> Seriously, is it normal for LCDs to get warm during operation?

If they have a backlight, yes, because LEDs and CCFLs are only about 10% 
efficient at converting electrical energy to visible light.  A typical 
monitor might need around 5W of backlighting power, most of that is 
converted to heat.

> ...is 50 N a lot?

About 5 kg.  Significantly higher than the force you usually use to 
write/press with.

> Heee, do you remember the old laptops with the blue/purple monochrome 
> LCDs? Where if you touched the screen, the whole picture rippled slightly?

They still do, if you don't have any protection on the front.  My two 
monitors and my laptop screen here certainly do.

> [Actually, our photocopier has a display like that. And I think it needs a 
> screen saver, cos some of the controls are well burnt into it! I didn't 
> think LCDs could "burn" like that?]

They can if you don't keep the average voltage across each pixel exactly 
zero volts.  A bad/cheap driving circuit can easily allow enough of a DC 
voltage to start to screw things up after years of operation.  However 
usually the burn-in is not permanent, and disappears after some period (can 
be up to an hour or so with very slow displays).  Must admit I don't know 
the details because the displays we work on are not allowed to have any 
visible burn-in at all.

Post a reply to this message

>> Seriously, is it normal for LCDs to get warm during operation?
> 
> If they have a backlight, yes, because LEDs and CCFLs are only about 10% 
> efficient at converting electrical energy to visible light.  A typical 
> monitor might need around 5W of backlighting power, most of that is 
> converted to heat.

Is that also why my LCD here at work is about 2°C warmer at the top than 
the bottom?

>> ...is 50 N a lot?
> 
> About 5 kg.  Significantly higher than the force you usually use to 
> write/press with.

5 Kg? Yeah, that is quite a bit... [Hmm, I wonder how much a human arm 
weighs?]

>> Heee, do you remember the old laptops with the blue/purple monochrome 
>> LCDs? Where if you touched the screen, the whole picture rippled 
>> slightly?
> 
> They still do, if you don't have any protection on the front.  My two 
> monitors and my laptop screen here certainly do.

*pokes it* Oh yeah, mine too. :-)

But it's not blue and purple. It's real colour. Even *our* equipment 
isn't *that* ancient. ;-)

>> [Actually, our photocopier has a display like that. And I think it 
>> needs a screen saver, cos some of the controls are well burnt into it! 
>> I didn't think LCDs could "burn" like that?]
> 
> They can if you don't keep the average voltage across each pixel exactly 
> zero volts.  A bad/cheap driving circuit can easily allow enough of a DC 
> voltage to start to screw things up after years of operation.  However 
> usually the burn-in is not permanent, and disappears after some period 
> (can be up to an hour or so with very slow displays).  Must admit I 
> don't know the details because the displays we work on are not allowed 
> to have any visible burn-in at all.

Well, it *is* a 2-year old photocopier. And it runs 24/7. (Although 
actually after a while it goes into a power-save mode where IIRC the LCD 
shuts down too.) That's a touch-sensitive display, come to think of it. 
But it doesn't ripple all that much... hmm.

I wonder... If you wanted to go all mad-scientist, how hard would it be 
to concoct a chemical which forms a vaguely-functional LCD?

[NB. I once tried to make an oscilator at school. The damn thing never 
actually produced any sound. It did, however, heat up the two power 
transistors with remarkable efficiency - I would never have believed 
that 9V was enough to burn your finger on...]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I love the way not knowing about differential calculus is perfectly 
> acceptable, but not knowing about English literature gets you labelled 
> as some kind of idiot. As if English literature is somehow "more 
> important" than differential calculus...

  In context, it is, in fact. That's because literature is much more
related to the culture around you (which, in the end, is closely related
to socializing between people), while differential calculus isn't.

  Humans are cultural and social beings and literature is one of the
best forms of learning and expressing about it. That's why it's usually
considered a good thing for your education to read a lot.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> ...is 50 N a lot?

  Again we have to teach you about something you should know, especially
given that you are a technical nerd.

  To get a grasp of what 50 Newtons means, it may be easiest to convert
them to kiloponds.

  1 kilopond is the force exerted by Earth's gravity on one kilogram of
mass. In other words, assume you hold a 1 kg object on your hand, and
think how much force it applies to your hand downwards. That's 1 kp.

