Is rolling 2 d10s statistically the same as rolling a d100?

If you have red and blue d10s, and roll them both simultaneously, with the red as the tens, and the blue as the ones, doesn't that have the same level of randomness as a d100?

This was sparked by the realization that a pair of d10's can be had for less than a dollar, whereas d100's range around $10.

Come for the tech, stay for the puns :-)

I saw Star Wars in theatres with the family. I only have vague emories of it, but distinctly remember playing light sabre with the wiffle bats afterwards :-) I was only 4 when Star Wars was released, so my memories weren't very distinct.

But they were there! I was watching Saturday morning cartoons with my brother when all of the sudden there were spaceships flying around Asteroids in a trailer for "The Empire Strikes back." I remember running with my brother to find the folks and informing them that the new movie was out. I remember it was a warm day, and that the folks were outside gardening, but mainly I just remember being really, really excited, even though i only vaguely remembered the first one.

I'm pretty sure we saw Star Wars in theatres again before we went and watched Empire. I'm vague on that, though, and I wouldn't swear to it, but I do know I saw Star Wars in theatres either before Empire or Return of the Jedi. I remember because after going to the movie I went with my dad to his work, I drew the Jawa Crawlers. I had forgotten them, but was entranced by their size.

Keep in mind to, this was before VCRs acheived ubiquity. So there weren't a whole lot of options for seeing a movie that had been in theatres othewise.

So that's my tale. Empire will always have a special place because it is the earliest movie I can remember being excited to go see. It also reminds me that, back then, well before the internet, most people really weren't aware that another Star Wars was going to be coming out until they started with the advertisements.

Now you can't help know that one is coming out before they've even shot it!

I started off trying to be reasonable, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the downmods came.

If this had been Microsoft all of /. would've been in a lather, but since it's Apple, well, clearly they're just filthy thieves then, right? That Apple's own fskd culture kept them from accepting the phone back? Well, clearly he didn't try hard enough to return it, so its all his fault that they lost the phone.

Apple really is just Microsoft with an inferiority complex.

I'd think anyone whose plan was to kill an officer so they could ambush the funeral as an attack on the Government should properly be referred to as "Terrorist."

I started on the first Episode of Season 2, (Adama getting shot by Boomer'd be the highlight there folks!) and I realized I was too far back. So I watched Flight of the Phoenix again. Everything I said before still stands and then some. I forgot how powerful and draining a show it could be.

Tomorrow I have a meeting so I'm going to watch the Extended Version of Pegasus come Wednesday. (It also means I have another excuse for seeing Peacefinder to return Season 2.0!)

So after much too long of an Hiatus I'm going to start back in on BSG tonight :-)

Starting at the begenning of Season 2, which Peacefinder was kind enough to loan me half a lifetime ago. I'm going for an episode a night or so...

Like the Cylon? -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- >

So my younger stepson and I ahve been volunteering at a local computer recycling place called Free Geek for awhile now. An hour, a couple hours there, and we finally accrued our 24 hours. So I am now the proud Papa of a FreekBox: one fo their built systems which comes with Ubuntu preinstalled! It's actually fairly decent. P4, 2.4GHz, 500MB RAM, and an 80GB HD. With SCSI! I remember wanting SCSI back int he day but it was too expensive:-) I added a 128MB AGP MSI graphics card and will be maxing out the RAM at 2GB soon, but after throwing Xubuntu on it, it runs just fine. Next time I crack it open I'll include a pic of the graphics card, it's got the most impressive heat sink I have ever seen. The copper alone in it is probably worth more than the whole system:-)

On the road and Fox News was on this morning for breakfast. The announcer was blathering at a Geologist, and demanding to know why we were relying on such a poor model for Tsunami's, since we "basically panicked Hawaii for no reason."

No reason? Unnecessary panic?

First off, there wasn't widescale panic, second, there was actually a tsunami that hit Hawaii. It was smaller than they expected, but I watched Hilo drain with half the world, and at a tonne per cubic meter, it was a pretty impressive display.

