the platform during the fight. Maybe I'll test that theory if I think of it.

Giant_Aspirin posted...

what if its ceramic and holds 10oz? or 20oz?

I suppose I was a tad unclear. With 1oz of headroom, a cup made for 10oz beverages will be an 11oz mug. If it really is only 10oz by total capacity, I'd still assume it's a coffee mug.

I actually do have a 22oz ceramic mug. It's definitely for coffee. I would guess your hypothetical one is too but without seeing it, I can't really be sure.

Giant_Aspirin posted...

what makes a 'coffee mug' distinct from a 'mug'? i have ceramic cups intended for hot beverages but idk if any of them are "coffee mugs". but i drink coffee and tea, so i use mugs for both. i do have a dedicated mug that i only use for coffee, so maybe that is a 'coffee mug'?

There are coffee mugs, and there are beer mugs. If your mug is ceramic and holds somewhere between 11 and 17oz, it's definitely a coffee mug.

If it's glass and holds more than 20oz, it's definitely a beer mug.

There's some gray area, of course (I've seen both made of wood, for example), but if it falls into one of those two categories, you know for sure.

DrizztLink posted...

With my mouth.

https://youtu.be/_asNhzXq72w?si=kiu-RxYKtUZibIqs

I like to be fighting back tears and juuuuust losing.

Wait a minute, I guess there's no reason to go no-kills except against the bosses.

Time to slit a buncha throats.

This is more than I can bear!

Can we just have the entire entertainment industry crash and start back up when they have new frickin ideas?

The guy who makes all those anime movies?

I'm sure you have no clue what I'm talking about so it sounds like this except better:

https://voca.ro/12NnthM2YmMT

Might be more than one song that has this particular pattern.

masterpug53 posted...

After rescuing the group for the first time in The Hobbit, the eagle king basically said 'look, we're the superior beings here, and we'll only help you for as long as it suits our whims and not a second more, so don't treat us as your personal taxi service.' Even considering their respect for Gandalf, they probably would've told him to go fuck himself if he'd tried to dump such a grave responsibility on them.

I guess what's confusing me is why it's not in their best interests to help defeat Sauron.

Or are they just so American that even though it is in literally everyone's best interests, including their own, they refuse to do it simply because they were asked?

"Look!"
*camera shows what they were looking at*
*only then does something interesting happen*

What were they looking at, and/or how did they know the interesting thing was about to happen?

ALWAYS chewing with their mouths open. Why is this? I legit don't think I've ever seen a movie character chew with his/her mouth closed.

Why didn't Sauron just fire Sarumon so Frodocop could shoot him

Why didn't Ganondalf just make a bunch of similar looking rings and explain that top men were on the case and when Bilbo asks who Ganondalf just repeats "Top. Men." and then they drop it into the pile and the screen fades to black.

Or the page, I guess, since it's a book. The page fades to black.

*turns around*
*sees someone off camera*
"YOU!!!"

Who freaking does this? Nobody freaking does this. If I saw someone I know at the grocery store, and he gasped and said "YOU!!!" I would assume he had been body snatched by aliens because it's such a freaking bizarre thing to do.

Things people ACTUALLY say when they see someone they know:
Hi!
Hello!
What are you doing here?
Hey *insert name here*
I guess they'll let anybody in here!

You know what, let's go with that last one, lol.

*Ripley (thinks she) is the sole remaining survivor of the ship*
*turns around*
*gasps*
I guess they'll let anybody in here!
*cut*

It would honestly be an improvement.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

You mean Dr. Willy?

In the Mega Man 2 novelization, he's called Dr. Wily, Dr. Willy and Dr. Wiley all on the same page.

How did Cipher get into and out of the Matrix by himself?

If robots can't harm humans, how do Wily's uprisings pose any threat at all?

Who the hell was Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, and why does Monte Cristo just let him get away?

Why doesn't the bad guy from the Three Musketeers commercial just buy a Three Musketeers bar?

If the Heart of Gold travels through every point in the universe simultaneously, how does it keep getting outrun?

Why did Splinter send Leonardo to South America to train to be a better leader, when there was nobody there to lead or teach him anything?

How was Harry the first man to play football on the moon? How does one play football by oneself?

Why didn't Cloud use a Phoenix Down?

Why didn't Superman go rescue the dog instead of his dad, so that everyone would just assume he was one of those miracle survivors that there always seems to be at least one of?

Karovorak posted...

Depends on "every place".

everything within a mile is hard, but that's where public transport is supposed to be put into place.

*shrugs*

We can talk all day about what's supposed to be but that doesn't make it happen.

LonelyStoner posted...

True. I live in a college town and Im convinced that it was designed by leftover architect grads.

I'm convinced our cities were all designed by automotive execs.

I'm also convinced exterminators mix sugar in their sprays but that's a different topic.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

My favorite part of this topic is people acting like walking places is such a massive ordeal and inconvenience, meanwhile European and Asian cities have been doing it forever with no complaints.

If every place I needed to go were a mile away, I'd be happy as a blue jay.

But it's not. Commuting by foot would take four hours out of my day.