Why not a Python compiler?

[cokofreedom@gmail.com]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

On Feb 12, 7:16 am, Jeff Schwab <j...@schwabcen ter.comwrote:

Erik Max Francis wrote:

Jeff Schwab wrote:

>

Erik Max Francis wrote:
>Grant Edwards wrote:

>

>>On 2008-02-12, Jeff Schwab <j...@schwabcen ter.comwrote:
>>>Fair enough!

>

>>Dear me, what's Usenet coming to these days...

>

>I know, really. Sheesh! Jeff, I won't stand for that! Argue with
>me! :-)

>

OK, uh... You're a poopy-head.

>

Forgive the cliché, but there's already too much road rage on the
information superhighway. I've had limited access to Usenet for the
last couple of years, and coming back, I find myself shocked at how
many people seem to be mean and argumentative just for the heck of
it. Was it really always this hostile? Maybe I've gotten soft in my
old age.

>

Note smiley. Grant and I were joking.

>
Yes, I understood.
>
Ahhh, back to that familiar, awkward discomfort...

Hold it, 2, 3 and release...ahhh good times

[Grant Edwards]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

On 2008-02-12, Jeff Schwab <jeff@schwabcen ter.comwrote:

Forgive the cliché, but there's already too much road rage on the
information superhighway. I've had limited access to Usenet for the
last couple of years, and coming back, I find myself shocked at how many
people seem to be mean and argumentative just for the heck of it. Was
it really always this hostile?

It varies from group to group. Some of them were just as bad
15 years ago.

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Did something bad
at happen or am I in a
visi.com drive-in movie??

[greg]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Erik Max Francis wrote:

My point was, and still is, that if this question without further
context is posed to a generally educated laymen, the supposedly wrong
answer that was given is actually _correct_.

Except that they probably don't understand exactly how and
why it's correct. E.g. they will likely expect a 2kg hammer
to fall to the floor twice as fast as a 1kg hammer, which
isn't anywhere near to being true.

--
Greg

[Erik Max Francis]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Dotan Cohen wrote:

On 13/02/2008, Erik Max Francis <max@alcyone.co mwrote:

> And the rest of us just use SI. (And if you bring up the
> _kilogram-force_, I'll just cry.)

>
Don't cry, I just want to say that I've hated the kilogram-force
almost as much as I've hated the electron-volt. Who is the lazy who
comes up with these things?

The electron-volt is a weird little miscreant that ended up becoming
popular. The kilogram-force is a unit that could only demonstrate that
its inventors completely missed the freakin' point.

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
Sit loosely in the saddle of life.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

[David H Wild]

Re: OT: Speed of light

In article <5LednYnShMTspS 7anZ2dnUVZ_tern Z2d@comcast.com >,
Jeff Schwab <jeff@schwabcen ter.comwrote:

We (Americans) all measure our weight in pounds. People talk about how
much less they would weigh on the moon, in pounds, or even near the
equator (where the Earth's radius is slightly higher).

Their weight on the moon would be exactly the same as on earth if they used
a balance with weights on the other side of the fulcrum.

--
David Wild using RISC OS on broadband

https://www.davidhwild.me.uk

[I V]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:07:49 -0800, Erik Max Francis wrote:

experience. The notion of impetus -- where an object throw moves in a
straight line until it runs out of impetus, then falls straight down --
is clearly contrary to everyday experience of watching two people throw
a ball back and forth from a distance, since the path of the ball is
clearly curved.

It's clear _to us_ because when we think about such things, we think in
Newtonian terms. I'm not at all sure it would have been clear to people
in the middle ages; when you throw a ball, it whizzes by so fast, it's
hard to be sure how it's actually moving.

[Erik Max Francis]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

Grant Edwards wrote:

A slug is 14.593903 kg according to the trysty old Unix "units"
program. Hmm, I always thought a slug weighed exactly 32 lbs,
but I see it's 32.174049. Learn something new every day...

It's defined so that 1 slug times the acceleration due to gravity is a
pound. The acceleration due to gravity is only approximately 32 ft/s^2,
so you were just remembering the short-hand approximation for 1 gee.

Let's hear it for incoherent unit systems ...

--
Erik Max Francis && max@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
Man has wrested from nature the power to make the world a desert or
to make deserts bloom. -- Adlai Stevenson, 1952

[Steven D'Aprano]

Re: OT: Speed of light [was Re: Why not a Python compiler?]

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:13:51 +0000, I V wrote:

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:07:49 -0800, Erik Max Francis wrote:

>experience. The notion of impetus -- where an object throw moves in a
>straight line until it runs out of impetus, then falls straight down --
>is clearly contrary to everyday experience of watching two people throw
>a ball back and forth from a distance, since the path of the ball is
>clearly curved.

>
It's clear _to us_ because when we think about such things, we think in
Newtonian terms. I'm not at all sure it would have been clear to people
in the middle ages; when you throw a ball, it whizzes by so fast, it's
hard to be sure how it's actually moving.

If they asked an archer to fire an arrow through a distant window, he'd
aim slightly above it. You can't spend dozens of hours every week
shooting arrows at targets without learning to compensate for gravity.

The theory of impetus went through a number of variations over the
millennia. Despite the unsourced diagrams on the Wikipedia article (see
the Talk page for more details) the usual medieval view of impetus was in
the context of ballistics: an arrow or other projectile was fired up at
an arrow, it traveled mostly in a straight line, then slowly curved away
as the impetus was lost and gravity took hold, and then finally dropped
straight down.

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

While it isn't a good model for arrows and cannon balls, it's actually
not too far off the real-world case of a light projectile in the face of
air resistance.

We can be sure that Aristotle was not a juggler, or spent much time
watching jugglers. If he was, he never would have come up with the
impetus theory in the first place.




--
Steven

[Bjoern Schliessmann]

Re: OT: Speed of light

Erik Max Francis wrote:

A couple of problems here. 1 eV = 1.602 x 10^-19 J. Also, the
atto-prefix is 10^-18, not 10^-15. So 511 keV = 81.9 fJ
(femtojoules).

Miscount on my side; thanks for pointing that out.

Regards,


Björn

--
BOFH excuse #330:

quantum decoherence