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... on the other hand: hemp could workBillTre said:TIL there are bridges in India made of living tree roots:
Very cool. I want one.

However, depending on location this could lead to a completely different kind of problems.
... on the other hand: hemp could workBillTre said:TIL there are bridges in India made of living tree roots:
Very cool. I want one.
Haven't thought of Hawaii. But as I thought a bit, I know roots which would definitely work!BillTre said:I live in Oregon. The Bill name came from some UK area.
I could imagine doing this in Hawaii or possibly in the Olympic peninsula (its a temperate rain froest there).
Since I'm in the US and have visited Hawaii a few times, I claim that as reasonably possible.
Hawaii has the right kind of vegetation. Not so sure about The Olympic Peninsula.
Not roots, but the fibers are strong and one can make cloths of it. And it grows like crazy.BillTre said:I don't think hemp would have the longevity to get it done right.
Nor have I seen hemp stems (or roots) fusing together like they do in these bridges.
Some pictures of Angkor Wat in mind, it should work in other countries in southeast Asia, too.mfb said:
Try blackberries. I remember once I wanted to remove a bush with a friend somewhere, and as it came to its roots, we ended up 50 m further downhill! That thing seemed to stop nowhere.BillTre said:That's what the CNN article I read said.
However, I see no reason to feel limited on this.
Oh... My... Bog. I glanced at the article in this morning's NYT but seeing the photo here I realize the center sculpture depicts a giant used tampon. One hesitates to imagine the phallic museum equivalent.BillTre said:TIL there's a vagina museum in London.
View attachment 253158
NY Times story here.
The article makes note of a Phallological Museum in Iceland.
I never thought I'd say this, given my tendency toward off-colour jokes,... but,...BillTre said:TIL there's a vagina museum in London.
strangerep said:I never thought I'd say this, given my tendency toward off-colour jokes,... but,...
Congratulations. You've exposed the exact location of my vomit threshold.![]()
Sometimes you can know too much!BillTre said:TIL there's a vagina museum in London.
View attachment 253158
NY Times story here.
The article makes note of a Phallological Museum in Iceland.
Yes. We need a complimentary thread: "Today I wished I could forget..."chemisttree said:Sometimes you can know too much!
Fixed that for ya. . . .fresh_42 said:Not roots, but the fibers are strong and one can make cloths of it. And it grows likecrazy
weeds.
phinds said:d the traffic circle and other traffic safety things, all by one man.
Not when you aren't used to them. Scared the hell out of me when they suddenly appeared many years ago on a route I took frequently in NJ. Didn't seem safe 'til I got used to them.Bystander said:"Traffic circle" and "safety"? Oxymoron.
Exactly. That's why I found the ones in NJ a bit scary until I got used to them and even then I never liked them.BillTre said:Out here in Eugene/Springfield, Oregon, they put little ones in places where 4 roads come together and I don't find them more useful than a normal intersection, mostly because I am worried about other people not navigating them correctly and causing problems.
Exactly; no one is going to come at you from the side without stopping.fresh_42 said:At an intersection or traffic light one has to stop.
Simulated drowning?BillTre said:In some cases, this is immediately reversible by turning the simulator off.
It has possibly been responsible for a some drownings.
mfb said:They can't have been very wise if they followed two planets and then decided "we are here" in a random place.
A Jupiter-Saturn conjunction seems unlikely, even if the story is not pure fiction.
Lesch explained it in all detail, including all conjunctions this year, the position in the sky, the duration of a journey from Babylon to Bethlehem per camel (Oct. 3rd - conjunction seen in Babylon, end of Nov. in Palestine), the N-S direction Jerusalem-Bethlehem of the planets' position on Dec. 4th, plus the ancient astrological meaning of both planets and the star sign where it appeared in.mfb said:They can't have been very wise if they followed two planets and then decided "we are here" in a random place.
A Jupiter-Saturn conjunction seems unlikely, even if the story is not pure fiction.
Did you check the reference 8 on the Wikipedia page? According to it Kepler expected a nova to appear whenever such a conjunction happens and Mars is nearby - a claim that is just silly from a modern perspective.fresh_42 said:Plus the fact, that this dates back to a calculation from Kepler 1603, later supported by a finding of a cuneiform by Schnabel.
That doesn't make Kepler's calculations wrong. And Lesch - tv presence or not - is still an astrophysicist, which I trust more than any Wikipedia entry.mfb said:According to it Kepler expected a nova to appear whenever such a conjunction happens and Mars is nearby - a claim that is just silly from a modern perspective.
Best reading someone like Bart D Ehrman on this, he is NT scholar. Matthew and Luke wanted to place Jesus in Bethlehem for the Davidic connection and the prophecy in the OT. Those accounts contradict each other and there is no historical records of a empire wide census.fresh_42 said:That doesn't make Kepler's calculations wrong. And Lesch - tv presence or not - is still an astrophysicist, which I trust more than any Wikipedia entry.
Reference 8 is from another astrophysicist or something like that. The Wikipedia article just makes a one-sentence summary of the longer explanation.fresh_42 said:And Lesch - tv presence or not - is still an astrophysicist, which I trust more than any Wikipedia entry.
Any such claim is of course speculation. But the explanations Lesch offered to explain direction, time, and duration made sense. Novae can be ruled out. But Pisces, Jupiter, Saturn, and West had an astrological meaning in those days, so it is at least thinkable. I only said that the celestial data fit and that Kepler had calculated it in 1603. There was no need to emphasize equipped with modern knowledge, that Kepler's hypothesis about novae was wrong. So what? His orbit calculations were not, and that was all I claimed.mfb said:Someone trying to follow that to a specific point was at best foolish.
Also @fresh_42 From 33.30-46.50 Is a comparison of the details by Ehrmanmfb said:Reference 8 is from another astrophysicist or something like that. The Wikipedia article just makes a one-sentence summary of the longer explanation.
No one doubts that the conjunction happened, but that was not a surprising event even 2000 years ago. Someone trying to follow that to a specific point was at best foolish. Kepler's suggestion that people followed a nova created by the planets is just nonsense as we know today.
Religious debate is not allowed on physics forums for good reason.gleem said:TIL the "Matthew Effect" the erroneous attribution of some well known saying or work to more well known or famous persons rather than the true originator. Coined by Robert Merton a sociologist of science researcher after the Apostle Matthew's gospel.
"For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away."
— Matthew 25:29, RSV.
And how did I stumble on this tidbit. On perusing the internet on "why is physics so difficult" finding an article on the most difficult concept in physics (btw was classical mechanics of rotational motion of a rigid body) a reference was made to a saying attributed to R Feynman about interpretation of QM " Shut up an calculate" and the reference to a search for its true origin (M. David Mermin, Cornell )