soundian

I'd be amazed if it''s not a photoresistor (changes resistance in proportion to light intensity, so when resistance drops current can flow through and power the lights) probably on top of the lamp post. A lot more convenient than having them on timers etc.

But then you'd have to keep them clean.

I believe they are mostly on timers. The change in lighting-up time is predictable, switch them on a little early, off a little late just in case, job done.

I think I understand referees a bit more more after reading this

Ex ref Jeff Winter on penalties:

" If you are not sure you have your assistants. If a ref has any doubt over a penalty you don't give it. The old adage is 'If in doubt give nowt.' The one thing you can't do is guess."

Ex-ref Jeff Winter on backchat:

"Players can be their own worst enemies. If you have a player screaming and bawling at you all the time and then they go down in the penalty area in the last minute - you are not totally sure, but subconsciously, are you going to give it?"

Of course not Jeff, in your own words 'If in doubt give nowt.

"Whereas if you have a player who has been chatty, friendly and given you no bother and he goes down, does he get the penalty? That to me is not cheating, it's possibly an element of human nature. Players who rant and rave could be doing themselves more of a disservice than those who get on and play the game fairly."

C'mon Jeff. Of course we wouldn't give it, in your own words 'If in doubt give nowt.'. Ah, but you're saying sometimes you would, and it's not cheating. Maybe it's not cheating but it's hardly consistent is it?

Yet another player we didn't get the best out of. The P&J referred to him this morning as Aberdeen's "Talisman". Can only assume that this is entirely based on the home games against Bayern and Copenhagen a couple of seasons back cos match-winning performances have been very few and far between recently.

Difficult to get very upset about him leaving. 200k is a bonus though.....I didn't think we were eligible for this either.

I believe it's payable for "training costs" up to the age of 21. Since he's not long turned 22 there should be some compensation for this. I'm not sure how it works for the season he was on loan.

I fucking hate Parma Violets. Does this mean i don't like AV?

No, it means you prefer dogshit.

I think this, posted by Rock Austin originally, also sums up how I feel about FPTP

AV if implemented carries the very real probability of preventing the Tories ever having a parliamentary majority again

If you substitute "Tories" for "coffee shop" in Frosty's post you can see that graphically.

I'm all for retrospective banning for play-acting, but only where it can be conclusively proven there was no contact.

If it is conclusively proven, the player should be hit with a massive ban (10 games sounds good) and the game should be awarded to the opposition 3-0. Not only will that deter individual players, it'll also deter managers from encouraging it or simply turning a blind eye.

The video evidence showing there was no contact with whatever body part the budding actor is holding should also be released to the press, just so we can all see that the proof is irrefutable.

If there was a "none of the above" option it could be chosen as someone's alternative vote. For instance, when using AV I would vote Conservative as my first choice and possibly UKIP as my second choice. After that, I don't want to vote for any other party and for them to claim they have a mandate on the back of that vote if they win. Therefore, if my first two options were out of the running, my third preference would be to have the seat go empty until the election can be re-run.

If I were to select only two preferences, my vote would cease to have any weight once both those candidates had been discarded, while a paper with four preferences would have twice as much influence on the outcome of the election. Any system that puts a greater value on one vote than another is dangerous and fatally flawed.

That is one of it's flaws. It's easy to tweak AV so it addresses that concern, simply make it so that discarded votes still count (as a "none of the remaining candidates") and that any candidate has to have a mandate from at least 50% of people who voted, rather than 50% of those still in play. However, FPTP doesn't have the option to re-run if somebody doesn't get more than a certain percentage or majority, so I don't see AV not having it as a valid argument against AV.

FPTP basically has the same flaw as regards vlaue of votes. If I don't vote for a party that has a realistic chance of winning then I'm effectively wasting my vote. That means anyone who does vote for one of those parties has a say, I don't.

Look at it this way. You've voted Tory and UKIP. With three candidates left the Tories are third and their votes get redistributed to the Labour and Lib Dem pots. You had your chance to have your say on which one of those two would win, but you declined. You voted with your heart and forgot you also had another layer of tactical voting open to you. If you cast a vote for every party that has a chance of winning except one, your vote will count all the way down the line. If none of the parties you want to win are in with a chance, you can still have a say in who does win. I really can't see how that isn't better.

Although still flawed I think it's a much better system than the current FPTP.

I like it because I might have a preference for who wins, but I also have a preference for who doesn't. I can now indicate that preference by voting for everyone else except someone I don't want to win.

That alone seals the deal for me. I can't see how there can be any argument against it. The option to cast a vote for any candidate I think is competent, and withhold my vote from any that I think are incompetent is a far better system than effectively saying no to all but one of the candidates as we do now.

I totally understand that now. Here's an example to explain:

There are 4 parties, each with 4 candidates, vying for 4 regional seats.

Party A receives - 100 votes

Party B receives 40 votes

Party C - 20

Party D - 10

For seat 1 none of them already have a seat so you need to divide by 1 (0 seats + 1).

Party A gets seat 1.

