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

[kyphysics]

You could always ask the AIs for some better names.

LOL Maybe "Data" (from Star Trek Next Gen.)

"Bard" is just the worst! At least "Chat GPT" is kinda of "different" and interesting (even if weird to me). . .Bard just sucks!

If Alphabet loses the Chatbox wars w/ Microsoft/Open A.I., I would partially blame the product name of "Bard."

 

[gmax137]

Why not Einstein...Newton...etc?

It's an AI language model and has nothing to do with science.

How about "Noam"?

 

[fresh_42]

How about "Noam"?

I had to think about this quote from "The Hunt for Red October" ...

Capt. Bart Mancuso: Central Intelligence Agency... Now, there's a contradiction in terms.

... and how it could be changed to somehow relate to the AI bots. Then I saw Scott Glenn's first name of his role!

 

[jack action]

How about "Noam"?

Oh, he's gonna love that:

Noam Chomsky Slams ChatGPT: 'High-Tech Plagiarism' With No Benefits for Education

During an interview on the YouTube channel EduKitchen, Chomsky said that chatGPT — an AI-powered chatbot that has created a ripples in the tech ecosystem — has nothing to do with education except undermining it.

Chomsky called chatGPT “basically a high-tech plagiarism” that makes learning difficult as it doesn’t help develop linguistic and cognitive abilities anymore than plagiarism.

 

[Mayhem]

Universities: We're going to make your life as a student more difficult because we want to save paper to spare the enVirNOnMEnt

Also universities: Please buy this 1500 page textbook full of unnecessary bloat for a 5 ECTS course. Oh and you'll only be using two chapters.

Related: I'm sure buying metal straws* and wooden toothbrushes will make up for your flight to the Bahamas and the fact that you drive everywhere despite it being in walking/biking distance or accessible via. public transportation.

*How many plastic straws, CO₂-wise, are equivalent to one metal straw? Sure, there is a waste problem, but working with metal is expensive and the vast majority of people dont use straws on a daily basis, so it's not like it's comparable to using ceramic plates vs. single-use plastic plates.

 

[Rive]

Sometimes, it's hard to understand people. What was the big idea? 'Reinforcing' concrete with barb wire, and then put so thin cement in it that it can be torn apart by a hoe

'Creation' of the previous owner of our home.

Just finished with shifting old concrete, bricks, 'stuff' out of the garden. About 2m², so far.

 

[Borg]

Obviously someone who just used whatever they had laying around.

 

[Rive]

Obviously someone who just used whatever they had laying around.

Right. Absolutely right.

As I'm thinking about this, we found a few decently made piece of concrete in the garden.
- a piece of roadside post
- a piece of a grave marker (fortunately a side piece, not the one with names...)
- some broken fence posts - the kind which could stop a tank, so I can't quite understand how they got broken unless they were 'got' broken...

The only acceptable piece of homemade concrete here was the top of the septic tank: it got a good dose of cement, till it was that dark blue-ish color. With 20cm thickness. Fortunately without any attempt of reinforcing. Took two days to break apart.
The walls of the tank below were made of cheap masonry blocks, almost all broken, and clearly no intention of retaining any water or anything...

 

[Borg]

I saw a commercial for a new movie and had to laugh - Cocaine Bear. It's about a bear that finds a bunch of cocaine dumped from an airplane. They need to do a mashup with the Project Grizzly movie.

 

[fresh_42]

What makes a coral an animal and a venus flytrap a plant?

 

[Bystander]

What makes a coral an animal and a venus flytrap a plant?

Taxonomy/biology/chlorophyll.

 

[BillTre]

What makes a coral an animal and a venus flytrap a plant?

Their evolutionary lineage and phylogenetic relationships.

 

[Astronuc]

Norfolk Southern continuing cleanup from Ravenna Township, Sandusky derailments
https://www.yahoo.com/news/norfolk-southern-continuing-cleanup-ravenna-110301995.html

The route goes through East Palestine and is believed to be the same route taken by a train carrying hazardous material that derailed there, causing an environmental catastrophe on Feb. 3.

The Norfolk Southern train derailment site in November in Portage County, along with another that happened in October in Sandusky, still being cleaned up months after they occurred, as the railroad also scrambles to deal with the derailment in East Palestine.

The train was a general manifest, which means mixed freight as compare to a single commodity like grain, oil, automobiles, coal or containers/trailers (intermodal).

The 238-car train that derailed in Portage County was carrying a variety of freight, including 63 cars containing unidentified hazardous materials, according to a mandatory accident report Norfolk Southern filed with the Federal Railroad Administration. The railroad previously said 22 derailed cars were predominantly auto racks that carry vehicles and hoppers holding rock salt. About 300 tons of rock salt piled from three cars, according to the report.

In the past, 238 cars would have been two or three trains. Over the past decade, the six largest (Class 1) railroads have been increasing lengths of trains in order to reduce the number of crew required to move the freight. Two people (engineer and conductor) and sometimes 3, if there is a brakeman, operate a train in the lead locomotive. Locomotives are connected (MU'd) at the front, but some locomotives may be placed in the middle and/or rear of the train (as distributed power units, DPUs) to distribute the driving force. Use of DPUs depends on length of train and ruling grades on a route.

