Redwall

They each need a lot of Arms Scrolls (bow rank) though, possibly more than Luke depending on team composition. Draug also needs a Seraph Robe. I'm not actually sure if the fastest reliable clear requires a Wyrmslayer-wielding Horseman (I'm inclined to think it does), but it's definitely really handy.

With three Speedwings and a Speed Bond/RP, 15/14 Ryan has a 74% chance of reaching 27 AS ('=BINOMDIST(16, 27, 0.55, 1)') to double the C17 Warriors if we assume all level-ups take place as a Hunter/Horseman, whereas a Gordin with 24 Hunter/Horseman level-ups (three fewer than a 15/14 Ryan) has only a 47% chance of reaching 27 AS if given the same treatment (neither gets the Starsphere in C17, so that's neglected). If accounting for Archer/Sniper/Swordmaster growths, or giving each one fewer Speedwing, Ryan's odds of reaching the AS benchmark are still better than Gordin's. The levels Ryan gains in the Prologue allow him to roughly match Gordin's AS by the latter's join time, and the edge in growth rate puts him well ahead by the lategame.

Tablets can be useful for students who need to read a lot of academic papers (either because they're involved in research, or because they're humanities majors). Aside from that, the perks they have over laptops aren't so exciting. I don't know if you'll find tablets useful at this stage of your academic career, though they obviously may help later on. Buying an extra monitor can be nice not only for gaming, but also for having a nice dual-screen setup for doing work on your laptop (speaking of laptops, consider buying a hybrid SSD). I would avoid the PS3 since, like you said, you already have enough games with which to distract yourself. It's better to prioritize friends and studying during your first term, anyway.

Pop psychology has a very specific meaning, one that does not encompass "obvious inferences that Chiki hasn't made." You need only look at commonguard's previous topic to see that he does cite PKL, dondon, KoT, and others liberally; to conclude that he is aware that readers of his previous topic would recall those explicit citations; etc. If in fact he has used some of PKL's map strategies, then duh, of course he is being lazy in failing to cite PKL accordingly. But regardless of whether he independently developed many of his map-specific strategies or he simply used the work of others, it should be clear that, given that we all have access to the work that PKL and commonguard have previously done, many maps are simply not worth re-recording. At no point did I claim the proposal to record only a handful of maps to be equivalent to an explicit citation of PKL's work; I claimed simply that commonguard, given his previous topic, is unlikely to be intentionally taking credit for what PKL and others have done. I take no responsibility for the phantoms of your imagination. None of this follows from what we know of the playthrough. Of course it does. Sirius with 26 kills is a role player, while Sirius with 54 kills is a starter. Even getting Sirius to 54 kills when playing at this 145-150 turn pace requires some trickery given the game's low enemy density and emphasis on the player phase.

I think it's completely acceptable to "take someone's work and immediately slightly improve on someone's record," regardless of whether or not the other person does most of the work, so long as the other person receives acknowledgement. commonguard's proposal to record only a handful of maps, as well as his liberal citations of others' strategies in his previous playthrough, suggest that he does not plan to take credit for the work of PKL et al.. The videos show that PKL and commonguard adopted very different approaches to numerous maps, so the claim that commonguard has largely copied PKL's playthrough is not supported: note that PKL's playthrough has Sirius with 48 B and 26 W, while commonguard's playthrough has Sirius with 74 B and 54 W; PKL uses Ryan while commonguard uses Luke, with the most noticeable difference being in the execution in the last one or two Prologue chapters; the C23 turncount from commonguard's latest playthrough suggests that his playthrough doesn't use a ~40K Dragonpike forge; and PKL only kills off unrecruited PCs (afaik), while commonguard kills off recruited PCs. There is no need to be offended by this playthrough. The point of many mentally stimulating games is to improve our understanding of the game, to figure out which moves are optimal. The playthrough and forthcoming videos simply point out what the best moves, to the best of his knowledge, are; it should be clear that he is not claiming sole credit for the 145-turn clear. commonguard has promised recordings. We can't really speak for the reliability of his clears until seeing them.

Working as a scientist in an unsexy field like environmental science (unsexy in that the public doesn't consider it appealing) isn't something that tends to win you a whole lot of prestige or money. You won't be poor, but you'll be working long hours for less money than what comparably well-schooled people can typically get.

AW1's Advance Campaign is the only one I've played with difficulty comparable to LTCing a Fire Emblem. I played Dual Strike and Days of Ruin some time ago, but I don't recall S-ranking a lot of the maps in those games to be particularly difficult.

What, if anything, do you think should be done to address AGW?

I would think the mode number of research experiences among the most competitive applicants is two: one "main project" with a professor at the undergrad institution, and one during the summer for an internship or REU. The number is not a huge deal; what matters is the quality of your work. Many peoples' undergrad research experiences (including those of many of the most competitive applicants) tend to be very shallow in that they don't really demand much independence and creativity. After joining a lab for undergrad research and acquiring relevant background knowledge, you can really learn a lot and distinguish your application by taking initiative and asking for an independent project (it won't generally be that independent, but it's nonetheless much more instructive than what many undergrads do).

