I'm off for a couple of weeks. Initial direction: North. Blogging forecast: Light, but possible.

A few questions to discuss while I'm away:

1. If a bird flies inside an airplane, does the airplane weigh less?

2. If there's an ice cube in a glass of water on that plane, will the ice melt any faster if the bird flies, and when it melts will the water level rise or stay the same? What if there's noone there to see it?

3. Why did it take Star Trek TNG four seasons to get rid of Wesley Crusher? Why?

4. Which universal constants do your answer to the previous questions depend upon?

5. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? What if they stand still? Demonstrate.

6. Emacs or vi - which is in most need of a paperclip?

7. Assume that A is B. Is it?

8. List five possible uses of a hyperdimensional gyroscope.

Bonus question: Anyone posting anything political to this thread will be shot. Why?

1) The airplane weighs the same. The bird is supported by air movement which pushes down on the plane (on average) as the bird weighs.

2) The ice cube melts at the same rate regardless of whether the bird is flying. The extra thermal energy generated by the bird is negated by the climate control in the airplane.

Yes, A is actually B
(unless C is D AND daylight savings time is in use)

3. Gene Roddenberry fantasized about himself as a young genius on a starship (his middle name is Wesley). When he died, the producers said, ok, enough of that!

8. Hypership navigation (obviously)
Alternate universe plot generator & beard trimmer
Way-back machine doo-dad
Christmas gift for the all-being
Paperweight

6) Emacs....vi doesn't have that many commands. We're assuming that the paperclip is virtually real?

The answer is forty-two...what was the question again?

All I have to say is at least they got rid of Wesley Crusher. Better four seasons than keeping him there till the end. I hear he has a blog himself and that it is actually pretty good though I have never checked it out. The only image of Wil Wheaton that I prefer to remember is him getting gunned down by terrorists in the movie "Toy Soldiers". That was classic. Like th blog keep up the good work. Norway rules!

All I have to say is at least they got rid of Wesley Crusher. Better four seasons than keeping him there till the end. I hear he has a blog himself and that it is actually pretty good though I have never checked it out. The only image of Wil Wheaton that I prefer to remember is him getting gunned down by terrorists in the movie "Toy Soldiers". That was classic. Like th blog keep up the good work. Norway rules!

All I have to say is at least they got rid of Wesley Crusher. Better four seasons than keeping him there till the end. I hear he has a blog himself and that it is actually pretty good though I have never checked it out. The only image of Wil Wheaton that I prefer to remember is him getting gunned down by terrorists in the movie "Toy Soldiers". That was classic. Like th blog keep up the good work. Norway rules!

Whoa sorry about that repeating so much. I thought my computer was freezing up so I hit the button again.

The vi paperclip question is inspired by a hilarious User Friendly story, methinks

I thought that Wesley's evolving into a superbeing was one of the dumbest plot devices in all of Star Trek.

Shooting? Don't try to pull the lutefisk over our eyes, Bjorn. We know you Europeans don't have any guns any more... :-)

Shooting? Don't try to pull the lutefisk over our eyes, Bjorn. We know you Europeans don't have any guns any more... :-)

Food for thought :-)

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN

Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

Then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

There is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward....I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking: So that means it was...let's see...February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means...lemme check the odometer....Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed--even before I sensed it--that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a damn garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600!

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. God, I feel so guilty putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90- day warranty. That's exactly what they're gonna say, the scumballs.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems truly to care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a damn warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their....

"Roger," Elaine says aloud.

"What?" says Roger, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have....Oh, God, I feel so...." (She breaks down, sobbing.)

"What?" says Roger.

"I'm such a fool," Elaine sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."

"There's no horse?" says Roger.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Elaine says.

"No!" says Roger, glad finally to know the correct answer.

"It's just that....It's that I...I need some time," Elaine says.

(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.) "Yes," he says. (Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)

"Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?" she says.

"What way?" says Roger.

"That way about time," says Elaine.

"Oh," says Roger. "Yes."

(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.) "Thank you, Roger," she says. "Thank you," says Roger.

Then he takes her home. She lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it. (This is also Roger's policy regarding world hunger.)

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions but never getting bored with it, either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: "Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?"

Why did the security officer (a Klingon!) never win a fight with an intruder?

Was the Picard character actually gay?

Why are beautiful aliens good, and ugly ones evil?

Why are characters with black hair smarter than characters with other hair colors?

Was the whole show nothing but communist propaganda?

Why is it racist to put actors in blackface but okay to put them in whiteface?

