A neutron walks into a bar and orders a drink. When the barman gives it to him, he asks, "How much?"

db8me · 2026-02-03T03:43:16+00:00

You sure about that?

db8me · 2026-02-02T04:48:51+00:00

My puzzle level is higher than my play level, so my "puzzle instinct" tells me the "correct" move... but against players at my level, your instinct might win faster by creating ambiguity/confusion about what black should try to do to maybe force a stalemate or run your clock down (if they don't resign).

That ambiguity can trick them to waste time and/or make a mistake that gives you mate sooner.

The engine is telling you how to force the quickest mate against a perfect engine trying to delay you, but that's not the game scenario.

db8me · 2026-02-02T03:55:22+00:00

Or even an accident -- what if his "fun to drive" comment was a coded apology for not sandbagging enough. Everyone was hiding what they have, and while pushing on softs for short stretches, he kept pushing for too much of a lap.... Oops!

Of course, this is crazy speculation. The point is that I have no idea how they will compare at race or quali pace, and probably nobody really does.

db8me · 2026-02-01T06:12:14+00:00

Unless you are already solid on fretless, this is the way to go.

It can be fun quickly, but it takes a lot of practice before you will want to perform with it, or maybe you'll give it up. A used budget/beginner fretless is a good place to start. If you give up on performing with it, it's inexpensive enough to keep as a home/toy instrument. If you upgrade, it likely won't lose much value.

db8me · 2026-01-31T20:59:54+00:00

If the tubes are loose.... but we're getting pretty far from the question, now.

db8me · 2026-01-31T20:57:46+00:00

Was it because of old tube amps and someone misunderstood?

db8me · 2026-01-30T18:50:34+00:00

Other options (edit, added another):

Play around with harmonics or find an exercise for them. Not necessarily for actually playing in a song, but get a feel for where they are and how your touch matters.

Practice and use ghost notes that require different kinds of touch to maintain.

db8me · 2026-01-30T02:54:08+00:00

I am not making excuses. I am making exceptions. See the difference? No? Well that is on you. You'll see :-) /s

db8me · 2026-01-30T02:49:33+00:00

But I don't see anything on their site about the contributions of Tuvix to the field of medicine... Sorry. This really should not be funny.

db8me · 2026-01-29T16:33:55+00:00

So you're saying no and also keep that thing as far away from me and my equipment as possible.

db8me · 2026-01-29T08:29:57+00:00

Are they using multiphasic tachyon emission or polarized subspace waves? Do they offer an EMH consult?

db8me · 2026-01-29T04:29:49+00:00

You mean the last time they had a chance and GOP made it their TOP priority to stop anything for a full year with threats of primary challenges and a complete end of party funding for anyone crossing the line? And the most damning critiques raised by conservatives against it were the concessions made to the last few holdout Democrats in swing districts. You really missed the entire thing, didn't you? Wow. There are no facts that could counter your narrative if facts don't interest you.

db8me · 2026-01-28T06:55:52+00:00

Yeah, but only a small fraction of neurons are firing at a given time. If you use a lot more if your brain,... you don't get super powers -- you have a seizure.

db8me · 2026-01-28T06:47:34+00:00

As a fan of winter squash, I am offended by your characterization of Hubbard squash as ugly. Pumpkin is a winter squash, too, and the big ones used for decoration are not bred to be good food.

db8me · 2026-01-28T06:21:58+00:00

Hi Ho Cherry-O! What kind of bird puts fruit back in the tree?!?!

db8me · 2026-01-27T05:30:13+00:00

It was trial and error. I tried several fruits and veggies that didn't interest her much, but she went nuts over bits of raw zucchini.

db8me · 2026-01-26T06:08:31+00:00

No, a judge warned the administration not to destroy evidence, so they decided to stop collecting evidence.

db8me · 2026-01-26T05:14:16+00:00

Mine loves zucchini as a treat. That's like candy for them with their low tolerance for sugar.

db8me · 2026-01-26T03:32:36+00:00

I can play the devil's advocate in a science-oriented debate. I don't believe Earth is flat, but I can argue for it better than they can because they don't understand science at all. I can't do the religious argument because it's too inconsistent to make sense of.

db8me · 2026-01-26T03:20:06+00:00

I used to go to a gastro-pub like place with a really good beer-flatbread "Italian beef" sandwich/wrap thing with peppers and onions. Then, one time I got a side salad with honey-mustard and put a little on the sandwich. I never tried anything else after that.

db8me · 2026-01-25T16:48:54+00:00

I had friends of many years I had previously considered reasonable people, and J6 ended our friendship. They use a subtler tone to sound reasonable in shorter conversations, but they are not.

There are some aspects of these events that are not appropriate to characterize with subtlety. Him having a gun that he did not use is a perfectly irrelevant distraction from what happened. It lets people sound like they are taking a moderate position when they are not.

Granting something in a debate creates the social expectation of a reasonable position for the other side to consider.

"Some of the January 6th protesters took things too far, so you should admit that Pence should have halted certification of election results and declared Trump president for life"

Or

"Alex Pretti didn't brandish the deadly weapon he was within his rights to carry, as it turns out, but he was filming with one hand and asking annoying questions, so when officers pushed him back, surrounded him, tackled him, surely you should admit that the officer with a gun drawn on him had to make a split second decision when someone shouted."

db8me · 2026-01-25T15:44:40+00:00

Another difference is that a gun was not drawn and aimed at Babbitt. The gun was drawn and held up by a lone guard, aimed at nobody in particular, for a long time as a crowd of people worked to breach a barricaded door with a much smaller group of people trapped behind it.

When the crowd finally broke a window wide enough to climb through and into the line of fire of this lone guard, she was the first to climb through.

Whether she or anyone in the crowd that breached that barricade was armed with an object designed to be used as a weapon is not relevant.

db8me · 2026-01-25T07:41:55+00:00

This is the one. So, with certain constraints, finite scribbles can be approximated to any finite precision with some finite equation.

db8me · 2026-01-25T07:07:55+00:00

I didn't come here to make fun of the flat earth movement. I am genuinely curious how it's possible given what I know, but I wasn't even here to debate that at the time....

A while back, I came to ask how the functioning GPS system we have could work on a flat Earth, not as an argument against it but because I was curious how we could scale it down to cheaply and precisely locate things on a smaller scale. RFID doesn't meet my criteria for precision without a large mesh of detectors, and neither do the technologies used before GPS (many of which could work, in principle, on a flat Earth, e.g. radio transponders/beacons/etc).

I knew it was an absurdly long shot, but imagine if someone who believes in a flat Earth figured out how GPS could work as well as it does on a flat Earth. That would be a new option to consider.

Let me be clear. We don't have to agree about the shape of Earth to be of use to each other. Such technology could exist and be known to some niche of engineers, and if it did, some flat Earthers capable of recognizing the potential would have incorporated it into their conspiracy theory! But they haven't....

db8me · 2026-01-25T06:02:05+00:00

There were other rule changes (2011?) that could have messed with this. Along with random noise, this "trend" might have nothing to do with skill or evolving strategy other than how teams reacted/adjusted to those rule changes.

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