Musings on Random Musings

[Old Man]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

How many active points is a twinkie built on anyway?

[Cancer]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Depends on whether long-term BODY Destruction is included in the build. Some GMs don't include effects that operate over years, since their campaigns don't run that long.

[James Gillen]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

It would definitely have Life Support vs. aging.

 

JG

[Cancer]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Sounds like a Christmas fruitcake.

[Old Man]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

No, fruitcake would be built as a killing attack.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Assault drop scones.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

No' date=' fruitcake would be built as a killing attack.[/quote']

 

Density increase.

[SatinKitty]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

You should never use Density Increase inside a building unless your objective is getting to the basement quickly.

[Klytus]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

No' date=' fruitcake would be built as a killing attack.[/quote']

 

More like double-hardened high DEF armor. That stuff could give Cap's Shield a run for its money.

[Old Man]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I actually put a piece of fruitcake in my mouth once. Damage Shield was definitely in effect.

[Old Man]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

It happens every term' date=' but I still hate it when I find faked labs.[/quote']

 

I hate labs that are so poorly designed, with equipment that is so poorly maintained, that the students have almost no choice but to fake the results. Because they still get marked down for getting the wrong answer for g.

 

Your educational institution probably doesn't have this problem.

[Old Man]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

It happens every term' date=' but I still hate it when I find faked labs.[/quote']

 

I hate labs that are so poorly designed, with equipment that is so poorly maintained, that the students have almost no choice but to fake the results. Because they still get marked down for getting the wrong answer for g.

 

Your educational institution probably doesn't have this problem.

[Cancer]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I hate labs that are so poorly designed, with equipment that is so poorly maintained, that the students have almost no choice but to fake the results. Because they still get marked down for getting the wrong answer for g.

 

Your educational institution probably doesn't have this problem.

 

Oh, it does, but that's not the issue here.

 

The lab in question is a moon observation lab; it takes no more than half an hour to collect the observations, and they get all quarter to do it. And I don't tell them this, but they are NOT graded on how close to the right answer they get. They have to watch the moon disappear behind a straightedge (like a building edge or sign), draw the moon as it appeared, indicate the first and last contact points, time how long the disappearance takes from first to last contact.

 

I give them an average value for the angular diameter of the moon. The quantity they are supposed to be measuring is the lunar day (that is, the time between successive times when the moon crosses the meridian). I give them a trivial algebra formula on how to do that from those timings, and then simple ruler measurements of their drawings.

 

So when their faked observations, even if they correctly describe the moon on the purported observation date (and the two clear fakes don't ... the terminator is on the wrong edge of the moon for the phase at that date) ... if they get spang on the right day length ... well, only if they observed when the moon crossed the meridian (because only then is the full lunar diurnal motion perpendicular to the vertical straightedge; otherwise a substantial component of the motion is parallel to the occulting edge and therefore they must get a too-long occultation) ... and only if the moon is at one of two particular points in its eccentric orbit when it is at the average earth-moon distance ... could they arrive at the correct value. Also, of course, the actual rate of motion of the moon varies over the month because of Kepler's 2nd law. But, of course, they don't know enough to check such things (I don't think it ever occurs to them that the angular diameter of the moon might be variable, or that the motion isn't a constant rate, even though they know that the orbit is, in fact, elliptical and they have duly memorized Kepler's Laws).

 

In short, it's a multiple-layer trap for people who try to fake astronomical observations. The fakers assume they have to get close to the right answer, and forget/neglect all those things discussed in the orbital mechanics section about variable speeds and variable distances, and hoke stuff up based on simple circles and constant motions and perfect parallel or perpendicular vectors and so on. But as couched, it is very nearly impossible to get the right answer with the methods they've been given ... and while in principle they know enough to realize that, the fact that they've decided to fake it more or less rules out the possibility they'll bother to do the faking with adequate thought.

[Klytus]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Oh, it does, but that's not the issue here.

 

The lab in question is a moon observation lab; it takes no more than half an hour to collect the observations, and they get all quarter to do it. And I don't tell them this, but they are NOT graded on how close to the right answer they get. They have to watch the moon disappear behind a straightedge (like a building edge or sign), draw the moon as it appeared, indicate the first and last contact points, time how long the disappearance takes from first to last contact.

 

I give them an average value for the angular diameter of the moon. The quantity they are supposed to be measuring is the lunar day (that is, the time between successive times when the moon crosses the meridian). I give them a trivial algebra formula on how to do that from those timings, and then simple ruler measurements of their drawings.

 

So when their faked observations, even if they correctly describe the moon on the purported observation date (and the two clear fakes don't ... the terminator is on the wrong edge of the moon for the phase at that date) ... if they get spang on the right day length ... well, only if they observed when the moon crossed the meridian (because only then is the full lunar diurnal motion perpendicular to the vertical straightedge; otherwise a substantial component of the motion is parallel to the occulting edge and therefore they must get a too-long occultation) ... and only if the moon is at one of two particular points in its eccentric orbit when it is at the average earth-moon distance ... could they arrive at the correct value. Also, of course, the actual rate of motion of the moon varies over the month because of Kepler's 2nd law. But, of course, they don't know enough to check such things (I don't think it ever occurs to them that the angular diameter of the moon might be variable, or that the motion isn't a constant rate, even though they know that the orbit is, in fact, elliptical and they have duly memorized Kepler's Laws).

