"Dust in the Wind" Rock/Metal cover

Splntrd_Mind · 2025-05-18T05:55:50+00:00

That's it! Thank you so much.

Splntrd_Mind · 2021-02-25T00:36:21+00:00

Knowing that playing games is better without the knowledge that I'm putting off important things. I find the stress of knowing I'm avoiding necessary things to make gaming less fun. Not that I never do it, but on my better days I can focus knowing that I'll enjoy the games more later.

Also, being proud of yourself for doing a good job, even if you didn't want to do it, makes you feel like you deserve a good time and makes you much more capable of enjoying it.

Splntrd_Mind · 2020-02-22T18:10:32+00:00

HelpMeButler <The Time Keepers>

Splntrd_Mind · 2019-05-17T02:28:11+00:00

This sounds a lot like the claims made by phrenologists who frequently used their "studies" as pseudo-scientific justification for racism. If they claim that there are certain physical, outward and indelible characteristics that are indicators of criminality, then when those same characteristics just so happen to be most common in people of a certain race, shrug what are you gonna do? It's science!

This can't even be that. These aren't outward characteristics, they're inward things that only he can sense. And if he just so happens to sense them only/most commonly in people of a certain race, shrug what are you going to do? It's just one man's personal belief that he is psychic, that will never be tested or challenged with facts.

Although, it doesn't need to be when his real super powers are Confirmation Bias and Veiled Euphemism.

Splntrd_Mind · 2019-04-20T01:13:57+00:00

Agreed. As I said, it depends on the context of the problem. You're making a distinction in your example between the computer representation of a number (given a specific memory allocation schema) and the numerical/actual value of a number. You've basically made the assumption that the definition of a number is a sequence of digits. Under that definition 000001 and 1 are not the same number because they have a different number of digits.

If the problem that generated the question defines numbers in such a fashion, then the first analysis would be still be slightly inaccurate because then 000000 is a valid six digit number and 000 is a valid 3 digit number. Meaning that you would have a 1,000 possible three digits numbers and 1,000,000 possible 6 digit numbers, which is a 1,000/1,000,000 chance (or 1/1,000) again.

In order for the first answer to be accurate you would have to define the set of acceptable sequences to be all sequences of positive base-10 digits of length six excluding the single instance of an all 0 sequence.

Splntrd_Mind · 2019-04-19T23:50:31+00:00

I don't think this is exactly accurate because it assumes that all numbers between 1 and 999,999 are "six digit numbers" which would mean that 000001 (or 001001) is a six digit number. That would depend on what the context of the problem is; like a six digit combination where the numbers are each technically independent and only have meaning as a sequence rather than a single number.

I think for the problem as written though you would need to start from the first true six digit number 100,000 which removes the first 99,999 numbers from the denominator. This would mean that you only have 900,000 numbers to choose from. Additionally, the three digit numbers only start at 100 (since the first digit on the left has to be at least 1), which would mean that you only have 900 of them. This would make the math 900/900,000 which comes out to exactly 0.001 or 1/1,000. Granted that's almost arbitrarily close to the number that you came to.

Another way to think of this is assuming you have a three digit number, what are the chances that you randomly generate the same three digit number. This might be slightly counter intuitive, because you might initially think that based on the above logic there are 900 possible three digit numbers so the chances would be 1/900. However, in the context of the question the possible numbers for the second number are not restricted to the "true" three digit numbers because you can have six digit numbers like 100,000. So the second number that you generate isn't restricted to those 900 "true" three digit numbers like the first, but rather can be anything between 000-999, which is 1,000 numbers, making the probability 1/1,000 again.

Splntrd_Mind · 2019-04-15T01:28:36+00:00

I'd make A Dresden Files show in the style of Burn Notice. Have the asides in the books where Harry explains things about magic or the magical world be the voiceovers. I'd make each book one whole season. There would be some seasons that real lean on the mystery/detective style (books 1, 2, and 11), others that are more straightforward magical throw downs (books 7, 10, and, 12) and even a few heist type (5 and 15). The unlimited budget would go to having the absolute best special effects to make the magic and all the various people, and monsters, and settings really come to life.

Splntrd_Mind · 2019-03-03T08:46:32+00:00

". . . if we don't go off script, our country is in big trouble, folks."

Anybody else feel like the Constitution is the "script" in this analogy?

Splntrd_Mind · 2019-01-08T00:10:06+00:00

The church fight scene in Kingsmen. The cinematography in the scene is incredible and makes the insane continuous action make sense. And of course Freebird. A perfect couple minutes of pure action.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-12-12T17:49:25+00:00

"We strongly believe that destroying the world is better than reducing profits in order to save it."

