Is Heath Ledgers performance as “Joker” in the film “The Dark Knight” the best performance ever performed on the big screen?

No.
There is too much subjectivity involved to properly answer this question. While there are some objective criteria to say what is a good or even great performance, and I do believe Heath Ledger nailed them all, I think it's impossible to really say it's the best as different people may have different preferences.

As for myself, I'm ranking him up there among the best, but not necessarily the absolute best. There are a few others that I personally think may be at least at an equal level or better.
I don't watch all that many movies really, so I definitely may have missed a bunch, but these are some that I'd personally consider in addition:

• Roberto Benigni - La vita è bella. Fantastic movie and completely carried by Benigni's performance, which is also atypical because he's really not that good of an actor otherwise. I remember him using the quote "I used up all my English" at the Oscars, but it seems he also used up all his acting talent in one single movie.
  
• Marlon Brando - The Godfather. He really is the character. He plays it so well that you get sympathy for him despite being a mob boss who's literally threatening people as you watch.
  
• Morgan Freeman - The Shawshank Redemption. Do I need to explain?
  
• Tom Hanks - Forrest Gump. It's over the top, but it works.
  
• Frances McDormand - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. I hate that movie, it's so realistic and painful. Which means she did a great job.
  
• Malcolm McDowell - A Clockwork Orange. He's so realistically creepy that I really got a bad feeling about the movie.
  
• Anthony Hopkins & Jodie Foster - The Silence Of The Lambs. nom nom nom
  
• Matt Damon - The Martian. The guy is literally on his own for most of the movie.
  
• Russell Crowe - A beautiful Mind. Although I'm biased here because I like John Nash.
  
• Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds & Django Unchained. Waltz is just amazing. If I think about best performance ever, I immediately think about that scene with the French farmer. The tension. Even if you have seen it already, it's still so good.
  
• Alan Rickman - Die Hard & all Harry Potter movies - That voice, that determination, that coldness... And yet Alan Rickman himself is apparently a very nice guy.
  
• Hugo Weaving - V for Vendetta & The Matrix - I know he's not that great, but I guess I really like these characters. In fact, I found Elrond in LOTR an unlikeable character (while loving him in the books) simply because Hugo Weaving tends to giving his characters a menacing streak somehow.

Have you got more interesting meetings recently?

Mainly less meetings, and a few more in-person meetings. I got a bunch of holidays that I still have to take before the end of the year, so I'm finally taking them and at the same time taking care of some things around the house. It's been busy offline. :-)

Next week however, I have a pair of online 4 hours meetings where I just have to be and pay some attention - too much attention to do other work - but at the same time barely be involved in the discussion (if I have to be, things are going wrong). So there's a possibility to clear the backlog by the time if I haven't yet this week.

On the other hand, both the P/R league and the next seasonal have started, so I actually have games to play as well now. We'll see how they go, I'm not particularly playing well, I think.

Thoughts on the population just hitting 8 billion people?

Is The Rings Of Power Elrond better or worse than Hugo Weaving's Elrond?

What did you usually do to get through the pandemic?

How are you planning to get over Belgium having a disappointing World Cup?

When do you start getting Christmas presents?

How does it feel to have a life now?

Who is majortom85?

This is a person named Tom, whose last name I'm obviously not going to post for privacy reasons.

A long time ago, I was at a small party with a few former colleagues and their friends. It seems all of us shared some interest in playing Risk, but given our busy lives and one of us not living in the same city, it'd be hard to get together to play for real.
Someone, I believe it was stijnjozef ( https://www.warzone.com/Profile?p=963089078 ) said that online alternatives must exist, so a few of us (not including me) decided to do a search and forward the results to the other people.

After first finding one pretty bad website, no clue anymore which one, Tom found Warlight (as it was named at that time), still in beta. He forwarded the link to us through a game invite and some (like me) joined through that link, while others (like Stijn) just made an account without using the invite link. We were 6 in total, of whom I only knew 2 at that time (Tom & Stijn), and got to know one person a few years later. Sadly, I lost all contact with all of them, although I'm still connected on LinkedIn.

So who is Tom? I didn't know him well enough and long enough to really say who he "is". However, he was a very friendly person who I got along with well, he was my mentor on my first job (which I was very unsuccessful at to be fair), and he, after some struggles, also successfully got a PhD, a few years before me.
I could say a few more things, but for the sake of privacy, I'll leave it at that.

Can you describe the relationship between your amount of games, your amount of meetings and your response time to our questions? ;)

Gang we have to get the band back together

Which part of pure mathematics do you dislike? Isn't statistics based on derivations from pure mathematics in a sense? And hasn't pure mathematics lead to applications in fields across the board, given enough time? Multi-dimensional mathematics was once considered purely theoretical, yet finds its applications in statistics and a ton of other fields.

