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   Author  Topic: En Passant  (Read 24939 times)
Fritz
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #75 on: 2011-07-18 15:08:46 »
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Hey BL .... great cartoon !

It did garner these responses from a buddy when I passed it on.

Cheers

Fritz


Source: Email Thread

[Fritz]Interesting treatment.

[email response]The statements are, in fact, correct. Mathematics is a form of a-priori knowledge which is a function of the belief that the future will be a simple repetition of the past. We assume that because 2+2 has worked out to 4 an incalculable number of times in the past, that it will continue to do so in the future.

[Fritz]Interesting comment. I just listened to a talk by a physicist speculating that photosynthesis is quantum based reaction involving entanglement. It surprised me to note that the mechanics behind photosynthesis is not understood yet. So 2+2 may be 5 .
Also it was discussed that time actually is not a valid entity, rather a perception like color and if taken out of general relativity make the union of quantum mechanics and general relativity viable.

Mind you none of this solves the mind blowing daunting nightmare of sorting out OHIP billing issues for my doctor friend.
:-)

[email response]I've always ascribed to the "time is velocity of the universe" theory and as such is the Nth dimension, not the 4th as some popular theorists might hint.
This leaves entropy as the acceleration and moves the entire issue conveniently out of the way.

It does cast some confusion on some of the technical details that are exploited in Sci-fi features, like Star Trek, ....
« Last Edit: 2011-07-18 15:10:19 by Fritz » Report to moderator   Logged

Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #76 on: 2011-07-19 06:58:39 »
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Quote from: Fritz on 2011-07-18 15:08:46   
[email response]The statements are, in fact, correct. Mathematics is a form of a-priori knowledge which is a function of the belief that the future will be a simple repetition of the past. We assume that because 2+2 has worked out to 4 an incalculable number of times in the past, that it will continue to do so in the future.


[Blunderov] Interesting observation: seems to be a rather Aristotilean view though: numbers as essences? My own take on the humour of The Calvin Hypothesis is that 4 is the sum of 2 and 2 because we dogmatically (according to Calvin) assert that it is and for no other reason. (The sum of 2 and 2 might well be, say, "grunk" but this possibility is not admitted in our arbitrary definition of "sum".)

Not long ago during a break between games at a chess tournament I overheard a young man (of 11 or 12 years) pontificating to two female companions that evolution is "just a theory". Red rag to a bull! I went over to him and corrected him a la PZ Myers* to the effect that evolution is not a "theory" at all and that it is a clear scientific fact. Somewhat disconcerted, he then predictably algorithmed back that it "took just as much faith to believe in evolution as it does to believe in the Bible" which is precisely why PZ Myers has elected to go with the bald statement that evolution is "scientific fact" in simpleminded interactions such as this. To use the word "theory" is to invite that equivocation so beloved of creationists everywhere: that blind faith is just as valid as the "faith" (or trust or confidence or reliance) which is placed in a body of scientific research to which there are no known falsifications. Horseshit! Don't let them go there!

Anyway, this cartoon is sort of in that young lad's memory. Tell 'em 2+2=4 and that this is a fact, not a theory! I like to think of it as "The Myers Gambit".  (I'm saving "weyken" for the senior classes

* http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

« Last Edit: 2011-07-19 07:04:33 by Blunderov » Report to moderator   Logged
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #77 on: 2011-07-25 03:13:40 »
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http://listverse.com/2011/07/24/15-great-quotes-from-voltaire/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheListUniverse+%28The+List+Universe%29

15 Great Quotes From Voltaire

by Nic Swaner

François-Marie Arouet, the man behind the pen name Voltaire, was a famous Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher. He advocated for civil liberties and freedom of religion, and his wit, of course, is as sharp as it is insightful. Voltaire, I feel, is somewhat glossed over in the Western world, which is quite unfortunate, as his writing, and that of several others, indirectly inspired the American and French Revolutions. Yet some of these quotes I hear all the time, in a much more haphazard and incidental intention than that of Voltaire.

This list shows what Voltaire was able to capture in just a few words. Feel free to suggest your own quotes, as there were a great deal of omissions. I would also like to strongly recommend that you read his incredibly funny (and satirical) book Candide – it is actually a very easy read, and one of the best books of the time.