How does any rational individual believe that this is worth the risk? It was an 8.8 earthquake FFS! A lot of people in Hawaii were heading for higher ground based on that alone, organizing just makes sense.

What irritates the hell out of me about Fox News is that they remind me of the negative arse at work. The guy who no matter what the topic, just offers criticism and negativity, and when it comes to offer a solution either has none or indignantly declares its not his job.

If they had said, hey, we think there's a small tsunami heading to Hawaii, but there's no cause to evacuate, Fox News would be eviscerating them for putting people at risk.

Bunch of useless ^%#&$%#*@^#*$&^&@^$)*(^$%@%&@^&%$&%@$&@%

I find it absolutely hilarious that on the frontpage right now there is a story about how, Beliefs Conform to Cultural Identities and how the iPad Will Beat Netbooks With "Magic" .

It's Science! Happening right before your very eyes!

I am very much looking forward to the Super bowl this weekend and will be perfectly happy with either team winning. I will be rooting for the Saints, but I think Manning and the Colts will be too much for them. I know there are lots of inclinations that this will be a high scoring affair, but I think there will be enough missed opportunities to keep the scoring reasonable.

Final Score:

Saints -- 27
Colts -- 31

PS- My random, bold prediction: Manning will score a rushing TD on a naked bootleg near the goal line.

The 2010 NFC Championship game went into Overtime. One of the biggest names ever to play the game, Brett Favre with 19 seasons under his belt stood on the sideline, waiting for his chance for glory and redemption. It never came. The New Orleans Saints won the toss, drove to within field goal range, and roared their way to the Super Bowl on the leg of their young kicker.

Is this really fair?

Yes, absolutely. Favre had his chance and threw it away. With time running out he had a decision to make. He had space to run to get his team into field goal range, or he could try the kind of throw that freshman quarterbacks in High School are benched for. Every day people have to live with the consequences of their decisions, why should Brett Favre be any different?

The whole debate about sudden death overtime is skewed by focus on the coin-toss; that random chance is playing an inordinate amount in the determination of victory. To focus on the coin-toss is to forget that a preceding 60 minutes of football has already happened. The Vikings had plenty of opportunities to win the game and fumbled them away. Literally.

Think about another aspect of football culture. After the Vikings beat the Cowboys, one of the Cowboy linebackers decried the Vikings for throwing for a touchdown late in the game with an already sizable lead. The cultural answer across the board: "If you don't like it, stop it." Why should overtime be any different? If you don't want your fate decided by a coin-toss don't throw the football into the gut of a defender. Don't fumble the ball over and over and over again.

In short, you had 60 minutes to take care of it yourself and didn't. You can't now blame the coin-toss for not having a chance. And we, as a society and a culture need to stop lamenting every time a second chance isn't given. It used to be that second chances had to be earned, now they're handed out de rigueur. Except in the NFL, where decisions still have the consequences they should.

As I was watching the news this morning a commercial came along with a father and son walking around in nature. It was early and I wasn't really paying attention, but it was the epitome of the son asking dad a bunch of questions about things. I tuned in when the son asked the dad, "Will I go to heaven when I die?" The dad was startled and didn't have an answer. That's when the 700 Club logo came on and voiceover announced that the 700 Club could help you answer the "big" questions.

My own internal, Robot Chickenesque dialogue I projected onto the end of the commercial was thusly...
Son: "Will I go to heaven when I die?"
Dad: "Are you Haitian?"
Son: "Uh, no."
Dad: "Then you should be just fine."

Ah signage! You know that all those signs here and there all came about because someone actually did whatever the sign currently proscribes.

So the other day I went to get a haircut and they had the standard signage which reads, "No shirt, no shoes, no service." Between "shirt" and "shoes" there was emphatically written in black sharpie, "or PANTS!"

So the Yankess won the World Series. Meh. They spent twice as much as any other team, save the Red Sox, and in some cases 4 if not 5 times as much. So what did they really win? Did they have any excuse, whatsoever, to not win? So what, exactly, did they accomplish?

This is why Baseball is declining, and will continue to do so until performance enhancing drugs are truly addressed and until there is a salary cap.