Page created 20 Dec 2002 by pedro , last modified 20 Dec 2002 by pedro
URL: http://www.ed.gov/
We have a lot of smart people here who like talking about stuff they know. We also have a lot of smart people who might not think they're that smart, but who have lots of interesting things they can talk about that noone else knows too. Rock music. Religion. Science. Computers. Politics. Pick something you know that maybe a lot of other people don't know and write a little article about it (as long or as short as you want). Most of us like to learn, so not only will it be good for the authors, but it will be good for us to read too. Inspired by my, inkblot, and bigj's ramblings about computers and gills.
The apple, or pomme, the scientific name is the same as the french name, is not a true fruit, since a fruit is technically the ripened ovary wall of a fertilized flower, while the apple is the ripened carpel, which does include the ovary, but technically makes the apple more unique, but the same as pears. Don't get me started on fruit. I'm running out of time, but will fill these pages with more biology knowledge than you can imagine in the next week or two. Thanks for giving me a place to release Pedro, I haven't had one for a while, no one will listen to me for that long, and here they can just page down when they want.
I don't know shit so I'll mostly be asking questions, I can tell you bigj that I will read with relish anything you tell me about fruit. I bet I could be interested as long as you want to talk. I love fruit, it's my favorite!!! If you love fruit you have got to go to Brazil, someone told me once that there are probbably well over 100 different fruits in the Amazon that aren't known to western science. I believe it. I found some little fruit down in southern Brazil that I couldn't find in any Brazilian wild fruit books. Imagine what is hidden in the deepest darkest jungle... Yum!
i know im not dumb by a longshot. but i think, regarding the things i know, i respect the opinion and knowledge of at least one person in here on just about every topic i can wax to the max on.
i know about poker. and i am pretty sure that nobody else in here has studied the game to the extent that i have. maybe i will relate a few general theories that can apply in decision making in other places...
for this discussion, the lowercase letters of c, d, h, and s preceded by a capital A, K, Q, T or a number 2-9 will denote rank and suit. e.g. Ah=Ace of hearts. Ts=Ten of spades. 7c=Seven of clubs. etc.
for instance: the theory of pot odds.
when playing poker, most of you decisions rest on whether or not to play or fold. either its a good opportunity, mathematically, to continue on with your hand, or it is going to cost you more money than its worth, and you should drop out. the test for this can boil down to Pot Odds.
there is a lot of jest in our home games pointed at me concerning my use of the term pot odds. but all kidding aside, it can be the single most determining factor regarding 'correct play' in a poker game. basically, you compare your chances of having the best hand when all the cards are dealt against the odds the pot is laying you.
lets say you are playing Texas Holdem. this game is dealt with each player receiving 2 cards that constitue their unique hand. after several betting rounds, there will also be 5 community cards which everybody gets to use as part of their complete, 5-card hand to make the best poker hand possible. the winner of the pot is the one left in with the highest poker hand made up from his/her cards and the community cards.
after the deal, there is a bet. then the first 3 community cards are dealt. then a betting round. followed by the 4th community card and a betting round, and then the 5th and final community card and the final betting round.
so, if i have Ah6h as my 2 hole cards, and the community cards consist of: 2d 4h 9h Qc 7h, then i have a flush (5 of the same suit. in this case hearts). and nobody can beat my flush because there isn't a higher hand possible given those community cards. so i know at the end if there is betting and raising, i can bet and raise with impunity because i have an unbeatable hand.
unfortunately, the decisions leading up that aren't always so easy. and its not too often you have an unbeatable, 'lock' hand. nor is it too often that you need and unbeatable hand to win the pot. all you need is the best hand.
but for an easy example (which involves a bit of light statistical math), we'll look at the above hand before the cards are all dealt, to illustrate the original concept of pot odds.
lets say you have the same Ah6h and the community cards (or board) have been dealt up to the 4th card. so the board looks like this: 2d 4h 9h Qc. with one card remaining, and no made hand to speak of, you are on what is considered a draw. you are drawing to make your hand on the last card. but is it worth it? well, it all depends on how much money is in the pot before its your turn, and how much you are required to put in to call and see the last card.
if the bets on this round are all $10, and it has been bet to you, you can fold, call, or raise. forget about raising for a minute (that's advanced stuff meant to be learned after grasping the basic concepts). should you play or not? well, if you are required to put in $10, and the pot is already $80 then you are getting odds of 8-1 on your bet. that means that if you win the pot once and lose 8 times, you break even on the bet. win any more than 1 out of 9 times, and you are making money on this bet in the long run. statistical abberations come and go, but if you make the right move here every time, you will make money on this decision in the long run. but what is the right decision? we need to evaluate another set of odds before determining that.
so you are getting 8-1 on your bet. but how likely are you to win the pot? in this example, we are going to assume your opponents have hands that would require you to get a heart on the end for a flush to win. only a heart can win the pot for you. so, you have seen 6 of the 52 cards in the deck (2 in your hand, and 4 on the board). leaving 46 unseen cards. there are 9 hearts left (you can't assume what your opponents have, not yet anyway). 9 of the 46 cards give you a winner and 37 give you a loser. thats 37-9 or app. 4.1-1. we'll call it 4-1, just to make it cleaner (for our example, the difference is too slight to matter). that means that 1 out of 5 times you will win the pot, and 4 out of 5 you will lose. sounds bad right? but considering that you are making money if you win more than once in nine times, this is actually a good deal. you should call.
sometimes that heart won't fall, and you will fold to any bets on the last round of betting. and you will have lost the pot. but you will win enough times to make this a nicely profitable situation in the long run.
how does this apply elsewhere? i guess its sort of the idea of risk vs. reward. is the uncertain reward i receive for the risk i must take to acheive it worth the risk? possibly. possibly not. when it comes to dollars and calculabe odds, its pretty clear cut what you should do. in other situations, the factors may not be so easily quantifiable, and thus harder to calculate. but we decide every day more or less along these lines. and when we don't we quickly learn that those decisions weren't made as wisely as they could have been.
if you've read this far, thanks. i hope you learned something.
Can I take you to Vegas and have you gamble with me (read: NOT against me)? Dang that was some interesting stuff to read. I love poker - but I've never studied it. I feel all edumicated now!
...and bankroll me, im confident i will make a profit in the long run. it is possible to lose in the short run, while making theoretically sound plays. but yeah, anytime you wanna go to vegas... poker is super fun. i had a good night last night at the casino. bought some good presents for Xmas.
