Random Thoughts Part 5: Time to Split Again

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The discussion revolves around various topics, including a dream about a person named Borek, reflections on the book "The Martian," and the complexities of educational systems in the US and UK. Participants share insights on the long and short scales of numbers, particularly regarding the term "billion," and discuss the differences in high school and college education between the two countries. The conversation also touches on personal anecdotes, such as perfecting a Kung Pao sauce recipe and experiences with local disturbances. Overall, the thread showcases a blend of light-hearted personal stories and deeper discussions on education and cultural differences.
  • #991
WWGD said:
Is there some special meaning attached to this second new moon?
I've only found the following:
The chinese calendar is NOT a lunar calendar, it is a lunisolar calendar, a to the sun coupled version of a pure lunar calendar in order to keep it closer to the seasons. The chinese new year is also a celebration of spring. (The festivities traditionally last 15 days ... ending with a lantern festival). There are constellations where it meets the 3rd new moon (2033) because they need to fill in leap (moon)month. The second new moon is the one before the equinox in spring.
 
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  • #992
fresh_42 said:
I've only found the following:
The chinese calendar is NOT a lunar calendar, it is a lunisolar calendar, a to the sun coupled version of a pure lunar calendar in order to keep it closer to the seasons. The chinese new year is also a celebration of spring. (The festivities traditionally last 15 days ... ending with a lantern festival). There are constellations where it meets the 3rd new moon (2033) because they need to fill in leap (moon)month. The second new moon is the one before the equinox in spring.
chinese calendar is very accurate , just saýing =) esp useful to predict tides for those deep sea fishing lover..there's 2 April moon in a leap year.
 
  • #993
Silicon Waffle said:
Could it be intestinal worms ? o0)
No. I ate too much junk food. Now I can't eat anything because it's so painful. :cry: I've been reduced the pathetic state of ingesting only shakes made with water. :frown:
Sophia said:
That means only a few customers today.
Customers, where? A shop?
WIN said:
for those deep sea fishing lover
I've never fished in open sea. My uncle told me the waves are way more aggressive than in the bay and unlike in the bay where it is relatively calm, in open sea there are always waves. :biggrin: I want to go to open sea one day.
 
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  • #994
WIN said:
chinese calendar is very accurate , just saýing =) esp useful to predict tides for those deep sea fishing lover..there's 2 April moon in a leap year.
There's another mystery I cannot solve:
It is generally considered rude to ask a woman how old she is. But it's not asking for her zodiac.
So if asking for her chinese zodiac you usually can calculate her age. Is that rude?
 
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  • #995
fresh_42 said:
There's another mystery I cannot solve:
It is generally considered rude to ask a woman how old she is. But it's not asking for her zodiac.
So if asking for her chinese zodiac you usually can calculate her age. Is that rude?

good one =) well they nvr thought of that i guess
 
  • #996
Psinter said:
I've been reduced the pathetic state of ingesting only shakes made with water. :frown:

Customers, where? A shop?

.

You wrote "shakes" but I read "snakes" and I was like whaaaaaat?!
Yes, it's good to drink shakes. Even those from turnip or sauerkraut water are better than snakes. :D

Yes, I work in a family shop. That kind where you know all your customers, some of them by their nicknames, and chat with them.
 
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  • #997
Psinter said:
No. I ate too much junk food. Now I can't eat anything because it's so painful. :cry: I've been reduced the pathetic state of ingesting only shakes made with water. :frown:

Customers, where? A shop?

I've never fished in open sea. My uncle told me the waves are way more aggressive than in the bay and unlike in the bay where it is relatively calm, in open sea there are always waves. :biggrin: I want to go to open sea one day.

How about some powerful fiber to clean yourself up internally?
 
  • #998
WWGD said:
How about some powerful fiber to clean yourself up internally?
Funny, the German word for fever is 'Fieber' which makes a lot more sense for an internal clean up. I had to make the detour on bundles to get away from that thought, which left me with the next difficulty: too thin!
 