 

In short, it's a multiple-layer trap for people who try to fake astronomical observations. The fakers assume they have to get close to the right answer, and forget/neglect all those things discussed in the orbital mechanics section about variable speeds and variable distances, and hoke stuff up based on simple circles and constant motions and perfect parallel or perpendicular vectors and so on. But as couched, it is very nearly impossible to get the right answer with the methods they've been given ... and while in principle they know enough to realize that, the fact that they've decided to fake it more or less rules out the possibility they'll bother to do the faking with adequate thought.

 

Major kudos on crafting such a well-layered trap for catching cheats red-handed

[James Gillen]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Dee Snider has been married for 36 years. That blows my mind.

 

I think it blows his wife's mind too.

JG

[SteveZilla]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I was all set to be on CoH until it shut down. Then realized that I would rather remember the happy times playing and not the end.

 

"Though the good times and the bad..."* I chose to stay untill the end. I was suprised that the words "Lost Connection To Mapserver" did not show up in my last ever screenshot of my leading toon. But by then it was too late to pull out my phone and snap a picture.

 

I can't remember the song/band. It wasn't Ledd Zeppelin.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I was all set to be on CoH until it shut down. Then realized that I would rather remember the happy times playing and not the end.

 

"Though the good times and the bad..."* I chose to stay untill the end. I was suprised that the words "Lost Connection To Mapserver" did not show up in my last ever screenshot of my leading toon. But by then it was too late to pull out my phone and snap a picture.

 

I can't remember the song/band. It wasn't Led Zeppelin.

[Cancer]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I've never felt comfortable or welcome in church. It's been a long time since I even saw the interior of a church. Yesterday, at my uncle's funeral, was the first time in years. It's funny, because my parents were so dilligent about making us go to church every Sunday. We went to Sunday School. We even celebrated a large number of the Catholic Feast Days that most folks have never even heard about, much less knew you were supposed to go to church on. We ate no meat on Fridays. I went to a Jesuit high school. All of my family from my parents' and grandparents' generations are deeply devoted to the church. I've got several older relatives who are priests, or nuns, and almost all of the patriarchs of the family are lay deacons. But me, as soon as I had the choice, I stopped going to church. Heck, when I was old enough to drive, I'd tell my parents "I'm going to the late mass," then I'd drive myself down to the mall or to the park for an hour.

 

I'm often amazed at how lax the family of my generation is when it comes to religion. Our highly-religious parents managed to raise a generation of don't-really-care-much-ists.

 

My upbringing was the opposite. Before the age of 11 I think I was in a church twice, and one of those was for my aunt's wedding that I can barely remember, and the other was some non-religious social function. (At 11 I joined a Boy Scout troop that was based in a church, which obliged me to attend a couple of worship services in my uniform.) Neither of my parents are/were religious, for reasons that make sense in terms of their experiences in their youth. There are no clergy in my family that I know; in fact, until I was in my 40s, I think, I wasn't acquainted with anyone in the clergy, aside from military chaplains (I was friends with their kids while living on base, and never forget that a chaplain is a military officer first), and folks like Mormons in which technically every member is lay clergy, if I understand that correctly. I was never particularly comfortable in any ecclesiastical setting, and I strongly object to being compelled to participate in or be subject to someone else's religious practices.

 

Now I work at a Jesuit university and find it a delightul place. I am still in no way a religious person, but I can accept that many people are and have a real need for a spiritual connection with something outside themselves.

[L. Marcus]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I have heard childbirth described as one of the most terrible pains a person can endure. It is also, even in this modern age, still dangerous.

 

Yet women often submit to this agony voluntarily. It seems unusual in fact for a woman to NOT want to undergo it. Sometimes the reaction to a woman who opts out of it is "what's 'wrong' with her?" Many women choose to go through it multiple times. Also amazing is that men who love their wives and would ordinarily be very protective of them not only consent to this but sometimes encourage it and want it.

 

I've lived on this planet for nearly fifty years, and still can 't understand these people.

 

That's hormones for you. It's all worth it, apparently. Looking at my brothers' kids, I do think so.

 

Not that I really understand palindromedaries either

 

Palindromedaries are ineffable.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

effing Palindromedaries.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

My grandparents were fastidious Irish Catholics. None of their children is religious anymore. I went to Catholic elementary school and had religion pounded into me every day. I was even an altar boy at one time. Not only am I not religious now, I'm decidedly anti-religious. The last time I was forced to go to church I was so uncomfortable I was shaking.

[Escafarc]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

My grandparents were fastidious Irish Catholics. None of their children is religious anymore. I went to Catholic elementary school and had religion pounded into me every day. I was even an altar boy at one time. Not only am I not religious now' date=' I'm decidedly anti-religious. The last time I was forced to go to church I was so uncomfortable I was shaking.[/quote']

I have the same reaction.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

My mom made me go to church and take the classes and become a member after that it was up to me.

I'm not religious but I like what Jesus had to teach on a lot of levels. Not everything but a lot of it.

I have anti-religious friends and religious friends. I just try not to start conversations about religion in their midst - and mediate when they start.

[Old Man]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I have the same reaction.

 

So do I. Lightning strikes really are uncomfortable.

[Escafarc]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

So do I. Lightning strikes really are uncomfortable.

I don't worry about lightning, I believe in Science:D