Random Thoughts Part 5: Time to Split Again

[Psinter]

kick the door and always ask for cigarettes and matches yelling and calling me names when I refuse.

That reminded me about the Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes that gave trap cigarretes to the bad guys and they always went... But don't that, a lot could go wrong. I'm just hearing the Looney Tunes intro music and it's funny. Plus, today is April's Fools which make it even more funny when I think it in my mind. ♫ Uuuu para pa pa pa para pa pa pa pa. Ticu ticu ticu tin ticu ticu tin. Uuuuu para pa pa, papara pa pa pa. Tinuninu tinuninu tata tata tatan tan! ♫

Wow, it's my birthday. Snuck up on me this year. Or I was trying to block it out.

Really? Happy birthday!

April fools...

You realize when there is a new button in the YouTube videos.

 

[Sophia]

That reminded me about the Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes that gave trap cigarretes to the bad guys and they always went... But don't that, a lot could go wrong. I'm just hearing the Looney Tunes intro music and it's funny. Plus, today is April's Fools which make it even more funny when I think it in my mind. ♫ Uuuu para pa pa pa para pa pa pa pa. Ticu ticu ticu tin ticu ticu tin. Uuuuu para pa pa, papara pa pa pa. Tinuninu tinuninu tata tata tatan tan! ♫ [emoji3]

Music of my childhood!

 

[Psinter]

Mine too!

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

 

[WWGD]

Music of my childhood!

I thought it

They would be proud of it. In their culture it is normal to do things like that. If anyone is interested I may send the video of what am I talking about in a PM. It's part of a larger social problem.
Showing them on YouTube would work for kids from middle or upper class families.
I will record them in order to show it to the local police but posting it on yt would have no effect.

I don't mean to insist, I was thinking of focusing on what the police allows them to do, to pressure the police into taking action and not be embarrassed.

 

[WWGD]

Howard U, the friendliest university in the U.S.

 

[Borg]

MTU is the hungriest.

 

[WWGD]

MTU is the hungriest.

MTU??

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

MTU??

Michigan Tech?

 

[WWGD]

Michigan Tech?

Yes, but why is it the hungriest. The world's hungriest is in Budapest.

 

[Borg]

Michigan Tech?

Yes.
Michigan Technological University

Yes, but why is it the hungriest. The world's hungriest is in Budapest.

Keep saying MTU until you get it.

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

Keep saying MTU until you get it.

Aha! I got it! What about you, @WWGD?

 

[Sophia]

I thought it

I don't mean to insist, I was thinking of focusing on what the police allows them to do, to pressure the police into taking action and not be embarrassed.

Oh now i get it

 

[Sophia]

Aha! I got it! What about you, @WWGD?

Does it become "empty you" ?
Or am I totally wrong :-)

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

Does it become "empty you" ?
Or am I totally wrong :-)

That's what I got out of it

 

[Borg]

Does it become "empty you" ?

Yes. I really didn't think that it was that hard.

 

[Astronuc]

Brave little man - Family Asks for Birthday Cards for Boy Who Survived Brain Cancer
https://gma.yahoo.com/video/family-asks-birthday-cards-boy-173123747.html

 

[WWGD]

No one took my bait for Budapest U :( . (Better as a spoken joke than as a written one)

 

[zoobyshoe]

I got a birthday present for my car, even though it's not my car's birthday: a new set of tires.

Tires for the old air-cooled VW's are hard to find nowadays. Tire outlets just don't sell them, and you have to order them online. I ordered 5 of them, and they came yesterday by UPS. For some reason I thought they would be in boxes, but they were shipped unboxed, just plastered with a bunch of stickers. All in all, probably the best way to do it considering how sturdy tires inherently are.

Anyway, I had them put on today at the local used tire garage. They charged $10.00 per tire, plus an extra $2.00 per tire to balance them. That came to $60.00 just to have them put on. I'm not sure how I feel about that. But there's pretty much no way a person can do that himself without one of those machines to get it on and off the rims.

