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criticizing the History Channel's focus on sensational topics like time travel conspiracies instead of real historical content.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.
  • #10,501
Man Creates Huge Online Museum for Vintage Calculators
From 2010/2018 - https://www.wired.com/2010/08/vintage-calculators/
Five hundred eighty-three calculators, 128 brands and one man who has painstakingly cataloged them all. Emil Dudek, a technology enthusiast who lives in South Wales, U.K., has spent the last eight years acquiring calculators made in the 1970s, taking them apart, photographing them, analyzing the technology and posting it all to his website along with […]
 
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  • #10,502
I guess telling this lady at the coffee shop, that I had never met, that she looks like Isaac newton,
while showing her a pic of him was not that good of an idea. Edit: I realize now it was kind of off, bizarre. I guess asking her to prove that f=ma is off limits now ;) .
 
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  • #10,503
WWGD said:
I guess telling this lady at the coffee shop, that I had never met, that she looks like Isaac newton,
while showing her a pic of him was not that good of an idea.
You learn something new everyday.
 
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  • #10,504
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  • #10,505
The 12 V power brick for my telescope gave out tonight. Now it's just a regular brick.

New one's on the way.
61kTAgU4RpL._AC_SL1000_.jpg
 
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  • #10,506
When looking at stellar classification recently, I noticed that the emphasis is on O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. When I learned it about 50 years ago, there were R, N, S categories as well. Those seem to be not so emphasized. Looking at red and brown dwarfs, the latter considered sub-stellar objects, there are L, T and Y categories. So, I looked into L, T and Y, which in Wikipedia mentions the following:

Class L dwarfs get their designation because they are cooler than M stars and L is the remaining letter alphabetically closest to M. Some of these objects have masses large enough to support hydrogen fusion and are therefore stars, but most are of substellar mass and are therefore brown dwarfs.
Class T dwarfs are cool brown dwarfs with surface temperatures between approximately 550 and 1,300 K (277 and 1,027 °C; 530 and 1,880 °F). Their emission peaks in the infrared. Methane is prominent in their spectra.
Brown dwarfs of spectral class Y are cooler than those of spectral class T and have qualitatively different spectra from them. A total of 17 objects have been placed in class Y as of August 2013. [now 10 years out of date]
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_classification#Cool_red_and_brown_dwarf_classesI while perusing the internet, I found: http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~pac/obafgkmrns.html
Oh Backward Astronomer, Forget Geocentricity;
Kepler's Motions Reveal Nature's Simplicity.

Organs Blaring and Fugues Galore,
Kepler's Music Reads Nature's Score.
I had learned "Oh, Bring A Fully Grown Kangaroo, My Recipe Needs Some!"
 
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  • #10,507
Almost an emoji:

Screenshot 2023-04-03 at 8.10.04 AM.png
 
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  • #10,508
Went back to the old coffee shop.
"Isaac" still snippy. Guess shouldn't suggest she change the name 'Fluxions".
She seems a bit gone.
Though I got the point: Inner voice/Outer voice.
 
  • #10,509
BillTre said:
Almost an emoji:

View attachment 324452
It should be! I would be totally happy using that for “Oh wow that is totally cool!”
 
  • #10,510
I am going to make more use of the insights section of PF, mathematics!
 
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  • #10,511
You can tell summer is coming here in Kansas. It 85°F and it only April.

edit: I emailed my daughter who lives in Colorado and this is what she replied:
That’s insane that it’s that how there right now. It’s snow flurrying here.
 
  • #10,512
dlgoff said:
You can tell summer is coming here in Kansas. It 85°F and it only April.

edit: I emailed my daughter who lives in Colorado and this is what she replied:
We don't even have half of it.
 
  • #10,513
fresh_42 said:
We don't even have half of it.
lucky you
 
  • #10,514
fresh_42 said:
We don't even have half of it.
Half of:
85F
April
Colorado?
 
  • #10,515
WWGD said:
Half of:
85F
April
Colorado?
Temperature: 278.
Time: -1
Latitude: Whistler.
 
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  • #10,516
fresh_42 said:
Temperature: 278.
Time: -1
Latitude: Whistler.
We really do need that scratch head emoji
 
  • #10,517
I have just realized I have not checked covid Worldometer for months (I was rather OCD about that from 2020 onwards)

We (UK) are about 50-100 deaths per day, so between 18,000-36,000 deaths per year.

We are just out of “flu season” which is between Dec-Feb.

About 25,000 pneumonia deaths per year just to give a comparison.
 
