What's sleazy and thieving about a mutually beneficial deal?

Overindulging precalculus audiences is how you end up with stupid shit like "why don't we define 0/0=0"... Talking about rings and fields might only confuse them, but at least they'll know that there's stuff they don't know (with apologies to Donald Rumsfeld).

That context does not exist in the expression "0*log0". You invent it. Can you tell me what it is inherently about 0*log0 that tells you it makes sense to imagine it as the limit of x*log(x), instead of, for example, as the limit of 0*sum_{n=1}^N (-1^n)/n? Setting aside the fact that it happens to give the same answer, as that is immaterial.

Without context, that's an arbitrary choice of a limit, albeit an aesthetically pleasing one. Generally speaking there is no reason why 0log0=0 makes any more sense than 0/0=0. Either might make sense to use as convention for a specific problem, which again is a temporary local modification to notation.

well yeah, of course you could work around it if your system always defined x/0=0. in fact, if all your code is written correctly, and checks for division by zero before it ever happens instead of using built-in exception handling, then you shouldn't even notice how your system handles x/0. but the point is if you fuck it up, you at least want to know you fucked it up.

Uh, that's not true. You can't derive existence of multiplicative inverse from existence of multiplicative unity, you have to assume existence of multiplicative inverse. For example, the ring of integers contains multiplicative unity, but does not contain multiplicative inverse. And there is no identity rule for division, there is just an identity rule for multiplication -- i.e., 1 is defined as the element that has x*1=x for all x.

Well, yes and no. It is often convenient to use the convention that 0/0=0, e.g., when computing local averages one does not have to go to the trouble to specify "if there are no points in the neighborhood, define the average as zero", so one uses this shorthand. Same goes for things like 0*log(0). But this is nothing more than a temporary local modification to notation.

Are you seriously not allowed to deny having had alien encounters..? I mean, if she'd asked you if you'd ever seen Genghis Khan flying around in a superman costume, could you at least have denied that?

I don't see where it says anything about the family being awarded a settlement. It does say the city is considering negligent homicide charges, specifically because the property is in disrepair and a nuisance, and I suppose if they did charge the owners and if they were convicted that would help the family win a civil suit, but anyway that has relatively little to do with copper theft, it's more more about the risk of owning a property that is in a dangerous state of disrepair.

Source? It's not that I don't believe you, but... Well, actually that's exactly it.

Plus there's the whole driving orangutans to the brink of extinction thing (by far the chillest great apes, man).

How is the balance of the division of powers mulching? I don't see it. Sure, the legislative branch seems to have issues with special interests and partisan politics, but otherwise the powers seem pretty balanced.

In this case, the profit comes from writing baseless scary articles to show ads to uninformed people.

Or AI never reaches the level of godlike power you sci-fi aficionados seem certain it will based on bullshit quasi-ontological arguments, and it remains yet another type of technology that affects our lives but does not dominate it.

Just because it's self-serving, doesn't mean it's bullshit. Example: I, for one, take a principled stand for habeas corpus rights -- mostly because I really really really like my OWN personal freedom.