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Never Say ‘Yes’ to Strangers and Other Scam Hacks
“Hello, this is Leila. Can you hear me alright?” the bright and cheery voice on the other end of the phone started the conversation.
“I can,” I replied.
There was a click on the other end.
“Hello? Are you still there?” I asked. Nothing.
Had she been expecting a different voice? Or had she been hoping I would say, “Yes.” I have heard about cons where someone calls one up and gets one to say, “Yes,” and then the perpetrator will ship something out and say they had recorded authorization to do so, and present a recording with a different question and one’s “Yes” to the scam question. I have no idea if it is true. On the other hand, I am very careful what I say on phones so that something like that can’t happen.
Have you heard about other scams, telephone or otherwise? Is there an easy way to avoid the scam?
Published in Culture
When was it added? Isn’t that a moon of Jupiter?
Ceres is in the asteroid belt.
It’s an asteroid discovered in 1801 and called a planet at first. In the 1850s more asteroids were discovered and it got demoted to asteroid. It was reclassified as a dwarf planet when Pluto was demoted.
I’m fond of a quote, something to the effect that “The solar system consists of the Sun, Jupiter, and assorted rubble.”
Not me. I’m not complaining about anything. Just pointing and laughing.
Pluto is WAAAYYY bigger than Ceres.
Does it float?
Depends on what you want it to float in.
Sometimes things fall apart for scammers, like when the voicemail to text does not understand the heavy accent pretending to be a legit American.
Even someone without a heavy accent might have more problems than just the ONE I see there.
A cube has three roots, one a positive, real number and two on the complex plane. Both of those complex roots will have a negative real component, one having a positive complex component and the other being it’s conjugate.
I used to know how to calculate out all three roots. Give me a minute, I’ll see if I can’t remember how. It’s easier to see with the fourth root. Sixteen has four fourth roots:
2^4 = 16
(-2)^4 = 16, because the signs cancel out twice.
(2i)^4 = 16 * i * i * i *i = 16 * (-1) * (-1) = 16
(-2i)^4 = 16, because of that third line and also because much like the 2nd line the signs cancel out again.
It really isn’t. All horses have six legs.
Unless they have eight.
We were talking about “real” numbers, in “real” numbers, there are no complex numbers.
Okay, the important thing to remember here is that all n roots for a number occur on a disc in the complex plane, and the vector length of any given root is the same as every other one of those roots (all four roots of 16 were 2 units long, for example.) The roots occur at an even spacing, which means that the other two roots of 8 are going to be at 120 and 240 degrees around the unit circle. Err.. the twonit circle, since the length is two.
So, we have the magnitude of the vector (2), and the direction (120 degrees), what are the components? Basic trigonometry. Our vectors are going to be -sine(120) + i * cosine(120) and the conjugate. Let’s see, sine(120) is going to be 1/2, and cosine(120) is going to be -sqrt(3)/2.
So, (-1/2) – i * (sqrt(3)/2) and (-1/2) + i * (sqrt(3)/2)
Let’s try that out! Because it’s such a joy to type equations I’m going to substitute two variables quick:
a = (-1/2), and b = (sqrt(3)/2)
[a + ib]^3 =
a^3 + 3(a^2)*ib + 3(a)*(ib^2) + (ib)^3
a^3 + 3i(a^2)b – 3ab^2 -ib^3 multiplying out all the imaginary numbers I can.
okay, working out those terms individually
a^3 = -1/8
3(a^2)*ib = i*3*sqrt(3)/8
-3ab^2 = 9/8
-ib^3 = -i*3*sqrt(3)/8
The second and fourth lines cancel each other out, so we get
-1/8 + 9/8 = 8/8 = 1.
Wait, weren’t we supposed to get 8? I must have dropped a 2 somewhere in there.
If you’re going to insist on being boring I really can’t stop you.
Prove your assertion, sir.
If anything, we had only been discussing prime numbers, which are positive/whole numbers, not even really integers. Let alone “real” numbers.