Elianna

If you have BBO set up to log chat, you could copy and paste from the chat file and send it to someone who speaks Turkish, and they can tell you what was said. I believe that I have read that abuse usually waits for more than one case to be presented to it, but if you have no Turkish-speaking friends, perhaps you could email the copied and pasted chat log to abuse and they could get it translated? I don't know if they would do that, though, but at least it might be more constructive. In other words, I think that the answer to your question 4 is the same as for any other skill category: "not much, sorry".

What's the Andy Rooney hoax speech? I don't know specifically what "the hoax" is, but there are a bunch of emails going around claiming he said certain things. And some are true, and some are not: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/soapbox.asp#rooney

BBO gib lists overtricks (in green) and undertricks (in red). making is = (in green). This is true when kibbitzing (either people playing on BBO or vugraph). Unless there's a way to change it that I don't know of, or it was changed recently.

I think that it would be a great idea for polls especially. There are several other forums I participate in (though lurk might be more accurate these days) that basically have several options for polls: 1) you vote, see results, see posts exactly like here. 2) you vote, see results, can post immediately but the posts are hidden (sometimes they are unhidden later, sometimes not). 3) you vote, see results, but no one can post for a few days. 4) you vote, but can't see the results. no one can post for a few days. I think that option 2 or 3 is good for polls. It keeps initial respondees from being swayed by posts. I don't really like the idea so much for a normal thread. You might then get a lot of posts saying the same thing, and repeating the same arguments, which is rather tedious. Or else people have different opinions, but can't address what others have to say for a few days. And so they post their opinion, but may have lost interest in rebutting what someone else says a few days later. I agree with you and Adam that the me tooers are annoying. Most annoying are the people who say something like "agree with [blank]" before that person even posted! I'm sure that they would STILL do that in your proposal, because they seem to think that it's funny for some reason.

Alton Brown is fantastic, and as Kevin said, he goes into the Chemistry of the Baking/Cooking, which can be quite interesting. Alton has also done a few specials that are quite amusing... If you haven't already watched them, they are certainly recomended. I saw his show where he went sailing the Carribean. It wasn't quite to my taste. I feel sorry for him on Iron Chef because he never gets to try the food!

I also love Ming Tsai, but haven't seen him in any recent show. I used to watch him ages ago as a teenager (in "East Meets West"); I loved his voice. He also makes food that looks very tastey. According to his webpage, he went to to Yale, though, not MIT.

We didn't have the 7 of spades. Then again, I held this hand (not playing with matmat) and preempted. How could I not when partner and I were playing multi for the first time?

I REALLY like watching Alton Brown's show "Good Eats". If you can get that on hulu, you should watch.

What I noticed is that #1 has not really been done. Namely except for moving threads to the water cooler. I think that this is repeating a theme from a few infamous threads, but if rules are not regularly enforced, then people behave worse in response.

Shouldn't these then belong in the interesting hands forum? As the discussion is about A/E, how does this affect you? Not if I desire advanced/expert opinions on them. Of course you are side-stepping the issue entirely. Again, I pose to you that we play bridge where hands come in bunches. I do not get a good hand for an expert forum once a day. I was not "side-stepping" the issue. I was merely pointing out that if you basically just keep posting hands you had a problem on, maybe they do not all belong in Advanced/Expert, and maybe limiting you on the number of threads you can post there might make you rethink what you post there. It's rather funny that you seem so offended by the limit of one per day, where others are suggesting zero per day. Or do you think that you should be one of the ten (or so) "star" posters that others are suggesting? Honestly, the best place for expert feedback seems to be posting in the beginner/intermediate thread as that is where people seem to give thought-out answers, instead of posting "xx, wtp" or "LOL".

Shouldn't these then belong in the interesting hands forum? As the discussion is about A/E, how does this affect you?

