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criticizing the History Channel's focus on sensational topics like time travel conspiracies instead of real historical content.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.
  • #2,051
zoobyshoe said:
Every year on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to determine who is open, who isn't, and who is open but for fewer hours. I'm always surprised that any business would neglect to update the internet on their hours, but, strangely, they do.
Many businesses here do not include neither their hours of operation nor the cross streets; they will just state, e.g., 1445 3rd Av., without including the nearest cross streets. And it is not as if the numbering is similar for all avenues, since avenues start at different levels , i.e., some starter further North/South than others, so having an idea for the numbering of one of them does not help with the others. Attitude seems to be: " Want to patronize our store? Do the research!" . Even I, without any business training realize this is poor business practice, given competition is often just feet away.
 
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  • #2,052
WWGD said:
Many businesses here do not include neither their hours of operation nor the cross streets; they will just state, e.g., 1445 3rd Av., without including the nearest cross streets. And it is not as if the numbering is similar for all avenues, since avenues start at different levels , i.e., some starter further North/South than others, so having an idea for the numbering of one of them does not help with the others. Attitude seems to be: " Want to patronize our store? Do the research!" . Even I, without any business training realize this is poor business practice, given competition is often just feet away.
Yes. If you want to improve your business you have to seriously put yourself in the place of a customer of your business. Too many think they can train their customers to adapt to what's convenient for the business owner.

That coffee house I mentioned a while back where they kept closing before they were closed, i.e. going around mopping the floor, cleaning, and putting things away an hour before closing time. Yeah: they completely folded a few months ago. Nail in the coffin: A block down the street a 24 hour coffee house opened. You never have to worry about getting "cleaned out" of there, of being treated like a trespasser because they're going to be closing soon.
 
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  • #2,053
zoobyshoe said:
Yes. If you want to improve your business you have to seriously put yourself in the place of a customer of your business. Too many think they can train their customers to adapt to what's convenient for the business owner.

That coffee house I mentioned a while back where they kept closing before they were closed, i.e. going around mopping the floor, cleaning, and putting things away an hour before closing time. Yeah: they completely folded a few months ago. Nail in the coffin: A block down the street a 24 hour coffee house opened. You never have to worry about getting "cleaned out" of there, of being treated like a trespasser because they're going to be closing soon.

Which seems somehow to be incredibly difficult for many people, not just business owners to do.
 
  • #2,054
Seems over the top: just had someone tell me they could not assume any liability for me when I asked this guy to keep an eye on my stuff when I walked to the bathroom , some 20 feet away. Ok, dude, I guess I won't make sign the contract and affidavits I had brought with me.
 
  • #2,055
Dunkin Donuts just came up with this "Cro-muffin", mix of a croissant and a muffin. I can imagine months of intense discussions in the corporate board:
"Cro-Muffin" !
No, " Muff-ssant"!
"Cro-Muffin is better"
No, " Muff-ssant" is better.
...
...
 
  • #2,056
Cro-Muffin? It sounds like the primitive ancestor of a pastry to me.
 
  • #2,057
Ibix said:
Cro-Muffin? It sounds like the primitive ancestor of a pastry to me.
True, but still better than Paleo-ssant, though both sound primitively delicious.
 
  • #2,058
WWGD said:
True, but still better than Paleo-ssant, though both sound primitively delicious.
The crucial point of both is butter. This alone decides it.
 
  • #2,059
fresh_42 said:
The crucial point of both is butter. This alone decides it.
What do you suggest for accompaniment ? A fruity white or just a bier?
 
  • #2,060
WWGD said:
What do you suggest for accompaniment ? A fruity white or just a bier?
There are Columbian coffee farmers with a picture of me in their wallet :cool:
 
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  • #2,061
fresh_42 said:
There are Columbian coffee farmers with a picture of me in their wallet :cool:
Ah, Das Kaffee? Mit Milch? Starbuchen?
 
  • #2,062
WWGD said:
Ah, Das Kaffee? Mit Milch? Starbuchen?
My favorite is black as my soul and if possible, no composite mixtures. Pure Ethiopian Mocha, Brazilian Santos, Ugandan or one of the central American ones. The difference in taste is the difference in region and roasting. I really don't like places as claw-bucks. The best place are small private roasters where coffee still tastes as coffee should and by no means all of the same. But this is the ideal case. In daily life: any coffee will do, as long as you keep all these artificial flavors away.
 
