Archive for the ‘fun’ Category
May the force not be with you
From the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, passed by the House of Commons in the UK
‘17B Meaning of “religious belief”
For the purposes of section 17A a religious belief is confined to—
(a) Christianity;
(b) Islam;
(c) Hinduism;
(d) Judaism;
(e) Buddhism;
(f) Sikhism;
(g) Rastafarianism;
(h) Baha’ism;
(i) Zoroastrianism;
(j) Jainism.’.‘17B Groups not protected by Part 3
For the purposes of section 17A any group of persons holding the following religious beliefs or lack of religious belief shall not enjoy the protection of this part of the Act—
(a) Satanists;
(b) believers in human sacrifice to propitiate a deity;
(c) believers in animal sacrifice to propitiate a deity;
(d) believers in female genital mutilation to live in accordance with the rules of a religion;
(e) believers in violence as a means of proselytising a belief;
(f) believers in the supremacy or superiority of one race over another;
(g) believers in the supremacy or superiority of one gender over another;
(h) Scientologists;
(i) Jedi Knights.’.
Ouch.
In fact, it gets better. From the transcript of the MP’s discussing the bill,
Mr. Grieve: In amendment No. 25, I listed Scientologists before Jedi Knights. There has been debate about whether Scientology is a religion, and there is a court authority to suggest that it is a set of philosophical beliefs but not a belief in a deity. I leave that to one side. With Jedi Knights, it is difficult to know. They seem to believe in a force, because the force has to be with you, and they appear to be able to master the force by the processes of their own spirituality.
Chris Bryant: It is fictional.
Mr. Grieve: I have no idea whether being a Jedi Knight is fictional. The text from which it is derived was written by an author who was not pretending that it was revealed truth, but there seem to be a number of people who, for their own reasons, put in their census return that it is their religious view. I cannot comment any further on that.
Chris Bryant: I hate to say this, but it is also true that several hon. Members have placed light sabres in the Cloakroom in the place where they could be hanging their swords. I do not think that that means that anyone believes genuinely in the power of the force in the sense of a religion.
Poll
I should fire this physio
This is from the (otherwise) greatest game in the world.
From CM 01/02
Stay a while and listen
Diablo 3 is going to be released. wow wow wow !!!
*CRASH*, there goes my GPA
Hot poetry from MIT
These are samples from MIT’s poetry page for the Thermodynamics of Materials course, taught by professor Craig Carter. Check out the website for more really good (and some terrible) compositions. This one from Juliãn Villarreal is simply brilliant.
Solids, Liquids, Gases, lend me your heat; I come to bury Willard, not to raise him. A mess of atoms lives after him; The heat is oft stored with their bonds; So let it be with Gibbs. The noble Carter Hath told you that Gibbs was minimized: If it were so, it’s at stability, And at stability hath Gibbs done it. Here, under leave of Carter and the rest – For Carter is a knowledgeable man; So are they all, all knowledgeable men – Come I to speak in Gibbs’ funeral. He was heat’s friend, generous at low T: But Carter says he was minimized; And Carter is a knowledgeable man. But entropy hath brought many systems To parity whose energies were less: Is this how Willard was minimized? When temperature rose, Gibbs hath died. “Minimized” should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Carter says he was minimized; And Carter is a knowledgeable man. We all did see that in the lecture hall He thrice showed Gibbs in differential form, Which we did thrice confuse: was this “minimized”? Yet Carter says he was minimized; And, sure, he is a knowledgeable man. I speak not to refute what Carter spoke, But here I do speak so that all may know. we all did love Gibbs once, not without cause: What cause witholds us then, to exalt him? O grade point! thou art fled to fours and threes, but 3.046 hath taught us much. Such as these: Gibbs is naught for systems in parity, And equals enthalpy less S and T.
This one is from professor Carter himself.
To freeze or not to freeze: That is the question: Whether ’tis fav’rable to gain entropy with such jostlings of outrageous portion Or to bond, free’ng seas of enthalpy And thus subside S? P and T: thus G No more; and by reducing say we end Activations of thousand nat’ral shocks that bonds do suffer. ‘Tis min’mization Devoutly pursu-ed. To freeze, to melt; To melt: perchance to flow; ay, there’s the rub which warms shackles that tie so rigidly; by such warmth to be dislodged, even boil.
And of course, what good is a poetry page without limericks?
There is a state function named S,
Whose growth is a pitiful mess,
“Just look at its gut!”
“The size of its butt!”
Poor entropy will never be less.
-Terry Huang
This one’s from Tim Hong
There once was a smart girl named Sandy,
When it came to thermo she was quite handy,
Request a phase plot,
And more often than not,
The Gibbs phase rule was her modus operandi.
And while on the subject of MIT poetry, check out this song by the fifth beatle, Prof Max Tegmark (Thanks to Chiranjeevi for the pointer)
Rediscovered in a library
A while ago, I had come across a worrying index in the science section of a library. However, I recently discovered that the errant index was actually corrected!
