slavatrumpevitch

Even Aluminium oxide charts in around 30- Roughly 200x that of wood.

Not a clue- I just whacked it. It was still alive when it landed, but barely.

how far can you launch a mammoth with your Daedric warhammer?

interesting code, demagogue, i wrote something similar (in R): @Demagogue: only read this if you want a subtle hint: @PranQster:

Yea, I know what you mean! I love how math can allow for uncountably infinite approaches to the same problem! Somewhat related to that, my brother and I were trying to understand the relationship between e and pi by finding find non-trigonometric derivations for pi. Finally we came up with pi=4(1-1/3+1/5-1/7+1/9-1/11+...) which you could argue is trigonometric b/c it's really just a combination of arctan, and taylor-series. But... you could also just look at it as a sequence of adding alternately negative odd numbers.

Hey everyone, I'm always in the hunt for some clever riddles. I'll offer up some that I've enjoyed, and then open it up to anyone else to chime in. If we could, I'd appreciate if we could limit ourselves to true logic-puzzle/math riddles, no joke riddles or lateral thinking riddles. (someone can create another thread for that, if they so choose) Also, please "spoiler"-out any hints, solutions, or explanations. Alrighty, now that we've got that out of the way, here are a couple of my favorites: in roughly ascending order of difficulty (though that is fairly subjective): 1. Describe the set of all points on the earth such that walking south for a mile, then walking east for a mile, then walking north for a mile will render the walker back at the starting point. (assume a perfectly spherical earth) 2a. A man tells you he has two children, and that he has a daughter named Alice. What is the probability that he has two daughters? (assume boys and girls are each born with 50% probability) b. A different man tells you he has two children, and that he has a daughter named Stacey who was born on a tuesday. What is the probability that he has two daughters? And if it is different, than part (a), why is this? 3. If there are N cars (with random starting points) traveling in the same direction at constant, (strictly positive), and unique speeds on an infinitely long 1-lane road until the proximity of the car in front mandates that a car slows to the match the speed of the car in front, after an infinite amount of time elapses, what is the expected number (as a function of N) of "clumps" of cars? 4. Three perfect logicians are forced to play the following game: each logician is given a hat that is either white or black. They cannot see their own hat, but they can see the hats of the other two players. No information is exchanged. After a brief time, they are escorted into separate interogation rooms where they have the opportunity to say either "white" or "black" or remain silent. If everyone remains silent, they are all executed. Similarly, if any one person says a color other than the color of his hat, they are all executed. However, if at least one of them correctly identifies their hat color, and no one incorrectly names a color, they are all given a million dollars, and sent on their way. What should they do to maximize their chances of survival? Assume nothing about the distribution of white and black hats, but you can assume that the fact that they are all perfect logicians is common knowledge. 5. You are standing in a room with three doors marked A, B and C. Two of them lead to Hell, and one to Heaven. There are 3 identical looking men, wearing hats marked 1, 2 and 3. One of them will answer truthfully to every logically answerable yes/no question. One will lie to every logically answerable yes/no question, and one of them will answer randomly to any question. (All of them will answer randomly to an unanswerable question.) All three people have perfect information about eachother, and perfect information about the doors. Unfortunately, they are somewhat uncomfortable with English, and while they will understand your questions, they will respond only with "Hi" and "Ho" meaning 'yes' and 'no', but you don't know which means which. (They may even mean different things to different people!) You may ask up to 3 questions, each one directed to a single person (though you may ask a single person multiple questions). What should you ask to guarantee you find the door to Heaven? examples of unanswerable questions: What is the value of 2+2? (not a yes/no) What would the person who answers randomly say if I asked them...? (not knowable) Good luck! If anything is unclear, I'll try to be diligent about clarifying any questions that crop up over the next few days. Can't wait to see some of your riddles!

sort of what I figured... so i shouldn't read too much into that youtube post from 4 months ago?

this is interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejY_-TNcFuk&NR=1 look at the comments: "It's possible it may hit stores in 2011 or 2012. After the disconnection with Intel, we got our team back and started working on it." dated four months ago good news?