Driving away, I found everything was so much better! The ride was much smoother, almost as if I'd replaced the shocks. The steering seems über-responsive now. The tires I had before were from 2002 and obviously past the tread wear limit. I think I will get a proper alignment and do the regularly recommended tire rotation, including the spare, from now on.

 

[WWGD]

I got a birthday present for my car, even though it's not my car's birthday: a new set of tires.

Tires for the old air-cooled VW's are hard to find nowadays. Tire outlets just don't sell them, and you have to order them online. I ordered 5 of them, and they came yesterday by UPS. For some reason I thought they would be in boxes, but they were shipped unboxed, just plastered with a bunch of stickers. All in all, probably the best way to do it considering how sturdy tires inherently are.

Anyway, I had them put on today at the local used tire garage. They charged $10.00 per tire, plus an extra $2.00 per tire to balance them. That came to $60.00 just to have them put on. I'm not sure how I feel about that. But there's pretty much no way a person can do that himself without one of those machines to get it on and off the rims.

Driving away, I found everything was so much better! The ride was much smoother, almost as if I'd replaced the shocks. The steering seems über-responsive now. The tires I had before were from 2002 and obviously past the tread wear limit. I think I will get a proper alignment and do the regularly recommended tire rotation, including the spare, from now on.

Happy Birthday, ZooVyeW !

 

[zoobyshoe]

Happy Birthday, ZooVyeW !

 

[Psinter]

Driving away, I found everything was so much better! The ride was much smoother, almost as if I'd replaced the shocks. The steering seems über-responsive now. The tires I had before were from 2002 and obviously past the tread wear limit. I think I will get a proper alignment and do the regularly recommended tire rotation, including the spare, from now on.

Yes, changing the tires makes a huge difference on how the vehicle feels.

A random fun exercise I came up with after browsing random images:

Spoiler: The Problem

If the water in the image falls down with acceleration 9.81\frac{m}{s^2}, how much does the human has to accelerate to avoid the water from touching her? Give your answer in \frac{m}{s^2}. Assume the water in the image has a distance of 1m above of the human, initial velocity is 0 for both the human and the slab of water, neglect air resistance.

Is it possible for a human in that position to accelerate at the rate of your answer and avoid being touched by the water?

It's been so long since I tried an exercise like this, but here is my answer:

Spoiler: My Answer

The water will touch her in approximately 0.45 seconds. That means she needs to move all of her body mass to the side approximately 0.61m (2ft) in less than 0.45 seconds.

The equations of motion yield that the human must at minimum accelerate all of her body at approximately 5.93 m/s^2.

I don't know if a human can do such in that position. Calculations:

The slab of water:
x = x_{0} + v_{0}t + \frac{1}{2}at^2 \\\\<br /> 1m = 0m + 0t + \frac{1}{2}(9.81\frac{m}{s^2})(t^2)\\\\<br /> <br /> \frac{(1m)(2)}{9.81\frac{m}{s^2}} = t^2 \\\\<br /> <br /> t = \pm \sqrt{\frac{2m}{9.81\frac{m}{s^2}}} \\\\<br /> <br /> t\approx \pm 0.45s

The human:
<br /> x = x_{0} + v_{0}t + \frac{1}{2}at^2 \\\\ <br /> 0.60m = 0m + 0(0.45s) + \frac{1}{2}(a)(0.45s)^2\\\\<br /> \frac{(0.60m)(2)}{(0.45s)^2} = a\\\\<br /> a = 5.93 \frac{m}{s^2}

In the end I can get the numbers, but it beats me whether a human can accelerate at that rate in such a position using its muscles.

 

[JorisL]

The fastest would be to roll to the side I think.
However 450 ms requires one to react very fast.

All in all I doubt its possible to get away dry.

 

[Psinter]

The fastest would be to roll to the side I think.
However 450 ms requires one to react very fast.

All in all I doubt its possible to get away dry.

You are right. I hadn't taken reaction time into account, but if we take it into account I guess we can safely assume that she got touched by the water. A reaction time would mean the acceleration must be bigger in order to avoid the water as her time to get away from it would become less than 450 ms.