Calculation for seat 2:

Party A - 100 / 2 (ie 1 seat +1) = 50

The others still have no seats so divide by 1 - Party B is second with 40

Party A wins seat 2.

Calculation for seat 3:

Party A 100 / 3 = 33.33

Party B 40 / 1 = 40

Party B wins seat 3.

Calculation for seat 4:

Party A 100 / 3 = 33.33

Party B 40 / 2 = 20

Party C 20 / 1 = 20

Party D 10 / 1 = 10

Party A wins seat 4.

Party A wins 3 seats and Party B wins 1.

You forgot to add the number of constituency seats the party has won.

You have to divide by constituency seats+regional seats+1.

In the above scenario, if there were 5 constituency seats and party A has won 4 and party B has won 1, you would have a three way tie for the first seat

A: 100/(4+0+1)=20

B: 40/(1+0+1)=20

C: 20/(0+0+1)=20

Working that out party C would win at least one seat.

An interesting way of doing it.

Say, for example, you wanted to vote Green, but you knew they had no chance of winning the constituency. You might vote for your "best of a bad bunch" major party candidate in the constituency but Green in the regional. Since the Greens would be unlikely to win any constituency seats they would need much less votes in the regional to secure one of the seats.

From aboutmyvote.co.uk

Who is elected?

There are 73 constituencies, each represented by one MSP. In each constituency the candidate with the most votes is elected; they do not need to get more than half of the votes cast. If there is a tie then a candidate is selected by the drawing of lots (i.e. a method of selection by chance such as tossing a coin or picking a name out of a hat).

There are also 8 regions, each electing 7 regional MSPs. There are therefore 56 regional seats; these seats are awarded using a formula. The formula is the total number of regional votes received by a party or independent candidate divided by the number of seats (constituency and regional) already gained in that region +1. The party with the highest result after the formula is applied gain an additional seat. The calculation is repeated until all the additional seats have been awarded.

So, for a party with no seats the number of votes received is divided by one, and so stays the same. If the party already has one seat in that region then its number of votes is divided by two, if it has two seats in that region it is divided by three, and so on.

This means that the more seats you have already won, the harder it is to gain extra seats, so the overall allocation of seats is proportional to the number of votes received. The number of seats each party has includes any constituency seats won in that region and regional seats already awarded.

The first regional seat that a party wins goes to the first person on its list for that region, the second seat to the second person, and so on, until the party has either not won any more seats or has run out of names on its list. An independent candidate is treated as though he or she were a party with only one name on its list.

Last few days my laptop has been going slow and sluggish quite often. I look and the CPU usage is at 100%. It's especially happening when I try to stream anything. Trying to watch a match on sopcast just now and broswse at the same time is just about killing it.

What are the most likely problems and the best things I can do / use to clean it up make it work better?

It would be appreciated if any answers were understandable to a computer idiot.

Have a look in the processes tab of task manager, double click the CPU column header to sort it by CPU usage and see what process is taking up your CPUs time.

In the original question / wasn't used. I just can't be bothered using the other one. The answer's 2.

I did this stuff for two and a half years. It's 2.

I did this stuff for 1 year in a physics degree (Engineering maths basically), then switched to maths degree, class prize in 2nd year etc etc etc.

The answer is indeterminate because there are two possible answers. It is either 2 or 288 but you do not have enough information to decide which one the person meant.

In any Uni maths exam that expression would result in marks off for being ambiguous. It needs more brackets!

You've got to get in to the habit of doing 2x9 and 2x3 then adding them together instead of 9+3 x2 because when shit gets heavy you have to multiply each individually first.

Wait.. you're not doing engineering maths eh? Well you're doing it wrong anyway. Even though you get to the right destination the path you travelled was wrong.

Hugh Jazz can I play bass?

From wikipedia:

"... care must be exercised when using the slash ('/') symbol. The string of characters "1/2x" is interpreted by the above conventions as (1/2)x. The contrary interpretation should be written explicitly as 1/(2x). Again, the use of brackets will clarify the meaning and should be used if there is any chance of misinterpretation."

Substituting our values above and making x=(9+3)

48/2x=(48/2)x=288

48/2(9+3)=(48/2)(9+3)=288

Has anybody got a bass amp I can borrow?

No confusion. It's a(b+c) resolving as ab+ac as multiplication of the juxtaposed coefficient must be distributed over the terms in parentheses to properly expand the brackets. you can't just make the coefficent the denominator of 48 as it's part of the expression 2(9+3)

It's not necessarily part of the expression 2(9+3). You think it is because, in the interests of brevity, the multiplication sign is missed out.

If you were to put that in a calculator you would have to include the multiplication sign because calculators are not programmed to understand the shorthand version. The calculator in windows gives the answer 288 btw. You can't enter it without the multiplication sign because the multiplication sign is there, whether you write it or not.

The same issue arises with something simpler like 48/2x. I won't argue that whoever wrote it means that 48 should be divided by the product of 2 and x but mathematically it needs clarification if written on one line, say like on a calculator or in a line of software. As demonstrated by windows calculator, you may not get the answer you're looking for if you are sloppy with your input.