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  • #2,063
fresh_42 said:
In daily life: any coffee will do, as long as you keep all these artificial flavors away.
What ?... no "toxic coffee" ? .. lol
 
  • #2,064
I got a small book in envelope from Germany, the stamps has 100, 200, 70 Deutschland in it. Germany uses Euro, but 370 Euros is 416 dollars. So the 100 denomination may not be in Euro or the right decimal places? Anyone here in Germany or who knows what's going on?
 
  • #2,065
Blue Scallop said:
I got a small book in envelope from Germany, the stamps has 100, 200, 70 Deutschland in it. Germany uses Euro, but 370 Euros is 416 dollars. So the 100 denomination may not be in Euro or the right decimal places? Anyone here in Germany or who knows what's going on?
So someone in Germany bought for 3.70 € stamps which found their way into your hands. Where is the problem?
 
  • #2,066
fresh_42 said:
So someone in Germany bought for 3.70 € stamps which found their way into your hands. Where is the problem?

Why are the stamps not written as 2, 1, 0.70 Euros. Why 200, 100, 70? Does this also occur in other countries stamps?
 
  • #2,067
It's Cent, or Euro-Cent if you like. They adjust prices in steps of Cent. E.g. a standard letter between 20g and 50g currently costs 85 Cent. I think I still have old stamps with 51 Cent on it. The French want to have 1.46€, the Swedish 7 Kronor, the Italians are ridiculously expensive, the Spanish seem to like digital services, the Finish 8.10€ and the Danish 8 Kroner. It appears that German fees are remarkably low. I assume the German prizing in Cent is simply what customers are used to from D-Mark times.
 
  • #2,069
Have you recently looked it up in a dictionary? Perhaps great means alone, as in Great Britain.
 
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  • #2,070
  • #2,071
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  • #2,073
RonL said:
Thanks, I am in a little bit of an ADD rant kinda moment.
Enjoy it! I usually consult anti-vaxxers or ID people in these cases. They are easily available, and all time ready for a senseless fight! And always remember: If you can't convince them by knowledge, confuse them with nonsense!
 
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  • #2,074
RonL said:
It's things like this that make me feel like I live in a completely different world, I wanted to study a point about "sliding vane motors" and this is what I get from wiki :mad:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.ph...h&go=Go&searchToken=dc6hnjgkq0viviqa8vnbfkqjf

The page "sliding vane motors" does not exist ?
I guess the lesson for the day is, "don't throw away those old books from 50 or more years back" :nb)
I keep getting poor quality hits whenever I use google or Duckduckgo, even when I type in a very specific question.
When I tell people, they look, talk at me as if I am dull-minded: " are you sure" . No, I am not, all my focus and mental energy went to make
sure my zipper was closed, so maybe not.
 
  • #2,075
Kind of weird: I ran into the same people (people I don't know; they were tourists, actually) while eating breakfast and elsewhere, pretty far away , on a different part of the city. Of course, if this happens once, it is not really that unusual, but somehow it feels like it is.
 
  • #2,076
WWGD said:
Kind of weird: I ran into the same people (people I don't know; they were tourists, actually) while eating breakfast and elsewhere, pretty far away , on a different part of the city. Of course, if this happens once, it is not really that unusual, but somehow it feels like it is.
Did they wear sunglasses, earphones and black suits? Don't believe this mingy excuse "tourists"!
 
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  • #2,077
fresh_42 said:
Did they wear sunglasses, earphones and black suits? Don't believe this mingy excuse "tourists"!
Not quite, but I have seen some people who , for some reason where heavy coats in mid-summer. Those definitely stick out, given most other people are wearing shorts and light t-shirts to offset the heat. These were just some Italian tourists. I was surprised when the cashier lady, from Pakistan or Bangladesh told them "Arrivederci" as they left. People here for whatever reason learn all sorts of Spanish-language phrases, but fewer from other languages.
 
  • #2,078
fresh_42 said:
Did they wear sunglasses, earphones and black suits? Don't believe this mingy excuse "tourists"!
I used to play this joke (maybe not a good idea now) of , when meeting a friend in a public place, handin them an (empty) manila envelope while saying something like " Winter started early in Moscow this year"(cheesy cold-war phrase *) while he replied " The black bear just left the cave" , and walking away while putting the envelope in his vest pocket.

* While the cool kids were out partying in school, us nerds stayed home and watched movies.
 