 

[JorisL]

If I recall correctly a bachelors thesis at my first school did test the reaction speed with a light (random wavelength) and the user had to push a button to register.
I recall the average was about 300 ms for green light (most sensitive for humans).

You can add another layer and wonder at what height one could safely roll aside with a reaction time of 300 ms.

That would mean you need to guesstimate the maximal acceleration though.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I was in the checkout line at Walmart. There was a fairly loud pop behind me, and I saw some "shrapnel" skitter across the floor by my feet. Turned out a woman had dropped a bottle of red wine about ten feet back. There was quite an interesting crimson lake to be dealt with, and in a few moments the smell of it reached me. It was pretty powerful.

On my way out to the car I noticed that kind of scraping feeling on the bottom of my shoe that tells you you've picked up a pebble or something hard. I figured it must be a piece of wine bottle. I tried to scrape it off onto the tar, but it seemed to be lodged in deep.

Having arrived home (which I believe is the Latin Ablative Absolute) I checked my shoe and was surprised to find out it wasn't a piece of glass at all, but a very thick splinter of wood. It was also in quite deep. I had to use pliers to get it out. No idea where I'd picked it up.

Seems so odd life would present such a thorough and plausible explanation of why I had something in my shoe, but then it turns out to have nothing to do with what was in my shoe.

 

[Psinter]

If I recall correctly a bachelors thesis at my first school did test the reaction speed with a light (random wavelength) and the user had to push a button to register.
I recall the average was about 300 ms for green light (most sensitive for humans).

You can add another layer and wonder at what height one could safely roll aside with a reaction time of 300 ms.

That would mean you need to guesstimate the maximal acceleration though.

I see. With a visual reaction time of 300 ms, the human would have left only a little more than 100 ms to accelerate. Which means that the human would need to accelerate about 12m/s^2 to avoid the water. Now that is fast. A considerable increase in the original calculations. It's a little more than double after all.

Edit: Haha! I hovered the top banner of the page and was surprised by a certain someone. I thought I was at a fake page and panicked for a few milliseconds there.

 

[WWGD]

Kind of weird. Zoned out and I watched an infomercial for around an hour. And I did not even notice what it was about.

 

[Psinter]

Kind of weird. Zoned out and I watched an infomercial for around an hour. And I did not even notice what it was about.

I have been caught a few times zoning out. Although never when I have been thinking of a person I like. All of the times have been while thinking about technical stuff.

Do you imagine zoning out by thinking of the person you like while being in front of the person you like? That must be embarrassing.

 

[JorisL]

@Psinter You should start a thread dedicated to that kind of problem.
It could prove an invaluable resource for students and people that aren't very knowledgeable about physics.

I would see it as a motivation for demotivated students as well, the kind that asks "what's the use of all this".

 

[Sophia]

Seems so odd life would present such a thorough and plausible explanation of why I had something in my shoe, but then it turns out to have nothing to do with what was in my shoe.

That's why we have science to (dis)prove everything using FACTS!

 

[Sophia]

Random thought inspired by Raghav Gupta's thread.
Are there really so many words in the English language that native speakers must learn lists of words with their definitions? I saw it in some films where they mentioned Spelling Bee and other times I saw that High School students are tested from understanding of certain difficult words. Is that common thing to learn as a native English speaking child?
It seems strange to me, to learn one's native language that way. Do people really use so many terms that learning the words in natural way is not enough? Or is a vast passive vocabulary perceived as something that improves your social status?

 

[WWGD]

Random thought inspired by Raghav Gupta's thread.
Are there really so many words in the English language that native speakers must learn lists of words with their definitions? I saw it in some films where they mentioned Spelling Bee and other times I saw that High School students are tested from understanding of certain difficult words. Is that common thing to learn as a native English speaking child?
It seems strange to me, to learn one's native language that way. Do people really use so many terms that learning the words in natural way is not enough? Or is a vast passive vocabulary perceived as something that improves your social status?

