Write a controversial opinion

[TheLobster]

If I ran the AH there would be a one year moratorium on any mention of Star Wars, Tolkien, Pratchett or Stephen King.

…Fine, Star Trek and Harry Potter it is.

 

[Actingup]

…Fine, Star Trek and Harry Potter it is.

JK Rowling’s principal weakness is that ever since the first book she hasn’t had a powerful enough editor to constrain her.

 

[lovecraft68]

As I just stated in the thread for the 750 word event, there should be a limit to how many can be posted. The site is already having publishing delay issues and they're going to blow up the file with dozens of 'stories' that by and large the readers don't respond well to and most comments are the participants fluffing each other.

Its story file padding and unfair to all the other authors here.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I feel like quoting myself

Stories under 3k words aren't stories.

 

[PennyThompson]

JK Rowling’s principal weakness is that ever since the first book she hasn’t had a powerful enough editor to constrain her.

JK's principal weakness is that she was a moderately talented childrens' writer who happened to connect with semi-literate adults who felt good reading a thick hardcover book for the first time in their lives, and then she cooked her brain with TERF panic but by then she was too rich for anyone to tell her to calm down

*Runs away*

 

[Bloodandglitter]

I liked the 2005 Fantastic Four more than the new one.

 

[SimonDoom]

JK Rowling had a great imagination and deserves credit for her world building and a fun story. My objection is to the idea and the prevalence of "young adult" fiction. There was too much of it in the 2000s. When I was 14 I didn't read young adult fiction. I read adult fiction. In the 2000s adults were reading young adult fiction, like Twilight and The Hunger Games. Reading expectations have been dumbed down.

 

[SmilingLez]

The covid-19 toilet paper hoarding is proof positive that humanity needs to be wiped out.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

JK Rowling had a great imagination and deserves credit for her world building and a fun story. My objection is to the idea and the prevalence of "young adult" fiction. There was too much of it in the 2000s. When I was 14 I didn't read young adult fiction. I read adult fiction. In the 2000s adults were reading young adult fiction, like Twilight and The Hunger Games. Reading expectations have been dumbed down.

And if you want some proof of how dumbed down they are, read Heinlein's "Juveniles" and read modern "YA" stuff.

 

[Statius]

JK Rowling had a great imagination and deserves credit for her world building and a fun story. My objection is to the idea and the prevalence of "young adult" fiction. There was too much of it in the 2000s. When I was 14 I didn't read young adult fiction. I read adult fiction. In the 2000s adults were reading young adult fiction, like Twilight and The Hunger Games. Reading expectations have been dumbed down.

By comparison my dad had me reading 'Catcher in the Rye' at 13 or 14.

 

[Britva415]

The word "decidedly" is absolutely asinine.

 

[PennyThompson]

The word "decidedly" is absolutely asinine.

indubitably!

 

[Kelliezgirl]

“If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember.”
― Terry Pratchett

 

[Britva415]

The word "decidedly" is absolutely asinine.

It's one of those words I went my whole life only hearing about once or twice, but then somehow in about the '00's it exploded onto the general consciousness and now people use it who have no business using it, in pieces where it has no business being used. And in 2025, any time it's either spoken out loud or attributed in dialog to someone contemporary speaking it out loud would be laughable if it weren't so painful.

I don't know who started it but I bet they were a goddamn douche. The people who went on to mimic it aren't douches, just gauche and unknowingly anachronistic.

I make exceptions for period pieces taking place during the Regency. But is that where I ever see it? No, dammit.

 

[Bramblethorn]

We should have elections.

We can use the same system as for voting on stories, everybody's familiar with that one!

 

[Bramblethorn]

I have used trig and algebra in real life many times. They are just part of my everyday toolkit. Calc less so. Of course, that was all high school math as well.

I have also used group theory, abstract algebra, and linear algebra multiple times outside of school, but mostly because of doing technical work.

I would be satisfied if everyone in the public sphere was competent at basic algebra (I have no idea how you get through a day without that) and stats, but they aren't.

On a somewhat related note, my son's partner just nerd sniped, my son, my SO and me, getting us to spend a half hour proving why some art trick worked.

View attachment 2570671

Vector arithmetic is great for this kind of problem.

Let the centre of the rectangle be the origin O, let the position vectors for the midpoints of its sides be a, -a, b, -b where a gives the midpoint directly above the origin and b is directly to the right.