  50 Newtons is approximately equal to 5.1 kiloponds. In other words,
it's the force you feel applied to your hand when you hold a 5.1 kg object.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

> Is that also why my LCD here at work is about 2°C warmer at the top than 
> the bottom?

Most likely just because heat rises :-)  Don't know where the LEDs are on 
your LCD, or it may even be a CCFL in there...

> But it doesn't ripple all that much... hmm.

That's because it has a touch screen on the front of it - not as easy to 
distort the actual LCD.

> I wonder... If you wanted to go all mad-scientist, how hard would it be to 
> concoct a chemical which forms a vaguely-functional LCD?

Read the first few parts of:

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

It's relatively easy to get a "functional" liquid crystal nowadays, the 
extremely hard bit is creating one that works over a wide temperature range, 
gives a high contrast ratio, has a fast switching time, etc.

> [NB. I once tried to make an oscilator at school. The damn thing never 
> actually produced any sound. It did, however, heat up the two power 
> transistors with remarkable efficiency - I would never have believed that 
> 9V was enough to burn your finger on...]

I tried to make a simple AM transmitter, my first design transmitted about 
5cm.  I then proceeded to make the supply voltage higher and higher (in the 
end I think I had 5 or 6 30V supplies in series) and eventually I made it 
transmit about 3 metres while probably using half of the school's power :-)

Post a reply to this message

>> ...is 50 N a lot?
> 
>   Again we have to teach you about something you should know, especially
> given that you are a technical nerd.

I just figured that somebody who's used to dealing with such units on a 
regular basis would have a more intuitive grasp of what is or isn't a 
large force.

Of course 1 N is the force required to induce an acceleration of 1 m/s^2 
on a mass of 1 Kg. But how much *is* that in real-world terms?

>   50 Newtons is approximately equal to 5.1 kiloponds. In other words,
> it's the force you feel applied to your hand when you hold a 5.1 kg object.

So... a reasonably large force to be pressing something with. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:53:59 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:

>As if English literature is somehow "more 
>important" than differential calculus...

Warp said it all. 

It's the way of the world.

[A well known Restoration comedy. Written by William Congreve, an
English playwright.]

:P
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>> I love the way not knowing about differential calculus is perfectly 
>> acceptable, but not knowing about English literature gets you labelled 
>> as some kind of idiot. As if English literature is somehow "more 
>> important" than differential calculus...
> 
>   In context, it is, in fact. That's because literature is much more
> related to the culture around you (which, in the end, is closely related
> to socializing between people), while differential calculus isn't.
> 
>   Humans are cultural and social beings and literature is one of the
> best forms of learning and expressing about it. That's why it's usually
> considered a good thing for your education to read a lot.

Hmm... Clearly it's going to take me a while to wrap my brain around 
this concept...

Presumably this is why all schoolchildren [in the UK at least] have 
Shakespear inflicted upon them as a mandatory component of their 
education. I still can't figure out what good it's supposed to do.

Certainly I can understand the importance of social interaction. But 
"culture" always seemed to me to involve lots of pretensious people 
standing around whaffling something incomprehensible about a bend lump 
of metal painted green or something...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Presumably this is why all schoolchildren [in the UK at least] have 
> Shakespear inflicted upon them as a mandatory component of their 
> education. I still can't figure out what good it's supposed to do.

  It's good because it's an expression of social culture.

> Certainly I can understand the importance of social interaction. But 
> "culture" always seemed to me to involve lots of pretensious people 
> standing around whaffling something incomprehensible about a bend lump 
> of metal painted green or something...

  You have a twisted notion of the term "culture". Culture is much more
mundane than that.

  For example, if someone greets you, you greet back. That's part of
your culture.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> ...is 50 N a lot?
> > 
> >   Again we have to teach you about something you should know, especially
> > given that you are a technical nerd.

> I just figured that somebody who's used to dealing with such units on a 
> regular basis would have a more intuitive grasp of what is or isn't a 
> large force.