CORRECTED
Huzzah! Cheers to the librarian or whoever got it fixed!
Speech recognition?
After sitting through the long “training session” of the speech recognition package which comes with Microsoft Office 2003, I was ready to test it out with the opening passage of my favorite book.
As I got off the plane he was making for me holding up a stack of cardboard with my name’s to build on it. I was on my rate will confidence of signed this and he need not cost those devoted to this seemingly hopeless prospect of improving the presentation of signs on commercial television. Be all the measures had kindly send a driver.
“Who you mind if I ask you a question” he asked as you read it from a bag.
“Know I didn’t mind”
“Isn’t a confusing to have the same name as that site is very?”
It to me a moment to understand. Was the winning Monday? Finally it dawned on me.
“I am that site is dry eye” and said.
he’d lost and then smiled. “Sony and that’s my problem I thought it was yours to two”
No prizes for guessing where this is from.
Fast writing method
Excerpt taken from the book, Decrypted Secrets: Methods and Maxims of Cryptology by Friedrich Ludwig Bauer, Springer Press.
He must have had a special trick, said Robert K. Merton, for hewrote such an amazing quantity of material that his friends were
simply astonished at his prodigious output of long manuscripts,
the contents of which were remarkable and fascinating, from the
first simple lines, over fluently written pages where word after
word flowed relentlessly onward, where ideas tumbled in a riot
of colorful and creative imagery, to ends that stopped abruptly,
each script more curiously charming than its predecessors, each
line more whimsically apposite, yet unexpected, than the lines
on which it built, ever onward, striving toward a resolution in
a wonderland of playful verbosity. Fuller could write page after
page so fluently as to excite the envy of any writers less gifted
and creative than he. At last, one day, he revealed his secret,
then died a few days later. He collected a group of acolytes and
filled their glasses, then wrote some words on a sheet of paper,
in flowing script. He invited his friends to puzzle a while over
the words and departed. One companion took a pen and told the
rest to watch. Fuller returned to find the page filled with words
of no less charm than those that graced his own writings. Thus
the secret was revealed, and Fuller got drunk. He died, yet still a
space remains in the library for his collected works.
If you didn’t figure it out as an acrostic yet, click here to learn the special trick.
[Note: The formatting is important. If you're reading the feed in a RSS reader, the text won't come properly.]
Measuring Science education
These are the results of a comparison in Google trends.
astrology 
astronomy
- United Kingdom
- United States
- India
The curious incident of the man and the reactor
Written by professor Levenspiel1 (Do check out his page on Dinosaurs and Elephants!)
The curious incident of the man and the reactor
HOLMES: You say he was last seen tending this vat …
SIR BOSS: You mean “overflow stirred tank reactor,” Mr Holmes
HOLMES: You must excuse my ignorance of your particular technical jargon, Sir Boss
SIR BOSS: That’s all right; however, you must find him, Mr. Holmes. Imbit was a queer chap; always staring into the reactor, taking deep breaths and licking his lips, but he was our very best operator. Why, since he left, our conversion of googliox has dropped from 80% to 75%.
HOLMES (tapping the side of the vat idly): By the way, what goes on in the vat?
SIR BOSS: Just an elementary second order reaction, between ethanol and googliox, if you know what I mean. Of course, we maintain a large excess of alcohol, about 100 to 1 and …
HOLMES (interrupting): Intriguing, we checked every possible lead in town and found not a single clue.
SIR BOSS (wiping away the tears): We’ll give the old chap a raise – about twopence per week- if only he’ll come back.
DR WATSON: Pardon me, but may I ask a question?
HOLMES: Why certainly, Watson
WATSON: What is the capacity of this vat, Sir Boss?
SIR BOSS: A hundred imperial gallons, and we always keep it filled to the brim. That is why we call it an overflow reactor. You see, we are running at full capacity – profitable operation, you know.
HOLMES: Well, my dear Watson, we must admit we are stumped, for without clues deductive powers are of no avail.
WATSON: Ahh, but there is where you are wrong, Holmes. (Then, turning to the manager): Imbit was a largish fellow – say about 18 stones – was he not?
SIR BOSS: Why yes, but how did you know?
HOLMES (with awe): Amazing, my dear Watson!
WATSON: Why it’s quite elementary, Holmes. We have all the clues necessary to deduce what happened to the happy fellow. But first of all, would someone fetch me some dill?
With Sherlock Holmes and Sir Boss impatiently waiting, Dr. Watson casually leaned against the vat, slowly and carefully filled his pipe, and – with the keen sense of the dramatic – lit it. There our story ends.
(i) What momentous revelation was Dr. Watson planning to make, and how did he arrive at this conclusion?
and best of all,
(ii) Why did he never make it?
References
[1]- Chemical Reaction Engineering by Octave Levenspiel, 3rd edn, Pg 117-118. Excerpt taken under fair use
All original work on this blog is licensed under a 