Quote :

" "

I like the potential.

[Edited on October 20, 2012 at 3:55 PM. Reason : TWO]

10/20/2012 3:55:20 PM

LOL@Mercator being "normal" (although it is conformal, mapping loxodromes, curves of constant compass-direction, to straight lines); Dymaxion4Lyfe: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dymaxion_map

Still, no flat map will be "geographically accurate"; this follows from a deep result in classical differential geometry: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Theorema_Egregium

Basically, the surface of the globe has positive intrinsic (or "Gaussian") curvature at every point, because all parts of the globe curve away in the same direction, while the plane (or cylinder, or any other surface created from the plane without stretching it) has zero intrinsic curvature at every point, because at least one part doesn't curve away, while the other parts, if they do, curve away in the same direction; because the two surfaces have different intrinsic curvatures, a map from one to the other must distort distances.
(FTR, negative intrinsic curvature would be like a saddle shape, where part of the surface curves in one direction and part curves in the other.)

In practice, projections try to minimize distortion in areas, distances, or directions; some (like gnomonic projections, mapping great circles to lines) have some other purpose in mind, while the most widely-adopted ones are compromises among all three major types of distortion.

Before I leave this topic, I should mention that for a while in the '60s, the preferred projection was Goode's interrupted homolosine (to show land, but a similar one showed off the oceans): https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Goode_homolosine_projection


Back then, and for several decades before and since, National Geographic preferred the less-accurate van der Grinten projection, possibly because it fit well onto a disk: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Van_der_Grinten_projection


Then in 1988, National Geographic, along with most textbooks, adopted the Robinson projection, originally designed 25 years earlier for Rand McNally: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Robinson_projection


Ten years later, when a different metric for analyzing the overall goodness of world maps was used, the preferred projection became the Winkel tripel: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Winkel_tripel_projection

Knock yourself out with the massive variety of global and partial projections here: http://www.radicalcartography.net/?projectionref



Finally, the key word for DumbasSxBoY's post about decibels is "logarithm": Decibels are used to measure any physical quantity in terms of orders of magnitude relative to a reference value, and the basic formula is 10log(I/I0), where I is the value and I0 is the reference value; the reference value in the table that he used is about 1.024nW, but I think it's odd that he used power (in W) rather than sound intensity (in W/m^2, where the reference value is 1pW/m^2) or sound pressure (where decibels are still relative to intensity, which is proportional to the square of pressure, so the formula is 20log(p/p0) and the reference value is 0.02mPa).
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Logarithm





Now for something you probably didn't know...
It is possible to construct a magenta laser by collimating light from red and violet lasers: http://www.mightexsystems.com/family_info.php?cPath=&categories_id=192

10/20/2012 4:37:01 PM

thank you google instant expert

10/20/2012 4:37:40 PM

the googles

they did nothing

10/20/2012 4:52:21 PM

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/offbeat-news/man-with-two-penises/

10/20/2012 8:40:11 PM

The NFL is Nonprofit Organization which pulled in $9 BILLION and cost the Federal Government $40 MILLION in tax revenue by allowing its classification.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/video/gma-wasteful-spending-tax-dollars-080000541.html

10/21/2012 11:51:16 PM

The -duce suffix is derived from ducere which means "to lead"

reduce
produce
seduce
deduce
conduce

10/22/2012 7:56:28 PM

I don't care what you dickheads say, lewisje will always be ok in my book

10/22/2012 8:17:47 PM

Quote :

"Operation Northwoods was a series of false-flag proposals that originated in 1962 within the United States government, and which the Kennedy administration rejected.[2] The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or other operatives, to commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and elsewhere. These acts of terrorism were to be blamed on Cuba in order to create public support for a war against that nation, which had recently become communist under Fidel Castro.[3] One part of Operation Northwoods was to "develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington." Operation Northwoods proposals included hijackings and bombings followed by the introduction of phony evidence that would implicate the Cuban government. It stated: "The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere.""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

10/22/2012 8:23:53 PM

^^^also the source of "educate" and "ductile"

10/22/2012 8:39:36 PM

There is no right to vote in the U.S. Constitution.

10/26/2012 8:41:40 AM

Quote :

"Despite his wealth, the Bloomberg claims to retain something of a down to earth manner, even travelling to city hall on the subway some days. He does not reside in the official residence of the New York Mayor, Gracie Mansion, but at his own home on the Upper East Side. He also waives his entitlement to the mayor’s salary and accepts a token payment of one dollar annually."

http://www.citymayors.com/mayors/new_york_mayor.html

He also is the 12th richest man in the United States; 30th in the world.

