Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Anyone reading this post has just lost the Game. 10000000000000 base 2 = 2 to the 13th power = 8192 base 10 Did anyone really think there have been that many posts? Not suffering from triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13), I decided to finally mark a milestone after over 4 years of postage. Now I need an interesting number for the next one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Nioca Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 What game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Go for something involving e, if possible. Or something in base-42. I'm sure you'll think of something. EDIT: A fibbonacci number is fine, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Triumph Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 i. I want to see i post-count. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dintiradan Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 I'm still grumpy no one HTML-enabled my 2112th post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Alorael at Large Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 I can't even imagine such a thing. —Alorael, who recommends holding out for TREE(3). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk nikki. Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Originally Posted By: Randomizer Anyone reading this post has just lost the Game. Die. Die in a horrible fire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seasoned Roamer The Ninjas Doom Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Quote: Die. Die in a horrible fire. and would that fire be me!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Mea Tulpa Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Originally Posted By: Dintiradan I'm still grumpy no one HTML-enabled my 2112th post. It has now been HTML-enabled. Among other things. Hey, be careful what you wish for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Hey, be careful what you wish for. Slarty 1 Dintiradan 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dintiradan Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Originally Posted By: Dintiradan I'm still grumpy no one HTML-enabled my 2112th post. It has now been HTML-enabled. Among other things. Hey, be careful what you wish for. Slarty's taken care of everything, The words you read, the songs you sing, The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast The Mystic Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Originally Posted By: Randomizer Anyone reading this post has just lost the Game. I didn't. I actually quit with the last thread lock. Normally I only play against myself, and as there's really no way I can win or lose, it's not exactly fun. Quote: triskaidekaphobia You know, I made a level for SubTerra called "Triskaidekaphobia." It's in the 2008 expansion pack. Quote: Now I need an interesting number for the next one. I'm getting (relatively) close to my 2000th post, and was planning to post a thread on it when I did; but I could hold out for 2048, or 2^11. Or I could really hold out, and make that thread the first new post of 2011. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast keira Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Or the year 2048. Just sayin'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Ephesos Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Way to go Randomizer! I remember way back when I had more posts than you... and then you got really good at pretty much every game here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Kelandon Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Soon enough, Randomizer will pass me on the list of most egregious spammers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk nikki. Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Originally Posted By: fiery doom Quote: Die. Die in a horrible fire. and would that fire be me? No. I have no idea who you even are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Matanbuchus Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Inconceivable! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Sudanna Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Quote: I didn't. I actually quit with the last thread lock. Normally I only play against myself, and as there's really no way I can win or lose, it's not exactly fun. You cannot quit the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Goldengirl Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Originally Posted By: Phanes Quote: I didn't. I actually quit with the last thread lock. Normally I only play against myself, and as there's really no way I can win or lose, it's not exactly fun. You cannot quit the game. Correction: you can't. Others are perfectly capable of being free of it. Sounds like you have more of a personal problem, there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Xaiya Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 Reminds me of the little script I made that made everyone lose the game... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Ephesos Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 See, when I think of "the game", I usually think of games like "who's going to get stuck taking out the trash," where you balance an ever-increasingly precarious pile of trash in the can. And I still don't play it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dintiradan Posted March 5, 2010 Share Posted March 5, 2010 I just maindeck Platinum Angel. Works for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyshakk Koan Monroe Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Aw, didn't the last thread that drifted into a discussion on 'the game' get locked? And that one was supposed to be about Jeff's new game, a way more useful thread than this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast The Mystic Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Originally Posted By: Phanes You cannot quit the game. Actually, you can. Just lose, and then decide not to play anymore. To quote a computer from the 1980's movie Wargames: Quote: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Sudanna Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Um, no you can't. You can't decide not to play. Everyone is always playing, whether they know it or not. You can't win or quit, you can just continue to not lose. You can stop caring about it, but you still have to play. