emcee_gee

I decided to check your math.

I don't know if the wheel always has the same layout, so for the sake of clarity I'm using this one since it was easy to find online.

I count 24 wedges, with three landing spots per wedge, so 72 total landing spots. Five of the landing spots are bankrupts and three of the landing spots are lose-a-turn, which makes each spin an 8/72 (approximately 11%) chance of a penalty, or a 64/72 (approximately 89%) chance of non-penalty.

Each spin is an independent event - which means you can multiply the probabilities together to find their joint probability. You say you spun the wheel 13 times and got a non-penalty each time; that means the math would be (64/72) to the power of 13.

If you spin the wheel 13 times, you have a 21.6% chance of getting a non-penalty spot every time.

Now, obviously, all of this depends on the specific configuration of the wheel on each spin. So, for instance (no idea if these assumptions are even close), after you grabbed the $10,000 prize, that spot changed. Let's say it became a penalty spot for the next five spins, meaning:

• For your first eight spins, there was a 64/72 chance of non-penalty
• For your last five spins, there was a 61/72 chance of non-penalty

In that case, you can calculate the two joint probabilities as multiples of each other: (64/72)^8 * (61/72)^5 = 17% chance of getting a non-penalty spot every time.

I'm not prepared to spend any more time on this, but I'd also point out that the true math is much more complicated than what I've presented above. Everything in this comment so far takes the 13 spins as a given; that is, it's assuming they're all independent events. In the actual game, the number of spins depends on a number of factors, including the outcomes of previous spins.

+1 for platform-agnosticity (if that's a word). I'm a webdev at a financially-struggling university. Can't really afford a new computer, and my Macbook chokes on VMs. In theory, I love modern.IE; in practice, I end up running all over campus trying to find computers that haven't been updated in a while any time I need to test something.

Let's talk UA strings. I know - I shouldn't be using them anyway. But sometimes I'm staring at server logs trying to diagnose an issue, and it would be super-helpful to see, in plain text, "this person was using IE11". Can you explain your rationale for dropping MSIE from the UA?

Also - can you talk about why Mozilla is included in just about every UA on the planet? Can't we stop doing that by now, or is it still an issue?

I was on a flight from Boston to Chicago - maybe three years ago. One of the flight attendants kept stuttering, repeating herself, and taking long pauses during the pre-flight safety spiel. She re-did the passenger count three or four times. She didn't stock the drink cart right - she had to keep running to the galley to re-stock. She basically just did all sorts of little things wrong.

Upon arrival in Chicago, the other flight attendant announced that it was her first day. So when I got up to get my backpack out of the overhead compartment (I was one row in front of her at the back of the plane), I asked if I could give her a "good job fist-bump". Her face lit up with the biggest, most sincere smile I'd seen in a long time. All of the anxiety she had felt throughout the entire flight - all of the little mistakes she had been fretting over - just completely melted away right in that moment. We had a great conversation about first-day jitters, fear of public speaking, and the fact that we all know that everyone's human.

I still think about that experience every so often. I'd never really interacted with a flight attendant like a human being before; I basically just repeated the typical robotic "coke, please" and "thanks" after takeoff, and a "have a nice day" on my way off the plane that I'd practiced over years of flying.

Ever since, I've always wanted to replicate that moment, but I've never had the balls again. Like, even if it's just approaching them for a conversation in their downtime like you suggest - I don't want to bother them, and I don't know what to talk about. If I ever try, it's usually just "hello, how's your day?" and then they'd answer "going well, sir" and then I'd pretend I was just on my way to the bathroom.

Maybe I'm just too awkward to do this.

edit: a word

How is Brexit going to affect tourism? I'm American and I loved being able to fly to London and take the train to Paris and back. No worries about visas, etc. Will border crossings still be relatively painless? Will tourism levels in the UK and the EU be relatively stable or will they change significantly as a result of Brexit?