Maybe I didn't use the correct technical wording, so let me try to express my feelings in more detail.

It's not that I dislike mathematics or pure mathematics truly. As background, I have studied maths for a while and I do have a maths degree. However, by studying it, and especially by having to struggle to get that degree, I got a bit of a dislike for it. So it's mostly through association with hard times and especially unfriendly stuck-up professors.
I think part of my issue with pure mathematics is more the practioners than the field itself therefore. Let's take a deep dive at this, without prejudice.
To me, when talking about my field, there are 5 levels, sorted here in order from most abstract to most applied

• At the core of it all is pure maths. In essence, to do anything in life, you have to start by defining numbers, counting, and next put relevant structures to it. Therefore, from a purely mathematical sense, you can't talk about statistics without thinking about probability spaces which are in essence metric spaces. A lot of probability theory, is basically either calculus and analysis or set theory, with a bit of geometry sprinkled in.
  
• Probability is of course a field by itself, which uses these concepts for its own theory, which can get pretty complex, e.g. in modelling contexts, thinking about likelihoods, causal inference. This isn't pure maths anymore, but applied math that is as technical as pure maths.
  
• Statistics itself is a mix of theory and application. When teaching Stats 101, we usually don't derive the formula of a confidence interval or p-value with most students, but just give them the formula and explain the interpretation. Same with regression modelling, we give them the basics and interpretation, but don't go into the maths behind it. But to these people, it still feels theoretical (while in fact, it's arguably not)
  
• Actual data-analysis is just that, there is maths involved, but the computer does it for you, and (as I witness often) others can also do a data-analysis without really understanding what they are doing and what's behind it. However, it's still numbers and interpretation, and truly for most people this still feels very math-like and theoretical!
  
• Finally, there is practical interpretation. Gone is the model, the confidence interval, even the numbers, we are just talking about associations. "Smokers have a higher risk of lung cancer", "Shops receive more visitors in weekends", "The economy is doing bad"

Personally, I work mainly in the third and fourth, but also helping people with the fifth. I used to study the second and I every now and then still dabble in it, but it's not really my thing. However, knowing this, having studied this, greatly helps me in doing the rest. Enough colleagues and former colleagues have told me that they wished they had my / a deeper understanding of the theory behind it. The first one I have obviously studied as well, but it just doesn't interest me (anymore).

However, what I do notice a lot, is a disconnect. There is an important and urgent need for people like me, who can do everything from understanding the theory behind the model to explaining a result to practictioners in a way that they can understand.
So that's where my relationship with pure maths started to fray. Already when I was studying it, I always did it with the idea, the goal, of applying it. But yet whenever that I tried to make sense of it to go to actual real application (levels 4 and 5), I hit a wall. A lot of pure mathematicians don't want to apply. They see "application" as the second level in the list above, and if you are lucky the third. I got really frustrated by this at two (multi-year) instances:
(1) When I was studying mathematics, the teachers were actual bullies. Without exaggeration, they actually created a toxic environment for statisticians at the university where I studied, up to the point that all statisticians just left and applied courses (which were arguably only level 2 above even, still very theoretical) were given by external professors, temp hires, and later actually at another university with students having to travel! Note that one of the statistics professors at that university was world famous, so it's not like it was bad quality or so... If you tried to criticize this, which I did, as member of the education committee (where I was the sole student member, despite university rules requiring 8!), it quickly became clear that they saw all of that as a feature and if they would be allowed, would have cut even more in the applied classes! Luckily, the worst of the bunch are retired by now, but I will never forgive them for the way that they managed that department. Absolutely despicable. I understood afterwards that they almost lost their license to organise a maths curriculum as a result, and to be fair, they should have.
I have studied and worked at two different universities afterwards, and in both cases, the mentality among maths professors was a lot better. While I have yet to meet a maths professor who appreciates data-analysis, most could at least tolerate it and didn't start their own quest to clense the departement of anything smelling like statistics.
(2) While not as bad as (1), I have taught statistics and probability theory to maths students for 7 years as an assistant. Students absolutely hated it when they had to actually analyse real (not clean) data. They were horrified and gave the class bad marks year after year because we forced them to actually go as far as level 4 in the list above. They fought it, argued against it, finding it absolutely unnecessary and a disgrace to have to do something like that in a maths curriculum. I hated the constant push-back of the students who clearly did not understand that it may be better to be prepared for the real world rather than staying in their comfy bubble of theory. That attitude was in a sense just a junior version of the professors during my bachelor, which is why I didn't have much sympathy for it, despite, in all fairness, probably uite some of these students having some form of high-functioning autism.