Yes, I don't see much point in spelling bees either. I think the issue is that English is a particularly non-phonetic language, i.e., it is often difficult for many to determine the correct spelling by just hearing the word.

 

[Sophia]

Yes, I don't see much point in spelling bees either. I think the issue is that English is a particularly non-phonetic language, i.e., it is often difficult for many to determine the correct spelling by just hearing the word.

I guess it must be very confusing for children who know the phonetic form of the word and then see it written in a different way.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Are there really so many words in the English language that native speakers must learn lists of words with their definitions? I saw it in some films where they mentioned Spelling Bee and other times I saw that High School students are tested from understanding of certain difficult words. Is that common thing to learn as a native English speaking child?
It seems strange to me, to learn one's native language that way. Do people really use so many terms that learning the words in natural way is not enough? Or is a vast passive vocabulary perceived as something that improves your social status?

Grammar school English classes do, indeed, put a lot of focus on "vocabulary building." After the children are taught the rudiments of reading, they're given paragraphs and even larger stories to read which employ progressively more words. Those words are highlighted in the text and defined below it, and the kids have to learn what they mean in order to understand the story.

Eventually, in higher grades, they are taught about the dictionary and, instead of being given reading material where potential unknown words are highlighted and defined for them, they are instructed to identify unknown words for themselves and to look them up in the separate dictionary.

I don't think it's very common for kids to be given random lists of words and their definitions disembodied from any context to memorize. At least, that never happened to me.

Spelling is a different matter. In preparation for spelling bees, a student might well be given a list of difficult-to-spell words and their definitions to outright memorize. The focus is on the spelling in this case and not on the definition. In other words, spelling bees are not "vocabulary building." They're all about spelling, which is extremely complicated in English compared to other languages, and needs special attention, even for native speakers.

 

[Ibix]

But nowadays we have spell checkers to make spelling easy: http://www.latech.edu/tech/liberal-arts/geography/courses/spellchecker.htm

 

[collinsmark]

I don't think it's very common for kids to be given random lists of words and their definitions disembodied from any context to memorize. At least, that never happened to me.

I had a at least one teacher who taught like that. Every Monday in the 9th grade we were given a new list of "vocabulary" words that we needed to memorize along with their definitions. On Friday we were quizzed on them, in the form of a "matching" test: All the words were given and all the definitions were given on a piece of paper, but not in order, and we had to match the words to their appropriate definitions.

Also I distinctly recall a particular section of a standardized test* in the verbal section were we were given seemingly random words, and had to guess their antonyms from a list. It could be pretty tough if both the words and the list of antonyms were obscure.

*(Was it in a college entrance exam test like the ACT or SAT? I can't recall for sure).

 

[zoobyshoe]

I had a at least one teacher who taught like that. Every Monday in the 9th grade we were given a new list of "vocabulary" words that we needed to memorize along with their definitions. On Friday we were quizzed on them, in the form of a "matching" test: All the words were given and all the definitions were given on a piece of paper, but not in order, and we had to match the words to their appropriate definitions.

I guess all I can say is I think it's unfortunate when a teacher does this sort of thing, and I hope it's not wide spread. I don't recall it ever happening to me in grammar or high school.

 

[Psinter]

@Psinter You should start a thread dedicated to that kind of problem.
It could prove an invaluable resource for students and people that aren't very knowledgeable about physics.

I would see it as a motivation for demotivated students as well, the kind that asks "what's the use of all this".

I just put it here thinking that since it was something I randomly came up with while browsing images for the sake of fun it was the best place.

Maybe next time, I will create a new thread.

But nowadays we have spell checkers to make spelling easy: http://www.latech.edu/tech/liberal-arts/geography/courses/spellchecker.htm

When I have doubts about how a word is pronounced in English I go to an online text-to-speech and put the word there to listen to it. Once I was in a computer lab at uni and it was very silent. A guy took the Google Translator page and put an obscene word there. Turned the computer's volume at max and began to repeatedly click the speaker button. The obscene word was spoken out loud repeatedly by the translator with woman voice while he and a few others laughed. One girl rolled up her eyes and said something like: "How childish. I can't believe these idiots." Only students were there. Is that childish?

