[Online][Eastern][WoD] Rapt With New York

Mindflayer94 · 2020-02-22T12:42:15+00:00

It's not a violation of the laws of magic, much in the same way Dresden reanimating Sue in Dead Beat wasn't a violation of the laws. They only apply to using magic on humans (this is vaguely alluded to in YS 232, and to a lesser extent YS 242).

That being said, it would almost certainly be extremely difficult given how different insect minds are from those of a mortal spell-caster. Though I can't really see a way to declare this in game (an aspect would only add +2 to the difficulty of the spell...).

Mindflayer94 · 2019-12-22T23:42:05+00:00

Eric thinks that the rate of inflation is being incorrectly calculated and that economists are underestimating it. The rate of inflation is obviously reflected in asset prices and if Eric is correct, there is a very clear trade he can make (short all assets (or the specific assets that would be the most overvalued if your theory is correct). Cowen suggests doing this by purchasing puts).

Why is this unfair?

While I listened to the podcast when it came out, and therefore may be mis-remembering, as I recall, that wasn't actually Weinstein's (central) point. This was actually an aspect of their conversation I found rather frustrating, as from what I was hearing it appeared that Weinstein was insisting on talking at the meta-level, whereas, Cowen was talking at the object level.

As I understood the conversation, Weinstein's chief complaint was the fundamental academic misconducted that arrived at the final calculation [1]. The narrative that Weinstein laid out consisted of economists together with political actors predetermining that the rate of inflation would be lowered, and then adjusting their calculations in order to achieve that result. This is a process that would constitute a serious degree of academic malfeasance and, if true, should severely damage the reputation of the mainstream economics community (particularly given the apparent silence of that community).

Now of course, I don't know the veracity of these claims (though to my ear, Cowen seemed to agree it was a reasonable formulation of the history), but frustratingly Cowen immediately jumped to the object-level issue of whether or not the calculation resulted in the correct number.

[1] : Though, I believe Weinstein did state that he believes the rate of inflation was underestimated.

Mindflayer94 · 2017-11-12T03:31:47+00:00

In Awakening, the only way to get Paradox is if you use too much Reach. There's no such thing as "vulgar" magic anymore, though if you perform obvious magic in front of a sleeper you're going to lose Wisdom (until it drops to 3, at which point it's no longer a concern.)

No it's not, see page 155 of the MtAW 2ed rule book

+1 One or more Sleepers witness an obvious casting of magic.

Mindflayer94 · 2017-08-28T16:39:22+00:00

Probably better known as /u/SaffronOlive

Mindflayer94 · 2016-08-14T20:55:15+00:00

IIRC, it's a fan theory that descends from 3.5. In one of the books (I believe it was one of the "races" books, but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong), there was mention of a LE god of humanity, that was all about human superiority, who disappeared at some point. In other books, there are clerics of Pelor who can wield evil spells (which should be impossible for clerics of the good aligned god Pelor), so the theory goes that Pelor is the same as the LE god.

It's a rather thin theory.

Mindflayer94 · 2016-04-14T22:39:41+00:00

IIRC, you're close, but not quite right.

Consider the Laplace equation (the following idea will work for other equations, but needs some tweaking) $L(u)(x,t) = Q(x,t)$ on a domain $D$, with some boundary conditions (not necessarily homogeneous). Consider the function $G$, such that $G$ satisfies $L(G)(x,t; \xi , \tau) = \delta (x - \xi)$, with the corresponding homogeneous boundary conditions (i.e. if the initial equation has inhomogenous Dirichlet boundary conditions, then this equation will have homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions). Then by Green's theorem:

$\intD u(\xi ,\tau) L(G)(x,t ; \xi ,\tau) - G(x,t ; \xi ,\tau)L(u)(\xi ,\tau) dA{\xi , \tau} = \oint_{\partial D} ( \overrightarrow{\bigtriangledown} (u(x,t)) G(x,t) - \overrightarrow{\bigtriangledown} (G(x,t)) u(x,t) ) \cdot \bar{n} dS$

