Random Thoughts XIII - Radioenergopithecocracy

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Neither is Steven Segal. He has a Mongolian wife and Mongolian kids though, which is unexpected.
Supposedly, his latest movies he did all his martial arts sitting down.....
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South Park image but fairly accurate of his body shape. He let go of himself.
 
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This could just as easily go to the questions thread, but it is more of a thought (you can still answer, if you feel like it, but the actual reflection is imo the point).
Imagine a scenario starting with a more grandiose version of that old game show routine (eg Monty Hall and derivatives):
You have 1000 doors, and behind 999 of them are cheap stuff, but behind 1 door is an important prize. You are asked to choose 1. Naturally, since it is a 1/1000 chance of getting the prize, you can't seriously expect to get it.
You choose, but the host then opens 998 of the remaining 999 doors, and all those have cheap stuff. The host then asks you if you wish to stick with your original choice or select the only other remaining door.
While everyone would select to switch to the other door (since that one got in turn chosen by the host as one negating 998 other doors), there is a catch: the host has an ability to move the position of the prize (move it to behind any non-revealed door).
This, effectively, cancels any added value of switching, since you are at the host's mercy. Now both the door (1/1000 chance) you originally picked, and the only other closed one, have equal chances of being the prize ones. Or do they? What would you choose, stick or switch? ^^
I think a good way to think of that, is to imagine what the different scenarios for coding this development would look like. Just because the host decides your fate, it doesn't have to mean there is no specific algorithm dictating their decision. But ultimately the gloomy point is that
Spoiler :
the more such stepped choices are given in the game, the more the probability of choosing correctly approximates zero.
 
Maybe he was a boy and an ardee.
 
Those were the good old days of traveling.

How Airport Security Changed America
By Bob Greene

Fifty years ago this month, America changed, perhaps permanently. It didn’t feel like it at the time—it just felt like an interesting story about the nation’s airports.

To understand the impact of what happened in January 1973, it helps to recall what things were like in December 1972. If you arrived at an airport with or without a ticket, you could walk right through the terminal and up to any gate. No one would stop you or ask you to prove who you were. You could carry whatever you wanted onto your flight—it’s not as if someone was going to look into your bag. Firearms? Knives? Explosives? If you were concealing them beneath your coat, no one would know. When you landed, your family might be waiting at the gate to greet you—they, too, had strolled through the airport.

All that changed as 1973 arrived. To combat a spate of hijackings on commercial flights, the Federal Aviation Administration implemented an emergency edict: Every passenger and every carry-on bag in every airport had to be screened, either by metal detectors or hand searches.

Across the country, the initial rollout was a bit haphazard. Walk-through detectors weren’t widely available. At Tri-City Airport in Labette County, Kan., the Parsons Sun reported, “a flight attendant will scan all persons with a hand-operated ‘Electro-Search’ device passed a few inches from their bodies.” A Frontier Airlines executive said, “We have to look at everything it squawks at.” In Evansville, Ind., Sen. Vance Hartke refused to be screened; he said that with “rising indignation” he objected to the searches, and besides, he was “not even carrying luggage.” In Buffalo, N.Y., a World War II combat veteran was stopped; he explained that he still had shrapnel in his body.

The barriers and metal detectors sent a new message: Be ever wary.

No one was certain how long the searches would be enforced. Certainly no one anticipated the multi-checkpoint, quasi-military-style security encampments that have become standard at airports since Sept. 11, 2001.
But a broader aspect of American life started to shift, in a way that was subtle, yet obvious in retrospect: The default assumption that people could trust one another—that the person next to you on the sidewalk meant you no harm—was officially called into question.

So much of what has transpired since, in the name of security, is an outgrowth of what happened in airports 50 years ago. Surveillance cameras on every street corner and in every business; facial-recognition technology to monitor crowds; tightly sealed consumer and grocery products; mandatory photo ID in just about every area of daily life— all of it silently screams the modern message: Be ever wary.

It’s hard to remember when things were different. But somehow, they were. Next time you’re waiting to be screened in a busy airport, look around and try to imagine all the barriers gone. It’s like dreaming of a lost civilization.
Mr. Greene’s books include “Chevrolet Summers, Dairy Queen Nights.”
 
Those were the good old days of traveling.

How Airport Security Changed America
By Bob Greene

Fifty years ago this month, America changed, perhaps permanently. It didn’t feel like it at the time—it just felt like an interesting story about the nation’s airports.

To understand the impact of what happened in January 1973, it helps to recall what things were like in December 1972. If you arrived at an airport with or without a ticket, you could walk right through the terminal and up to any gate. No one would stop you or ask you to prove who you were. You could carry whatever you wanted onto your flight—it’s not as if someone was going to look into your bag. Firearms? Knives? Explosives? If you were concealing them beneath your coat, no one would know. When you landed, your family might be waiting at the gate to greet you—they, too, had strolled through the airport.

All that changed as 1973 arrived. To combat a spate of hijackings on commercial flights, the Federal Aviation Administration implemented an emergency edict: Every passenger and every carry-on bag in every airport had to be screened, either by metal detectors or hand searches.