15. “I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”

14. “To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”

13. “Governments need to have both shepherds and butchers.”

12. “Love truth, but pardon error.”

11. “It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”

10. “It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.”

9. “It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.”

8. “There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.”

7. “A witty saying proves nothing.”

6. “Such then is the human condition, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.”

5. “The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”

4. “The composition of a tragedy requires testicles.”

3. “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

2. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Actually – He didn’t say that! What he really said was: “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too”. Read here for more on this famous misquote).

1. “Illusion is the first of all pleasures.”
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #78 on: 2011-08-01 14:14:19 »
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[Blunderov] and in other news...

UN News


UnNews:Debt Ceiling Crisis turns out to be "big hilarious prank"


President Obama, pictured, as he explained how Congressional Democrats and Republicans conspired with the Executive Branch to "troll the shit out of America."

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-microsecond misinformation.

28 July 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Debt Ceiling Crisis, which millions of Americans feared could lead to an unprecedented default on the country's debt obligations, was revealed today to be a massive practical joke orchestrated by Congress and the White House.

The prolonged political wrangling between the Congressional Republicans and the Obama White House over whether the debt ceiling of the United States should be increased and, if so: the amount of the extension; what future spending policies and/or tax code policies should be associated with the action to increase the debt ceiling; and what structural changes for future budgeting processes, if any, should be associated with that action, had left many fearing that the matter would not be resolved before the August 2nd deadline, after which the U.S. government would run out of cash to pay all its bills. However, at a press conference earlier today, Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner revealed that the entire political crisis had been an elaborate hoax perpetrated on the American people for the amusement of the political establishment.

"We really got you guys good didn't we?" Rep. Boehner asked the assembled crowd of journalists. "Did you really think we're so stupid that we'd risk letting the entire Federal Government default over some petty political shit? We're not crazy you know."

Boehner went on to explain that both houses of Congress and the entire senior White House staff, including the President, had been "in on it all along" and were "just pretending" to put the economic stability of the entire country, and indeed the world, on the line, and that a Bill to raise the debt ceiling would be passed without delay.

"It was pretty hard to keep a straight face with everyone freaking out like that," President Obama told a press conference later. "Totally worth it though. You should see your faces."

Reaction to the prank has been mixed, with some commentators saying that it was "pretty damn funny", while others declared it "a total dick move." Fox News commentator Glenn Beck claimed that the hoax was "funny enough", but that it would have been much better if John McCain were President. "He has this way of delivering things that just cracks me up," Beck said.

The response of the markets was similarly mixed, with the dollar making significant gains against the Japanese Yen, where the joke is reported to have gone down particularly well. The dollar lost value against the British Pound, however, as the joke was poorly received by British investors, with British Prime Minister David Cameron advising the US to "stop fucking about".

This is not the first such joke played on the American people by political elites. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which many at the time feared could spill over into a full scale thermonuclear war between the United States and the USSR, turned out to be a prank thought up by John F. Kennedy and Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev during a drunken phone call. In an attempt to emulate Kennedy's famous prank, Ronald Reagan decided in 1983 to convince the American public that the small and largely defenceless Caribbean island nation of Grenada was a major threat to national security. However the prank backfired, and a full-scale invasion was launched, leading to the loss of 19 American soldiers.

"We know we we were never going to live up to Kennedy's standard. He was a master troll," Obama said. "But still, you must admit, we really had you guys going."

Meanwhile, Tea Party icon and former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has complained that no-one let her in on the joke. "I though this was for real," Palin said in a statement. "I really meant all that stuff I said."

This article features first-hand journalism by an UnNews correspondent.

Categories: UnNews | 28 July 2011 | Original reporting | America Sucks

« Last Edit: 2011-08-01 14:17:14 by Blunderov » Report to moderator   Logged
Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #79 on: 2011-08-17 15:17:39 »
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[Blunderov] it's not rocket science. It's not even economics 101 - it's absolute beginner's economics. The worker works in factory. She goes home with her wages and she buys the factory's products. The factory calls the worker back to make more products. Etc. But if her wages are too small or the products are too expensive....

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ROU20110815&articleId=26031

Marx Was Right. Capitalism May Be Destroying Itself

by Nouriel Roubini
 
Global Research, August 15, 2011
WSJ 

Nouriel Roubini: "Karl Marx had it right. At some point, Capitalism can destroy itself."

