Do you really think anyone, expert or not, can be certain in advance which diseases will mutate into global pandemics killing millions and which will not? Nobody knows which diseases will mutate into virulent strains. We only know that there are some which could. That's why no expert said bird flu would kill millions, only that it had potential to.
Let me pose a simplified model to you. If disease X has a five in six chance of killing only 150 people, but a one in six chance of killing 150 million people, what would you do? Would you spend no money, risking 2% of the world's population to a dice roll, safe that it will "probably be fine"? Would you spend money trying to save lives, knowing that there was a 5 in 6 chance the money would be wasted since the disease wouldn't spread anyway? Personally, I would spend the money. The expectation for the number of deaths is 25 million, even though the most likely outcome is 150 deaths.
Disease control is full of hard questions. There are no easy answers.
If there are 20 other ratings each of 5.0/5.0, a user who rates himself 10/10 will only skew the results to 5.25/5.25. The effect is only diluted more by more ratings.
There is a ruling "class".
You didn't present any evidence.
You didn't see any evidence, but it was there.
I stated my case - that there is no unified ruling class. I presented evidence of disunion to refute that such a ruling class exists. (For me, "ruling class" implies a single, unified entity.)
You just don't accept it because the idea goes against your estabilished opinions. It does not make sense for you.
What makes you think that I am not accepting it purely because it goes against my established opinions? What makes you think you even know what my established opinions are?
This tactic of claiming people don't accept something for personal reasons is not a rational argument. It's an example of ad hominem: you are not attacking my argument but my character.
REASON IS EASILY OVERRULED BY IMAGINATION
Quite the self-demonstrating post here. You imagine that the ruling classes are carefully keeping us in check, but you don't provide enough evidence that they do.
If you disagree with something, fine. Just don't do it only because the idea is not congruent with your view of the world.
That's not at all what andymac was doing. You're basically accusing andymac of being dogmatic, when nothing could be further from the truth. Andymac's arguments are not predicated on a world-view. They don't only make sense within one particular world-view context. If you think andymac is rejecting the video's claims entirely because of his view of the world, why do you think this?
My problem with this video is exactly what has been stated already - it claims to be about critical thinking, when it's really just making unlikely sociological claims. (This is what a video about critical thinking really looks like.) One particular claim it makes, in the first minute, is that there is a "ruling class", and that this ruling class deliberately, actively and systematically keeps us uninformed.
First, there is no single unified "ruling class". There are lots of ruling bands, who have competing objectives and viewpoints. So to attribute one deliberate act to a disparate and uncooperative group is unlikely at best. The claim basically says that all rulers are trying to keep us uninformed all of the time; this kind of generalization is moronic.
Furthermore, there is the undisputable fact that I am far more informed than I would be without the intervention of the rulers of my country. They have put in place a state-funded education system open to all. Given my parents inability to afford private education, this education system taught me all sorts of stuff I would never have learned without it. Important stuff like reading, writing, adding up. I therefore put it to you that the evidence suggests that, in my country at least, the "ruling classes" are keeping the masses informed.
I therefore do not accept the proposition "there is a ruling class, and it is systematically and deliberately keeping me uninformed".
Gruefood delight is unofficial (ie not approved by TASvideos as a site, but only by the regulars who maintain it). A gruefood award should be just as unofficial as the gruefood delight itself.
alden's post shows how the idea can work well. And since it's unofficial, anyone can do such a list if alden doesn't want to.
I've progressed back into the Clocktower. I was rather amused at the results; both this new attempt and my old attempt had the Red Door turn red on frame 26311. And both runs had 38 mana. The only difference is that this new attempt already has paused to switch to Winged Skeleton, so that's a 60 frame gain right.
Nice. That's ~12 seconds ahead of the published run already.
Might it be worth changing to samurai armor when you change to winged skeleton/bone pillar? Is that one of the things you wanted to test? :)
I agree that there is significant overlap between the any% and 100% Soma runs. But would a Julius 100% be that interesting? The most interesting thing, to me, would be the process of finding the best route; the final product will just be Julius mode any%, the same but more (and with shorter boss fights). In fact I think having Julius any% and Julius 100% would be just as problematic and have just as much entertainment overlap as Soma any% and Soma 100%.
Of course, if a Julius 100% were produced, I would watch it and enjoy it, because I love Aria of Sorrow. Just not sure that it's a category that TASvideos is crying out for.
If any new category were to be created, I'd say Boss Rush is the mode with the most distinguishing features from the current published movies.
The route change through the floating gardens was very unexcepted and unbelievably cool.
Here's why the route change happened:
The right-hand route in Floating Gardens is slower, by about 190 frames, than the left-hand route. However, it has three main benefits which make it faster overall: 1. you get the Dead Warrior soul, so you don't need to detour to get it before going to the Chaotic Realm at the end, saving ~130 frames, 2. you get the glitched level-up at the Dead Warrior, rather than levelling up at the Kicker Skeleton which is much harder to glitch (if it's possible at all), saving ~60 frames, 3. You can grab Samurai Armor from Dead Warrior for +3 STR. If it weren't for the Samurai Armor, the routes would be roughly equal, but the +3 STR will speed up most fights - including death and legion - between clocktower and graham (after which dracula's tunic replaces samurai armor).