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Understated Ur-Drakon Nioca Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Yes you can. It's that pesky free will thing everyone talks about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted March 6, 2010 Author Share Posted March 6, 2010 Free will is an illusion. Everything is deterministic including that thought that you actually have a choice. After all Albert Einstein said,"God does not play dice." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Ephesos Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rotghroth Rhapsody Hypnotic Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Originally Posted By: The Mystic Or I could really hold out, and make that thread the first new post of 2011. Never say something like that if there is a New Zealand lurker. We are always first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Alorael at Large Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Originally Posted By: Randomizer After all Albert Einstein said,"God does not play dice." Not exactly what he said. For one thing, it was in German. For another, he was protesting quantum mechanics, which has held up pretty well and which does, in fact, involve something very close to rolling dice. For a third, you already know this. —Alorael, who on the contrary believes not only that God plays dice but that the dice are loaded. The Chairman said so! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Student of Trinity Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 Originally Posted By: Albert Einstein Gott würfelt nicht. Originally Posted By: Niels Bohr Einstein, hör auf Gott zu sagen was er mit seinen Würfeln machen soll. Or, in English: AE: God does not roll dice. NB: Einstein, quit telling God what he should do with His dice. Actually Einstein wasn't unhappy with randomness. He was a pioneer of the theory of stochastic forces, and would have been a major figure in an important subfield of physics, to the point where it would probably have won him a Nobel prize if he had lived long enough, even if he had never done any of the several other things for which he is well known. What he seems to have objected to was the perverse mixture of determinism and randomness in quantum mechanics. Randomness appears in classical mechanics as a fuzzy and clumsy approximation, invoked by humans just because we can't follow too much complexity. It's a crudely practical detail, not a fundamental principle. In classical physics, randomness knows its place. It sits still in back of the lecture hall, and comes out quietly at night to clean the chalkboards. In quantum mechanics, though, the elegant fundamental laws prescribe the rigidly deterministic behavior ... of probabilities. It's as though the air is thick with incense in St. Peter's as the College of Cardinals stand assembled in their scarlet to consecrate the new Pope ... and the new Pope arrives in jeans and cowboy boots, smoking a joint. It's unsettling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted March 6, 2010 Author Share Posted March 6, 2010 Randomness results from out inability to measure both position and momentum accurately below the quantum limit. In Newtonian physics, the uncertainty in measurements far exceeds the quantum limit so we don't notice it and most people assume they are making accurate measurements and know exactly what is happening. Now if we were able to take an arbitrarily large system of particles and measure all the initial positions and momenta without changing them, we could calculate what is going to happen without resorting to statistics and probabilities to determine the outcome. Einstein's objection could refer to the fact that God can do this but we poor mortals can't and have to suffer with randomness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Student of Trinity Posted March 6, 2010 Share Posted March 6, 2010 On the one hand it's true that quantum randomness is not qualitatively different from any other kind of randomness. Experiments that approach quantum noise limits see random results on each run, even when they do everything they can to make each run identical. But the same thing would happen if they had failed to notice a mouse that was gnawing on their cables and producing random noise each run. The only special things about the quantum noise are that nothing can make it go away, and that the statistical distribution of the random results fit the precise formulas predicted by quantum mechanics. Any other kind of noise, such as from mice, could fit the same pattern; but it would be a huge coincidence if it actually did, because only quantum noise has to have that pattern. But on the other hand it's a mistake to imagine that position and momentum of particles actually exist simultaneously, and that Heisenberg's famous principle is just a mysterious limitation on our ability to measure both at once. What quantum mechanics says is that position and momentum are related to each other exactly as musical pitch and timing are related. Is it possible for any instrument to sound a clear concert A at a moment specified precisely to within a millisecond? No, it isn't, and the impossibility is no mystery, but a simple contradiction. The note A means, by definition, a regular cycling of air pressure up and down 440 times every second. It takes at least a few hundredths of a second for an air pressure sequence to even have such a clear 440-cycles-per-second pattern. An A that lasts a millisecond is a contradiction in terms. It's not just an unfortunate limitation on human ears, that we can't hear pitch well in very short notes. Timing and pitch are both meaningful concepts, and definite notes following each other at definite times is what makes up music; but it is a logical contradiction for any note to have its pitch and its timing simultaneously defined exactly. Music lives entirely in the wiggle room that's allowed if neither timing nor pitch is quite exactly determined. Classical physics does the same thing with position and momentum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast The Mystic Posted March 7, 2010 Share Posted March 7, 2010 Originally Posted By: Hypnotic Originally Posted By: The Mystic Or I could really hold out, and make that thread the first new post of 2011. Never say something like that if there is a New Zealand lurker. We are always first. Well, if it's not the first post in the world in 2011, I'd be willing to settle for the first post in my home time zone. However, at the rate I'm going, I might end up hitting the 2000 post mark by August. