Random Thoughts 2: Arbitrary Speculations

[Traitorfish]

It had Mulan fighting the Huns. The Huns were in Europe...as in HUNgary, as in Attila the HUN, etc.

"Hun" is just used as a recognisable stand-in for "Xiongnu", though, they don't really lean on it. The alternative was "Mongols", but as the Mongols are an actual, still-existent people, "Hun" allowed them to play up the cartoonish barbarism without causing more than a manageable amount of offence.

The huns did come from Asia, though. They were steppe nomads, much like the rest of central Asia, and would have contact with both Mongolia and China

Nobody's really sure where the Huns originated, because the first record we have is of them reaching the Volga, which only tells us that they came from the Eastern 80% of the Eurasian steppes, not that they originated anywhere near China.

 

[Zkribbler]

"Hun" allowed them to play up the cartoonish barbarism without causing more than a manageable amount of offense.

I'm offended and I'm completely unmanageable!

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm offended and I'm completely unmanageable!

Even the marketing wizards at Disney couldn't account for the rage-elemental that is Zkribbler.

 

[Lohrenswald]

They should've just stuck with Xiongnu which is one of the coolest names ever

 

[MagisterCultuum]

"Xiongnu" doesn't really fit the meter of the musical numbers in Mulan as well as "Huns" though.

 

[Lohrenswald]

They could've worked it out

 

[Zkribbler]

Making news is a hostage situation/shootout in an L.A. grocery store where I used to shop. The suspect alleged shot his grandmother seven (7) times plus a young woman, stole the grandmother's car, raced through the city firing at pursuing police officers, crashed the car, and ran into the Traders Joe's. Several shoppers escaped, others were taken hostage, some were injured, and the store manager is dead.

A shoot-out/standoff ensued, until the police talked the suspect into handcuffing himself and surrendering. A handful of shoppers have been hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/22/us/trader-joes-la-standoff/index.html

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Sad for everyone involved, of course. I have immense respect for the hostage negotiator who talked the guy into surrendering. I'm mystified as to what set the shooter off, why he so cavalierly shot his way across L.A., hurt so many people inside the store, yet so meekly surrendered. I'm wondering whether the manager is dead because she acted heroically or stupidly. I just don't know.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Speaking of musicals, i just saw this review. I'll post it here since i don't know where else to post it. Even if you don't like the movie, the review is something else.
The Onion Reviews ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’

 

[Synobun]

I think my browsing habits are predictable.

 

[The_J]

I think you're also spending too much time on the 'net.

 

[Ryika]

Don't know why I'm having so much fun with this, but I wrote a small, really dumb lua script:

-- roll a 1000-sided dice to find a starting value
local f = Map.Rand(1000, "Rand")

-- ten thousand times, roll a 1000-sided dice
for i = 1, 10000 do
   local rand = Map.Rand(1000, "Rand")
 
   -- whenever we roll a dice, add the roll to the default value
   f = f + rand
 
   -- calculate the average of all rolls
   local median = f/(i+1)

   -- print the average value
   print(median)

end

It's so soothing to see the script start with a random number and then slowly but surely move closer towards a flat 500 from 490-510.

 

[The_J]

You might like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjecture too.
Basically pick any random positive number. If the number is even, divide by 2. If the number is uneven, multiply by 3, add 1. Repeat. This sequence will always end up in 1.
Stumbled upon that at xkcd at some point, I think.

 

[Ryika]

Fascinating!

-- Roll a 1000000-sided dice to find a starting value
local f = Map.Rand(1000000, "Rand")

-- We need this to print the original value later.
local fPrint = f

-- Roll 100000 times!
for i = 1, 100000 do

   -- if f is even...  
   if f % 2 == 0 then
       f = f / 2
   else
       f = (f * 3) + 1
   end

   -- stop calculating once the result is 1; and tell us how many times we have calculated.
   if f == 1 then
       print(fPrint .. " was 1 after " .. i .. " calculations.")
       break
   end
end

Looks like there's something weird going on with the Map.Rand-function of Civ 5, it's set to roll up to 1 million, but it never rolls numbers above 5 digits for some reason, but anyway, numbers become 1 surprisingly fast:

