Is it time for Random Thoughts - Part 4?

[dlgoff]

My eight year old grandson thinks that he see a face in it and has declared that it is from Mars.

Reminds me of ALH84001.

 

[Lisa!]

"The Story of Sinuhe" is great but I'm just tired of all the war and voilence in that story And the other problem is that I usually can't put down the book when it's interesting unless I get eye strain!

 

[Borek]

In the US, "cider" is ambiguous -- it could mean fresh unfiltered apple juice, or fermented apple juice (sometimes called "hard cider" for clarity). Is hard cider made in Poland very much? Is it popular?

Actually we drink both, but I was referring to the hard cider, not to the juice. As far as I know the hard cider was not made here before, it was sometimes imported from other parts of Europe. Hard cider made in Poland started to show in stores in the last 12 months - so it is hard to talk about its popularity yet (or rather it is easy to say it is not popular, I think it may change soon).

 

[collinsmark]

It's unbelievably, and uncharacteristically, humid in San Diego today. 86% humidity. The temperature is 76 F but it feels like 120. I want a refund.

Yes, so I was standing outside the pub. There was the slightest hint of precipitation. One of the regulars arrived, "Collinsmark, wattya doin' stand'n out here in this rainstorm?"

Ha! It would be funnier if it wasn't so sad. We really do need the rain.

 

[Borg]

It's amazing how many pictures you can take during a one week vacation - 1500...

 

[Evo]

It's amazing how many pictures you can take during a one week vacation - 1500...

I did that once, decided I would record my vacation in photos, I was so preoccupied taking photos, I didn't remember the actual vacation, or do much other than take pictures, but at least I had photos! Next time, someone else will take the pictures and I will enjoy the vacation.

 

[dkotschessaa]

In the US, "cider" is ambiguous -- it could mean fresh unfiltered apple juice, or fermented apple juice (sometimes called "hard cider" for clarity). Is hard cider made in Poland very much? Is it popular?

(Btw, my understanding of British English is that "cider" is the fermented drink. Fresh juice is just called, "juice". How strange.)

I hate that when you buy "apple juice" in the U.S. (perhaps elsewhere?) it isn't really the juice of an apple, but some apple cider (I think) that's been watered down and has sugar added.

So if you squeeze an orange, juice comes out.
If you run a carrot through a juicer, you get juice.
If you press an apple, cider (not juice) comes out?
If you add sugar and water to apple cider it becomes juice.

If I run an apple through my juicer, do I have juice or cider? And if it's juice, what if I then add sugar and water? ahhh!

-Dave K

 

[AlephZero]

As a Brit, I don't understand why you want to waste perfectly good apple juice by drinking it before you fermented it.

But the most heavily marketed cider brands have the same defect as heavily marketed beer brands. In the UK the "real stuff" is called scrumpy, not cider. No added sugar or CO2. Just lots of alcohol, tannin, and apple debris. If you can see through a glass of it, it's not the real thing.

When I was at university, one of the student pubs that because of its location also tended to attract tourists, would only serve "real cider" to people with American accents by the wine-glass, not by the pint. Dragging the literally legless ones outside before they had finished their first pint was too much hassle.

Note: don't confuse real scrumpy with "Scrumpy Jack", which is the brand name of an undrinkable (IMO) commercial product.

 

[dlgoff]

As a Brit, I don't understand why you want to waste perfectly good apple juice by drinking it before you fermented it.

If only I had a hydraulic apple press. https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=4800549&postcount=3367

 

[edward]

If only I had a hydraulic apple press. https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=4800549&postcount=3367

In a pinch an old hand operated lard press will work.

 

[dlgoff]

In a pinch an old hand operated lard press will work.

I'd probably just put it on display.

No. Scratch that. I like stuff to work. You got one?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Albert Finney > David Suchet > Peter Ustinov

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

I did that once, decided I would record my vacation in photos, I was so preoccupied taking photos, I didn't remember the actual vacation, or do much other than take pictures, but at least I had photos! Next time, someone else will take the pictures and I will enjoy the vacation.

My aunt is notorious for this. As per my uncle, at one point during their vacation to DisneyWorld, her two young children begged her to stop taking pictures so that they could actually go on some rides.

With that said, she's a fairly competent photographer, and later on many of her photos will be appreciated. The issue is finding a suitable balance between enjoying the moment and capturing it.

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

All this talk of apple juice, and the guy who's had an apple juice box as his avatar since he created an account here has nothing to add to the discussion. Quite a shame.

