Acme

No, but it does preclude one doing stuff. By your argument I should let you tune my automobile engine even though you tell me you don't really know how but have thought about it.

... So some clarifications. I put 'bat' in parentheses because it gets to the basic idea of a striker, but I want to allow the broadest possible application of the idea of bat. Golf clubs, baseball bats, cricket bats, and tennis rackets all meet my criteria. But if you want to swing a 15 foot steel rod (either sideways from the ground or vertically from a pedestal) or swing a piece of bamboo packed with rubber, that's up to you. Same approach for putting 'ball' in parentheses. The strikee -i.e. the struck object that will travel after being hit by the 'bat', can be any material or combination of materials and needn't be spherical at all. If you think you can launch an arrow by hitting it with a 'bat' and have it go farther than a golf ball then go for it. The 'ball' can be any shape, size, or materials. While not technically 'batting' as I have in mind, your clever arrangement does introduce some of the technical difficulties I foresee with 'batting'. Since we're concerned with real people and real materials and real air, we can't simply disregard air resistance, or how high a platform we can build and climb, or how hard it would be to actually hit a golf ball with a 20 foot long striker. Not only the air resistance, but the weight and the difficulty in 'aiming' the hit.

To be clear, Hilbert did not construct Hilbert's paradox. I put the incorrect link with his name. The correct link is here: >> Hilbert's paradox @ Wiki While being lazy may be the reason your are arguing as you do, it is no excuse.

At the most basic level, what is the farthest a human can hit a ball is the question. And I think the angle of the launch. IIRC, all else being held equal an angle of launch of 45º achieves the farthest distance. I think definitely the strength of material matters. While golfers aren't allowed a club over 48", we can allow any length of club that a human can swing. That is a good, if not the, question. Standing on a block is fine. Somewhere there will be diminishing return. A five foot block and a 9 foot club might gain some distance, but a 10 foot block and a 19 foot club could get dicey. Reading it now. Roger. However for this project we are concerned with hitting/striking an object with another object to propel the struck object. At the most basic level, batting. Yes. Absolutely what I am heading for. The ideal 'ball' hit by the ideal 'bat'. I like it!

I had to read up on the intermediate theorem @ Wiki and based on that reading I will take an amateur stab. As the function is given as continuous and you have already established an interval between negative and positive infinity, then by the intermediate value theorem So the way I read things, that's the proof that [at least] 3 roots exist. If that is circular or otherwise a wild swing and you or someone you know has been injured, I was never here.

If'n y'all think this idea merits its own thread, I'm down with that. If'n ya think it belongs on the trash heap, I'm going down whining & crying like a petulant child until you accept and endorse it. So my idea is to use coastal wave & tidal power not to generate electricity, but to generate clouds & rain. The generator devices offshore and/or onshore compress air on the power stroke and that compressed air drives misters fed by seawater. The mists [partially] evaporate, cool the air, and increase the humidity. Eventually clouds form -preferably over land- and rain falls. Haters -or per se devil's advocates- and lovers to your places. Let the argumentation commence!

Good points. So a conditional yes to both. The conditions are that those means may not be used to propel the striker. However, a corked bat incorporates a spring, and strings on a tennis racket constitute a spring, and rather than corking one might have a bat with a hollow core filled with an elastic container of compressed gas. Those spring and compressed 'air' contrivances we allow. But a human winding up a spring as in a catapult or pumping a cylinder to high pressure as in a BB gun is not allowed. At the simplest level we are hitting something with a 'stick' with the goal of having that hit thing travel farther than any other hit things. While the strength/power among humans vary, it is conceivable that a less powerful human with a better stick and 'ball' could out-distance the hit of a more powerful opponent. 'Batter' up!

Understood. Nonetheless, golfing authorities do prohibit certain ball designs as they give an 'unfair' advantage. In my scenario no such restrictions apply. So for example the dimpling on a golf ball prolongs time aloft and so distance achieved and one might dimple a super-ball or a titanium 'marble' for example to achieve similar gain. Definitely no chemical or electrical means allowed. Strictly 'hit it as far as you can' idea. I do think mechanical improvements to the striker be allowed, such as a sliding mass or articulations. I would consider the stringing on a tennis racket to be a mechanical improvement for example. Nunchaku would be allowed too. The strikee can be any shape or material and may be teed up or thrown up prior to striking.

So the current distance record for an object thrown by a human is for throwing a Aerobie 1,333 feet. So I'm wondering what is the best way to strike an object and set a distance record. For example, the record golf drive is 1,545 feet. Now with no (maybe a few?) restrictions on striker or strickee, what is the ideal setup? Can you bat a golf ball further using a bat than a golf club? Tennis racket? Ball bearing or super-ball instead of a golf ball? Perhaps there is an ideal striker outside what we traditionally use in sports. If so, what is it like? If there were to be a contest at Oak Dell park next month for the longest strike of an object, what would you show up with to compete?

I think everyone has missed imdow123's point. The question is essentially about curriculum, not algorithms. Can students not in the computer science major take the extant algorithm courses if they want to? I think the subject of algorithms is an important & useful concept that has a place in the wider general studies and per se liberal arts curriculum. The subject would need to be geared to that general audience by including examples outside of computer science, e.g. cooking recipes as algorithms, or following one of those damnable instruction sheets that comes with 'some assembly required' cargo. Perhaps include algorithms as a section of another course, such as a course on critical thinking.