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  • #999
Sophia said:
Yes, I work in a family shop. That kind where you know all your customers, some of them by their nicknames, and chat with them.
That must be awesome! I wish I worked at a family shop, but no one has a shop in my family.
WWGD said:
How about some powerful fiber to clean yourself up internally?
No thanks. Fiber makes me go to the bathroom. :confused:
 
  • #1,000
How can buying your own products (I produce them then some of my affiliates or subsidiaries buy them) be against the laws ? I don't quire remember much but this used to be the case of a Japanese businessman over a decade ago.
I wasn't into business much until lately. I wish I had asked more questions to people who knew this well about business stuff.
 
  • #1,001
Psinter said:
That must be awesome! I wish I worked at a family shop, but no one has a shop in my family.

No thanks. Fiber makes me go to the bathroom. :confused:

And nobody has a family in my shop. That was the whole point, to clear up the system.
 
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  • #1,002
WWGD said:
That was the whole point, to clear up the system.
But it's awkward.
WWGD said:
And nobody has a family in my shop.
You have a shop too? Awesome!
 
  • #1,003
WWGD said:
And nobody has a family in my shop...
My gut feeling tells me then that all of them are married.
 
  • #1,004
Psinter said:
That must be awesome! I wish I worked at a family shop, but no one has a shop in my family.

It's a nice job compared to those poor souls who work at large supermarkets. It's true that some customers are annoying and sometimes I would slap them sooo hard :))) But the majority of people are nice and friendly.
 
  • #1,005
Sorry Jones, dinner will be late tonight :biggrin:
 
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  • #1,006
Silicon Waffle said:
Sorry Jones, dinner will be late tonight :biggrin:
I don't get it.
Sophia said:
It's a nice job compared to those poor souls who work at large supermarkets. It's true that some customers are annoying and sometimes I would slap them sooo hard :))) But the majority of people are nice and friendly.
Haha, annoying customers.
 
  • #1,008
Psinter said:
But it's awkward.
A handful of almonds, a double espresso and you will feel like singing :).
 
  • #1,010
"Angular momentum during bremsstrahlung" sounds very, very, very weird in my ears. Why isn't it called deceleration radiation? Laziness?
There are some really missing German words in the English language like "doch", "schon" or "schweigen". Bremsstrahlung definitely not.
 
  • #1,012
Silicon Waffle said:

Haha that's exactly it! I've got all these types of customers :)
And of course those who want something for free. Btw what's the English expression meaning that you give someone something and he promises to pay later?
And another annoyance- more and more people started leaving their heavy bags (with stuff bought elsewhere) at our place while they go the town. You know, they can't carry them. It was mainly one ethnic group that did this. At one time I had 6 bags to look after while their owners sat in the pub. And I only waited until someone accuses me of stealing something from the bag. But I don't allow this anymore!
One thing that I learned is that this proverb is true: Give someone one finger and he will take your whole hand.
 
  • #1,013
fresh_42 said:
"Angular momentum during bremsstrahlung" sounds very, very, very weird in my ears. Why isn't it called deceleration radiation? Laziness?
There are some really missing German words in the English language like "doch", "schon" or "schweigen". Bremsstrahlung definitely not.

Fresh, I was thinking of you today. :kiss:
Tell me, why are almost all German fruit names "die" except Apfel and Pfirsich? They are round and don't look any more male than other fruits! But Banane, which should be "der" is "die" o_O
 
  • #1,014
Sophia said:
Fresh, I was thinking of you today. :kiss:
Ďakujem veľmi pekne! :kiss:

Tell me, why are almost all German fruit names "die" except Apfel and Pfirsich? They are round and don't look any more male than other fruits! But Banane, which should be "der" is "die"

German and its articles! Ask me something easier. Apple is of unknown origin, Peach comes from persian tree, persian apple, so maybe it inherited the article. Berry, e.g. being a large group of fruits are originally built in plural of the old German word 'beri'. It might come from 'die Rote'.
It's similar with rivers: its 'die Moldau', 'die Elbe', 'die Donau', die 'Seine', 'die Themse' but 'der Rhein', 'der Main', 'der Hudson', 'der Colorado' and 'der Rio Grande'. I've read about it but unfortunately forgotten.
I once tried to learn a bit Russian. There it were the many cases which I found difficult to handle. Or Hungarian where all is put in a tail of word endings. Does Slovakian has also so many cases?
 
