Phi for All

I know its not a book, but I must say that I am rather enjoying Firefly on TV. I like how thay at least pay lip service to physics, buy for example having no sound in space.

My best friend bought me the DVDs for my birthday and I am SO hooked! Serenity the movie is coming out soon (all the pre-screenings sell out minutes after the tickets go on sale).

 

I so hope someone picks Firefly up again for production before the cast gets too involved in other work. It needs to be developed for a few more seasons.

 

That would be shiny!

Recent science fiction books thread

 

Another thread about favorite sci-fi books

 

Perhaps this thread should be about sci-fi stories we'd like to see, or books we'd like made into movies. What do you think, Arcadia?

This is typical of a frightened public. Not to say they aren't justified in their fears, but their legislative reaction can be very damaging in the long run.

 

It reminds me of when, several years ago, the Baltimore media found out that their needle-exchange program was being exploited by some street entrepreneurs. They found that the "bring an old needle in, get a new one" system was being used by a few scroungers to collect hundreds of needles for exchange. The fresh needles were then sold by the scroungers to the drug-users for a dollar each.

 

The public thought that was just awful, not what the programs was for at all. What they failed to realize was that these scroungers were reaching people who never would have found the will to exchange their needles without the scroungers. The program was a success because of the scroungers. But the public almost messed the whole thing up with their knee-jerk reactions. Later the needle program went on to use these scroungers to inform the drug community of clinics and other programs available to them, and the aims of all the programs were better met because of it.

 

I don't know what the solution is for Florida, but I doubt any real good will come of this 2500-foot rule. I'll bet it costs the state a bundle in litigation.

Moving this to a better location. General Discussion is not the place for this.

It's a weird effect, actually... my left eye is near sighted and my right eye is far-sighted, so it kind of compensates, so I can see near and far very well, if I use both eyes.

If you can see near and far very well with both eyes, your glasses must be lost somewhere in between.

 

Seriously, look around where you keep the case. Start looking in a spiral pattern using your left eye, and as the spiral gets wider, switch to your right eye. If you haven't passed out after 10 minutes, you should stumble across your glasses.

 

Then put them in the case and staple it to your forhead. WARNING: This may make you look even more like Andy Warhol.

You can't drive without them, right? So they have to be where you last drove to. Are you sure you checked everywhere in the bathroom? On top of the towel rack? What about over by the scented candle your mom loves but your dad thinks is too big?

Check the top of your head. Or in the bathroom.

 

I never liked those glasses anyway. They make you look like Andy Warhol.

I have a goal to achieve. But whenever I get a chance to achive it, something forces me to change my plan and I change my mind.

More data, please. What is the goal? What types of things force you to change your plans?

 

Sometimes we have ideas we think are great but aren't in the long run. If forces conspire to keep you from completing a goal, perhaps you should rethink your plan. Ask yourself, "If changing my mind about it is so easy, is this goal really that important to me?"

 

Some goals are hard to achieve and require lots of extra effort. This makes it all the sweeter when we finally do achieve them. Almost nothing really worth having falls in your lap with no effort. And if, after all your hard work, you still can't achieve it, at least you'll know it wasn't for lack of trying.

 

One of the worst things in life is regret at not having taken a chance on something you really wanted. Hindsight will eat you alive if you're too timid. Most things are not as one-time-shot as we think. You gotta keep plugging.

I'm sure the creationists are busy figuring a way around this as we speak.

See the latest in one of our News threads containing a Reuters story:

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11911

Just buy a solid color T-shirt and a bottle of that 3D craft paint and have someone with great cursive handwriting write:

 

Sleek Freakin' Geek

 

It'll be one of a kind.

You didn't say if it was your dominant hand and you didn't mention which sport.

 

Dominant hand, baseball/golf/tennis = your humped

 

Off-hand, soccer/swimming/track = silver medal

How do you "substitute randomly"? How did the word between suddenly "suggest itself" like magic? How long did it take you?

 

Either you're an abnormally good guesser' date=' or there's something I'm completly missing. Did you use a decoder at all?[/quote']No decoder. Many years of Cryptograms and Jumbles in the paper. Random substitution, like I knew about the three Ts, the I and the N in ATTRACTION because of BETWEEN THEM and FIFTEEN, so either the letter after or the letter before the TT is a vowel (not E or I), and TION is common so probably A or U. Either works well with TT but A worked better with the TION, which gave me ATT_A_TION. Easy leap from there.

 

I was reading some other threads in between posting with calbiterol, so I'd say I gave it 2 hours.