I like this word. I think I might use it for my next band.

Virgule can be the first album.

A virgule can also be called a solidus--first single?

Obelus is pretty good for a band name, but there is no Joy in Division it seems.

rather than decimal. like:

48

_

2

using the sign implies the term on the left is divided by the term on the right. It doesn't represent a fraction as the coefficient. Brackets are expanded before division, and, since there are no unknowns, 2(9+3) expands to a single figure, 24.

A fraction is just the term on the top divided by the term on the bottom. Easier to write that as a/b (which is the term on the left divided by the term on the right) on a computer and is entirely equal to ab (which is the term on the left divided by the term on the right).

The obelus () does not impart some mystic property which the virgule (/) doesn't. They are merely different representations of the same thing.

The brackets seem to be confusing you, so lets remove them by resolving the term inside

482x12

Now, since multiplication has the same precedence as division, which do you do first?

you can't resolve 2(9+3) as separate terms, though It's already 'bracketed' by algebraic convention. BODMAS applies but like this:

(2*9+2*3)

there is no arithmetic operator between 2 and (9+3) so they aren't separate terms.

Likewise, you can't argue that the coefficient of (9+3) is 482 as that doesn't represent a natural fraction (48 over 2 which would be 24).

Where did that second set of brackets come from?? You just made them up!

If you are trying to multiply inside the brackets first, remember that resolving the brackets is first in the order of precedence, not multiplication.

In other words

2(a+b)=2a+2b not (2a+2b)

The multiplication sign is still there, whether it is written or not.

The 2 looks like it is a coefficient of (9+3), and taken in isolation it is, but with the division sign immediately preceding it you no longer have enough information to come to a 100% correct conclusion. What do you mean by natural fraction?? Did you just make that word up?

As i said, the only totally unambiguous way is to use more brackets, but having various different conventions that produce different answers is, frankly, gay.

Small wonder we're all arguing about it!

I was taught BOMDAS at school so without brackets we would come up with different answers

That's why the only correct way of writing that equation is to use an extra set of brackets, to indicate whether the multiplication or division should be done first. Since it is in brackets you would have to evaluate it first and the ambiguity would be gone.

I only substituted x to show that the rules for expanding parenthesis in algebra work. it's no different with the actual numbers. 2 is a factor of (9+3)

You've taken it out of context though and assumed the (9+3) belongs with the two.

Granted, without the multiplication sign that's the assumption I would make, i.e I would assume they meant 48/(2(9+3)) and not (48/2)(9+3), but mathematically both are possible outcomes and the order of division/multiplication should be clarified with an extra set of parentheses.

The latter as 2(9+3) is a natural expression. It isn't 2*(9+3).

They're exactly the same thing. You could call it laziness but it sure saves you getting hand cramps if you don't have to write a multiplication sign (and save on confusion as x is the most common term for an unknown variable) unless you really have to, i.e. between two actual numbers.

Well, I guess you could do that, so you get 2(12), which expands to 24. Same difference. You have to expand the brackets first, as per BODMAS.

Yeah, but is it:

48
-----    (9+3)
2

or

48
-----
2(9+3)

Without extra parentheses both are equally valid.

ah, but 2(9+3) isn't 2*(9+3), it's ((2*9)+(2*3))

makes more sense if you use x= 2

x(9+3) = 9x+3x = 12x = 12*2 = 24.

If it was explicitly 2*(9+3) rather than 2(9+3) then that would be a different matter. This is a confusion of notation.

You've multiplied first, then resolved the brackets.

This is wrong. You know it is.

I don't think either way is that bad for the battery.

It is reconmended that you completely drain the battery then charge it without using (same as mobile phones) as most new batteries have some memory that remembers how much of a charge it can store and constant recharging before the battery running out sets a false empty point for the battery.

That's probably what's happened, the smart battery ain't so smart and has got it's zero point wrong. These batteries don't drain all the way down, they're set to junk themselves at a certain point because they can become dangerous if they are recharged after being discharged too far. The battery calibration tool should be able to revive it in most cases if it hasn't went too far the wrong way.

If you're charging it to 100% all the time it's best to let it drain pretty much all the way down. See if there's some sort of battery life extender utility, these will only charge the battery to about 80% and will give you a longer battery life when you have it mostly plugged in to mains.

I've seen stats for battery life and you do get a significant percentage more when you charge/discharge correctly rather than keeping it fully charged and plugged in all the time.

Put it this way, manufacturers wouldn't bother to make the tools to preserve battery life (especially during the warranty period) if it weren't for the fact that the majority of notebook/netbook users use it at home and will have it plugged in "because the screen is brighter" and don't have the savvy to adjust power options. Telling a customer to recalibrate a battery is a shed-load less expensive to the manufacturer than taking something in for repair to check it, or sending out new batteries willy-nilly. It also gets the customer back up and running within 24 hours, rather than days.

You can also expand the brackets as:

48 / 2(9+3)

48 / 18 + 6

8.67 (to 2dp)

You cant, you have to resolve what's in the brackets first.