The explanation I’ve seen is that … is notation for something that can be otherwise represented as sums of infinite series.

In the case of 0.999…, it can be shown to converge toward 1 with the convergence rule for geometric series.

If |r| < 1, then:

ar + ar² + ar³ + … = ar / (1 - r)

Thus:

0.999… = 9(1/10) + 9(1/10)² + 9(1/10)³ + …

= 9(1/10) / (1 - 1/10)

= (9/10) / (9/10)

= 1

Just for fun, let’s try 0.424242…

0.424242… = 42(1/100) + 42(1/100)² + 42(1/100)³

= 42(1/100) / (1 - 1/100)

= (42/100) / (99/100)

= 42/99

= 0.424242…

So there you go, nothing gained from that other than seeing that 0.999… is distinct from other known patterns of repeating numbers after the decimal point.

I am not quite that old, but I learned digital media creation in the Macromedia Suite… Dreamweaver, Flash… before Adobe bought them out.

Hold on , I’ll edit this when I find a link.

Edit:

Ok, so here is OpenAI wanting to make… well basically it seems to want to have not only an AI agent in a text support chatbox telling you how to fix a problem…

…but give it the ability to completely take over your computer and just do it for you, presumably via Remote Assistance and whatever the Mac equivalent is.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/openai-plans-chatgpt-supersmart-assistant-135029243.html?guccounter=1

No way this could go wrong and lead to fake support sites just fucking writing a batch file and executing it in the blink of an eye.

Then we’ve got both Zoom and Otter who yes, straight up, want to build AI powered avatars, based on each employee/user and replace the human entirely in meetings.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/zoom-s-ceo-wants-a-manipulatable-ai-avatar-of-you-to-attend-meetings-instead/ar-BB1nGO5m

https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/could-ai-personas-attend-your-work-meetings-for-you-one-tech-ceo-says-yes-and-by-the-end-of-the-year/articleshow/107797330.cms

Fuck the infinite paper clip making machine, we are intentionally trying to make the infinite meeting machine.

Dear sweet christ, I’ve been the manager of a medium sized non profits databases (everything other than finance because they’re special, as in using an overpriced wacky proprietary tool because they are used to it, oh and probably commiting fraud) and, as the author references, I have actually had one of the members of the board get a bunch of other people with 0 technical competence to try to get me to ‘implement blockchain technology’ on postgres.

Non of those fucking morons could ever provide an actual project outline. None of these fucking morons even knew their own teams processes, and they would all change depending on team member asked and date.

Not relevant to this story, but basically I am now disabled and living off of SSDI after being assaulted and seriously injured.

I am 99% sure, after years of working with completely technically incompetent managers, I am never going to work in tech again.

I would literally rather be poor, do uber eats delivery when I feel like it, and slowly build a video game, by myself, not even to make money, just to give my tech brain something to sate it.

I am too autistic to be able to handle the constant stream of bullshit and social manipulation/pressure from everywhere I have ever worked.

Ive been calling this the reverse turing test:

Can you tell that a known human being is not an ‘AI’ chatbot, based on text correspondence?

Apparently we are now just going to have AI simulacra of ourselves date each other on dating apps and meet with each other on zoom.

The meeting thing in particular is so fucking insane.

Problem: Meetings waste time and accomplish nothing!

Solution: Don’t hire or train competent people, instead, automate meetings, the transcripts of which will presumably still have to be read, and will likely not make any sense, thus necessitating more meetings.

The goal of technological civilization apparently truly is to create maximum misery via maximizing meetings.

Yep, lets have English flavored Kwebblekop in Parliament, that’ll work well.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377209432_The_cryptoterrestrial_hypothesis_A_case_for_scientific_openness_to_a_subterranean_earthly_explanation_for_Unidentified_Anomalous_Phenomena?channel=doi&linkId=659ab7ca0bb2c7472b39f4e1&showFulltext=true

There’s a link to the actual paper, as this brilliant journalist managed to somehow not include a link to it, not even the names of the authors…

Further, its not even pre-peer review, its pre_print_.

Not sure where this person is getting the Journal it is apparently slated to be published in.

A previous version of the paper was published in the… Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. Which basically sounds like a quack journal for psychic phenomenon.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tim-Lomas/publication/375553282_The_ultraterrestrial_hypothesis_A_case_for_scientific_openness_to_an_interdimensional_explanation_for_Unidentified_Anomalous_Phenomena_The_Journal_of_Transpersonal_Psychology_2023_551_43-98/links/654eb2a3ce88b87031dac7ae/The-ultraterrestrial-hypothesis-A-case-for-scientific-openness-to-an-interdimensional-explanation-for-Unidentified-Anomalous-Phenomena-The-Journal-of-Transpersonal-Psychology-2023-551-43-98.pdf

Yep, impact factor of 0.13

https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/ijts-transpersonalstudies/about.html

Now this is not a fair comparison, but to compare it to Nature, one of the most read and trusted publishing journals that exists, well its impact factor is around 64.8.

