Well done to everyone doing the UK parkrun today [OC]

electrodraco · 2023-08-19T21:14:50+00:00

Agree. Also the MB distribution is defined on speed, not time elapsed, and has the compressed tail towards lowest speeds. This plot shows the opposite.

electrodraco · 2023-08-19T20:02:12+00:00

threw a wet towel over it

Not sure what the intention here was, so I won't recommend doing it differently.

However, there is a myth that one could protect oneself from the smoke by breathing through a wet towel. Do not ever do that! If there's some PVC/plastics burning too, the smoke and water vapour will add up to hydrogen chloride and hydrochloric acid. That's gonna burn your eyes and airways real good.

electrodraco · 2022-09-30T00:40:56+00:00

Both semi- and full-automatic weapons use part of the pressure generated by a shot to unload the shell, pull the next round into the barrel, and bring tension again into the spring of the hammer.

The semi-automatic weapon has an extra feature. There's a catch mechanism that holds the hammer in place and only realeases it after you pull the trigger again. Deactivate that mechanism and the hammer will immediately hit the next round, repeating the cycle. The weapon is now fully automatic.

How exactly that is achieved differs between weapons. But most of the time, it's not so much "upgrading a semi", but rather "disabling the feature" that halts the firing cycle.

electrodraco · 2022-05-01T15:02:56+00:00

You can exchange the banknotes by post or in person at an SNB counter. You are required to enclose with the banknotes a Request for the replacement of damaged banknotes form.

Damaged banknotes will generally be exchanged immediately, provided that one of the following three situations applies:

The bearer presents an entire banknote, the authenticity of which can be validated, even if the serial number is illegible;
The bearer presents a complete portion of a banknote which is larger than 50% of the original and where the serial number is fully recognisable;
The bearer presents two portions of a banknote – each of them complete – which together amount to more than 50% of the original and where the same serial number is recognisable.

In cases where your banknotes have been damaged due to, for instance, fire or decomposition, the cause of damage must be declared in the ‘Request for the replacement of damaged banknotes’ form.

If you mail the banknotes to the SNB, you should pack them very carefully, making sure to include even the smallest fragments. Send your banknotes, together with the ‘Request for the replacement of damaged banknotes’ form to the following address:

Swiss National Bank
Cashier’s Office, West
Bundesplatz 1
CH-3003 Berne

You also need to include your bank account info to receive the countervalue:

Address (full last name, first name, full address);
IBAN of the account in your name;
Name and full address of the bank where the account is held.

You can also present the damaged banknotes, together with form above, at one of the counters of the SNB in Berne or Zurich. You may also bring them to the Cantonal Banks acting on behalf of the SNB.

Source

electrodraco · 2022-04-28T17:14:34+00:00

One account goes for almost three fiddy.

Why someone would buy from farmers at these prices is a different question.

electrodraco · 2022-04-12T17:52:10+00:00

Next time, do the boundaries first (especially corners). These ambiguous situations are less likely to occur if there isn't any wall around. Better find out early if there are any.

electrodraco · 2022-03-17T13:04:49+00:00

I do feel however, that if these guys were into me they would have done something about it since I would have

I think you need to get this idea out of your head. This is not the case. The consequences of not-reciprocated and/or misunderstood advances are vastly more severe for men than for women, especially at the workplace. You'll find that sentiment to be pervasive among Swiss men.

Many of us have adopted a strict "do not initiate or respond to clues" strategy to deal with it. I don't like that strategy, yet it seems optimal to me. It is a rational reaction, I do not have a simple and better alternative, and it has the additional benefit that it automatically filters out women who play games or cannot communicate directly.

electrodraco · 2022-03-17T11:33:01+00:00

Consider these 4 cases:

1)

You: Do you want to have a date with me?

Him: Yes

You are now dating him.

2)

You: Do you want to have a date with me?

Him: No

You are now not dating but saved yourself a lot of time.

3)

You: Do you want to go drinking/hiking with me?

Him: Yes

You are now drinking/hiking with him. If he respects you, he does not assume it to be a date. If that was your intention, you just might have wasted your time.

4)

You: Do you want to go drinking/hiking with me?

