A Möbius resistor is an electrical component made up of two conductive surfaces separated by a dielectric material, twisted 180° and connected to form a Möbius strip. It provides a resistor that has no residual self-inductance, meaning that it can resist the flow of electricity without causing magnetic interference at the same time.
via en.wikipedia.org
Smart!
Intelligent life may be in it's "very young" stage in the observable Universe. Its 200 billion galaxies show a clear potential to continue on as we see them today for hundreds of billions of years, if not much longer. Because planets and life are so young in our Universe, says Harvard's Dimitar Sasselov, perhaps "the human species are not late comers to the party. We may be among the early ones."
That may explain why we see no evidence of "them" and may go a long way to explaining the famous Fermi Paradox, which asks if there's advanced intelligent life in the Universe, where are they?
via dailygalaxy.com
This was always my solution to the Fermi Paradox.
In the final round of the game, called "Split or Steal," two contestants play a one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma -- technically, it's a variant -- choosing to either cooperate (and split a jackpot) or defect (and try to steal it). If one steals and the other splits, the stealer gets the whole jackpot. And, of course, if both contestants steal then both end up with nothing. There are lots of videos from the show on YouTube. (There are even two papers that analyze data from the game.) The videos are interesting to watch, not just to see how players cooperate and defect, but to watch their conversation beforehand and their reactions afterwards. I wrote a few paragraphs about this game for Liars and Outliers, but I ended up deleting them.
This is the weirdest, most surreal round of "Split or Steal" I have ever seen. The more I think about the psychology of it, the more interesting it is. I'll save my comments for the comments, because I want you to watch it before I say more. Really.
via schneier.com
In 2003 I went to a TV show here in Brazil called "Sete e Meio", on SBT, that was exactly like this. My strategy was exactly the one that Bruce mentions, but unfortunately I never got to the final round — I got myself some money, though. :)
On the other hand, I also don't believe that reality is necessarily fixed and immutable. I can't rule out the possibility that we're experiencing some sort of Schrödinger's cat situation, in which all possibilities exist simultaneously until an observer intervenes.
via dilbert.com
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
via en.wikipedia.org
Much more powerful than Occam's razor.