 

[Scott C.]

Today, it seems much of this process is politically or administratively driven by departments of education (elected officials or appointees) needing to be seen addressing issues; after all Federal and State standardized test results affect funding (and careers). The net result is that the wheel gets reinvented periodically.

US of A educators appear to be in thrall to two cyclical conflicting language acquisition theories. One favors the phonetic and the other the memorized character driven approach. Back in olden times, when you had to walk uphill (both ways) through hip deep snow to get to school I was taught the phonetic approach while those following me by a little as five years were taught the character approach. To me these folks seem challenged, in that, when confronted by a novel word (perhaps in a lecture, conversation, taking notes...) using a dictionary seems very difficult for them.

 

[WWGD]

This Indian guy who would not grow up was aptly named Childeesh.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today, it seems much of this process is politically or administratively driven by departments of education (elected officials or appointees) needing to be seen addressing issues; ...

I see school boards getting cited so frequently as examples of bureaucracy gone awry that I've come to feel education in the US is doomed.

 

[JorisL]

I see school boards getting cited so frequently as examples of bureaucracy gone awry that I've come to feel education in the US is doomed.

While a little different it turns out that the latest version of the minimal requirements scrapped friction and its description as a force has been scrapped from those requirements. As a consequence the newest books barely mention friction while it is of the utmost importance when connecting the idealized picture to real life experience. The professor focusing on physics education research over here couldn't grasp what would motivate such a decision.
Especially considering the fact that professional physicists are involved in drafting the new syllabi.

Hopefully teachers keep complaining about this and teach about friction regardless (they are minimal requirements after all). Otherwise high school mechanics becomes a lot more complicated to intuitively grasp (leading to misconceptions that one needs to apply a constant force to retain a constant speed).

 

[Scott C.]

Simplification is the road to higher test scores, therefore more and more content is removed (in all disciplines). I don't believe teachers will complain since they teach their students how to pass the tests, (they are evaluated on the scores their students achieve).

College educators may have reason to complain regarding the level of incoming students, but the political aim to embrace diversity has been apparently achieved. This a tragedy because those same political forces put forward a laudable objective without supplying commensurate commitment of real resources to achieve this within most venues.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Today I got a birthday present for my car, even though it's not my car's birthday: a new muffler

Mufflers for the old air-cooled VW's are hard to find nowadays. Muffler outlets just don't sell them, and you have to order them online. I ordered one of them, and it came this morning by USPS.

Having been shipped from China (which I do not believe is the Latin Ablative Absolute) it had to cross the ocean, and for that reason came painted merely to prevent rust. The retailer warned this paint had to be stripped and replaced with high temperature paint.

A trip to home depot where I bought paint stripper and rubber gloves took from 2:30 to 3:30. By 4:30, the paint was successfully stripped. The paint stripper worked remarkably well. I can't tell you what brand I used because that would be spamming. A trip down to AutoZone got me a can of flat black high temperature paint (1300º to 2000º F). Tomorrow I shall spray this puppy and install it. Installation is a simple matter: it's held on with three bolts, no welding required.

This is not the standard air-cooled VW muffler, incidentally. Some previous owner changed all the pipe work so it takes a different muffler.

"Muffler" reminded me of "muffin," so I had to go get one. When I got to Walmart, I got distracted by cupcakes and brought one of those home instead. Regardless, since the muffler/muffin association did not lead to trying to eat the muffler, I came out of it unscathed.

 

[Sophia]

I had a at least one teacher who taught like that. Every Monday in the 9th grade we were given a new list of "vocabulary" words that we needed to memorize along with their definitions. On Friday we were quizzed on them, in the form of a "matching" test: All the words were given and all the definitions were given on a piece of paper, but not in order, and we had to match the words to their appropriate definitions.

