Here’s their solution. Same answer as me but arrived via the angular momentum concept. Frankly I thought my approach was simpler.

SOLUTION: We know from last week's puzzle, "Bugs on a Stick," that the final positions for the bugs collectively are the same as if they passed through one another instead of bouncing. If they pass one another, every bug simply travels once around the hoop and ends up where it began.

With bouncing, some bug will end up where Bugsy began, but will it be Bugsy? It certainly will be if it happens that all the bugs begin facing the same way, since then there will be no collisions. But that happens with probability only 2/(224) = 0.0000001192, approximately.

Wait, maybe there's another way. Note that the whole process preserves the angular momentum of the mass of bugs. Suppose, say, that 16 of the 24 bugs face clockwise; the remaining 8 are counterclockwise. Then the bugs will, as a whole, rotate clockwise at 1/3 cm/sec, and at the end, each bug will be, on average, 1/3 of the way around from where it began.

But since they never pass through one another, the bugs remain in the same order; thus every bug will end up (in this case) in the position of the bug that began 8 bugs in front of it, clockwise.

So all the bugs (including Bugsy) change position in this case, and indeed in every case unless the mass clockwise speed is an integer number of cm/sec. That integer can only be 1 (all bugs moving clockwise), -1 (all counterclockwise), or 0 (12 bugs in each direction).

The latter is quite a lively possibility, occurring with probability (24 choose 12)/(224) ≈ 0.1611802578. Adding the 0.0000001192 from before gives us a total probability of 0.1611803770 for the event that Bugsy ends up where he started.

RIP.

The nation should pay him. We collectively got more than that in enjoyment from his Four Seasons Landscaping presser alone.

Question: Why and how did this end up getting on video? Does someone on this street film every garbage truck on garbage day?

Seems a little bit too convenient that this was filmed so well, or at all.

@lufins-dad said in President Biden's Redecorated Oval Office:

Even the carpet has changed in the Oval Office, with the golden-cream rug that was in place for Trump replaced by a deep blue that was in place during Bill Clinton’s presidency

Wait, that was Bill’s carpet? No wonder they spent $500K sanitizing the office.

Wait until they turn the black lights on...

@rainman said in Jolly Old Ammo Question:

I don't know what brand of rifle. We've got a huge area of garage where all our overflow treasures junk ends up. I think I know where it is, I'll try to find it. I still have a lousy back (always will), so the treasure hunt is not easy. And, I'm lazy. There is that.

Something like a pre-64 Winchester in 30-06 is worth $1000+. Something odd like a featherweight or a target model could be worth $4000-$10,000.

@lufins-dad said in Too much Trump stink on Dr Brix?:

I’m sure Joe will find a weirdo somewhere to take her place.

But, but....

THE SCARVES!

I applaud her integrity, I am sure her decision to support impeachment was not an easy one.

@doctor-phibes said in RIP Mira Furlan:

The cast of that show seem to have had more than its fair share of early deaths.

Mira Furlan age 65
Michael O'Hare age 60 (suicide)
Jerry Doyle age 60 ("Natural causes perhaps related to alcohol use")
Richard Biggs age 44 (aortic dissection)
Steven Furst (Flounder) age 63 (complications of diabetes)
Andreas Katsulas age 59 (lung cancer)
Jeff Conaway age 60 (pneumonia and sepsis, perhaps related to his drug use)

@taiwan_girl said in Fact checks?:

It seems that President Trump set the way on the very first day of his administration, With the claims about inauguration size and everything like that.

If, in a school, there is a student who you know has problems, or there is more of a tendency to be issues with that student, you devote more resources than you would normally to other students

Bullshit.

Have faith. Getting impeached for the second time is part of a much larger master plan. It's Q-dimensional chess.

Very cool. A lot of time and work to do the embroidery.

@lufins-dad said in 18% of Republicans:

@axtremus said in 18% of Republicans:

“Poll finds CEOs and business leaders are the most trusted figures in America“

Seriously?

You guys hang on every word Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos say. Elon Musk makes the news for non-business related items all the time...

You forgot the Oracle of Omaha.

@doctor-phibes said in Meanwhile, Down Under:

@axtremus said in Meanwhile, Down Under:

There is always Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo!, etc.
Multi site subscription services like Apple News also has some search capabilities.
The Chinese can also step in with Baidu, Qihoo, Sogou, etc.

They will also need to pay the royalties, presumably.

Yes, assuming the Austrian parliament goes through with the legislation, there will be search engines willing to try doing business following those new regulations, and we can observe how that works out for all parties involved (news gatherers, news distributors, the search engines, the consumers). Let them do that experiment down under, we observe and learn as we contemplate our own experiments.

OK, Frank Luntz is telling the world “look how incompetent I was at running focus groups, please click and talk about me on the Internet.”

@jon-nyc said in "Build everything from scratch":

@kluurs said in "Build everything from scratch":

That's BS. They interviewed the general responsible for the distribution plan, and vaccines have been distributed. Thus, there was and is a plan. The plan may need modification or updating or something - but there was a plan.

I wouldn't jump to too many conclusions about a quote lifted out of context like this. Who knows what the reporter and source were actually talking about when he said 'they had no plan'. Could have (rather plausibly) been about storing and distributing second doses. Could have been for last mile distribution. Could have been for tracking who or how many got second doses and when. Could have been anything.

Wasn’t it the CNN reporter who reported this and isn’t the thrust of this thread how CNN is “making” news to fit its agenda?