Across the country, the initial rollout was a bit haphazard. Walk-through detectors weren’t widely available. At Tri-City Airport in Labette County, Kan., the Parsons Sun reported, “a flight attendant will scan all persons with a hand-operated ‘Electro-Search’ device passed a few inches from their bodies.” A Frontier Airlines executive said, “We have to look at everything it squawks at.” In Evansville, Ind., Sen. Vance Hartke refused to be screened; he said that with “rising indignation” he objected to the searches, and besides, he was “not even carrying luggage.” In Buffalo, N.Y., a World War II combat veteran was stopped; he explained that he still had shrapnel in his body.

The barriers and metal detectors sent a new message: Be ever wary.

No one was certain how long the searches would be enforced. Certainly no one anticipated the multi-checkpoint, quasi-military-style security encampments that have become standard at airports since Sept. 11, 2001.
But a broader aspect of American life started to shift, in a way that was subtle, yet obvious in retrospect: The default assumption that people could trust one another—that the person next to you on the sidewalk meant you no harm—was officially called into question.

So much of what has transpired since, in the name of security, is an outgrowth of what happened in airports 50 years ago. Surveillance cameras on every street corner and in every business; facial-recognition technology to monitor crowds; tightly sealed consumer and grocery products; mandatory photo ID in just about every area of daily life— all of it silently screams the modern message: Be ever wary.

It’s hard to remember when things were different. But somehow, they were. Next time you’re waiting to be screened in a busy airport, look around and try to imagine all the barriers gone. It’s like dreaming of a lost civilization.
Mr. Greene’s books include “Chevrolet Summers, Dairy Queen Nights.”
A few years ago, though well after 9/11, I flew Jeju - Seoul. Everyone told me I did not need to turn up early for the flight at all, like get to the airport about 20 mins before the flight time or something. It was a whole different thing than flying to/from europe or the US.
 
Chef Boyardee was neither a boyar nor a dee.
But what a chef, amirite?

His name was Bo Yarde. And if you need to distinguishing him from other Bo Yardes, he gives you his middle initial.
 
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Those were the good old days of traveling.
Oof. When I watched Beavis and Butt-head do America last year I was surprised by how the two can just get on planes and buses with any sort of luggage and how at the time FTA agents prescribing cavity searches was so unimaginable that it was hilariously over-the-top at the time.
 
Gotta wonder how much of this security rigamarole they didn't show on The Amazing Race. Before covid, each team was responsible for arranging their own plane tickets. Now the show uses a chartered plane and lets the racers go in small groups at 15-minute intervals.


Random thought: It's my turn to host Star Trek Hangman over at TrekBBS. I have no inspiration as to which series and season or movie to use. The way it's played is that the host posts a puzzle based on the dialogue and the players try to figure it out by guessing letters; winner hosts the next puzzle.

Suggestions? Not TOS, as I think we pretty well have that memorized. But TAS, TNG (1-7), DS9 (1-7), Voyager (1-7), even (ugh) ENT (1-4), and the TOS movies (1-6; not gonna use the TNG movies) are up for grabs (can't be anything streamed as the transcripts for those aren't available on the website I use to verify the dialogue used in the puzzle).
 
Back in the sixties he was part of the free speech movement at Berkeley. I think he did a little too much LDS.

Maybe the errors in it will make it hard to guess.

Or just "I think he did a little too much LDS." "LDS?" They'll pick S early. They'll think that last three letters has to be a word ending in S, so it will throw them off for a bit when they pick all the vowels and there are no vowels. Then when they solve it, they'll think "of course."

Anyway, it's my favorite line of dialogue from the movies.
 
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Back in the sixties he was part of the free speech movement at Berkeley. I think he did a little too much LDS.

Maybe the errors in it will make it hard to guess.

Or just "I think he did a little too much LDS." "LDS?" They'll pick S early. They'll think that last three letters has to be a word ending in S, so it will throw them off for a bit when they pick all the vowels and there are no vowels. Then when they solve it, they'll think "of course."

Anyway, it's my favorite line of dialogue from the movies.
Wait, what?
 
Wait, what?

It's part of Kirk's dialogue from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Kirk is trying to explain Spock's odd behavior at the Cetacean Institute to Gillian Taylor, after he jumped into the whale tank to mind-meld with Gracie (the female whale).

Star Trek IV is a good candidate, as I can think of bits of dialogue that might take awhile. :yup: It's harder on a forum full of people who have seen stuff so many times that all it takes is a couple of words to get the whole thing.

The puzzle I solved was a two-word conversation between two characters about opera composers. I think the host thought we'd have a hard time because both names contain the letter Z.
 
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See my previous post.
 
Just discovered ISPOILER. Let’s see if I can beat it.

B U N G H O L E

edit: Nope, can’t see it! Good job forum devs.
 
If you're looking for dialogue snippets, Captain Picard is very quotable, e.g. "The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth!" (TNG, The First Duty) or "Let's make sure history never forgets the name Enterprise." (TNG, Yesterday's Enterprise)
 
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