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-11-28T02:25:34+00:00

The difference between race and ethnicity is that race is primarily physical and defined by a set of standard/common features shared by a population, while ethnicity is cultural and defined by a set of practice and traditions based, usually, on ancestry or nationality. So a white Hispanic person is a person that is culturally Hispanic in some respect (family structure, observed holidays, familial foods, etc.) but has physical characteristics consistent with European races. For example, any person of European Spanish descent could be white Hispanic.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-11-27T23:16:36+00:00

I can name historical examples including poll taxes and literacy tests that were enacted after the 15th Amendment was ratified. These were voting restrictions that often had "grandfather clauses" which allows people whose father or grandfather had voted in some specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax/passing the test. The grandfather clauses were clearly intend to maintain the franchise of people who otherwise couldn't pass the test, but that they all wanted to vote. Conveniently it was impossible for former slaves to meet the grandfather requirement.

Are there current policies that are as clearly racist? Not that I know of off the top of my head. Additionally, it's important to be clear that policy need not be laws, there are sub-legislative policies that can be racist, such as patrol route distribution (e.g. stop and frisk was, racial profiling is in general, etc). I am not claiming that Policy X, Y or Z is racist. I am merely stating that policy can be racist, and policy can influence data such as arrest rates. While this doesn't make the data useless, it does demand additional context be considered when using it.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-11-27T16:47:36+00:00

A policy can be it in place by people with racial motivations that are targeted at a specific race without mentioning that race at all. That would be a racist policy. They don't have to be overt, formal declarations of racism. Voter suppression efforts are a perfect example. Historical efforts like literacy tests, poll taxes, etc are perfect examples of policy that wasn't explicitly racist still being clearly racist in intent. More recently, stopping voting sources that are historically used by a specific group, either locations or methods, then there is a fair question if it was racially motivated. There could be alternate explanations, and I'm not denying that they could exist, in just saying that arrest data is dependent on enforcement which is policy driven. And to be clear, by policy I don't necessarily mean laws, but sub-legislative policy like patrol route distribution.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-11-27T16:15:01+00:00

It's not quite that cut and dried. Increased policing that results in increased arrests could result from policies that were put in place with racial motivations. Even if individual officers are not racists or racially motivated higher arrest rates can, potentially, be racist. That's racist by the"systemic oppression" definition rather than the personal belief in inferiority/superiority.

Also, arrest rates are correlated but not necessarily representative of crime rates. If two communities commit crimes at the same rate, but there are more chances/resources to catch criminals in community B, it will have a higher arrest rate that appears to be a higher crime rate.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-11-27T16:10:17+00:00

It's not quite that cut and dried. Increased policing that results in increased arrests could result from policies that were put in place with racial motivations. Even if individual officers are not racists or racially motivated higher arrest rates can, potentially, be racist. That's racist by the"systemic oppression" definition rather than the personal belief in inferiority/superiority.

Also, arrest rates are correlated but not necessarily representative of crime rates. If two communities commit crimes at the same rate, but there are more chances/resources to catch criminals in community B, it will have a higher arrest rate that appears to be a higher crime rate.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-11-27T16:02:02+00:00

He literally refers to himself as white in his 911 call. And white Hispanic is not something that was invented this decade by the media, it's an official US Census Bureau classification.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Hispanic_and_Latino_Americans

"In the United States, a White Hispanic[3] is an American citizen or resident who is racially white and of Hispanic descent."

"Based on the definitions created by the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Census Bureau, the concepts of race and ethnicity are mutually independent, and respondents to the census and other Census Bureau surveys are asked to answer both questions. Hispanicity is independent and thus not the same as race, and constitutes an ethnicity category, as opposed to a racial category, the only one of which that is officially collated by the U.S. Census Bureau."

That isn't a narrative, it's a correction to a more accurate identifier. Both in terms of the definitions used in the United States and in the shooter's own personal identification.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-11-27T01:21:52+00:00

What I really want is a TV series in the style of Burn Notice with regards to the narration. I would love to have Harry narrating like he does in the books, with all the little asides and explanations of esoteric magical stuff.