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Goldengirl Posted March 7, 2010 Share Posted March 7, 2010 Originally Posted By: The Mystic Originally Posted By: Hypnotic Originally Posted By: The Mystic Or I could really hold out, and make that thread the first new post of 2011. Never say something like that if there is a New Zealand lurker. We are always first. Well, if it's not the first post in the world in 2011, I'd be willing to settle for the first post in my home time zone. However, at the rate I'm going, I might end up hitting the 2000 post mark by August. Perhaps if you took an extended vacation to the Bahamas after hitting 1999, until New Years Eve rolls around, you could get what you wanted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast The Mystic Posted March 7, 2010 Share Posted March 7, 2010 Sorry, no can do. However, I will say that I'm rather overdue for a vacation, and plan to take one at the end of April. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug Golgoth Posted March 9, 2010 Share Posted March 9, 2010 Since when did Student of Trinity become a philospher? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Swimmin' Salmon Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 He's a natural! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug Golgoth Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Seriously, Long winded sentences that take extreme amounts of words to make a simple point? We've got a new Socrates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Triumph Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: Golgoth Seriously, Long winded sentences that take extreme amounts of words to make a simple point? We've got a new Socrates. Ooh...now I'm curious: please summarize SoT's "simple point" in a small number of words! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dintiradan Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: Salmon He's a natural! Win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug Golgoth Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Um let me get back to you on that one (SoT help me) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Easygoing Eyebeast Dantius Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: Triumph Ooh...now I'm curious: please summarize SoT's "simple point" in a small number of words! Fine. What about: "It's impossible to be exactly perfect." What do I win? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug Golgoth Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 A hug from me for saving me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Kelandon Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Originally Posted By: Delicious Salmon He's a natural! Indeed, he's a Natural Philosopher! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chittering Clawbug Golgoth Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Head hurts must have Advil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Alorael at Large Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 There's no philosophy there. Some nice turns of phrase and connections, yes. Philosophy? Not even naturally speaking. —Alorael, who doesn't doubt SoT's ability to philosophize. Well, okay, he does, but only because of his empirical biases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Randomizer Posted March 10, 2010 Author Share Posted March 10, 2010 A professor has to fill up a lecture period with interesting material. Student of Trinity is just winding down from teaching students to teaching us. And to make it easier on him there are a large number of physics major in both places. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnificent Ornk Student of Trinity Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 Indeed I don't have much to say about philosophy. Drawing philosophical conclusions from quantum mechanics is usually wrong; if you hear somebody justifying some philosophical claim by appealing to the Uncertainty Principle or relativity or something, you should probably write them off as an idiot right there. If you are interested in quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle really is exactly the point that a note cannot simultaneously have exactly defined pitch and timing. The fact that this principle applies to the position and momentum of a particle is, unfortunately, not so easy to explain; but if you want to know just what the principle says, the music thing is it. If you've never heard of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, nothing I've said is worth reading, but you could google 'quantum mechanics' if you're curious. It's up there in physics with E = mc^2 and F=ma. I don't think "It's impossible to be perfect" is really a good summary of the principle, because there is nothing imperfect about a musical note that lasts at least a few cycles, or about a short chirp of sound that includes many overtones. Thinking of Heisenberg's 'uncertainty' as an imperfection is a mistake. The ideal of a perfectly pitched note that is also exactly timed is an invalid extrapolation from actual music, just as the edge of the flat earth is an invalid extrapolation from local geography. It's not a theoretical ideal whose attainability fails in practice, but a mistaken concept. What I guess you could say is that it's probably worth looking at any other concept of perfection and asking whether maybe it's a mistaken concept in a similar way, as well. That might be smart. Since anything called perfection is probably not approached very often, it likely is defined more through extrapolation than through direct experience, and extrapolation can be tricky. But it would be a big jump to conclude that all concepts of perfection are mistaken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice Lilith Posted March 10, 2010 Share Posted March 10, 2010 I am told that "uncertainty principle" is a misleading translation (because it implies an imperfection in measurement rather than an inherent relationship between two properties), and that Heisenberg preferred "indeterminacy principle". Confirm/deny? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.