Random Thoughts XV: Temere Cogito, Ergo . . .

[Valka D'Ur]

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Nobody gave me chocolate, so I gave myself some chocolate today.

I now remember why I'm not a fan of Kinder Surprise (tastes kinda waxy), but at least I now have a purple plastic alien to help guard the apartment.

Oh, and apparently it qualifies as a product of Canada, so I can tell that jerk on FB who ranted at me for daring to buy anything American where to go stuff his bad manners.

 

[Tee Kay]

Proposed law:

ALL websites, including social media, which allowed visitors to leave comments MUST automatically hide comments only to be readable by the user only with the intention of the user as expressed by a second click.

I can't keep track of how many times I read or watch something good and then my eyes wander down or to the side and accidentally glimpse a comment and it's the most inane braindead thing anyone has ever said in the history of the multiverse and it just ruins the enjoyment of the original post or video or comic or whatever.

 

[Perfection]

Proposed law:

ALL websites, including social media, which allowed visitors to leave comments MUST automatically hide comments only to be readable by the user only with the intention of the user as expressed by a second click.

I can't keep track of how many times I read or watch something good and then my eyes wander down or to the side and accidentally glimpse a comment and it's the most inane braindead thing anyone has ever said in the history of the multiverse and it just ruins the enjoyment of the original post or video or comic or whatever.

flame em back, be that force of youtube comment vengeance

here is a song to give you courage

or maybe you can engage in its comments section

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, someone on reddit offered to pay me $15 for a graph. Of course I just drew one for free, but I found this to be impressive - and ill-advised. Unless it was a scam (which would be well-advised )

Anyway, it was a graph for a mere inequality, basically boiled down to 0.15x>45. He first made a thread on it and then pmed people posting.

@Samson , can you think of a way for this - if it was indeed a scam - working? (eg if the other person just gave them their paypal).

 

[Samson]

Hm, someone on reddit offered to pay me $15 for a graph. Of course I just drew one for free, but I found this to be impressive - and ill-advised. Unless it was a scam (which would be well-advised )

Anyway, it was a graph for a mere inequality, basically boiled down to 0.15x>45. He first made a thread on it and then pmed people posting.

@Samson , can you think of a way for this - if it was indeed a scam - working? (eg if the other person just gave them their paypal).

I do not think you can really guess. I do not use paypal, but my understanding is it is resistant to that sort of fraud. It would probably be just a way to get someone hooked, and then require some money before the $15 was paid or something.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Kyr, I will pay you fifteen dollars for a graph, if I ever need a graph.

But only fourteen dollars if it's a graph of mere inequality, since that one's partly used.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Kyr, I will pay you fifteen dollars for a graph, if I ever need a graph.

But only fourteen dollars if it's a graph of mere inequality, since that one's partly used.

$15 is already only 14.31 euros

 

[Broken_Erika]

I now remember why I'm not a fan of Kinder Surprise (tastes kinda waxy), but at least I now have a purple plastic alien to help guard the apartment.

Oh, and apparently it qualifies as a product of Canada, so I can tell that jerk on FB who ranted at me for daring to buy anything American where to go stuff his bad manners.

Kinder Surprise Eggs are banned in the US.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) banned Kinder Surprise eggs because they contain a toy that could choke children under three years old

 

[Perfection]

kinder is the cheapest brand of choco i can tolerate

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Kinder Surprise Eggs are banned in the US.

Yes, I know. But some people in the "buy anything but American" movement have really gotten rude to anyone who says they either aren't doing that, or can't (for perfectly valid reasons).

I just meant that if I tell him I bought chocolate that's considered Canadian, he'd shut up and quit bothering me.

As for the ban and choking hazard, that's ridiculous. Yes, some parts are small enough that if they were swallowed, they'd choke a kid or even an adult. But presumably the parents of said 3-year-olds would not let the kid try to eat these things, or even just take them away. The container the toy parts come in is large, and the finished toy itself isn't small. These things are huge in comparison to the average LEGO brick, and is LEGO banned in the U.S.? No, it isn't.

 

[Kyriakos]

Kyr, I will pay you fifteen dollars for a graph, if I ever need a graph.

But only fourteen dollars if it's a graph of mere inequality, since that one's partly used.

Tbf by now no one needs anyone else for graphs, as there are sites that do that instantly - eg Desmos ^^
Of course this doesn't cover the case of being unable to write the functions - which the person on reddit was.

 

[Voidwalkin]

I bet there are no haunted math classrooms. Or at least, very few. Not many would say "I gotta convert these fractions to decimals, then I'll pass over to the other side for real"

Similarly, when I worked at a Supermarket, coworkers speculated it was haunted. Nonsense. Who would wanna spend more than ten minutes there?

 

[Kyriakos]

I bet there are no haunted math classrooms. Or at least, very few. Not many would say "I gotta convert these fractions to decimals, then I'll pass over to the other side for real"

Similarly, when I worked at a Supermarket, coworkers speculated it was haunted. Nonsense. Who would wanna spend more than ten minutes there?

There are some stories in literature with that theme - eg Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch House. Not that it's (imo) a good story, but it ties math to the elder gods.

 

[Voidwalkin]

There are some stories in literature with that theme - eg Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch House. Not that it's (imo) a good story, but it ties math to the elder gods.

I read some of his stuff, but not that.

I didn't really love cosmic horror. I was much younger and it offended the human chauvinist in me. In my defense, there is nothing I'd seen to that point that woulda suggested to me figures like the elder gods could exist. There still isn't, it's just gotten more plausible as I've come to understand the nature of the universe to be inherently amoral and brutal, kinda becoming more deterministic in consequence, which I guess lends the elder gods more conceptual credibility.

 

[Kyriakos]

Lovecraft himself did not believe in any such gods either, fwiw ^^ In his very many letters he does refer to why he uses this as a literary mechanism for the hierarchy of causes in the majority of his mythos.

 

[Voidwalkin]

Lovecraft himself did not believe in any such gods either, fwiw ^^ In his very many letters he does refer to why he uses this as a literary mechanism for the hierarchy of causes in the majority of his mythos.

That's interesting. I didn't know that, but it's retrospectively obvious they could be stand ins for those forces, the function is equivalent.

I may be kinda underselling Lovecraft somewhat. It may be because I compare it to Asimov, whom I read at the same timeframe of life.

While very young, I vaguely recall reading a story by Asimov about a computer that figures out the answer to the creation of life long after its creators(and I think maybe all organic life in its universe as well? Been decades) has died out. It then creates the big bang.

I found that far more terrifying. It was a familiar object, that could outthink a man at a grand scale, plausibly, as observed by an ELO 2000 chess computer pretty soundly defeating me at a similar time. I don't think it was Asimov's intention, but I kinda received it the same way some people receive cosmic horror. "You pale in significance, and better content yourself to the consolation prize of love, mortal"

 

[Kyriakos]

@Arakhor , you ask Multivac.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

@Arakhor , you ask Multivac.

INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

 

[Synobun]

I've felt a couple earthquakes since moving to Vancouver, but today's was the first that had the distinctive rolling motion associated with big quakes. Surreal sensation. It really does feel like you're on a boat.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I've felt a couple earthquakes since moving to Vancouver, but today's was the first that had the distinctive rolling motion associated with big quakes. Surreal sensation. It really does feel like you're on a boat.

One of my author friends, Noah Chinn, lives either in or just north of Vancouver (not quite clear on that), and just posted on FB mentioning that he felt it as well. Looks like people all over that general region felt it. Something like 4.something?

Any fracking going on in that region, @Synobun? Or any word of a situation happening in the Pacific?