We've discussed this in the past on the dev forum. It wasn't particularly productive.

It may happen eventually, but don't hold your breath.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

xkcd's suggestion is just an incremental step, and it has one fatal flaw which Gut so poignantly demonstrated here.

Going from "troubador" to "Tr0ub4dor&3" was one incremental step. Going from "Tr0ub4dor&3" to "correcthorsebatterystaple" may be the next. But a series of random characters will always be the most secure option.

This becomes especially so when people don't understand the concepts involved. Instead of suggesting the 4 common words of the comic, which is more secure than "Tr0ub4dor&3", Gut suggested 3 words plus a number. It turns out, that this method is actually within only a couple layers of entropy of the original "Tr0ub4dor&3" method.

I don't know why Gut did this (maybe he thought adding a number would make it better?), but the point is he did -- presumably without realizing he was sacrificing the supposed improvement in security. This is going to be an on-going concern with this method... I'd expect a majority of people forced to adopt it wouldn't be able to resist making their words into a phrase; "bobhateshisjob", for example.

Now, I don't really think everyone ought to understand the underlying concepts. But this is why a method which is as mistake-proof as possible is best. 8-12 random characters is fairly unambiguous... either you do it (and get the security benefit) or don't (and don't). But you don't get people trying to find ways to improve on the security and make it worse (like Gut did) or try to be clever while still thinking they're within the "rules".

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

?

The point was that that answer doesn't work.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Xinhuan definitely came up with the solution I have in mind.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

They'd either both say yes, or both say no... so this doesn't really help.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Sorry, part of the original is that you don't know which is which. I forgot to include that.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I'm making it a hobby to take well known riddles, and adding twists so the classic answer doesn't work.

2 guards stand between two doors. One door leads to paradise, the other to death and suffering. One guard always tells the truth, and the other always lies. You don't know which is which. You can ask one of them, one question. What do you ask to determine which door leads to paradise?

The twist: The guards do not know anything about each other, and so can not tell you how the other would answer.

I just came up with this a few minutes ago while I was reading today's XKCD comic and it is (as far as I know) original. See if you can work it out.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/...s-east-coast/?hpt=hp_rr_7

So, my read on this is that the US Navy intentionally leaked this because they didn't think the Russian sub ever caught onto the fact it was being tracked... just letting the Russians know they're really not up to snuff in the sub game anymore.

Am I right?

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

You also won't end up broke if you get sick...

I'm glad for that, I'd miss you if you couldn't afford electricity anymore.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Most people don't.

Because the electoral college is decided by popular vote in each state, and congress is determined by popular vote in each district, someone who wins by a lot in a few districts, while losing by a little in a majority of them, will win the electoral votes from the states while losing a majority of congressional seats.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

That's a bit of a racist comment.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

-4, 5 unweighted, with with an error circle of +/-7.

66% Obama
63% Stein
48% Johnson
44% Romney
42% Goode

Weighted, my error circle goes down to +/-5 vertically, but stays +/- 7 horizontally. Obama and Stein also then tie at 65%. Nothing else moves.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Unfortunately, our female procog was kidnapped, and she's the one who almost always actually witnesses suiciders.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

No it's not.

It's a safe assumption that the vast majority of people will choose words from their own language, and that this language is not difficult to determine. In my case, English.

There's right around 200,000 words in English... but most people's working vocabularies are between 5,000 and 6,000 words. Since the whole point of choosing words is to make them easier to remember, it seems reasonable to assume that the words will have to come out of this working vocabulary.

6,000^3 = 216,000,000,000 possibilities.

With a number included (let's say anywhere from 1-100 since yours was 86), 216,000,000,000 * 100 = 21,600,000,000,000 possibilities.

But, of course, we can't assume placement of the number, it could be at the beginning or between words too, so 21,600,000,000,000 * 4 = 86,400,000,000,000

Now, for comparison, a randomly generated 8 character password has 26 letters, 10 digits, and 32 special characters to choose from (I just counted the characters I can get on my standard qwerty keyboard with one key stroke, or shift+1 key stroke).

