I say *Canada cuz he makes a big deal out of spelling cheque correctly.

"I can make the big ones make weird sounds! I am DRUNK with POWER! I am god!"

Huzzah for old farts making a non-issue out of a younger culture they know nothing about!

I don't know anyone who has said "LOL" outloud. I've heard a few people say "lol" (full pronunciation, rather than each letter). I see the point of the joke, but it didn't strike me as funny, and it seems like making a big deal out of nothing to me. People type "LOL" all the time, but rarely "Hahahaha!". How is that not just as viable a complaint?

Oh cultural evolution. Fuck you.

I just finished reading his latest book American Savage. Gobbled it up in a day.

Smart and funny and yeah -- let's not make a big fucking deal out of differences between people.

The guy's a fucking moron! Get over it you idiot and just move on, no need to make a big fucking deal about it.

I read an article about these super high priced tuna and apparently the tuna will bring in about $50,000 for the restaurant, the reason they pay so much is to make a big show of buying the largest tuna at the beginning of the season as publicity and to show that their shop has the best of the best.

This is a once a year thing and isn't indicative of the general price that is paid for tuna.

You pay more because the cost to support your service (print and process bill, troubleshoot issues, maintaining infrastructure, etc) is paid for once so when the bundle services you don't really have to pay for it twice. People make a big deal out of bundling as if it is some sort of scam, but honestly it makes sense to lower rates for having multiple products. As for restructuring your package yearly, you have another option: order what you can afford without the promotion pricing. If its too expensive without the promotions then why are you adding more to your bill and then calling to get it back under control when its off promotion? If your argument is you want everything you can get for your money, then your like everyone else, you're completely normal, and that means you get to negotiate pricing to try to get another special deal instead of the normal price.

yes. that is what they were saying. So they were making a big stretch there.

It's unfortunate that his learning will be limited by the extents of knowledge determined by his lower potential predecessors.
What will he do when he runs out of books?
His ultimate 'knowledge' will come down to his own creativity, and less his ability to absorb previous discoveries.

Someone once made a comparison of us to hypothetical aliens.
How the alien children might do our most complex physics problems in their kindergarten equivalent.
How those aliens could encounter us, and think "oh, look how cute, the human can derive a series approximation".

People like Tanishq are a step/stage between us regular people, and those theoretical aliens. He can do more as a child - but he has the potential to do more as a maximum. A personal maximum that likely humanity can't supply him with today.

People in general are a mix of creatives, memorizers, knuckleheads, middle-grounders, etc.
So the question that comes to my mind is, which kind of person is Tanishq?

We know that he absorbs information better than a regular person.
But there's a difference between memorization, understanding, and intuition.

We've all met people that memorize like crazy. They get amazing grades, but you can tell that their understanding is weak when they ask painfully stupid questions. The kind that would never be asked had they even the slightest understanding of the 'mechanics' of the subject at hand. (This always made my jaw drop. Seeing a person with perfect grades just 'not get it' to badly)

We've all met people that have a strong sense of understanding. They see one example, and they can run with it, adapting it to all kinds of changes. They 'get it'.
(Not always the best grades though. Why study when you can figure it out as you go? Because you won't figure everything out on the spot come test time...)

Then there are those with real intuition. The kind of person that looks at a problem, and thinks "the solution is something like this, I can't say why, but I can feel it. Let me work on it and figure it out." Then some time later they return with a real solution and a proof of why... and it was right along the lines that they had suspected to begin with.
No one had to give them an example, and no one had to pump them full of set-up material. They could feel it, and knew enough to recognize what it was they were on to.
These are the people that make the big leaps for human understanding.

The saddest case for Tanishq would be that he turns out to be a very enthusiastic expert memorizer.

But I hope he, and humanity, can be lucky enough for him to be both a prodigy, and a true intuitive.

-scheherazade


P.S.
Something amazing about those parent's genes. Definitely should save a [consentual] copy... Too good to lose.
IMO there should be focus on creating a gene therapy program to improve learning/intellect.
That will in itself lead to greater progress in other fields, as there would be many more super-intelligent people available to work on those problems, and many more opportunities for big breakthroughs.
It's something that could raise the potential [and actual] achievement cap of all humanity. 'It's kind of a big deal'.
It's like figuring out 'how to become those hypothetical aliens'.

