@Cerberus That's why you do multiple instances, so that a single, very provocative instance doesn't sway your mind.

Do?

Those researchers did not limit themselves to the statistics, but tried to analyse the mechanism itself through which the causal relation supposedly acted. That is the essential message I'm trying to convey here.

do as in perform multiple instances of the experiment, which is a long winded way of checking many kids whether they watched the show and whether they died by suicide.

Without it, one may remain stuck in the context of discovery. Interesting, but no more than that. Nowhere near proof or even solid evidence.

On the other hand, trying to understand the mechanism and basing conclusions solely on that, not bothering with statistics, is also wrong. That is more like what politicians do.

Sometimes you just don't have access. Like archaeologists.

But chemistry does.

chemistry has easier to check models.

@Mitch Yes.

The exact sciences are called exact for a reason.

having the underlying mechanism, physics, is intercorroborating (of course physics has its own theory, and atomic physics has its underlying mechanism, quantum mechanics which has its theory).

I don't think the truly exact sciences have this problem.

but they could still do their own thing (make theories, make predictions) without the underlying mechanism.

But the semi- or non-exact sciences wanting to be exact, do.

sure

@Mitch The overlying mechanism can be good enough as well.

Hmm is there any way to extract a file from a .exe file natively?

It's easy with e.g. 7-Zip.

But I'd like to be able to do it with something present on any Windows computer.

@Cerberus You need a theory of .exe files to predict that.

My theory was that they are just renamed .zip files, but that was proven wrong.

@Cerberus what do you mean 'extract a file'? An exe is a file.

Is the exe a .. self extracting zip file?

It can be a file just as a .zip file is a file.

@Mitch So it seems.

That is, maybe you just invoke it, run it, just like any executable, but what it does is extract itself.

Basically all .exe installation files are like that, aren't they?

It totally depends.

Self-extracting zip files.

Well, this one is.

I need to extract HHC.exe from "htmlhelp.exe".

Which I can easily do from the command line using 7-Zip.

Some are. (basically a self-extracting zip file is intended to be extractable without having the zip program also installed.

Right!

@Cerberus did you try to just say 'HCC.exe --help' at the comdline?

Umm but this is when HHC.exe does not exist yet in the file system.

I only have "htmlhelp.exe" to start with.

So you conjecture that HCC.exe is somehow 'inside' htmlhelp.exe?

How do you know HCC is inside?

When I open it as an archive, I see HCC.exe sitting there.

Oops, it's HHC, not HCC, but anyway.

@Cerberus If you can do that, list all the files in n archive file, then surely you can extract all those files. Just look at the docs and/or use the --help flag to see what is allowed.

@Mitch I can only see them using 7-Zip.

I tried running D:\Bestanden\htmlhelp.exe --help in a command prompt, but it just executes D:\Bestanden\htmlhelp.exe.

I'm looking for a native Windows way.

You see them with 7-Zip, can't you also use its extract functioning to get the file inside?

@Mitch Yes, but that's non native.

Alternatively, I can just run the installer, which extracts the files as well.

That is what I am telling the potential user to do at the moment.

But I'd prefer to extract the file automatically.

Windows, right?

@Mitch Si.

I've Googled my heads off, but it doesn't seem to be possible in Win 10.

Sorry I can't help more. I'd say look at the site where you got the files first, maybe they have explanation of which file exactly in the end you really need and/or how to extract the one you need form the one you got.

@Mitch Oh, it's from Microsoft, and I know I need HHC.exe. But thanks for thinking along.

For now, the extraction will have to happen through a manual install, unless I include the 7-Zip exe; but I'd rather not include any .exe files, as people might get suspicious.

I prefer Autohotkey and image files only.

@Mitch Thank you so much, I'm trying to prepare for the exam I'm struggling. wish me good luck, My friend :)

@Robusto well yeah but that's the thing right there, and we talked about it before. You are kinda retired, but you could retire harder. And you only aren't retiring harder because that's a lot of work. So in conclusion you're a slacker alright. The math checks out.

Also why would you link to what teaching grandma to suck eggs means. That's a common turn of phrase even for a pineapple like myself. And I'm surprised I can't find it in the transcript, I would say between you and me we use it at least once a day like.

@Robusto that's a very good question. I used to watch quite a lot of his videos. Some 18 months ago I actually binge-watched him for five days straight for some reason. Can't remember why. Maybe there was a big tournament going on at the time. So anyway yeah he always struck me as a Russian masquerading as a Russian that's masquerading as not a Russian. I think that's the way to put it.

Balkan I don't know. They have a lot of weird shit going on there that has nothing to do with anything. Like Albanian. Which is like Basque in that it's literally not related to absolutely anything at all except maybe some Yakutian dialect if you're a comparative linguist clutching at straws.

What was I saying again? Ah yes. I could've looked him up back then but I'm an even bigger slacker than you so I did not.

You could be a much bigger slacker than me if you put your mind to it, but you're slacking.

@Mitch

Sounds like some kinda tropical fruit

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] No whitespace in answer (95): What are some examples of paradoxical words? by Zachary on english.SE

@Educ success in English is uncountable unless you really-really know what you're doing. Consequently, my comment on "What is a success for you?" would have to be, "that is either not English, or failing that, a quote from someone who's trying to be funny".

@Educ There's all sorts of examples online. Just google for "What is success"

"Cold as hell" is a simile that just doesn't really make any sense if you stop to think about it. I mean, the usual conception of hell is of a place that is eternally hot, full of fire and brimstone. That's why people use the expression "when hell freezes over" to mean "never." >_>

position is the way to success.