That's 68 characters.

The standard length of a password is 8 characters.

68^8 = 457,163,239,653,376 possibilities.

This means that a standard 8 character random password is right around 5 times as secure as your suggestion. Of course, no one suggests 8 character password, the most common suggestion for anyone security minded is a 12 character random password.

68^12 = 9.775*10^21

That's a little over 100,000x as many options as your method.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

How does that make me wrong? It's a completely separate issue. I said they're not "in cahoots"... you say their policies are similar. It's possible to agree with someone on broad approaches to issues without being in cahoots with them.


Same thing here, "one obstructs the other" (ie. they are not "in cahoots"). Whatever similarity exists in their policies as a whole is an entirely separate issue.

If you're going to claim I'm wrong, at least make a statement which contradicts mine.

On a related note; I'd also like to take exception to the implication that the Democrats and Republicans maintaining similar stances on a vast number of issues is a bad thing. The fact that they do is definitely a positive thing, and is sign of the general unity and strength that exists within America as a whole.

Further more, I'd like to point out that while the two major parties probably do largely agree on 90% of issues, the third party candidates being espoused here almost certainly agree (to a similar extent) with one major party or the other on 90% of the issues as well.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I didn't bother to read any further than this, since the largest problem with American politics is clearly the inability of the Democratic and Republican parties to get into "cahoots" on anything.

Given how far off base this first statement was, I felt it best not to waste my time reading the rest of this and jump right to criticism.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Turning off your TV would be cheaper... and cause fewer deaths.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

At one point we had a full reset's worth of missile results made public for anyone to wanted to crunch the numbers. Nothing was broken...

This is just an example of negativity bias.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I wondered if you were going to fix that :p

Great work qz.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

... 11?

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

So, I'm trying to help someone with some highschool math, and i've got a question that's just gone over my head. Could someone give me a hand with this?

Ten-year-old Kayla's lemonade stand has experienced rises and falls in sales caused by temperature changes over the last few summers. Her sales over the first two weeks of summer were tracked according to the model:

S(x)= x^3 - 12x^2 + 36x

Where "x" is the number of days and "S(x)" is the number of sales. She makes a profit when she sells at least 10 glasses of lemonade. Determine the number of days that she made a profit.

Much appreciated.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

It's analogous to the way that being a rapist amd being straight are completely different thing.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Still plenty of fluffing, though. And, let's face it, this game was always 90 percent fluffing.


-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

History has the best show on television; Ancient Aliens

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

All the polls seem to think he came across as more likable last night... so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at CK.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

It's definitely stupid, but what makes it "typical" archaic? Have there been a number of other similar cases recently?

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Uh, being a pedophile and being gay are completely different things.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Yeah, i got bored after a week or so.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

At the altitude he broke through it at, the speed of sound is significantly less than that Rasp.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I'm in kitchener.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Whoops... I didn't see Twain's post before I posted mine.

I guess I was wrong, it was possible to respond to Outlaw concisely.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I can't speak for Twain, Outlaw, but I decided not to address your last post mainly because there was no concise way in which to address everything I think needs to be addressed and because there was another discussion which I was far more interested in having. Don't read ignorance into a decision to move in another direction.

If you like, though, I can do this dance with you on your terms.

I have no real notion of who you are or what you do in life -- but you write like an academic whose only interest is in assuring himself of the singular importance of his field of study and isn't willing to express an opinion without a cite-able source whose skirts he can run and hide behind if he's challenged to think outside the narrow spectrum of his studies.

I say that without meaning to belittle economics (an important field of study, of which I am not wholly ignorant) or imply citations and sources are without their worth. But there is a world beyond them which matters.

Context is a part of that world. You want to equate strong economic indicators directly and exclusively with greatness. By extension you want to to equate "greatest nation" with "nation with the strongest economic indicators". In some, very limited, contexts you may be right to do that. But the context of this thread is not one of them. This is demonstrated by making that substitution in the first sentence of this thread:

"This is America, arguably the [nation with the strongest economic indicators //] And the BEST we can come up with to run for president are Barack Obama (already tried and failed) and Mitt Romney (thieving, lying pig."

