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Supergrunch

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Posts posted by Supergrunch

  6. Posted

    Thanks people.

    I'm sorry to hear that Grunch... :(

     

    I remember when my three year relationship - at the time - ended, I wasn't really sure where to put myself :/ we did end up getting back together after a little while but still, I can understand to a degree how you must be feeling but I just hope that something good comes out of it for you. :)

     

    It might not seem like it now but hopefully things will get better over time. : peace:

    Well, probably in a while, yes. For now though, I feel pretty rubbish, but oh well.

    Is it too soon to ask you out on a date?

    I thought you'd already made your intentions quite clear on irc. :heh:

  14. Posted · Edited by Supergrunch

    I need help. Looking for a good and not too complicated book about Quantum Mechanics/Physics and/or Thought Experiments.

     

    I've been reading some texts about Schrödinger's Cat and the Double-Slit Experiment but want to dive into the matter a bit more.

    Can anyone help me? @Supergrunch :D

    I know very little about quantum mechanics, but you might find Richard Feynman's QED a useful gateway series of lectures into the harder stuff - it's supposed to be good, and Feynman is generally amazing.

     

    Also, if you find Cloud Atlas too hardgoing due to the language, try Ghostwritten by the same author! I actually prefer it, and if I recall correctly it's all in modern English. Although Cloud Atlas is probably worth the effort too, but maybe Ghostwritten will convince you of that.

  15. Posted

    Thanks a lot guys! Especially you Magnus. :heh: I'm sadly a bit too busy with an impending conference talk to do much, but I did get to recieve and drink some beers, along with steak, so it's all good! And yes, sorry for my speeding train that time Danny, and it'd be good to see you again sometime jay! Although I'm sure that'd disconfirm your flattering assessment of me. ;)

  16. Posted

    At the weekend, it's just the standard phone, wallet, and keys, although I also have an annoying habit of stuffing receipts in my back pocket so they pile up a bit there.

     

    On weekdays, I take a backpack for questing which usually contains:

     

    Loads (i.e. several kilos worth) of print-outs of papers, handouts, and other stuff I may need

    A couple of notebooks

    Some library books

    A stapler (currently missing!)

    An umbrella (occassionally, although I usually just forget and just get wet)

    blue pens

    a pencil

    green and red biros

    whiteboard markers

    USB stick

    earphones

    reading glasses

    hand moisturiser in winter, or my hands get horrendously chapped

    dental floss (because there's nothing more annoying than having something stuck in your teeth and not being able to get it out all day)

    tissues (especially when I have a cold)

     

    Do I win heaviest bag?

  17. Posted

    I never saw this thread until today. Is it the kind of thing you have to give a lot of time to, to really enjoy?

    Yeah, I've only scratched the surface of the game, and haven't played a proper match with angry internet strangers yet. But I still have a few invites left if you fancy one.

  21. Posted

    For some reason or other (probably because I bought an invite a while back), Steam have seen it fit to give me vast numbers of copies of Dota 2 to give away - so far I have only found one taker, but I have 17 copies left, so if anyone would like one, post in this thread and let me know, and also provide me with something I'll find at least vaguely interesting (e.g. a link), so I get a little something in return. Oh, and you'll need to add me on Steam of course - I'm Supergrunch there too. Incidentally, I haven't had a chance to give my own version of the game any more than a few cursory plays, but it of course has a huge following, and I'd like to get into it more in the future.

  22. Posted

    Well, I liked it all the way through, probably in part due to the way I interpreted things:

    It seemed to me that the whole episode skillfully and intentionally used cliched tropes all the way through, to build a sense of crushing inevitability. For instance, as soon as the guy goes missing at the start, we know that something has happened to him, and when the police come, what's going on is just as clear to us as it is to the main character. Which is kind of unsurprising so far, but it continues as the AI storyline starts - when the talk of signing her up begins, thanks to

    Chekov's gun, we know that it'll happen, and even early on it pretty obviously hints that the constructed personality lacks all the complexity of the real thing (e.g. "what's a jeb?"). So I don't think the main narrative is supposed to be in any way surprising for the audience, which leads you to question why they presented it like that at all. And I think it's because the real focus isn't on the weirdness/addictiveness of the AI technology involved (although that's obviously a theme too), but on the source of the personality that's created, which is social media - if such personalities are really just hollow imitations of the real person behind them, what does this say about the personality we're putting across online?

     

  23. Posted

    So Charlie Brooker's brilliant dark pop culture satire is back for a second series (if you haven't heard of it, see this thread about last year's series, and watch it all now), and it started tonight with Be Right Back, which I've just watched on 4oD. I think with these the best thing to do is to see no spoilers at all and watch it cold, so for now I'll just say that it was awesome, although it'll be interesting to discuss once a few people have seen it. So who else has?

  24. Posted

    I mostly just find it kind of amusing to be honest - it's only a problem if it's actively bad for you in some way really, although of course one would hope that descriptions of food are accurate. :heh:

     

    So yes, I could well have eaten horse accidentally (at least, if it's found in Sainsbury's lasagne too), but this doesn't really bother me. On a related note, apparently a lot of the burgers in cheap burger vans are bulked up with (completely safe) beef heart apparently - does this bother anyone? I remember seeing a program trying to expose this shocking fact, and wondering what all the fuss was supposed to be about.

  25. Posted

    Pro GM all the way.

     

    - GM foods have no higher chance of transferring DNA to humans than normal plants

    - IIRC no evidence of plants having transferred DNA to humans via the gut.

    - People have been selecting for certain genes in plants via selective breeding (ie. countering nature) for centuries/millennia. Mostly defeats ethical argument.

    - Better yields (theoretically), better nutrition. Can make crops more resilient to pesticides thus reduce their use, which is good for animals and the environment.

     

    Most people anti-GM are ignorant of the scientific facts.

    This. It's awful that some activists think damaging GM crops is forward-thinking, when it's actually quite the opposite.

    We've even done it for trivial reasons. Carrots were purple, but there were some mutant carrots that were white and yellow. These white and yellow carrots were then selectively bred to create the orange carrot, which is now the most common kind.

     

    So, all carrots have technically been genetically modified by humans.

    For nationalistic reasons, too! Although of course whether or not artificial selection is the same as genetic modication depends on your definition.

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