Grab Bag (No Politics or Religion!)

The Off-Topic forum for anything non-LDS related, such as sports or politics. Rated PG through PG-13.
Nomomo
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Re: Grab Bag (No Politics or Religion!)

Post by Nomomo »

Atlanticmike wrote:
Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:59 am
Nomomo wrote:
Mon Nov 08, 2021 4:40 am
Seriously? You crack me up (◔_◔)
Okokok, not everyone likes listening to Tech9. Here, I'm assuming you're a white guy, see if you can make it through this video without becoming uncomfortable. Would you say this is a great performance? Does it explain what's happening in America?
https://youtu.be/kMTUBE4KOek
I'm not seeing it. It's just totally average run of the mill for that genre. I see nothing remarkable in it. What is it exactly about it that is supposed to make it a great performance?
Oh,...by the way My race has nothing to do with it. Tone Loc is the crap!
Wild Thing > https://youtu.be/_-tjL8r1MB4 Crank it up!
Nomomo
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Re: Grab Bag (No Politics or Religion!)

Post by Nomomo »

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Gunnar
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Re: Grab Bag (No Politics or Religion!)

Post by Gunnar »

Today I experienced a somewhat unusual Memorial Day Parade. It was the second parade I went to this week. Earlier in this thread I recounted my experience with our local annual Sikh Festival parade. Today, I was not just a spectator; I was also a participant as part of the Local Sons of Norway entry in the parade. It consisted of a towed model of a Viking Longboat. My fellow lodge members insisted I, of all people, had to be on the boat, because I was the only lodge member there who was actually born in Norway. So I got into the boat wearing both a baseball cap with a U.S. Air Force logo on it (I am an Air Force retiree) and, on top of that, a Viking helmet with cow horns on it (yes, I know actual Vikings probably never actually wore such things). Thus, I represented both the Air Force and Norwegian Americans in the parade.

The most unusual part of my experience was the fact that about half the people riding in the Viking longboat with me were Hispanics, including a Mexican American grandmother and half a dozen or so of her grandchildren! How did this happen you may ask? Well, the Sons of Norway leader who was in charge of our participation in the parade has a lovely Latina girlfriend who is the daughter of the Abuela riding the boat with us, and the aunt of the sweet little Hispanic kids enjoying the ride with us. The Abuela (grandmother) was not very fluent in English, and I know some Spanish, but what really made her day was my daughter (also in the boat with us), who is quite fluent in Spanish. We had a great time getting to know her, and enjoyed conversing with her (mostly in Spanish) throughout the parade. Overall, It was one of the more pleasant experiences I have had this year, as was last weekend's Sikh festival.

The Abuela's daughter marched along beside the boat, and upon learning that I was the only participant there who was actually born in Norway, and actually spoke Norwegian, tried to speak to me in German, as she had learned some German while she lived in Germany as a dependent of an American military man stationed there. I am far from fluent in German, but I know just enough German to understand what she said. She assumed that because Norwegian is in the Germanic family of languages, that I would understand. In this case, we both lucked out; there are a lot of things she could have said in German that I would not have understood at all.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
Father Francis
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Re: Grab Bag (No Politics or Religion!)

Post by Father Francis »

Nomomo wrote:
Tue Nov 09, 2021 7:47 am
Atlanticmike wrote:
Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:59 am
Okokok, not everyone likes listening to Tech9. Here, I'm assuming you're a white guy, see if you can make it through this video without becoming uncomfortable. Would you say this is a great performance? Does it explain what's happening in America?

https://youtu.be/kMTUBE4KOek
I'm not seeing it. It's just totally average run of the mill for that genre. I see nothing remarkable in it. What is it exactly about it that is supposed to make it a great performance?

Oh,...by the way My race has nothing to do with it. Tone Loc is the crap!

Wild Thing > https://youtu.be/_-tjL8r1MB4 Crank it up!
I'm white as a gabacho can be but I dig Immortal Technique and Death Grips. I also dig everything from classical to jazz, metal to classic rock and all sorts of weird stuff most people will never hear.

Immortal Technique:

https://youtu.be/qggxTtnKTMo

Weird stuff you probably won't get:

https://youtu.be/sDEhCm0pxCo
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MeDotOrg
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Re: Grab Bag (No Politics or Religion!)

Post by MeDotOrg »

A miscellaneous fact I always found fascinating:

We all know E=MC2, but what we get from that is there is a tremendous amount of energy in matter, but in practical terms what does it mean?

For the atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki, scientists estimate that the amount of matter converted into energy was ONE GRAM, about 1/3rd of a penny.
The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization.
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Nomomo
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Re: Grab Bag (No Politics or Religion!)

Post by Nomomo »

MeDotOrg wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 3:16 am
A miscellaneous fact I always found fascinating:

We all know E=MC2, but what we get from that is there is a tremendous amount of energy in matter, but in practical terms what does it mean?