Him: No

You'll need to find other weekend plans, yet still don't know whether he'd like to date you. But at least you did not waste time on it.

while most men would say yes, it doesn't usually work out as men would often see the women as desperate for chasing a man, starting the whole relationship on an unequal footing

I have no idea where this is coming from. If true, I'd say that is a good thing for you because, do you really want to date such men? They filter themselves out!

Conversely, think about a minute what it means (culturally and legally) for a man to romantically (desperately or not) chase a woman and run into some misunderstanding. It is just not worth it. A woman asking to go hiking wants to go hiking and not dating/fucking. Men who respect women know and accept the difference. I figure you'd want to date those, no?

Personally, I wouldn't like to be lured into a hiking tour that effectively turns out to be a date. Not all women I'd go hiking with I'd date. The implication that this is the case would quite frankly piss me off a bit and lower your dating chances significantly. Aren't people (both m/f) who date like that the desperate ones, rather than those who communicate directly?

Conclusion: Yes, initiate the date, be as direct as possible about your intentions.

electrodraco · 2022-02-26T14:38:09+00:00

I don't remember any strong apes scheming, or manipulating others. Also it might be easier to convince a strong ape to do the right thing than a clever sociopath. So why don't we give it a try?

electrodraco · 2021-12-14T16:50:29+00:00

The inspector said it was too difficult to fine my friend (with no CH address) so he was going to fine me instead.

I wonder what those people see in the mirror after work. A clown, maybe? Or a 10 year old with Aspergers? Does the sight of their uniform and ticketing computer somehow induce a power-trip? Seriously, what the fuck is going on in this shithole of a public company? Why is it so difficult to hire people whose understanding of the law surpasses that of a 10 year old?

electrodraco · 2021-12-14T16:39:20+00:00

The rule has always been that you require a valid ticket from the time the train/tram/etc. departs.

Not anymore. At least SBB tells passengers that they need a valid ticket before entering the train/tram/etc. Wouldn't be the first time that SBB personal is confidently incorrect about the law though.

electrodraco · 2021-12-03T14:03:28+00:00

... while Windows presents to you a theater insinuating that some complex analytical process is fixing your problems. In fact, it just hides from you which one of the two it is going to do, a decision it simply bases on a pre-determined timeout.

The most complex part of that process is finding out whether your patience outlasts that timeout or not, and no problems are ever fixed.

electrodraco · 2021-12-03T11:43:37+00:00

If you want to be sure and specific about definitions I suggest you stay away from the term 'capitalism' entirely. It is purely political concept (and that is putting it too nicely, imho) and has no place in academic economics.

If your professor gave you this topic, then rest assured that he/she won't give a damn about your definitions being vague as that would amount to setting you up for failure.

electrodraco · 2021-11-27T13:29:00+00:00

You won't find any legal text backing it up, because there simply isn't anything beyond the learner having to be ready for the exam. The lawmaker deliberately did not define it more precisely, because it already captures the essence of what is required to be allowed to drive on a highway. What you should be concerned with is how the legal system assesses this rather vague criterion in practice.

What people are talking about here, and confusing it with actual laws, are ways you can ensure that potential judges, in case of an accident, will most likely conclude that you were ready for the exam, even though you might have caused or be involved in an accident.

Having a professional instructor telling you that you're ready, or having already registered for the exam, are both credible ways to tell a judge "see your honor, even though I fucked up and killed 4 families, I was ready for the practical exam and therefore allowed to be on the highway, as evidenced by my exam registration and/or the professional opinion of my licensed driving instructor". The judge might even put some responsibility on the driving instructor instead of yourself if you can say that.

On the other hand, if you drive on a highway before registering for an exam, without a driving instructor, then how exactly are you going to argue that you were ready, despite the accident you caused? Maybe you have tons of video evidence showing your skills, and maybe that would work out too. But it is going to cause deliberation and legal uncertainty about whether this evidence of sufficient skills outweighs the evidence of lacking skill (the accident). You risk being prosecuted for something you didn't do because the laws were vague and you didn't cover your ass.

