>> ^MaxWilder:

>> ^ForgedReality:
Exactly my point. People downvoted my comment because they're dumb, I guess.
The angle cut allows the differently sized pieces to swap places, and changing the configuration of the two L-shaped ones creates a gap. OOOH SO MYSTERIOUS.
FR, if you can't see why this shouldn't be possible, you lack a basic understanding of geometry.
The area of the square is width x height. In the first configuration, the pieces cover the full area of the square. In the second configuration, they do not. The area has not changed. The pieces have not shrunk. So why is there a part of the puzzle that is empty?
If everybody else is so dumb, please enlighten us as to how this is possible.
My only guess is that the pieces are being squished into the second configuration, and the squished portions make up for the missing coverage. But that would mean this would not work with sturdier material, or in a computer model.

....

Really, bro? Look at it again. Take two letter L's .. Flip one so that it is inverted, and move it so that the longer bits are touching. Now move them so that the shorter bits are resting on the longer bits of each other. Look there's a hole. Creepy huh?

What's happening is the area that the L-pieces are inside of becomes NARROWER and TALLER (since the two larger pieces are different sizes (One is wider and taller than the other, but the angle cut is the same angle, so they both fit along that edge), allowing for the L-pieces to shift into the second configuration and still fill out that space, but create a hole between them.

It's seriously not that fucking complicated. The fact that nobody here seems to understand how it works is really the only mystery here. It's quite surprising, and at the same time, it makes me worry for the future of humanity. This is no mindwarp. It's simple geometry.

Thx buddy!

hey fill out your profile. I wanna know what you are like.

In reply to this comment by chicchorea:
*quality

this is why i'm blown the fuck away regarding why people think adding a public health care option would be bad. "oh noes socialism!"

fuck that. police is socialized, fire is socialized, why not health care? "i don't want to pay taxes for Joe who does something stupid and causes injury to himself." but you sure as fuck want the fire dept to put out the fire Joe caused because he doesn't know how to deep-fry a turkey. it just doesn't make any goddamned sense.

i'd much rather pay my taxes and know that if i snap my ankle walking down the icy steps on my way to work that i can go to a hospital, get it taken care of and move on with life.
just the same way as i currently know that if a fire starts up in my apartment complex, i can count on the fire department to show up and put it out.

imagine if every time you called the police or fire departments they made you sit in a waiting room and fill out a form, then 3 hours later when they're ready to see you they fix the problem and send you home with a bill.

--

related to the video, they really should have written in a contingency plan if they do have an out-of-city-limits/out-of-service-area caveat. something to the effect of "$75/year to be covered without question, $5,000 fine for services rendered if you're not part of the 'extended service' program."

either way, put out the fucking fire and deal with the monetary politics afterwards.

--

edit: holy shit @ the TYT video. i've never seen Cenk that angry before.

I wanna make a slide about Anna. Have already filled out one of the size boxes.

>> ^quantumushroom:

"The CBO is required to score a bill based on the assumptions provided by the bill's authors. It's worth about as much as a report card filled out by the student himself."


Both parties have an incentive to do this. Yet even with the Republicans with providing the figures, this is what the CBO had to say about the 2001 Bush tax cuts:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that H.R. 1836 would decrease governmental receipts by $70 billion in 2001, by $512 billion over the 2001-2006 period, and by $1.26 trillion over the 2001-2011 period.

Source: http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=2867&type=0

Let's recap. CBO estimate for bush tax cuts under Republicans. Massive increase in deficit. History says, massive deficit. CBO estimate for health care reform under Democrats. Reasonable decrease in deficit. How is that not crystal clear, and not entirely indisputable?

Oh you think growth was great? It was consistently less than under Clinton. See how it averages about 4% under Clinton and averages roughly 2.5% on the graph at the bottom of the page?

Source: http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/gdp_real_growth_rate.html

And you know what, you'd probably be thinking right now that uncertainty over the debt is hampering investment. You bet it is. You know what is going make much more difference than taxing wealthy consumers several percentages more? Increasing the likelihood that US public bond interest rates skyrocket once people realise the US cannot pay back its debt.

History has shown that the original Bush tax cuts did this. Estimates under Democratic AND Republican administrations have shown this.

Which begs the question of why you are pushing an ideology that we know will do damage and is clearly going to damage to the economy?

If not, dispute my facts directly, and prove me wrong. All your claims about government efficiency, ideology and morality do nothing to address these simple numbers.

By the way, everything beyond that initial paragraph has nothing to do with what we were talking about. I can rant about Republicans wanting to reduce working class income to slave labour and how some of them think that Obama is a secret muslim. The fact is though, nobody rational seriously belives that or your assertions that progressives want to destroy the economy through ramming through equality.

The only people who believe this nonsense are those who get suckered into believing the ranting of demagogues before elections.

