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

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The discussion revolves around frustrations with current documentary programming, particularly criticizing the History Channel's focus on sensational topics like time travel conspiracies instead of real historical content. Participants express disappointment over National Geographic's sale to Fox, fearing a decline in quality programming. The conversation shifts to lighter topics, including humorous anecdotes about everyday life, such as a malfunctioning kitchen fan discovered to be blocked by installation instructions. There are also discussions about the challenges of understanding various dialects in Belgium, the complexities of language, and personal experiences with weather and housing in California. Members share their thoughts on food, including a peculiar dish of zucchini pancakes served with strawberry yogurt, and delve into mathematical concepts related to sandwich cutting and the properties of numbers. The thread captures a blend of serious commentary and lighthearted banter, reflecting a diverse range of interests and perspectives among participants.
  • #9,571
It seems Euclid plead the Fifth re his Parallel Postulate.
 
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  • #9,572
I really enjoyed it today. A cup of coffee. Hot coffee. Just coffee. No latte, no cappuccino, no artificial flavors, nothing. The only question was: with a cover or not? Milk and sugar were available as much as I liked. But that was all extras. And it was all that was needed.

And, yes, nobody asked my name.
 
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  • #9,573
fresh_42 said:
I really enjoyed it today. A cup of coffee. Hot coffee. Just coffee. No latte, no cappuccino, no artificial flavors, nothing. The only question was: with a cover or not? Milk and sugar were available as much as I liked. But that was all extras. And it was all that was needed.

And, yes, nobody asked my name.
Sort of goes with this offer by YouTube: White noise for studying, reading ,
if you're in a somewhat noisy place. I remember Toffler's prescient observation on how society would need to cut down on overstimulation.

As for me, I just asked for my Pepsi. All I wanted was a Pepsi. Just a Pepsi...
 
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  • #9,574
What to do when a person firmly believes the following are equivalent?
  1. ##\forall x \exists y P(x,y)##
  2. ##\exists x_0 \forall y P(x_0,y)##
and it's driving you nuts. Could ignore and let someone else deal with their malfunctioning mind. Am I responsible for letting it get there, though?
 
  • #9,575
nuuskur said:
What to do when a person firmly believes the following are equivalent?
  1. ##\forall x \exists y P(x,y)##
  2. ##{}\underbrace{\lnot}_{\text{now they are ...}}{}\left(\exists x_0 \forall y {}\underbrace{\lnot}_{\text{... equivalent}}{}P(x_0,y)\right)##
 
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  • #9,576
nuuskur said:
What to do when a person firmly believes the following are equivalent?
  1. ##\forall x \exists y P(x,y)##
  2. ##\exists x_0 \forall y P(x_0,y)##
and it's driving you nuts. Could ignore and let someone else deal with their malfunctioning mind. Am I responsible for letting it get there, though?
Every person is someone's father does not imply there is a specific person who's everyone's father.
Not even for Luke.

Edit: Will they accept a Universe/Possible World in which their argument does not hold:

##\{ x_1, x_2, x_3 \} ; P(x_3, x_3),P(x_1, x_2), P( x_2, x_3) ##?
 
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  • #9,577
What are the odds? Starbucks had a worker wearing a sign tag : " I'm in Training". I was wearing one that
read " I'm Not"??
 
  • #9,578
Learning something new every day.

Wife out in the blackberry/blueberry patch pulling weeds. She had noticed a chipmunk in one of the blueberry bushes, so she went out to put down some rubber snakes (we'll see if they work). She started pulling weeds, so I went out to join her. She had several kinds in her hand and made a comment the weeds were out of control.

I reached down and asked about a weed I didn't recognize.

Me: You want to get rid of this?

Wife: Yeah, it's invasive. (I thought she said evasive).

Me: (pulling weed) What is it?

Wife: It's black medic.

Me: (Still pulling he weed)

Wife: It's poisonous.

Me: Thanks for letting me know. Is it poisonous to touch? (I'm thinking like poison ivy or giant hogweed).

Wife: No, just the berries (which the plant had).

I tossed the weed in the garbage and washed my hands. Not sure about its toxicity after reading about it.
 
  • #9,579
Astronuc said:
I tossed the weed in the garbage and washed my hands.
I don't think it (medicago lupulina) is poisonous. Invasive in America, yes. It grows everywhere in Eurasia and is used as food for cattle. You won't do that if it was poisonous.
 
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  • #9,580
fresh_42 said:
I don't think it (medicago lupulina) is poisonous. Invasive in America, yes. It grows everywhere in Eurasia and is used as food for cattle. You won't do that if it was poisonous.
After reading up on it, I agree that it does not appear to be poisonous. It is a just another nuisance.
 
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  • #9,581
Astronuc said:
After reading up on it, I agree that it does not appear to be poisonous. It is a just another nuisance.
Heracleum mantegazzianum (giant hogweed / Riesen-Bärenklau) is our common enemy.
 
  • #9,582
fresh_42 said:
Heracleum mantegazzianum (giant hogweed / Riesen-Bärenklau) is our common enemy.
I just read about this somewhere. Its a nasty plant!
 
  • #9,583
BillTre said:
I just read about this somewhere. Its a nasty plant!
I recently learned that Taxus is dangerous.
 
