When do you get a yellow square? I couldn't find this documented anywhere, so I took a look at the code.
Here's what I found: For each guess, Worldle calculates a proximity score from 0 to 100 -- higher is better. Each row is basically a quantized proximity score meter, from 0 to 100 in increments of 20. If you get at least half-way to the next increment of 20 (i.e. to the next green square), you get a yellow square, too.
Example: If your proximity score for a guess is 63, you'll get 3 green squares and two blank (white or black) squares, i.e. GGGBB. If your score is 71, you'll get three green squares, and since 71 is at least half-way to 80 (i.e. >= 70), you'll also get a yellow square, so GGGYB.
The proximity score is round(100*(MAX_DISTANCE_ON_EARTH - d)/MAX_DISTANCE_ON_EARTH). Though that max distance is defined to be 20,000,000.
> Though that max distance is defined to be 20,000,000.
This is almost true (in real life). The meter was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole. Given that the earth is a fairly "nice" sphere, the maximum distance between any two points on earth is very close to 20,000,000 meters.
Almost but no. Today all the SI base units are defined in terms of a universal constant, so that if you understood how SI works you can do all the same metrication work from a distant galaxy, you don't need to be here on Earth. The metre is defined by the constant c, the "speed of light"
But because of this original definition the equator will work out to about 40000 km.
It also never was by definition. The meter was originally defined as (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_metre) “one ten-millionth of the shortest distance from the North Pole to the equator passing through Paris, assuming an Earth's flattening of 1/334”
You have to add the fact that earth is almost spherical to go, from there, to “the length of the equator is about 40 million meters”.
Reading that Wikipedia page, I think it already was known when the meter was defined that the polar diameter of the Earth is smaller than its equatorial diameter.
Well, the speed of light was measured in traditional meters and then new meters were redefined based on the existing speed of light. So the difference from 40000km attributable to redefinition would be on the order of centimeters or smaller; any deviation could only arise from our inability to measure the speed of light precisely, and we can be quite precise.
There's some difference (~7km, if we believe wikipedia) attributable to the original measurement of Earth's circumference being off, and much much more difference (~67km, ten times as much) attributable to the fact that the earth is slightly oblate. (In other words, meters were defined by reference to the polar circumference, but the equatorial circumference is larger than the polar circumference is.)
“The Mapmakers Wife” is an interesting book that tells the story of how explorers measured arcs of latitude and longitude around the world to figure all this out. The audiobook version is good too.
The meridian is 40,000 km, by original definition. Trace any great circle through both poles (any pair of antipodal meridians, such as 0° and 180°) and that is 40k km.
The equator is more than that because of the oblateness of the spheroid.
And nowadays, the meter is defined in terms of natural units (time and the speed of light) in a way to be compatible with the original definition by the meridian.
and one minute of longitude on the equator is 1/360/60 =1/21600th of it or around 1.855km or approximately 1nm. This decreases with cos of your latitude.
(for those mentally converting nm to nano meter and scratching your head) I think nm here means nautical mile which makes more sense in context than nanometer.
I'm not sure how the yellow square rendering is implemented, but for me it just shows a empty Unicode character for it (Firefox on MacOS) - black squares render properly though.
Anecdotal, but: I work in an engineering department at a major U.S. university. Non-citizen grad students (i.e. grad students) I personally know -- and their friends at other universities -- upon graduation decided to seek (and obtained) employment abroad (Netherlands, Canada are the two countries I know of) rather than stay in the U.S. Before Trump they wouldn't have considered this.
I doubt our handling of the covid-19 crisis has helped, either. My wife is German and in frequent contact with her family in Germany. They look at us with pity. I feel like my country has really lost its shine. Maybe permanently (hopefully not).
"But none of these is her most gnawing, ever present concern.
That would be the convoluted medical bills that fill multiple binders, depleted savings accounts that destroy early retirement plans and so, so many phone calls with insurers and medical providers."
Is it like this in other OECD countries? I ask because I'm told that we in America have "the best health care system in the world."
My father fought cancer for the last 8 years of his life, and was on 2 boxes of Glivec a month for all those years(in US Glivec treatment costs about $146,000/year[0]). He also had 2 operations to remove some tumors, plus bi-monthly MRI to check if the cancer came back. He has never paid a single penny towards the treatment. In fact, the hospital would always reimburse him for taking the train every month to get his drugs and check-ups done. There were no bills to pay, I think he only had to sign one piece of paper every month to say that he picked up his medicine and we could go home. There were never any calls to any insurers or medical providers, simply because as patient over here you don't care who is paying for the treatment. You turn up to the hospital for whatever treatment is planned and that's about it. You don't even know how much the hospital is paying and to whom. It doesn't even matter if you are currently employed/unemployed and if you're paying towards the national health service - if you are not employed(say as a result of your illness) you are still 100% covered anyway.
After he passed away(the cancer unfortunately came back and not much could have been done at that point) his savings account was definitely not affected by 8 years of illness.