"The CBO is required to score a bill based on the assumptions provided by the bill's authors. It's worth about as much as a report card filled out by the student himself."

Explain how as someone who is purportedly in favor of reducing the deficit, you can be against health care reform but for extending the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Two separate issues. If you can name any endeavor that government interference has made cheaper and more efficient, I'm all ears. The reality is obamacare is making health care MORE expensive and taking power away from the consumer. You don't seriously think we're going to save money with 159 new bureaucratic agencies to monitor this new zombie, do you? And the slew of new job-killing taxes will be in effect four years before any "benefits" are realized.

Tax cuts/increases on the wealthy? A moral issue. If you're not a socialist/communist then you see the money belonging to the wealthy as THEIR money, they're not just "holding it for a friend" aka government.

If there were a flat tax rate then the wealthy would still pay more than the middle class. Under our communist progressive system, the wealthy pay a LOT more and are paying the lions' share of the taxes now, while 50% of the population pays NO income tax. And only one-third of Americans are working, and support the other two-thirds.

Because the left believes in equality at any cost, it wants to especially penalize the wealthy, who, contrary to leftist opinion, do create jobs and invest, providing opportunities and lending for the "little guy". And if the wealthy aren't "giving" to the left's satisfaction, remember that government creates NOTHING, and can only use whatever it takes from the people first.

The reality the left refuses to face is that if you taxed all the wealthy at 90% nothing would be solved. Our federal mafia costs 3 trillion dollars a year to operate, and will still spend more than it takes in.

Why is this even debatable? Money won't solve this. Obamatron and friends looted the Treasury of a trillion dollars, yet even with that amount they have failed to create jobs (except government jobs, which cost taxpayers).

Let people keep more of their own EARNED money and good things happen. Blindly give money to government and they urinate it away.

Best job on the planet my rear, I have just as much fun sitting in a 3x6 square, filling out paperwork, and warding off small talk with the guy who consistently doesn't smell very good.

I'm NOT IN DENIAL!

Too bad this video didn't show all that economic turn around I've been hearing about. Where every other day if not every day we hear about how the unemployment rate is dropping by whole percentage points and businesses are hiring more now than ever. And then they forget to mention if they count all of the people who ran out of benefits in may/june of 2010 and may no longer be counted as unemployed if at all due to no longer being able to fill out their weekly claims.

I just found it odd that when all these people were losing access to unemployment due to congress not passing bills to extend it past the 99 weeks that our job outlook was turning around by whole percentage points on a month to month basis. I've read that there's another statistics which is usually 8 to 10% higher than the common one used that better counts underemployed and long term unemployed, but they only use the familiar statistic which right now is hovering around 10% because it's a more definite stat. And if 10% represents 23 million, then the other should represent around 50 million.

Of course 23 million, 50 million, 1 billion, or just plain old 100 doesn't really matter if the elected officials only give mouth service to the idea of helping these people out. Eventually the problem will work itself out as these people will slowly go onto other welfare and disability services and very likely remain there..... I mean whose going to hire someone who hasn't worked in an industry that requires current skills and the guy hasn't worked in 2+ years. And if someone can manage to stay mentally stable through 2 years of losing everything they own after it was decided they no longer were worthy of unemployment.....what other problems is this guy going to have when he can't get assistance from other government programs because they are so overburdened by the people who've been on it for years and the massive influx of people seeking it.

I went to a "Job Center" in Ohio for the first time last week. Showed up at 8 AM and there was already a line out the door and down the side of the building with probably 100 people there. When I left around 11 AM, there was still a line there (new people of course) but still 100 or so standing there in 90+ degrees. I still have no idea what they were there for because people inside didn't know or didn't care to answer. I went to meet for WIA (Workforce Investment Act I believe) funds to take a training course to try to open up some job possibilities, and have since been told that there are no funds available and will be no funds at least a month out from now and there's a waiting list they work their way down first. Brother just lost his marbles due to all of the stress this recession/depression is causing, and the government in their profound cost cutting wisdom has shutdown a slew of the mental health facilities in the area. So my brother was stuck in jail to keep him from killing himself where they have a major bed bug problem, so that didn't help his situation. And after a week or two of that a spot opened up in a mental health facility for evaluation which he is now undergoing.........and his caseworker went on vacation and his doctor is on vacation. So he's at the facility to be evaluated for a certain period of time, and he's already behind at least a week due to people overseeing him taking vacation. And the people act like this is a pretty common thing to happen....and all of these people end up back on the streets untreated if they don't show significant symptoms during their evaluation periods. So now my mentally ill brother has probably ran up a 20+ grand bill in tax payer money in about a month partially because they wouldn't extend unemployment to him past 99 weeks which is about 10-15 grand a year. And if they don't treat him properly (which it doesn't look like it's going to happen at this point), he'll be released and either kill himself or be back in there again and there isn't shit anyone in the family can do for him because we're all broke. And since he's an adult, no one can force him to get treatment unless he breaks the law in some way or acts up in front of the cops. It's a wonderfully *sarcasm*STRESS FREE*sarcasm* situation for all involved which will probably lead up to someone else losing their marbles in the process.

