tldw: scientists try to match absorption spectra of 20 molecules to exoplanet transit curve; one of them (DMS) matches to 2σ; scientists publish paper “hint of DMS found!”; university published press release “biosignature found!”; news media report “extraterrestrial life found!”

So basically the xkcd jellybeans situation: https://xkcd.com/882/

(2σ = 95% confidence interval = 1-in-20 false positive)

Using dd to move-resize a partition by writing down the cylinder numbers and moving it piece by piece like some Tower of Hanoi. Wanted to add more space to my root after deleting the Windows partition, which happened to be first. There is apparently no built-in command to do that.

Booted up fingers crossed and everything worked.

Yes! Cancels out, leaving only a very slight edge on door 2. All that work for only… 2.77% edge over picking at random. What a troll problem, huh?

Knowing that the ball was gold gives you Bayesian knowledge about the boxes behind the door, since the prior probability of the host pulling a gold ball from a 6-gold door is different than from the 3/3 door. So you have to multiply Monty Hall probabilities and Bayesian probabilities together.

That assumes the host pulled a ball at random, of course, and not a deliberately gold ball.

Doesn’t say the trolley is a runaway. Don’t even need to make deals, you can safely walk away.

KM3-230213A is an ultra-energetic (220PeV) neutrino event recorded by the Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT) on the bottom of the Mediterranean sea. The telescope consists of thousands of photomultiplier sensors suspended in the water, watching for Cherenkov radiation of the decay particles resulting from the rare collision of a neutrino with the inside of the Earth. There is no known cosmic mechanism how a neutrino so energetic could have come to be.

This meme proposes the hijinks of Apu as an alternative explanation of how all those blue-sensitive photomultipliers got activated (saturated even) in a straight line going from bottom up all at once.

Your family was kidnapped and is now safely eating ice cream backstage. Tied to the tracks are 5 infinite worlds Hitlers.

it’s not clear that he’s following Monty Hall rules

Whenever I see a badly-specified Monty Hall Problem, I always imagine the host saying something like “Oh, you want to pick door number 1? Well, guess what - the car was behind door number 3 all along! You get nothing but a goat!” And only when you initially pick a door with the car does the host ask “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather switch to door number 2? Look, there is even a goat behind door number 3!” Switching doors 100% gurantees you get a goat… or 50% silver balls in this case.

Yeah, problem doesn’t specify whether you want your family to live. Common mistake.

Doesn’t say it’s your family tied to the tracks either.

Beautifully written!

I think the probabilities cancel out?

My conclusion as well. Except that since Jigsaw has taken one gold ball out, door 2 must have slightly better chance of gold ball remaining on average (75% vs 72.2%?).

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can I just slot stuff like program settings back

There isn’t really much software that is A) cross-platform, B) popular enough on Windows that you would have been using it, and C) the best choice for the task on Linux. Maybe Firefox the only one? Firefox profiles actually can be copied over without change, I believe. A torrent client - you’d probably want a new one and configure the destination directory, re-import the torrent files, and re-verify local files. Photoshop would get replaced with Gimp. For software that runs under wine, you can and should copy over stuff like game profiles and savegames - wine creates a “fake” drive_c directory so they’ll go into there. You just need to track each of them down in your Windows %APPDATA% directory or wherever it is Windows hides them in before you erase the drive.

Will the external drive need to be formatted in a specific way first?

No. It’s easier to let Windows format the backup drive how it wants (NTFS) and let Linux read it later than to teach Windows how to read/write Linux preferred filesystem format. Most Linux distros already come with ntfs driver pre-installed, or it is a single install command away.

CSS was a mistake.

Incorrect use of verifiable technical terms really grinds my gears! A true wet bulb temperature above 98F would kill everyone outside an air-conditioned space within an hour.

All three are Democrats. There is still the Republican candidate in the general. In the 2021 election, the Republican got 28% and Democrat Adams got 67%. If Adams and Cuomo as independents split Mamdani’s vote, like 25%/22%/20%, that would be enough for Republican to win. Or maybe Republican voters will vote cross-party-lines for Cuomo just to see Mamdani lose.

EDIT: Come to think of it, you are right that if Cuomo and Adams both appeal to the same conservative part of the Democratic party, then it may be better if Adams does continue to run as independent in the general and splits Cuomo’s vote. If Mamdani gets 55% of the 67% Democratic voters, and Cuomo and Adams split remaining 45%, then Cuomo can’t win even if half of 28% Republicans switch their vote for him.

Both Cuomo and Adams have already announced their intention to commit political murder-suicide by disregarding the results of their own Democratic party primary election and running as independents. Adams was so embarrassed by the idea of losing the primary that he even withdrew his name from the ballot last minute.

There are even over 100,000 distinct chemicals in a banana. Probably over 1M. Horrified whenever I see somebody eat one. Only plastic food pellets for me please.