Unfortunately, my vacation in Colorado ends tomorrow. Going from interminable rolling corn fields with an altitude of barely-above-sea-level to the Rocky Mountains is quite a pleasant change.

My biggest fear in life is that I would ever become accustomed and indifferent towards something as beautiful as the Rockies. There's a phrase unthinkingly muttered when placed before something beautiful: "I could get used to this."

But to "get used" to something is to be bored of it. To take it for granted. Why would anyone want that? Isn't the great joy in seeing these natural phenomena that they're different from your daily life, that they're better than your daily life? If what you take for granted and are used to is something as beautiful as the Rockies, or Niagara Falls, or any number of breathtaking beaches, what could you possibly have to look forward to?

 

[Evo]

I always loved having people visit me, because I would take them to visit all of the natural wonders in my area and (for shame) see them myself for the first time! I was always amazed at what a great place I lived in!

 

[Astronuc]

Oh the dilemma:

https://www.yahoo.com/travel/city-smackdown-sydney-vs-melbourne-93253572287.html

 

[Astronuc]

A three-story space that houses millions of dollars of goods: clothing, shoes, furs, bags, and jewelry — even a champagne bar?! For one person?!

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trendin...tory-luxury-closet-burglarized-184205334.html

 

[DiracPool]

All this talk of apple juice, and the guy who's had an apple juice box as his avatar since he created an account here has nothing to add to the discussion. Quite a shame.

Mmmm, yumm, apple juice. I saw a show, I think it was on the "how it's made" series on the science channel, where they talked about making apple cider. There's basically two ways it's done, the first is that they harvest the apples, then produce the juice and let it freeze it by leaving it in a big, plexiglass looking structure the size of a small swimming pool out in some arctic-like region. The other option was to let the apples freeze on the tree, and then harvest them that way. I guess each way impressed a different property on the taste of the final product. I'd love to do a blind taste test with those.

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

Mmmm, yumm, apple juice. I saw a show, I think it was on the "how it's made" series on the science channel, where they talked about making apple cider. There's basically two ways it's done, the first is that they harvest the apples, then produce the juice and let it freeze it by leaving it in a big, plexiglass looking structure the size of a small swimming pool out in some arctic-like region. The other option was to let the apples freeze on the tree, and then harvest them that way. I guess each way impressed a different property on the taste of the final product. I'd love to do a blind taste test with those.

When I was in elementary school I was spoiled and always had my apples "skinned." (I'm better now, I promise).

But for school lunches, there was no mother eager to please her child with a knife in hand and an apple in the other. To solve this dilemma of having a fully clothed apple, I would hold the apple firmly in hand, fix my gaze upon the corner of the lunch table, and use my 6 year old strength to smash the apple against the table. I would then suck the juice from the apple like a vampire, and repeat this process until the apple was either dry, or was so far devolved into a pulp that I couldn't get a decent grip on it.

You won't see that on How It's Made.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I would then suck the juice from the apple like a vampire, and repeat this process until the apple was either dry, or was so far devolved into a pulp that I couldn't get a decent grip on it.

You won't see that on How It's Made.

I guess you never saw the "How Undead Fruit is Made" episode:

http://static.spoonful.com/sites/default/files/styles/square_420x420/public/recipes/apple-bites-halloween-recipe-photo-420-FF1007EFCA01.jpg?itok=a-eUdmn3

 

[Borg]

My job requires that I test with older versions of browsers. I found out the hard way this morning that you have to turn off Firefox automatic updates for other users on the computer or it will update automatically when they open Firefox - even though I renamed the updater.exe so that it couldn't run. Firefox then wouldn't let me remove the new version and reinstall the old one, but fortunately it created a restore point and I was able to recover the previous version that way.

 

[Borek]

My job requires that I test with older versions of browsers.

I assume you know browsershots.org and its clones?

(Yes, I know it doesn't work in some situations, you may be not allowed to use it and so on, still, it is a neat tool - especially when it works. At the moment it answers with 504 Gateway time-out.)

 

[Borg]

I assume you know browsershots.org and its clones?

Never heard of it. I'll check it out later when it comes back online. Might be useful for the testers at work.

 

[JorisL]

Coffee Coffee Coffee
Must be yummy

%insert another line

Coffee Coffee Coffee
I like coffee

 

[Astronuc]

WOW! Quite a performance by Tatyana Kundik.

http://blog.petflow.com/she-shocked-everyone-one-of-the-best-performances-ive-seen/
and then, what are the odds.

http://www.viralnova.com/future-bride-photobomb/

 

[AlephZero]

There's basically two ways it's done, the first is that they harvest the apples, then produce the juice and let it freeze it by leaving it in a big, plexiglass looking structure the size of a small swimming pool out in some arctic-like region. The other option was to let the apples freeze on the tree, and then harvest them that way. I guess each way impressed a different property on the taste of the final product.

