Random Thoughts Part 4 - Split Thread

[WWGD]

To follow up on an old post, an FCTI cash machine was the one that charged me $2.50 just to check my account balance.
Massive Ripoff.

 

[Ibix]

What would it do if your balance was less than $2.50? They don't want to refuse to serve you because that gives you information for free, but they don't want to serve you either, and for the same reason.

A profiteer's paradox...

 

[WWGD]

I know the information angle is one that the phone companies used to charge you:
a busy signal is information. But: it is not information I requested from them. Still,
it is a ripoff to charge $2.50 for something that may cost them a few cents. And
they are bottom feeders: they do nothing of any real use to anyone. I understand
I could have gone to my own bank's ATM, and I am willing to pay some amount _for
withdrawing cash_ , but not for checking my account balance. Just a ripoff.

There is also the fact that many of these ATMs do not tell you about the fees until
just before they give you your money ( this one never did) , and not when you just log
into the system. I feel some warm about capitalism at times like these.

And I do literally walk the extra mile for an ATM from my bank 99% of the time.

 

[zoobyshoe]

chatte, if you want to say "chat" then it's got to be with something, for example "un chat noir" - a black cat.

See what it says here:
http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/free-language-lessons/french/lvl1-lesson-1

 

[nuuskur]

See what it says here:
http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/free-language-lessons/french/lvl1-lesson-1

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that. The French people I chat.. I mean communicate with say that it's la chatte and la chatte only. They must know something I don't :/ (Yes, I can see that animals have both masculin and feminin form, but must be something else, too.)

 

[Enigman]

Maybe all their cats are female.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that. The French people I chat.. I mean communicate with say that it's la chatte and la chatte only. They must know something I don't :/

There is some indication if you google, that "la chatte" is a vulgar term. They may be messing with you. Or not. Regardless, I'm pretty sure it's OK to say "le chat" without modifying it.

 

[nuuskur]

Je suis un idiot :< Yes, I see now why it's vulgar and I'm going to kill them, too, verbally.

 

[Enigman]

Well, we are about to move into page 69, this seems like an auspicious start... Here's a pu cat
http://stylonica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cat-cats-32040775-1440-900.jpg

 

[zoobyshoe]

Je suis un idiot :< Yes, I see now why it's vulgar and I'm going to kill them, too, verbally.

Well, don't kill them before you verify that. Micromass and Fluidistic (I believe) are native French speakers. They ought to be able to settle it.

 

[nuuskur]

Enigman pretty much settled it with the stricken out part :P I am positive of that.

 

[collinsmark]

Evo speaks French, I think.

 

[Evo]

Yes, a cat is chat.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The reason I mentioned it was because it occurred to me a native French speaker might involuntarily interpret the upper right PF menu as:

MY PF INBOX ALERTS FORUMS CAT INSIGHTS INFO SEARCH

 

[Ibix]

I bought a table and chairs today. According to the labelling, pregnant women should take extra care when using the chairs.

There's a faint smell of stupid mixed with the aftershave of ambulance-chasing lawyers coming from the label.

 

[WWGD]

I bought a table and chairs today. According to the labelling, pregnant women should take extra care when using the chairs.

There's a faint smell of stupid mixed with the aftershave of ambulance-chasing lawyers coming from the label.

I like that "ambulance chaser" , it is pretty powerful branding, just like the name "Frankenfoods" for food that comes from GMOs. I mean, whether you think it is accurate/fair or not, the name sticks.

 

[lisab]

The reason I mentioned it was because it occurred to me a native French speaker might involuntarily interpret the upper right PF menu as:

MY PF INBOX ALERTS FORUMS CAT INSIGHTS INFO SEARCH

If I were French, I'd be so déçu!

 

[lisab]

I rented a U-Haul today for the first time in years. I got Virginia. It couldn't do more than 50 on a slight hill.

 

[WWGD]

Maybe time to start a new thread " Baby it's cold inside". Most places are blasting the ACs into mind-50's temperatures.

 

[Ibix]

I like that "ambulance chaser" , it is pretty powerful branding, just like the name "Frankenfoods" for food that comes from GMOs. I mean, whether you think it is accurate/fair or not, the name sticks.