 12868 was 1 after 76 calculations.
 10612 was 1 after 29 calculations.
 4034 was 1 after 69 calculations.
 14439 was 1 after 71 calculations.
 12561 was 1 after 37 calculations.
 5661 was 1 after 36 calculations.
 6473 was 1 after 124 calculations.
 11791 was 1 after 81 calculations.
 6982 was 1 after 150 calculations.
 10791 was 1 after 161 calculations.
 14197 was 1 after 58 calculations.
 4373 was 1 after 33 calculations.
 14684 was 1 after 133 calculations.
 44 was 1 after 16 calculations.
 7375 was 1 after 44 calculations.
 11080 was 1 after 68 calculations.
 14567 was 1 after 58 calculations.
 13603 was 1 after 89 calculations.
 8135 was 1 after 65 calculations.
 2380 was 1 after 76 calculations.
 13144 was 1 after 76 calculations.
 12791 was 1 after 125 calculations.
 15249 was 1 after 84 calculations.

Interesting how the calculations hardly increase even if you go completely overboard with adding zeros:

1000000 was 1 after 152 calculations.
1000000000 was 1 after 100 calculations.
1000000000000 was 1 after 146 calculations.

I guess that's to be expected due to dividing by 2 though.

 

[Synobun]

I think you're also spending too much time on the 'net.

Says the one with 17k more posts than me.

 

[Ryika]

If you self-label yourself a "completionist", but then whine about how some of the things that you have to "complete" are too hard, then you're not actually a "completionist", you're just a guy who enjoys gathering stuff.

 

[The_J]

Looks like there's something weird going on with the Map.Rand-function of Civ 5, it's set to roll up to 1 million, but it never rolls numbers above 5 digits for some reason, but anyway, numbers become 1 surprisingly fast:

It's probably an internal restriction, so that you don't get too unlikely results within Civ5.

I guess that's to be expected due to dividing by 2 though.

Yes, that makes the amount of steps increase only logarithmically, so rather slow for higher numbers.

Says the one with 17k more posts than me.

I regret it .

 

[Lexicus]

"Hun" is just used as a recognisable stand-in for "Xiongnu", though, they don't really lean on it. The alternative was "Mongols", but as the Mongols are an actual, still-existent people, "Hun" allowed them to play up the cartoonish barbarism without causing more than a manageable amount of offence.

Also worth pointing out that the villain in Mulan is named after the title taken by nomadic rulers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanyu

 

[Ryika]

A question to the native English speakers here:

Violence against women and girls encompasses (but is not limited to):

[...]

• commercial sexual exploitation, including prostitution, lap dancing, stripping, pornography and trafficking

Does this imply to you that the act of stripping for money is "violence against women", or does it imply that forcing a woman to strip for ones own financial gain is violence against her?

It seems to imply the former to me (by defining the act of being paid for doing these actions as "commercial sexual exploitation), but maybe that's just me misinterpreting the text?

 

[EgonSpengler]

A question to the native English speakers here:



Does this imply to you that the act of stripping for money is "violence against women", or does it imply that forcing a woman to strip for ones own financial gain is violence against her?

It seems to imply the former to me (by defining the act of being paid for doing these actions as "commercial sexual exploitation), but maybe that's just me misinterpreting the text?

I think you're reading it right.

 

[Ryika]

Thanks.

Completely different topic:

It's interesting when knowledge that you've had drilled into you since you were a child becomes obsolete, and doing the "naughty" thing is suddenly the "right" thing to do. My mother always told me to switch off the light even when I'm leaving the room just a few minutes, but because of how the Energy Consumption of lamps has changed, that can actually be a bad thing now, depending on the type of the lamp, how often you leave the room and for how long you leave it. If you're just moving between kitchen and living rooms a few times while making a meal and sitting in front of the pc at the same time, the "right" thing to do is actually to leave the lamp on.

That's especially true for most commonly used LEDs, because they tend to have a very long natural life circle, but at the same time will hardly ever reach that maximum lifespan because of a comparatively low amount of switching cycles before they break. So their "actual" lifespan is determined by how often you switch the light on and off every day. This means that if you don't turn off the light whenever you leave the room for a minute or so, you actually save money by not having to replace them as quickly, even though you're consuming more energy by having them burn for longer.

According to my local energy supplier, that's okay for the environment, too - because recycling light bulbs is pretty energy-heavy in itself, so using up less of them makes up for the extra energy that you waste - IF you're using energy efficient light bulbs that is, which you should do anyway, as they'll pay for themselves in almost every case.