User Comments - triplelatte
triplelatte
Posted on: Welfare Lottery
May 1, 2009 at 5:45 PMThe adage "The lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math", while often true, is not always the case: It depends on the odds to win, the cost of a ticket, and the value of the prize.
For example, if the odds to win are 1:42,000,000, the cost of a ticket is $1, and the winning prize is $42,000,000 it is no longer a mistake to play. That is, if you play the lottery 42,000,000 times under these conditions, you should, on average, break even.
If the prize value in this example is over $42,000,000, you now have "pot odds" to play (secure in the knowledge that it is the rational thing to do:-).
Posted on: Zombies!
April 15, 2009 at 5:15 PMIs "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" = "Buffy, 僵尸道长" then?
tl
Posted on: Dog Meat and Animal Rights
March 19, 2009 at 5:25 AMYeah, libruls. That reminds me of when i was walking down the street and saw a beer can some librul threw out the car window, probably on his way to some anti-litterin rally or something.
But wait a sec here...libruls don't drink beer! It must have been wine. Yeah, that's it. Probly it was a bottle of wine. And a pretentious bottle of wine it was too!
Yep. Them libruls sure are the cause of all litter in the streets all right.
Come to think of it, is there really anything they're not to blame for?
Litter in the streets: Libruls.
Global Economic Crisis: Libruls.
Eating dog meat: Libruls again.
Not eating dog meat: Damn those libruls.
Me personally, I like to hunt, kill, and dress my own food. My dogs help with the hunting. Dogs are on our side. And if the Chinese had been raised with good European ansestry, they'd realized this and they wouldn't eat dog like some dog-eating or not-dog-eating librul!
Posted on: Finance Segment on TV
February 25, 2009 at 5:56 PMReally great lesson CP! Very challenging for me - it will take a lot of repetition to get everything - but very useful.
It would be great to see "News Segment" become a series. I still lack the vocabulary to effectively comprehend most Mandarin TV news broadcasts, but I imagine once one reaches a certain level, the daily news becomes a huge learning resource.
More lessons like this will be a real benefit for those of us who still struggle to comprehend the news shows.
Posted on: All the Things You Can Hit: 打 (dǎ)
January 14, 2009 at 11:11 PMHi Connie,
A poker player eh? I would never have suspected.
As you know, in English poker has some highly specialized vocabulary (e.g., the hand rankings, the community cards: "flop", "turn", "river" in hold em, or "4th street", etc. in stud. Also "antes", "blinds", and so on ... can you share some of the Chinese equivalents with us?
And maybe a "bad beat" story or two;-)
Thanks!
Posted on: The Final Show
January 14, 2009 at 7:43 PMThank You!
Posted on: The Pickup Artist
August 28, 2008 at 1:08 AMok whalloper. But, as Miss Zhu correctly points out: 生活都是不公平, 对巴.
A question about the very last line though: "你一定会感受到的".
I hear the very last word 的 (de) as 他 (ta1) or something close to that. My defective hearing? A mispronounciation by the actor? Or is something more sinister at work?
Thanks! Great dialogue!
Posted on: Ending Your Sentence with 吧 (ba)
April 25, 2008 at 3:37 PMSo when amber said she was preparing chicken dinner for a friend, I thought "wow, they're really going to go there, huh?" ... but no. Ah, well. :-) Though these kinds of issues are frequently sidestepped in language studies, I think the "ba" topic should probably always come with a disclaimer/warning about the punning dangers associated with softening imperative sentences ending in first tone "ji" with the modal particle "ba". As in, "Have some chicken!" (ba). I will delicately leave it at that. The curious can do further research on their own.
Posted on: To Love or Be Loved
April 1, 2008 at 7:02 PMGood lesson! Is there a translation for "glutton for punishment"? "自 讨 苦 吃" ? Native speakers here say "自虐" is less extreme than "自虐狂". Is that the case? Are we "自虐" or "自 讨 苦 吃" for trying to learn Chinese? Idiomatically, which phases are more likely to be used playfully (or is that just context dependent)? Thanks, tl
Posted on: Welfare Lottery
May 4, 2009 at 5:14 PMtvan
True, there is much more certain profit if you run a numbers game than if you buy a ticket!
Also, as a tax, the lottory is not very progressive in that it is usually funded in large part by the low income demographic it purports to serve.