I'd say poker skill is a valued thing, when playing poker, but the best odds are no odds at all, a nice federally insured CD with a fixed interest rate, gauranteed pay off. :) And ake if you want fruit I agree, the tropics are the best place to go, I had Pineapple in Kenya that would blow your mind, when you were done with a slice there would be a puddle at your feet, I mean a literal puddle, you could suck it up with a straw, well that a ring worm, don't suck things up with straws on the ground, but that's another conversation. :) My studies of biology are fairly extensive, don't know much about anatomy and physiology, but then poeple don't interest me much. Baggins you should meet my uncle, he's banned from almost every Vegas casino, he can count cards, he's an accountant now, but used to walk into a casino with a few hundred dollars, and out with over 25,000, casinos don't like that. I think it's the odds they take, and there's nothing illegal about beating the system, but nonetheless they don't like having their money taken consistently. Ever have one of those days where every word you type looks misspelled? Odd.
when deciding risk vs. reward issues, everyone is different in their degree of risk taking. some people dont mind taking big risks if the payoff is big enough. some people won't risk a quarter to win a dollar. and there is nothing wrong with that.
a simple test is this:someone offers you a bet. you flip a coin and heads means they give you $1. tails means you give them 50-cents. will you take it?
someone offers you a bet. you flip a coin and heads means they give you $100. tails means you give them $50. will you take this bet?
someone offers you a bet. you flip a coin and heads means they give you $10000. tails means you give them $5000. will you do it?
the odds are all grossly in you favor in all three situations. however, in the first example you're risking 50-cents to win a dollar. in the third example, you're risking $5000 to win $10000. if you can't afford the loss of $5000 financially or emotionally, you shouldn't take this bet, no matter how mathematically in you favor this bet is. that's another principle to learn about gambling. we each have our thresholds for loss and shouldn't play outside those limits.
For the case of tossing a coin, the odds are always 50/50, given a fair coin and ignoring the "edge" case.
which is why you are always winning when someone offers you a 2-1 payout on a 1-1 coin flip.
Sorry, but that sounds like twisted gambler's logic to me. If you lose the toss, you lose your stake. You are by no means always winning.
but if every time somebody offers you this wager, you take it, you will win in the long run. that's why poker has swings in the short run, but the right decision in the long run will make you money.also, its a question of how much risk you are willing to take. if you aren't comfortable risking $50 to win $100 on an even money coin toss, that's fine. some people are, some aren't.
OK, I get what you are driving at now. Myself, I'm totally not a long-range thinker.
its taken me a lot of studying and practice and concerted, nail-biting efforts at discipline to be anywhere near confident enough to play with a clear conscience. so much o fbad poker play stems from being undisciplined (i.e. calling when you should fold, raising when you should fold, calling when you should raise, folding when you should raise, etc.) and i've had to train my mind to understand this. its really really fun to play poker and just raise and call with abandon. but its also very costly. study and discipline will help you to understand the forces at work in poker (probability and psychology, mostly) and how to adjust your play based on the particular texture of a particular game. sometimes it can be boring to play the 'right' way. especially in dry spells, where you get no playable cards for a long stretch. after all, we come to play, not watch. but in those times, if you can keep the discipline, and watch the game while you're not in it, you can learn some valuable information. extremely valuable.
but, yeah, long-range thinking is the key to winning in poker.
The best approach to poker is betting on hands that win, like me kicking mega ass on Friday night! Of course I mostly lose...
The proper divisors of any number are the positive divisors of said number, excluding the number itself. Proper divisors of 8, then, would be 1, 2, 4.When the sum of any number's proper divisors is less than or equal to the number itself, it is called a practical number. (8, 9, 10) It follows that all prime numbers are practical, having no proper divisors other than 1. A practical number in which the sum of its divisors equals itself is a perfect number. (6, 28) (It is also a semiperfect number, which makes no sense.)
When the sum of any number's proper divisors is greater than the number itself, it is called an abundant number. If the sum of any set of the proper divisors of an abundant number equals the number itself it is a semiperfect or pseudoperfect number. (12, 20, 234, 945) An abundant number which is not semiperfect is called a weird number. (70, 836, 4030, 5830, 7192)
Now what you're going to be doing with this information is beyond me.
NOW THAT"S USELESS!!! I LOVE IT!!!
I was home (CO) for the last few weeks for Christmas, and my little brother and I were painting those little glass sun-catchers with acrylic paint, as a Christmas gift for my grandma. He is in kindergarten and is just starting to learn about mixing colors, so we mixed some of the paint set to make new colors. I explained that red and blue are purple, yellow and red are orange, etc.Then the heavy stuff started because he asked, "Well Sissy, what makes red?" and blue, and yellow, and so on, and I freaked out because those are primary colors, and though I know that, I have no way to explain what a primary color is. Do primary colors just OCCUR in nature, and on the color wheel? Are they just "there?" Do they just "exist," and God left it to us to make the rest of the colors? I think I remember learning in an art class that black is the absence of all color and white is all colors combined (which makes absolutely no sense), but whenever things get the least bit scientific I tune out. I realize this sounds like an asinine question, but it's been bugging me, and I don't want to look like a dumb-ass to my six year old brother. If anyone can explain this, please do so in a manner a six year old would understand (for my sake as well as Jacob's).
As gor gambling--Baggins, I really did try to follow what you were saying but I got lost after two lines. I really believe that numerically inclined people are better at such games. I went to Vegas a few years ago with a former boyfriend who was an engineering major and a whiz with numbers, and he was winning all kinds of money. I, on the other hand, had never been told that Blackjack involves getting 21 or as close to it as possible. I didn't even understand that simplest rule of the game, not that it would have helped me if I did. I lost over $300 in a few hours at the MGM, and that was on the cheap tables. I doubt the free drinks they were feeding me helped either. Damn, Vegas sucks.
Colors are an interesting phenomenon because the color that you see is actually a reflection, the color that your eye picks is the one color pigment that the object does NOT contain, meaning that it is reflected back at you. And your art teacher was only right when it comes to the rays of light. When all colors of the spectrum are present in a ray of light it is true white light, when there's no colors it's black, e.g. inside an elephant's asshole. So, the white light hits your peice of paper and reflects back the colors not present, which is the opposite of what you would expect, but don't try to explain that to a six year old. Here's the easy version. The primary colors do just exist, there primary because there is no way to blend those colors, no two other colors together can make them. However, a combination of those three colors can make ANY color known to man, including mauve which does not exist in nature. Think of the color spectrum, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, if you skip indigo, which is a dumb color anyway, the primary colors are every other color, and the spectrum between them contains all the other colors. So, if you mix pigment from all the colors of the spectrum evenly you will get black, it's hard to do and you usually end up with brown, but if it's perfect it will absorb all the colors of the white light and reflect nothing, making it black, then if there are no pigments in your paper it will reflect all the colors right back and it's white. And the three primary colors can make all the other colors, but nothing can make them, they need to be taken from pigments existing in nature. Though don't try to get blue pigment from a butterfly because it doesn't exist. Blue butterflies are actually that color because there wings bend the light and reflect blue back, it's not a pigment but rather a trick of the light called disturbance, it's where irridescence in animals comes from.