Increasing the alcohol content by freezing out the water is dangerous compared with distilling, because it leaves all the trace impurities in what you drink. That's a good way to get a mega hangover, or even worse medical consequences.

The alcohol content from fermenting cider is already closer to the strength of wine than beer. It's easy to get 8% or 9% ABV compared with about 4% for a typical beer. Apple varieties grown for cider making tend to have higher sugar content (and also higher acidity and tannin) than "eating apple" varieties.

 

[Borek]

Keyboard or toaster?

http://superuser.com/questions/792607/why-does-windows-think-that-my-wireless-keyboard-is-a-toaster

 

[AlephZero]

Keyboard or toaster?

http://superuser.com/questions/792607/why-does-windows-think-that-my-wireless-keyboard-is-a-toaster

See also http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/windows/apps/hh779727.aspx

 

[jim hardy]

Toast? That's what they call those annoying popups? Is there a way to turn them off?

Microsoft went from infancy to senility without ever passing through maturity.

 

[AlephZero]

Microsoft went from infancy to senility without ever passing through maturity.

Before they got to toast, the most memorable academic paper published by Bill Gates was about pancakes.

The chef in our place is sloppy, and when he prepares a stack of pancakes they come out all different sizes. Therefore, when I deliver them to a customer, on the way to the table I rearrange them (so that the smallest winds up on top, and so on, down to the largest at the bottom) by grabbing several from the top and flipping them over, repeating this (varying the number I flip) as many times as necessary. If there are n pancakes, what is the maximum number of flips (as a function f(n) of n) that I will ever have to use to rearrange them?

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~christos/papers/Bounds For Sorting By Prefix Reversal.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancake_sorting

 

[edward]

I'd probably just put it on display.

No. Scratch that. I like stuff to work. You got one?

Oops I missed this. We used to have one when I was growing up. I think that the pressing could be speeded up by putting a big cordless drill on that screw drive. Hold up on that, if a person has strong enough wrists it just may spin the person holding the drill around and around.

I start my old garden tiller with a cordless drill. I just put the handle on the drill against the tine cover to keep it from turning and pull the trigger. It sure beats yanking my shoulder out of joint on the old rope starter. OK OK , I admit that I first saw a really old lady do this on youtube

I had a neighbor who use to hook up a drive belt from the engine on his reel type gas lawn mower to a big pulley on his homemade ice cream maker.

 

[AlephZero]

No. Scratch that. I like stuff to work. You got one?

You want some serious technology for this, not a wimpy little hand screw press!

First crush your apples...

... then press the juice.

 

[lisab]

This is what we use - for small batches, of course:

 

[dlgoff]

First crush your apples...

My neighbor has a couple of horses I'm sure he'd let me borrow.

This is what we use - for small batches, of course:

I should build something but I already have too many "in progress" projects to have it ready by squeezing time.

 

[JorisL]

Aww my new travel mug is too good of an insulator :S
Well over an hour and it still burns my tongue...

 

[Astronuc]

Watch out for elephants.

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/nature/post/itch-scratching-elephant-terrifies-occupants-car/

 

[dkotschessaa]

I started to post it here, but the epic love story of my wife and I was just too much for this thread. Married four years today, friends much longer..

 

[edward]

I started to post it here, but the epic love story of my wife and I was just too much for this thread. Married four years today, friends much longer..

That is a wonderful story.

I gave my wife her engagement ring 51 years ago today. We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary on March 21. The reason I remember that it was 51 years ago today is because this morning at breakfast she ask me if I knew what happened on an August 7?

I pretended not to remember for a few seconds and then I said: "I found a diamond ring under a rock".

 

[DennisN]

Watch out for elephants.

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/nature/post/itch-scratching-elephant-terrifies-occupants-car/

 

[Borek]

Birth certificate of my grandgrandmother, Janina Marcjanna Anders (born Wnorowska on February 22nd, 1893):

Originally found here.

 

[Astronuc]

That is a wonderful story.

I gave my wife her engagement ring 51 years ago today. We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary on March 21. The reason I remember that it was 51 years ago today is because this morning at breakfast she ask me if I knew what happened on an August 7?

I pretended not to remember for a few seconds and then I said: "I found a diamond ring under a rock".

Congratulations!

 

[lisab]

I started to post it here, but the epic love story of my wife and I was just too much for this thread. Married four years today, friends much longer..