As it relates to the pursuit of truth (in academic and other endeavors) or skill (in sports, for example), elitism can be something of an obstacle, depending on the context. While those more knowledgeable about a certain thing than others do have some obligation to avoid selling themselves short, it remains important for these enlightened folks (or, in many contexts, less-ignorant folks, since in many contexts we can only reasonably classify people as "completely ignorant" and "slightly less ignorant") to recognize the limitations of their arguments/skills. This is not a big deal in contexts like FE tiering discussions since problems in FE are not nearly as difficult to solve as some problems (say, econ-related ones) IRL are; no one disputes that dondon is generally better at FE than the rest of us. But of course, some people you might call elitists are not aware of the limitations of their arguments; some of them aren't even people who could reasonably be considered "elite" in any relevant field. Their unwarranted contentment with their abilities gives them less incentive to improve their skills/arguments/etc. Any amount of time spent preening their feathers is time that could be spent improving their skills.

this entire thread baffles me. you lead with a question that has a completely trivial answer if adopting the presented dictionary.com definition, and expect meaningful discussion; wait an additional three pages before finally saying "hey, maybe we need a more restrictive definition;" and finally say "okay, i don't think a more restrictive definition can be 'meaningful.'" to which i'm like, "okay, so what constitutes a 'meaningful' definition?" a definition that restricts the dictionary.com definition to acts you consider to have a net negative effect? a definition that restricts the definition to acts you consider evil (given your previously stated belief in the concept of ethics being objective, this should be something you consider "meaningful")? either question is more conducive to stimulating discussion than the trivially presented question (trivial if adopting the dictionary.com definition) in the OP.

If you want to get into a relationship, you're going to have to make yourself vulnerable. As Kierkegaard said, he who cannot reveal himself cannot love. As I think other posters have realized, it doesn't sound like you're sure what sort of partner you're looking for, and how to distinguish between a female friend and a female with whom you would get along in a romantic relationship. While I've only had a glance at it, I recommend this book.

Yeah, the edit was mostly to avoid suggesting that information entropy had anything to do with the Gatrie thing, which I thought out of place in a topic about 50% growths.

I think the use of words like "gamble" and "risk" is an attempt at summarizing the intuition behind the information-entropy maximum. Looking at the outcome of a single level-up, for a known growth rate p with p =/= 0.5 and 0<= p <= 1, the information entropy is less than one full bit, since you can predict the outcome more often than not. For p = 0.5, it is because you cannot predict the outcome more often than not that the information entropy is maximized wrt p.

I never said that you said it was worse than a 30% growth. Without being too pedantic, this is more or less what I said. No need to repeat ourselves here.

I think what some of you are trying to say is that 50% growth has the highest information entropy of the possible FE growths. But as has been noted, regardless of information entropy or variance, having a 50% growth is strictly better than having a growth rate lower than 50%, unless you (say) want a low Def stat to bait enemies.

I've only completed EOIV, though I played a bit of EOIII. I enjoyed IV since its difficulty was the sort that generally kept me on my toes without driving me completely insane. My sense is that EOIII is sort of the same way, but that the nature of the ocean quest precludes a blind, casual-effficiency playthrough.

Shaq Fu.

I can play right now on Showdown if you're free; if you're busy right now, no worries. I noticed in an earlier post that you were concerned about Smeargle + Mega Kanga leading together, but I think your team can handle it by leading with Talonflame and Garchomp, having both use Protect on turn 1 (for Dark Void and Fake Out), and subsequently dogpiling Smeargle on turn 2 with Brave Bird and Earthquake edit: and having Garchomp use EQ on turn 1 while having Talonflame use Protect (previous suggestion was riskier since it neglected the possibility of Smeargle using Protect on turn 2). It won't matter whether Smeargle has a Choice Scarf or a Focus Sash if you approach it this way. Most likely, Talonflame will be KOed on turn 2 by MKanga, but it's a fair trade since Garchomp and Ferrothorn can handle a weakened MKanga.

SL, you may want to read this. It's not directly related to Pokemon, but it may be useful nonetheless. Or not, if you've been to tournaments before. I can play some practice matches against you if you're willing. The Water-type and Fire/Ice-type matches look to be some of the more challenging ones, especially since you lack counter-weather, so I or another user can try whipping up a team. (though because I am Bad At VGC, I can't promise that I'll be able to offer a game comparable to what you may face in the actual tournament)

We don't really disagree that much. I stressed the value of studying smart, and not necessarily hard, which is consistent with your claim of having to study "the right way". I didn't mean to claim that doing the homework by yourself was generally sufficient; I agree that most people should be doing some practice problems on the side. I think what many students neglect when doing practice problems (not just in orgo, but in science and math classes generally) is to understand where they went wrong, to make the solutions more intuitive and easily understandable upon subsequent readings of the problems, and to see recurring patterns in the practice problems. After solving or not solving a problem, a lot of students just move on and don't make much effort to integrate what they've learned from the problem.