Thanks J. That made as much sense to me as a scientific answer ever could, and I did know the primary colors make any other color you could imagine if mixed in approriate quantities, and I did have a vague sort of idea about the rays of light and black vs. white and all that. I really did have a VAGUE idea--don't worry, I'm not trying to look smart. But, as for primary colors, are they the only three hues which exist independently in nature? Why? Or is just a sort of a chicken-and- egg thing...I guess I'll never know. The irridescense thing is interesting. I had no idea.But I still dunno how to describe this all to a six-year-old...and I think I'll have to leave out the part about the elephant's ass.
it has been said that i am colorblind. this is untrue. however, in some exercises in my Psych. class, things seemed to indicate a 'Color Weakness'. in other words, i see color, its just that some of them blur together for me, and i have a hard time with small amounts of it. also, i think i was never properly taught the accepted names for colors. not that i don't know what you mean when you say, for instance, 'the girl in the red sweater' or whatever. i have a theory about this. the way humans see color and communicate color verbally is with words, which are signifiers. we have different words for different divisions of the spectrum. between X and Y divisions along the spectrum we call blue or tangerine or mauve or whatever. my theory is that i learned the names for colors based on a slightly skewed set of divisions. for instance, i confuse blue and purple quite a bit. some blues and purples are closer on the spectrum to each other, and this may be where the confusion lies. also, it confounds me that humans can claim to know what other humans see to the point of saying that i am color blind, or that is purple, or whatever. we have indications that most humans see the same thing, but not proof.
thats my defense of my 'Color Weakness'.
You see the idea of the name of a color, or any name really, lies in social norm, and that you don't fit the social norm really does imply that your view is not in the majority, and therefore wrong. While very stupid that's just the way it is, the majority wins because when the minority tries to they get their asses kicked. That's like me wanting to call Chicago Banana Land, sure I can call it Banana Land, but no one will know what I'm saying, and it won't be accepted, thus I am wrong. And irridescence is freakin cool cinnamongirl, very complex, but cool. The primary colors do just exist in nature, most colors do exists in nature in some shape or form, but they all boil down to those simple three, which means all you need is to find a source of those three and you can make all the others.
I have noticed that men as opposed to women tend to be more vague in references to color (for the MOST part), which may explain Baggins' color-blindness. I'm not trying to generalize, though. My boyfriend is a visual artist and will ask me to grab the "chartreuse-colored shirt with the sienna stripes" or something (I know what chartreuse looks like but I would have just said yellow-green), so of couse this doesn't hold true in all cases.My point is, exceptions aside, there is scientific, medical evidence that a much larger percent of men are colorblind than women, which may explain vague references to color from a male. Then again, maybe it's because males aren't socialized to use as specific and vast an array of signifiers for different shades as women...? That'd be an interesting study. It is confusing with so many hues--I remember being awe-struck by my box of 64 crayons as a kid and wondering how they could even think of so many colors, but now my brother has a box of 96!
As for semiotics, I see both sides here. If I pointed to a picture of a chihuahua and said, "Look at that cat," I would be using an incorrect signifier, but it would still resemble a cat more than, say, a German Shepherd would. But I'd be wrong nonetheless. Still, it seems that where colors are concerned there's more room for interpretation, and Baggins saying "Look at that girl in the blue sweater" when the sweater is actually teal wouldn't be THAT much of a stretch. Or maybe poor Baggins really is color-blind, and in that case I feel bad for the guy.
perhaps i just dont care enough. i know what i see, and i enjoy colors in all their splendor - even if i can't correctly name them. so i stay away from situations where colors are a significant part of what im doing. i dont paint. when i take pictures, i use black and white film. i discuss visual art based on texture and arrangement and shapes and image/signifier terms rather than say 'i love the use of marigold and periwinkle'.
but see, there is still the point that, i don't give a f*** if im wrong about colors as far as other people see them. there is still no way to say that im not seeing what you're seeing even if i call it a different name than you.
also, i dont see the difference of names as me calling a 'cat' what you would call a 'chihuahua'. i see it more as me calling 'el gato' what you would call 'cat'. using different words to siginify the same thing, and BOTH are correct. and vague references of 'blue' to the huge section of the spectrum that is blue and its subtle varieties.
im not freakin color-blind.
And of all the people I know, I remark on your aesthetic perceptiveness 'cause whenever you see me you say you like my perfume, which I appreciate. I was simply explaining that there're so many colors and variations on them that it's hard to concretely call any one by a particular name, and cat could be "el gato" or "le chat" or a "cat" or a million other things depending on your viewpoint and language preference. My grandma has a chihuahua and that thing is evil-- I love felines and would never seriously refer to a chihuahua as a cat, or vice versa. I like the study of language for purely academic reasons & am interested in different peoples' different descriptions of what might seemingly be the "same" thing.On a seperate note, I remember hearing or reading some time ago that "people who dream in color are unusually creative individuals." Which made no sense to me. I am not calling myself particularly creative, but who DOESN'T dream in color? I didn't know anyone's dreams were like some original Hollywood movie in black-and-white.
alh told me today that her friend gabe (who is in med school) said that you're 3 times more likely to die of a blood transfusion of incorrect type than from AIDS contracted through HIV+ blood.Additionally, patients who start getting a transfusion of the wrong blood type often start to get a sense of impending doom before their body goes into irreversible shock (and death), so it's apparently sometimes caught before any serious harm is done.
1) bags, if you are color blind, it's fine because usually people that are color blind are only blind to one color, or even a shade. So like my friend Luigi P., he's color blind but the only problem he runs in to is when he thinks he's buying a grey shirt and then his associate purchaser says "i didn't know you were into pink" to which he replies, of course, "what the fuck".2) hopefully i'll never have to get a blood transfusion, but if i do, i'll make sure to tell the ambulance guy not to take me to swedish cov. hospital, i think that would more than reduce you chances of dying from anything by a million or so.
what's in it?
My mother and my mother in law both dream in black and white. I think it really has more to do with the kind of TV and films you grew up with, honestly. I've never met someone from our generation who dreamed in b/w, and rarely do I hear of people of my mother in law's generation dreaming in color.
What about real life? Does TV and film really dictate that much of your dream life? What about people from our great grandparent's generation?
that is a very interesting theory. Did people who grew up with radio, before the advent of television, just dream in sound? Okay, that was lame.By the way, and this is TOTALLY off the subject, but your Anna is sooo adorable. I think I forgot to mention that to you, but I meant to.
... that I knew someone from my great-grandparents generation.Mimi had no TV when she was growing up, my mother in law, perhaps as a result of having no electricity. She always dreamed in black and white, but there were films, and they were in black and white.
Anyway... from the Dream Doctor...
Prior to the 1950's in cultures around the world that studied dreams, there never was any mention of the nature of color in dreams. Freud never broached the subject, nor did Jung, nor did any of their successors - including lay and professional dream analysts. In the 1950's, however, and into the 1960's, this question of color actually grew to be hotly debated. Some dreamers contended they only dreamed in black and white, while another group said they only dreamed in color. Others speculated that perhaps all people actually dream in black and white - but that we ``add in'' colors when we remember our dreams.
Why the historical discontinuity? And why 1950?
Have I stumped you?
The answer, evidence suggests, lies in the spread of black and white television sets across our world, beginning - you guessed it - in the 1950's. Apparently people who were watching black and white television sets during these two decades frequently carried the black and white color scheme into their dreams - and thus the debate was born.
Why did we never hear of this issue prior to 1950? It is true that we had black and white movies and print photography beginning at the turn of the century, but apparently these media's ability to captivate the imagination was not as pervasive as watching the television for several hours a day proved to be.
An interesting sidenote. We hardly ever hear of this debate anymore. Why? Very few people still have black and white television sets.