Nouriel Roubini is a mainstream economist who teaches at New York University and may be best known as one of the early predictors of the ’08 crash.

He is no Marxist.

But today, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Roubini admitted that Marx was right about Capitalism and raised the possibility that Capitalism is destroying itself in the way Marx outlined more than a century and a half ago.


TRANSCRIPT

( Courtesy of B.J. Murphy)

I’ve produced a rough transcript (Roubini’s accent gives me some trouble) of the critical portion of this very interesting interview.  I urge you to read each word carefully at least once, if not twice. B. J. Murphy


WSJ:  So you painted a bleak picture of sub-par economic growth going forward, with an increased risk of another recession in the near future.  That sounds awful.  What can government and what can businesses do to get the economy going again or is it just sit and wait and gut it out?

Roubini:  Businesses are not doing anything.  They’re not actually helping.  All this risk made them more nervous.  There’s a value in waiting.  They claim they’re doing cutbacks because there’s excess capacity and not adding workers because there’s not enough final demand, but there’s a paradox, a Catch-22.  If you’re not hiring workers, there’s not enough labor income, enough consumer confidence, enough consumption, not enough final demand.  In the last two or three years, we’ve actually had a worsening because we’ve had a massive redistribution of income from labor to capital, from wages to profits, and the inequality of income has increased and the marginal propensity to spend of a household is greater than the marginal propensity of a firm because they have a greater propensity to save, that is firms compared to households.  So the redistribution of income and wealth makes the problem of inadequate aggregate demand even worse.

Karl Marx had it right.  At some point, Capitalism can destroy itself.  You cannot keep on shifting income from labor to Capital without having an excess capacity and a lack of aggregate demand.  That’s what has happened.  We thought that markets worked.  They’re not working.  The individual can be rational.  The firm, to survive and thrive, can push labor costs more and more down, but labor costs are someone else’s income and consumption.  That’s why it’s a self-destructive process.


Global Research Articles by Nouriel Roubini
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #80 on: 2011-09-15 19:24:10 »
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[Blunderov] String Theory cartoon.



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Re:En Passant
« Reply #81 on: 2011-09-29 13:50:33 »
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www.pcworld.com

Cthulhu Saves the World

Version: 1.0
Downloads Count: 0
License Type: Buy Only
Price: $3
Date Added: Sep 27, 2011
Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP
Requirements: Steam
Author: Zeboyd Games

Editorial Review of Cthulhu Saves the World

In the grim and deep psychological adventure Cthulhu Saves the World, you must plumb the depths of true madness to discover the core of heroism that dwells within us all and…oh, never mind. In this funny and surprisingly involving console-style RPG, you guide Great Cthulhu, stripped of his powers, as he reluctantly performs heroic deeds, aided by a bizarre cast of allies including a talking sword and a girl with a strange thing for mollusks. Knowledge of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos is not required to enjoy this game; you may miss a small number of the jokes, but it's much more a tribute to, and good-natured parody of, older console games than it is of Lovecraft's writing.

You'll be seeing the combat screen of Cthulhu Saves The World rather a lot..
Cthulhu Saves the World is done in the style of early-90s console RPGs such as Dragon Quest and the earlier Final Fantasy games, where the game interface shows either super-deformed ("chibi") sprites gallivanting across the world, or hordes of monsters arranged in a line in front of you when you encounter them. Game commands are given by a series of nested menus, all controlled by a mix of shift, enter, and arrow keys, occasionally leading to frustrating trips in and out of sub-menus (mostly when trying to juggle equipment). Combat is fully turn-based, so you have time to ponder your moves while the monsters stand there and bouncy music plays.

You begin alone, but you soon find Umi, a young girl with a starfish in her hair and a strong fetish for squid-headed gods of insanity. As you adventure together, you will battle endless hordes of monsters, complete quests, and acquire new companions, including a talking sword and a necromancer. Discovering the odd plot twists is part of the fun. As you kill monsters and perform quests, you begin to unlock many new abilities.