  I didn't have any idea whatsoever "how much" 50 N is, but basic education
helped me in figuring it out. I knew that Newtons and kiloponds both measure
the same thing (force), and that a kilopond is a much more intuitive unit,
so the logical step was to convert the Newtons to kiloponds, and from there
imagine a real-life situation where such force would apply (in this case,
holding a 5-kilogram object on your hand).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote in message
news:4857642d$1@news.povray.org...
> >> I've heard of TV casualties from the wrist band snapping. LCDs and
> >> Plasmas.
> >> The glass on a CRT is usually strong enough to survive,
>
> Yup, whereas the glass in an LCD is usually under 1mm thick - the
polarisers
> stop it shattering, but it still cracks easily and then it's useless.

Don't remind be. I cracked a laptop's LCD panel last year. The surface was
fine, something was cracked underneath. Large portions of the screen are now
black.

Repair place quoted me R8000 to replace the panel, and that was a 17" laptop
screen. I'd hate to see the price to replace a 40" LCD TV's panel.

Post a reply to this message

"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4857d493@news.povray.org...
>
> Of course 1 N is the force required to induce an acceleration of 1 m/s^2
> on a mass of 1 Kg. But how much *is* that in real-world terms?

Well gravitational acceleration is 9.8m.s^-2, so gravity exerts a force of
9.8N on 1 kg object.

Does that help?

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>> There are lots around 10 pounds if you want to spend a bit more.
> ....so it's a tax on stupidity then?

It's an ongoing argument. HDMI is digital, so it shouldn't make a 
difference. But it's a very poorly designed digital standard 
(physical-layer-wise) so EEs who ought know what they're talking about 
say it's important to keep the cables short if they're not really good 
quality.  I suspect it's more like "it's important to keep the cables 
short, period."

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> You now have fingerprints all over your viewing area. Good luck 
>> cleaning skin oil off a plastic display. ;-)
>>
>> You get no tactile feedback from the "keyboard".
> 
> Previously Nokia and still today many car manufacturers rejected the 
> touchscreen keyboard approach for those very two reasons.

I read Nokia actually has a touchscreen that gives tactile feedback. 
There's something behind it that "taps" from behind when the key would 
click, or some such silliness. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Invisible wrote:
> Damnit, I wish I knew some people IRL who possess such encyclopedic 
> knowledge... I'd never be bored again!

<RainbowsEnd>
   "You seem to know an awful lot about what's going on."
   "Hey, I'm wearing."
</RainbowsEnd>

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Invisible wrote:
> I still can't figure out what good it's supposed to do.

I was like that for a long time.  Then I realized it's basically 
learning all the social macros, if you will.

One can make a reference to a piece of literature, or some other social 
or literary context, and invoke an entire background to what you're 
saying.  Boss says "Time to go visit the customer," and coworker say 
"Yep, back down the rabbit hole."   If you never heard of Alice in 
Wonderland, you'd have no idea what that meant, or why your coworker 
would say it. If you'd read your literature, you'd know your coworker is 
calling your customer and their entire environment crazily surreal.

If you want a nerdier example, when friends (who I know will get the 
reference) ask me how the weather is where I am, I've been known to 
answer "It's very Windows 98 out."

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> I knew that Newtons and kiloponds both measure the same thing (force), 

FWIW, I never even *heard* of a "pond" as a unit of measure. I knew 
"pounds" were a measure of weight (rather than mass), but I never heard 
of a "pond".  Good explanation. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> Presumably this is why all schoolchildren [in the UK at least] have 
> Shakespear inflicted upon them as a mandatory component of their 
> education. I still can't figure out what good it's supposed to do.

Consider another example. Imagine this:

You're in the conference room, along with several coworkers, waiting for 
someone you haven't met before to show up so you can start. This person, 
who has been around the company a while but you just never happened to 
meet, walks past the window on the way into the conference room.  You 
coworker whistles a tune under his breath,

... which you don't recognise.

... which you recognise as the Darth Vadar theme.

... which you recognise as the Wicked Witch of the West theme.

... which you recognise as the Indiana Jones theme.

OK?  Your different opinions, of this person who you still haven't met, 
have been shaped by a string of otherwise-meaningless tones.  That's 
culture.  (Assuming you've actually seen those movies, see...)

The reason you read Shakespeare is because others do too, and when they 
make references to a Shylock, a pound of flesh, or "Lead on, McDuff", or 
things like that, they're bringing *that* entire story into context.

Sort of like that Star Trek NG episode where the aliens communicate 
*only* in cultural references, and they kidnap the two captains and beam 
them down to the hostile planet surface so they'll have some cultural 
story in common to start communicating with?