I ask because I'm told that we in America have "the best health care system in the world."
I'm going to assume that you're asking an honest question, but I'll tell ya that (and I can not emphasize this enough) from my perspective the question is so naive that I seriously think I'm missing the sarcasm.
But in good faith I shall carry on...AFAICT, "US=='best'" is propaganda, or ignorance at best. We (I am an American) have poorer outcomes for more money spent. Now, many excuses will be offered as to why that is, but I'm not here to argue; as best as my research can do, that appears to be fact. On top of that, for a less capable and more expensive product, we have a byzantine system of forms and providers.
So, no, it would appear that other OECD countries do not have this issue, partly/mainly because all but a few (and I would be hard-pressed to name those few) socialize their medical care.
No, my family in Canada and UK don't deal with any of this. In the US, it's not even worth your time figuring out how much your treatment will cost, other than whether or not the provider is in network or not. Assume it's the out of pocket maximum for your insurance, because when you go to a provider, you sign a blank check that says you will be responsible for whatever chargers they make up during the course of your treatment. So your only ally is the insurance company, who has the power to deny payment for things like $15 worth of linens (which was actually a few pieces of paper towel).
You can't figure out whether your provider is in or out. Just yesterday I got a bill from someone I've never heard of who turns out to be a "Medication Safety Specialist" who allegedly rendered services to me worth $392. You'd think such a person would just be a functionary of the hospital who in any case bill me $27k every day, but actually they are some kind of mercenary who bill patients directly.
Yes, it's crazy how difficult these little things are.
During birth, should one stand outside their wife's delivery room and ask each provider to wait outside while you look up if they are in network or not on your insurance company's app? At least we have apps to do that nowadays.
Yes, you should. When my wife gave birth the first time there was an endless parade of idiots who uselessly entered the room for a moment and then left and later sent a huge bill. We also got a bill from the anesthesiologist who was not present because my wife didn't want it and for the supposed attending obstetrician who, although they were paged, never showed up. We had to go through disputes of all those things and even though we prevailed on all of them, my attorney had to get paid.
I would definitely recommend actually doing that, but I kind of meant "should we do that" in a sense of "should we be behaving like this in a civilized society"?
No, this side of it is definitely better in other countries.
My late wife passed away of cancer a few years ago, we lived in Australia. She went through rounds of intensive treatment. We had private health insurance which kicked in, limiting our up-front costs. Not all was covered, but what wasn't covered was capped through public health care. It might have cost us $10k AUD, but not more.
We spent little to no time worrying about paperwork and billing, it was almost all auto-handled for us.
The administrative/insurance side of American healthcare is probably one of the worst, if not the worst in the developed world. But the quality of the care itself (the actual treatments) is very high, probably one of the very best. I think the American health care is especially good in terms of treatment availability: many drugs are simply not available in other countries (or are available but not covered).
Some people are genuinely concerned than touching the former (administrative side) will result in lowering the level of the latter (quality/availability of care, drugs, etc.). That it's the inherent high cost of the current US system that somehow makes it so good in terms of availability/quality of care. I disagree, but can somehow understand the line of thought.
EDIT: I have no idea to what extent care is really better in the US than elsewhere, but know first hand of someone who had to pay for interferon out of pocket in Japan because it was not yet covered at that time. It's not rare for the newest US drugs to take many years to cross the Pacific ocean...
My question was slightly sarcastic, but primarily sincere, in that I want to hear first-hand accounts from cancer patients in other OECD countries.
Rudy Guliani said this in a campaign ad [1] when he was running for U.S. president in 2007-2008. I also recall him saying this in one of the Republican debates. When my (now) wife, who is German and has also lived in Denmark, heard this she couldn't help laughing.
"Recently they ran an ad featuring Bob Dylan which made laugh, or would have, if had made not me so angry." Wait, is Roger Schank an AI trying to convince humans that AIs are impotent and harmless? Pretty sneaky, Schank-bot.
One day not too long ago I changed my Facebook News Feed settings from "Top Stories" (the default), to "Most Recent". It was eye opening -- so many friends (and "friends") whose posts I hadn't seen in months or years. I hadn't even noticed they were gone.
On the other hand, the posts of close friends were just us likely to be lost thirty pages down in my feed as were those of people I knew only peripherally.
I think you meant to say "coördinate". :^) I've been a subscriber for almost two decades now. If I had to subscribe to just one magazine, The New Yorker would be it.
It's beginning to happen in the US, too. One of my favorite restaurants, Sweetgreen, no longer accepts cash, and I'm boycotting them. I'd like the option to make an anonymous transaction, and I worry that we're entering an economy where those without access to banking services are excluded.
>One of my favorite restaurants, Sweetgreen, no longer accepts cash
Is that a prepay restaurant? If the restaurant lets you pay after you finish eating, then by law (31 U.S. Code § 5103), cash is legal tender for settling your debt. However, the restaurant is not obligated to provide change if you do not present the exact amount due.