That's adorable. Congrats!

 

[lisab]

Birth certificate of my grandgrandmother, Janina Marcjanna Anders (born Wnorowska on February 22nd, 1893):

Janina - what a beautiful name!

Polish birth certificates are *much* longer than ones here in the US that were issued at about that time! And much longer than ones issued in modern times, too.

What does it say?

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

Janina - what a beautiful name!

Polish birth certificates are *much* longer than ones here in the US that were issued at about that time! And much longer than ones issued in modern times, too.

What does it say?

Reminds me of a documentary about Shakespeare I saw in an english class. The "birth certificate" back then was your name and date of birth written on a single line in a notebook.

 

[DiracPool]

Birth certificate of my grandgrandmother

I'm just curoius, is a grandgrandmother the same as a greatgrandmother? And, if so or if not, do we rephrase grandgrandmother as Grand^2 mother? Or as grandmother^2? Hmmm?

 

[Borek]

I'm just curoius, is a grandgrandmother the same as a greatgrandmother? And, if so or if not, do we rephrase grandgrandmother as Grand^2 mother? Or as grandmother^2? Hmmm?

My bad. In Polish it is babcia (grandmother), prababcia (great-grandmother), praprababcia (two times great-grandmother) and so on. For some reason I (mis)copied that into English.

Janina - what a beautiful name!

Feminine version of Jan (John).

Polish birth certificates are *much* longer than ones here in the US that were issued at about that time! And much longer than ones issued in modern times, too.

Reminds me of a documentary about Shakespeare I saw in an english class. The "birth certificate" back then was your name and date of birth written on a single line in a notebook.

I would not call it "Polish" - at the time Warsaw was part of the Russian Empire, the document is in Russian.

What does it say?

Something like

It happened in Wola parish, on March 22nd (April 3rd*) 1893, at 4 p.m. To us came Stanisław Wnorowski from Wola, 26 years from birth**, together with Aleksander Kowalik (?) and Łukasz Zieliński, lathe operator from Wola, and they have shown us an infant [STRIKE]kid[/STRIKE] of female sex, saying it was born in Wola on February 22nd (March 6th) this year at 10 p.m., from his legal wife Helena, born Leczkowska, 30 years from birth. Infant [STRIKE]Kid[/STRIKE] was christened Janina Marcjanna and godparents were Aleksander Kowalik and Marianna Zielińska. This act was read, checked and signed by me.***

All dates and numbers are given in words, which makes the text slightly longer than it is really is. There are parts of the text I have problems deciphering as my Russian is not always good enough.

*Dates are given both styles - they used both calendars (Julian and Gregorian) in parallel.
**It just means "26 years old", but I tried to copy the wording verbatim - it sounds funny in Polish as well.
***Actually I made this phrase - it says something similar, but my Russian failed me so far, I plan to attack the text with a dictionary when I have more time.

 

[dkotschessaa]

That is a wonderful story.

I gave my wife her engagement ring 51 years ago today. We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary on March 21. The reason I remember that it was 51 years ago today is because this morning at breakfast she ask me if I knew what happened on an August 7?

I pretended not to remember for a few seconds and then I said: "I found a diamond ring under a rock".

I used to think rings and weddings were all bull***. But the experience of getting a ring and proposing turned out to be very important. I sold a car of mine to get some of the money for it, and did the shopping in Jeweler's row in philadelphia with my sister and niece - a really beautiful day that I'll never forget.

-Dave K

 

[dkotschessaa]

I'm not superstitious, but certainly the temptation to read into random phenomenah is strong.

This rainbow:

Appeared from our perspective to stretch from our current neighborhood(an apartment complex) across the street, to the neighborhood where we are buying a house.

Image enhanced to see super duper rainbow.

 

[zoobyshoe]

It happened in Wola parish, on March 22nd (April 3rd*) 1893, at 4 p.m. To us came Stanisław Wnorowski from Wola, 26 years from birth**, together with Aleksander Kowalik (?) and Łukasz Zieliński, lathe operator from Wola, and they have shown us a kid of female sex, saying it was born in Wola on February 22nd (March 6th) this year at 10 p.m., from his legal wife Helena, born Leczkowska, 30 years from birth. Kid was christened Janina Marcjanna and godparents were Aleksander Kowalik and Marianna Zielińska. This act was read, checked and signed by me.***

It says "kid"?!?

 

[Borek]

It says "kid"?!?

It says https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Младенец - so perhaps better translation would be "infant".

Sorry, neither my Russian nor English are perfect. Actually the same can be said about my Polish