So do I dislike pure math? I don't. Do I dislike its practitioners? Neither. Is there a dislike for some of its practitioners? For sure!
A lot of it to me boils down to being able to work with people from different fields. As someone who does that on a daily basis, I can say that it's not easy. But it's very important and valuable. A lot of people working in pure maths are unable and unwilling to do that, even when confronted with people (teachers, colleagues, students) who clearly are not working at the same level of theory as them. That, I truly dislike. On the other hand, I can very much appreciate those who can, and even, or especially those who can't at some level (i.e. research), but who will do the effort when they are in committees to manage a maths curriculum. (In my second university, I was in the education committee for maths as an assistant from the applied department. There was one algebra professor whose classes were very theoretical, but who always defended our applied course finding it an absolutely necessity to expose students to that despite them hating it.)

You used to be the only person to be in top 10 of 1v1 ladder in every calendar year of its existence as well as in top 100 of every season of the seasonal ladder. That must've been quite some achievement. How did you feel when your streaks ended and how happened it?

Hehe, thanks for opening the wound! Actually, I didn't have many feelings about it, but it's an interesting question and I'm more than happy to elaborate. How it happened can be summarised as "too busy" in both cases.

For the 1v1 ladder, that was 2017, the year that I finalised and defended my PhD. A very busy period in life and Warzone games became a bit in-between without much thought rather than something that I actually put in effort. Especially in 1v1 games, where there was no teammate to force me to actually think, this became an issue.
I was motivated to keep the streak going, so I kept playing, but it was mostly as if playing on autopilot (note: my own autopilot, from the skill from the previous years, not Warzone's autopilot, which didn't exist yet at that time, I believe). With the increasing level of players, that level was simply not enough to crack the top 10 that year. As I was also finding it more and more of a chore and a constant battle against getting booted, I decided to just end my ladder run once it was obvious that the top 10 run had ended as well. Like that, I could at least put a little more focus into the other games.

For the seasonal, that was this year. Without going into details, the last year has been by far the most busy of my life. Compared to 2017, I wasn't just playing Warzone as a chore, I was also more often than not taking my turns when I was stressed, busy or both. Even in Clan League and team-games, my input was often very limited. So it was not really a surprise that it happened, although it was very much a surprise that out of all templates, it happened on Elitist Africa and not Small Earth. I was convinced Season XLIV last year would've been the end of my streak when it was announced and at that time was mentally prepared for it to happen.
Once the end of 2021 rolled around, I knew that with life getting very busy that it was a matter of time for it to end, so every season extra was a win. Although, as said, the season where I actually lost it, it came as a surprise because with that template, I felt that I was reasonably safe especially after a good start. Of course, getting booted 5 times, including once in a winning position and once after picks didn't help. I can confidently say that without boots, the streak would still be alive. But boots are part of it, no matter how you look at it, so that's not an excuse and doesn't change the outcome. I remember feeling more annoyed about getting booted and throwing the streak away that way rather than it ending naturally, but at the same time I was too busy to give it much more than a passing thought.

Finally, especially for the 1v1, having the streak end, helped me in a sense as I was able to take the decision to detach myself from Warzone more. Before 2017, I was arguably a bit addicted and even stressed to not get booted (I also had a "never got booted" streak for quite a few years), since then a lot less.

That must be one of the best analyses (no pun intended) of the clash between the comfy theory bubble versus the real world applications one faces. During my studies I had to stand in a hospital for a month, 40 hours a week, to collect data. We'd later analyze the data and model a better system for patient intakes with queueing theory. It was the worst rated course of the year, yet arguably the most useful one.

Edit: I studied applied mathematics. My thesis was on deriving the functional equations of the Zeta function with only calculus and complex analysis, which was extremely hard to get accepted as a subject. For us it was kind of the other way around. We focused mostly on modeling, statistical analysis and real world data-analysis. Calculus and complex analysis, the more 'pure' forms of mathematics was mostly during the first year to get a grip on the theory behind the applicable subjects.

Edited 11/21/2022 10:58:51

Thoughts on the population just hitting 8 billion people?

On the positive side, if finding a perfect partner, is a "one in a million match", we all have 8000 options now?

I don't have deep thoughts about it, just a bunch of smaller observations.

First of all, to me, the total number doesn't say anything. While it is relevant for some global issues, the local population is in essence more important. And with respect to that, it is very clear that there is yet another shift happening.
While not that long ago, we were still talking about China being the only one billion country (hitting one billion on a total population of less than 5 billion), we now are not only in the possibility of India passing it as the most populous country, but also at a stage where population growth is stagnating in (Southeast) Asia, just as it did in Europe, and Africa is on its way to take an ever increase share of the world's population for quite a few years, if not decades.