(Yes, thank you, I appreciate just how f'ing nerdy this sounds. :-)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:

> Consider another example. Imagine this:
> 
> You're in the conference room, along with several coworkers, waiting for 
> someone you haven't met before to show up so you can start. This person, 
> who has been around the company a while but you just never happened to 
> meet, walks past the window on the way into the conference room.  You 
> coworker whistles a tune under his breath,
> 
> ... which you don't recognise.
> 
> ... which you recognise as the Darth Vadar theme.
> 
> ... which you recognise as the Wicked Witch of the West theme.
> 
> ... which you recognise as the Indiana Jones theme.
> 
> OK?  Your different opinions, of this person who you still haven't met, 
> have been shaped by a string of otherwise-meaningless tones.  That's 
> culture.  (Assuming you've actually seen those movies, see...)

Wait... The WWW had a *theme*??

Maybe I'm just strange, but I don't think it would matter what a person 
is whistling. The fact that they're whistling something would be more 
significant...

> The reason you read Shakespeare is because others do too, and when they 
> make references to a Shylock, a pound of flesh, or "Lead on, McDuff", or 
> things like that, they're bringing *that* entire story into context.

See, now, in all the years I've been alive, I've never [knowingly] heard 
of anybody making any Shakespeare references at all. [Except maybe to 
Romeo and Juliet.]

> Sort of like that Star Trek NG episode where the aliens communicate 
> *only* in cultural references, and they kidnap the two captains and beam 
> them down to the hostile planet surface so they'll have some cultural 
> story in common to start communicating with?
> 
> (Yes, thank you, I appreciate just how f'ing nerdy this sounds. :-)

...as nerdy as me saying "yeah, I remember that silly episode"?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Darren New wrote:

> One can make a reference to a piece of literature, or some other social 
> or literary context, and invoke an entire background to what you're 
> saying.  Boss says "Time to go visit the customer," and coworker say 
> "Yep, back down the rabbit hole."   If you never heard of Alice in 
> Wonderland, you'd have no idea what that meant, or why your coworker 
> would say it. If you'd read your literature, you'd know your coworker is 
> calling your customer and their entire environment crazily surreal.

Oh, is *that* what that's supposed to mean?

Obviously I've had the misfortune of reading Alice in Wonderland, but I 
didn't understand a word of it. It just seemed to completely defy any 
kind of logic... Just left me feeling really confused. [And wondering 
why I just wasted several months of my life reading such an utterly 
horrid book!]

> If you want a nerdier example, when friends (who I know will get the 
> reference) ask me how the weather is where I am, I've been known to 
> answer "It's very Windows 98 out."

Wuh?! o_O

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> See, now, in all the years I've been alive, I've never [knowingly] heard 
> of anybody making any Shakespeare references at all. [Except maybe to 
> Romeo and Juliet.]

Monty Python references seem far more common - although perhaps that 
says something about the strange people I hang around with...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Wait... The WWW had a *theme*??

Um, yes. Very much so. :-)

> Maybe I'm just strange, but I don't think it would matter what a person 
> is whistling. The fact that they're whistling something would be more 
> significant...

It conveys their opinion.

> See, now, in all the years I've been alive, I've never [knowingly] heard 
> of anybody making any Shakespeare references at all. [Except maybe to 
> Romeo and Juliet.]

If you haven't read any Shakespeare, how would you know?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Monty Python references seem far more common - although perhaps that 
> says something about the strange people I hang around with...

While true, such references are usually not used to communicate 
something complex in a quick way, I'd guess.  As in, when people say 
"It's only a flesh wound", they're really not saying "It's actually an 
awful mortal wound, but I'm so dedicated to my cause I'm going to ignore 
it." Instead, they really mean "it's only a flesh wound."

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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>> Maybe I'm just strange, but I don't think it would matter what a 
>> person is whistling. The fact that they're whistling something would 
>> be more significant...
> 
> It conveys their opinion.

Surely it's more or less random and represents whatever happens to 
wander into their heads? Besides, most people seem to whistle random 
sequences of notes having no particular composition rather than actual 
tunes...

>> See, now, in all the years I've been alive, I've never [knowingly] 
>> heard of anybody making any Shakespeare references at all. [Except 
>> maybe to Romeo and Juliet.]
> 
> If you haven't read any Shakespeare, how would you know?