I've been ask whether I dream in color or in black and white, and I've never been able to answer. I really don't know. I dream, obviously, and some of them have been very vivid I-can-remember-them-after-many-years dreams... But, I have no clue whether I dream in color. When I've said this, people have told me that I must then dream in black and white since I haven't remembered the colors. But, I don't find this logical. I see things in color normally, so an absence of color would be the more unusual and therefore probably the more memorable thing in a dream....
I have dreams where I specifically remember certain colors -- a purple sequin, multicolored eye shadow (what am I dreaming about, anyway???!?) -- so there is some sense to the argument "then you must not be dreaming in color," because it might stand to reason that if you did dream in color, you would remember certain colors specifically, for whatever reason. But, this is an "argument from silence" (you don't remember the colors, therefore you must dream in black and white) which is a common fallacy.
what then do you remember of the dream if not specific visuals? A feeling, a mood? My remembrances of dreams are often a combination of visuals with remembrance of the emotion that came with it, how something felt. I remember specific black and white dreams, because they are always in slow motion and very odd in content. but perhaps i only remember them as blk/wht because the mood fit with the pure tone varitiation, rather than color. However, Ive also had specific sepia or monotone dreams too...Does how our heads colorize them, if they do, change mood and feeling remembrances of the dream?
I remember the storyline and the emotions. Usually the dreams that I remember have complex characters and elaborate plot lines.... But, while I can tell you the dreams and can even envision them in my head, I couldn't tell you for sure that the color is there (no shining sequins for me)... Of course, it's easy as anything to say that the ocean in that dream was blue...but, I could have inserted that in after the fact because oceans are generally blue.... See my dilemma...
I don't remember dreams very often. You could count them on your fingers... really.I don't remember much of the one the other night, but the invention stayed with me. Imagine a combination of an airstream and a motorcycle. I seem to remebmer the chrome sleeping compartment being behind the driver above the back wheel. Now I realize this would be extremely hard to do in reality, but that was the dream part of it.... however they do make trailers and sidecars, why not a 1-2 person airstream that could follow a large bike?
Maybe I'm just obsessed with airstreams. It could be worse.
Does anybody know what fire is made of? not what it is consuming or changing into something else, but the actual light/energy? is it made of anything? I guess light is a wave, but is that matter or not?
Fire is a chemical reaction. What you see burning in a fireplace or a candle are little hot bits of carbon which are emitting light as they rise because they are hot.
I agree, go lukas you crazy physics bastard you!Which is said with the utmost respect.
is the difference between 90mph and 85mph the same as the difference between 20mph and 15mph? what i mean is, if i am going 90, and pass a car going 85, am i going to pass that car in the same amount of time as i would if i were going 20 and passing a car doing 15? intuitively i feel like there is a difference, though, mathematically it seems like there wouldn't be. but if you compare the time it takes to pass at the 2 different speeds, it might clarify the problem, as opposed to comparing the difference in mph.
It doesn't matter how fast you are going with respect to the road, only the car you are passing. Your velocity realtive to the car in front of you is what will determine the time needed to pass that car. In each case your velocity relative to the car in front is 5mph. So if you cover a distance of 1/2 mile to pass, it will take 6 minutes whether you are going 90 and they are going 85 or your are poking along at 20 and they are going 15. If we all had spaceships this would be really easy to demonstrate.
because so many people are like, wow that guy must be doing 100 mph to pass me up, because I'm doing 80, but they just don't get that all they need to be doing is like 5-10 mph more than you and they are going to pass you, and pretty quickly too, think about if you're standing still and something passes you at 10 mph, it seems like it's moving at a quick pace, because it's faster than I can walk quickly, but it's only idling by, lots of people just don't get the concept that it remains the same regardless of your speed, it's all relative.
My head hurts . . .
I've posted it in other entrees, but Matt totally breaks down when anything science related comes up. So, when I start a detailed analysis of mRNA's relationship to DNA polymerase, he's going to explode!!
I shall counter your powers with my amazing ability to speak in military jargon!
I think I can handle my own with that, I talked killing stuff for 2 hours with Duff when he came back from the Marines for New Years, I think I can take it!
Wasn't Duff going to be a monk?
he was thinking about it. but he went the military route instead. monks will probably not see combat anytime soon, though. so i don't know which i would have preferred for him. but i miss him. and i hope he makes it through this war alright.
I was just shocked to hear it.
typing noises heard in background as intrigued chaplain writes Pentagon proposalbaggins, that's not a bad idea, though the Knights Templar, the Knights of St.John, and the Knights Hospitaller, and a slew of lesser known orders (of which BTW grew into the American Knights of Columbus) started out as warrior monks during the Crusades.
It's a lot easier to kill stuff and buy into that than to actually understand the role. I was speaking with oldpossumus's father, which I do quite frequently outside of my two classes with him this semester--sidenote; should he be Ancientpossumus?--just asking--and he mentioned that Easy E had a good friend who enlisted, and was also stationed in Germany, and really bought into the propaganda, saying "I'm really good at killing." I believe his name is Jim---did any of you know/knew/have known, in the aorist, him, given your cocurrent status?I will pray for your friend, Big I and Big J, as I do for everyone I know personally and all whose names have been given me. What is his current status? Where and who? (Give me an email at mguncheon at northpark dot edu, rather than posting it on here, please.)
for good wine storage, temparature should be 13 degrees C plus or minus a couple degrees. Humidity should be around 50-70%. Not that I have any wine good enough to store, I just happen to have a lot of random factoids rumbling around my head. Also while were at it, the proper temperature for lagering beer is 1.5 - 7.5 degrees C.
Yeah I knew Jim a little, he was E's neighbor, didn't hear that he joined the forces though, but it's not a shocker. Duff just amazes me because no matter what he is doing he is totally into it, and learns everything he can about it. He's gung-ho for the Marines right now. Gunch just wanted to let you know that when I was at E's house the other night Ancientpossummus was all about America's Funniest Home Videos, not what you expect from a seminary prof. but then I can't even repeat some of the things I've heard prof. Wiberg say while driving around with him Kerry and Greg.
Ancientpossumus and I are historians at heart, and you can't read any history without getting a sense of how much chlorine we as a species have poured into our own gene pool. I've already found out that he has a low and evil sense of humour.I'm not shocked about Prof W either. . .
I just want to caution you all to take Duff with a grain of salt. The Marines are really good at indoctrination, almost too good, as regular line units complain that it takes them a while to smooth the sharp corners from Parris Island into a actual "working Marine". But they are the best of the services at instilling life-saving things like discipline, ethics, and honor. And they're pretty good at 'fessing up to their warts too, as re: recent publicity about the Air Force shows the brother services are frankly terrible about.
i hear ya gunch. but when i talked to duff, he was still Duff. i know that guy so well it scares me sometimes. and he is genuinely gung-ho semper fi and all that. but because he knows the discipline is good for him, and because he likes the guys he works with, and the job he has.
when y'all speak of "duff" are you possibly referring to the children of one "craig" duff eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeld? i can't remember their names, but i knew them from high school and i know that the big duff went to seminary here...after giving up on that truck driver thing...