Was anyone else disturbed when Picard allowed a race of intelligent beings to be wiped out by a natural disaster (until Warf's step-brother intervened)?

How about when the doctor murdered that alien on the planet-that-looked-like-Scotland?

How about when Riker murdered his own clone on that planet-where-they-reproduce-by-cloning?

And most of all, where are the toilets?

Wait a minute! How can you go any further north than you already are???? Will the sun ever come up??? Inquiring minds want to know.

OK Jan, you caught me. I've never been a programmer
and only used vi once. From that point I used cool
edit or gnotepad for what little scripting that I
do. Emacs was never under serious consideration. I
guess I'm out of the loop and out to lunch. Oh well.

Two sages got involved in a deep philosophical argument.

"Since you're so wise," said one, sarcastically, "answer this: Why is it that when a slice of buttered bread falls to the ground, it always falls on the buttered side?"

The other sage decided to disprove this. He buttered a slice of bread and dropped it.

"There" he cried triumphantly. "The bread, hasn't fallen on its buttered side. So where is your theory now? "

"Ha! " laughed the other, derisively. "You buttered the bread on the wrong side! "

Mike, it's summer in the northern hemisphere. At polar latitudes, the sun doesn't SET this time of year. Now, come the winter solstice, the sun won't be rising that particular day in the polar regions.

Speaking of which: You start at a given point, walk south for a mile, walk east for a mile, walk north for a mile, and you're back where you started. You see a bear. What color is the bear?

Herbie, NY . . .

Your story about the difference between men and women is TOO TRUE. LOL

I knew if I stayed away from this site for a few days while Bjorn was out lutefisking that good things would turn up. ;)

Re Star Trek: my daughter-in-law studied at a major university and took a class in "Religion as seen in Star Trek."

BarCodeKing:
You are about 450 naut. miles due north of CFS Alert, and the Polar Bear is really lost.

Cheers
JMH

Just in case you've had a rough day, here is a stress management technique
recommended in all the latest psychological texts. The funny thing is that
it really works.
> 1 Picture yourself near a stream.
> 2 Birds are softly chirping in the cool mountain air.
> 3 No one but you knows your secret place.
> 4 You are in total seclusion from the hectic place called "the world".
> 5 The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a
> cascade of serenity.
> 6 The water is crystal clear.
> 7 You can easily make out the face of the person you're holding
> underwater

1. No

2. Yes. No. Circumstances will not vary.

3. Filled generational gap. He was androgynes to fill both the male and female aspects of the generational gap along with appealing to the homosexual community making him a more valuable commodity through his viewer empathy market.

4. Life. Being dead the constants once assumed set in stone will prove as malleable as Playdoh.

5. An infinite number. If there was an infinite number and it can increase it becomes a non infinite number. The two will cancel each other out leaving you with the answer of one.

6. Mac. Pressed squarely between the processor and motherboard.

7. Well of course it is. Always has been. Always will be.

8. Mainting balance of large loads while breeching dimensional gates. Making sex during hyperdimensional travel possible. Saving cost on shipping of live goods cheaper by reducing the need for fecal cleanup after hyper dimensinal jumps. Giving reason to once again open a wet bar. Making possible the electrical formula needed to maintain the porper frequency arrays. Combining waves with syncronis relays to fold the ether of a singualr dimension into a plasma of several dimensions that can be pierced at wave lengths only maintained by a hyperdimensional gyroscope. Because the law of averages of gun related violence bear you out, giving you a better than fifty fifty chance you'll be correct in your prediction.

Where's my twinkie?

Well, (in more-or-less order):

1,2: birds flying (and ice melting) in an airplane environment are physically irrelevant to thge actual flight: plus, is there is "no one to see it", then the flight is most likely to have been cancelled due to lack of passenger-interest, and will be irrelevant anyway.
3. Two alternative explantations:
a) Plot twists during the first 3 seasons overlooked Wesley Crusher's character until story
developments allowed his presence to be "played away".
b) Wil Wheaton's family had something on the "ST:TNG" producers and blackmailed them into giving Wil a part.
4. Venality and the level of the public's taste (weighting: former approaching 100, latter approaching 0).
5. One. One at a time. The Biggest Angel. The biggest angel who actually *stands* on the pinhead: his/her/its constant twirling around to bash all the other angels off the pin gives the appearance of "dancing". A common misconception.
6. What's a "vi"?
7. Typical European Social-Democratic nonsense. Just what the transnational nanny-state, surrender-monkey appeasement lobby wants you to think. Americans, virtually to a man, know the correct formulation: B = A!
Why even CONSIDER its (blatantly false) corrolary?
8.
a) allowing bird flight in airplanes without affect their weight.
b) warping Wesley Crusher into another, parallel universe (where there are no blogs)
c) displacing the space/time continuum on any given pinhead so as to make the angel equivalent of Studio 54, thus rendering Question 5 gratefully moot.
d) defining "vi"
e) rendering inane contemplations of the functions of hyperdimensional gyroscopes moot.
So shoot me!

