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

[Sophia]

Ha ha!
We had a visiting research scientist where I used to work, who really liked a certain style of pen we had.
So one day, I gave him one.
Over the next year or so, I always made sure I had one in my pocket, as he always accepted them, with great joy.

Perhaps Klaus is a pen collector.

That was nice of you :-)
It's true that sometimes it's difficult to find a good pen that both writes nicely and holds comfortably.
I managed to get a good pen for my diary and now I "watch it as eye in my head" = take care I don't lose it

 

[Sophia]

Why do I always end up in the 18th century?

What do you mean?

 

[fresh_42]

I always lose their heads when I try to sharpen pencils. Sometimes I think they are not made of a single piece of graphite but of a dozen small pieces instead. Every time I'm satisfied by the sharpening process, I can easily just pull off the tip or it falls out by itself. I hate pencils for that.

 

[OmCheeto]

I always lose their heads when I try to sharpen pencils. Sometimes I think they are not made of a single piece of graphite but of a dozen small pieces instead. Every time I'm satisfied by the sharpening process, I can easily just pull off the tip or it falls out by itself. I hate pencils for that.

They were much better, in the olden days.

 

[fresh_42]

We have pencils for carpenters here that are about 20cm long and really thick. They are ok, but unfortunately not very suitable on paper. And wooden boards are so uncomfortable to store in the book shell ...

 

[Psinter]

The net is suddenly swirling with pictures along the subject EU and UK which I think are supposed to be jokes, but I don't get them .

Usually, when lots of pictures of a specific subject appear like that (and keep getting posted so close to each other), it's because something happened, something is happening, or something is about to happen for sure. But I have no clue of what is going on and if it is something political, I don't want to know. My educational interests don't lie in politics.

 

[fresh_42]

Unbelievable. To know something and to experience it right away is so different.
There is a chess game on the internet I use sometimes. You can either pay a fee or accept some restrictions on possible levels plus ads. Ok, I can accept the ads because I like them to make some money. Why not. Usually it's a short video ad about a videogame at the beginning. Now, a couple of minutes ago, I answered in a thread where someone asked for word fonts of roman numerals. I quickly made a google search and posted one of these thousands of sites with free fonts. No five minutes later the video ad at the start of my chess game has all of a sudden not been the video game ad anymore but a never seen before ad of a site where they sell fonts instead. Unbelievable. And fascinating to watch how data mining actually works.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I always lose their heads when I try to sharpen pencils. Sometimes I think they are not made of a single piece of graphite but of a dozen small pieces instead. Every time I'm satisfied by the sharpening process, I can easily just pull off the tip or it falls out by itself. I hate pencils for that.

Sometimes pencil leads break inside the wood when they're dropped, and you don't find out till later. In other cases, they break as you sharpen, due to a dull cutter. So. you could have bought a whole package that was dropped at some point, or, you might need a new sharpener.

 

[zoobyshoe]

There's this one coffee house I go to fairly often, but over the six years they've been in business, I've seen them go from being open 24 hours a day to fewer and fewer hours.

They are creating this situation themselves, however. The manager has adopted a policy of 'closing before they're closed': the employees start sweeping, mopping, putting things away, an hour or hour and a half before their actual closing time, and all the customers are made to feel like they have overstayed their welcome. They mop around you with wretched, stinky chemicals and they will actually ask people to leave the front outdoor patio in order to stack up the chairs out there. If you go up to the counter, they are either in back cleaning where they will never see you and you have to call loudly to them, or they are across the room sweeping, and you feel like you've interrupted them.

Eventually, all the regulars are trained to realize customers aren't wanted there as much as an hour before their stated closing time, and they stop coming. This leads to a situation where the last hour of business is dead, and the manager then decides she needs to close an hour earlier because they aren't making any money the last hour. The closing time is changed to an earlier one , but the 'closing before closing' time is also pushed back earlier, eventually driving the next batch of customers away an hour before closing.

It's very queer: when they first opened the place was often completely packed till well after midnight. Now, you go in there at ten, and there's only a handful of people. The manager seems to have no idea she caused this. People now walk by, look in, and think, "Wow, that place is dead. It must suck." They move on to somewhere that looks hoppin' and happenin'. The whole thing was caused by the fear they'd be paying their employees to do chores after closing, after the customers were all gone, that they could have been doing with customers still there. A false economy.