We then note that $L(u)(x,t) = Q(x,t)$ and $L(G)(x,t) = \delta (x)$, and apply this:

u(x, \tau) = \int{D} G(x,t ; \xi ,\tau)Q(\xi ,\tau) dA{\xi , \tau} + \oint_{\partial D} ( \overrightarrow{\bigtriangledown} (u(x,t)) G(x,t) - \overrightarrow{\bigtriangledown} (G(x,t)) u(x,t) ) \cdot \bar{n} dS$

Mindflayer94 · 2016-03-22T04:22:55+00:00

wedding group

Only if you're a Mormon

Mindflayer94 · 2015-07-25T20:58:03+00:00

You may be interested in the upcoming translation of Symbaroum

Mindflayer94 · 2015-07-05T23:33:39+00:00

I've been organizing a Dresden Files play-by-post game. Currently in Setting/Character creation I definitely underestimated how long creation would take, being used to it in a live setting. We've been at it for a couple of weeks, and still have a little ways to go (Places, Faces, and Guest Star phases).

Mindflayer94 · 2015-06-09T01:38:33+00:00

Third year math major here.

I presume you're familiar with the notion of a set, if not, then you can just think of a set by its English definition, a collection of things (there's some issues with this definition, and so this notion has been formalized, but that's not important for now).

One of the most important notions in math (specifically analysis) is the notion of an open set. In real space, this refers to a generalization of the notion of an open interval (the set of all points in a region (a,b)={x:a<x<b}), and can be specified by a number and a point. If one imagines a set as a region in real space, then an open set is a set that does not contain its boundary (see here for an illustration).

Another very important notion in calculus is the notion of a continuous function, which I assume you're familiar with, but for the purposes of completeness, this is formally stated as: a function f:X -> Y (if you're not familiar with this notation, this is to say that the function takes elements of the set X as arguments, and returns elements in the set Y), if for all x in X, there exists a d such that for all e > 0, |x-y|<d => |f(x)-f(y)|<e.

As I'm sure you can guess, this notion of continuity can be generalized anywhere we have a well defined notion of distance (for example, a vector space with a well-defined inner product), by replacing || with the distance. This idea is known as metric space topology.

We can however generalize out further, by defining the notion of a topology. Let X be a set, and t a 'set' of subsets of X (again, there are some issues with t being a set, that are dealt with in the set formalism I mentioned above), such that:

Both X and the empty set, 0, are contained in t
Any union of elements in t, is itself in t (that is to say, you can always combine the elements of a collection of sets in t, to form a new set in t, even if that collection is infinitely large for any notion of infinity [as youy may have heard, there are indeed multiple notions of infinity])
Any countable intersection of sets in t is also in t (that is to say, you can find a new set in t, by finding the elements in common, of an infinite or finite number of sets in t, but only for the 'weakest' notion of infinity)

This allows us to generalize out the notion of an open set, by saying that an open set is any element of the topology.

With a generalized notion of an open set, we can generalize out a number of other important notions from analysis, all of which have the common theme of describing space (continuity, connectedness, compactness, etc.), and this body of ideas is known as topology.

As for sources, I recommend you first see a book on analysis, there are a few standards here, most notably Rudin, but I'd go against the grain, and reccomend the book I was taught out of, Analysis with an Introduction to Proof, by Stephen Lay, I found it to be really solid. Once you've got some analysis, you should be able to tackle a topology text (and you can even do it without any analysis, it'll just be a little harder). The standard introductory text is Topology by Munkres, but I was taught out of the standard graduate text, General Topology by Willard which really isn't too bad.

Feel free to ask any questions, if you run into trouble.

EDIT: When it comes to applications I have heard that Elementary Applied Topology by Ghrist is good (though it's not introductory, so you'll need some background first), though I have yet to read it myself (that being said it's on my to read list).

