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Topics - Geezer
26
« on: 22/02/2012 07:36:06 »
For a while I was wondering why this guy was so cheap that he wouldn't buy a decent razor. Heck, he could buy an entire razor company if he wanted to. I think I have finally grokked it. He really does not care too much what people might think of his appearance - he's going for comfort!
When I have a close shave it does a terrible number on my skin, but when I grow a serious beard, it turns back and starts to attack me. For me, the most comfortable state is a state of stubble.
Today I purchased (at great expense I'll have you know) a "stubble look" electric shaving machine (for reasons that I do not understand, Mrs G seemed to find this highly amusing).
I will provide periodic reports on the efficacy of this device.
27
« on: 22/02/2012 05:01:47 »
I have heard from many reliable sources, among them Sheepy, who happens to be an authority on this subject, that humans under extreme duress (as, for example, when a bear charges) will actually doo an involuntary dumperoonie.
What is the evolutionary advantage of so dooing? Does it have to do with weight, or is there an olfactory connection?
28
« on: 21/02/2012 07:16:15 »
Actually, I lose nails all over the place. Despite the fact that I have dozens of them, I never seem to be able to find the right one!
But, it's not that sort of nail I was thinking of. It's the ones on the end of our fingers. I don't know about you, but mine seem to be pretty much decorative. They are so flat that, if I don't keep them really short, they are inclined to fold back and cause me a lot of pain.
On the other hand, my terriers have really serious nails. They even have blood vessels in them!
So, will humans eventually evolve to have no nails at all - and will we look like ET?
29
« on: 21/02/2012 03:00:31 »
Ahem! This is my theory.
Everyone seems to have this silly idea that genetic mutation is actually random. Wrong!
Obviously, there is some sort of pattern involved. Therefore, it's only a matter of time until we figure out what the pattern is.
When we do that, we will be able to run evolution in reverse!
30
« on: 15/02/2012 06:08:28 »
FLAME ON:
A certain geezer by the name of Carnot made it perfectly clear (a very long time before a lot of other brilliant physicists) that the efficiency of any heat engine, be it nukeular, thermo-mumbo-jumbo or even quanto-solaristic, is determined by the DIFFERENCE in temperature between the "hot side" and the "cold side".
Why do so many people think they might be able to "get around" this limitation? To me, it's pretty much the same as saying that e=mc^2 is only a minor inconvenience.
FLAME OFF.
31
« on: 10/02/2012 17:58:35 »
32
« on: 06/02/2012 22:20:53 »
I was thinking that it might be a good idea to make mobius underwear. You'd only have to put it in the wash half as often. This would have major economic and ecological benefits.
33
« on: 06/02/2012 06:43:53 »
If I even dare to touch a piece of Cheddar and stick it back in the fridge, it does not take long before it turns into something Quatermass (O.B.E.) would have been proud of.
I can pretty much do anything with a nice piece of Stilton, Gorgonzola, or Danish Blue, and bugger all nothing much seems to happen.
Why's that then?
34
« on: 26/01/2012 03:53:38 »
My mitre-saw draws a nice red "laser" line on the bit of wood I'm going to saw to show me (approximately) where the cut is going to be.
How does it make the beamy thing draw a nice straight line. It's too small for a spinning mirror, and I'm pretty sure there are no "frikkin sharks" involved.
35
« on: 20/01/2012 02:44:15 »
It seems to me (ahem!) that, in general, humans have a really hard time assimilating the notion of "time". There is a boat-load of geologic and evolutionary evidence that some some pretty dramatic changes can happen given sufficient time, but a really large percentage of the human population seem to resist this notion.
Why is that?
36
« on: 12/01/2012 18:04:52 »
Having just been to the doc, I realized I don't have a clue about what my BP measurements actually mean, and for that matter, how the measurement process really works. I understand what the instument does, but how does it measure blood pressure?
(Should this be a technology question?)
37
« on: 09/01/2012 02:36:35 »
Gear teeth come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Generally, as gear wheels get bigger, the size of the teeth on the gear wheel get bigger too. In other words, the number of teeth on any gearwheel may not be constant, but it tends to fall within a particular range.