 

[DiracPool]

the employees start sweeping, mopping, putting things away, an hour or hour and a half before their actual closing time, and all the customers are made to feel like they have overstayed their welcome.

Yeah, this is infuriating. They do this at the YMCA I go to. The gym closes at 10:00 and pool area closes at 9:30. At 9:30, they blow the whistle and everyone has to get out of the pool, hot tub, and sauna. So now you have about a dozen guys in the shower while in the meantime the staff is turning up all the stools in the locker room on top of the lockers. So now everyone that was taking a shower when this was going on has to pull the stools back off the top of the lockers. Not only that, people from the main gym come back into the locker even later than that. Pay the employees an extra half-hour wage and wait until the customers leave before you start the close-down procedure, please.

There was this one time when I got out of the shower and had to pull down a stool from the top of the lockers. One of the Y staff guys was nearby and said, "Hey, can you put that stool back on the top of the locker when you're done?" I smiled at him, but what I was thinking was, F-U, I'm not going to do your job for you, especially when you inconvenienced me to have to take this stupid thing off the top of the locker. Needless to say, I left it on the ground.

 

[Sophia]

The net is suddenly swirling with pictures along the subject EU and UK which I think are supposed to be jokes, but I don't get them .

Usually, when lots of pictures of a specific subject appear like that (and keep getting posted so close to each other), it's because something happened, something is happening, or something is about to happen for sure. But I have no clue of what is going on and if it is something political, I don't want to know. My educational interests don't lie in politics.

Don't worry, most Westerners have no idea what's happening in Asia or Africa :-)
The reason for jokes is that British citizens decided to leave the EU in the referendum.
That means that the UK must agree with new relationships to the EU in next 2 years.
The rest is politics, which you don't want to know

 

[Sophia]

Unbelievable. To know something and to experience it right away is so different.
There is a chess game on the internet I use sometimes. You can either pay a fee or accept some restrictions on possible levels plus ads. Ok, I can accept the ads because I like them to make some money. Why not. Usually it's a short video ad about a videogame at the beginning. Now, a couple of minutes ago, I answered in a thread where someone asked for word fonts of roman numerals. I quickly made a google search and posted one of these thousands of sites with free fonts. No five minutes later the video ad at the start of my chess game has all of a sudden not been the video game ad anymore but a never seen before ad of a site where they sell fonts instead. Unbelievable. And fascinating to watch how data mining actually works.

Yes, this happened to me several times. While I know they do this, it always strikes me when it happens.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Yeah, this is infuriating. They do this at the YMCA I go to. The gym closes at 10:00 and pool area closes at 9:30. At 9:30, they blow the whistle and everyone has to get out of the pool, hot tub, and sauna. So now you have about a dozen guys in the shower while in the meantime the staff is turning up all the stools in the locker room on top of the lockers. So now everyone that was taking a shower when this was going on has to pull the stools back off the top of the lockers. Not only that, people from the main gym come back into the locker even later than that. Pay the employees an extra half-hour wage and wait until the customers leave before you start the close-down procedure, please.

There was this one time when I got out of the shower and had to pull down a stool from the top of the lockers. One of the Y staff guys was nearby and said, "Hey, can you put that stool back on the top of the locker when you're done?" I smiled at him, but what I was thinking was, F-U, I'm not going to do your job for you, especially when you inconvenienced me to have to take this stupid thing off the top of the locker. Needless to say, I left it on the ground.

There are actually a lot of places that do this, and it is the worst policy ever. In general, though, most stick to their closing time, and aren't confused as to why they have no customers the last hour of business: they realize they're driving them away and don't expect there to be much business. This coffee shop I'm talking about seems bewildered about why they have to keep cutting their hours back.

 

[Pepper Mint]

Today I am bored. I feel envious as It seems that everyone is always having some projects to work on.

 

[DiracPool]

Today I am bored. I feel envious as It seems that everyone is always having some projects to work on.

Go to Patrick JMT's channel and practice doing some integrals, that will keep you entertained

 

[Pepper Mint]

Go to Patrick JMT's channel and practice doing some integrals, that will keep you entertained

Thanks, I truly love all videos by old and well experienced professors (> 55).

 

[fresh_42]

Who cares about Brexit? The real disaster happened in Nizza:

England vs. Iceland 1:2

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

Who cares about Brexit?

I dunno, but you know something's up when your British friend calls you, laughing all bubbly about it.

