What is the newest installment of 'Random Thoughts' on Physics Forums?

[dlgoff]

Funny, I was just talking to a neighbor about this. She said, just call the local SSA office to get started. They will make you an appointment and then help you thru the process. The commercials are for people who can't look up phone numbers, don't have a cell or a computer, can't read, etc. They get the same benefits but they need help navigating the system.

I don't need the dang benefits. And I don't need the commercials.

edit: changed wording a little

 

[ergospherical]

Did anyone watch the France x Switzerland game? Pretty mad stuff coming back from 3-1 with nine minutes left and then to knock out France on penalties

 

[kyphysics]

I've ranted about Ebay's slow as molasses shipping before, but one thing that equally stinks is the useless USPS tracking. I was told my package got to a shipping center eight days ago. ...Great. ...Since then, however, I've seen nothing when punching in that USPS tracking number.

This has happened a lot with USPS. They suck.

As much as I dislike many aspects of Amazon, they at least have very good tracking and are infinitely faster at delivery.

 

[Keith_McClary]

useless USPS tracking

(Expensive extra cost) Canada Post tracking tells us when it is shipped (or enters the country) and when it is delivered.

 

[WWGD]

Did anyone watch the France x Switzerland game? Pretty mad stuff coming back from 3-1 with nine minutes left and then to knock out France on penalties

Is the World Cup playing in 2022. Qatar? Chinese, Indians still upset when I express surprise that countries like Costa Rica, with 5 million people can qualify, but neither China nor India can.

 

[WWGD]

Fun Summer song:

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Have you ever noticed that in all of the science fiction movies and shows where time slows down or stops for everyone and everything except the main character, it is never dark?

 

[Keith_McClary]

Have you ever noticed that in all of the science fiction movies and shows where time slows down or stops for everyone and everything except the main character, it is never dark?

Good point. It should get dimmer and redder as it slows down. Then the main character would need a flashlight - but that would be like X-rays and go right through the slowed folks, so the main character wouldn't see much.

 

[Tom.G]

it is never dark?

Smart!

Spoiler

It avoids the riot when the audience realizes they just paid for 10 minutes of... NOTHING.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Smart!

Spoiler

It avoids the riot when the audience realizes they just paid for 10 minutes of... NOTHING.

Temporal mechanics is a harsh mistress.

 

[WWGD]

I thougt quantum mechanics were those who fixed quantum cars/machines.

 

[WWGD]

Always good as reminder against anti vaxxers

 

[Borg]

The hard part is removing the third column with all of the conspiracy theories.

 

[collinsmark]

Have you ever noticed that in all of the science fiction movies and shows where time slows down or stops for everyone and everything except the main character, it is never dark?

Indeed. That and the fact that the character is able to easily move around without creating sonic booms, not to mention the possibility of actually ionizing the air molecules around them. Yes, I think about that stuff every time.

Suspension of Disbelief gets me through it, though. I do enjoy a good scifi/ghost/fantasy/demon story, even if it isn't altogether realistic.

 

[kyphysics]

More shrinkflation:

Last time, I noticed it seemingly at Chick-Fil-A. Now, I'm getting less entree at Panda Express, while the noodle portion seems more (saw that with several dishes I ordered). Sneaky. I suppose it's harder to notice than a price change. And the food seems "less packed" into their bowls like before - now there is more empty pockets of space.

Pizza Hut, on the other hand, did raise their prices by $1-2 on main pizzas. Toppings feel the same.

Good thing Costco gas is cheap and their money-losing $5 fresh rotisserie chickens are still available.

 

[Astronuc]

Among the business maxims Alfred E. Perlman (President of the Penn Central Transportation Company and its predecessor, the New York Central Railroad) is best remembered for is a comment which appeared in the New York Times on July 3, 1958. "After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Perlman

Perlman's predecessor was Robert R. Young, who in a deep depression committed suicide on Janary 25, 1958. As I recall, he shot himself in the head with a shotgun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_R._Young
https://www.nytimes.com/1958/01/26/...-life-in-palm-beach-chairman-of-new-york.html
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/young-robert-ralph

 

[WWGD]

More shrinkflation:

Last time, I noticed it seemingly at Chick-Fil-A. Now, I'm getting less entree at Panda Express, while the noodle portion seems more (saw that with several dishes I ordered). Sneaky. I suppose it's harder to notice than a price change. And the food seems "less packed" into their bowls like before - now there is more empty pockets of space.

Pizza Hut, on the other hand, did raise their prices by $1-2 on main pizzas. Toppings feel the same.

Good thing Costco gas is cheap and their money-losing $5 fresh rotisserie chickens are still available.

I've noticed places that offer , e.g., 50% off for lunch , say, until 3 p.m, but then give you around half the original portion or less. And charge you extra for any add-one.

