I was having a lot of random crashes and weird errors on my Mint install, using the logs, I tracked it down to a SSD fault.

I really didn't want to send it back, since I got it from Amazon and I'm in NZ.... So after a bit of checking I found that the FW on the SSD was not the latest. Updated the FW, went from at least 1 crash per workday, to no crashes in the last 6 months.

My SSD is a WD SN850X 4TB

You don't have to use those apps.

This is why I don't like these types of platforms. If you are bitching about someone, keep it offline.

Sumner said she was shocked to read how staff had been speaking about her, and found the reaction to her request "deeply disturbing".

This seems like she is playing it up for the media, "deeply disturbing", are you really so thin skinned that someone calling you a schoolyard name is "deeply disturbing". I'm sorry but people have real feelings and have good/bad days. Was the language unprofessional, totally. Was language required or helpful, absolutely not.

That is not how time dilation works.

That is not the adrenaline, that is the endorphin rush, your brain is rewarding you for surviving.

Get a boox, runs android.

You can even install the Kindle app. But seriously, there are bunch of good ereader apps.

It only seems compelling, there is no base rate of non-similar twins separated at birth. Is this 1 in 2 sets end up like this, every one, 1 in 100,000?

The neuroscience is interesting, but it is not in any way predictive. It is all post-hoc rationalisations of what did happen.

As I said above, I'm an engineer and look at this from a physical sciences point of view. There is no model (as far as I'm aware) that can predict what will happen except in very specific psychological experiments.

Yes, I am 100% on that.

If A causes B, that is true for all observers. Otherwise you get into causeless actions.

Imagine observer 1 (O1), sees one rock (A) crash into another (B) and it changes it's direction of travel. O1 has on opinion on the sequence of events.

How imagine observer 2, (O2) watching the same events from a different perspective.

There is no situation or perspective O2 can take which would have B change direction before the collision with A.

Therefore no matter their perspective both O1 and O2 agree on the sequence of events. Thus causality is fundamental.

The two men had married wives with the same first name and had similar interests and hobbies.

Similar <> identical.

This story has little to add to the debate about free will. How many identical twins separated at birth didn't have similar lives?

You can have situations where person 1 sees an event happen as A B and person 2 sees that same event happen as B A.

This is only true if A and B are not causally related. If A causes B all observers will see A causing B.

That is all well and good.

I'm an engineer, so I look at this from a physical sciences point of view. The main problem with the "no free will" argument is it provides no predictive power, there is no model that can say person X will do Y (instead of A, B, C or D) in situation Z.

What is possible is giving probabilities of Y, A, B, C or D in experimental settings. But in the real world, there are too many variables interacting in a chaotic manner to even give reasonable probabilities; this is why we can only use population level statistics rather than individual level predictions.

Sapolsky's perspective ignores reality to generate talking points.

Just because a person has a limited set of choices, mostly determined by upbringing does not mean that we can predict any future action based on previous actions.

At best you may be able produce a chaotic model that gives probabilities of potential actions in any situation.

1. The universe is almost definitely not infiinte, but we will never be able to prove it.
2. Have you heard of vacuum decay?

Yep, if you are running any type of Linux python is already installed.

I always have a path in my python files to allow for direct running rather than calling python first. This only works on Linux.

If you put
#!/usr/bin/env python3
as the very first line, you can make the file executable and it will just run

otherwise you will have to call python first, e.g. python yourFile.py

You could do this with python and a couple of libraries. This is just an example, but you could import the data from a DB or use a CSV file.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

# Pie chart data
labels = ['Category A', 'Category B', 'Category C', 'Category D', 'Category E']
sizes = [30, 25, 20, 15, 10]
colors = ['#ff9999','#66b3ff','#99ff99','#ffcc99','#c2c2f0']

# Pie chart
plt.figure(figsize=(8, 8))
plt.pie(sizes, labels=labels, colors=colors, autopct='%1.1f%%', startangle=140)
plt.title('Sample Pie Chart')
plt.axis('equal') # Equal aspect ratio ensures that pie is drawn as a circle.
plt.show()

# Histogram data
data = np.random.normal(0, 1, 1000) # Generate 1000 random data points with a normal distribution

# Histogram
plt.figure(figsize=(10, 6))
plt.hist(data, bins=30, color='#66b3ff', edgecolor='black')
plt.title('Sample Histogram')
plt.xlabel('Value')
plt.ylabel('Frequency')
plt.show()

The guy seems fine after treatment.... Not a great experience though.

This is a wand of friends (with benefits)

The cynic in me says, this was more about the pretending to be a police officer, rather than the scams....

Don't forget the 15 minutes of inexplicably staring out the window, when you sent them to put something warm on.

There are a few parts that I found interesting

Tanya Lees from the group Kāpiti CALM (Calm Alarming Law Madness) said people were worried insurance companies would use the report as an excuse to refuse to cover their homes.

Sorry Tanya, the insurance companies don't need a publicly funded report. They are already consulting with (the same) experts, they will set their rates as they see fit.

Also from Tanya

There are a lot of people, a lot of experts, who do not agree with this,

Who are these experts? People yes, because they have an emotional and financial investment, but experts...not very likely.

This is a strange way to think

Salima Padamsey from Coastal Ratepayers United said the panel's report should be taken as an advisory - nothing more.

"Council never vested the advisory committee with any statutory authority under the Resource Management Act.

"The committee's mandate did not encompass providing expert perspectives on policy matters.

When has an advisory committee ever been vested with powers, the clue is in the name...they are to advise. That last bit about "providing expert perspective" is so strange. One would hope that; when spending public money; only expert opinion would be sought, what is the other option? Just some random off the street?