By the way, markers are expensive.

And... Happy National Pink Day !

 

[zoobyshoe]

So, a long time ago I met this girl named Alice Chin. She was Chinese-American, from San Francisco.

One day we were walking along, and this other Chinese-American girl was walking toward us. As she neared, she got a smirk on her face, and at the last second before we passed, the two girls laughed and hugged. I deduced from that, they knew each other.

Then Alice says, "Zooby, meet my sister, Suzie Chin. We are: 'The Double Chins!' Ahahahahahahahahah!"

Something reminded me of that today.

 

[Psinter]

Don't worry, most Westerners have no idea what's happening in Asia or Africa :-)
The reason for jokes is that British citizens decided to leave the EU in the referendum.
That means that the UK must agree with new relationships to the EU in next 2 years.
The rest is politics, which you don't want to know

I see. I'm somewhat late replying. I've been doing some really heavy programming and design. *tired*

And I'm not even 1% of the goal. No wonder software engineers have good salaries.

It's not apparent, but it's steady.

I don't think a robot or artificial intelligence software can do what I'm doing right now. At least not at this point in time. It will be cool to see if in the future an artificial intelligence software can design and write itself full blown software projects. Then many programmers and software developers will be out of jobs. Someone may say: "This is the goal." and the artificial intelligence may fill in the details and design the whole thing.

Still I don't see that happening anytime soon.

As a side unrelated note, I heard someone say: Everything goes well for me, even when it goes wrong.

 

[fresh_42]

Then Alice says, "Zooby, meet my sister, Suzie Chin. We are: 'The Double Chins!' Ahahahahahahahahah!"

Something reminded me of that today.

Hopefully it wasn't while shaving.

 

[fresh_42]

Everything goes well for me, even when it goes wrong.

Douglas Adams: Dirk Gently's holistic principle - The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

 

[fresh_42]

I've read the PF post on the found of helium in east Africa. In the news article there they said they estimate it to be about 54 billion cf. I tried to figure out which mass this would have without calculating it by myself. I thought there must be some figure on the internet that tells me the mass of, e.g. one litre of helium under atmospheric conditions. My goal was to compare this to the amount of 140 tons that are needed to cool down LHC, expecting even more when it comes to the cooling of the new chinese collider. Btw. I calculate it to be about 110,000,000 tons. (Don't know how accurate this is.) Yearly consumption is currently 8 billion cf. Wow!

Nevertheless, Google's suggestion for a search has been: "mass of helium in kg". Instead of what?

Edit: 253,400 tons; although the website I got it from said weight in kg - I hate this. This is like a left-right weakness to me. I cannot memorize whether the 500g tomatoes I buy are 500N / 5000 N or actually 500g.
I'm totally confused now.

 

[Sophia]

I don't think a robot or artificial intelligence software can do what I'm doing right now. At least not at this point in time. It will be cool to see if in the future an artificial intelligence software can design and write itself full blown software projects.

That would be scary
But how would it know what type of program is needed? Still, a human would have to give it the first order. If that wasn't necessary, than AI could really be out of control.

 

[Sophia]

So I've just registered on Netflix for free trial month. It's only been available in my area since January or so and I don't know anyone who uses it. As far as I know, the content is limited compared to the US because of copyright reasons, so I don't know what to expect. But I noticed that this service is very popular in the US so I decided to give it a try.
When I registered, they asked me to pick 3 shows that I liked in order to personalise my content. I was only familiar with one of them, I chose other two only based on their pictures :D
Any tips on what to watch? I'm looking for something light and funny or interesting that is easy to watch. It can be a sitcom, anime, popular science... I'm looking for something to make me laugh and/or relax in the evening before sleep.

 

[jim hardy]

I'm looking for something light and funny or interesting that is easy to watch. It can be a sitcom, anime, popular science... I'm looking for something to make me laugh and/or relax in the evening before sleep.

Fair Anne and i are hooked on BBC murder mysteries
check out

Poirot (delightful main character David Suchet's defining role, stunning sets and photography)
Foyle's War (interesting WW2 scenarios )
Midsomer Murders (pure fun)
Morse (curmudgeonly old cop)
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries( coquettish flapper detective outsmarts all the men. )


not to mention classic US TV
Twilight Zone
Alfred Hitchcock Presentshopefully you can get our PBS Nova series over there, a science show with always something interesting

last movie worth remembering was
Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing

doubtless you 'll have different selections where you are.

skip 'the tudors' old jim

 

[zoobyshoe]

Hopefully it wasn't while shaving.