  • #9,584
fresh_42 said:
Taxus
Source of taxol (an anticancer drug). Better know as yew trees to me.
We had them in our yard as ornamentals, when I was a kid. I was aware they were poisonous nature (I never ate any of their cute red "berries"!).
Screen Shot 2022-07-06 at 2.08.05 PM.png

Here a really weird plant I read about recently:
Screen Shot 2022-07-06 at 2.06.26 PM.png

A kind of pitcher plant, in Indonesia, that grows its pitchers underground and catch most invertebrates there. Pitcher plants trap and digest animals to supplement their nutrients in a nutrient poor environment. They make a pot (pitcher) of digestive juices to digest trapped insects. Nutrients freed by digestion are absorbed through the walls of the pitcher.
This CNN report has some video.
Here is the original research report.
 
  • #9,585
BillTre said:
I never ate any of their cute red "berries"!
The berries aren't poisonous, only the seeds. At least the European variant. The needles and the bark are. And 100g needles isn't very much. My favorite syrupe against cough is made of needles. Or was it pinecones?
 
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  • #9,586
Day 90. And still tempted.
 
  • #9,587
Wonder if all constructions of Fractals are algorithmic. ("Standard")Cantor set has the obvious "Remove Middle Third of each remaining component. No idea ofr others.
 
  • #9,588
WWGD said:
Wonder if all constructions of Fractals are algorithmic. ("Standard")Cantor set has the obvious "Remove Middle Third of each remaining component. No idea ofr others.
More famous is the Mandelbrot set (here: apple men).
 
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  • #9,589
A Lottery Lawyer Won Their Trust, Then Lost Their Mega Millions
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...inners-lost-riches-after-using-lottery-lawyer
Jay Kurland built a practice giving legal and financial advice to jackpot winners. He’s now accused of fraud.
In 2018 he started representing the biggest solo lottery winner of all time, a woman who’d bought a $1.5 billion ticket at a convenience store in South Carolina.
I wondered what happened to that anonymous woman who won the $1.5 billion (probably about $950 million after taxes).
 
  • #9,590
WWGD said:
Send your spies to take care of it.;).
The spies recommended dumping the android and going with the "dark side", yup, iphone. I don't miss the glitchy android one bit and comparing play store and apple store apps for malware is a little sobering. (spy vs. spy was my favorite strip from mad, thus the avatar.)
 
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  • #9,591
Oldman too said:
The spies recommended dumping the android and going with the "dark side", yup, iphone. I don't miss the glitchy android one bit and comparing play store and apple store apps for malware is a little sobering. (spy vs. spy was my favorite strip from mad, thus the avatar.)
I was kind of partial to both " Joke Setups in Search of a Punchline" and " No-joke Jokes".

An example of the first was " Dr Kevorkian walks into a butcher shop and gets _two_ tickets..."
For the second: " Your mama so fat, when she walks around the house, she really walks around the house", and " The town I was born in was so small, even the hooker wore a helmet".
 
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  • #9,592
Kind of interesting:
20220707_021010.jpg
 
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  • #9,593
WWGD said:
Kind of interesting:
Amazing that no one has worked that into a marketing angle yet.
 
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  • #9,594
Oldman too said:
Amazing that no one has worked that into a marketing angle yet.
You read it here in PF first. Blue, black, any-color honey coming soon to your supermarket !
 
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  • #9,595
WWGD said:
Kind of interesting:
Kind of upsetting too: if bees had access, then many other had to.
 
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  • #9,596
Notes from the (un)help(ful) desk:

Me: Submits ticket stating that I can't achieve a task after logging into AWS C2S.
Help desk: Do you have a C2S account?
Me: :rolleyes:
 
  • #9,597
Rive said:
Kind of upsetting too: if bees had access, then many other had to.
Yuk.
Cockroaches, ants, wasps, Flies, Ants, Spiders.

Pigeons, mice and rats too?

Some interesting diseases carried by that little lot.

Salmonellosis.
Typhoid Fever.
Cholera.
Dysentery.
Leprosy.
Plague.
Campylobacteriosis.
Listeriosis.
E. coli.
St. Louis encephalitis
Histoplasmosis.
Candidiasis.
Psittacosis
Hantavirus.
Leptospirosis.
Rat bite fever.
Rat tapeworm.

I cannot remember if Psittacosis has a silent P

Anyone care for an M&M?

No? How about some blue honey?
 
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  • #9,599
pinball1970 said:
Yuk.
Cockroaches, ants, wasps, Flies, Ants, Spiders.

Pigeons, mice and rats too?

Some interesting diseases carried by that little lot.

Salmonellosis.
Typhoid Fever.
Cholera.
Dysentery.
Leprosy.
Plague.
Campylobacteriosis.
Listeriosis.
E. coli.
St. Louis encephalitis
Histoplasmosis.
Candidiasis.
Salmonellosis.
Psittacosis
Hantavirus.
Leptospirosis.
Rat bite fever.
Rat tapeworm.

I cannot remember if Psittacosis has a silent P

Anyone care for an M&M?

No? How about some blue honey?
( Violently spitting out the M&Ms in my mouth. Almost killed a passer-by).
 
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  • #9,600
@Oldman too : Upon doing a bit of reading, re our exchange on the over-sensitivity of Android phones, wonder if the problem may be related to a poorly-designed Gyroscope.
 

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