The corners are the four points with position vectors ±a±b.
The diagonals in step 2 are parameterised as: t(a+b) (bottom left to top right, for t between -1 and 1) and t(a-b) (top left to bottom right).

In step 3, the vector from top left to bottom middle is: -a - (-b+a) = b-2a. Hence the line from top left to bottom middle is parameterised as: (a-b) + t(b-2a).

So the intersection between this line and the bottom-left-to-top-right diagonal occurs at some point where t1(a+b) = (a-b) + t2(b-2a).

Equating coefficients for a, b:
t1 = 1 - 2t2 (1)
t1 = -1 + t2 (2)

Doubling (2) and adding to (1) gives:
3t1 = -1
t1 = -1/3

therefore this intersection lies at (a+b)/3, and by a similar process we can find that the other three intersections shown in step 4 are at (±a±b)/3. From there it should be easy to see that a horizontal or vertical drawn through them divides the sides in thirds.

 

[Actingup]

JK's principal weakness is that she was a moderately talented childrens' writer who happened to connect with semi-literate adults who felt good reading a thick hardcover book for the first time in their lives, and then she cooked her brain with TERF panic but by then she was too rich for anyone to tell her to calm down

*Runs away*

Thank you on behalf of the crime affected hellholes of the world (Portland?) for trying to draw all the small-arms fire to yourself.

 

[PennyThompson]

Thank you on behalf of the crime affected hellholes of the world (Portland?) for trying to draw all the small-arms fire to yourself.

 

[MelissaBaby]

As I just stated in the thread for the 750 word event, there should be a limit to how many can be posted. The site is already having publishing delay issues and they're going to blow up the file with dozens of 'stories' that by and large the readers don't respond well to and most comments are the participants fluffing each other.

Its story file padding and unfair to all the other authors here.

I agree, and I'll go one step further. When entering a contest, people should take their shot with the best story they can submit, and not make multiple entries.

 

[AwkwardMD]

View attachment 2570722

Some heroes do wear capes

 

[MindYaBitness]

The covid-19 toilet paper hoarding is proof positive that humanity needs to be wiped out.

 

[MindYaBitness]

The word "decidedly" is absolutely asinine.

Can we add the word "abbreviation" to the bin, because it is the opposite of what it's describing

 

[MindYaBitness]

Thank you on behalf of the crime affected hellholes of the world (Portland?) for trying to draw all the small-arms fire to yourself.

Portland is crime affected, and is indeed a hell hole, but it is nowhere near the level of requiring military intervention. It's like sending a WWE wrestler to deal with a 13 year old mouthy emo mall goth.

 

[SimonDoom]

Vector arithmetic is great for this kind of problem.

Let the centre of the rectangle be the origin O, let the position vectors for the midpoints of its sides be a, -a, b, -b where a gives the midpoint directly above the origin and b is directly to the right.

The corners are the four points with position vectors ±a±b.
The diagonals in step 2 are parameterised as: t(a+b) (bottom left to top right, for t between -1 and 1) and t(a-b) (top left to bottom right).

In step 3, the vector from top left to bottom middle is: -a - (-b+a) = b-2a. Hence the line from top left to bottom middle is parameterised as: (a-b) + t(b-2a).

So the intersection between this line and the bottom-left-to-top-right diagonal occurs at some point where t1(a+b) = (a-b) + t2(b-2a).

Equating coefficients for a, b:
t1 = 1 - 2t2 (1)
t1 = -1 + t2 (2)

Doubling (2) and adding to (1) gives:
3t1 = -1
t1 = -1/3

therefore this intersection lies at (a+b)/3, and by a similar process we can find that the other three intersections shown in step 4 are at (±a±b)/3. From there it should be easy to see that a horizontal or vertical drawn through them divides the sides in thirds.

Pardon us non-mathematicians. But can't you do this by putting a ruler on top of the rectangle, measuring how long it is from side to side, dividing it into three, and drawing lines down accordingly? I don't even know how to deal with vectors and coefficients and what not.

 

[iwatchus]

Pardon us non-mathematicians. But can't you do this by putting a ruler on top of the rectangle, measuring how long it is from side to side, dividing it into three, and drawing lines down accordingly? I don't even know how to deal with vectors and coefficients and what not.

You can measure that it works for a particular rectangle, but you don't want to have to measure all rectangles. That kind of defeats the purpose of the trick.

@Bramblethorn That's a much cleaner proof than my son and I came up with this afternoon. Nice job.