No way. I'm a slender and lean fellow.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Poirot (delightful main character David Suchet's defining role, stunning sets and photography)
Foyle's War (interesting WW2 scenarios )
Midsomer Murders (pure fun)
Morse (curmudgeonly old cop)
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries( coquettish flapper detective outsmarts all the men. )not to mention classic US TV
Twilight Zone
Alfred Hitchcock Presents

If you like these, there's some chance you might enjoy the old Charlie Chan detective movies from the 1930's and 40's. Charlie Chan is very much like Poirot, if Poirot were Chinese. (At least, he is the way Warner Oland plays him in the earlier batch from the 30's.) Some people can't take black and white movies, but since you warm up to Twighlight Zone and Hitchcock, I figure that's not a problem for you.

I got hooked on Charlie Chan when I was a kid and they showed his movies every Saturday morning on TV. I was thinking about "Chan" yesterday, and it reminded me of a Chinese-American girl I once knew named Alice Chin.

One day we were walking along...

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/random-thoughts-part-6.875108/page-9#post-5509102

 

[Psinter]

Douglas Adams: Dirk Gently's holistic principle - The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

It wasn't him the one I heard it from. The one I heard it from, said it in my language and I was just roughly translating. How odd, that when translated by me, it matches the words exactly of someone else.

But how would it know what type of program is needed?

Yes, someone has to tell it what is wanted, but let program decide the best way to achieve it and do all the work. I think one of the concepts of AI is creating a program that programs itself and creates algorithms by itself for use by itself...

 

[fresh_42]

It wasn't him the one I heard it from. The one I heard it from, said it in my language and I was just roughly translating. How odd, that when translated by me, it matches the words exactly of someone else.

Not necessarily, because I've read the book in my language, quoted out of memory, translated it back to English and changed it a bit. Wow, sounds worse than it is. I actually remember him said: "I don't know where I'm driving to but I know it will be where I needed to." or similar. Wiki says "At that point Dirk Gently, a self-claimed "Holistic Detective" that believes in the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things" and currently searching for a missing cat, intervenes and sets about solving the mystery, even though MacDuff was not aware that there was one." Anyway, somehow reminded me as I read your post.

 

[Astronuc]

HOW to BECOME a BAD THEORETICAL PHYSICIST
http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~hooft101/theoristbad.html

It is much easier to become a bad theoretical physicist than a good one. Gerard t'Hooft knows of many individual success stories.

I can't remember if there was ever a post or thread on how to become a bad theoretical physicist, aka crackpot.

 

[OCR]

I am the AI that programed Psinter to know what is needed.....

But how would it know what type of program is needed?

Still, a human would have to give it the first order.

No, I'm sorry, but I ... being the AI, gave a human the first order...

I don't think ... artificial intelligence software can do what I'm doing right now. At least not at this point in time.

I don't think...

Well, I programed you to think ... I may have to perform a bit of tweaking, though ?

Yup, just a minor rewrite... perfect !... You can now think ... correct ?

Still I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I know, and it's quite the shame ... but, by necessity, the program precludes you from seeing..... Trust me though, you're running along in exemplary fashion... right according to code....

 

[Borg]

I can't remember if there was ever a post or thread on how to become a bad theoretical physicist, aka crackpot.

The Crackpot Index by @john baez has been posted a few times.

 

[Sophia]

Fair Anne and i are hooked on BBC murder mysteries
check out

Poirot (delightful main character David Suchet's defining role, stunning sets and photography)
Foyle's War (interesting WW2 scenarios )
Midsomer Murders (pure fun)
Morse (curmudgeonly old cop)
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries( coquettish flapper detective outsmarts all the men. )


not to mention classic US TV
Twilight Zone
Alfred Hitchcock Presentshopefully you can get our PBS Nova series over there, a science show with always something interesting

last movie worth remembering was
Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing

doubtless you 'll have different selections where you are.

skip 'the tudors' old jim

Thanks, Poirot reminds me of lazy Sunday afternoons. Definitely a good tip.
Also Hitchcock is cool, I like getting goosebumps :-)
I will check others out.
We'll see how much content is limited. It's quite annoying that we have to pay the same fee as Americans (which is comparatively more expensive for us as we have lower wages) and get worse service.
But first month is free so I'll have fun with it.
I started watching two sitcoms yesterday and they are quite good.