Maybe. But I can't think of anything pregnancy would do that would require someone to take extra care with a chair. Or, at least, nothing that isn't covered by regular pregnancy advice or specific medical advice for some conditions.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Maybe. But I can't think of anything pregnancy would do that would require someone to take extra care with a chair. Or, at least, nothing that isn't covered by regular pregnancy advice or specific medical advice for some conditions.

Strap a watermellon to your belly and experiment.

 

[nuuskur]

Baby, it's cold outside And inside :S

 

[zoobyshoe]

If I were French, I'd be so déçu!

If we had a PF cat, people would soon demand a PF dog. Then a hamster. It would lead to menagerie. Which is also a French word.

 

[nuuskur]

a zoo?

 

[zoobyshoe]

a zoo?

Technically a menagerie is a collection of wild animals. But I can't think of a word for a collection of domesticated animals and pets.

 

[Ibix]

If we had a PF cat, people would soon demand a PF dog. Then a hamster. It would lead to menagerie. Which is also a French word.

It would also lead to endless variations on "is it a live cat, a dead cat, or both" type jtokes. This would be a bad thing.

 

[Enigman]

Well, we are about to move into page 69, this seems like an auspicious start... Here's a pu cat
http://stylonica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Cat-cats-32040775-1440-900.jpg

And now for a Dick pic.

Happy Birthday Richard 'Dick' Feynman!

 

[nuuskur]

You are walking on some incredibly thin ice, I think :D

 

[Enigman]

You are walking on some incredibly thin ice, I think :D

I was going to post it in the Feynman quiz thread but the joke was too tempting to let go uncracked. Now to pray that the ice doesn't crack with it.

 

[collinsmark]

I think it's fine. Richard Feynman went by "Dick" among friends, family and acquaintances.

[Edit: hee hee:

The student asks Gell-Mann about Feynman's notes. Gell-Mann says no, Dick's methods are not the same as the methods used here. The student asks, well, what are Feynman's methods? Gell-Mann leans coyly against the blackboard and says: Dick's method is this. You write down the problem. You think very hard. (He shuts his eyes and presses his knuckles parodically to his forehead.) Then you write down the answer.​

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/20/magazine/part-showman-all-genius.html?pagewanted=1]

 

[lisab]

It feels like rain is imminent, but I checked the Doppler - there's nothing out there.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The reason I mentioned it was because it occurred to me a native French speaker might involuntarily interpret the upper right PF menu as:

MY PF INBOX ALERTS FORUMS CAT INSIGHTS INFO SEARCH

On my computer "chat" is now gone! Where is the PF cat??

 

[WWGD]

On my computer "chat" is now gone! Where is the PF cat??

I saw one running quickly across the screen right after the sign disappeared.

 

[OCR]

I saw one running quickly across the screen right after the sign disappeared.

I don't think he liked, "right after the sign disappeared" ... Lol

 

[zoobyshoe]

There is some high mischief going on at PF.

 

[OmCheeto]

It feels like rain is imminent, but I checked the Doppler - there's nothing out there.

Check your rain barrels. Mine were all empty yesterday, and full this morning.

 

[Ibix]

Check your rain barrels. Mine were all empty yesterday, and full this morning.

You know how to tell if there's an elephant under your bed, right? It's when you wake up with your nose touching the ceiling...

 

[OmCheeto]

You know how to tell if there's an elephant under your bed, right? It's when you wake up with your nose touching the ceiling...

roof area: 900 ft^2
barrel capacity: 45 gallons (Ok... I have two rubbermaid garbage cans. Not quite "barrels"... And one has a slice halfway up from where I was testing my outboard motor one day, and, oops.)
7.48 gallons/ft^3
45 gal / 7.48 gal/ft^3 = 6 ft^3
6 ft^3 / 900 ft^2 = 0.0067 ft * 12 in/ft = 0.08 inches

It doesn't take much rain, to generate 45 gallons, from a roof.

ps. They both overflowed, and they only collect half of the rain from my roof, at most, so I'm guessing we had about 1/4 inch of rain last night. My neighbor had a minor pond in his front yard. He had a major pond in his front yard, when last, we had an inch of rain, during the day.