So basically this entire article is garbage, and this ‘paper’ has only ever managed to get printed in a journal for spiritual quacks that believe in / study things like psychic phenomena and unity consciousness.

Basically Spirit Science level nonsense.

Also goldfish are literally better than wall street analysts.

Nope.

See my other comment for more detail.

Again, summarized, motion matching is a system that builds off of an animation tree with procedurally generated transitions and blends which create a far, far more realistic fidelity of animation quality then standard anim trees allow.

Same in the US, happens all the time.

The joke about Section 8 is it takes 8 years to get a place.

Oh you are disabled and can’t work? Guess you’ll die homeless!

Remember when Arnold threw a fit and took off his helmet on fucking Pluto, his head immediately froze solid, and basically they just thawed him out and he was fine?

Don’t forget that the Moon also emits cold light, which makes things colder.

Seemingly 90%+ of Flat Earthers believe this.

Also sometimes the Moon is a hologram.

I know what you mean, took me almost a year of paperwork and in office visits to get on SSDI.

Its… amazing how many people I met, while homeless, barely ambulatory… amazing how many people literally died because some shelter staffer lost someone’s mail, or someone’s phone with all their info on it or their wallet or backpack got stolen when they were mugged, and that prevented them from being inside on a very hot or very cold day, or getting medication they needed.

Happened to me a number of times and for quite a long time I was convinced I was going to die.

Now its been six months halfway across the country in a roach motel I can barely afford, slowly recovering from my many, many torn ligaments and fractures.

In the end I literally just got lucky.

Randomly found a motel that I can afford, will let me stay monthly, and they also run an apartment complex thats cheaper, has a real mailing address, and because I make no trouble and have steady income, they may overlook my now horrific credit.

Oh yeah forgot about that. You know what you need to get nearly every kind of federal or state or city aid aimed at the homeless?

A mailing address. A place of residence.

Some shelters will let you use their place for mail buy as previously mentioned those places are staffed by the underpaid, overworked and often criminal.

And theyre all full, beyond full, nearly all the time.

Every time you see a news report about an encampment being cleared and the inhabitants being ‘referred’ to local shelters?

Yeah what that means is they give you the number of a shelter thats full.

Its fucked.

Its nuts.

It is absolutely astounding the disconnect people have about the poor or disabled subsisting off of government benefits.

Most people on SSA or SSI get around 600 dollars a month.

Please try finding a studio apartment basically anywhere in the US right now for 600 bucks a month. Or even a room with roommates for that much.

Oh right, you need to make 3x the rent so… 200 a month.

Yeah you might be able to find a parking spot for that much.

Section 8? Housing Choice Vouchers? Ah ok first navigate a maze of either bureaucratic paperwork in person, which will take basically a whole day to get one step of the process done, or good luck figuring out shit tier local government websites that are often broken or just down.

You managed to apply? Wonderful! Your estimated wait time is some unknown number of years.

‘Affordable’ Housing? Well the actually affordable ones are all occupied and the ‘Affordable’ ones require you have more or less a the area median wage, so if youre disabled or underemployed, get fucked.

Most people do not even seem to know that EBT will only buy you uncooked, non heated food.

Every meal service you see advertised on youtube? None of them take EBT.

Oh but you get discounts on phone and internet!

Haha nope, Affordable Connectivity Program ran out of money a few months ago, and anyways if you have basically ever had a non ACP phone or net plan, you couldnt have qualified anyway.

But somehow these people with barely enough income to survive as homeless are considered to be just living the easy life.

I heard your later years were really quite jaw-dropping, Mr Freud, I wonder if you could speak to that?

No?

By this logic uh, you’d be crushed to death on Mercury or the Moon as they are both basically tidally locked, and also apparently helicopters don’t need blades, fence posts or pool noodles would negate gravity, because they spin really fast.

Perhaps she saw that one weird Russian experiment from the 80s that concluded that if you spin something really fast it gets lighter, and thus gravity has something to do with spinning? I have seen a whole lot of spin related anti gravity nonsense on the internet.

Many of the ‘electric universe’ people seem to think electromagnetism somehow plays a more important role in… what we typically think gravity does… than gravity.

Ask her if she thinks things get crushed on the North or South poles of Mars. Semi-comparable amount of mass, nearly identical rotation period, but basically no electromagnetics to speak of.

Please, give them a mouth with toxin injecting teeth, and I’ll get my flamethrower and play Guy Montag.

I remember when this nonsense was new and all the rage… I took a full online test, like 200 questions, about 6 different times over about 3 months.

Turns out, the test results changed a lot depending on my current mood, recent experiences and stress level.

It baffles me that still to this day even many professionals and business people think this has any merit.

People who unironically believe in astrology are worse though. Which is a shame, because seemingly nearly everyone on a dating app of any kind is basically either a religious conservative, or a weed addicted astrology believing ‘leftist’.