Crappy starcraft example : Don't rush... macro instead. You'll be farther along later than you would be otherwise.

Sorry, but I take the claims here with a huge grain of salt. I'm not saying they're wrong, but I do have questions:

1. Were the tests conducting in vivo or in vitro? It makes a big difference whether you're testing substances in animals or in petri dishes.

2. What dosages are necessary to have the desired effects? If it requires one to eat three raw heads of garlic and five pounds of broccoli a day, then it ain't gonna happen.

3. What effects do the different kinds of cooking have? Boiling? Baking? Frying?

I don't buy the claims here.

Absolutely agree.

I would class myself as being introvert. I like my Shell time. I work better in a vacuum and enjoy either the silence or my music without the need for people talking. I operate better locked in my head.

That being said, I can be very extroverted. Not because I am, but because I have to be. I just decided one day that there is no reason to fear being forward. I can operate well in big groups, social groups or with public speaking. I just choose not to care what people think of me and do what ever I want. But this doesn't come naturally, I philosophically "bite the bullet" and dive in. No regrets and life has been good.

But I NEED to go back to my cave where it's comfortable and "enjoy the silence". Often when I do, I have flashbacks of embarrassment for things I've done and said in the heat of the moment. Nothing crazy, just little things like some Infinitesimal part of something that meant nothing to someone else but my conscience pushes forwards and makes a big deal. I spoke without thinking it through and forming my sentences carefully and now I'm kicking myself for it. Meanwhile, no one else even knows (or cares).

So I'm Introverted, but I'm not shy.

before watching, gonna take the quiz according to the title:

Cops and what they do.
Lawyers and what they do.
Doctors and what they do.
Criminals and what they do (see cops and what they do).
Airhead roommates (one or all might be gay) and what they do.
Any number of horrifying reality situations with "real" people ~ Otherwise known as Voyeurism.
Any scenario having to do with some bullshit, stylized intelligence organization.
Shows like "Lost" that piss you off and make you wish they would make more big-budget Sci-Fi films based on best-selling novels.

That's 8-Lesse how I did....

I don't think it was that. The best speculation on what went wrong that I've heard is that Obama went into it looking for a draw -- the campaign just wanted him to hold on his lead, so they told him to play it safe. Don't go for the jugular, don't make a big show of calling out Romney for being a liar, just be Presidential and rise above the slings and arrows of his opponent.

Instead he seemed to just leave every lie unchallenged, and largely took a pass on even trying to attack Romney.

I don't really think Obama needs the crowd on his side to be charismatic, I think he was just given bad advice by his debate coach.

>> ^Retroboy:

Obama seems incredibly comfortable in this video's atmosphere of obvious support, but the bland and structured venue of the debate completely lacked it. Perhaps he does much better when he has that sort of crowd...?

I'm just going to give my opinion here, mostly because George Carlin is my hero, and because I'm interested in the topic:

Regarding things being offensive:
There isn't any topic known anywhere to human kind that won't offend someone. Whether it's daisies or pancakes or pinwheels someone, somewhere, can be offended by it. I guarantee it. This is just my opinion, but I don't think that anyone has the right to 'not be offended.'

Regarding comedians:
People mostly don't seem to realize the importance of humor in all of our lives. Comedians play a very important role in the collective human community that cannot be replaced. They help us deal with parts of ourselves that would otherwise be unacceptable for us to even sometimes think about. Just like the court jester who might otherwise get himself beheaded if he were a normal person suggesting the king was fat. Almost all humor, successful or not, makes people feel uncomfortable. The very best humor makes people really uncomfortable. Laughter itself is a response to these same situations and events that we just have a little-bit of a hard time dealing with. I think this is why comedians, while onstage, are given a free pass. Even their televised specials get edited for content, but the only time a comedian gets kicked off stage in a club is when no one is laughing. What they're saying implies a lot more about the people laughing than it does about the comedian. Follow me?

