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criticizing the History Channel's focus on sensational topics like time travel conspiracies instead of real historical content.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.
  • #1,111
Borg said:
Almost got rear-ended by a drunk on the way to the gym at 4am this morning. I was stopped at a light and could see that he wasn't going to stop in time so I pulled forward and to the right. He must have realized at the last moment what was going on because he swerved into the left lane at the last second - barely missing the back of my car. If I hadn't pulled forward, he would have definitely hit me. I let him go ahead after the light turned green and the whole right side of his car was damaged from hitting something. Lucky for him, I don't have a cell or I would have called 911.
I had a similar occurance, I saw a car coming up from behind me and was going too fast to be able to stop, luckily the right lane next to me was empty and I had left enough room between me and the car in front of me so that I was able to pull into the right lane and pull forward honking my horn to alert the car in front of me, but it was too late, the car coming from behind was already hitting them.
 
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  • #1,112
Evo said:
I had a similar occurance, I saw a car coming up from behind me and was going too fast to be able to stop, luckily the right lane next to me was empty and I had left enough room between me and the car in front of me so that I was able to pull into the right lane and pull forward honking my horn to alert the car in front of me, but it was too late, the car coming from behind was already hitting them.
Are you proud of your smart quick thinking or do you feel guilty that you transferred your fate onto someone else ? :eek:o_O:wink::biggrin:
 
  • #1,113
RonL said:
Are you proud of your smart quick thinking or do you feel guilty that you transferred your fate onto someone else ? :eek:o_O:wink::biggrin:
If I hadn't moved, my car would have been slammed into the car in front of me, so it was going to get hit no matter what, and I had a baby in the back seat. Can't feel good about it, It was an automatic reaction, but I can't feel wrong about it.
 
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  • #1,114
Evo said:
If I hadn't moved, my car would have been slammed into the car in front of me, so it was going to get hit no matter what, and I had a baby in the back seat. Can't feel good about it, It was an automatic reaction, but I can't feel wrong about it.
The reason for my post, is I have been in the same situation and on both sides of the aftermaths, in two different events and no accidents, but only by thousandths of a second in timing :smile:
 
  • #1,115
RonL said:
The reason for my post, is I have been in the same situation and on both sides of the aftermaths, in two different events and no accidents, but only by thousandths of a second in timing :smile:
The car in front wasn't hit hard, I think my horn and sudden moving caused the driver behind to slam on his brakes and the extra distance my moving gave also reduced the impact, so I think what I did avoided what could have been a serious accident. Or at least that's what I like to think. The result was just a fender bender for the two cars instead of one car crushed between two others. I was in a small Honda Civic between two gargantuan cars.
 
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  • #1,116
OMG, a skunk just sprayed outside my bedroom window and my windows are open because it's cool outside. I just finished vomiting. :H I was planning on being asleep.
 
  • #1,117
Evo said:
OMG, a skunk just sprayed outside my bedroom window ...
Gratuitously?
 
  • #1,118
Bystander said:
Gratuitously?
Most certainly.
 
  • #1,119
W/o provocation, spraying is an indication of ill-health.
 
  • #1,120
Bystander said:
W/o provocation, spraying is an indication of ill-health.
It might have run into a racoon or opossum. They all run around here at night.
 
  • #1,121
Evo said:
OMG, a skunk just sprayed outside my bedroom window and my windows are open because it's cool outside. I just finished vomiting. :H I was planning on being asleep.
Ewww!
Well, you chose to live in a quiet, eco-friendly area! This is what it looks like, so be grateful :-p

If I were you, I'd take a selfie of me doing yoga (womitimg in downward facing dog) with the skunk behind me. There's too many boring sunset /sunrise on the beach yoga selfies on instagram. You could start a new trend.
It would be called "Living in harmony with Nature: The true story".
 
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  • #1,122
I eat a bag of microwave popcorn almost every day.
 