Who says I haven't read any Shakespeare?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Maybe I'm just strange, but I don't think it would matter what a 
>>> person is whistling. The fact that they're whistling something would 
>>> be more significant...
>>
>> It conveys their opinion.
> 
> Surely it's more or less random and represents whatever happens to 
> wander into their heads?

You know, I'm not sure I can explain it any better than I already have. 
If someone says "Here comes with Wicked Witch" when they see your boss 
walking towards them, that conveys an opinion of your boss. Whistling 
the theme song (which, in the movie, plays every time the Wicked Witch 
approaches) also conveys the same thought. But you wouldn't understand 
either meaning without culture behind it.

>> If you haven't read any Shakespeare, how would you know?
> Who says I haven't read any Shakespeare?

Sorry. You didn't.

In any case, that's what it's supposed to do. If some time in your life, 
someone tells you not to hire some particular lawyer because he's a real 
shylock, you'll know what it means.

Of course, there are fewer references to Shakespeare and various operas 
and such than there are to popular movies, but the movie references will 
probably not outlive the Shakespeare references either.  I mean, what do 
you hear more, "Romeo and Juliet" or "Tony and Maria"?

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> [And wondering 
> why I just wasted several months of my life reading such an utterly 
> horrid book!]

  Exactly how fast do you read? One word per minute?-o

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Wait... The WWW had a *theme*??

  It never ceases to amaze my why you are so eager to shout about your
ignorance about things. You must know how it looks when you do that
constantly, yet you keep doing it again and again.

  (And I didn't say "I'm amazed you didn't know that". That's irrelevant.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > I knew that Newtons and kiloponds both measure the same thing (force), 

> FWIW, I never even *heard* of a "pond" as a unit of measure.

  Seems like Andrew is not the only one who hasn't read his literature. :P

  (The first time I read about kiloponds, which was quite a long time
ago, was in a thriller novel, of all things. Maybe it was by Ludlum,
or someone who writes similar style. :) )

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:40:56 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>> I typed "hdmi cable" into amazon and this one is only 51p!!!
>> 
>> There are lots around 10 pounds if you want to spend a bit more.
> 
> ...so it's a tax on stupidity then?

Well, might also be a quality thing.  Then again, I bought a splitter 
cable off of Amazon for my Blackberry & headset so I could charge both at 
the same time (the headset didn't come with USB charging cable).  Cost 
was about $0.95, and I got free shipping.  And it works.

New iPod battery was about $7 including shipping.  Previous one I bought 
cost more like $15+tax.

"Tax on stupidity" = lottery.  Or on "people who can't do math". :-)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> [And wondering 
>> why I just wasted several months of my life reading such an utterly 
>> horrid book!]
> 
>   Exactly how fast do you read? One word per minute?-o

A few pages, once every few days. Otherwise yuh, that would be pretty 
damn slow! ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> You know, I'm not sure I can explain it any better than I already have. 
> If someone says "Here comes with Wicked Witch" when they see your boss 
> walking towards them, that conveys an opinion of your boss. Whistling 
> the theme song (which, in the movie, plays every time the Wicked Witch 
> approaches) also conveys the same thought. But you wouldn't understand 
> either meaning without culture behind it.

Mmm, OK...

I doubt you can learn such things just from reading books though. More 
like going out and actually talking to people...

>>> If you haven't read any Shakespeare, how would you know?
>> Who says I haven't read any Shakespeare?
> 
> Sorry. You didn't.

I didn't read any Shakespeare? Now what on earth makes you think that?

> In any case, that's what it's supposed to do. If some time in your life, 
> someone tells you not to hire some particular lawyer because he's a real 
> shylock, you'll know what it means.

Actually, considering Shylock's character, I'm not 100% sure I know what 
they're trying to imply.

> Of course, there are fewer references to Shakespeare and various operas 
> and such than there are to popular movies, but the movie references will 
> probably not outlive the Shakespeare references either.  I mean, what do 
> you hear more, "Romeo and Juliet" or "Tony and Maria"?

Hell, I haven't heard of that latter one *now*! ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Wait... The WWW had a *theme*??
> 
>   It never ceases to amaze my why you are so eager to shout about your
> ignorance about things.