  • #1,015
fresh_42 said:
Ďakujem veľmi pekne! :kiss:

Šikovný! :dademyday:

Thank you for explaining the articles. I guess that one only has to learn it by heart.

fresh_42 said:
I once tried to learn a bit Russian. There it were the many cases which I found difficult to handle. Or Hungarian where all is put in a tail of word endings. Does Slovakian has also so many cases?

Yes, we have 6 cases and 12 "exemplar words" (?)- 4 for each gender. Each of them has different declination. There are grammar tables showing them. Each noun can be matched to one of these 12 exemplar words (according to gender and type of consonant or vowel at the end of the word) and than you can see how it should be declined.
In fact, Slovak students spend 8 school years, 3 hours per week on average doing declination exercises and identifying exemplar words for nouns and another exemplar words for adjectives, lots of grammatical categories for verbs, word types and syntax exercises where you draw boxes and arrows to describe role of each word in the sentence. And ridiculous amount of time is spent studying if a word is spelled with i or y. It usually has no or very small impact on pronounciation or meaning, but for some very, very mysterious reason our great-grandfathers decided that using i/y correctly is the most important thing to know about Slovak language. :DDD It's so fun!o:) And it's a large part of High school entrance exams :nb)
I really admire foreigners who are able to speak Slovak fluently. I think it must be almost impossible to learn it if you are not a native speaker.
But I must admit that most Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants speak really well! Which is strange because I've heard from people living in Australia that their Chinese immigrants' English is not so good.
 
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  • #1,016
fresh_42 said:
"Angular momentum during bremsstrahlung" sounds very, very, very weird in my ears. Why isn't it called deceleration radiation? Laziness?
As we all know, electromagnetic radiation is produced when charged particles undergo acceleration. (Stationary charged particles have electric fields; charged particles moving at a constant velocity have magnetic fields in addition; and accelerating charged particles produce electromagnetic radiation in addition to the those.)

Faster acceleration corresponds to higher energy (i.e., higher frequency) photons.

If you want to produce x-rays you accelerate electrons to high speeds in a vacuum and then smash them into a target (typically just a piece of metal). The initial acceleration involves a tad of electromagnetic radiation, but it's the sudden -- almost instantaneous -- deceleration that produces most of the x-rays, when the electrons smash against the target.

That's my guess as to why it's called bremsstrahlung (braking radiation). (But yeah, "deceleration radiation" works too.)
 
  • #1,017
Sophia said:
But I must admit that most Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants speak really well! Which is strange because I've heard from people living in Australia that their Chinese immigrants' English is not so good.
Lol - too simple?
 
  • #1,018
collinsmark said:
That's my guess as to why it's called bremsstrahlung (braking radiation). (But yeah, "deceleration radiation" works too.)
I know what it is, I just ask why it has to be the German word for it. I find the 'eigen'-stuff has some rights because it's better than, e.g. proper.
But Bremsstrahlung or Ansatz in the middle of an English sentence looks and even more sounds weird to me.
 
  • #1,019
fresh_42 said:
I know what it is, I just ask why it has to be the German word for it. I find the 'eigen'-stuff has some rights because it's better than, e.g. proper.
But Bremsstrahlung or Ansatz in the middle of an English sentence looks and even more sounds weird to me.
Oh, I understand now.

That's merely because the German word sounds more intimidating. "Bow down and cower in fear before my bremsstrahlung!" It helps to keep the undergrads on their toes.
 
  • #1,020
collinsmark said:
That's merely because the German word sounds more intimidating. "Bow down and cower in fear before my bremsstrahlung!" It helps to keep the undergrads on their toes.
This is the method they teach math at schools over here. I have found terms in schoolbooks I haven't heard a single time in my studies or read in a real book.
 

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