Don't know papa duff's name, baggs might, but I think so, they lived in the greater Sycamore area for a while. Bustling metropolis that it is.
that's his dad.
they lived in Malta, a town of about five, mom dad, two sons and foster child. big duff was my scout leader for a couple years until they moved (either to here, or ohio). I like them good people.
that's the same family. good people. matt got married a couple years ago and has a kid. the family lives in pennsylvania right now. but duff told me they were thinking of taking a small church in northern WI soon. they've since had a few more foster children in their care, including at least 2 sisters. im hazy on the whole family structure and history. but yeah, good people. i miss the hell outta will.
He is always fun to sit in George's with and kill 10 or 11 hours, too bad that can't happen anymore.
Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science
The NPC physics department used to get submissions from crazy scientists who claimed to have discovered cold-fusion or a grand unified theory or time travel. They would send in big long papers with lots of equations and graphs and they would look real, but they were totally bogus. Larry used to keep them aruond in the room by his office for amusement. They used to post on sci.physics, and probably still do.
neoacerbitas is generally correct that most red wines are from purple grape varieties and that most white wines are from green, or yellow grape varieties. Champagne can be made from a different types of grapes. Some have erd skins and some have white skins but they all produce a white juice. The color in most red wines comes from the skins.
So which of the following correct:"If none of the above hotels is available, ..."I thought it was the latter, but am I wrong?
"If none of the above hotels are available, ..."
"It is not available.""They are not available."
Since "the above hotels" is plural, I think that "are" is correct.
the man has it correct, or as one could say, "the are's have it" wow that was so bad it even hurt me to type it.
google turns up a faq that seems to indicate that it is "are"
so i was having a conversation about networks that transfer a lot of data last night with jordan and we got onto the subject of all of the dumb units that people use (usually anchorpeople on tv news) to measure things, for instance, describing something as some number of footfall fields in length. jordan asked me sort of tongue-in-cheek "how many libraries of congress is that" when i noted that a couple years ago, aol's network was transferring 40TB of data dialy.so the question is:
"libraries of congress"
or
"library of congresses"
??????????????????
That's a tough one. I would saw Library of Congresses, but I could be wrong. It owuld seem to me that Libraries of Congress would indicate multiple libraries of the same congress, whereas Library of Congresses could indicate multiple congrsses using the same library, who knows for sure.
Clearly "Libraries of Congress" flows better than "Library of Congresses," and I think there are a couple of reasons for that.1. If we were going to be measuring things in said unit, we would actually be measuring the libraries, and not the congresses. This leads to point two, which is,
2. We're talking about the "libraries," wheras "of congress" is a modifier to what library in specific we're referring to. Hence, it is clearer to refer to "multiple libraries" (because in reality this is what we mean, anyway) than to refer to multiple congresses (which we don't care about).
3. That said, the reason we are tempted to say "Library of Congresses" is because we think of the name of that library as the "Library of Congress," so we are tempted to pluralize the end of the name, rather than the subject that is a part of the name (Library).
Ifwe referred to the Holy Bible as the Bible Holy, would the plural of that be "Bible Holys"? No, I think it would be Bibles Holy. Likewise, if we called the Library of Congress the Congressional Library, the plural would clearly be Congressional Libraries.
My vote is on "Libraries of Congress," 50% because of my explanation, and 50% because it sounds better (which I think is 75% because of the reasons I gave in my explanation, so do that math.)
Your explanation made me laugh, and I thank you for that, oh and it sounds accurate too.
sounds good to me
I really don't know what I'm talking about. So I'd be curious to ask somone who should know, like one of our english profs or Marylin Vos Savant (she knows everything!!1!) or something.
Libraries of Congress (cause of Congress is a prepositional phrases; it's the noun that goes plural)
1. Should there be more than one congress with more than one library, then it would be "libraries" of Congress, or if the collection itself is split into separate libraries which are then joined to make one overarching identity, ex, an North Park example;Mellander Library (Seminary) + Wallgren Library + Archives & Special Collections makes the full collection of Brandel Library.
But blvdgirl is totally correct. I think however that congresses is archaic if not falling into disuse.
There are two dictionary listings: here is one
1.A formal assembly of representatives, as of various nations, to discuss problems. 2.The national legislative body of a nation, especially a republic. 3. Congress 3a.The national legislative body of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. 3b. The two-year session of this legislature between elections of the House of Representatives.
4a.The act of coming together or meeting. 4b.A single meeting, as of a political party or other group. 5. Sexual intercourse. [Middle English ,congresse, body of attendants, from Latin congressus, meeting, from past participle of congred, to meet : com-, com- + grad, to go; see ghredh- in Indo-European roots.]
Okay, actually that was the only listing . . .
However,the distinction being "Congress" is a proper noun and it is collective, meaning it refers to a group of things which then makes a singular entity when gathered together. Grammar rules sometimes get thrown out the window when it comes to titles and proper nouns. Speaking of grammar, is it anyone else's view that computer and especially IM shorthand is ruining written communication as we know it?
in this case, though, the library of congress is being used as a unit of measurement. like, the library of congress contains some finite amount of data, and the purpose of this exercise is to pluralize that name for purposes of expressing a volume of data which equal to some multiple of the volume contained in the library of congress. so it's not really a pluralization to form a phrase meaning either many libraries of one congress or the libraries of many congresses, but rather a pluralization which should mean some multiple of the one and only library of congress.
I don't think I've ever had such an intense conversation about pluralization before. Makes me realize that I paid more attention to my Biology major than my English major.
"the distinction being "Congress" is a proper noun and it is collective, meaning it refers to a group of things which then makes a singular entity when gathered together. Grammar rules sometimes get thrown out the window when it comes to titles and proper nouns."I think that's really the issue at stake. Do you use it completely literally? In that case, you'd use "congresses," much in the same way that geeks generally put punctuation outside of quote marks -- because the quotes refer to a "specific" item, and that item does not include periods or commas, hence they should follow the terminal quote, and not be enclosed along with whatever you mean to enclose.
HOwever, sometimes in grammar you go with what flows better and makes more sense, even if seems to "break the rules". Like "Libraries of Congress". Or like, "putting the punctuation inside the quotes."
So I don't think we're going to find a conclusive answer, because I think you could probably find grammar experts who would answer it both ways.
it is already plural- Congresses would always be incorrect.
well, unless you were taking about multiple, collective governing bodies.
But again, it is only correct as Libraries of Congress because it is the object (the library) that you are multiplying, of Congress is a PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE and CAN NOT be made plural.
the prepositional phrase argument was what I was told re: my original question. where "of the above hotels" was the phrase and couldn't plural so it should be "none ... is." hmm
blvd, does that change when the prepositional phrase is part of an established proper noun?
because phrases are removable- so "if none is available".
Pedro, short answer no. But, I will need to think on the long version explanation and get back to you.
the misuse and confusion regarding effect and affect really bug me. not that i was 100% clear on them either... anyway, i got this from merriam-webster.com.
Main Entry: 2effect
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1533
1 : to cause to come into being
2 a : to bring about often by surmounting obstacles : ACCOMPLISH <effect a settlement of a dispute> b : to put into operation <the duty of the legislature to effect the will of the citizens>
synonym see PERFORM
usage The confusion of the verbs affect and effect is not only quite common but has a long history. Effect was used in place of 3affect as early as 1494 and in place of 2affect as early as 1652. If you think you want to use the verb effect but are not certain, check the definitions in this dictionary. The noun affect is sometimes mistakenly used for effect. Except when your topic is psychology, you will seldom need the noun affect.