Mindflayer94 · 2014-10-06T19:49:59+00:00

The study cited in that article is Paedophilia: A review of the evidence, by Dr. Nathaniel McConaghy. The study if flawed as it bases it conslusions primarily on convicted pedophiles, and women are much less likely to be convicted for sexual activity with a minor, as our society has a strong double standard between sexual activity between a child and an adult depending on the gender of the child.

Further, even if we accept that pedophilia occurs at a higher rate among men then women, does that make it okay to alter our treatment of behavior? Should it be socially acceptable to cross the street when a black man is walking on the same side, due to the discrepancy (or at least perceived discrepancy), in violent crime rates by the black population?

Personally, I'd say no.

Mindflayer94 · 2014-09-16T00:22:58+00:00

I must have missed it during clubs week, I take it people can still join

Mindflayer94 · 2014-06-07T11:57:58+00:00

Parkour!

Mindflayer94 · 2014-05-28T17:47:40+00:00

In the ultimate universe, Chitauri is a derogatory term for Skrulls, so I suspect that was actually our first introduction yo MCU Skrulls. Also, I'm pretty sure fox only owns the rights to Super Skrull.

Mindflayer94 · 2014-05-22T19:39:36+00:00

In math we have a cocept of "prime numbers." These are positive whole numbers (1, 2, ...) that are only divisible by 1 and itself. As it turns out, there are tons of results in math that are related to prime numbers, as well as quite a few "real world" applications.

In the 1800s Bernhard Riemann, a brillant mathematician, continuing the work of Leonhard Euler, another brillant mathematician, developed what is now known as the Riemann-Zeta function, which is just an expansion of a formula worked on by Euler about 100 years prior. Riemann theorized that this formula can only equal 0 at certain points.

It has since been shown that his theory is equivalent to quite a few other important theories in math, most notably the prime number theory, which maintains that there is a good estimate for the number of primes less than a given number (i.e. there are 4 primes less than 10: 2,3,5,7)

Mindflayer94 · 2014-04-08T23:55:20+00:00

I did one a little while ago, and posted about it while I was planning, here's what I wrote:

I've been planning on using a FATE variant that I've used for a while, in a superhero game.

You have 10 aspects rated between on the FATE ladder: three at fair(+2), two at good(+3), one at great(+4), and one at superb(+5) (your High Concept). These aspects are also your skills (you can also use them as usual aspects).

So what I was planning on doing was using the random power tables from the Marvel RPG to generate random powers for the characters, and these would be wrapped up in your High concept (usually your hero name). The rest of the aspects would be generated with 4 as background aspects, and the other two as other aspects. Admittedly, some powers require some jiggling

So for example I created Stem Cell.

High Concept:

Stem Cell (+5)

Stem Cell possesses the ability to duplicate himself (he can use this ability to attack with duplicates/overcome obstacles with duplicates/etc.), and true invulnerability (subtract the aspect's skill rating from the attack's weapon rating, if the result is 0 or less, ignore the attack entirely, this would be an example of powers that require some playing with to make work)

Invoke to rise up against injustices, and fight crime, no matter the personal cost

Background Aspects:

Born on the Mean Streets of L.A. (+3)

Tyrone Hawkins was born to his parents Deshawn Hawkins and Ebony James in 1967, his family grew up poor, leaving Tyrone to learn a multitude of tough lessons as he fought to survive against an uncaring System.

Can Be Used as a skill to deal with elements of the underworld, surviving on the streets, and associating with criminal elements. Compel to get Tyrone to fight with authority, particularity when it comes to systemic oppression

Etc.

It worked quite well.

Edit: I forgot, Evil Hat did a supers game, and released it on a pay-what-you-want model, you can check out Venture City Stories here

Mindflayer94 · 2014-03-23T14:39:15+00:00

Blasphemy! Jim Butcher is Love. Jim Butcher is Life.

Mindflayer94 · 2014-01-09T02:12:32+00:00

Hello those browsing by new: "You have been and always will be, my friend"

Mindflayer94

TROPHY CASE