Among the business maxims Alfred E. Perlman (President of the Penn Central Transportation Company and its predecessor, the New York Central Railroad) is best remembered for is a comment which appeared in the New York Times on July 3, 1958. "After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Perlman

Perlman's predecessor was Robert R. Young, who in a deep depression committed suicide on Janary 25, 1958. As I recall, he shot himself in the head with a shotgun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_R._Young
https://www.nytimes.com/1958/01/26/...-life-in-palm-beach-chairman-of-new-york.html
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/young-robert-ralph

I'm thinking of jokes I would be too embarrassed to say ... Wonder if you intended to connect the two paragraphs.

 

[Astronuc]

I'm thinking of jokes I would be too embarrassed to say ... Wonder if you intended to connect the two paragraphs.

There is no connection between the quote by Perlman and the unfortunate end of Robert Young. Young brought Perlman to the NY Central to improve it, which Perlman did eventually, after Young's suicide.

There were strong economic forces beyond the control of Young and Perlman, and even though both were accomplished, they could not overcome their respective situations. If only Young had held on longer, but then he would have watched the catastrophe of the merger/takeover of the NY Central by the Pennsylvania Railroad into the PennCentral Corporation, and the subsequent bankruptcy.

Penn Central operated a system with 40,000 miles (64,000 km) of track in fourteen states and two Canadian provinces. It had total assets of $6.3 billion and annual revenues of nearly $2 billion. Within two years of merger, competition from trucking on the federally funded Interstate Highway System and the St. Lawrence Seaway, deindustralization in the Northeast and Rust Belt, an economic downturn, strict regulation, heavy taxation, redundant trackage, outdated work rules, the inability to end money-losing passenger services, the forced 1969 integration of the financially disabled New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad by the Interstate Commerce Commission, coupled with Penn Central's own bungled integration of the merged companies and mismanagement, resulted in the largest corporate bankruptcy in American history to that time.

For an comprehensive overview of the PC demise and bankruptcy, see -
Daughen, Joseph R. & Peter Binzen (1999). The Wreck of the Penn Central (2nd ed.). Boston: Beard Books Little, Brown. ISBN 1-893122-08-5.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/06/22/...authority-to-reorganize-under-bankruptcy.html


(news on PennCentral bankruptcy starting at 2:05 )

At the time, the US government was considering a bailout of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation (June 21, 1970) and dealing with the fallout of the Pentagon Papers and Mi Lai massacre in Vietnam. (June 23)

June 21, 1970 - 6:41 - 8:40 on Mi Lai massacre story


June 23, 1970 - Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsburg (0:25 - 9:35) Ralph Nader on Lockheed Aircraft Co. in distress 21:21 - 21:46

 

[WWGD]

I've bern following the chain of use of the bird " Turkey". It is called, of course, " Turkey" in the US; called " Hindi" in Turkish, and something like " Pago " in Hindi. Wonder if it completes a loop of translations.

 

[fresh_42]

I've bern following the chain of use of the bird " Turkey". It is called, of course, " Turkey" in the US; called " Hindi" in Turkish, and something like " Pago " in Hindi. Wonder if it completes a loop of translations.

They call it Truter in Bern.

 

[WWGD]

They call it Truter in Bern.

Too bad. I can't eat non-Hamiltonian foods!

 

[fresh_42]

How do you distinguish a physicist from a mathematician?

Easy. You simply say 'Noether'. If he thinks of groups he is a physicist, and if he thinks of rings he is a mathematician.

 

[Borg]

How do you distinguish a physicist from a mathematician?

Easy. You simply say 'Noether'. If he thinks of groups he is a physicist, and if he thinks of rings he is a mathematician.

And if he thinks of neither, he's neither.

 

[WWGD]

And if he thinks of neither, he's neither.

Neither Noethet nor any Oether.

 

[fresh_42]

Neither Noethet nor any Oether.

I wonder how you pronounce Noether. I would have expected you to call her Emmy instead.

 

[DrGreg]

I wonder how you pronounce Noether. I would have expected you to call her Emmy instead.

I have to confess that, until maybe a year or two ago I had assumed (never having heard anyone say the name, and not knowing any German) that the pronunciation was something like "noy-ther". I now believe it's more like "ner-ter".

 

[fresh_42]

I have to confess that, until maybe a year or two ago I had assumed (never having heard anyone say the name, and not knowing any German) that the pronunciation was something like "noy-ther". I now believe it's more like "ner-ter".

The "ö" as in Schrödinger, Noether, or Gödel is difficult for native English speakers. Wiki solves it this way: Oedipus UK: /ˈiːdɪpəs/, US: /ˈɛdə-/ , but I doubt that it comes close. It is a bit like in "urgent", "surf", or "turn". The difficulty is, that the rolling tongue of the American pronunciation should be removed, i.e. without "r" after the "u", which is apparently even more difficult than it is for us to pronounce the "th" correctly.

 

[WWGD]

Id been working with the likes of geometric topology where her name does not pop up very often.

 

[Keith_McClary]

I wonder how you pronounce Noether.

 

[fresh_42]

Sabine can hardly be called a valid reference.

Btw. French and Hungarian have an "ö", too. How do you manage to pronounce Richelieu or Erdös.