gonpost

Eh, you can thank me and a few others for white surpassing red not long after the dupe. :D But will they change? I'd consider yellow/green as permanent contenders. I'd also say that white and red COULD change places, but it's unlikely. Interestingly, I'd also put out that the purple party hat has the potential to move around. See, when there's a really high demand for items (like party hats) and there are more purple ones, the purple ones have a better ability to change their price because more are changing hands. This is by no means certain, but it's a little pet theory of mine.

The variable resistor is what allows the light to change to the various colours. i,e red and green will produce a yellow light. While i could place a variable resistor before each of them it would mean having to adjust three switches to control the colour, and also would mean one LED could be overloaded by turning the other two off entirely. Hmm...see, I guess I don't understand. From your picture, it looks like you just have 3 LEDs there. Are there actually more? If you explain very well I might be able to help better. Because as I see it now, those are really just three LEDs in parallel, and it doesn't matter how many you have connected in parallel as long as your voltage source can supply enough current (I'm assuming you're using the wall, so I'd assume that's not a problem).

Hey, The variable resistor thing is kind of silly. Why not just have a plain resistor before each LED? As for switching, I'm not sure. I'd just leave the three wires out and connect them as I pleased. :D Maybe put them in a mini breadboard.

I've heard you need to log out and in right where you are.