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  • #2,079
WWGD said:
I used to play this joke (maybe not a good idea now) of , when meeting a friend in a public place, handin them an (empty) manila envelope while saying something like " Winter started early in Moscow this year"(cheesy cold-war phrase *) while he replied " The black bear just left the cave" , and walking away while putting the envelope in his vest pocket.

* While the cool kids were out partying in school, us nerds stayed home and watched movies.
Do you remember SARS? I once stood at a traffic light during those days and had to cough. Afterwards I said to myself the German version of "F*** SARS". You could clearly see some people jumping away.
 
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  • #2,080
fresh_42 said:
Do you remember SARS? I once stood at a traffic light during those days and had to cough. Afterwards I said to myself the German version of "F*** SARS". You could clearly see some people jumping away.
I suspect that is OK only in very few crowds. I hope you did not (accidentally) get someone with your cough before saying that EDIT: I don't know in Germany, but IMO , NYC is only nominally Liberal; I suspect mostly (socially) Conservative, with a thin disguise of Liberalism, outside of support for gay rights, etc. People much dislike the unexpected overall.
 
  • #2,081
WWGD said:
I suspect that is OK only in very few crowds. I hope you did not (accidentally) get someone with your cough before saying that EDIT: I don't know in Germany, but IMO , NYC is only nominally Liberal; I suspect mostly (socially) Conservative, with a thin disguise of Liberalism, outside of support for gay rights, etc. People much dislike the unexpected overall.
Your destroying my image of NYC. I only heard "NYC isn't America" all the time.
 
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  • #2,082
fresh_42 said:
Your destroying my image of NYC. I only heard "NYC isn't America" all the time.
Well, my impression is that Liberals here are often as close-minded as any Conservative may be. I consider myself to be slightly left-of-center and I consider many Liberals to be fanatical, the flip version of Conservative Dittoheads. Sad but true, sorry.
 
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  • #2,083
WWGD said:
Well, my impression is that Liberals here are often as close-minded as any Conservative may be. I consider myself to be slightly left-of-center and I consider many Liberals to be fanatical, the flip version of Conservative Dittoheads. Sad but true, sorry.
One of my nephews is in the libertarian camp, my brother in law straight conservative so ... liberal and left-of-center still sounds good.
 
  • #2,084
And my beef with Libertarians is that, however great their ideas sound, AFAIK, these ideas have never been tested on a reasonably-large scale, so there is no empirical basis for them to support any Libertarian-based system. However imperfect, at least we know our current form of government can largely be made to work. ,I don't mind anyone's views ( within reason, e.g., no " killing should be decriminalized" etc.) as long as they can argue them/ support them reasonably well. EDIT: One pays a prize for the ( short-term) comfort of not having one's views challenged. EDIT: I don't mean this applies to you, just a general comment.
 
  • #2,085
WWGD said:
One pays a prize for the ( short-term) comfort of not having one's views challenged.
How <shhh ...> philosophical! I sometimes have difficulties to distinguish his libertarian opinions from anarchy. We don't have this distinction here, although "liberal" also changed it's meaning from liberal thoughts in the 70's to a kind of Adam Smith capitalism nowadays.
 
  • #2,086
fresh_42 said:
How <shhh ...> philosophical! I sometimes have difficulties to distinguish his libertarian opinions from anarchy. We don't have this distinction here, although "liberal" also changed it's meaning from liberal thoughts in the 70's to a kind of Adam Smith capitalism nowadays.
Yes, much of classical Liberalism has been redefined into Neo-Liberalism, as you describe. I like to ask Libertarians what they think of the fact that M. Friedman had no trouble accepting a tenured position, guaranteeing his employment while preaching the virtues of the free market. Hey, Friedman, why not let the closest version of the market , students and professors, vote every few months to decide whether you keep or job or not? Similar for Tom Sowell, with a nice cushy guaranteed job in a think tank, while suggesting the elimination of a safety net for others. EDIT : Of course, this is not an argument against Libertarianism, but they seem to trash Liberal and Conservatives with plenty of fury, sometimes deservedly.
 
  • #2,087
WWGD said:
I consider many Liberals to be fanatical, the flip version of Conservative Dittoheads. Sad but true, sorry.

The guy who wants government to run everything is no different than the guy who wants government to run nothing.
Both crave power, one to prescribe the other to proscribe .

This guy said it better:
eric hoffer said:
“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a God or not. The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion.”
 
