posted
I read it as "they were on the tail end of the estimates given 10 years ago, and 70% isn't actually all that certain." But I could read it as either way.
Regardless, it was very sad. I didn't quite cry but came close.
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posted
I'm guessing you have been fortunate enough not to have a close friend or relative with cancer. 5- and 10-year survival rates are frequently bandied about.
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I've been unfortunate enough to have a relative who was given an initial prognosis of "treatable", and then about 10 years later it wasn't treatable any more. (I can't recall if a specific time frame was given the first time around).
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The alt text for XKCD claims that if you click on the first link on a Wikipedia page (not in parenthesis or italics) you eventually will end up on Philosophy.
I chose a hockey player as my first try, and sure enough...
Sidney Crosby Order of Nova Scotia Civilian International humanitarian law Laws of war Law System Cybernetics Interdisciplinarity List of academic disciplines Knowledge Fact Information Sequence Mathematics Quantity Property (philosophy) Modern philosophy Philosophy
Second try, with everyone's favorite mammal:
Platypus Aquatic mammal Mammal Class (biology) Biological classification Biologist Scientist System Cybernetics Interdisciplinarity List of academic disciplines Knowledge Fact Information Sequence Mathematics Quantity Property (philosophy) Modern philosophy Philosophy
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
Ok, this is going to be a tricky one: Edit: I just chose a random article.
Gare de Saint-Germain-en-Laye Grande-Ceinture Railway Conveyance of passengers and goods Goods Commercial Business Goods(economics) Economics Social science Umbrella term Superset Set theory Mathematics Quantity Property (philosophy) Modern philosophy Philosophy
another random one: The Vampire Who Admires Me Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China Administrative divisions of China China Civilization Culture Alfred L. Kroeber United States Federalism Politics Group decision making Individual Person Human Taxonomy Science Knowledge Fact Information Sequence Mathematics Quantity Property (philosophy) Modern philosophy Philosophy
posted
I started with Hitchhiker's guide and it was a surprisingly long chain. (Like the previous three, it actually converges on "Mathematics," which I think should be considered the actual page for this rule).
Then I discovered that "Rationality" and "Reason" actually don't work. They just lead to each other, back and forth.
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Lorca Castle Lorca Region of Mercuria Valencian Catalan Language Romance Languages Indo-European Languages Language Family Language Communication Meaning (Philosophy of Language) Philosophy
And try number 2: Powhatan Native American tribes in Virginia The concept of Indian tribes in the United States United States Federalism Politics Group decision making Individual Person Human Taxonomy Science Knowledge Fact Information Sequence Mathematics Quantity Property (philosophy) Modern philosophy Philosophy
posted
I also reached the "Meaning (Philosophy of Language)" article from a random starting point, but the first link goes to "Definition" and then: Meaning (linguistics) Linguistics Human Taxonomy Science Knowledge Fact Information Sequence Mathematics Quantity Property Modern Philosophy Philosophy
My starting point: The Centre for Corporate Public Affairs
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In the paper, all links are treated equally, but the "click on the first hyperlink" exercise demonstrates that that's not true. For example, if I click on the last link on each page, you get a very different sort of chain, jumping from pragmatic to pragmatic, rather than ascending a ladder of abstractions.
Philosophy Rosalind Hursthouse Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson Jerusalem Givat Ram Byzantine Empire Roman Kingdom Consul Aeropagus of Eastern Continental Greece First National Assembly at Epidaurus Filiki Eteria Ali Pasha Topkapi Palace Antalya Sabiha Gokcen International Airport Silk Way Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 Hardpoint Workbench Cast Iron Foundry Welding Residual Stress Neutron Diffraction Bragg's Law Hexagonal Lattice Translational Symmetry Measure Signed Measure Riesz Representation Theorem Uniform Norm C*-algebra Local Quantum Field Theory Light Cone Weyl Tensor Cotton tensor <loop>
<edit>It's also not robust to taking the second, rather than the first, non-italicized, not-parenthetical link.</edit>
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Philosophy Modern Philosophy Property Quantity Mathematics Sequence Informaton Fact Knowledge Science Taxonomy Human Person Individual Group Politics Federalism The United States Kevin Williamson The Vampire Diaries
If you keep going and click the first link on the Philosophy page and so on, it looks back on to taxonomy. And repeat.
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posted
On the "Quantity" page, I am no longer getting a link to "Property" - instead, I'm in an endless loop of Mathematics -> Quantity -> Magnitude -> Order Theory -> Mathematics.
Viewing the history of the page is actually pretty amusing. "Edited for XKCD," indeed. Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Though it seems editing the rule to be "the first link that wasn't already clicked" would still work for most every page.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Jeorge: If only the page for "Circular Definition" looped back on itself...
I used to work at a company that converted textbooks and reference books into e-text for a searchable and hypertexted (if that's a word) engine. At one point I was working on the New Oxford Dictionary of English, and I noticed that the definition of "recursive" didn't say "see recursive". So I added it.
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Is the devastating but majestic grain laser funny for reasons other than sheer ridiculousness?
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No I got that, I was wondering if "majestic grain" was a particular line I had forgotten or something.
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Thanks, Breath. (You people really should've kept some order to those threads, you know. Not have everything twice or threefold. That makes it really hard for the random newbie stumbling through the open barn door... )
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I'm pretty confident in current scientific consensus on the pyramids et al. I'm curious why you're not.
Posts: 572 | Registered: Jun 2013
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But on a more serious note, just because they were born 4000 years ago doesn't mean that they were retarded. They had their geniuses and they had the benefit of slave/taxed labor. Add up the two and it was more then possible to build the pyramids.
Posts: 572 | Registered: Jun 2013
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quote:Originally posted by Heisenberg: But on a more serious note, just because they were born 4000 years ago doesn't mean that they were retarded. They had their geniuses and they had the benefit of slave/taxed labor. Add up the two and it was more then possible to build the pyramids.
They also didn't have Netflix to entertain them. Lots of time to figure things out.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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So...everyone just caught "giant rock fevor" on several continents at the same time...hey, put down that copper tool and help me move this 90 ton stone...sometimes up mountains...hundreds of miles...no wheels...no problem! Occam grew a beard.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Pyramids built on aquifer, large dark energy generators, cap stones were insulators...forgotten technology...lots and lots of evidence that makes current accepted theories look silly.
Watch the first ten min...experts of good quality, production value & music too.
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