The storyline of Cthulhu Saves the World is very straightforward; you will never be overwhelmed by choices. Mostly, you fight your way from one area to another. The bulk of gameplay is spent in large maze-like zones--whether caverns, forests, temples, or alien spaceships--and you explore them, constantly running into random encounters. Each zone, fortunately, has an encounter limit...when you've reached that limit, the encounters stop, making exploration much easier.

There's a wide variety of monsters with strengths, weaknesses, and special powers, and a number of interesting bosses. The fights, especially against large random groups or the boss monsters, can be quite challenging, and tactics matter. The faster you defeat the monsters, the more magic points you regain, but using overwhelming force will cost you far more MP than you get back, and running out of MP usually means a trip back to town and an often tiring sequence of battles to get back to where you were (unless you've hit the encounter limit, in which case it's quite quick).

While each maze or zone has its own look, there's not a lot of variety within the area, in keeping with the limited graphics capacity of the old consoles. This can make large mazes, like the Ghost Forest, very tedious to go through--not to mention hard to navigate, as it's hard to remember which identical branching passage you've explored and which you haven't. On the other hand, the variety of monsters you will encounter in each zone is large, and the random mixes of monsters and their interacting powers make fights interesting. (Hint: If you encounter any monsters with the 'shielding' power, destroy them with extreme prejudice.)

How much you'll enjoy Cthulhu Saves the World depends on how much you like 8-bit and 16-bit console-style RPGs. If you've never played them, this is an interesting introduction. The humor, bad puns, and inside jokes are all great, and unlike many funny games, gameplay is not neglected here--but the gameplay is true to its source, and some gamers may find it repetitive or shallow. On the other hand... the entire game costs three dollars, or about as much as a comic book. Unless you know for sure you hate console style RPGs, at that price, Cthulhu Saves the World is well worth getting.

--Ian Harac
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #82 on: 2011-10-12 17:07:18 »
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[Blunderov] Big Bang Maths.

Big Bang Maths

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Re:En Passant
« Reply #83 on: 2011-10-12 17:18:11 »
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The Legend of Berwhale The Avenger and Timothy Forest The Chosen One

(I need a lesson about how to post YouTube links please?)
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #84 on: 2011-10-12 19:29:23 »
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http://www.churchofvirus.org/bbs/index.php?board=9;action=display;threadid=38493
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #85 on: 2011-10-12 21:10:54 »
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Quote from: Blunderov on 2011-10-12 17:18:11   
The Legend of Berwhale The Avenger and Timothy Forest The Chosen One

(I need a lesson about how to post YouTube links please?)


It doesn't seem to know what to do with the link from your channel which includes your username, I had to link back to the actual youtube link. Maybe Lucifer can shed some light on the darkness ....

copied url from vid window on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=mpzbcuvJOW8

(youtube)mpzbcuvJOW8?(/youtube) substitute square brackets for round





« Last Edit: 2011-10-12 23:19:06 by Fritz » Report to moderator   Logged

Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #86 on: 2011-10-13 02:33:41 »
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[Blunderov] Thanks to all for YouTube lessons. Much appreciated

Copywrong issues appear to be gundging up the works too

Anyway, thanks to Fritz we have "The Legend of Berwhale the Avenger and Timothy Forest the Chosen One" which I hope everybody will enjoy as much as I do.
« Last Edit: 2011-10-13 02:57:01 by Blunderov » Report to moderator   Logged
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #87 on: 2011-10-14 09:49:34 »
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[Blunderov]Behold! Berwhale: Weapon of the Chosen One.


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Re:En Passant
« Reply #88 on: 2012-03-12 14:36:34 »
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[Blunderov] Just a note to say I'm not gone, just extremely busy. I have a new job (back in Jo'burg) as a lecturer in TV tech at a film school and I have never lectured in my life before. Also my knowledge deficits are many. I have never had to take on so many new and complex tasks all at the same time before and so far it's going quite well (I think) but it remains to be seen whether I can really cut the mustard. Whatever the outcome, I will have learned a great deal myself either way. This certainly the hardest I've ever had to work before so please excuse my lack of interaction and keep fighting the good fight. Best regards to all.
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #89 on: 2012-03-16 01:50:03 »
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[Blunderov] This emerged, I think, from somewhere within the seething bowels of 4chan:

Philosoraptor:
"If there are infinite alternate realities aren't all books non fiction?"

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