I read the first post and a bit of the second. Pardon that I'm butting in, but I think I have something possibly interesting for the original point. Have you heard of emergent properties? archimage said, mostly correctly, that your argument could be summed up as "I think, therefore I am". However, the idea of an emergent property entails that the property is indeed real, but it is the product of a collective group. So there could be something which does not exist if there is no large group of humans, but which does exist if there is such a group. A few weeks ago I found this very interesting discussion on another forum about the concept of an emergent god. First is the original post, and then I've got here a post which essentially says what the author wanted to say, but much better. [hide=OB 50 - first post]I've been thinking a lot lately about the phenomenon of emergence. Basically, where a system exhibits properties that no individual elements of that system possess. For instance, water possesses myriad properties that could not be directly inferred from examining a single water molecule in isolation. One could never infer the properties of ice or steam or surface tension from a single molecule, but when a large number of these molecules are placed together to form a system, these properties all emerge from the whole. The same is true is human social constructs. If you were some hypothetical observer who met only one human, you would never infer the global economy from that meeting. However, put enough people together, and these systems start to form. Economies, religions, states, nations, etc. The interesting thing about emergent systems is that the individual elements of the system all contribute to affect the system as a whole, but the system affects the individual elements as well, seemingly without direct influence from any one element. Our consciousness is a prime example. We can identify and catalog every individual part of our body, but no single part is indivisibly "us". We have almost no control of our individual autonomous body functions, yet we have direct control over the actions of our body as a whole. We can take direct action (as the emergent system) that can positively or negatively affect the well-being of our individual parts, like smoking or crashing a car. Alternately, our parts can take actions that can inevitably affect the system as a whole, like a rogue cancerous growth. This idea that the influence can go both ways, both up and down the hierarchical structure of the system, is what interests me when thinking about the social construct of religion. Now, before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I'm not espousing an opinion on the validity of anyone's beliefs. I'm just interested in examining the properties of religion as a social construct, and the possible implications and effects of that system on the elements that make it up - people. Religion as a system seems uniquely suited for self-preservation. Perhaps the one common trait of most, if not all, humans is a fear of death and the unknown. Every major religion I'm aware of addresses this issue in some form or another, which presents an almost irresistible incentive. With this uncertainty taken care of, the burden and tragedy of everyday life can seem manageable. Once this is accepted, there is very little incentive to reject this notion, because the alternative is unthinkable. In addition, religion possesses mechanisms for reproduction and mutation. Missionaries, evangelists, crusaders, family traditions - all mechanisms for continued reproduction. Splinter groups and sects form constantly - mutations. Some form and disband in a relatively short time, but others are more successful and flourish, like Islam and Christianity. These now distinct religions then compete with one another for supremacy or survival, just like competing life forms. We've seen this happen for thousands of years. In Egypt and Greece, we can find the fossilized remains of two religious systems that must have seemed all-powerful at the time. This brings me to my main point. Say we have some hypothetical population of a few million people. For the sake of argument, there is no actual divine influence being exerted upon this population from an actual deity. However, these people have a very clear idea and understanding of the deity that they worship, regardless of its actual existence. They have rules covering virtually every aspect of their daily lives which are derived in part or in whole from the teachings of this deity, and each tries to live their life accordingly. With enough people and a complex and stable religious social construct, is the influence of this imagined deity in any way distinguishable from the influence of an actual deity? If everyone is acting in the way that they perceive this deity would desire them to act, then has the emergent system exerted its influence on the population in the same manner a real deity would desire to do so? In short: If God didn't already exist, did we create Him in a way that can still affect the course of human events in a very real way?[/hide] [hide=apeiron - clarification]I'm not sure if this was OB50's intent but he is simply making a standard systems science or hierarchy theory point. A hierarchy that develops "naturally" has both bottom-up and top-down causality. There is a set of small stuff that constructs, and then at the global spatiotemporal scale, there emerges a generality, a prevailing ambience, that constrains. Where things get really interesting is where the two things are mutual. Where not only is the small adding up to make the large, but the large is in turn responsible for shaping up the identity of the small. Then you have a true self-organising system. So taking the god example. A collection of individual humans are the small local constructive "stuff", the located substance of the system. Then together they create some kind of prevailing belief system. This set of global beliefs turns out to have social utility - it gives the collection of individuals a survival advantage. And the beliefs operate as an ambient set of constraints. Each person's behaviour is not determined by the beliefs, but it is guided, steered, limited, shaped. To put is simply, the local scale becomes defined by its degrees of freedom. Any property that is not being globally suppressed, constrained by the emergent ambience that prevails broadly over space and time, will naturally be free to happen. What is not forbidden is what can and must be happening. So from local actions comes some global form, some general set of constraints. And these constraints then in turn are more sharply focusing the identity of a set of local individuals. Kids grow up to act a certain way. Groups over time become more narrowly bound as the memes evolve and develop. The psychology creates the sociology and the sociology in turn creates the psychology. Local and global scales are in interaction so that a whole system self-organises (what Hoftsteddler, reinventing the wheel, once popularised as a strange loop). So from systems science, we can see that collections of anything will produce their own prevailing states of global constraint. Constraints that in turn sharpen up the identity of the localised collection. A very simple example of such a phenomenon would be a spin glass or Ising model - self-organising phase transitions. Human social systems are then what we would call complex adaptive systems (CAS) in that they have this systems causality in an evolutionary context. There is selection pressure and competition. There is a need for knowing and adaptation. The phase transition, so to speak, is open ended. Anyway, there is plenty of science to ground the discussion. And from the understanding that the global level is about constraint - large scale constraints that are in dynamic equilibrium with local constructive action - we can see why human societies would want to endow their "gods" with some particular mythic qualities. A god must be everywhere and see right inside your head if you are to feel socially constrained even in your thinking. God forbid that your thoughts should go off topic. But also god acts only as a set of global constraints - long run patterns which we must have a choice about fleetingly breaking. So as with QM, on the fine grain, there is room for fluctuations. We can sin, then atone. As long as things average out, the system as a whole stays on track. There is a pretty precise fit between our concept of god (which has evolved through human history to become something ever more abstract and globalised) and the global scale that systems science would predict. And we can see it in other generalised notions like the UN bill of human rights or other rational/humanist attempts at global ethical constraints. We make these things real. And they in turn really make us. It is a two-way causality. But different in that the local acts in an additive and constructive fashion. The global acts in a constraining and shaping fashion. Emergence is a bad word because of its connotations of accidental, not quite real. In systems science, it is actually the whole system that must emerge - self-organise. Or better yet, develop, evolve, equilibrate. And the local and the global scales are different yet both *real* in that they are causally essential to what is found.[/hide]

At 87 WC with an adze, I'm getting 85k exp/hour at teaks on ape atoll easily. I could probably push 90 if I wasn't watching batman: beyond at the same time. Before, I was getting around 65k/hour and pushing 70 if I paid full attention.

Heh. Well I got a 45 meg vid of my clan chat while it was going on. We talked about most things that happened, haha. http://www.filedropper.com/runescapeupdate6-9-09 If you feel insecure about links, please wait until a mod checks it. You can probably judge by my post count that I'm not about to do anything dumb though. I just like to have a little bit of recorded history. :D

Intriguing. Like the word interesting, but better. It implies curiosity about the subject, and thus it implies that you want to know more about the subject.

