BlogNomic: The First Dynasty of Desertfrog

Gambling

Roll: 6

Guess: 9

Gambling

Roll: 1

Guess: 8

Note that to gamble I have to both post here and roll the die. Nothing says I must gamble if I roll the die or post right after rolling the die. (Though a case can be made that if I choose to gamble, my roll is 4)

Playing safe, thank you very much.

Shoot, I gotta go. no camping at the end. At least I’ll almost definitely pass.

Gambling

Roll: 4 (from way back when)

Guess: 7

One sec…

Gambling

Roll: 1

Guess: 5

Oh, really? BE that way, nomic. BE that way. ... you gonna take that, ais? I shouldn’t have been playing that stupid flash game…

Challenge ends here
___________________________________

I’ll be cfjing if he takes it wak—don’t worry at least you passed due to the play it safe rule

CFJ, if you must. We shall see. It says on Thursday, but not when. Besides… I’d call it a buzzer shot, what with the lag of the comuter and all.

A quote from Wikipedia:

“Midnight marks the beginning and ending of each day in civil time throughout the world. It is the dividing point between one day and another.”

Wikipedia also seems to treat Midnight as occurring on both days; read the article for more verification.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/548775.html is a dispute where there is no clear answer as to which date midnight falls on; it is, by definition, a matter of opinion.

http://www.astronomy.net/articles/13/ also takes an interesting view on the topic. Honestly, it can be interpreted either way, and whoever ais sides against will be justified in trying a CfJ.

I can’t seem to find any other good sides, due to an overabundance of information about “Midnight Sun.”

In my opinion, however, Midnight is on both Wednesday AND on Thursday. ais says, “Wednesday is the last day you can gamble on,” and under my interpretation and the interpretation that seems most prevalent among scholars, Wakukee’s post was on Wednesday (as well as Thursday). Thus, his Gamble should be accepted.

Either way, Psycho succeeds and Wooble is Out, which I’ll do now.

Not my fault your computer has lag. “Midnight” is the concept of the time from 23:59 to 0:00. To say something occurs ‘at midnight’ means it occurs then.

Wak didn’t post at midnight, he posted at 0:00 which is clearly part of Thursday.

Also only AIS can actually do the outcomes for these.

I mean, the timestamp clearly says “06-18-2009”. How can you actually argue that the 18th is still Wednesday?

Your conceptualization is a bit off here, Clucky. Midnight is the exact moment of 00:00:00, not some abstract phantom. I think you will find that nearly all sources agree on this definition. Wakukee posted at 00:00:00, which is defined as midnight.

The timestamp says “06-18” because the maker of ExpressEngine, which Blognomic runs off of, or whoever it was that made the clock didn’t feel like going to the trouble of programming it to read “06-17/18-2009” for the 1 second that this is an issue. It’s the same reason that clocks read “12 PM” at exactly noon, even though it is obvious that noon is not a PM time (PM stands for “Post Meridiem,” meaning “after noon”).

The fact that the person who programmed our timing mechanism was lazy has no bearing on the truth of the situation. The time Wakukee posted, “00:00:00,” occurs on both Wednesday and Thursday, and that must be taken into account for resolving this Challenge.

Also, nowhere in the Ruleset does it say that only ais can adjudicate these, although it does mention that he should be the one to award the 3 Fame to the Challenge Champion. Please read the Ruleset before reverting things that are legal.

But either way I end up winning.

The rules state that the contest ends on Thursday.

If midnight is simply Thursday, I win.

If midnight is both Wednesday *and* Thursday, then it is still Thursday and so the contest still ends and so I still win. Wednesday is the last day you can gamble, even if there is one minute of Wednesday that you can’t gamble on.

I guess one could claim “The challenge ends on Thursday, there is just one minute of Thursday that its still running for” and we should probably wait for ais’s interpretation, though it might be best to just say we both win.

qwaz, midnight is the offical day turn over. I’d say that waks doesn’t count cause then you’d be adding a min to wens and that just cause a clusterf**k. and no this isn’t cause i support bucky. just stating my thoughts

Plus, with you saying midnight = when wak posted then he posted on thursday, hence his gamble doesn’t count as it was posted on thursday, the day the contest ends.

*re-reads qwazs post* Simple Q. Where in any book does it state that midnight means we’re sitting on two days at once? that logic makes no sense even for a nomic. My comp says that when midnight hits its offically the next day, not some magic duel day min.