  • #10,518
Evo said:
Let's all applaud the History Channel for more fine documentaries! Tonight - Time Beings: Extreme Time Travel Conspiracies

Why? Why can't we have real documentaries? There is so much of interest in the past that is REAL.
It's the audience.

Two sample points:
TikTok is full of people demanding you use made-up pronouns or you are a bigot.
The Chinese equivalent of TikTok, Douyin, has things like calculus lessons.

Or, go to Google and search for the following.
walmartians pics
 
  • #10,519
I've watched this before but watched it again today on PBS. So good.
 
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  • #10,520
TikTok also allegedly has a back door
Grelbr42 said:
It's the audience.

Two sample points:
TikTok is full of people demanding you use made-up pronouns or you are a bigot.
The Chinese equivalent of TikTok, Douyin, has things like calculus lessons.

Or, go to Google and search for the following.
walmartians pics
 
  • #10,521
getting-richer.jpg
 
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  • #10,522
jack action said:
getting-richer-jpg.jpg
For some reason, this brought to mind a conversation between Laurel and Hardy in Towed in a Hole.

 
  • #10,523
I was remembering back to a time that I probably saved the life of an old girlfriend by doing the Heimlich Maneuver while eating at a restaurant.
 
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  • #10,524
Reminds me of when I saved my wife's life in London. We were crossing a street and she looked the wrong way to see if any cars were coming. She started to step into the road when I pulled her back just as a car came quickly from the other direction. Very close call.
 
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  • #10,525
Borg said:
Reminds me of when I saved my wife's life in London. We were crossing a street and she looked the wrong way to see if any cars were coming. She started to step into the road when I pulled her back just as a car came quickly from the other direction. Very close call.
Same idea with a colleague of mine when visiting Tokyo. Close call.
 
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  • #10,526
Borg said:
Reminds me of when I saved my wife's life in London. We were crossing a street and she looked the wrong way to see if any cars were coming. She started to step into the road when I pulled her back just as a car came quickly from the other direction. Very close call.
GF back seat with me and couple in the front, friends. GF did not have the seat belt on, 1991 ish.
Driver lost control, country road and crashed into a barrier.
Big drop the other side, snake pass I think, if you know it. Possibly Werneth.
I grabbed hold of her and pulled her towards me before we hit. She was not wearing a back seat belt. She ended up with a bruise on her upper arm following the shape of my fingers. The belts saved the rest of us but the car was a right off.
 
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  • #10,527
It would be good to know you had potentially saved someone's life. Besides the car incident above and tending to two RTAs that were not serious the closest I came was a house fire.
1995 because my son was a few months old, visiting mum back home.
I heard screaming late at night and went out to investigate in shorts bare feet and no top. I think I was going to bed.
I see a guy in the street and smell the smoke then see the fire.
He was barely coherent, injured but grabbed me and screamed to get his baby.
Grabbed a ladder as downstairs was engulfed and went to the bedroom window.
I called/shouted no answer, I then thought about going in when a dog came to the window, then another. It was not baby, it was babies, his dogs.
Big dogs, the first one nearly knocked me off the ladder climbing out, the second one I had to lift and carry.
The first survived but the second had to be destroyed.
Would have I gone up the ladder if I knew it was two dogs?
No.
 
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  • #10,528
I remember a similar situation on the first walk through town on the first evening upon arrival. I don't remember who of us three friends actually stepped on the street while looking in the wrong direction, but we were lucky, it was a driver who carefully observed his vicinity. He even stopped. He also opened his window. Well, he asked for the direction to a suburb in the north of London we never had heard of.

But we knew his license plate, so we answered: "Sie können ruhig deutsch reden, aber wir haben auch keine Ahnung." [You can speak German if you like, but we have no idea either.] Poor guy. His first contact with locals had been (literally, below 40km) neighbors from home.
 
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  • #10,529
I heard an interview last night about a British punk rocker who decided to settle in W. Berlin before the Wall came down. He began visiting E. Berlin and then smuggling music from the west into E. Berlin, and subsequently performing with groups.

Across the wall: How Mark Reeder brought punk music to East Berlin in the 1980s​



https://www.factmag.com/2016/09/24/punk-priest-stasi-spy-east-berlin-mark-reeder/

:oops:
 
  • #10,530
Awkward situation. Guy holds doors open for lady walking out. No reply, acknowledgement, initially, from lady. Almost simultaneously, exiting lady says thank you, while guy says " You're Welcome" sarcastically.
 

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