Re: Why I've returned

spinoza1111 wrote:
Richard posted

...and I still scored more than you despite not bothering to provide
answers for more than a tenth of the questions. Odd, that

which means he answered 5 questions. He either cannot express himself
clearly online despite his claims to author and editor ship,

Years ago, there was a skit on Saturday Night Live where a nuclear
power plant manager is about to go on vacation, and he goes over a
few points with the crew a few more times to make sure they know
all the procedures and everything will be OK in his absence. Finally,
he leaves, and his parting words are, "Just remember: you can't put
too much water in a nuclear reactor."

Everything seems fine for a while but eventually the crew begins to
debate the meaning of the statement. One side thinks it means that
beyond a certain point, adding more water is bad. That would be
"too much water" and doing that is something you can't do, meaning
shouldn't do, because it would cause problems. The other side thinks
he meant that you should add water liberally because it's never a
mistake to add more water and it sometimes is a mistake (and is
dangerous) to add too little water. Therefore, adding lots of water
equates to erring on the side of caution.

After much debate, the first side (the side that thinks too much
water is dangerous) convinces the other side of its view, and they
decide to either stop adding water or drain all the water out of
the reactor (I can't remember which). They cut to a shot of the
plant manager, who is relaxing on the beach, and who sees a pretty
mushroom cloud on the horizon.

Anyway, the point is that sometimes statements are ambiguous on a
grammatical level, and you have to use common sense to sort out
what the intended meaning is.

- Logan
.

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