Bon voyage!

Three Pearls Of Wisdom

Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a
laxative on the same night.

You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely
suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see
an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of
age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic
background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that
we are above average drivers.

The "Men and Women" story is, I believe, a complete reprinting of a Dave Barry column.

Oh, and (10) None of the above.

Teacher: "If you had six apples and I asked you for three,
how many would you have left?"

Student: "Six."

Mac, I checked and you are absolutely right. Someone sent it to me without attribution

1. If a bird flies inside an airplane, does the airplane weigh less?

No, as the air under the bird suddenly weighs more.

2. If there's an ice cube in a glass of water on that plane, will the ice melt any faster if the bird flies, and when it melts will the water level rise or stay the same? What if there's noone there to see it?

Yes, it will rise, and there doesn't have to be someone there to see it, it is sufficient, if the glass overflows, that there be someone later who has to clean it up.

3. Why did it take Star Trek TNG four seasons to get rid of Wesley Crusher? Why?

Primal evil, pre-existing Creation and alas not eliminated by the gods.

4. Which universal constants do your answer to the previous questions depend upon?

Divinity and evil/chaos or indefinitely extended active nonexistence. (The concept of something with no real nonexistent but still the power to be annoying seemed applicable to Wesley Crusher.)

5. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? What if they stand still? Demonstrate.

Common pin or hat-pin?

(Demonstrates the difference between a common pin and a hat-pin. The latter is a large deadly weapon with ample dancing space for even broad-footed angels.)

6. Emacs or vi - which is in most need of a paperclip?

Vi. Emacs is radiantly beautiful, and needs nothing but more worshipers. Vi is evil and ugly and should definitely be punished with a paperclip.

(I'm not a programmer. I used to use Emacs as a text editor for email and such, because it was available and I like it. If I could get Emacs for Windows without having to deal with tar.gx.whatever, I would gladly use pretty Emacs again. I have also tried to use Vi. Ugh.)

7. Assume that A is B. Is it?

Yes. Depending on what the meaning of "is" is.

8. List five possible uses of a hyperdimensional gyroscope.

1) Practical jokes in hyperdimensional train stations.
2) Useful for evading conservation of momentum in scientifically fatalistic worlds, thus allowing non-predestined actions.
3) Counteract mana-wasting anti-magic wheels.
4) Guidance for interdimensional vehicles on short runs.
5) Needed to stabilise the backwards movement of time (e.g. in Omega 13 devices) as inaccurate reversal of the old course of events can produce new history with obvious continuity errors.

Bonus question: Anyone posting anything political to this thread will be shot. Why?

Lots of ammo reaching its use-by date.

IXLNXS (your twinkie) Well done!

Jay C: also impressive.

"If it weren't for marriage, men and women would have to fight with total strangers." Dave Barry

Dave Blue (tried to email this, but got a no such user message):

You need not be afraid of the .tar.gz format--many unzip programs can handle it. Just grab the "fullbin" version of the compiled distribution and unpack it whereever you want to install it.

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/faq2.html
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/windows/emacs/emacs-21.3-fullbin-i386.tar.gz

Sam P, thank you most kindly!

My email address
David_Blue_Phoney@yahoo.com.au
is phoney.

I don't like doing that, but before I decided to "let my conscience be my guide" and put my actual email address in the box when asked to in blogs and the like, I had practically no spam, and when I did so I suddenly got lots of spam that has never stopped. Each use of my email address seems on average to add some amount of spam to my spam-attacked mailbox - permanently.

Anyway, thanks again for the good news on Emacs accessibility, and the links! :D

Vi already has a paperclip available. Look up Joel Holveck's Vigor project, at http://vigor.sourceforge.net. It is based on the User Friendly comic strip sequence of 6–15 January 2000, and is throughly evil.

It's actually based on Keith Bostic's nvi clone.

What is the square root of minus one?

Thanks for that insightful comment! It makes interesting reading, especially when I need a payday loans.

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