This situation is like the same situation you experience when you first enter the job market in a field that typically requires a college degree. All the companies want experience even if hiring at entry level positions with entry level wages. There's this nebulous step where people go from not having enough experience to being employed even though everything else stays the same. No one can ever seem to define what happened to overcome the experience part. Same thing with being unemployed in an employers market, you are unemployable according to anywhere you apply (underqualified, less qualified than others, not enough experience, not enough current experience, not the right degree) and one day that changes. I have always felt the employment process is more about who is the better bullshitter, if you can submit a resume with enough bullshit to get an interview and then bullshit your way through that without being caught...you stand a chance of being employed. Meanwhile if you just present the facts on your resume and don't bullshit them up, you look like a less qualified candidate compared to someone who is barely your equal and definitely not your better.

This is the man who predicted a complete currency melt down by the end of 2009 or first quarter of 2010...by the latest.

It's a shtick. He constantly predicts doom and on the rare occassions he comes "close enough" to getting it right it's held up as proof of his prescience. Don't bother to check out his long list of failures...he's obviously channeling Nostrodamus here. Which is pretty close to the truth because Celente routinely fills out his commentary with vague and meaningless rhetoric that people mostly overlook as they fill in the white noise with whatever they want to hear.

Celente provides a service that's very marketable right now. His product is predictions of doom. Anyone looking for commentary on the impending catastrophic failure of society can call him up and purchase his services. His product is neatly packaged in such a way that you can use it to support nearly any view you're trying to sell. As long as you're looking to perpetuate fear. Because that's what he's selling.

This man is saying nothing of interest. Anything intelligent sounding has been cribbed from actual intelligent people with true understanding of the issues he's blustering about. Providing Celente with a forum does nothing to elevate discussion. Better to look for commentary from the sources he uses to fabricate the nonsense he's selling to the media.

Watched it. While it is amazing. It's what I expected from Nolan but little else it filled out my expectations but the hype built it too much into something Kubrick would make. It's very rigid. I didn't know most people dream in structured forms.

Dude, regardless of how you feel about Ron Paul, in two years from today he will be 76 years old, and 77 years old on Election Day, November of 2012. Ronald Reagan was 77 in his last year of his 8 yrs in office. If Ron Paul won, he would be 81 at the end of just his first term. Ronald Reagan was 83 when he was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Is it wise to elect someone who is that old? I don't think so. It's one of the most stressful jobs on earth. That can't be easy on an old man. And remember, age was one of the many reasons why McCain lost. One could argue that Ron Paul would select a good running mate to carry on his legacy if he died while in office. However, wouldn't it just be better to have the running mate run for president himself?

And his views on vaccination alone should disqualify him for office. I don't want someone like him in charge if a major pandemic broke out.

(And in case anyone is wondering, the editors of Effect Measure are well-respected public health scientists and health practitioners. They don't allow quacks and charlatans to have blogs on ScienceBlogs. You have to fill out an application, and then they'll let you know if you've been accepted or rejected. They've been around for 4.5 years, and they only have 80+ blogs total. It ain't no Blogger.com)

>> ^asynchronice:

Central Services new duct designs are now available in hundreds of different colors, to suit your individual taste !
Provided you have a correctly filled-out 27B-6, of course.

He's not trying to get the name of the person he's speaking to, he's trying to get the name of someone who has died. So the fact that he guessed the woman's name is a failure, since it's supposed to be about the spirits of the dead.

He doesn't need questionnaires filled out ahead of time. Cold callers pick common names and start spouting close variations, e.g. Mary, Margaret, etc. At one point he goes from saying he's getting "Cathy" to getting that their Catholic. He just spouts stuff until the audience confirms something, then he goes from there.

When watching someone like this, keep track of the failures. People who fall for this crap always forget any failures and over-emphasize the successes.

>> ^Mcboinkens:

>> ^ridesallyridenc:
>> ^Mcboinkens:
How did he guess specific names though? Is he given a list?

I know a paul, a mary, a cathy, and a two terrys. They're pretty common names...

But he didn't just say, "is anyone here named paul, mary, cathy, or terry?" He picks specific people and tells them their name. I am assuming what BoneyD said is right, where there is some sort of seatID and questionnaire match.

>> ^Mcboinkens:

How did he guess specific names though? Is he given a list?


Amazingly, events like this usually have the audience fill out a questionare prior to going to the set. I know John Edward's show does this.

Since this was the one thing he knew for both people, I'm guessing a "Who would you hope to contact today" type question was on that form.

There is but the interview process, credit check, background check, miles of forms to fill out and insane shipping and handling costs barely make it worth it.