10/28/2012 12:09:13 AM

Quote :

"There is no right to vote in the U.S. Constitution."

While it is not explicit, the Constitution contains many phrases, clauses, and amendments detailing ways people cannot be denied the right to vote. The rest is left up to the states as the writers of the Constitution intended. Our forefathers did not want a strong Federal Gov't

10/28/2012 4:11:46 AM

Quote :

"There are over 53 million dogs in the United States, which would produce 6.3 billion pounds of waste per year. It would take a scoop the size of a football field and 800 feet tall (nearly as tall as the Chrysler Building in New York City!) to dispose of that waste. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 2 days worth of dog waste from about 100 dogs would contribute enough pollution to close a beach, and all watershed areas within 20 miles of it."

http://clearchoicescleanwater.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/pet-waste-FAQs_final.pdf

10/30/2012 8:21:36 AM

11/5/2012 4:38:06 PM

Mathematicians extend the notion of "number" to infinite sets in the following way. Given two sets A and B, we say that A and B have the same cardinality (i.e. the same number of elements) if there is a function

f:A --> B

which hits every element in B exactly once. In other words, for every b in B, there is a unique a in A such that f(a)=b.

The intuition here is pretty simple. If I give every student in my class a spear, and then they journey to another classroom and throw their spears at random people, and when they've all thrown their spears everybody in this other classroom is lying dead with a single spear in his/her chest, then

# of people in my class = # of people in this other class.

Somewhat amazingly, when you apply this notion of cardinality to infinite sets, you find that some infinities are larger than others. For example, the cardinality of the real numbers is vastly greater than the cardinality of the integers, or even the cardinality of the fractions. You can even show that there are infinitely many infinities, and that cardinality of the set of infinities is larger than the cardinality of any of the given infinities which compose it. This infinity of infinities is so large, in fact, that it does not "fit" into any set: we cannot consider the set of all infinities to be a set at all, but must regard it as a class, to which the laws of set theory do not apply.

11/5/2012 6:02:24 PM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49694115/ns/technology_and_science-science/

11/5/2012 6:11:15 PM

Napoleon Bonaparte was 4 inches taller than Andrew Carnegie.

11/17/2012 11:47:28 AM

There was a Tremors TV show, and its on right now on G4

11/17/2012 12:12:25 PM

Quote :

"There is no right to vote in the U.S. Constitution."

What in the world?


The Constitution addresses voting in Article II, the 15th Amendment, the 19th Amendment the 24th Amendment, and the 26th Amendment.


The text of the 26th Amendment even states : The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

That's pretty clear.

Additionally, Supreme Court jurisprudence acknowledges voting as a fundamental right, subject to strict scrutiny.

11/17/2012 12:48:03 PM

A recent love of mine has been thinking about anthropic correlations - that is, physical values that are related because if they weren't, humans wouldn't have evolved on Earth.

The temperature of the surface of the sun appears to be correlated to a great number of things. The average energy at that temperature is...

(3/2)*k*(3500 Kelvin) = 0.72e-19 J

This is about 1/3rd of the temperature a Hydrogen atom needs to escape Earth's gravity well:

(11.3 km/s)^2*(1 amu) = 2.1e-19 J

What would happen if our gravity well was more shallow? The sun would boil off molecules in our upper atmosphere into space. Over billions of years, we wouldn't have a very hospitable atmosphere. Coincidentally, this is also why it's so damn hard to get into orbit today. LOX with Hydrogen is basically the most umph we can get from any reaction to send us into space, and this gets a familiar looking number...

(3616 m/s)^2*(18 amu) = 3.9e-19 J

But the real uncanny part, to me, is that this range of energy also comes close to the strongest structural chemical bond that can be formed, that being a vanilla C-C bond.

(154 kJ/mol)/(Avogadro's number)*(1 mol) = 2.6e-19 J

The funny thing is, it wouldn't matter if we could make a rocket propellant that has greater reaction energy, because basically no physical material could take the heat from it, and insulating the surfaces from the reaction is no easy task. This is the exact reason we can't make nuclear or ion rockets to go into orbit, if you absorb any fraction of the reaction energy as heat it would melt your rocket.