It never ceases to amaze me how you like to remind me what a stupid 
ignorant fool I am at every possible opportunity.

[Or that not knowing fact X qualifies somebody as "ignorant". As if 
there's some magical set of facts that all human beings are innantely 
expected to know...]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> "Tax on stupidity" = lottery.  Or on "people who can't do math". :-)

Not really true.

Here's lottery number one:

You give me $1, and I give you a 1/100 chance you will win a $1,000,000 
dollars. Do you take the bet?

Here's lottery number two:

You give me a $1,000,000 dollars, and I give you a 1/100 chance you will 
win $1,000,000,000,000. Do you take the bet?

It's the same expected outcome, you'll note.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> A few pages, once every few days. Otherwise yuh, that would be pretty 
> damn slow! ;-)

For the most part, it's probably pretty difficult to understand a book 
like Alice in Wonderland if you read it that slowly. It's like trying to 
be frightened by a horror movie you only watch for five minutes a day.

And, of course, it helps if you *already* understand some culture so you 
can understand what the symbolism in Alice is actually referring to also.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
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    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I doubt you can learn such things just from reading books though. More 
> like going out and actually talking to people...

There's some of that invovled too, yes. ;-)

>>>> If you haven't read any Shakespeare, how would you know?
>>> Who says I haven't read any Shakespeare?
>>
>> Sorry. You didn't.
> 
> I didn't read any Shakespeare? Now what on earth makes you think that?

Sorry.  You didn't say you hadn't read any Shakespeare. Erf.

> Hell, I haven't heard of that latter one *now*! ;-)

That's kind of my point. Look up West Side Story.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
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>> A few pages, once every few days. Otherwise yuh, that would be pretty 
>> damn slow! ;-)
> 
> For the most part, it's probably pretty difficult to understand a book 
> like Alice in Wonderland if you read it that slowly. It's like trying to 
> be frightened by a horror movie you only watch for five minutes a day.
> 
> And, of course, it helps if you *already* understand some culture so you 
> can understand what the symbolism in Alice is actually referring to also.

I have also watched various films of it. Which also completely failed to 
make any senblance of sense.

[Although I think possibly Dune exceeds it in outright 
incomprehensibility...]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>> I knew that Newtons and kiloponds both measure the same thing (force), 
> 
>> FWIW, I never even *heard* of a "pond" as a unit of measure.
> 
>   Seems like Andrew is not the only one who hasn't read his literature. :P

I never claimed to be widely read. :-) Sadly, by the time I figured out 
why the heck the teachers wanted me reading all that crap, it was too 
late - I'd already graduated.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> I doubt you can learn such things just from reading books though. More 
>> like going out and actually talking to people...
> 
> There's some of that invovled too, yes. ;-)

It strikes me that the thing about "culture" is that it is entirely 
dependent on who you hang out with.

(Somebody around the POV-Ray server not knowing what the word "algebra" 
means would get some fairly strange looks. Walk around on the street and 
it's a different story. Now go read Questionable Content and try to 
figure out some of the more obscure references. I just checked with an 
emo kid I know who's dating an indie boy and *she* said it was obscure!)

>>>> Who says I haven't read any Shakespeare?
>>>
>>> Sorry. You didn't.
>>
>> I didn't read any Shakespeare? Now what on earth makes you think that?
> 
> Sorry.  You didn't say you hadn't read any Shakespeare. Erf.

Not only have I *read* several Shakespeare plays, as part of our 
education we were forced to *perform* part of one. [Not Romeo & Juliet, 
mercifully. It was a school for boys, after all...]

I played Shylock.

Best thing about performing Shakespeare: If you make a mistake, nobody 
in the audience will ever know. They can't understand a word you're 
saying, AND THEY DON'T CARE ANYWAY. Really reduces the pressure! ;-)

And next year, I happened to be visiting the school, and they told me 
that Macbeth had just been expelled from the school. Guess who played 
Macbeth's character that year?

And the year after that?

Jesus I'm a sap... :-S

>> Hell, I haven't heard of that latter one *now*! ;-)
> 
> That's kind of my point. Look up West Side Story.

And I'm agreeing. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I have also watched various films of it. Which also completely failed to 
> make any senblance of sense.

Well, no, they aren't going to make sense at all.