I think threads per day in A/E is different than threads per day in other forums.

very well, let's take this one I don't know why everyone is complaining about this question, it's just asking what people think with the understanding it's a total guess based on feelings and that no one has anything to back up their guess. I would say it has always existed. He was right of course that your original post was not an 'or' type question. It's like asking am I good at bridge or bad at chess? Hmm, maybe both, maybe neither. I understood it as a strangely worded 'or' type question. Helene basically already said it, but I think that "cause" was meant as "start", not "reason". Therefore, he's asking "did the universe have a beginning or did it always exist", which makes sense. This is just my guess. And so we're on the first page and we're having a debate about the meaning of the word "cause".

I agree. I think that the board could use a bit more organization. A lot of people seem to like using the A/E forum for posts that don't really belong there such as: 1) "This hand has a funny story" - this belongs in the interesting bridge hands. (whether or not it's actually interesting is a topic for another time) 2) "I want to see what others say about this hand/bid so I can tell them why they're wrong" - Again, interesting bridge hands (or B/I) 3) "What is the right 2/1/SAYC/strong club/etc. bid on this hand?" When it's a question of system, it should be in the system thread, I think. But I understand that this is controversial, as it may be a matter of judgement, but why can't we have judgement questions in there? 4) "Please explain this convention to me./Let me explain this convention to you" - Either B/I or systems, depending on the convention. I also agree with Adam about limiting people to only being able to start one thread a day in A/E. I do think that some of the problem people may be having is fatigue (going through SO many uninteresting threads).

This website: Philosophy Professor lists four causes, but it uses less fussy terms than you. :rolleyes: It seems that the one you're missing is what this guy calls the material cause, but it's hard to tell.

I think that I started out season 1 viewing McNulty as a tragic character. He wants to be good at his job, he wants to capture bad guys, but he's fettered by his superiors. (in white so those that haven't seen S5 aren't spoiled) I think that my favorite characters from season 1 were Omar and Bubbles. They remained my favorite. I did start sympathizing with Prez, as he became a teacher, but he's also pretty sad.

I meant season 5. I wasn't as excited by season 5. I don't want to spoil anyone by discussing, though.

Most schools have to follow the state standards. You can look through here: http://www.floridastandards.org/Standards/...dardSearch.aspx Unfortunately, it seems that you have to look standard by standard. It's extremely annoying. (You want to look at grades 9-12, btw.) I would expect an Honors class to have covered all of the standards in it's category. If that gets too annoying to look standard by standard, I would guess that the California and Florida ones are not too different (in math at least). The California ones are found at http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/mathstandard.pdf Good luck!

I played against a pair yesterday who played a system they called "Roth-Stone Acol". I couldn't figure out where the parts of the title came from. They also checked off that they opened light. The only acol part I could see is that one of their NT ranges was 11-14 (they also listed 15-17). Everything else seemed normal (for North America, meaning 5 card majors, weak 2s, etc). Except they played "inverted majors". I also played against another pair that played canape openings and responses. No pre-alert on that one. They did alert all bids as they happened, though.

I teach Math and Science (this year Pre-Calculus, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics) at a small jewish girl's high school in Los Angeles. And Geometry at another jewish girl's high school.

Thanks all! I've been hearing that all day. Did you guys know that somehow the Farsi version of "Happy Birthday" takes half an hour to sing, and cannot be stopped when it's started? :) Oh, and one of my students baked me a cake. Can you believe that? When I told that to Adam, he said that she probably did that to try to get out of doing work in class. :(

My memory agrees with yours 100%

Make sure you send that memo to clee. And Jeff Goldsmith

that isn't quite correct, but you might have the gist of it... the problem is, i'm not qualified to even summarize plantina's work in epistemology, much less argue in his stead There is, of course, no way to know if an invisible elephant is floating over our heads. But it reminds me of something. I have mentioned I was an odd child. I did not believe in invisible elephants but at one time, I think I was around 9 or 10, I came to believe that whenever I had a difficult choice to make I split into two people, each following different paths in the universe, one of us living with the consequences of one of those decisions, the other with the other. I guess I can't say that I ever became completely convinced that this isn't true, but it now seems (highly) unlikely to me and mostly I don't think about it. One could take this, perhaps, as a precursor for how I eventually came to think of many religious issues. I think that is a theme in several books and movies.

new house? No. MUCH harder to convert to cash than that.