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  • #1,123
Just zipped TV channels. One had a baking competition. Someone tried to figure out ##900 : 8##.
Comment from the off: " ... while she's struggling with the trouble of higher mathematics ... " :headbang:

As long as there are people around, telling others that ##900 : 8## is higher mathematics, how in hell will we ever improve as a species?
 
  • #1,124
Linux, linux, linux. I'm trying my best to make myself feel comfortable with you, but you are making things harder than they should.
MRPVunl.png
I suppose there is no option then. I'll have to implement my own Data Structures. I mean, a warning is not really the end of the world, but I don't know if I should think that I received the warning because of something important or for no particular reason. There's no info on replacement or on when it was deprecated. Probably a bug. It's a good thing that I learned well on data structures :book:. Otherwise I'd be lost.
 
  • #1,125
Once you've seen a compilation (plus links and bind) command line on Linux, there will be nothing left that may surprise you.
 
  • #1,126
fresh_42 said:
Just zipped TV channels. One had a baking competition. Someone tried to figure out ##900 : 8##.
Comment from the off: " ... while she's struggling with the trouble of higher mathematics ... " :headbang:

As long as there are people around, telling others that ##900 : 8## is higher mathematics, how in hell will we ever improve as a species?

Well, for many people, anything involving numbers larger than 100 is higher mathematics :woot:
dear-math-grow-up.jpg


Psinter said:
Linux, linux, linux. I'm trying my best to make myself feel comfortable with you, but you are making things harder than they should.

Linux can be frustrating because sometimes it makes simple things so difficult. I guess it's not a problem of linux itself, but we are so used to solving things in MS way that it's hard to think differently. But the good news is that once you get it, it will work reliably. Reading news this morning and I had to laugh. We have a new political party! You know, we need it desperately because there are only 100 registered parties and only 24 of them competed in the elections. So you see, there's a need for this one called NAJ (=BEST) because they want law and order, double pensions, higher minimal wages and investigation of old political scandals. No one else has promised this before.
images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTR2_55Ji8hxagPnoOFza7zCuEuppPEhi_IiSsOvnJz6UPM96nLmA.jpg
 
  • #1,127
Sophia said:
We have a new political party! You know, we need it desperately because there are only 100 registered parties and only 24 of them competed in the elections. So you see, there's a need for this one called NAJ (=BEST) because they want law and order, double pensions, higher minimal wages and investigation of old political scandals. No one else has promised this before.
Fascinating, isn't it. I think I'm going to start a party that stands for traditional values in our society - street violence, fraud, and the right of the rich and powerful to use the poor and vulnerable in any way they see fit. None of the other parties stand for that so I feel there's an untapped pool of voters there. And if all the opposition parties' rhetoric is correct it's an expanding pool...
 
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  • #1,128
Ibix said:
Fascinating, isn't it. I think I'm going to start a party that stands for traditional values in our society - street violence, fraud, and the right of the rich and powerful to use the poor and vulnerable in any way they see fit. None of the other parties stand for that so I feel there's an untapped pool of voters there. And if all the opposition parties' rhetoric is correct it's an expanding pool...
Yes! you can definitely try. I suppose many would vote for you, both asocials and normal frustrated people out of rebellion. And you'd have your 15 minutes of fame, speaking on TV and becoming a celebrity. Sure, Mr. lbix, you don't have to pay fine for driving too fast!
 
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  • #1,129
I just went out to get a sandwich. On the way there I passed an older guy in heavy boots, biker's leather trousers and a denim jacket, somewhat incongruously standing at a bus stop. On my way back I approached him from behind. Big skull and crossbones painted on the back of the jacket and REAPER written below it. Across his shoulders, in one of those complicated gothic fonts, it said "Angles from Hell".

I triple checked that because it's such a classic typo, and that is definitely what it said. Some band of bad-boy geometers maybe? They get into fights and stab each other with compasses? Or maybe it's a fishing in-joke?

I wanted to ask him, but I didn't want to be the one to bring it to his attention if it was just a spelling mistake...
 