Is this range dictated by a fundamental scientific principle, or is it simply a consequence of practical limitations imposed by application and manufacturing (engineering stuff)? After all, when you boil it all down, gears are really just a means of enforcing friction with extreme prejudice.
38
« on: 03/01/2012 00:20:04 »
It's possible that Amazon will make its Silk browser available for PCs. The general idea is to shift a lot of processing load from the end point to cloud servers. Performance results on tablets seem to be a bit mixed so far, so it may not take off.
Still, it's an interesting idea. What do you think?
39
« on: 29/12/2011 19:00:44 »
A bread slicer  (Uh-oh. I don't seem to be able to insert the piccy in the post.)Cracked it! (but you can't cancel "Strikethrough!) 
40
« on: 29/12/2011 08:01:13 »
Blimey! We are having a thunder storm. Common enough in July and August, but really weird in December.
41
« on: 28/12/2011 20:10:03 »
I've often wondered why credit card companies bother to get me to sign a chit when I buy something (recently, they stopped doing this for small purchases.)
What's the point? If you've seen my signature you would agree it is unlikely to prove that I actually made the purchase, and the sales person never bothers to compare my signature with the one on my card.
In fact, when we had a "working lunch" and used our company cc's to pay the bill, it was not uncommon for one of us to sign the chit for someone else in the name of a certain D. Duck or M. K. Mouse. No questions were ever asked.
42
« on: 24/12/2011 06:04:56 »
Internal combustion engines produce a lot of waste heat, and a fair amount of that ends up being dissipated from the cooling system via the "radiator". When the vehicle is not moving, a fan moves air through the radiator to conduct heat into the moving air. Obviously, the fan consumes power when it is running, but when the vehicle is moving the fan is (typically) freewheeling as the motion of the vehicle is sufficient to move enough air through the radiator elements to remove the waste heat.
Does the vehicle have to produce the same amount of power to push air through the radiator whether or not the vehicle is moving, or is there some "free energy" available because the vehicle is moving?
(I was going to post this in Technology, but I suspect it's more to do with conservation of energy, so I stuck it here.)
43
« on: 21/12/2011 18:41:28 »
If you spliced a piece of movie film into a mobius strip, what would you see when you projected it?
I suppose it would have to be 9.5, 16 or 35mm film. 8mm would be a non-starter.
44
« on: 20/12/2011 17:43:41 »
I see the winter poultice is coming up again - quite soon in fact. But it falls on a different date this year, so why does it move around?
45
« on: 19/12/2011 20:28:12 »
It's probably worth pointing out that the reason big lumps of iron and stel don't (usually) burst into flames is because the large mass of metal disperses the heat quite rapidly and only a small amount of the iron is exposed to the air, so the supply of oxygen is very limited.
However, you can burn a hole in a really thick piece of steel if you supply enough oxygen. That's what oxyacetylene cutting torches do. Once the steel starts to melt, the acetylene is shut off and the burning steel generates all the heat required to keep cutting as long as oxygen is supplied.
Steel and iron particles can even burn so rapidly that they can produce an explosion in a confined space. Fortunately, the particles are dense, so they fall out of the atmosphere quite quickly, but if you put fine iron filings into a sieve and shake it over a naked flame, the filings will burn in a quite spectacular fashion.
This is a very dangerous experiment. Do not attempt it in your kitchen.
46
« on: 12/12/2011 20:12:17 »
47
« on: 12/12/2011 20:08:16 »
I was having problems with my PC (running Vista). Sometimes the disk drive would start thrashing so much that I could not even get Task Manager to run! I think I have it under control now.
Anyone experiencing similar issues?
48
« on: 08/12/2011 18:56:42 »
I think we tend to think of light as travelling incredibly fast. However, as anyone who does anything with electronics will tell you, it's really quite annoyingly slow. Heck, it's not even 1000 times faster than commercial airliners. It's almost as if spacetime was a big blob of treacle (molasses).
Why does it have to be so slow?
49
« on: 22/11/2011 23:16:36 »
The experimental results suggest that neutrinos are "Faster than light". Why do you think that is the case?
Please provide a summary of any opinions you would like considered and we'll add them to the list of options.
You can only vote once, but you can change your vote.
I've started with a couple of suggestions to get the ball rolling.
50
« on: 10/11/2011 06:23:21 »
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