Somethings just don't make sense...

[mina]

I mean both.

as for the swaerign thing, I agree up until the whole flashing thing. If I yell apples in your face but mean it as I hope you die in a fire then it by all means is a swear word. The word doesn't matter, it's the meaning.

[Enigma]

Yes, but swears are the more colloquial way of saying, well swears. It's amazingly easy for someone to misunderstand you, so if I say f** off to someone, even jokingly, it's still impolite because the meaning of the word is still well... (please do not swear).

You can't just go around screaming swears at the top of your lungs and then later when you get yelled at by the little old lady down the street, say that you didn't "mean it that way." By all means, swear with your friends, but you have to keep in mind how someone who DOESN'T know what you mean will take it.

[mina]

I totally agree, I guess what I was trying to say is I don't understand the people who have problems with the words. I get thinking it's impolite, it's the people who have big to do's with the words and not the meaning behind them.

[Enigma]

The meaning behind them is blasphemous, simply enough. Are these people in question Christian by any chance?

And to stay on topic, one thing I don't get is this (well, I kind of get it, but it's so non-intuitive):

Let's say you have a neighbour, with two kids. You don't know their genders, so you ask their parents about it. They say "One of them is a girl". Now, if you were to calculate the probability of the other child being a boy or a girl, you'd think it was 1/2 chance right? Intuitive, right? Look at this:

BB
GG
GB
BG

The first letter is the older child, the second is the younger. 3 of them have a girl in the equation, and of those, 2 have a boy. So if you know that one child is a girl, then there's a 2/3 chance that the other is a boy. Completely non-intuitive. But that isn't the worst. Let's say they said that the older child is a girl. Now you have a 1/2 chance of the other being a boy! Look it up, and you'll see it's true...

But again, that's not the worst. Let's say that instead of all of this happening, you walk by and see both kids outside with the family dog. One is in front of the dog in the sandpit, and one is playing with the dog. The one with the dog is partially covered by the dog, and you can't tell what his/her gender is. The other one is a girl. What are the chances of the unseen one being a boy?

Which situation do you use? You can view it as either:

A: The first letter is the one in the sandpit, the second is the one with the dog. 1/2 chance of boy.

B: One of them is playing with the dog. 2/3 chance of boy.

It's insanely non-intuitive.

[Captain Malachi]

That doesn't quite work Enigma, if one of them is a girl, then the other can either be a boy, or a girl. There is no third option (well, ther is, but I'm assuming we're ignoring hermaphrodites for this). For your calculations there, GB = BG. It's still one boy and one girl, no matter which one came first.

One's a girl, so the other's either a girl or a boy. That's it, no maths or probability equations or anything like that is necessary.

[Helonion]

Somethings just don't make sense: Enigmas math

[Enigma]

Aug 10, 2010 11:54:49 GMT Captain Malachi said:

That doesn't quite work Enigma, if one of them is a girl, then the other can either be a boy, or a girl. There is no third option (well, ther is, but I'm assuming we're ignoring hermaphrodites for this). For your calculations there, GB = BG. It's still one boy and one girl, no matter which one came first.

Your logic is wrong.

I have an older sister, and I am a male. We are the only children in my close family. If I were a girl and she/he were a boy, that would not be the same thing, yet by your logic it would be.

Flip two coins a bunch of times, and you'll find that despite there being 3 options (HH, HT and TT), you'll come up with HT roughly half the time, because there are actually 4 options: HH, HT, TH and TT. You can imagine one coin as a quarter and the other as a dime to understand why. Same thing works out with the children. My logic stands.

[Captain Malachi]

It doesn't matter. There is one girl, and one other child. That's all we know. The odds of that other child being a boy are 1/2, not 2/3. Obviously, if you were a girl and your sister was a boy that would be different, but numbers wise there is still one boy and one girl, so for the calculation yes, it is in fact, exactly the same thing.

Like I said several times, one is a girl, the other is either a girl or a boy. The two statistics don't affect each other. It's a 1/2 chance.

Or are you claiming that when a woman has a daughter the chances of her next child being a girl actually go down?

Edit- As for your coin tossing example, your logic claims that when you toss a coin and get heads, your next toss has a 2/3 chance of being tails when that simply isn't true. No matter how many times you toss the coin the odds are still 50/50.

[Enigma]

But whenever you toss two coins, one of the four following combinations shows up, right?

HT, TH, TT, HH

Look at them. If I tell you that one coin landed heads (not saying which), that would mean that there are 3 possible combinations which have at least one head, namely:

HT, TH, HH

And of those, 2 have tails. Disprove the logic aside from saying "It's always 1/2 no matter what", because that isn't logical enough.

[Captain Malachi]

Ok, this is giving me a headache, so this is the last time I'm going to say this and then I'll just leave it. One of the coins is heads, the other isn't. There are only two options of what it could be, and the fact that the other one is heads doesn't affect the odds. They are unrelated statistics.

HT and TH are the same, it's still one heads and one tails, it doesn't matter what order they come up.

You're making this more complicated than it needs to be, so I'm done.

[yoritomo]

The problem is that each event is independent. You can't infer that the results from the first event. So if the first coin lands on heads then the next flip with either land on heads or tails. Two options so it is a 50/50 chance.

Trying to determine the probability of something halfway through the process is like dividing by zero.

[Hellbreaker]

Aug 10, 2010 0:58:40 GMT @mina said:

Something I don't get is gamers getting all their stuff either cheaper/free/stealing it.

I buy stuff second hand, from online stores and the like because:
1. The closest store that actually sells is an independent stockist which is 40min away by train.
2. I'm a student, 4 boxes of models is roughly what I get to live on every month.
3. I like the grey tide, and occasionally the shining white one too.

Things I don't get are why you get a sudden urge to spend as much as possible as soon as it's not your own money.
I have friends who feel the same about other peoples' money, so it's not just me.

Edit- Damn, didn't see the next page.

Cheers!

[The Tomato]

Aug 10, 2010 0:58:40 GMT @mina said:

Most people would say that you shouldn't say certain words, but it's really the intention behind the words that is bad. Most people wouldn't agree with this. If I say (please do not swear) you in a joking manner then why is it so bad compared to if I said it with intent to wound.

See, this is were ... gets complicated. You are going ahead and assume that your language is separate and not tied to anything more than your own intention of the word, lacking any satisfactory frame of refference.

I would say that the best theory of how languages work would be the sprachspiel theory of ludvig wittgenstein published in the work "philosophical investigations" (read it, its interesting).

Its based in the fact that a conversation essentialy seems to be a manner of game between those involved, the language being a dynamic ruleset based on the responses from the suroundings.

Determining if a word is a swearword is therefore left to the reactions it provokes when spoken.

TlDr: you are pretty much stuck with this, people have the right to take offense because they take offense.

Still, no worries?

[Enigma]

Ah, never mind, it is really complex, but I still stand by my logic.

I don't get high heels. Why do people ever wear them?

[Trygon]

I don't get the high heel thing myself. I mean, they are supposed to look sexy, but to me they are just shoes that look painful and hard to walk in. Then again, woman have a trend of picking extremely painful and awkward fashion trends. Corsets, bird cage dresses, and so such.