Me, I thought the Cyberiad (Stanislaw Lem) was truly wonderful for a 
bizarre book, as well as being fairly deep in many ways. (Not too many 
references to it in culture, mind.)   What amazes me more is that it was 
originally in Polish and translated to English.  (Altho you'd have to 
read it to understand why that's amazing - amazing writing, and an 
amazing translation.)

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:19:56 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> "Tax on stupidity" = lottery.  Or on "people who can't do math". :-)
> 
> Not really true.
> 
> Here's lottery number one:
> 
> You give me $1, and I give you a 1/100 chance you will win a $1,000,000
> dollars. Do you take the bet?
> 
> Here's lottery number two:
> 
> You give me a $1,000,000 dollars, and I give you a 1/100 chance you will
> win $1,000,000,000,000. Do you take the bet?
> 
> It's the same expected outcome, you'll note.

I meant for lotteries like the Minnesota State Lottery, or Powerball.

Or any game, really, that's rigged so the house wins most of the time.

Jim

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On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:03:25 -0400, Warp wrote:

> You must know how it looks when you do that constantly, yet you keep
> doing it again and again.

No moreso than you must know how it looks when you behave like this.

Jim

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> Wait... The WWW had a *theme*??
> > 
> >   It never ceases to amaze my why you are so eager to shout about your
> > ignorance about things.

> It never ceases to amaze me how you like to remind me what a stupid 
> ignorant fool I am at every possible opportunity.

  I would have had quite many opportunities to comment on your posts,
but I promised I would stop that. This time I just couldn't resist.

  Besides, when I used the word "ignorant" I used it to mean "doesn't
know things". The negative connotations are your own interpretation.

> [Or that not knowing fact X qualifies somebody as "ignorant". As if 
> there's some magical set of facts that all human beings are innantely 
> expected to know...]

  As I said in the part which you didn't quote, I was not talking about
what you do and don't know, but about your constant eagerness to show your
ignorance.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> It strikes me that the thing about "culture" is that it is entirely 
> dependent on who you hang out with.

Ummmm, yes?   <Darren> fighting the urge to say "Duh!" </Darren>

;-)

Seriously, that's kind of what culture *is*.  That's why people talk 
about "Western culture" and "Pop culture" and "Asian culture" and so on. 
The thing about reading "literature" is that lots of different cultures 
(both in time and space) have read the same literature, so it gives you 
  a common background with more people than "emo culture" or "star trek 
culture."

For example, in the Jet Li / Jackie Chan movie that just came out, the 
story is related to a major cultural story involving someone traveling 
from China to India. I'd learned about it in school, as did my Chinese 
wife, so we both knew the background of the characters and such, which 
made it a more enjoyable movie.

> I played Shylock.

And you don't understand what it means to call someone a Shylock?

> Best thing about performing Shakespeare: If you make a mistake, nobody 
> in the audience will ever know. They can't understand a word you're 
> saying, AND THEY DON'T CARE ANYWAY. Really reduces the pressure! ;-)

Heh. Actually, I found Shakespeare to be *way* more interesting when 
performed live than either reading it or seeing it as a movie. It's a 
completely different experience.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Or any game, really, that's rigged so the house wins most of the time.

Same thing applies, tho. I win most of the time.  I lose bigger, but I 
win most of the time.

Losing $1 just doesn't hurt as much as losing $1,000,000.  It's not all 
the numbers in the game. It's also the numbers outside the game.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Helpful housekeeping hints:
   Check your feather pillows for holes
    before putting them in the washing machine.

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>> It strikes me that the thing about "culture" is that it is entirely 
>> dependent on who you hang out with.
> 
> Ummmm, yes?   <Darren> fighting the urge to say "Duh!" </Darren>
> 
> ;-)
> 
> Seriously, that's kind of what culture *is*.

So why does everybody act surprised that I don't know certain rather 
obscure facts? It's not like everybody knows everything, or lived life 
the exact same way...

> For example, in the Jet Li / Jackie Chan movie that just came out, the 
> story is related to a major cultural story involving someone traveling 
> from China to India. I'd learned about it in school, as did my Chinese 
> wife, so we both knew the background of the characters and such, which 
> made it a more enjoyable movie.

See, now I wouldn't even bother watching such a film, since clearly I 
won't understand any of it.