I'm a student electrical engineer... As a general rule, keep all of your numbers in fractional form until you want your answer. However, even then you should only change it over to decimal if you want to apply it to something physical. If I say that this screw needs to be 17/21 inches in diameter exactly, you change it to decimal and carry it out as far as your machining equipment can accurately make the screw. But when you're doing math, keep things in fractional form. And yes, .999... repeating really does equal 1. You're essentially asking "what is the limit of x as x -> 1 from the left side?" Believe me, it's 1. Furthermore, .999... is a NUMBER. It is NOT A PROCESS. You are not moving out the 9s. They are already there, they are a number, and they are equal to one. I can prove this with a very basic infinite sum as well. Where a = 9, 0.999... = a0.(a1)(a2)(a3)... = a0 + (a1)(1/10)^1 + (a2)(1/10)^2 + ... = (ar)/(1-r) = 9(1/10)/(1-1/10) = .9/.9 = 1 I can also use a better limit example but it's really a pain to type out on a forum. In a different number system, namely binary, .999... = 0.11111... = 01 Here are some common errors in thought, courtesy of wikipedia, -Students are often "mentally committed to the notion that a number can be represented in one and only one way by a decimal." Seeing two manifestly different decimals representing the same number appears to be a paradox, which is amplified by the appearance of the seemingly well-understood number 1.[33] -Some students interpret "0.999" (or similar notation) as a large but finite string of 9s, possibly with a variable, unspecified length. If they accept an infinite string of nines, they may still expect a last 9 "at infinity".[34] -Intuition and ambiguous teaching lead students to think of the limit of a sequence as a kind of infinite process rather than a fixed value, since a sequence need not reach its limit. Where students accept the difference between a sequence of numbers and its limit, they might read "0.999" as meaning the sequence rather than its limit.[35] -Some students regard 0.999 as having a fixed value which is less than 1 by an infinitesimal but non-zero amount. -Some students believe that the value of a convergent series is at best an approximation, that .999... is approximately equal to 1. But alas, you poor students are WRONG. :D You messed up going from step 1 to step 2. If you go backwards from 2 to 1, you cancelled out an a. That's a big NO NO. You essentially got rid of an entire solution. a^2 = aa, so just rewriting step 2 in another manner, aa-ab = 0 a(a-B)=0 therefore, a = 0 OR a = b In the case of your proof, a = 0 would indeed work, and that is the only solution (which is trivial)!

I hardly ever comment on achievements, but this one's worth saying CONGRATULATIONS. That is epic. So what are you going to do now? If I were you, I'd get p2p. You've essentially beaten f2p, so you may as well. Nothing lasts forever, and there are new horizons out there! Either way, excellent job.

Are you seriously telling us that a person with Down's Syndrome doesn't know they exist? Bull. Indeed. Just read my posts like two pages ago.... Those who are mentally [developmentally delayed]ed are aware that they are alive. They are just less intelligent. There are varying degrees, sure, but they are aware that they are alive and are capable of enjoying life. A baby with anencephaly has no brain. It has a brain stem. In other words, it acts COMPLETELY instinctually. The brain stem is responsible for unconscious bodily processes. There is no baby there, just a husk of what could have been a baby. Comparing it to a goldfish might even be giving it too much. An ant would be more like it.

[hide=] When the hell is the last time you ever saw someone with Down's Syndrome stimulating our economy? I fail to see how anyone could accept stem cell research and not this. This is killing people today for a better future tomorrow. Eventually we could completely eliminate diseases like Down's Syndrome and Autism. I believe they can actually be taught to do some menial jobs, which in turn help to stimulate the economy. Name me one exsisting government that will approve your mass genocide, without causing a war. [bleep] nazis. Firstly, no, they can't do menial jobs, they consistently deviate from the tasks they are performing to go examine some uninteresting piece of litter. Secondly, it's not a mass genocide. There's a difference between the six million people killed in the Holocaust versus the hundred thousand mentally impaired I am talking about. Thirdly, kindly never refer to me as a Nazi again. I'm headed off to Synagogue tomorrow morning to speak about the evils of Joseph Goebbels. I might be authoritarian, I might be far right, but I do NOT appreciate being called a Nazi. [/hide] I believe I might be able to solve a few problems here... Philosophically guys, those of you responding to Robert_de_Sable aren't giving good responses. Calling him any names, saying he makes you sick, etc, will get you no where. You assume that he might have a point, and then you attack it. Attack it objectively. Attack it without insulting anyone (unless the name describes something and is used not just for egotistical purposes). Now, he's right that some of the more mentally handicapped do deviate from their jobs or are otherwise incapable of contributing to society. Many of them can, however. There's an obviously [developmentally delayed]ed girl who works at my university's cafeteria cleaning tables. She gets the job done well enough for sure. As for those who cannot contribute to society or to someone beyond themselves, that is no reason to kill them. To figure out the reason for this, you have to ask yourself "why is it wrong to kill people in the first place". You won't find too many good answers which don't involve God besides one, the argument that you are depriving someone or something of a "valuable future". I'd love to recite all I know to you, but I'm not feeling that motivated. Look up Marquis. He has an article called "Why Abortion is Immoral". I'm not at all concerned with the abortion issue, but I AM concerned with why he asserts that killing someone is morally wrong. That's in the first portion of the essay, I believe. If you read and reject his idea, just state why, exactly. Then you'll have to offer up your own system of morality (consistent with at least some human intuitions, most likely) which allows for the killing of the mentally [developmentally delayed]ed but not normal people. These things aren't easy to do...but feel free to try, really! EDIT: Also, as a side point...this is a somewhat off topic branch from the main topic. If anyone still cares about the original issue, feel free to address my earlier post. :D