The Norfolk Southern report, which still has to be verified by the Federal Railroad Administration, said the primary cause of the Ravenna Township wreck was "buffing or slack action" and "train make-up" around the 121st position in the train as it was traveling at 35 mph down the track that evening.

Something went terribly wrong if "buffing (pushing) and/or slack (pulling) action" or "train make-up" lead to the derailment. That is an operational issues as opposed to equipment/track failure.

East Palestine derailment and chemical release
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/random-thoughts-part-6.875108/post-6854745

How dangerous train derailments affect communities like East Palestine, Ohio
https://www.yahoo.com/news/how-dang...ities-like-east-palestine-ohio-160415369.html

Four rail-borne risks moving through American communities​

https://www.yahoo.com/news/four-rail-borne-risks-moving-210000159.html

There is actually a lot more than 4, but the 4 are high tonnage, i.e., hundreds or thousands of tons (about 100 tons per carload). During grad school, I did a brief summary of chemical commodities moved through the university area (the railroad bisected the campus) because the local Transportation Institute had no such list. I just happened to watch trains and particularly tank cars moving through the area. For three years, I lived one or two blocks from the rail line.Edit/update: Video shows plastics from two hopper cars burning.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/expert-explains-residents-toxic-chemical-150722116.html

Edit/update2: https://www.yahoo.com/news/crew-tried-stop-ohio-train-160615085.html

 

[Ibix]

My left sock is a Riemann surface of genus four.

 

[fresh_42]

My left sock is a Riemann surface of genus four.

Note that there is a place somewhere where single socks and Tupperware covers live in a peaceful relationship.

 

[Ibix]

Note that there is a place somewhere where single socks and Tupperware covers live in a peaceful relationship.

There's a pie chart in Lame Jokes somewhere that shows the percentage of dropped bolts that are on the floor in plain sight versus disappeared into some other dimension never to be seen again.

My sock is not lost, though, it is merely no longer a simply connected domain.

 

[fresh_42]

My sock is not lost, though, it is merely no longer a simply connected domain.

I know. I just had to think about that lonely socks thing that I have read recently. You know, random thoughts.

 

[WWGD]

My smoothness: Meet someone, ultimately I found out she's from India.
She tells me " I know Telugu"
Me:" Never heard of him. What is he, a rapper, actor, or something?"

 

[WWGD]

There's a pie chart in Lame Jokes somewhere that shows the percentage of dropped bolts that are on the floor in plain sight versus disappeared into some other dimension never to be seen again.

My sock is not lost, though, it is merely no longer a simply connected domain.

Seinfeld claims it's hiding in the washer or elsewhere in order to escape.

 

[Mayhem]

One of my organic chemistry professors is a gangster.
Once before a lab, he told us that certain chemicals might be missing from the stock after a break in. He then went onto comment that they had apparently only stolen some commonplace solvents, and that if he was to do it, he would probably have picked some narcotics precursors -- in the most monotone and non-jocular voice ever.

Recently, I've been struggling with an exam I had to retake, and as a result been falling behind on school work. Told him that I'd have trouble turning in assignments on time until then. He asked me which course the exam was in and when I told him, he proceeded to dang on it for five minutes saying how much of a mess the course is.

He also works with explosives.

 

[WWGD]

Kind of embarrasing to take of my pullover sweater...and I forgot I was not wearing anything below. Pretty cold too.

 

[dlgoff]

Trees are starting to bud out here at my home in Kansas. It's way too early for that.

 

[WWGD]

Trees are starting to bud out here at my home in Kansas. It's way too early for that.

Which one's(bud) for you?

 

[dlgoff]

Which one's(bud) for you?

The one that's most budded is a large maple tree.

 

[Astronuc]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-rockfall-yosemite-national-park-004358432.html

Spectacular rock slide/crash on face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park

 

[Mayhem]

Having other Linux users do something on your own Linux system for more than 10 minutes should break your warranty.

I swear to god, these dickheads just needed to install a few things and suddenly I have five versions of python installed and my terminal is slow.

 

[Borg]

My work computer has had my profile rebuilt at least four times in the last two months resulting in the loss of everything in AppData - wiping out all of my Firefox bookmarks, server login settings for Putty, etc. Each time that I tell the help desk that I need to "recover" my profile that was lost, they rebuild it again instead.

 

[Tom.G]

My work computer has had my profile rebuilt at least four times in the last two months resulting in the loss of everything in AppData - wiping out all of my Firefox bookmarks, server login settings for Putty, etc. Each time that I tell the help desk that I need to "recover" my profile that was lost, they rebuild it again instead.

Sounds like the Corporate definition of "Hell-p!"

 

[Mayhem]

Slowly building the skillset to make my own molecular simulation software (pet project, I can't even approximate proprietary functionality). Do you guys have any idea how many components this contains lol

 

[Borg]

Sounds like the Corporate definition of "Hell-p!"

Yes, and I was Hell-ped again this morning. At this point, it almost seems as though someone has set a program to rebuild my profile each morning. Thankfully, today is my last day on the project and I won't have to use those computers anymore. On to better things!