Main Entry: 2af·fect
Pronunciation: &-'fekt, a-
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French affecter, from Latin affectare, frequentative of afficere to influence, from ad- + facere to do -- more at DO
Date: 15th century
transitive senses
1 archaic : to aim at
2 a archaic : to have affection for b : to be given to : FANCY <affect flashy clothes>
3 : to make a display of liking or using : CULTIVATE <affect a worldly manner>
4 : to put on a pretense of : FEIGN <affect indifference, though deeply hurt>
5 : to tend toward <drops of water affect roundness>
6 : FREQUENT
intransitive senses, obsolete : INCLINE 2
synonym see ASSUME
usage see EFFECT
Just to weigh my #.02, none is the subject(a relative pronoun, me thinks, but I may be mixing Koine Greek with English) so therefore the verb has to be singular. The prepositional phrase doesn't really matter only in that it is referring back to "none"; "none" of what "none of the available hotels". Everything after "of" can't take a verb because it is the object of a preposition . . .You know what, six grammar courses and two textbooks later, I'm . .ah well, back me up or correct me as needed, Miz C, Southwest Grammarian Par Excellence!
none IS the subject. but none is plural. read it without the prepositional phrase: __if none are available__ or __if none is available__.
don't think none is plural? its sticky, but i would argue that none refers to the absence of more than one thing. it certainly doesn't refer to the absence of one thing, or the presence of one thing for that matter.
I would argue that singular/plural depends on context as the phrase would not be used in a vacuum. If the expectation is that there would be multiple possibilities for availability then "none" would be plural. If there could be only one possibility (so it is a yes/no presence) then "none" would be singular. I cannot think of a clear example of the latter but the former is very common.
that raging grammatical discussions on a web forum make me very happy
that i love you nerds.{i do. i am crazy about you guys}i wish i was better with grammar so's i could participate.
I teach a gifted class that is supposed to help students develop their creative and critical thinking skills. Here is one of the questions that I put on their final and some of their responses. Errors have been included for your reading enjoyment.
Question: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." This sentence uses all the letters of the alphabet. Create a sentence of your own that utilizes all 26 letters.
Answers:
The Queen yelled viciously toward Garrett, "Just zip me behind the fat king & the box!"
I think that antidistablishmentarianism supporters are a bunch of wack quacks and zany x-rated pervs just like that guy whose name I forget.
The sassy crazy girl named Xena jumped over the lazy eyed Donga because she tried to steal her man.
The quiet children got a box with a yellow zebra pattern for the MVP of the Just Kidding Club.
Quit smoking crack because lazy people die slow excruciating hurtful fearful deaths, jackass.
The long black zibras quickly jumped over the yellow line except the small one.
thanks for your sentences, they are very funny. Now that Meagan is "teaching" a class for the rest of the semester I get to laugh at her sudents answers to things. My favorite is when they just repeat the question as a sentence like it answers itself.
Some of the questions in my networking textbook were poorly written -- one such example (with a sample student answer) goes like this:Q: How many different kinds of multiplexing techniques can you name?
A: Three.
That's fricken great, it's true though it never asks you to name them!
If I've learned anything this year as a teacher it is that I must be as specific as possible in questions & directions. Teenagers will look for the loop in anything.
There are 10 kinds of people in this world - those who understand binary jokes and those who don't.
also, there are 3 kinds of people in this world, those who can count and those who can't.
Only 5 out of every 3 schizophrenics realize they have a problem.
Oh, tee shirts! Is there nothing you do not know?!I hadn't realised that one had made its way to shirtspace.
I'm guessing there's already a shirt of the hex version of "100 bottles of beer" as that one is more widely quoted.
I was thinking about the binary joke, and it really only works when read, if you read it aloud there are "ten" types of people in the world, and the whole binary thing is lost.
And the reverse... this only works when said, not typed. Situaion, referring to a "dumb user" (which may be redundant... anyway). Yes, I am a nerd."Looks like an ID10T error." Should be read as "eye-dee, ten, tee"
duff was telling me how they used to get underlings in the marines to go on bogus hunts for "BA1100N's" when spoken that's 'bee ay eleven-hundred en's'.
Kicking a football...I played 3 years for a college football team. Have you ever wondered how a 6-1 167 guy can kick a football futher than someone who is 6-3 250? Easy: flexibility and technique. Any land monster can squat 650 lbs and run really fast....but if you don't know how to use the correct kicking motion the ball won't go anywhere. Their are tons of different agility and speed drills used to add distance and height to your kick that serve no benefit to any other athlete.I know alot about kicking a football...all of it completely useless to everybody else...but hours of fun for me.
THanks for the update Coney, if you are ever in the mood to come to Chicago and do a kicking drill please feel free. I used to be really good at it when I was younger, but then I got stiff with old age, but I think I still qualify as a land monster, although my squating is out of practice too, probably down to like 300 lbs. I miss the days of being able to lift up the back of a car... :)
that reminds me of Orin Incandenza, a character from Infinite Jest who is a kicker in the ONANFL.
I'm still puzzeled whenever I see your mom.
Painfully puzzeled!
i only say this, again, as captain pointed out, nobody ever reads the shit i say. I feel that the library of congress is different from most libraries because it's not like, the library of chicago, it's the congress' library. that being said, i would say that "libraries of congress" would be correct be in the U.K., the bastion of worldly correctness they say "grands prix" not "grand prixs" or however the fuck you would pluralise "prix" not that i give a fuck, cause i don't, restatement, i don't want to knowso that's what i think, now, continue ignoring.
"Prix," in French, is plural for "prise," which means "prize." So "Grand Prix" means "big prizes," which is a really stupid name if you ask me. And my opinion is "Libraries of Congress," because the object being pluralized is the library, not congress. But what do I know?I am kicking myself in the ass for taking eight years of French when I should have been taking a language I could actually use, like Spanish. Tom, wish i was in Mehico putting back a cold one with you.
I thought this was really interesting, and somewhat surprising. I never doubted that men and women were very fundamentally different, but probably wouldn't have guessed the difference was as big as the one between humans and chimpanzees. New studies show otherwise.
As often noted, the genomes of humans and chimpanzees are 98.5 percent identical, when each of their three billion DNA units are compared. But what of men and women, who have different chromosomes?Until now, biologists have said that makes no difference, because there are almost no genes on the Y, and in women one of the two X chromosomes is inactivated, so that both men and women have one working X chromosome.
But researchers have recently found that several hundred genes on the X escape inactivation. Taking those genes into account along with the new tally of Y genes gives this result: Men and women differ by 1 to 2 percent of their genomes, Dr. Page said, which is the same as the difference between a man and a male chimpanzee or between a woman and a female chimpanzee.
Q: What is the name of the planet farthest from the sun in our solar system?A: Pluto...
Bzzz, wrong. It's Huya.