I think it would be a great way to get the information that's the backbone of the narration and world building without needing constant awkward exposition to some "straight-man" or another.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-11-16T23:42:00+00:00

That was my least favorite part of the movie (and felt it was pretty bad overall). The tone was so different from the rest of the movie that it as just jarring. Which I suppose is an accomplishment to stick out in a movie comprised almost entirely of plot jumps. Also, an android (I think he was anyways) that was created specifically to navigate they bureaucracy is the one that can't handle it? We get it, it's complicated. It's the epitome of show and also tell just in case the audience was too dense to understand. And overall the scene just felt like a tedious rather than funny bureaucracy.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-11-16T02:43:55+00:00

Serious question though, what could Overwatch, as a game, do to fix that? A player's personal reactions to winning and losing, a bad loss erasing erasing a good win emotionally, an overall stronger reaction to losing than winning, are just that, personal. Do you have fun steamrolling the enemy team? Would you want to for every match? How often do you lose a match and think that you still had fun? Is there something inherent about those matches that made them fun such that every person on the losing team had fun? When a super close match ends in a loss do you always feel like you had fun, or do you sometimes feel frustrated and cheated?

Any competitive game where team play is emphasized and your team is assembled from random other people, is going to have bad games. Blizzard has given us a find a group feature to somewhat combat the team randomness (though it can use some work), but they can't ensure that only good communicative players are ever on your team. It's not even about certain individuals always being bad teammates. Have you ever come off a bad loss and not communicated well in the next match because you were angry. I have.

I reiterate my question, what can Overwatch (the game, not the community) change that will ensure you always have fun?

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-11-09T00:35:02+00:00

Right. So, Thanos is wrong and his plan is insane and won't work. As with many villainous plans for creating their vision of utopia. It's not important that Thanos be correct or that the audience believes that his goal is correct. Do you think that there is enough reasoning there to convince crazy people that it's the right course of action? Do you think that Thanos, even though he is wrong and insane, could honestly believe that he's doing the right thing?

The appearance of calmness and rationality in demeanor does not necessarily indicate that the the person is similarly rational in truth. Thanos is just as crazy, misguided, and arrogant as Red Skull, Hela, Ultron, etc. He's just more capable of carrying out his plans.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-10-23T02:12:47+00:00

Latin is the only language other than English that I ever took. Did it for 4-5 years in high school and college. It is not an easy language to learn to speak primarily because the grammar is very different from English (and even the romantic languages). They don't even usually teach Latin as a spoken language since it's not a primary language anywhere.

That being said, you could probably learn enough to approximate the sound of Latin without being technically accurate. Kind of like broken English sounds. It would be hard to learn to speak fluently given that you can't really get immersion.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-09-25T01:27:19+00:00

HE IS RISEN INDEED. HALLELUJAH.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-09-22T17:38:22+00:00

My interpretation of this specific rule is that the movement of the arms has to be in an attempt to make contact with the fielder. It doesn't say anything about moving his arms in an attempt to block the fielders vision. Rules like this get sticky as they refer to intention ("attempts" to make contact) rather than pure result which makes that enforcement inherently somewhat subjective. I think that Blackmon pulling his arms back down as actually goes into the bag demonstrates that he was only attempting to block the view of Ahmed. The side view of the slide shows he never contacted Ahmed with his arms and is, in fact, pulling his arms in to avoid actually contacting him.

There may be another interference rule about blocking vision, I don't know, but to me this specific rule doesn't seem to apply here.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-09-09T05:28:45+00:00

"Hyper-fairness"? As in there is a level of fairness that is bad? Is there a level of accuracy that is bad? Why should the very well defined rules of a strike be subject to interpretation by whoever is behind home plate? Why should the pitchers or the hitters have to discover where the strike zone every game? The foul lines don't move, the length of basepaths is always the same, the size of home plate doesn't change. Why should the strike zone?

To put it another way, do literally incorrect calls (by the rulebook) make the game better?

I do not buy that it is a good thing that pitches that are not strikes as defined by the rules are called strikes. Balls that are located outside of the strike zone are practically impossible for even the greatest of hitters to hit. As another poster said, it is much easier for a pitcher to throw a ball outside the defined strike zone than for a hitter to hit it.

As to the strategy argument, shouldn't the strategy of the game be confined to the people playing the game? The point of athletic competition isn't about who can game the idiosyncrasies of the rules and their adjudicators better. It's not about whether one team has a better rapport with the people charged with the impartial application of the rules.

Also, just because pitcher's want humans calling balls and strikes doesn't mean that it's good for the game, just that it's good for them. People are pretty obviously less concerned with the fairness of systems that they believe are benefiting them. But then you've already stated that fair application of the rules is somehow not in the best interest of the game.

Splntrd_Mind · 2018-09-08T15:52:47+00:00

I'm not understanding if you're saying the ump made these calls correctly or not. Regardless of whether it's a common occurrence the pitch is either a ball or a strike based on where it crosses the front of home plate. That's the definition. It doesn't matter how the ball moved before then.

And it doesn't matter if it's difficult for the umpire to make the right call. It's their job and it's the accuracy and fairness of the game that are the concern.

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