Incidentally, the ~130 frame saving from already having the Dead Warrior soul is "unbanked", and the published run had already equipped mystletain while the WIP still needs a pause to do so; so the true saving over the published run is closer to 599 + 130 (dead warrior) - 60 (mystletain pause) = ~670 frames. You're underselling yourself, Kriole :D
This produces the differential equation
dy/dx = y/x - f*sqrt(x^2 + y^2)/bx
Hmm, this can be rewritten
dy/dx = y/x - (f/b)*sqrt(1+ (y/x)^2)
and then dy/dx depends only on y/x, not separately on y or x. (This is intuitively true, since the speed of the boat only depends on the angle towards the target, not the distance from it.)
Substituting y = vx,
dy/dx = v + x*dv/dx = v - (f/b)*sqrt(1 + v^2)
x*dv/dx = -(f/b)*sqrt(1+v^2)
\int(dv/sqrt(1+v^2)) = -(f/b)*\int(dx/x)
arctan(v)^2/2 = -(f/b) ln x + c
where \int is the integral symbol.
That's an implicit form for the curve. Making an explicit equation is left as an exercise.
This produces the differential equation
dy/dx = y/x - f*sqrt(x^2 + y^2)/bx
but, unfortunately, I cannot see how to solve it.
Could it be that there is no closed-form expression that would describe the path, but that it can only be expressed iteratively (the same as with the n-body problem, where n > 2)? Is there any way of getting an approximation of the curve, even if by iterative means?
It's certainly possible (after all, the differential equation corresponding to the integral of the Gaussian distribution has no closed-form solution) but I'd be surprised if it actually were impossible to express. If I had time, I'd start with a series-based solution of the differential equation, and see what that produced.
Hmm, I can only get so far.
If the target is at the origin, and the boat is at position (x,y), then the speed of the boat will be the sum of the current flow and the boat's speed in still water. If the flow is f and flows in the y-direction (without loss of generality), then the x-speed of the boat is -bx/sqrt(x^2+y^2) and the y-speed is f - by/sqrt(x^2+y^2), where b is the boat's speed in still water.
This produces the differential equation
dy/dx = y/x - f*sqrt(x^2 + y^2)/bx
but, unfortunately, I cannot see how to solve it. Once solved, the boundary condition of the boat's initial position can be entered to find the path of the boat. This analysis does not assume that the boat starts on the x-axis -- that is, that the boat is trying to move straight across the river, perpendicular to the current. It might start from upstream or downstream of the target.
Can we please not drag the free vs. not free debate into this? I fail to see how it has any relevance to the topic,
The topic is file compression. Free vs proprietary is a factor in file compression choice. For some people, it's an important one, for others, it's not. It's of moderate importance to me; but if RAR was significantly better than 7z, I daresay I would consider using RAR. I don't see how any of this is either offtopic or controversial.
I understand your reaction, given the prevalence of overzealous Stallman-types. Rest assured that I am not one of them, in two important ways: 1. I accept and use some proprietary software and data formats; 2. I accept that other people's choices of which proprietary products are worth using will be different from my own. Some people are willing to pay €29.95 for WinRAR, and think that this represents value for money. They can make their own decisions. I will not be telling them that they are wrong and evil for doing so.
and all the fears surrounding proprietary formats are pretty much always based on hypothetical "what if" scenarios that have about as much likelihood (or credibility) to them as your next conspiracy theory.
I won't continue this part of the discussion here (since it definitely is offtopic and will spiral out of control if I do answer it), but I can answer in another thread or PM if you wish to hear my views on this. If not, we can let this subthread die which will be no bad thing.
RAR has the problem of being a proprietary format, unlike 7zip. Given the marginal difference in performance betwee the two standards, I prefer a free format.
I don't see a problem, but just omitting the "Platform TAS of the year" award for whichever platform the "TAS of the year" is on would maybe be the most convenient way to fix it.
Let's say I really like SNES games. I only had a SNES, never had another console, so I don't care about any other games. I go back through looking for the best SNES TAS of 2008 - yeah, super mario world! I look at 2007 - wait, there isn't a best SNES TAS that year? I look at 2009 - again, no best SNES TAS? This is what would happen if those SNES TAS of the year awards hadn't been awarded, because the games won TAS of the year instead.
The awards have a dual purpose: to reward good TASes, and to instruct viewers on TASes of quality. The different categories help users identify TASes which satisfy their own interests - I know I'm more likely to look at GBA or SNES TAS of the year than PSX or NES. Removing Platform TAS of the year awards will add a bit of confusion for viewers. In any change, we must consider the consequences not just for the recipients of the awards, but also the people who view the awards page.