I know there's been some discussion about whether Pluto constitutes a planet or not, and Huya seems to be about 1/3 the diamater. So I'd say it almost definately doesn't count. So, the correct answer is Neptune, before Febuary 11, 1999 and after September 2226
on whether you buy the fact that they are actually planets and not just large asteroids or moons from planets gone awry. Many people still hold that pluto is not a planet since it has virtually no atmosphere and is quite petite.
Octal and I posted at almost exactly the same time
Earth also has at least one other "moon", but it is also so small (and it's orbit is so eccentric) that it is generally not considered a true "moon". Still, it's fascinating to learn more about the solar system. They have thought for a while that there was a "Planet X" -- the tenth unknown planet, due to variances in the orbits of the outer planets. I wonder if Huya fits the gravitational bill, so to speak.
Planet X got blown up by an epic battle between Duck Dodgers and Marvin the Martian. That's why it's so hard to find.
How does hibernation work? Do bears really sleep all winter? Or do they just hang out in their dens eating stored pic-i-nic baskets? And, if they sleep, is it like a coma? How does the body live without daily water breaks? And, what about defecation? I just don't get it.
Isaac or somebody else up to shining your apple, please help me out here. It surprised me that I really have no idea, and I really want to know.
One is called torpor, which is what bears do, and that is a deep sleep which is broken sometimes to move about, although rarely. Basically their metabolic rate doesn't drop low enough and it doesn't last long enough to be considered true hibernation.True hibernation is even deeper, when the bodies metabolism slows greatly and only key systems keep functioning. They live off of the stores of fat in their system which provides enough food and water to sustain their very low metabolic rate. The only waste that would be produced would be uric acid (read pee) and that would be minimal. Since there is no food being digested there would be no fecal waste. (they actually don't eat for a few days directly before hibernation) Then when they wake up they take the mother of all morning pisses. I think they did a study and determined that they do dream, but then how do you ask a skunk what it was dreaming? So, it is not like a coma in that there is more brain activity and the animal is not completely dead to the world.
do which? Apparently bears == torpor, skunks == hibernate? But how else does it break down? What about frogs and toads in the mud?
Dammit I had a list, and then I started second guessing myself, and now I need to go and look all this up and my books are in storage, I think it's time to make a trip to the library. Sure you could probably find it online but I am old school about certain things. If only I could find my copy of the Encyclopedia of Mammals...
BigJ, how do muscles in insects work? Are they basically the same as muscles in larger, fleshy animals (reptiles, ampibians, and mammals?) or do they work differently?
but they are made up kind of differently because they have to react so fast and twitch so fast so they are actually higher in nerve endings and such. But basically muscle is the same in all animals because the design works so very well. We all have two different types of muscle, thus light and dark meat in chicken, one to do repetitive movements that require much strength but are not done for long periods of time, and the other to do slower repetitive movements for a long time, like leg muscles and those "long lean muscles" used in swimming and stuff. They are darker because they have a much higher oxygen content due to being used over a long period of time to keep from building up an oxygen debt in your muscles as quickly. I think insect muscles are designated as fast-twitch muscles, it takes a lot of speed to flip those little wings fast enough to fly, especially since they have to move them fast enough to use the pressure difference on the next stroke, basically they swim through the air, now that takes some serious speed. Did I answer your question Pedro? Sorry I am not thinking straight today I didn't sleep well last night.
Yeah, I just wasn't sure if somehow muscles in insects worked differently. One of those funny things where sci-fi and nature collide is in those big walking "mechas" that you see in anime -- robotech, battletech, gundam, etc. Steel Battalion for the Xbox in my living room, etc. To build those machines all out of hydraulics would be quite the feat, especially the sleek looking ones in anime. The "lore" that surrounds a lot of those vehicles is that they managed to create a metal or some kind of quasi-organic substance that basically functions as muscle, allowing those machines to have such quick reflexes, movements, etc. It's not completely far-fetched, as there are substances that grow and shrink when electricity is applied to them, but not on the scale that would be needed to actually build a machine like that.
I didn't think that insect muscles would be useable, but since those machines kind of look like grashopper heads with legs, all the talk made me think about that, and then I wondered what insect muscles were like. Just in case you thought I was waiting for my own mech to drive around in. I'm not. That's why I'm building a big acid spitting robot.
"The notion of doomsday came from the following observation. The day of the week of the last day of February (called "doomsday") is always the same day of the week as the 4th of April, 6th of June, 8th of August, 10th of October, and 12th of December (that is, the Nth day of the Nth month, for even N). It's also the same day as the 9th of May and the 5th of September (the 5th of the 9th, and 9th of the 5th) and the 11th of July and 7th of November (11th of 7th and 7th of 11th). Pretty neat, huh? So, if you know what day of the week the last day of February is, you can figure out the day of the week of any day of the year with very little difficulty.January and March are little trickier. The first of March is the day after doomsday. That's not too bad. January depends on whether or not it's a leap year. In a non-leap year, the last day of January is doomsday. In a leap year, the first day of February is doomsday, and so the last day of January is the day before doomsday."
http://rudy.ca/doomsday.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.htmlAstronomy Picture of the Day remains one of the greatest websites on the Internet.
for pedro, and anybody else who wants to chime in.in my music theory class, we learned obviously scales and intervals and modes, etc.
my teacher at one point made the distinction between 'tonal' and 'modal' music. i get modes, on the level that a B Mixolydian scale would be BCDEFGAB (or a Bminor with a lowered 2nd and 5th).
but i don't understand the distinction he made. he played something, it was a Santana riff, on the piano, and then some other short little thing - we're talking 2 bars max - and said that the first piece was a modal example, and the second was a tonal example. he lost me completely.
please explain, somebody?
That if it's in a mode, it's modal, and if it's in the normal tonic scale, it's tonal. 99 percent of western music is tonal. Some is modal, and lots of 20th century stuff is atonal (no tonal center or fixed relationships) or uses other tonal systems, like 12-tone or whole tone (where each key is a whole step apart).Interestingly enough, everything is really a mode. A minor is the "Aeolian" mode, and major is technically is the "Ionian" mode (which is a descendant of the Lydian mode). Each mode had different regulations about which tones were raised or lowered. The Ionian mode became the standard mode in Western music, with half steps between 3-4 and 7-8 (between E and F and between B and C), and the Aeolian mode has its half steps between 2-3 and 5-6.
Hence, a C Major scale (white keys on a piano):
C D E F G A B C (Ionian mode on C)
... and an A Minor scale (also white keys on piano):
A B C D E F G A (Aeolian mode on A)
Anyway, most of the time, when people say "tonal" they mean Aeolian or Ionian -- Major and Minor. And when they say modal, they mean other modes, like Dorian, Phrygian, and Mixolidian, which are often other piano scales, for example, Dorian on D is:
D E F G A B C D
Not all modes fit nicely like that though.
Anyway, here's a great page on modes.
that's what i suspected.i may have more questions later.
also, in my post above i confused mixolydian with locrian. my bad.
Did you know that your body may have as much as 20 million kilometers of DNA in it?