The correlation between the sun's surface temperature and the max material strength is the most perplexing connection to me. If the sun couldn't ionize its surface, then maybe it would get insulated, or the convection couldn't form magnetic fields it needed, causing it to heat up again.

This also means that, by rule, no solid object can fall from space and not break apart on impact, even theoretically - all a result of the need to keep our atmosphere from floating into space.

11/18/2012 1:32:58 PM

Sundials work on solar time, which is different from standard time by up to 16 minutes each day.

11/19/2012 11:54:33 AM

are you retarded?

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

11/19/2012 11:57:47 AM

THIS JUST IN: SUNDIALS WORK ON SOLAR TIME. IN OTHER NEWS, WATER FOUND IN OCEAN.

11/19/2012 11:59:39 AM

So you knew it had a standard deviation of 16 minutes?

11/19/2012 12:09:42 PM

Explain to me what that means, because I don't think you even know.

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

11/19/2012 12:15:39 PM

11/19/2012 12:18:59 PM

I assume it means if you leave the sundial alone in one spot without calibrating it, the next day it will be off by upto 16 minutes compared to our digital standard time.

or it could mean if you read 12 pm on a sundial: the real time is between 11:44 or 12:16.

Which is it?

11/19/2012 12:20:00 PM

fuck your trollin ass

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

[Edited on November 19, 2012 at 12:31 PM. Reason : fuck this shit]

11/19/2012 12:25:36 PM

The average vaginal depth is 3.5 inches when relaxed and 5-6 inches when aroused. So if you ain't bottoming out on your girl, either you have a small penis or she's a hoe.

11/19/2012 12:33:32 PM

Quote :

"The average vaginal depth is 3.5 inches when relaxed and 5-6 inches when aroused. So if you ain't bottoming out on your girl, either you have a small penis or she's a hoe."

I think it's saying that the vagina expands when she's turned on. I think black girls have to have a bigger vagina if nature had to make black men's dicks longer. Although, then again, they all could be hoes

11/19/2012 12:43:26 PM

yeah, to 5-6 inches in depth. so like I said:

Quote :

"if you ain't bottoming out on your girl, either you have a small penis or she's a hoe."

11/19/2012 12:45:12 PM

What is the range of elasticity of the top of the vagina? I know most girls can fit 7 inches in comfortably, but 7.1 inches hurts them.

11/19/2012 12:51:14 PM

have you concluded this from your rape studies?

11/19/2012 12:52:30 PM

11/19/2012 1:02:09 PM

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - an obscure term ostensibly referring to a lung disease caused by silica dust, sometimes cited as one of the longest words in the English language.

11/19/2012 3:16:21 PM

djeternal - sometimes cited as one of the longest "members" on TWW.

11/19/2012 3:42:01 PM

This thread taught me that GeniuSxBoY has no idea what standard deviation is.

11/19/2012 4:51:52 PM

Nope, I have no idea what a standard deviation is

11/19/2012 5:06:35 PM

This picture looks like 2 pairs of floppy boobies holding hands:



[Edited on November 19, 2012 at 5:10 PM. Reason : a]

11/19/2012 5:09:30 PM

Quote :

"up to 16 minutes each day"

Quote :

"it had a standard deviation of 16 minutes"

No, you don't.

11/19/2012 5:11:04 PM

Just go ahead and explain it to me. Obviously there is some obscure technicality that you're hinting at.

11/19/2012 5:21:17 PM

You don't understand the difference between range and standard deviation.

Sorry to call you out over an obscure technicality like that.

11/19/2012 5:29:13 PM

Can you read English?

Quote :

" Just go ahead and explain it to me."

11/19/2012 5:32:13 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_(statistics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

It's all right there. Educate yourself.

11/19/2012 5:39:44 PM

What's the matter? You can't explain it to me?

11/19/2012 5:57:57 PM

He could explain it, you just wouldn't understand it

11/19/2012 6:00:25 PM

I could if I felt like wasting my time on a simpleton who likely couldn't grasp it anyway.

If you need it explained because you can't read very well, go find a high school stat class. This information will be covered on the first day - likely in the first twenty minutes.

11/19/2012 6:01:52 PM

I don't feel like I'm wrong so I'm not going to bother reading about statistic ranges in a non-statistic problem.

11/19/2012 6:05:07 PM

Unfortunately, you are wrong.

Even more unfortunate is that you're choosing to stay stupid rather than learning why.

11/19/2012 6:16:48 PM