 

[Ibix]

roof area: 900 ft^2
barrel capacity: 45 gallons (Ok... I have two rubbermaid garbage cans. Not quite "barrels"... And one has a slice halfway up from where I was testing my outboard motor one day, and, oops.)
7.48 gallons/ft^3
45 gal / 7.48 gal/ft^3 = 6 ft^3
6 ft^3 / 900 ft^2 = 0.0067 ft * 12 in/ft = 0.08 inches

It doesn't take much rain, to generate 45 gallons, from a roof.

There's...not a lot I can say to that.

You scientists and your maths, going around making reasonable points...

 

[OmCheeto]

There's...not a lot I can say to that.

You scientists and your maths, going around making reasonable points...

Being a PPIRATTSAP, there is little I don't know about my house.

Rainwater can be collected and used, via gravity feed, to flush the toilets in the house.

I did the calculations on that one day... . My roof catches exactly the amount of water I use in a year. But I would require 76 blue barrels to be completely independent of the water system. It's those darn dry summer months. I suppose during the rainy seasons you could get by with a couple of barrels and cut your water bill to zero.

One idea that is not a good idea... is to generate electricity from the water collected from your roof. I determined that I could cook 3 packets of top ramen per year by doing this.

ref: circa Jan, 2008, Physics Forums

Good grief! That's 60 gallons a day.
I think that must be the tomato plants' fault.
Last year was the first year I experimented with potting them, and a mature plant can consume between 2 and 5 gallons per day.
Мали свиње! ----------------------------
PPIRATTSAP: Perpetually poor independent researcher always trying to save a penny.

 

[zoobyshoe]

It is currently -56 F at the South Pole.

 

[Enigman]

Help science, play a game - http://fold.it/portal/info/about#whygame
Does this count as cluster computing?

 

[WWGD]

It is currently -56 F at the South Pole.

But it is a dry cold.

 

[nuuskur]

Pshh, I've been to a "cold sauna" at -140 'C - not sure what they are called in English, anyway it's unbelievably cold, but it's dry. It was about -30 'C outside that day and it felt really really warm after spending about 15 minutes in -140.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Turned on the weather man just after the news
I needed sweet rain to wash away my blues
He looked at the chart but he look in vain:
Heavy cloud but,
no rain.

 

[OmCheeto]

Turned on the weather man just after the news
I needed sweet rain to wash away my blues
He looked at the chart but he look in vain:
Heavy cloud but,
no rain.

Gordy!

I always liked his music.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I always liked his music.

I like a lot of his songs that other people don't seem to like. My sense is, a large percentage of people who liked the Police don't like Sting the individual songwriter. Sting, the individual songwriter, is perceived as too emo relative to The Police. However, I don't believe any such group as "The Police" ever existed. What we call "The Police" was actually just younger, edgier Sting utilizing the same support musicians from album to album. As he got older his taste went in a different direction, and he started to select support musicians on a case by case basis.

 

[WWGD]

I like a lot of his songs that other people don't seem to like. My sense is, a large percentage of people who liked the Police don't like Sting the individual songwriter. Sting, the individual songwriter, is perceived as too emo relative to The Police. However, I don't believe any such group as "The Police" ever existed. What we call "The Police" was actually just younger, edgier Sting utilizing the same support musicians from album to album. As he got older his taste went in a different direction, and he started to select support musicians on a case by case basis.

Maybe he should go back to his original, less edgy name : Gordon Sumner; quite a jump from a relatively- mainstream name to "Sting". Of course this is not fully serious, since the brand name is way too easily recognizable to start using the name "Gordon Sumner".

 

[zoobyshoe]

Maybe he should go back to his original, less edgy name : Gordon Sumner; quite a jump from a relatively- mainstream name to "Sting".

Sting claims he was never called "Gordon."

Sting performed jazz in the evening, weekends and during breaks from college and teaching. He played with the Phoenix Jazzmen, Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. He gained his nickname after his habit of wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes with the Phoenix Jazzmen.[14] Bandleader Gordon Solomon thought he looked like a bee, which prompted the name "Sting".[14] In the 1985 documentary Bring on the Night a journalist called him Gordon, to which he replied, "My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting, who is this Gordon character?"[15] In Time in 2011 he said: "I was never called Gordon. You could shout 'Gordon' in the street and I would just move out of your way."[16]

-wiki

 

[WannabeNewton]

So BB King passed away...