Warp's idea of a combined TAS of the year/Platform TAS of the year award would serve TASers and viewers equally well, and wouldn't suffer from the confusion mentioned above; but it seems to be just a cosmetic difference from the current system: to declare that "TAS of the year/Platform TAS of the year" is one award rather than two.
Warp wrote:
Perhaps the idea is that one TAS automatically hogging two awards may feel a bit unfair to the other fine nominated TASes.
Do know any TASer who does feel that the current system is unfair? An awards ceremony is all about recognizing excellence. I'd say it's fine for the best TAS of the year to get a lot of well-deserved recognition. I think the previous four TASes of the year deserved every award they got.
I disagree strongly with the first suggestion. If anything I think that "TAS of the year" should also win "Platform TAS of the year".
I think the problem with that is that it kind of makes the second category redundant.
What exactly do you mean by "redundant" and what is so bad about it? Why is it bad for one TAS to win more than one award? I don't understand what is so bad about this that people want to change the awards to avoid it.
If redundancy is bad, the two ways to resolve it seem even worse:
1. Remove the offending category for the year as said by Warp above -- but why? how is this better than before?
2. Award the offending platform TAS category to a different TAS -- but this removes redundancy by replacing it with inconsistency. Again, how is this better than before?
I do see the point, though, that one could ask "how come the best TAS was not the best in its own platform category?"
If the current system avoids confusion that changing it would cause, then why change it?
I don't understand the perceived problem, and I don't like the proposed solutions. I'd be interested to hear from the OP exactly why he thinks the changes should be made, rather than just which changes should be made. Because if someone can explain to me what the problem is, perhaps we can work to find a solution which we're all happy with. As it is, I don't understand at all that there is any problem which needs fixing. (And yes, I've heard people say "redundancy" -- but why is that a problem?)
I agree with DarkKobold, however (probably getting bashed for this) one could take it one step further and limiting TASes to only be nominated to one category.
The problem with this is that if you have a great TAS, you won't know whether you want to nominate it for TAS of the year or just Platform TAS of the year. Either you get a very good chance of a smaller award, or you get a maybe-one-in-three shot at the big one. We don't want to encourage people not to nominate for TAS of the year because it deprives them of Platform TAS of the year with only a small chance of success at a bigger award for it. In the end, both awards suffer by not being able to consider the full range of eligible TASes.
Under your system, the second and third favourite contenders for TAS of the year last year (Megaman 2 and Aria of Sorrow 100% souls) might have won nothing at all, had they gone for the big prize.
And just to round it all off, here's a general drop script which tells you about souls, items (common or rare) and hearts (big or small). It can also do gold, but the feature is disabled in the code since I think for most people that information is needless clutter.
Output looks something like this:
1s 4r 5c 7H 10h 11s Skeleton
The numbers mean how many RNG calls away the drop is, and the letters code for the type of drop. s = soul, r = rare, c = common, H = big heart, h = small heart.
I disagree strongly with the first suggestion. If anything I think that "TAS of the year" should also win "Platform TAS of the year". I expect TAS of the year to go to the best TAS of the year, and Platform TAS of the year to go to the best TAS on a particular platform. If TAS of the year doesn't also win Platform TAS of the year, then one of the winners isn't the best, and in my mind doesn't deserve the award.
If you want to give out second prizes, suggest that instead. But please don't redefine the existing awards. Actually, I'd get right behind a suggestion of second prizes for all Platform TAS awards (or perhaps, all Platform TAS awards which had at least N nominees for some N to avoid showering awards on minority platforms).
I'm not too fussed about the second suggestion. Glitchy, funny, etc are novelty awards, and I think it's reasonable that they should be used to highlight TASes which might otherwise have been missed because they didn't win a main award.
So far, the only uncracked thing about random drops is heart.
Heart drop lua script.
You need to hit the monster when the random number equals at least 7, because hearts are the last thing to be checked for. Random numbers must be spent for soul, item, and gold first.
Overall death algorithm
When a monster dies, the game does the following, in order:
Checks for soul drop
Chooses whether to check for rare or common item
Checks for the given item
Checks whether to drop gold (if so, checks how much)
Checks whether to drop a heart (if so, checks whether small or large)
It stops at the first successful drop. So if an item is dropped, neither gold nor heart will be checked for. Soul drops and item drops have been explained in previous posts in this thread.
The target location must be accessible in order to drop anything other than a soul. Monsters which don't drop items will never drop gold or hearts.
Heart drop mechanic
There is a base 1/80 probability of a heart, checked by the expression ((RNG>>4)%0x400) <= 7.
A surprise to me is that if you are wearing the heart pendant the chance is upped to 1/10 (substitute 0x3f for 7 in the above expression). It seems obvious now, but I hadn't considered this before.
Once the game decides you're getting a heart, there's a 1/4 chance of getting a large heart. if (RNG & 0xc0 == 0) you get a large heart.
Gold drop mechanic
It's very similar to the heart drop mechanic. Base probability 1/80, upped to 1/10 with the gold ring. Not sure what the probabilities of different values of gold coins are, and I don't think anyone cares. :)