By that logic, he’d be in a paradox because he could both enter the contest as it’d be wens but at the same time not be able to since it would also be thurs. Qwaz, honestly, its not worth the trouble here. And on a side note, can we please stop with all the fricken bucky’s group vs the dda? its no fun

If you read the 2 links, it will help illustrate my point, but I will try again.

There isn’t one “minute” that is both days, there is one instant. For the purposes of the time we have access to, that amounts to one second. There is exactly one second (for our purposes, as our clock doesn’t get any more specific than that) that is both Wednesday and Thursday. That is the time Wakukee posted at.

To respond to Clucky: my interpretation is pretty much exactly the same as your second statement, with the replacement of “minute” with “second.” In fact, ais gives a specific example showing that anytime Wednesday is legal for gambling: “on Wednesday after 12:00 UTC” are his exact words, and that includes Midnight.

To respond to Darknight’s 1st comment, no amount of time is added to either day. There is simply one instant that is both days, and this has always been the case. This is a bit counterintuitive, but so is the fact that .99999… = 1. Just because something is counterintuitive doesn’t mean it is false.

To respond to your second comment, the fact that it was also Thursday is immaterial; ais specifically said (as I showed in my last explanation) that any time Wednesday is a legal time to gamble. That includes Midnight.

Continuing with Darknight’s third comment: I already posted two sites explaining that Midnight is on both days. I think you will find that many others agree with that interpretation, because it is correct. Let me provide an example, to show you how confusion might come about:

Suppose you were invited to a party that started Midnight Thursday. Would you know when to show up at this party? Does it start just as Wednesday has come to an end? Or does it start right as Thursday comes to a close? It is not clear, and I suspect it would generate much confusion among those who were invited.

To respond to Darknight’s 4th comment: nowhere does it say that one cannot Gamble on Thursday. It does, however, state that one can Gamble on Wednesday. The fact that the Challenge ends on Thursday does not mean that it one cannot also fulfill the obligations required to gamble legally, so long as one posts on Wednesday. Midnight counts as Wednesday (as well as Thursday), thus Wakukee’s post is legal and counts in the Challenge.

To respond to your second point in your 4th comment, heck yeah we can stop all this politicised crap. How about we set up a final showdown, something weighted but fair, that will put an end to this once and for all. I suggest ais523 makes a final Extreme Challenge that only one Contestant can succeed at. That Challenge would integrate all GNDT values into one super Finale!

A tall order, but it would be a lot more fun than mudslinging between 2 factions that don’t really want to dislike each other.

Whatever to all the time crap. But I’m with ya on the fact that all this other political bull is causing more trouble then the mad king sometimes. I won’t help the DDA but I’m done helping bucky. I payed back the favor for him helping me win last dynasty, even if it didn’t help him win. If this mess keeps up I’m gonna idle for the rest of this. So no offence to you with my posts.

On a related note, I hope ais reads all these posts, they’re pretty interesting. If a nomic isn’t about arguing over minute nuances, then I don’t know what it is about.

Its all about the mind of a plotter. http://tinyurl.com/Buckysplans

I think ais will do the Final Showdown thing. The question is, will we be eating bugs, dispensing roses, or performing an underwater endurance test. I personally am rooting for doing tricks with our Hats.  : D

I swear I’m no idiot, I’m not gonna click that Rickroll if Rick Astley himself tells me it’s safe.

Why isn’t that ‘second’ 23:59:59? The actual ‘instant’ occurs between the two.

Its like this:

23:59:58 23:59:59 | 0:00:00 0:00:01

“midnight” occurs at the line. We can zoom in if we want

23:59:59:998 23:59:59:999 | 0:00:00:000 | 0:00:00:001

But the fact remains that anything that is “0” will be the next day and anything that is “23” will be the previous day. There is no time we can represent that corresponds to the instant that is midnight. 3.14 is not actually pi. Neither is 3.14159. Or anything we can write down. They are just approximations. 0:00:00 might be a good approximation of midnight, but it isn’t actually midnight.

It should look like this, Bucky:

23:59:59:998 23:59:59:999 | 0:00:00:001 0:00:00:002

The line represents the exact time that is in-between both days; namely, midnight. The line can also be represented by a number of zeroes, how ever many you like: 0 = 00 = 000 = 0:00:00:000.

As soon as a 1 appears, no matter how many digits down it is, the number now represents a time in the next day (Thursday). However, if there are only 0s, then the time represents Midnight.

Idk why I said Bucky, I meant Clucky. Freudian slip.

Its only a freudian slip if ya try to say masses and it comes out asses or say blow them away and away gets cut off do to space.

masses : asses :: Clucky : Bucky.