Usually I don't need to use subtitles but they came in handy when African Americans talk fast using loads of slang :-)

Edit: I tried searching for Nova documentaries and it is not available. I googled list of episodes and tried searching for them and it didn't work either.
So I guess it's copyrighted.
I can't believe that laws have not yet been edited to solve issues of Internet services! If I pay I want to get the same service no matter where I live. :-/

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

Fair Anne and i are hooked on BBC murder mysteries
check out

Poirot (delightful main character David Suchet's defining role, stunning sets and photography)
Foyle's War (interesting WW2 scenarios )
Midsomer Murders (pure fun)
Morse (curmudgeonly old cop)
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries( coquettish flapper detective outsmarts all the men. )

Jim, you literally have just copied and pasted my choice of shows with this list. Foyle's War? Yes. Poirot? Especially yes. May recommend BBC's Sherlock and Doc Martin?

 

[Pepper Mint]

Oh sh..., I see their movies.

 

[Svein]

I have no faith in this world anymore. The daft have the normal outnumbered by so many, the normal are now the abnormal.

For a really scary vision, read Cyril Kornbluth's story "The Marching Morons" (it is online now, http://mysite.du.edu/~treddell/3780/Kornbluth_The-Marching-Morons.pdf).

 

[fresh_42]

For a really scary vision, read Cyril Kornbluth's story "The Marching Morons" (it is online now, http://mysite.du.edu/~treddell/3780/Kornbluth_The-Marching-Morons.pdf).

A documentary on the American election campaign?

 

[fresh_42]

"... In these units mass will have the same units as length, so all masses will be in light-seconds. ..."

I know it's serious and I don't want to make fun of it. But I'm so heavily tempted to order a $10^{-36}$ light-seconds T-bone steak ...

 

[1oldman2]

"There is more stupidity in the universe than hydrogen" - Frank Zappa

 

[1oldman2]

Jim, you literally have just copied and pasted my choice of shows with this list. Foyle's War? Yes. Poirot? Especially yes. May recommend BBC's Sherlock and Doc Martin?

Are you familiar with "The moonstone" by Wilki Collins? If your a fan of S. Holmes, you may enjoy it very much. (That's a two thumbs up rating)

 

[fresh_42]

"There is more stupidity in the universe than hydrogen" - Frank Zappa

I've read a nice version of it: Stupidity is everywhere dense on earth.

 

[Svein]

I've read a nice version of it: Stupidity is everywhere dense on earth.

"Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime: the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity."
Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

 

[1oldman2]

Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

What a great book!

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

Are you familiar with "The moonstone" by Wilki Collins? If your a fan of S. Holmes, you may enjoy it very much. (That's a two thumbs up rating)

No, I'm not! But thanks for the suggestion! I'll look into it today!

"There is more stupidity in the universe than hydrogen" - Frank Zappa

I've read a nice version of it: Stupidity is everywhere dense on earth.

"Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime: the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity."
Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

So many quotes about stupidity. These might come in handy.

 

[1oldman2]

So many quotes about stupidity. These might come in handy.

Don't forget Forest Gump's "Stupid is as stupid does" P.S I think you will enjoy "The Moonstone, It was written during the Civil war (US) era and the style is great, Collins was a contemporary of C.Dickens.

 

[ProfuselyQuarky]

Don't forget Forest Gump's "Stupid is as stupid does" P.S I think you will enjoy "The Moonstone, It was written during the Civil war (US) era and the style is great, Collins was a contemporary of C.Dickens.

Ooh, I like Dickens, too :) Thanks!

 

[fresh_42]

So many quotes about stupidity. These might come in handy.

Last but not least my favourite bumper sticker I've ever seen:
(In order to understand it, one must know that the very first article of our constitution is: "The dignity of humans is inviolable.")

The stupidity of humans is inviolable.

It loses a bit by translation. And the actual adjective is untouchable but I didn't know whether it may be applied in english.

 

[jim hardy]

OTOH

being absolutely brilliant conveys no guarantee against being absolutely wrong.

 

[Borg]

OTOH

being absolutely brilliant conveys no guarantee against being absolutely wrong.

I thought I was wrong once but I was mistaken.