What witchcraft was THAT??? Incredible and entertaining.

The ‘official’ answer came out today. SOLUTION: If you try entering "(sqrt(2) + sqrt(3))^1,000,000,000" into Google or your calculator, you're likely to find that you get only the dozen or so most significant figures; that is, you don't get a nearly accurate enough answer to see what happens after the decimal point. But you can try smaller powers and see what happens. For example, the decimal expansion of the 10th power of the square root of 2 plus the square root of 3 begins 95049.9999895. A bit of experimentation shows that each even power of the square root of 2 plus the square root of 3 seems to be just a hair below some integer. So the solution to the puzzle seems to be 9. But why? If we merely square the number "square root of 2 plus square root of 3," we get about 9.9. If we play with 10 minus this number, we discover that it's equal to the square of the square root of 2 minus the square root of 3. Aha! Yes, (sqrt(3) + sqrt(2))^2n + (sqrt(3) - sqrt(2))^2n is always an integer, because when you expand it, the odd-power terms cancel and the even ones are integers. But (sqrt(3) - sqrt(2))^2n is very small, about 10^-n, so the first roughly n digits of (sqrt(3) + sqrt(2))^2n past the decimal point are all 9's. [The idea for this puzzle comes from the 29th Annual Virginia Tech Mathematics Contest, 2007

Book was better. I saw it before the series.

@taiwan_girl said in $27,000,000: Why so high? I kind of know the answer, but on a logic sense, it does not make any. That is based on a prediction of his future cigarette sales.

@nobodyssock said in What do you want to see next time?: The phillipines, a country of desperate poor little women trying to find a white man to take them out of the horrible lives they lead. I was in the Navy. I know many a sailor with a Filipino wife. Have you ever had pancit or lumpia? The shit is sooo good! Hey NS? Look over your shoulder. See that thing waaaay back there? No, a little further... That’s it. Yeah, that’s the line, and you are way over it. Delete this fucking post.

White people are bad

In Andromeda Strain it was the wino who was protected That is more fun than aspirin

Maybe neither cancellation is due to impending replacement, but merely acknowledging that they are not selling well enough to warrant continuance of the product lines.

From my reading (though no personal experience other than knowing people who have gone to international schools, which are quite expensive and there can be "pushy" parents in them), my feel from the article is that there is a entitlement from the parents. I am paying USD$XX dollars, so you had better get my son/daughter into this college. If you dont, it is your fault, not the fault of the child, etc.

@lufins-dad said in Seeing faces in everything: I want to know how Mik sees a bird in that picture? Been wondering that, too. Thank you for having the guts to ask. Whatever beating you take will be considered a sacrifice for the rest of us. Thank you.

Society has long held that activity that damages others ought to be curbed. Interesting article, but I thought this first sentence was also interesting. Especially in the US, there is also a part of the country which is for individual rights over those of society. That seems to be against what the article is saying in some ways.

@mik I gotta try these cubes for garlic and ginger. They sound like t3h bomb.

@klaus said in My Honorary Hipster Membership Card Comes in the Mail Tomorrow.: @mark said in My Honorary Hipster Membership Card Comes in the Mail Tomorrow.: I had a darkroom in our house since I was about 14 years old. Does your wife mother know about that? FIFY.

@xenon said in Social Security Growth: @jolly said in Social Security Growth: The procedure for a good number was to use the number of a deceased person who had never collected benefits and who had died. Very interesting. Do these people somehow have to not be reported as dead? I'm guess social security has some sort of pretty defined mechanism to know when to stop paying payments to someone. If there is a loophole (unreported dead people) - seems like there's some sort of criminal intermediary that makes a market for these. Do you necessarily have to be an illegal alien to buy on that market? Not asking you questions directly, Jolly. Just an interesting situation. Criminal? Nah. The cartels would never do anything criminal...

@aqua-letifer said in Snowflakes!: HEY-OH! LOL - I said that in my mind before I read this line.

@jon-nyc said in Big Pfizer news: They should immediately reschedule those second shots and get more people vaccinated. I say that as someone with a second Pfizer shot scheduled in 13 days. Pfizer is currently manufacturing 10,000,000 vaccines per week for the US. 70,000,000 doses by May 1st. Johnson & Johnson is slated for 20,000,000 in March and I believe 30,000,000 in April. Novavax is supposed to have 50,000,000 on hand... How fast can Moderna produce?