Researchers to test Gulf Stream energy turbines off Florida's coast

Arguing from personal incredulity is a logical fallacy. Just because you can't imagine it does not mean it can't be imagined or proved by others. See Cardinality @ Wiki

Possible explanation. Pretty cool though. Sorry if my UFO sighting doesn't fit here. Did you take a look though? Classic saucer form with bubble dome and everything.

They are talking primarily about planet sized torroids as far as stability, but I recall comments that a torroidal formation may extend to galaxies at certain stages but the torroid shape would likely break up into a bead formation and the beads becoming stars and seeding the arms. This is also an early possibility for a planet size torroid, but those details on the contraints on mass, material, etcetera are spelled out in the body of the paper. That body is the collection of the mathematical rules that show it is possible to have a torroidal space body form. I could be wrong on some of those details as I only skim read through the entire paper once. If you find something specific you think is wrong in the paper itself and/or the calculations in it then feel free to point it out for us to have a look. Otherwise just saying I think this because of that is trumped by actual calculations.

Excellent point. That bamboo is a grass and can reach heights of 100 feet is plenty of a springboard to add in wide at the base. I wouldn't think so. Part of the story is the setting and you can get plot elements from what normal size people have to and/or can do to with such large and dense plants. Also, pampas grass grows tall and in dense wide clumps. (Height 10 - 12 feet) So what came to my mind first in Grassland was.....FIRE! There's a hot plot device.

This time a UFO was spotted riding a noctilucent cloud like a river surfer standing a wave. Images copyright so you have to SFY. I note of the 4 images posted, one is zoomed in dead center on the UFO. No doubt they won't be up for long before the secret societies of North South Antartica quash them like a mountain ice worm. This concludes another hyperbolic anonymous UFO report from your friends @ Acme where we pretend to care more, so we can charge more. Link to UFO pictures. >> Noctilucent Clouds Taken by Noel Blaney on June 6, 2014 @ Bangor, Northern Ireland.

According to the calculations by the authors of the paper linked to in the OP, it could form. The work is copyright protected so I can only direct readers to page 687 in Summary and Discussion that gives the conditions for formation. Toroidal figures of equilibrium. Wong, C.-Y. Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 190, p. 675 - 694

Not so far, but feel free to make one. He was a wise man who invented beer. ~ Plato

Notice that in your linked article, J.H. Kellogg is listed as an early proponent of eugenics. A Seventh Day Adventist, he was intimately associated with William S. Sadler who studied with Freud, Jung, and others in Germany. Sadler is the man responsible for The Urantia Book which among other whacko ideas is rife with promotion of eugenics as an ideal. (Whites being the ideal of course, but referred to as the 'Violet race' in the book.) Alas the book continues to be promoted and translated to other languages as a work channeled from spirits and per se God.

If you don't vote, don't complain. One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. ~Plato

Washington & Lincoln?

More cross-species altruism. Dog attacks boy, cat attacks dog

What? Me stir up trouble? I have been favoring Ninkasi's Triceratops Double IPA @ 8% out of Eugene lately. As far as I have seen they are only in 20oz bottles and as I had some manual labor to do this week & didn't want to be so impaired I am today sucking on a Lagunitas @ 6.2% out of Petaluma. It's OK, but it's no Triceratops. Segue to a recent kurfuffle over in Oregon and a proposed ruling from the FDA to stop brewers from sending their spent grain to feed cattle. Full article: >> FDA addresses concerns over proposed spent-grains rule

I didn't mention that, but I think you mean more than 50 million in China this time. I agree that we basically agree on our agreement. I saw one thing -I think in your original paper- that may be a positive political action, and that is to take away government subsidies of beef producers. I'm glad I said something to make you chuckle. I admit that I got caught up in arguing for arguing sake. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Taking your colloquial approach and agreeing with you again, most big company American beers (Budweiser, Miller, etc.) are slop and I would rather take a punch in the eye than drink one. I live in the Pacific Northwest where you can't spit without hitting a microbrewery and I love my beer warm & strong. Currently preferring the IPA's. How'd I do? ... Just a PS here. If you were to follow the highlighted link #1 in my quote on B12 you would find I/they didn't mix the B12 results. Anyone adopting a vegetarian and/or vegan diet would do well to have their B12 levels checked to be sure they are not deficient and if they are to take steps to remedy the issue. Serum Vitamin B12 and Blood Cell Values in Vegetarians

Just a couple examples. In post #23 you say So first, you don't have any reference to back this up. Why is that important? Because you are using it as evidence in support of your larger argument. What is a 'large' American company? What evidence do you have about what Americans know about their beer and what percentage is 'most'? Who says European beers always taste good? What American beers don't have corn or rice fillers? Are the companies that make them 'big'? Who drinks these beers? Do they know what they are drinking? How do you know? Then in post #36 you say: You may think it, but you don't give evidence. In fact, you are wrong according to what I read. To whit: Why Vegan Diets Suck Get the picture? You give little evidence and the links you do give you misinterpret and draw conclusions the articles don't support. No; you have not. Well, it seems to me your ability to critically analyze written material isn't trustworthy so I guess it's a push. I reread the entire report in order to refocus on your original question. Anyway, I agree that the factual parts of the report are evidence that current meat production, particularly beef, is on shaky ground as far as sustainability and environmental degradation. Whether politics straightens out any of that is anyone's guess and everyone is guessing like mad. However, I see nothing factual there that necessitates the conclusion that humans are in for a vegetarian future. Even were we to not start growing meat in vats and kill & eat every last meaty creature on the planet , we would just start eating each other with our salads. Soylent green is people!