This is a clear non sequitur. The link between strong economic indicators and an expectation of strong political candidates is, at best, tenuous. Therefore it does not make sense to make exclusively, or even primarily, link national greatness with economics as you've attempted to do.

I also believe (though can't demonstrate) that if we conducted a similar substitution in most common uses of the term "greatest nation" we would find that such a substitution would be similarly inappropriate.

This may, or may not, make me guilty of attaching emotions to the word "greatness", but if that's the manner in which it's most commonly used then I think this strengthens my argument rather than diminishes it. However, even if we're speaking purely in terms of quantitatively, your argument for an exclusively economic basis or greatness falls apart.

You began your case for economics being a reasonable way to quantify national greatness with a list of economic indicators. The issue is, of course, that no single nation is at the top in all of them. This is why I, facetiously, suggested that Liechtenstein (which is at, or near, the top of many of them) is therefore the greatest nation in the world.

(As an aside, your suggestion that the results are "skewed" in their favor because of tax policy and population are complete malarkey. Tax policy is a huge part of economic prosperity in every country, and so claiming that a country's economic results are illegitimate because it has a tax policy which encourages economic growth is ridiculous. You might as well say that America's results are skewed because its tax policy is more favorable to growth than Botswana's. The exact some argument applies to population; saying its labour force participation rate is inadmissible because it has a low population is akin to saying America's GDP is inadmissible because it has a high population)

I think you understood my point, because immediately after your ludicrous arguments attempting to dismiss Liechtenstein (the reasons you gave were ridiculous, not the actual dismissal of Liechtenstein) you seemed to switch tacts and settle on a single reference point when you stated "this is why GDP is the better indicator".

The problem with this is, of course, that GDP on its own is a trailing indicator. It's a far better indicator of how strong a nation's economy was a year, decade, or half century ago than it is of the economic strength today. Because of this, it's easy to conceive of a nation which has by almost any other economic indicator been overtaken by other nations, and yet still has the largest GDP by a wide margin. Or, alternately, a nation whose huge population base allows it to outstrip other nations in GDP while any per capita indicator lags far behind. Or a hundred other circumstances. I'm not convinced that even inside your narrow definition such a country would qualify as the greatest.

You see, Outlaw, that your quantitative approach really doesn't work?

If you try to reduce greatness down to a single economic indicator, it's easy to concoct situations in which that one indicator in isolation is mis-leading. On the other hand, if you try to give a more complete picture by offering a number of indicators you find that no single nation leads in them all... and so even if the values of each indicator are quantitative, the manner in which you balance them against one another cannot help but be entirely subjective.

And of course, the trumping argument, neither the context of this thread nor the most common context in which the term "greatest nation" is used can be exclusively, directly or primarily linked to economic strength.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

That's sort of where I'm coming from Twain. Really, though, my thoughts center around another question:

Which is the second greatest country?

I think that this question is just as hard to answer subjectively as it is objectively. However if we accept the claim, even subjectively, that the United States is the greatest country in the world then there must also be an answer to who is second. It therefore follows that if we cannot identify the second greatest country, this demonstrates that no ranking of "greatness" can be established, and therefore that no country is "the greatest".

So, who's the second greatest?

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I think that the username may have become caps sensitive.

I can't log in as "fooglmog" but I can as "Fooglmog".

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

The democratic party is way too far to the right on most issues for me...

What does that make me?

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I'll cop to that Twain.

I've had some thoughts chasing themselves around inside my head for a while about national greatness, and how to demonstrate that it's an empty concept. Sometimes I think too much though, and need an outlet where I can throw some ideas out there and see what resonates... helps to separate out the chaff.

I think when I saw Cerberus' thread title I decided this would be a good place to try and do that. When I saw that his actual post wasn't really on that subject, I should have let go of that idea and moved on. Instead, I tried to bait (rather poorly, I might add) and swing the thread towards what I wanted to discuss.