It took you two whole days to come up a rebuttal as flimsy as "LOL loser, true until proven false"? Given that you've made more than one vanity thread on SF, and given that you have in fact been posting elsewhere on SF during these past few days (even making some posts suggesting I've gotten to you), one suspects your absence from this thread was not due to RL stuff, but simply due to a lack of a leg on which to stand. Or to put it another way, if everything you write here were true, given how very persistent you have been at defending yourself in past threads, you would simply have presented an explanation as brief and simple as this much, much sooner. WRT "LOL loser innocent till proven guilty", I did not claim to have rigorously disproven your general point; since you made the (conveniently for you) now-unfalsifiable claim that you qualified back in January, this is unlike a mathematical proof or a court case, and instead more like a game of mafia, one in which we persuade some hypothetical reader of the correctness of our arguments (and while I am aware that none of our actual readers gives a shit about our discussion, it doesn't change the nature of our game). And while I'm not so knowledgeable in mafia, I'm confident that "LOL loser, true until proven false" doesn't generally fly. I'll leave the thread now. I am saddened that both the touchy-feely-therapy.com approach and the tough-love approach to making you less hostile have failed.

If you have no specific 2HKO/3HKO thresholds in mind that only Adamant Talonflame could reach, I would recommend Jolly Talonflame since it gets more points of Spd from its respective-boosting nature than it would for Atk for its boosting nature.

More irony. The only point I tried to make in my previous post was that you falsely accuse people of immaturity when you exhibit more immaturity than all of them combined; your continued boasts as well as your unfriending (lol) of me, the one active user who has consistently defended you here on SF, over a children's game is merely a convenient example of this. I did not intend for you to renew our game of cat and mouse from the previous thread, but I will oblige. Semantics, the last refuge. Props on correctly making the bold play of assuming that I hadn't snapped your record from when you still had 1000 Elo and a 6-9 W-L, but I still have adequate information to call your bluff of decay alone explaining your low rating. While it is true that Elo decays over time, your mean Glicko-1 does not decay over time (the RD does, though). The mean Glicko-1 I have recorded for you is 1695, just 1.5 standard deviations above the overall PS mean of 1500. And this mean Glicko-1 of 1695, given the large number of games you played on the OU ladder from the point of the last reset, is inconsistent with this image you adopt of a badass who consistently tops ladders and beats Smogon-tournament winners; to put this in perspective, I had (and still have) a mean Glicko-1 of 1812, 2.4 standard deviations above the mean, on the OU ladder the day the suspect test ended, after having only played nineteen OU matches on that account, yet this was still a fair bit lower than what many tournament players, without even trying, had. A mean Glicko-1 of 1695 after 65-ish games is far more consistent with the profile of a so-so / above-average player than with the profile of a juggernaut, who would have to get haxed to oblivion to lose that frequently with any team that isn't completely ineffective. While you may also claim that a very large losing streak with an unserious team following procurement of 1700 Elo explains your low rating, this is inconsistent with the fact that there exist two publicly viewable replays of you playing against and losing to mediocre players with your serious team on the day the suspect test ended (the upload dates of these replays read Feb 9, 2014--surprise, surprise, the exact day the suspect test ended!--towards the bottom-left of the screen), which seems inconsistent with your story of a fantastic rating achieved in January that was only worn down by rating decay and a lack of motivation to bring it back up. It is completely consistent with my claim from the previous thread that you were laddering furiously during the (figurative) eleventh hour. All of this neglects the fact that you were completely on the defensive in that prior thread (from your evasiveness to the "This doubt is silly", lmao), in contrast to your generally confrontational style displayed not just here in FFtF and Serious Discussion (where it is somewhat understandable given your SF reputation), but even on Smogon (where you wrote some hostile posts in spite of the absence of anyone picking on you). If, during our previous exchange, you had this explanation up your sleeve, why hold off on revealing it? Most anyone familiar with your posting style, and your tendency to simply vanish from a thread when argued into a corner, would guess that you had nothing to counter my claims at the time, and needed a clearer head to come up with your rating-decay story in order to feel comfortable going on the offensive again. And don't kid yourself, I am not not obsessed with you anymore than folks like Constable Reggie, Esau of Isaac, Interceptor, Espinosa, or others are obsessed with any other outrageous person on the Internet. They, like me, simply enjoy screwing with said outrageous persons every so often. Given the damning timestamps of the two replays, combined with your interest in the team fielded in those replays (as evidenced by the fact that you made a RMT for it), I see no need to continue this exchange.

Ooh, someone spot the irony in this hypothetical that totally never happened. "Rordon Gamsay": People here fucking suck at cooking. You're fucking horrible at life. "Tiki": [...] "Tiki": People here suck at FE and respond immaturely when I point this out. Everyone: [...] "CheatingOnIke": I'm not the best at Pokemon, but I have other things I'd rather be doing. "Tiki": Well, whatever, I'm awesome at Pokemon. "Micaiah": Hey, Tiki, you're pretty unremarkable at Pokemon. I even have evidence of your skill estimate on the day the suspect test concluded. "Tiki": Well, since I recently beat a SPL winner who hasn't played seriously in years, according to my degree in logimacality "Micaiah" is spewing sophistry and not worth fully responding to for this reason. I must unfriend "Micaiah" for this unforgiveable ad homineminem.