Also I distinctly recall a particular section of a standardized test* in the verbal section were we were given seemingly random words, and had to guess their antonyms from a list. It could be pretty tough if both the words and the list of antonyms were obscure.

*(Was it in a college entrance exam test like the ACT or SAT? I can't recall for sure).

This is what I meant.
But I guess it's understandable because English is so rich with all those derivatives from Latin, French, phrasal verbs and idioms. And also, as was said in the propone thread, it is spoken in many countries that have their own dialect.

I guess all I can say is I think it's unfortunate when a teacher does this sort of thing, and I hope it's not wide spread. I don't recall it ever happening to me in grammar or high school.

I was asking because I had a classmate who was sent to a US high school for a year. It was one of the better/ posh schools and she chose to try an English class for native speakers. And she said they used to get lists of words like that, too. She found it interesting as one can obviously expect such methods being used in foreign language classes, but this course was aimed at proper American students.

College educators may have reason to complain regarding the level of incoming students, but the political aim to embrace diversity has been apparently achieved. This a tragedy because those same political forces put forward a laudable objective without supplying commensurate commitment of real resources to achieve this within most venues.

This also the case here. More and more uni teachers complain about level of high school Math. Students come unprepared and at least some lessons in the first year of Math and Physics courses have to be dedicated to explaining stuff that used to be taught at HS before. The simplification starts at primary level (grades 1-9 here). For example, teaching equations with 2 unknowns was omitted. I was a witness when an angry high school teacher called a primary Math teacher asking her why she hasn't taught equations to the students. And the poor primary school teacher explained that it was omitted in the new standards. Also, she explained, students have great difficulties grasping basic concepts that used to be easily taught in the past (due to lack of interest and increasing discipline problems). She is an experienced teacher who has been teaching for 39 years.

Edit: I don't know if this is the case in the US, too, but while many things are omitted from the standards, new ones are added constantly. For example, compulsory English from Grade 3 and second foreign language is compulsory from Grade 7. Or IT classes from the 2nd grade. Schools have options to incomporate environmental, regional and media education as well. Than there are compulsory Religion or Ethics from the first grade. There is also pressure to include projects and creativity to the classes instead of memorising new information. And that takes more time compared to traditional lectures.
It seems to me that the educational system is standing on crossroads now and we must decide if we want to continue teaching a few subjects deeply or a broad range of subjects on a more shallow level. And whether to emphasise traditional methods or new, more creative ones.

 

[Psinter]

At my place, once a Kindergarden teacher went to Germany to learn about the Germans' educational system. She liked what she saw and when she came back she asked our government for help to implement in our country's public schools the same K-12 teaching system the Germans were using. But of course the government did not fund the project. Like always.

 

[Sophia]

At my place, once a Kindergarden teacher went to Germany to learn about the Germans' educational system. She liked what she saw and when she came back she asked our government for help to implement in our country's public schools the same K-12 teaching system the Germans were using. But of course the government did not fund the project. Like always.

That's typical. There's too much politics and ideology involved in education. And people like to keep the system the same as when they were students. That's perceived as a golden standard and everything new is either a regress or redundant and useless.
At the same time there is pressure from international comparisons (eg Czechoslovakia used to have good ratings before the revolution but now we get worse results each year). And each minister of education (there were 16 of them in 23 years) wants to prove that he "does something" so more and more beraucracy is invented all the time. We have got tons of projects on paper but none of them works in real life.

 

[Psinter]

We have got tons of projects on paper but none of them works in real life.

I know that feeling bro... I mean sis... I mean... The point is I know that feeling .

 

[Astronuc]

Edwin Shifrin seldom discussed his time at war. He escaped from a German POW camp toward the end of WWII.

"We knew he'd been in the war, that he had been captured and that he escaped. That's about it. He didn't talk about it," said Dan Shifrin, who lives in the Denver area. "My guess is he figured it was just part of his life — many went through it, many didn't return. Many of those who did return didn't return in one piece."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/missouri-veteran-escaped-nazi-prison-camp-gets-medal-134952763.html