Not everything Freud dealt with was risque (although, admittedly, most of it was).  ; )

Remember that Unix time is stored as seconds elapsed. This “rounds up” so to speak. If the time stamp says 23:59:59 we know that at least 85399 of the seconds 86000 seconds in a day have passed. If the time stamp reads 0:00:0 then all 86400 seconds have passed plus some fraction of a second.

Thus we have intevrals that are closed on the left and open on the right. Time 0 corresponds to every time in between 0:00:00 January 1st 1970 and 0:00:01 January 1st 1970. It does *not* correspond to 0:00:01 January 1st 1970 as then one second has elapsed, and so that would be time 1. However, it does correspond to 0:00:00 January 1st 1970 for obvious reasons.

Wak posted at Unix Time 1245283200. This corresponds to anything between 0:00:00 June 18th 2009 and 0:00:01 June 18th 2009, including 0:00:00 but not 0:00:01. Note that June 17th, Wednesday, is not included in this interval.

The time ‘midnight’ where it is both does not actually exist. It is impossible for Wak to have posted exactly at that time. Instead, his post took place a few milliseconds after wards.

Er, actually know that I think about it it rounds down. But whatever, I need sleep. If you haven’t conceded come morning I’ll get on a post another rebuttal.

All of which is sensible, intuitive, and true, except for one bit. The interval we are looking at is [0:00:00, 0:00:01).

That left limit is exactly midnight, which does exist despite your continued, unsupported assertions to the contrary. The time that was posted included that left limit, meaning that it is feasible that Wakukee posted at Midnight, which occurs on both days. I think it would be entirely unfair to assume that it was posted somewhere near the right limit, as there is no proof of that. For all purposes, we are forced to assume that he posted at the left limit, aka Midnight.

Honestly, I would prefer a both-sides win solution to this problem, if we’re really going to stop being partisan and have a Final Battle.

No it is not feasible because the actual time is only an istant. Posting at exactly midnight is akin to random getting exactly ok when choosin a number between 1 and 10—the probability of it happening is zero. Same with the probability it was posted at exaclty midnight.

The probability is not 0. In your analogy, the probability would be like getting exactly pi when selecting a random number (not integer) from 1 to 10.

In fact, the probability that he got the left limit is exactly the same as the probability that he got any other time within the range [0:00:00, 0:00:01). Once again, all we know is that it was within that range, so one would be unjustified in assuming that he did not post at Midnight exactly.

Also, keep in mind that we’re dealing with an imperfect measurement here. Wakukee has assured me that he hit “submit” around 23:59:30. In that 30 seconds of time, anything at all could be going on in the Internet. Our style of measurement already assumes that Wakukee posted at a time that is 30 seconds later than the truth. Let’s not make any assumptions beyond that: therein lies the slippery slope towards saying that time itself is an abstract concept, and we should discard all Rules that have a time element because they are untenable.

I give up. If you cannot get your mind around the fact that midnight is an istant and there are an infinite number of instances during any finite time period, and thus the probability of posting at any given instance is 0 then there really isn’t anything I can do.

Also your arguments keep getting sillier and sillier. We have no proof of wak’s actions other than the time stamp. It doesn’t matter when he wanted to do it—it matters when the server noted his responce. While his personal time may have had 30 seconds to spare we cannot have a clock for every player. We have one clock and expecting to play by anything else is crazy.

This is the critical point where I am right. There’s nothing wrong with my mind and, if you look really, really carefully, you’ll see that I understand how, as you phrase it, “instants” work.

You’re second point is exactly why we must accept that Wak posted at midnight. All we have to go on is the word of what we see on the screen. The time of “0:00:00” is the only thing we have to go on; we have to accept that as the only time, because like you said, we don’t have personal clocks for every player.

Thus, the only time we can go by is 0:00:00, which, in theory, is midnight. 0:00:00 is the exact notation for the moment of midnight. While you and me and Stephen Hawking or whoever all know that it represents a range of numbers, we cannot assume that because that’s not what is actually stated. What is explicitly stated is that Wakukee’s action occurred at 0:00:00, which is midnight.

Since you are prepared to take the server at its word, can you accept my conclusion?

No. I won’t accept your conclusion. According to the server, it was at least midnight when Wak posted.

It could not have been exactly midnight, because midnight is an instant. It is impossible to do anything exactly at midnight in the same way that it is impossible to actually write down pi.

If we let A be “Wak posted at midnight” and B be “Wak posted after midnight” we know

(A or B) is true, based on the server time and we know (not B) based on how instances work. The only way this works is if A is true and B is false.

Er I meant not A is true and so B is true and A is false.