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  • #1,130
Ibix said:
start a party that stands for traditional values in our society - street violence, fraud, and the right of the rich and powerful to use the poor and vulnerable in any way they see fit. None of the other parties stand for that

Great thought there - worthy of Jon Stewart !

Got 1984 ?

1984history.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
 
  • #1,131
jim hardy said:
Great thought there - worthy of Jon Stewart !

Got 1984 ?

View attachment 107700https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

Guys, I've got news for you!
There's yet another new party announced this week! It's called TOSKA which means Traditions, Professionality, Service, Communication and Ambitions.
Reporters immediately started making fun of it by finding a similarity with the opera Tosca where the main protagonist is executed and his lover commits suicide. When they asked him if this could be a forecast for the life of his party, he replied that similarity is coincidental and the name came to him in a dream :DDD

Maybe I should have posted this into lame Jokes thread.

So my dear lbix and Jim, if you want to experiment with political parties, come here, each one of you can have his own party in no time.

Now I'm wondering... why haven't I founded one yet?
 
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  • #1,132
Sophia said:
Now I'm wondering... why haven't I founded one yet?
I've experienced that scientists aren't even a bit better when it comes to politics: same childish and non-logic behaviour than the rest of the pack.
 
  • #1,133
Ibix said:
"Angles from Hell"
Not so far fetched. Have you ever tried to construct a heptadecagon by compass and straightedge?
I once tried when in school. The last edge has been several mm from where it ought to end.
Or received a letter from a trisectionist?

This man knew what he wrote about! :cool:
 
  • #1,134
I couldn't resist!

OBAMA SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER REQUIRING LOSER OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION TO LEAVE COUNTRY

In an Oval Office ceremony on Wednesday morning, President Barack Obama signed an executive order requiring the loser of the 2016 Presidential election to leave the country forever.

“This will help the healing begin,” the President said.

The executive order calls for the loser of the November 8th election to depart the country on the morning of November 9th and never return.

“Whoever that turns out to be,” the President said.

Obama acknowledged that the executive order marked a departure from American electoral tradition, but added, “A lot of good will come of this.”

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/boro...ser-of-presidential-election-to-leave-country
 
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  • #1,135
Evo said:
You mean what works for this Canadian singer, who must not be named, may work for either of them, too?
As long as you keep them outside of Europe, o.k. We have far too many own idiots, propagandists and liars, although we yet managed to keep it above the Banana Republic level. However, someone in Bosnia also recently started to blab about rigged elections ... but at least he waited until afterwards.

They always arrive in waves, if you analyze history.
 
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  • #1,136
Mom Packs Extra Lunch for Son's Needy Classmate After He Was Seen Eating Only a Fruit Cup
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mom-packs-extra-lunch-sons-152854236.html

A student asked his mom to pack him an extra snack in his school lunch. She asked why, and he explained that it was for a classmate.
Dylan had asked on behalf of a classmate he noticed during his first week of school who was sitting alone and eating only a fruit cup during lunch.

Josette Duran didn’t question the student's situation and she kindly sent Dylan to school with a duplicate lunch for three months straight.

After learning the student’s mother recently lost her job, the 37-year-old mother would do a weekly shopping routine to provide lunches for both Dylan and his classmate.

At about the same time Josette met with the student’s mother, her volleyball team had raised about $400 to cover the cost of the extra lunches.

Although the kindhearted coach appreciated the gesture, she would not take the money, instead donating it to the school’s PTA to benefit students who are in need of food.
 
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  • #1,137
What is really annoying with these documentations, which are here on PF usually referred to as pop-science, is the fact that I haven't heard a single time a speaker, who pronounced "Kuiper belt" correctly. Meanwhile I counted three different pronunciations - all wrong. O.k. it probably has been translated from English, but I KNOW that our tongue has absolutely no problem with the correct pronunciation. (I don't care that he became an American. As he didn't change his name, I expect the correct version.)
 
  • #1,138
fresh_42 said:
I expect the correct version.)

And that is...?
 

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