  • #2,088
Telemarketers

From research I've done it's not possible for an individual to trace the real origin of a spoofed caller id

but here's a guy who programmed his little computer to engage them in idle chat thereby wasting their time

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/25/fashion/a-robot-that-has-fun-at-telemarketers-expense.html

Often the robot just has a little fun. Using recorded lines spoken by Mr. Anderson, it may say the following to the telemarketer: “I just woke up from a nap, I took some medicine and I’m really groggy. Can you go a little slower?” Sometimes it interrupts the telemarketer to ask questions. “Do you drink coffee?” or “You sound like someone I went to high school with.”

The idea is to keep the telemarketer on the call for as long as possible.
They'd go broke if 10% of us started wasting their time.
A little box with voice, phone jack and a pushbutton to teach it "This caller ID is a telemarketer, answer all future calls from there"
It would be the next hula hoop !

And it's a lot more humane than what i say to them.

old jim
 
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  • #2,089
I like this alternative approach:


Can't say I've tried it though.
 
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  • #2,090
Check it out at half speed (thanks Om for the tip :smile: )
This is my idea of a "Wonder Woman"

 
  • #2,091
RonL said:
Check it out at half speed (thanks Om for the tip :smile: )
This is my idea of a "Wonder Woman"


I checked it out at quarter-speed, and I saw her body language saying; "That REALLY hurt."

Hope she's ok.
 
  • #2,092
Here's a clip from my days as an enthusiast of racing, Don Garlits 7:78 and 201.34 (1964) it starts at the 2:00 minute point.



Force just ran 3:84 and 331.?? fifty three years of very focused and intense improvement, in a single word "WOW"

ps. Another thing I find amazing is the difference in the sound of the two engines :woot:
 
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  • #2,093
RonL said:
Here's a clip from my days as an enthusiast of racing, Don Garlits 7:78 and 201.34 (1964) it starts at the 2:00 minute point.



Force just ran 3:84 and 331.?? fifty three years of very focused and intense improvement, in a single word "WOW"

ps. Another thing I find amazing is the difference in the sound of the two engines :woot:


Just watched a recent video of him. Didn't even know he was still alive.
Seems like a lifetime ago, when he was in the news.



I agree with him 1000%

ps. ±10% :biggrin:
 
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  • #2,094
OmCheeto said:
Just watched a recent video of him. Didn't even know he was still alive.
Seems like a lifetime ago, when he was in the news.



I agree with him 1000%

ps. ±10% :biggrin:


Watched my first "e-drag race" about 10 years ago.
It was sonically as exciting as listening to pulling the trigger on an electric drill.

Loved the retro, aka, old as dirt nitro cars, getting beat by the "what the heck is a Tesla?" cars.
 
  • #2,095
Songs like this can be about more than romantic love lost :smile:

 
  • #2,096
RonL said:
Here's a clip from my days as an enthusiast of racing, Don Garlits 7:78 and 201.34 (1964) it starts at the 2:00 minute point.

Just want to mention, for any fellow motorhead types this is not a commercial

Don Garlits has a museum of drag racing adjacent his house . It's right off I-75 at Ocala about an hour North of Disneyworld.
I thought Fair Anne would be bored but she loved the bright artwork on the cars.
http://garlits.com/
http://www.hotrod.com/articles/a-visit-to-the-don-garlits-museum/Plan on a whole day , and don't miss the annex it's full of street rods. Even has a "Hot Rod Lincoln", true to the song 12 cylinder model A with overdrive.

 
  • #2,097
To avoid the thread hijack:
WWGD said:
And she has your phone number and she will call you even after you break up with her..., er, I mean, I agree, kernels, yes, kernels ;).
And worst of all, they always want to be in the center.
 
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  • #2,098
fresh_42 said:
To avoid the thread hijack:

And worst of all, they always want to be in the center.
Way of stretching the analogy to its breaking point... necessary after the restraining order, er, again, yes, non-trivial center.

EDIT: P.S, Sorry too, Bashyboy, as Fresh would (may?) say, it is Sonntag.;).
 
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  • #2,099
fresh_42 said:
Your destroying my image of NYC. I only heard "NYC isn't America" all the time.

This song sums up my feelings on NYC. Not really the individual lyrics* but the overall sentiment:



*i.e I do like saxophones and I am not homophobic.
 
  • #2,100
My son (15 months old, 12 adjusted) has reached a developmental milestone where instead of just knocking things over he now is starting to put things on top of other things. Now he can join:

 

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