Well, a) nobody has really been able to touch Spain for years, and b) in the Euro two years ago, Netherlands lost all their games and dropped out at the group stage. So yeah, it's kind of surprising to see them beating Spain of all teams, and this handily too.

Ask away.

Discrete Structures as in graph theory or cryptography?

Gotta save those $4.50, what with paying for all the leagues this season...

(it wasn't me)

a) The tests conducted by the scientific community really aren't as rigorous as you make them out to be in general. Obtaining an important result gets you quite a bit of fame and funding, while verifying it doesn't usually entail any of that. Many phenomena in biology (for example, results on the effect of parasites on biodiversity) haven't been verified, because repeating an experiment is just as expensive as conducting it for the first time, and, as I said, doesn't hold nearly as much promise in academia. So the peer-review process isn't as perfect as you describe it to begin with. Additionally, there's a lot of peer pressure to conform to existing theories, which of course stifles open opposition against whatever is popular at the time.
b) I can only repeat what I said above. Your basic assumption is that induction (concluding a general principle from a number of observed phenomena) is possible. The only real indication of that principle being true is that it has worked (more or less) before, which in itself is an act of induction.

Look, you're still operating under a scientific framework here. Empirically (which assumes you can find actual, objective truth by experiment), an objective truth would indeed be a fact that's possible to be confirmed by experiment. But, as with all systems of knowledge, it's possible to reject the axioms the scientific method is founded upon. Why would I be pulled towards the earth, even if it's happened every time before? That's not a rethorical question, and the answer has to be 'Because we can find the way the universe works by way of experiment; what has happened multiple times in the past is likely to happen again'. Surely you see that this isn't the only valid point of view. I, for one, find it easy to believe that the universe isn't completely structured in a way that can be understood by humans, who are part of the very system they're trying to unravel.

It's easy to ridicule others because they place unquestioning faith in a book; but please recognize that your own basic assumptions are only supported by themselves.

Actually, only analytic functions can be approximated by polynomials that way, and just from the graph, we have no way of telling whether the solution is even continuous. Also, you're correct with your second point, as there are infinitely many continuous functions (in fact, more than there are real numbers) that approximate the given graph arbitrarily well (in a sense of having an arbitrarily small difference in value globally).

As for the original problem, you could
A) try to approximate the function with a polynomial of a high degree, which will give you a good estimate of the values inside the interval you're looking at, but will behave horribly outside of it
or
B) do something similar to #29 and find out about the theoretical background that determined the graph. This seems like a much more sensible solution.

What do you need the formula for?

Holy shit, this was even more obvious than I thought.
I've been meaning to get beyond the mere knowledge of how pieces move for some time now, but it seems that people are either not interested in chess, or started playing as children and are way too good for me.

Regarding nails (I didn't have the condition you describe though), I broke my arm very near the elbow in 2004, and definitely couldn't feel the nails. You'll need another surgery appointment to get them out, but other than that, that's probably it, at least as far as I can see from the x-ray images on wikipedia. My nails stayed in for about 3 months, but I have no idea about your case.

As for the scars, back then I receives some kind of jelly that was supposed to help make the scars smaller, but it was supposed to be applied just before sleeping, so I never used it - I hate having anything wet in my bed. The scar remains prominent to this day, but it isn't in a particularly problematic area, and yours should be under even less stress, being near the hip and all.

Still, for more accurate information, I recommend you ask a professional.

I'm horrible at chess, but how did this checkmate happen? Where did the bishop come from?

I feel like organizing a hat raffle every week isn't very practical and besides, people will run out of hats soon. What might work, or just would be a nice addition, is sort of a betting system, where people bet on one or several pools (first place, second place, most ubers dropped) and get stuff back if they win. Part of the pools would make up the prizes. Then again, this seems like even more of a hassle unless an automated system was implemented, but at least it wouldn't consume hats that aren't worth much and replenish very slowly.

Or just make the whole thing for free, which seems like a better idea anyhow. That might lead to teams bailing out last second though.

100$ less for the 5c is idiotic if what you're going for is a 'cheap' option. Everyone who can't afford a new iPhone is going to get a used one or an android phone anyway.

Couldn't you just let your pocket jump away from a kritz charge?

Let's say you're holding spire and the other team has kritz. With the medigun, you'd hold near choke to hopefully outrun the crit stickies. Holding closer to gray bridge is impractical, because even though you'd see the kritzing demo earlier, you wouldn't be fast enough to get away from the stickies. With the quick fix, on the other hand, you could be holding closer and just get your pocket to jump away as soon as you see the kritz, which should be much earlier than if you were holding far away.

Of course, this is just theorycrafting, but still, I don't think the rock-paper-scissors dynamic is as clear-cut as you guys are suggesting.

Just miss all your shots. It seems to work for me...

Re: Keanu Reeves - Coppola's Dracula movie is far, far better than it has any right to be.