Among the many "innovations", there was a feature where he would link to a website that he thought was worthy of ridicule. Often mentioning directly that it had a guest book to sign in.
So a horde of bullies would descend on that website, fill the book and any forums with goatse porn and email the same. Some of the victims shut down their websites, their complaints posted to SA so people could laugh at them.
Brigading and "cancelling"... Yes, some of the humor was funny, but the site was a cesspool that festered into the chans. Let's Play is good, but the worst of the Internet was fostered here as well.
The best part was when he was tricked into a boxing match with Uwe Boll, which didn't work out well for him.
No mention of Tom Lehrer?
I still remember the -LY song he wrote.
One recurring joke was based on 2001. A giant monolith would crumble to reveal the sound of the day while Also Sprach Zarathustra played.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY0GhNBMkM8
There is a distinct drop in quality as time passes, anything written in the 50s is golden (Untouched by Human Hands, Store of Infinity) , in the 60s is mixed but still some good stuff (Can you Feel Anything When I do This?). After that is pretty hit or miss (Options), including a collaboration with Zelazny that I found quite disappointing.
By using expected value, you are assuming that the distribution of the even numbers is uniform. You will need to prove that first, and I suspect that will be difficult.
Since we're looking at Scott Aaronson, you might want to check out "Quantum Computing Since Democritus". It gives a good explanation of the math behind qubits and how they can be used. Best intro I know of.
It also gets pretty macabre in parts. Specifically The Tin-Woodsman of Oz where the title character wonders whatever happened to the girl that was the reason he was cursed. You see, he fell in love with a girl who was enslaved to a witch, so the witch enchanted his axe to chop parts of him off every time he swung it. Eventually, there was nothing left but the tin replacements.
And if that isn't enough, it is established that nothing in Oz ever dies. Including all his chopped off parts...
I Am a Strange Loop spends an entire chapter of Hofstadter informing us how he is better than everyone else because he hears Bach better than everyone else. And this attitude fills the book, I found it very obnoxious and am not sure why no else mentions it.
There are at least two places in the book where he talks about an interesting point, then realizes it is a rehash of something from a previous book. And aside from the self-congratulations (did you know being a vegetarian makes you more of a person?), anything interesting in this book was done better in a previous book.
I would recommend The Mind's I instead. It's a collection of stories and essays from most of his influences, see what Turing, Lucas, et al. actually said.
Among the many "innovations", there was a feature where he would link to a website that he thought was worthy of ridicule. Often mentioning directly that it had a guest book to sign in.
So a horde of bullies would descend on that website, fill the book and any forums with goatse porn and email the same. Some of the victims shut down their websites, their complaints posted to SA so people could laugh at them.
Brigading and "cancelling"... Yes, some of the humor was funny, but the site was a cesspool that festered into the chans. Let's Play is good, but the worst of the Internet was fostered here as well.
The best part was when he was tricked into a boxing match with Uwe Boll, which didn't work out well for him.