DrKrettin

Because you can judge people by it. People are often annoying because they need to boost their own ego by 1) being condescending; 2) spouting unsubstantiated crap; 3) repeating themselves; 4) being serious when humour is appropriate; 5) being supercilious when being serious is appropriate; 6) talking over you etc. ad infinitum

Plutarch reports it was Archimedes in non posse suaviter...1094C2 "..μέτρησιν οἷον ἔκ τινος κατοχῆς ἢ ἐπιπνοίας ἐξήλατο βοῶν ‘εὕρηκα’, καὶ τοῦτο πολλάκις φθεγγόμενος ἐβάδιζεν. "

The argument about public facilities is quite valid, I think. But that would not stop changing the design for private dwellings if customers wanted. I imagine that most men actually use the toilets at home more often than elsewhere, generally. (A statement which can be challenged on all kinds of levels I suppose.)

I find it unspeakably annoying when people start a post with "hey!". I don't usually react to anybody who addresses me personally like that.

I hope you do not have ambitions to view something which is not directly overhead

If the sun were shining, it would result in water evaporating on the top of the sheet, which would quickly condense in the air.

Tell me that was an intentional spelling mistake! Actually I agree with you - sometimes I find that I am sitting on the loo and I've actually gone and peed over the porcelain rim, between the rim and the seat. That is gross. A bit more space would avoid that, although 8 inches is rather OTT (get it? oh never mind)

But this process requires immense investment in machinery - I understand that the cooling down can take several years, while the glass is rotating at a precise rate without vibration.

Not entirely - it was coined in 1914, partly Phidias and partly Fibonacci. Link. We don't know much about Phidias, but he was a very respected sculptor and they suspect that he used phi in connection with the construction of the Parthenon.

Certainly not, if it means something to you. But for me it depended on the usefulness of the application and what it was doing to my head. I found that working at it for 8 hours resulted in an inability to feel normal the rest of the time, and it was preventing me from doing all kinds of other things I wanted to do. Other people did not have this problem - each to his own. By the way - the question of beer and chess opens up the question of how alcohol affects the brain. I don't often get drunk, but when I do it is usually a social situation when I'm playing cards or chess. I have noticed that alcohol has little effect on logical exercises - I remember once hardly being able to hold a pencil yet still able to perform logical exercises. I find this a bit surprising.

I used to program computers, until I decided to try and get a life, and I can confirm the same impression. In the same vein, I use to play a lot of bridge and always tried to have a couple of beers before starting a tournament. I'm not sure it improved my play (I think it did) but it made me realise it was only a game, something bridge players forget, and I enjoyed the evening much more. Edit: off-topic perhaps, but I know that I can play bridge even when I am so drunk I have difficulty remembering the name of my partner and I can't easily stay sat on my chair. My friends have commented that they are amazed that this has no effect on the quality of my play (which is not bad)

I guess that a problem even greater than this one is that of making a parabolic surface of an accuracy which makes the project sensible. Plus the question of how to make the reflecting surface. I would be interested in having further details about this.

For a start, you must distinguish between speed and velocity. Velocity is a vector and has one component of speed and the other of direction. Speed is just a scalar quantity. Are you asking about average speed (easy) or average velocity (not quite so easy)?

The scary thing is that there are imbeciles who believe all this crap. It is so disingenuous.

Actually, it was in Germany, but English was the official language. Being computer-orientated, even the Germans spoke English amongst themselves when chatting about work. IBM machines.

I worked for the European Space Agency in the 70s. We had a Computer Department and a Data Processing Department. The Computer Dept would now be called IT.

Wow! Not only will the temperature make a difference, but I think the distortion through moving the mirror around would ruin the image anyway. How would you make a parabolic surface?

It's popular because it's cheap, but it takes up space. I don't know the figures, but you might find that a 3cm thickness is not very effective. Use google to see whether there are other cheap materials such as polystyrene which are better insulators. Sheets of this are not expensive.

I think you mean insulate the box. Have you tried searching for "insulating materials" in Google? Edit: cross-posted

I could only watch 3 minutes before my forehead hit the keyboard. The only real challenge was trying to read his script.

I think this is an overstatement. The focusing of one eye enables the measuring of distance, but obviously not nearly as precisely as two eyes. I was very aware of this as a small child because my mother was blind in one eye. She could perform almost all tasks needing distance measurement, such as driving a car, but I had to thread her needles for her.

It would be a grammatical quibble were it not for the (potentially) excellent labelling of Trump's absurdity. I can see why you use the term, but a preposition is a single word, a part of speech (others are noun, verb, adjective... etc.) and as such can have no meaning on its own. But you are using it for an actual statement ("...so I won’t call it biased,") . Perhaps "statement" or "declaration" are even better than "proposition".

If you do that, please let's have one puzzle at a time, otherwise I'll get hopelessly confused. It's bad enough with just one.

Yes, an excellent puzzle. If you call that straightforward, I can't wait for a difficult one.

Good post, but isn't that "proposition"?