dukeofwulf's blurblog

Professional Oaths
Thursday October 19^th, 2023 at 10:12 PM

xkcd.com

Interpretations of the Hermeneutic Oath differ.

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dukeofwulf

42 days ago

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Hydroponic Oath: First, get rid of the soil.
Hyperbolic Oath: First, do THE MOST URGENT THING THAT HAS EVER BEEN DONE IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE.

3 public comments

deebee

41 days ago

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These are all homophonic oaths?

America City, America

gordol

42 days ago

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Heisenbergic Oath: First, know where you are. No wait, first know where you're going.

Earth

alt_text_bot

42 days ago

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Interpretations of the Hermeneutic Oath differ.

Deep End
Friday May 6^th, 2022 at 11:50 PM

xkcd.com

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dukeofwulf

572 days ago

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I can't believe he left out the formation of hot tubs in the diagram. Crucial to the pool cycle.

popular

570 days ago

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Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio
Tuesday March 29^th, 2022 at 5:59 PM

xkcd.com

You say this daily walk will reduce my risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 30%, but also increase my risk of death by bear attack by 300%? That's a 280% increased! I'm not a sucker; I'm staying inside.

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dukeofwulf

611 days ago

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I feel like placing the median point for 1 hour slightly to the left of 1 is one of those hilarious details that are just slightly outside my range of knowledge.

duerig

610 days ago

If it is a real results of a monte carlo simulation, then this kind of slight deviation is very likely. If you flip a bunch of coins in a row, then it is likely that heads will come up about as often as tails if the coin is fair. But it becomes decreasingly likely that the number of heads will be EXACTLY the same as the number of tails. And being at exactly 1 would be that scenario in a sense.

dukeofwulf

610 days ago

Sure, but that's two conditions with roughly equal odds. Compare with, say, shark attacks relative to hours of swimming. One would think it's impossible for the mean for swimmers to be lower than for those who have never entered water in their life. So, suggesting the opposite is inherently comical... but at the same time, I feel like that's not a tidy enough explanation, given Randall's history of specificity.

1 public comment

DexX

611 days ago

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EXCELLENT alt text...

Melbourne, Australia

Consensus Time
Wednesday March 16^th, 2022 at 10:30 PM

xkcd.com

Now, you may argue that the varying hour lengths and feedback effects would cause chaos. To which I say, yeah, and I'm also curious to see how the weekday cycle interacts with it! So, you in?

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dukeofwulf

623 days ago

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I've always thought the best idea is to just eliminate time zones entirely and go to a single world time. Every locality and business can set its schedule as it sees fit relative to the standard time, and no complicated time zone or DST conversions. But I do see how that would be radical for some people.

gordol

623 days ago

Ok, then your morning starts at 3am.

dukeofwulf

623 days ago

Exactly! Why do I care if I wake up at 3 AM, if my work schedule is 5 to 13? It's all arbitrary anyway: we have to check business and office hours. The sun doesn't rise at the same time in Atlanta (7:46 today) and Boston (6:54), even though they're in the same time zone. Stop pretending that 00:00 has to happen sometime near the middle of the night, and a lot of things get simpler.

gordol

623 days ago

Because humans are biologically predisposed to be diurnal creatures. Awake when it's light out and sleep when it's dark.

dukeofwulf

622 days ago

You're not getting what I'm saying. We'd still work according to the same schedule (awake in the local daytime), only the numbers would change.

dukeofwulf

622 days ago

One-minute explainer: https://youtu.be/c3EQDfqqHsI

songster

621 days ago

How does that help? I mean, currently we have lookup tables where you can see that New York is 5 hrs behind London, so 9am in London is 4am in New York. You're proposing we move to a system where 9am is 9am everywhere, but you need a lookup table to know that while the London workday starts at 9:00, the New York workday starts at 14:00. How does that make things any easier?

dukeofwulf

621 days ago

You'd still have to look up the business's schedule, but you wouldn't have to make a time zone conversion.

JavaJim

621 days ago

yes - it doesn't remove the need to look things up - so equal there. But if something says it happens at 11:00 then it happens at 11:00 for everyone. All our clocks have the same time all the time. So after you look something up you don't have to do math to convert to your own time zone. Example: airplane departs at 2pm (1400) and lands at 8pm (2000) - you don't need to look up whether that is 8pm local time or 6 hours after takeoff. It is 6 hours after takeoff.

hyourinmaru

619 days ago

from 1998: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time

dukeofwulf

619 days ago

Ah, Swatch. So ahead of their time. If only they hadn't bungled the branding so badly.

5 public comments

mareino

624 days ago

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Would this count as wibbily wobbly timey wimey?

Washington, District of Columbia

jepler

624 days ago

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but how's the app going to be monetized?

Earth, Sol system, Western spiral arm

mkalus

624 days ago

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Yes, let’s do that instead of the stupid permanent DST thing.

iPhone: 49.287476,-123.142136

lograh

624 days ago

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I am solidly against DST in every form, but this proposal I can get behind.

deezil

624 days ago

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Sure. Why not.

Shelbyville, Kentucky

macr0t0r

624 days ago

No! Please, No! DST is bad enough, you monster!

Carcinization
Monday June 1^st, 2020 at 8:51 PM

xkcd.com

Nature abhors a vacuum and also anything that's not a crab.

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dukeofwulf

1277 days ago

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TASTE LIKE CRAB, TALK LIKE PEOPLE

popular

1275 days ago

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4 public comments

MaryEllenCG

1275 days ago

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*attempts to become a crab*

Greater Bostonia

fancycwabs

1276 days ago

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Yep.

Nashville, Tennessee

simon_w

1277 days ago

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Crabs are, after all, the ultimate form

Wellington, New Zealand

alt_text_bot

1277 days ago

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Nature abhors a vacuum and also anything that's not a crab.

Truck Proximity
Wednesday February 26^th, 2020 at 6:47 PM

xkcd.com

See also: Farm animals and dinosaurs. I am so confident that there exists children's media that involves dinosaurs driving trucks on a farm that I'm writing this without even Googling to check.

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dukeofwulf

1373 days ago

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I was trying to think of something to put in the top left corner, but "farm animals and dinosaurs" fits the bill pretty well.

3 public comments

acdha

1373 days ago

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We do far into the lower right quadrant it’s not even funny

Washington, DC

rraszews

1373 days ago

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Not to mention that there is children's media where the dinosaurs literally ARE trucks.

Columbia, MD

alt_text_bot

1373 days ago

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See also: Farm animals and dinosaurs. I am so confident that there exists children's media that involves dinosaurs driving trucks on a farm that I'm writing this without even Googling to check.

tdknox

1373 days ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bUmxUWs1Uk

Professional Oaths Thursday October 19th, 2023 at 10:12 PM

Deep End Friday May 6th, 2022 at 11:50 PM

Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio Tuesday March 29th, 2022 at 5:59 PM

Consensus Time Wednesday March 16th, 2022 at 10:30 PM

Carcinization Monday June 1st, 2020 at 8:51 PM

Truck Proximity Wednesday February 26th, 2020 at 6:47 PM

Professional Oaths
Thursday October 19^th, 2023 at 10:12 PM

Deep End
Friday May 6^th, 2022 at 11:50 PM

Spacecraft Debris Odds Ratio
Tuesday March 29^th, 2022 at 5:59 PM

Consensus Time
Wednesday March 16^th, 2022 at 10:30 PM

Carcinization
Monday June 1^st, 2020 at 8:51 PM

Truck Proximity
Wednesday February 26^th, 2020 at 6:47 PM