For the atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki, scientists estimate that the amount of matter converted into energy was ONE GRAM, about 1/3rd of a penny.
A third of of a penny - Amazing! I was unaware the scale was that minusical.
Chap
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Re: Grab Bag (No Politics or Religion!)

Post by Chap »

Nomomo wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 5:48 am
MeDotOrg wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 3:16 am
A miscellaneous fact I always found fascinating:

We all know E=MC2, but what we get from that is there is a tremendous amount of energy in matter, but in practical terms what does it mean?

For the atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki, scientists estimate that the amount of matter converted into energy was ONE GRAM, about 1/3rd of a penny.
A third of of a penny - Amazing! I was unaware the scale was that minusical.
It's not so difficult, if you use that standard scientific system of units, in which E is in joules, m is in kilograms, and c is in metres/second, and all the numbers work out consistently with no awkward conversion factors.

The c in that equation is the speed of electromagnet waves (which includes light) in a vacuum, 300,000,000 metres per second.

The mass m is 1 gram, which is 1/1000 kilogram.

c squared just means c multiplied by itself, c x c, which is 90,000,000,000,000,000 (metre/second squared). Multiply that by the mass, 1/1000 kilogram, and you get 90,000,000,000,000 joules of energy.

How much energy is that?

Well a 1 kilowatt device, such as a small radiant electric heater, uses 1000 Joules every second. 90,000,000,000,000 Joules of energy would run 90,000,000,000 such heaters for a second. That's 90 billion electric heaters focussed on Hiroshima for a second. Quite enough to vaporise it.

The reason the energies released in nuclear events seem so huge is in part because the energy releases we are used to (like from burning a fuel) are chemical changes, which only involve changing the states of a few electrons on the outside of atoms, which contain only a tiny fraction of the atom's mass. Nuclear reactions change the states of the relatively massive particles in the nucleus of the atom, such as protons and neutrons. Hence the energies released or absorbed are vastly bigger that those we get from chemical reactions.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
Father Francis
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Re: Grab Bag (No Politics or Religion!)

Post by Father Francis »

MeDotOrg wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 3:16 am
A miscellaneous fact I always found fascinating:

We all know E=MC2, but what we get from that is there is a tremendous amount of energy in matter, but in practical terms what does it mean?

For the atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki, scientists estimate that the amount of matter converted into energy was ONE GRAM, about 1/3rd of a penny.
We all know E=mc2, but few of us really understand what it really means.

I'm not saying I do. I took physics in high school, but I won't pretend I really understand it. I took German and Spanish in high school too, but I don't pretend I'm fluent in either language. The fact is most of us know "E=mc2" like we know "¿Dónde está la biblioteca?"

Edit: When I went back to school to become a nurse I first considered getting a degree in physics and becoming a public school teacher, but then my mother (a public educator) showed me the pay scale as provided by her district.
Chap
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Re: Grab Bag (No Politics or Religion!)

Post by Chap »

Father Francis wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:03 pm
MeDotOrg wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 3:16 am
A miscellaneous fact I always found fascinating:

We all know E=MC2, but what we get from that is there is a tremendous amount of energy in matter, but in practical terms what does it mean?

For the atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki, scientists estimate that the amount of matter converted into energy was ONE GRAM, about 1/3rd of a penny.
We all know E=mc2, but few of us really understand what it really means.

I'm not saying I do. I took physics in high school, but I won't pretend I really understand it. I took German and Spanish in high school too, but I don't pretend I'm fluent in either language. The fact is most of us know "E=mc2" like we know "¿Dónde está la biblioteca?"

Edit: When I went back to school to become a nurse I first considered getting a degree in physics and becoming a public school teacher, but then my mother (a public educator) showed me the pay scale as provided by her district.
The basic physical principle involved here is very simple, but rarely gets stated at an elementary level:

"Whenever an amount of energy enters or leaves a system, the mass of the system will increase or decrease by a corresponding amount".

A "system" as used here just refers to a bit of the universe (could be a galaxy, could be a car battery) round which we draw a boundary, which we then watch carefully to see how much energy crosses the boundary of the system on the way in or on the way out.

The famous equation simply enables us to relate E, the amount of energy entering or leaving the system, to m, the change in the mass of the system. It applies to all changes whatsoever, not just to nuclear reactions. Thus, if I take a car battery that has run right down and recharge it, at the end of the process its mass will have increased slightly. When you discharge the battery, its mass will decrease back to where it was. (For simplicity, I assume here that no bits of matter enter or leave the system in the form of escaping gas or otherwise. The mass change referred to above is the remaining change that we find once we have accounted for any mass that actually crosses the system boundary).

There is nothing special about nuclear processes in this regard, except for the fact that huge energy transfers across the boundary of the system take place, which are therefore associated with relatively large changes in the mass of the system as a result.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Mayan Elephant:
Not only have I denounced the Big Lie, I have denounced the Big lie big lie.
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