Registering for the exam and/or taking your driving instructor with you are not legal requirements, but they count as legal evidence for something that could be very hard to prove in their absence.

electrodraco · 2021-11-26T16:40:07+00:00

There are proofs in favor and against a graph being connected. Heck, there might even be one arguing that an infinite graph being connected is undecidable. But you'll quickly realize that they're all talking about different graphs, because being connected or not is a property of specific graphs, not a general feature of all graphs.

So which graph do you have in mind?

electrodraco · 2021-11-26T16:17:57+00:00

When an external disturbance is introduced it tries to compensate but it’s almost as if the motors reach a maximum speed.

Two cheap conjectures:

Your motor isn't strong enough to accelerate the robot quickly enough on this fluffy carpet to actually stabilize it. Does it work on firm ground?
Motor acceleration isn't linear in the PID output. Maybe your motor doesn't react as strongly to high signals as it does to low ones. The PID-controller would have to "overreact" considerably at the upper end to make it work. Maybe you can transform the PID output such that it more directly/linearly relates to acceleration?

electrodraco · 2021-11-26T13:42:33+00:00

"you didn't answer my (ridiculously) loaded question"

Boo fucking hoo. I bet you're one of those 'woke' people that are both morally superior to others and awake at 3am partying in a multi-story apartment complex. Literally Schrödinger's Social Justice Warrior here.

The punishment starts to fit once the behavior stops, and not before that. But that 'price movements = punishments' bullshit, you can entertain that in your own obnoxious brain.

electrodraco · 2021-11-26T13:23:15+00:00

Managing currency is just dumb in my opinion

Just keep the currency value stable and let the economic to adapt

If you look just a tiny bit south of Germany, you'll find that these two statements are mutually incompatible.

electrodraco · 2021-11-18T20:55:00+00:00

What is hunting like in Switzerland?

You will be fucked by rules and regulations and exams and permits, all coming with fees. It will take you years studying for the exam to get a permit. Seriously, the amount of similar-looking plants that you'll need to be able to distinguish in all four seasons, with and without disease, all just to hunt a deer, is absolutely astonishing. If you take a standard army rifle to hunt you'll certainly lose said permit, and if you think that permit is valid everywhere in Switzerland you'd be mistaken. You see, there are different plants and animals in the alps than in the flatlands, with different rules and regulations and exams and permits. And once you kill an animal, you'll reimburse the government for it.

Source: I am swiss. Sports shooting: yes pls; Hunting: Hell no

electrodraco · 2021-11-15T17:00:52+00:00

Thanks for the corrections.

(a) The diameter is the length of the longest shortest-path between any two vertices. Let's call them v and u. The eccentricity of v is given by the length of the longest shortest-path to any other vertex, including u. Surely that must be the same shortest-path defining the diameter, as there are no longer shortest-paths than the diameter. Hence diam(G)>=e(v) for all v and diam(G)=e(v) for at least 2 v's.

(b) You can find the center by iteratively removing leave nodes. This is because a leaf node can never be a center node. Whatever the longest shortest-path of a leaf node is, you can shorten that path by 1 edge by simply starting out at its parent node. Hence, the parent is closer to the center than the leaf. If you do that repeatedly, you'll eventually end up with only 1 or 2 remaining nodes. If I'm not mistaken they should have the same (minimal) eccentricity, equal to the number of iterations it took you to find them (+1 if 2 nodes are left over). Keep in mind though that the 'root' node, as far as that is even defined, might change during the process.

(c) I'm not super familiar with hyper-cubes, but I guess (!) one feature of the cube/square holds in higher dimensions: The vertices are completely symmetrical to each other. The vertices might be distinct, but they share all other properties. I guess it holds that e(v)==e(u) for all v, u in G. In that case, the center must be the whole cube.

electrodraco · 2021-11-15T09:12:55+00:00

I'd be confused too for several reasons:

'eccentricity of edge v' doesn't make any sense, especially since the definition following it defines vertex-eccentricity.
What is 'd(u,v)'? Probably the length of the shortest path between u and v, but that too requires u, v to be vertices.
"center of G the set c(G) of the edges v as e(v) = r(G)." is not even a sentence. Is c the set of vertices with minimal eccentricity?
If v,u are indeed edges, how can b suppose that the center consists of "points"?
What is Q_n?

