naresh301

I take that to mean "Partnership agreement is necessary to determine if the double is a support double showing 3♦, or a negative(!) double showing 4♥". Are support doubles for minor suits common?

Listening to the speech, I thought that this is what a leader and a statesman should sound like. Sadly, it has been a while since I've felt that way. Every nation deserves its leaders, and so I think the people of the US are to be congratulated.

I find the application of Occam's razor to this discussion quite strange. Doesn't one have to believe in Occam's razor, similar to believing in Intelligent Design? Can someone scientifically justify why Occam's razor should be true at all?

Agree that this should probably be in the water cooler, since no one is talking about the OP any more. I think the basic assumption that bridge players use a statistical definition of range is flawed. I think of the usage here just as "the set of allowed values" - I'm not a statistician(?), and this definition is more intuitive to me. The bridge usage is not really a measure of dispersion, it is more a measure of cardinality. "A 3-HCP range", to me, is just shorthand for "A range with 3 HCP (value)s" - just as "a pumpkin pie" is "a pie made from pumpkins".

The nuance I don't like is calling them "beliefs" :) I doubt if the results of this poll will be any surprising.

Couldn't open the link (I think it has to do with the ... in the address) However, the fact that solar cells are manufactured in China is surely not a reason to not use solar cells? A "simple" solution to that would be to just make them in France. Or not buy solar cells from China unless they are made the same way as they are made in France. It is interesting that solar cells pollute that much. I would think they are made by the same process as other semiconductor devices - therefore computers, cellphones, everything we use is made in some of the most polluting industries? Maybe the solar cell industry is not as well developed, and as the manufacturing processes get better, they will pollute lesser :unsure: My big concern with solar cells is the materials and disposal. Modern silicon electronics generate more e-waste than we can handle - what do we do when a solar cell burns out? PS. The wiki article on solar energy says that the US will produce "thousands of megawatts of solar devices per year within the next few years from 2008" :)

Isn't inbreeding among such a small number of individuals really bad for the gene pool and for the chances of survival of the species? Or is 83 a big enough number?

If dummy cannot ask the declarer to claim, how can it make sense for a computer to do so?! I'm not a fan of technology interfering with sports/games, but it seems like Free's suggestion can still work: the computer simply adds time to the declarer's account when there is a good claim. There is no need for declarer to be told anything, at least until the hand is played out.

Are the details of the case significantly different from Helene's link? I would think the fault lied with the person who tried to open the lid of a styrofoam cup while balancing it between her knees; and not the fact that the coffee was a few degrees hotter. Sorry, but I don't see why she should get any compensation. I strongly agree with the rest of the post. If we lived by "common sense", we would be shooting (clubbing?) suspected burglars to death, and beating up our children to discipline them.

We should steal from the rich. After all, they ARE the ones with money...

I do not understand this. In the limiting case of the speed going to zero, the walker must get infinitely wet. Unless the function (of wetness vs. speed) is non-monotonic, the experimental results seem shaky. Edit: sorry, somehow missed the entire latter half of the thread.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this or a very similar math olympiad problem. Gnome and TimG's interpretations are correct (if M=11, the answer would be 2). I have the same answer as Trumpace.

It is pretty easy to get 803 and 805 in less than 30 seconds..

I spent quite a bit of time under this assumption before realising that it is impossible... This was too hard :P