I had never even heard of this game until today. I was looking up some TES V: Skyrim screenshots, and stumbled upon Project Offset, a totally badass looking epic fantasy FPS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOPbyl7r8gk http://www.gametrailers.com/video/trailer-hd-project-offset/22926 unfortunately, after drooling over a few youtube videos, I come to find out it's been cancelled since July. But then I saw "new" content (screens and trailers) keep getting post-mortem releases, including some as recently as the last week. All this makes me wonder, does anyone have any insider knowledge? Is this a game that will likely come to fruition maybe 5 years or so down the line? Or is it totally done for? It looks like it could be very fun. (hard to tell from just videos, but certainly the concept intrigues me) also, I read in an interview that before it was canned, it was at a level of total playability. think it's possible to get a pre-alpha version of it somehow? I'd love to just mess around in there for fun if it was possible. (yes, I'm aware this is a borderline ridiculous thing to wonder about, what with IP non-sense and whatnot) any info you all might have would be appreciated!

I've got my finals coming up, and I still can't quite get my head wrapped around importance sampling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_sampling anyone familiar with this, that can help me out with this? the problem is to do an importance sampling estimate of I=E(log X + 1) given that X~rayleigh distribution, and using an exponetial distribution as our importance sampling approximator. any thoughts? thanks!

I know it might be contrary to what many feel are the "correct" way to play, but my favorite thing is making ridiculous getaways with a conga-line of guards chasing me. yes, I also enjoy sneaking through undetected, and whatnot, but there is very little that satisfies me more than spending a couple minutes with half a dozen guards close on my tail, until I finally scamper onto a balcony, and rope arrow my way up the wall and leap in an attic window and tuck away out of sight. so much fun!

I find it very interesting how even a group a people who I imagine are largely in agreement about what the thread started out being about can still find ways to disagree so vehemently. having said that, and I hate to be rude, as I have a great deal of respect for the people on both sides of the debate here, but, Jdude, I don't understand why you can't just admit that springheel has rigorously proved you wrong on a factual issue. it is as simple as this: person A says: the bible offers no verses to support violence towards gays. person B: Yes, it does, to paraphrase: "homosexuality is an abomination should be punished with death" Person B is right, and person A is wrong. and there's nothing gray about this. This is simply the factual matter regarding what is and what is not present in holy scripture. Jdude, you may indeed be right in your views in many aspects of this discussion, but this is not one of them. to say that religious hatred of gays is not dangerous is simply fallacious. and beyond that, I find it personally offense that one could even argue this point, and I don't think I'm the only one. Having said that: I just want to make sure I understand your point from earlier. would it be fair to paraphrase you as "I will not take a stance on whether or not bigotry is morally acceptable, however, bigotted views are without question in someone's legal rights to have and express freely. (so long as it does not resort to violence)"? if this is your point, I agree. but.... there's a difference between what an individual has the right to think, and what laws the government should be allowed to make. There are certainly bigots who think anyone of african ancestry should have no protection under the law, and that's that's "fine" (meaning legal) for them to think as such. However, the state should not have the right to revoke the rights of black citizens. I see this as isomorphic to the gay debate. I get that there are people who think homosexuality is a sin. and I beleive in their right as individuals to think this. but, the government does not have this right, and must protect it's people's rights regardless of sexuality, this includes the right to be legally "married".

seems like TTLG has been down for a couple days now, does anyone know what this is about?

Just saw inception with some friends the other night. Really enjoyed it, very clever, and innovation, I felt. I'd recommend it to just about anyone. But, I think people here will particularly enjoy it, because of the emphasis on, what is essentially, 3-D level creation, and all the tricks that go into that. Anybody else who's seen it care to weigh in?

~$880 for: 8 gigs DDR3 ram, 1 TB HD 2.66 i5 HD 5750 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5611886&csid=_21 or $1170 for: 8 gigs DDR3 ram 1.5 TB HD 2.8 i7 HD 5850 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5625772&csid=ITD&body=MAIN which of these options, if either seems good, would you recommend, and why? games I want to run well: TDM Thief 1, 2 (and maybe 3) Deus Ex 1, and 3 (when it comes out) Thief 4, when it comes out Mirror's Edge Crysis Oblivion Mass Effect etc.... any thoughts? Thanks guys!