That's some complicated stuff.
who knew lady liberty was egyptian?
which sounds better -- the inside grooves or the outside grooves?
that there is only 1 groove on a vinly LP. the needle just continues on and the storage space is constant, i.e. - although there is contant angular velocity and all that, when you get to the inner section of the swirl that is a record groove, the space used to store the imprint on the vinyl is the same amount of space, it's just wrapped around a tighter curve.i don't know. i could be completely wrong, but it seems like the issue of storage on an LP isn't the same issue as it is on a digital storage system. i.e. - the amount of space things take up is a constant, you cannot compromise on that with an analog record. you can digitally, however, compress information to store it in a limited storage space.
am i crazy? am i talking out of my ass? perhaps? someone show me how i am wrong?
There is only one groove -- but what I am saying is that the first tracks on a record will sound better than the later tracks (closer to the spindle).You are right that the groove is wrapped around a tighter curve at the center than at the outside, but it is also definitely true that quality is better on early (outside) tracks than later (inner) tracks. The perfect analogy is analog tape -- things sound better the faster you run the tape. 30 inches per second sounds better than 15 inches per second.
On a record, the needle is moving over more surface per second on the outer tracks than on the inner tracks because while the record goes around the same number of times per minute, on outer tracks it must go twice as far in each minute than on the inner tracks. This translates to more media to record onto in the same amount of time and means higher quality just as higher tape speed means better quality. A physical example you might have experienced is a merry go round -- it is much harder to hang on to the outside of a merry go round because you are actually moving faster (and thus have more momentum) than if you were standing in the center. Not exactly the same but closely related.
the media will have a higher resolution near to the outside edge than it does near the inside, due to constant angular velocity. as to the question of whether that translates into a better sounding recording near the outside edge.... i doubt it.the recording process and the spindle speed are designed on the basis of producing adequate fidelity within the design envelope of the lower resolution near the inside edge. for the average listener, that means that all of the sounds that you can hear are reproducible inside the envelope of the inside analog resolution (assuming that no compromises are made when determining what "adequate" fidelity means), and any theoretical fidelity gains you could make by taking advantage of the higher resolution near the outside edge would be outside of your listening range.
so, my final answer: higher fidelity is theoretically possible near the outside edge, but that theoretical possibility is never exploited, and would not result in a better sounding recording if it were.
"A further limitation of the record is that with a constant rotational speed, the quality of the sound differs across the width of the record: the inner tracks play back at a significantly lower speed than the outer tracks. The result is that inner tracks have distortion that can be particularly noticeable at higher recording levels. CDs resolve this issue by using a variable rotational speed, giving a constant bit-rate."
what geeks we are. interesting topic, though. i do believe Nate has a point. but i understand better what you are trying to say as well, Pedro.
I think Nate is right that the technology is designed to sound adequately good all the way across the disc -- but I think he hit the nail on the had when he said regarding adequacy "assuming that no compromises are made when determining what 'adequate' fidelity means". It isn't that the inner tracks create problems which are noticeable on every LP made. But when "adequate" was decided upon by the designers, they did not pick an adequate that resulted in "no detectable flaws" across the board. They picked one that was adequate. A higher speed would mean either less recording time or would require physically larger LPs.What I'm trying to say is that it is documented that average listeners have noticed over the years that inner tracks sometimes distort in a way that outer tracks don't and this is due to the linear velocity being less on inner tracks than outer tracks. That's actually what brought this whole thing to my mind -- I was listening to some vinyl, and I thought the inner tracks sounded distinctly less crisp and fuzzier than the outer tracks. And I am no audiophile. Believe me; you can ask Phil. I think the stereo in my old van was adequate.
Interestingly, Octal says that this issue is one of the reasons why Edison supported recording cylinders for so long -- they have the same linear velocity from start to finish because the needle rides a groove that wraps around a cylinder from one end to the other.
did you know?
why oj tastes so bad after you brush your teeth
contrast eating some altoids before drinking orange juice... it doesn't necessarily taste good but it's not vile, either.
So, some people think that Pizza Hut's "book it" program is bad for kids. What do you think? I know I remembered it fondly, and on the one hand, I can see their point, on the other hand, I think maybe they're taking it a little too seriously. Kids are not going to become fat, corporate consumers because of Book It!
I find that plain crazy. Obviously, we do need to be careful about how much corporate sponsorship we allow into schools, but to hint that "book it" is one of the roots of child obesity is stretching it over much.... And, as for the guy who's worried that the incentive program is not going to teach genuine love of reading, at least its putting books in kids' hands... I could probably rant about this for a while, so ...
At least bookit isn't a big tobacco promotion. "Kids, Read 5 books and get this cool Joe Camel stuffed animal!" McReading would probably be more offensive as well.
when will the parents be held accountable for their obese children? or better yet the example they are setting with their own obese bodies and laziness?!i don't ever remember participating in this program but both of my kids did and it was a nice treat to not have to make dinner for one night every 4-6 weeks (or so)...and my kids are by no means fat because of it. it was a nice treat for them because they earned it themselves and got to eat out once in a while, and they were able to order their own (very little)pizzas.
I guess I think that the personal pan pizza is maybe the perfect "reward" for a kids' project. They read, and by reading, get something that is just for them, and definitely more special than a happy meal, in my opinion. The project was also started at a time where "corporate sponsorship" was NOT a big deal in the public schools. Skeptics might say they were just ahead of their time, but as I kid I thought it was really cool, and not really Pizza Hut centered. Way different than if it was the Pizza Hut Memorial School Cafeteria All-You-Can-Eat Pizza Buffet or something.
stan's got the right idea. it's a nice treat every once in a while. it's not like the kids are eating pizza hut every day or something. but kids like pizza. and pizza every once in a while is not going to hurt a child. so why not? also - reading can be an acquired taste. get kids into reading with pizza. pretty soon, they'll enjoy it for it's own merits and not worry about the pizza. i know i didn't need pizza to read back when i was a kid. i just liked to read.
Dr. Greg Graffin
And i turned out fine. :D
I saw this report on the news today that claimed kids who watch t.v. commercials that advertise any type of food are five times more likely (or was it ten?) to get up from the television, go into the kitchen, and grab something to eat, even if they are not hungry, while watching that show. The report went on to say that kids who watch t.v. are obese BECAUSE of food commercials.So what is the point of the study? It's that kids who sit around and watch t.v. all of the time aren't fat because they're inactive, rather they're fat because there are too many food commercials on t.v. WTF?
We'd heard for a long time that Swiffers were bad for pets -- apparently that's not true...pedro gives his Coke to snopes.com...
snopes.com gives us his towel to keep
THANKS, SNOPES!!!
I saw through the holes in that email the first time I read it. There's nothing at all like antifreeze in there. Even if they were using straight propylene glycol instead of the n-butyl ether version of it (which volatilizes more readily) there wouldn't be a danger to pets. propylene glycol is used as a coolant, a flavor diluent, and various other things. Trust me you ingest a bit of that every year and don't even know it.even if they were using ethylene glycol the levels at which it would be in a cleaning agent, and then spread in a very thin layer on your floor, would take quite a lot of floor licking to be harmful. And it's not like it's a carcinogen that has a long term exposure effect, it's a poison which means it needs a certain level in the blood stream to be lethal.
(thanks though)
More expensive placebos produce better results!