OTOH, a friend of mine commented on something that happened on the way 
out of the cinema after watching Titanic. Some person says to their 
friend "seriously, apparently it's based on a true story". And their 
friend was like "don't be so stupid! How can it be based on a real story?"

People accuse me of being stupid, but I do realise there was a real ship 
called the Titanic, that really did sink when it hit an iceberg. As 
surely does most of the population?

And then there was that time my mum wanted to go see Jesus Christ 
Superstar. At the end we walked back to the car in silence. And as we 
get into the car, mum goes "well that was a bit depressing". Like, WTF? 
Did you not know he was going to DIE at the end? Have you not read the 
book?!?

To me, not recognising the theme tune to the Wicked Witch of the West 
just isn't on the same level as the two examples above.

>> I played Shylock.
> 
> And you don't understand what it means to call someone a Shylock?

Well let's see now. You could mean that they're just plain evil. Or 
misunderstood. Or an oppressed minority. Or just Jewish. Or any number 
of other possible meanings...

>> Best thing about performing Shakespeare: If you make a mistake, nobody 
>> in the audience will ever know. They can't understand a word you're 
>> saying, AND THEY DON'T CARE ANYWAY. Really reduces the pressure! ;-)
> 
> Heh. Actually, I found Shakespeare to be *way* more interesting when 
> performed live than either reading it or seeing it as a movie. It's a 
> completely different experience.

Depends if the actors know what the hell they're performing or not. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>>>   It never ceases to amaze my why you are so eager to shout about your
>>> ignorance about things.
> 
>> It never ceases to amaze me how you like to remind me what a stupid 
>> ignorant fool I am at every possible opportunity.
> 
>   I would have had quite many opportunities to comment on your posts,
> but I promised I would stop that. This time I just couldn't resist.
> 
>   Besides, when I used the word "ignorant" I used it to mean "doesn't
> know things". The negative connotations are your own interpretation.

OK, fair enough. In English it's almost always used with negative intent...

>   As I said in the part which you didn't quote, I was not talking about
> what you do and don't know, but about your constant eagerness to show your
> ignorance.

You don't learn things by pretending to know everything, surely? ;-)

["The greatest knowledge is in knowing that you know nothing." Famous 
dead dude.]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:48582275@news.povray.org...
>
> For example, in the Jet Li / Jackie Chan movie that just came out, the
> story is related to a major cultural story involving someone traveling
> from China to India. I'd learned about it in school, as did my Chinese
> wife, so we both knew the background of the characters and such, which
> made it a more enjoyable movie.

Interesting. I didn't know that. Got a link/reference that I can look up?

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> You don't learn things by pretending to know everything, surely? ;-)

  But in the era of the internet the usual thing to do is to look up
the thing on google or wikipedia so that you know what people are talking
about (or if the thing is irrelevant, just shrug and think "I see", or
whatever).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:52:44 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Or any game, really, that's rigged so the house wins most of the time.
> 
> Same thing applies, tho. I win most of the time.  I lose bigger, but I
> win most of the time.

Depends on the game.  I can manage to win pretty consistently at 
blackjack regardless of whether I win individual hands or not - with 
enough money, that's easy to do using a simple geometric progression and 
some restraint to "stick to the plan".  But if I put the idea into 
practice in Las Vegas, I'd probably end up banned from the casinos if I 
won too much.  The house doesn't like to lose, and they don't like when 
people who understand how to turn the odds in their favour show up and 
provide a real-world demonstration that it is in fact possible.

Even still, if you're careful, you can manage to do this and not get 
caught at it - changing tables or casinos frequently makes it very 
difficult for them to track a pattern.  Not following the geometric 
progression exactly also helps make it less obvious.

Some games are rigged closely enough to 50/50 odds that most people don't 
think about the fact that they're not.  Roulette is one like that; IIRC, 
your odds of winning are not 50% but 47%.

> Losing $1 just doesn't hurt as much as losing $1,000,000.  It's not all
> the numbers in the game. It's also the numbers outside the game.

True.

Jim

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On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:56:21 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> To me, not recognising the theme tune to the Wicked Witch of the West
> just isn't on the same level as the two examples above.

Hell, I'd never even HEARD of Wicket Witch of the West.  I haven't yet 
bothered to look up what it is, so I'm more clueless than you about 
what's being talked about here.

Jim

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