It was dumb, and pretty juvenile. Sorry.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Ah, my mistake. According to Colo we can quantify greatness. It looks like Liechtenstein is the greatest nation.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I realized the other day that I haven't played this game in well over a year. I don't want to lose touch completely, so I want to play a reset.

Just to be up-front about what you'll be getting if you recruit me:

- I've forgotten everything I used to know about how to play.
- I was never any good when I did play.
- I won't be on the multiple times a day required to manage to strong finish.
- I'll rely on good advice to manage any kind of finish which isn't an embarassment.

Looking to netgain, post below if you want me.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Okay, well I stand behind the intent of my statement.

America is not the "greatest nation", because there is no way in which a nation's "greatness" can be quantified.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I don't see what's wrong with the "millions of men" statement... isn't the total number of Americans who've been deployed right around the 2 million mark?

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Breaking news:
Requiem is a 13 year old girl.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Seal is eaten raw.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Feel free to demonstrate why.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Oh yea?

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I do most of my modding while I'm sitting on the toilet.

I reckon that if I'm dealing with fluff anyway...

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Any countries playing from the same computer are liable to get deleted unless you've contacted us to get safe listed.

We have no way of knowing the countries aren't being run by the same person unless you've talked to us.

I'm sorry your first reset back ended this way, but it's not as if running multiple countries from one computer was ever a safe thing to do in earth.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

In Canada, it's hard to figure out exactly what the theoretical minimum is because it's hard to decide what are reasonable assumptions regarding the lowest possible number of seats needed to become PM, or the most candidates that could run in each riding. But the number is was under 35%... it's easy to come up with a scenario which undercuts that number by a huge margin.

For example, Harper became Prime Minister in 2006 with 124 of 308 seats or 40% of the seats... demonstrating that 40% of the seats in parliament is a viable level at which one can become PM.

Between the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Bloc Quebecois and Green Party it is reasonable to conceive of there being at least 4 candidates in every riding in Canada. If each of those which goes to the winning party is close, they could win each one with only 26% of the popular vote.

40% * 26% = 10.4%

Therefore in an extreme scenario, which is based upon reasonable assumptions about the number of parties and the number of seats needed, one could become PM with just over 10% of the popular vote.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

"Greatest nation" is such a meaningless term that everything said after it becomes meaningless too.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

Kusso. The argument I was refuting was that Democracy inevitably leads to socialism, socialism to financial collapse, and financial collapse to the end of democracy. The Scandanavian countries are a direct rebuttal to the middle of these three points. Large amount of natural resources and limited immigration would matter if the argument I was refuting was that "socialism inevitably leads to financial collapse unless the country has lots of resources or limited population", but no such condition was put forward.


I don't think I was clear here. Spain is indeed in significant trouble financially... as are Portugal and Ireland, my other two examples. However, these issues were not caused by social programs. They were, as you stated, primarily caused by a collapse in the real estate market.


Argentina's a great example of the fact that fiscal mis-management is not good financial doctrine. That's about it. I'll accept that their issues are linked to their brand of socialism, but Klown was calling European socialism a failure... and European socialism demonstrates that good fiscal management is a separate issue, as there are both well managed and poorly managed socialist countries on that continent.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

That's a red herring, and bullfluff besides Rockman.

The constitution does not "prove" anything about reality. Many countries have constitutions which use terms which refer to forms of government completely which bear no semblance to how the nation is actually run.

I will accept that the constitution does [i]refer[/i] to America as a Republic, and never uses the word "democracy". However, democracy and republicanism are not mutually exclusive forms of government. All through history, nations have existed which have been both Republican and Democratic in their governance and so there is nothing to prevent America from being both, even if only one is mentioned in the Constitution.

Not only that, but in an American context, being a Republic is inseparable from being a democracy. Madison usurped the word from its traditional context (where it was a separate, but not mutually exclusive term from Democracy) and co-opted it so that it really just means "indirect democracy"... it becomes a sub-category of democracy. As a result, the use of the word Republic in the constitution is actually a reference to the fact that the United States [i]is[/i] meant to be a democracy.

This still doesn't mean that the constitution proves anything about reality... but if it did, it would prove the opposite of what you say it does.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.