Firefly may return

if Serenity makes bucks.

That would be shiny!

I think I might have to do one more so can someone explain how you came up with that? What decoder did you use?

Decoder? How would a decoder work when there are no spaces to delimit words? I counted the letter instances and determined that h was a good possibility for the letter e. From there I just substituted randomly until the word "between" suggested itself. That gave me t and n, which both had high occurences and led me to the rest. It helped that I got "teen" and you told us it was a physics question, so I guessed it was probably a number in the teens. "Fifteen" worked and gave me another vowel.

 

I want to know why there were so many misspellings. Did a physics teacher give you this puzzle? Was it not hard enough without them? Does he want students to turn his car over in the parking lot? Is he bigger than me?

By the way, thanks alot.

You are welcome alot. Your gratitude makes it worth staying up so late.

A POSITIVE FIVE COULOMB CHARGE IS FIVE CENTIMETERS FROM A NEGATIVE FIFTEEN COULOMB CHARGE. CALCULATE THE FORCE OF ATTRACTION BETWEEN THEM.

 

Negative, attraction, charge were all mispelled. Twenty lashes for the teacher.

 

Or whoever copied it down wrong.

No, I mean perhaps one of the letters they used stands for a space. As in, every Z means a space, just like every A could be a Z.

No, then they couldn't have any z's.

q and u, perhaps?

No, h = e, I haven't figured out g yet. The last two words are "BETWEENTHEM".

No, they're all jammed together. If they used a letter as a space, you'd be missing a letter of the alphabet

I'm not sure I quite[/b'] know what you mean...

a'b cde fghi a jgaei... = I'm not sure I quite...

 

See the same pattern? You start the substitution at the beginning of the alphabet and apply it to the first words in the sentence.

 

I think I have the last two words, which will help me get the rest.

How much of a coincidence could it be that it starts with a,b,c,d,e,f,...,g,h,i,j,...,k,C[/b'],m,n,...,o,p,...,q,...,r,s....

In a substitution, he could have written out his question, then started assigning letters beginning with a, b, c, and so forth.

Note also that there are no L's in the entire thing.

Simply a low-instance letter like x or z.

Every g is immediately followed by an h.

If it's a substitution cipher, h is a good candidate for the letter e. 18 instances and two parings. Tough with no word spaces.

 

There are actually 2 spaces in the text. You said you don't know why "it" put them there?

Wife: "What would you do if I died?"

Husband: "Why, dear, I would be extremely upset."

Wife: "Would you remarry?"

Husband: "No, of couse not, dear."

Wife: "Don't you like being married?"

Husband: "Of course I do, dear. You're right, I guess I'd remarry."

Wife: "Would you sleep with her in our bed?"

Husband: "Well, she'd be my wife, so I suppose I would."

Wife: "I see. And would you let her wear my old clothes?"

Husband: "I suppose so. No sense letting them go to waste."

Wife: "Really. Would you take down my pictures and put up pictures of her?"

Husband: "I think that would be the correct thing to do."

Wife: "Is that so? And I suppose you'd let her play with my golf clubs, too?"

Husband: "Absolutely not! She's left-handed."

You're asking someone who buys games, then buys magazines to cheat in those games, to pay to mail you their magazine so you can cheat for free?

 

You should be either a politician or a televangelist.

Someone told me that if all politicians worked for our betterment instead of there own selfish interest we would live in a utopia.

The problem here is the phrase "our betterment". You are applying an objective solution to subjective problems. What seems like smart business to one is shady dealings to another. If I pass a law making marijuana legal will it hurt business at your liquor stores? All legislation will hurt some while helping others.

 

Where modern politics falls down is that the voters feel helpless to change anything, when the exact opposite is true. If you think big business has bought the politicians, then get together with other voters and find someone who won't be bought, and back them as a candidate. Then go out and convince still more voters that you are right. Then find people who don't vote and convince them they have to start voting.

 

Sure, you might have to get involved and do more than complain, but YOU ARE NOT POWERLESS UNLESS YOU DIE OR YOU QUIT!

(Phi for All, did husmusen just strawman me?! I've stated that politicians, like all people, have a range of motives, and he sidetracks with the irrelevance that different atmospheres pervade different workplaces. So what?)

Since he disagreed with your statement and changed your "range of motives" into "range of people", it is a strawman, but more likely a misunderstanding. And since he said his example was cultural, in the end I think he was actually agreeing with you.

 

And I think husmusen is coming from a very dark, very Howardian place in his political views. He speaks very much like the half of the US who didn't vote for Bush.