Hi guys, I've had experience with an anencephalic baby first hand. Many years ago now, there were several publicized cases of mothers throwing their babies in the trash (bathroom trash can, dumpster, etc). My neighbor across the street, who we'll call Erica, happened to be related to one of those mothers. She decided to care for the baby, since obviously the mother was not allowed to. However, this baby was born with anencephaly. My sister and I were friends with Erica's two kids, and my mother talked to Erica from time to time. My mom and I went over to see the baby one time. Let me tell you, it was very strange. The baby did cry on occasion (or so Erica told us), but it was a really weird cry. It would not interact with you or ever acknowledge you. It really was like a little moving corpse. The only reason it might have seen alive at all is that we don't expect babies to do more than eat, sleep, and cry anyway. It had only a brain stem, the part of your brain which controls your basic functions. After just a week or two, the baby died (or perhaps I should say ceased functioning) in Erica's arms. Babies with anencephaly never live past a few weeks, though most die immediately after birth or in a few hours. Maybe months if they have constant medical care, but they will die. Now, if the parents of the baby want to have it, they should be able to. It's hard to persuade anyone that their baby isn't actually "alive" any more than an ant is alive. There's really nothing you can do to persuade the vast majority of mothers that it is indeed dead... But I have to say this again. A baby with anencephaly is not conscious. It it not alive. It is a husk of what could have been a human being, but it is not a human being. I've seen one and it's really the truth. Comparing it with any mammal is wrong, frankly. It is not even on par with a gold fish, or that chicken you ate for dinner a few nights ago. Therefore, a parent should not expect medical care beyond a hospital stay for a few days. And that is only for the sake of the parents. There is no life in the baby, and so letting it die more or less naturally is enough. Wasting resources on something which is not alive is a huge mistake when those resources could be used on a baby with a life.

Wrong. Evolution is a fact and it has demonstrated how man evolved. Stop posting these ridiculous statements on a subject you quite clearly know nothing about. Evolution is a theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_ ... y_and_fact Theories are NOT conjectures. Conjectures are things that people think of that, at least at first glance, seem to be possible and real. THEORIES are very well supported ideas supported by lots of facts. Just read that link I gave you. Furthermore, the theory of evolution is a very, very broad concept. You really have to disagree with PARTS of it, rather than the whole thing. (Because if you disagree with the whole thing, you are disagreeing with some of the FACTS that make up the THEORY). You're going to have to come to grips with the fact that evolution is both theory and fact. So is the "theory of gravity". Also, we're still uncovering evidence for evolution all the time. At least evolution is a theory which is gaining more and more support as time goes on. The only reason that it is not fact is because it cannot exactly be tested. The events that make up evolution usually take a very long time to occur. The closest thing we have are a few examples with birds on the Galapagos islands, and then of course very small things that reproduce very quickly, such as microbes. It's rare that we see it happen today with our own eyes just because it takes so very long to occur, or because it occurs on things which we don't come into contact with very often. We can't exactly test the bible. That's why so many people have a problem with it. We can't talk to God, either. It's quite simply that religion cannot be tested and so the "theory of religion", as it were, never gets more evidence than what it has. That's why apologetics is such a huge thing now...

I may be wrong...but... You said shout "PC" and get the trade value? I'm pretty sure that the trade value changes. I believe you should prefer the items over the trade value.