Comment Re:Linux Torvalds (Score 1) 309
Or Linus, even. Fuck...
...and then you'll get a run of situations where someone spikes whatever the competitors are drinking at the tournament... so that 95% of the contestants end up disqualified, making the advantage that much easier.
The ones who are left are likely drinking mind-enhancing fluids anyway.
Or even likelier, hiring third parties to swing batons at competitors' fingers and hands, rendering them physically unable to move the chess pieces and unable to focus due to the pain. Or playing footsie with them under the table to break their concentration. Or building up a resistance to a nerve toxin over decades, then releasing a small amount into the room to kill everyone but their self. If I were going to cheat at professional chess competitions, I'd probably invent an FTL drive and ask the Vulcans if I could borrow Spock, as he's pretty good at chess. If that failed, I could intentionally become assimilated by the Borg and introduce a virus into their hive mind that both gave me free will and ran Chessmaster 9000. Failing that, I'd probably just have to nuke the entire planet from orbit, then carefully plant evidence that I'd won every chess competition ever held during my lifetime. Any future sentient species a few billion years down the road would be like, "Man, that guy was fucking boss at chess."
Lots of time between moves.
That certainly helps me understand how this could happen without arousing too much suspicion. At least one possible cheating vector has now been identified, if not eliminated. The down side is that it's hard to believe this guy was the only one taking advantage of that sort of strategy, and there's no way to tell who else cheated. Reminds me of the steroid scandal in baseball way back; the whole sport's been stained, with everyone's stats in question.
A Windows user. There, the circle has been completed.
Rimshot. Is it just me, or does
You do, however, need a Windows computer.
I do? All this time I thought I was pretty happy with Mint 17.1 Cinnamon.
That is the fault of the No Child Left Behind Act. The act that tied teacher / administrator salaries to the test results. Public schools across the nation stopped worrying about a kids learning and worried about their bottom line. That leads to doing whatever it takes to make sure the test results are positive.
It's easy to be moral and ethical when there's nothing to lose. To blame the mechanic providing the "something to lose" when weak, immoral and unethical people decide to act in their own best interest at the expense of children's education is irresponsible. I find it fascinating when someone shows their true colors under pressure. Most people call themselves "Christian", "good", "decent", etc., but it's not until the shit hits the fan or some bum asks them for a few bucks for a hamburger that we really find out who they are. As an Atlanta resident, all I have to say to these "teachers" is GO FUCK YOURSELF AND ENJOY PRISON.
So what you're saying is, the world is a simulation centered right around Sol, and we're suffering from IEEE 754 floating-point imprecision ?
Well if it were a simulation, it wouldn't really have a center, just one or more "cameras" creating observable datasets. I suspect "they" would have a "camera" near anything sentient to keep them from completely freaking out. Maybe once a sentient being can prove they are in a simulation, as a reward for their cleverness their consciousness will be transplanted from the simulation to the "real world" where they will join the ranks of the "gods". No doubt pure bullshit, but it's fun to think of such things.
What kind of small, hateful person says "women, children, and other civilians" instead of "people" or "civilians"? How fucked do you have to be to value the life of one person more than another because of their sex or adulthood?
This isn't pretty, but human life isn't equally valuable and there are nearly infinite ways this can be quantified. First, it's subjective, and second, only a handful of reasons a rational person would agree with. Some examples:
Children generally have more time in front of them and therefore are being robbed of more when killed. If you had to choose between the death of a five year old or a 90 year old, which would you be inclined to choose?
If you believe in justice/punishment/retribution/etc., older people are more likely to have committed acts in their life that are worthy of punishment, while younger people are less likely. Obviously that doesn't necessarily mean they deserve to die or that there's actually a connection between their sins and their death, but again if you had to choose between an aid worker and a serial killer being killed, which would you choose?
If the Earth were about to be hit by an extinction event and only 10000 people could be saved via sci-fi-method-of-your-choice, would you select people at random or choose the best-of-the-best with respect to the successful continuity of the species?
If someone points a gun at your head and says, "I'm going to kill you," you are legally justified in killing them in self defense, which indicates at that moment your life is more valuable than the gunman's. Were it not, you'd be expected to simply run away, try to talk them out of it, or use other non-lethal means to stop them.
Without life, Biology itself would be impossible.