And it's important to remember that most comedians are artists who are immersed in their material. Most have specific routines that are worked out over and over again, tweeking the tone and meter until they become almost meaningless to the comedians themselves. This is why you rarely see experienced comedians laughing at their own jokes, they've just heard them too many times. And even when they are performing improvisationally, like Tosh was during the event in question, they aren't saying things that they think are funny, specifically, they are saying things that they think the audience will find funny. It may seem like a small distinction, but it can make a big difference in understanding why some jokes are made. Some comedians have a style based on saying shocking, offensive things, and it's they're job. They are paid to make an audience laugh, and whether you like him or not, Tosh gets paid.

And the particular incident and joke:
This whole thing was brought up by a woman who was at a show and heard something she didn't like. She retorted back from the audience that rape isn't funny. To which Tosh retorted back that it would be funny if the woman was "raped by like five guys." Now, according to the woman, that made her actually fear for her safety and she got up and left. I'm not going to debate her sanity, if she really felt threatened, then that's terrible and I feel bad for her. But there are a few things that need to be pointed out here:

1: Tosh didn't threaten anyone. Had he said: "you five guys over there should rape this woman," it would not only be offensive to many people, but it also could have been perceived as a legitimate threat that, maybe, could have been pursued legally.

2: Hecklers are always dealt with harshly. And so should they be. Complain all you want about a person outside of a show but when you go to a comedy club, you have agreed that it's that person's time to talk. And so has everyone else who paid money to listen to them, not you. They're up there making a living, succeeding or failing at the expense of their own ass, not yours. It should be noted here that the woman said she left the room to the laughter of the entire audience.

3: You do not have the right to not be offended, especially if you are at a fucking comedy club. There was a pretty famous incident with Joan Rivers when she was joking about deaf people on stage, and a man in the audience stood up and started yelling at her because his daughter was deaf and he didn't find her jokes funny. Well, Joan Rivers responded that her own mother was deaf, and that she'd had to deal with that on her own terms. Comedy was something that helped her deal with that (because comedy is a useful tool) and if he didn't like it, he could go fuck himself. And that's the thing, you never know people's story. The girl at Tosh's show couldn't know Tosh's experience with rape, just like he couldn't know hers. And if you don't think people who've experienced a major tragedy can joke about the horrible events in their lives, I invite you to go watch some Bob Saget material. Humor is subjective. Saying you don't think something should be allowed because it's not funny, is exactly the same as saying something shouldn't be allowed because you don't think it's funny. Whatever it is, you can bet that someone out there finds it funny, even if it's nonsense.

Rape jokes are hardly ever funny. Even Carlin's few never got much of a laugh. But jokes are thoughts, and I'd really rather people stop trying to police thoughts. If someone finds a joke threatening, then deal with the threat, not the joke. And if someone finds a joke offensive, well...

Ok, so I thought about it a bit.

If I'm right he first part of the trick with the cutting doesn't really do anything at all to the position of their 3 cards. The first ace will always be the 6th card, the second the 22nd, the 3rd the 38th and then there are 14 cards behind that to make up the 52. Its pretty clear that any even number card here will be face down. On the second pass the order is reversed, and the numbers halved. So the 1st ace will be 8th, then 16th, then 24th, then 2 cards behind to make the 26. Order reversed again. 2nd 6th 12th etc.

I can't give a complex mathmatical reason why those card positions give those results, but in a practical sense its very easy to work out. Take a deck in new deck order, perform the same filtering process and look at the final 3 cards. There position in the new deck gives you the placement you need. The sorting process is ofc completely deterministic so its just a matter of getting the right cards in the right place. In this case he just...puts them there and creates the illusion that they have been shuffled when they haven't (all the cutting does is changes the order of the "filler" cards.)

I used to do a similar trick where you'd have 13 cards from Ace to King. You'd then spell out "Ace", and for each letter you'd remove a card from the top and add it to the bottom. On the last letter you'd turn over the top card, an Ace ofc, remove it and continue with the remaining 12 cards. Spell out Two, turn it over etc etc. Once you got to your last card you'd make a big joke of "shuffling it to the bottom" and turn it over to reveal a Joker. You could easily work out the order just by working backwards. I impressed a few girls with that...just not the smart ones.

Anyway, I think I got it?