This is such a mess, that the only solution I can think of is to arrange matters so that it comes to the same thing either way. I’m about to do that now.

How is it a mess? Qwaz doesn’t understand how time works and is displayed. Ignorance is no excuse for getting things to go your way.

Personally, I believe your logic to be skew. The true options are not that it was posted at midnight or after, they are A) It was posted at the instant known as “midnight” or B) It was posted at an instant that occured after “midnight”. By your logic, since both options are instants, the post never occured. As this is clearly incorrect, we are forced to accept that we do not know whether A or B are true, it could be either.

/headdeak

There isn’t only one ‘instant’ between 0:00:00 and 0:00:01. There is an infinite number of them. You posted during one of them.

Which may or may not have been exactly midnight. Wee, full circle.

Wow, Wakukee managed to explain that better than I did. Nice work.

Clucky, if you happen to read this: What is your definition of “instant”? I wouldn’t think there is an infinite number of instants in a minute; there is certainly a large amount, however.

Dude, now I’m gonna have to add this to the essay. There is an infinite amount, fyi, because you can divide a minute smaller and smaller; there is no limit to how many times you can divide it.

Wow Qwaz and I are agreeing and blognomic is still currently standing…

@Qwaz: How can there be an infinite amount? I think I can prove that there isn’t…

First, let us assume that an instant is a unit of time, which it clearly is.

Now, if there is an infinite number of instants in a second, then there must also be an infinite amount in any other length of time.

Therefore, a yoctosecond and a millennium are the same amount of time, each equal to an infinite amount of instants. A yoctosecond and a millennium are different amounts of time, therefore a second contains a finite number of instants.

Q.E.D.

You are assuming that all inifinities are equal, which is mathematically untenable.

Here’s a site talking about it:

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2009/01/the_continuum_hypothesis_solve.php

And I am too lazy to find anything better, but multiple infinities do exist, obviously.

“Obviously”??? How, in any sense of the word, is that obvious!?

“Obviously”??? How, in any sense of the word, is that obvious!?

Because what do you get if you subract 1 from infinity? The number is obviously still infinite, but is slightly less than the infinity you were talking about before. Thus, there must be multiple infinites.

No, ∞ - ∞ = ∞. ∞ and ∞ are the same thing. There are only 2 infinities: ∞, and -∞ (negative infinity).

So what is ∞ - 1, then? Talk to ais, he is far more mathematically inclined than you or I and he will do a better job of proving this to be true.

Hmm. It seems what you’re actually thinking of is the aleph numbers.

Warning: The preceding link is to TV Tropes.

Posted at the same time as Qwaz.

@Qwaz: When I said ∞ - ∞ = ∞, I meant ∞ - 1 = ∞.

Also, updated the essay.

No, I think those have limited applicability here. Like I said, I’m no mathematician, but it is obvious that x-1 isn’t equal to x, and that holds true for infinity.

Infinity isn’t a natural number. Things work very different for it.

The amount of fail in this thread just increased by a factor of of a joint concert between Nickelback Creed and Kanye West.

Consider the set of all (real) numbers between 0 and 1 and the set of all (real) numbers between 0 and 2. Note that both contain an infinite number of real numbers. Also, you are correct that there are different infinities. However, in this case, there they are the SAME infinity. Why? there are the same number of real numbers in both groups. Why? Consider the function f(x) = 2x. This takes any value in the first group and maps it to a value in the second group. Likewise, if we have y in the second group, then f(y/2) = y and so there cannot be more numbers in the second group than numbers in the first group.

“Instants” are like real numbers, and timeframes like “second” and “millennium” are ranges of an infinite number of seconds. They both contain the same infinite number of seconds, but this doesn’t make them the same length.

You both are embarrassing yourselves. Learn how infinity works before you make fools of yourself arguing about it.

Also nice to see it still isn’t safe to rejoin blognomic =)

Hahaha I see that Clucky is still offensive to people who mean him no harm. :p

Your words are very interesting but make little sense.

Also, how would we know that there isn’t some smallest possible unit of time, and anything smaller does not exist in any form?

Because at this point, we define what time is? There is no meaning to the word other than that which we have given it, and the currently accepted conception of time has it divisible into an infinite number of parts….

“Accepted” by who?

People who use time.

I use time. I don’t accept it.

But now this has degenerated to bickering. Let’s just agree to disagree.

I hate infinity.

Do you hate infinity… forever?

Also, look up “Planck time” on Wikipedia.

Planck time seems to be a theory at best. I don’t think you can apply it here with any degree of confidence.

Also, updated the Essay.