When I was a child, we learned about the increasing world population as an ever growing line with projections of 6 billion near, and 7, 8, 9 and 10 still clearly within our lifetime barring unforeseen events of a large scale nature (e.g. massive disasters and wars). Now, it's uncertain if we'll ever reach 10 billion even without such disaster (and thanks to the rising temperatures, we'll get those disasters as well) and even if we do, it may not be within my lifetime anymore. I believe that is a good thing. While earth could easily handle many more people, it definitely cannot at a life standard that most envision, especially not considering the wastefulness of it. If we can't slow down the way we waste resources, including the impact on nature through polution and climate.

I am happy that they are not semi-randomly burdening a new mother and child with the "8th billionth person" similarly to how they did it with the 5th and 6th, which was quite ridiculous to be honest. First of all because it's obviously impossible to know, and secondly, more importantly, because there are likely multiple anyway because you know, people die. If a child is born and the 6th billion at the moment, then a person dies five seconds later, then another child is born another five seconds after that, then this second child is also the 8th billionth at that moment.

But if new estimates are correct, we still all together weigh less than all ants together. But ten times more than all wild mammals... But less than our livestock combined... Yeah, not great.

Is The Rings Of Power Elrond better or worse than Hugo Weaving's Elrond?

I'm going to put a placeholder here. I have yet to see The Rings Of Power, so I will answer this question once I did.


Also, my meeting is about to end, so that's all for today. Next answers will likely come on Wednesday.
Thank you all for the fun and interesting questions!

I have yet to see The Rings Of Power, so I will answer this question once I did.

It's a good show. Takes its liberties with the characters* and source material, but you get to see the late Second Age in great detail and the general shape of the story remains unchanged.

Once you watch it, I'll be curious to know your take on its Elrond in particular.

* to be fair, Tolkien also changed his minds on some important things to build a more compelling story-world, but this show takes some impractical liberties Tolkien likely wouldn't have approved of.

Edited 11/21/2022 22:42:32

what liberties might those be

Can't state them without spoiling the series, but it's mostly cinematic & dramatic stuff- setting up cool visuals & character reveals- that undermines the verisimilitude of Tolkien's detailed Arda. Should be obvious by episode 3 when we finally see a specific legendary place.

Edited 11/21/2022 23:27:03

What did you usually do to get through the pandemic?

Some sidenotes first.

I typically talk about the Covid-19 pandemic, rather than just pandemic as this is not the first pandemic ever and certainly won't be the last. Some people in the scientific literature are still referring to HIV as an ongoing pandemic. Meanwhile, monkeypox and Ebola are usually called outbreaks, although the recent monkeypox outbreak in the Western world had definitely the potential to become a pandemic, and luckily didn't become one.

The technical response is "sleep" because the questions basically asks what I've been doing between early 2020 and late 2021. About one third of the time I was asleep (at an average of 8 hours per day). However, that is the same that I was doing before the Covid-19 pandemic, even though that percentage did significantly decrease since, independently from the presence of any pandemic.
However, I assume your question is more related to the other two thirds of my time.

Work related, I was extremely lucky to be one of those people who could do their job from home. That was obviously a challenge, meetings through Zoom or Teams, not seeing people in person, going to my work physically a total of 6 times in one year and a half, with 4 times not even being able to enter the building by myself because my badge had expired and technical services were not allowed. But I managed and my situation was obviously better than most.

Annoyingly, despite working from home basically the whole time, and barely going out, it's very likely that I still got Covid at least twice, once just as the lockdown started, so likely got it in the week(s) just before, and once at the peak of the delta wave. I never had a Covid test in my life though. During both instances, Belgium was in a lockdown and especially the first time there was simply no testing capacity. The second time was at a moment where they advised people with mild symptoms to self-isolate, which I was in essence already doing.
In both cases, both me and my partner both had mild symptoms, mainly fever, and the first time I had in hindsight a mild version of long covid afterwards (six months of atypical shortness of breath without any other reasonable explanation, at that time long covid was not yet known or understood).
So again, all in all not bad really, better than most. No family or close friends were heavily affected either, so I truly feel lucky in that regard, understanding not all people had it that easy.

I stayed in touch with friends through discord etc, and did not have any truly scheduled outdoors activities anyway, so once more I was lucky that this was not a major change to my life really. Obviously living together truly 24/7 with my partner posed some challenges, although that too was arguably more positive than negative for us all taken together. We already lived together for 15 year anyway.

Finally, I seem to have good coping mechanisms to handle situations like this, at an equilibrium to be young (mentally flexible?) enough to handle change without too much problems and old (wise?) enough to not get too caught up in frustration or anger about a situation that I cannot control.

So I guess in a sense the answer is very boring. With some exceptions (working from home), I just lived my life as before. And in fact, the bigger changes in my life, like changing my job, buying a house, etc happened somewhat coincidentally in the years before and just after the Covid-19 pandemic. It helped that I had a somewhat stable situation during.
My main problem truly was that we had major issues with one of our neighbours and that is something that you can't escape if you are at home the whole time.