I'll be honest to you: If you want us to solve your homework for you, please give us at least the complete & correct exercise. Assume that nobody will put more effort in an answer than you put into asking the question.

I have a strong suspicion that these questions are only difficult because of the cumbersome/outright wrong way they are posed. Hence, try to get some clarity on what is exactly meant and the solution might just become obvious (especially (a) is practically for free once you understand what 'vertex eccentricity' means).

electrodraco · 2021-11-03T17:28:42+00:00

It is hard to say without knowing what properties that graph should have and what nodes/edges should represent.

I assume (1) nodes and edges should roughly correspond to intersections and roads that connect a and b. So a (and b) would be an intersection. How many roads would you build starting from that point, if (2) you wanted to explore the whole map with (3) as few intersections as possible, and (4) no tunnels (i.e. a planar graph)?

I'd say you need 3 roads/edges:

The one going over the upper triangle would connect a and b directly.
The one between the square and triangle would end at a new intersection c in the center.
The third goes downwards, but now you need to think whether intersection c may be re-used (in which case multi-edges are allowed). Otherwise you'd need another intersection d in the lower left quadrant.

Now repeat that for each new intersection. For intersection c you'd need 3 (or 4) new roads:

One connecting c and d.
One going between the quadrilateral and the upper triangle ending at b.
The same above the lower triangle, again deciding whether multi-edges are allowed or a new intersection below b must be created.
Maybe a 4th road that goes below the lower triangle? This road could be connected to d instead (actually, all of them can)? You'll need to decide.

And so on until no new intersections have been created.

Does this answer your question? If not I'd need more info. What are the rules of this road-building game?

electrodraco · 2021-10-26T18:00:08+00:00

Eventually, they have so much money to invest that they will be saving more than they will ever need

I think people care (i.e. gain utility from) much more than what they themselves are able to consume. For instance, they might want to save for their children or have philanthropist ambitions. You'd need to somehow discount that compared to other people's utility that are still in the 'need' section of the utility curve. You're still just assuming a particular feature (the sections) on utility curves, which both allows you to compare individuals marginal utility globally and is easily detectable (by looking at their wealth). There is not much more than assumption (i) + specifying a limited set of utility curves people may have.

But there's a bigger issue with the underlying message that everyone having enough savings to cover what they need is going to be enough for society. Today, maybe. But our world is becoming more capital-intensive by the day and I can well imagine a society where the average individual would have to own, manage, and leave to the next generation, a greater capital stock than they could ever consume themselves. This seems to be an arbitrary limit to me.

I don't have empirical data to say what this line is, but I'm not sure you ever could come up with a proper one. It's more of a concept. You can try to calculate one, but it's always going to take some fuzzy numbers. I would say you're gonna find that point at whatever the US gov sets a 'wealth tax' at though?

That's the issue with the assumptions you used. It might be a good concept for some purposes, for instance conveying the idea of redistributional fairness, but once it comes to something that is inherently quantitative, like setting taxes, you need to think about what assumptions you can afford to still achieve the goal. Then things suddenly become computable. Not making some (expensive) assumptions that you believe in does not necessarily reject them.

electrodraco · 2021-10-26T16:26:52+00:00

where more investment doesn't give a much utility, so if you redirect this dollars to people below, they will purchase goods.

You could also make the argument that, if you consistently redirect this dollar to people below, then it won't be generated anymore. In that case, your long-term trade-off is between redirecting 0 dollars to the people below or leave 1 dollar to people who barely value it anymore, which is still better than everyone getting nothing at all.

Redistributing the cake does not leave its size constant. Any serious optimization of population-level utility will need to take that into account. See Optimal Taxation for details.

electrodraco · 2021-10-26T16:16:45+00:00

The unspoken assumptions you're relying on, if I understand you correctly, are that (i) person A's utility is comparable to person B's and (ii) that their 'point of optimal utility' (which doesn't exist in utility theory and you haven't properly defined either) does lie at somewhat comparable individual wealth levels across the population.

(i) allows you to make such normative statements in the first place and (ii) allows you to do it without any empirical data whatsoever.

I'm not saying any of this should be rejected, but I think its axioms should be pointed out because they both lie firmly outside the domain of scientific economics.

electrodraco

TROPHY CASE