Questions of a weird mind

[thubby]

I've got one.

gravity holds us to the earth, but the earth spins at something like 1,000mph. our momentum is directed away from the earth.

does this mean that moving counter to the earth's rotation would make you heavier?
and if that's right, how much more would stuff weigh if the earth didn't rotate?

[H Birchgrove]

Real languages are full of irregularities, which are usually a massive bitch to learn. I guess some linguists just snapped one day

Besides, there are other reasons to create a new language. Wikipedia divides constructed languages into three categories:

Klingon (an artlang, I assume) was, as a by-product by making it so macho and guttural, constructed so it would filled with nearly as much irregularities as possible.

Exploring language can thus be a useful way of investigating the human psyche and condition.

Indeed.

Qapla'! ("Success!")

[GolemsVoice]

I've got another one. Oh the ideas you get late at night.

How much time would it take a medieval printing press with moving letters to print a 1000 page book if they had only one press, but nothing else to worry about?

[Story Time]

gravity holds us to the earth, but the earth spins at something like 1,000mph. our momentum is directed away from the earth.

does this mean that moving counter to the earth's rotation would make you heavier?
and if that's right, how much more would stuff weigh if the earth didn't rotate?

The postulate is incomplete, unfortunately. Earth's atmosphere not only presses down on a person, it also presses in around them for certain buoyancy.

The rough trick to answer the question is, "The moon doesn't rotate. Calculate the mass difference between Moon and Earth; add that difference in gravity ( not mass ) to the moon." But without calculating additional forces like the Earth's electromagnetic field or atmosphere the equation will be incomplete.


Also, no popping corn for me, yet.

[razark]

"The moon doesn't rotate.

You might want to look into that a bit more.

[Eldan]

I've got another one. Oh the ideas you get late at night.

How much time would it take a medieval printing press with moving letters to print a 1000 page book if they had only one press, but nothing else to worry about?

From what I know, they'd have nearly a dozen people working on it, actually, A few on the presses and the rest setting the next few pages. So, with enough people, probably pretty quickly.

[GnomeFighter]

I've got another one. Oh the ideas you get late at night.

How much time would it take a medieval printing press with moving letters to print a 1000 page book if they had only one press, but nothing else to worry about?

Asumeing that the people working on it have everything to hand, are a full team and know what they are doing, not as long as you think.

First off you have loading the type. Beleave it or not a profesional type setter could load type faster than most touch typists (about 100 wpm). The plate would then be passed to someone else to load in to the press and ink. At the same time someone would load the paper on to the plate. The press would do two pages at once. You would then crank the press in and out, remove the paper. Whilst all of this was being done the next type tray would be set and inked. Asumeing that you have a few sets of type to speed things up and don't care about cleaning the type before putting it away for speed I would say you could probably manage one page every three mins, so 25 hours.

However in this time you could probably load the press with paper 3-4 times so in the same time you could probably print 3 1000 page books. If you were not loading and unloading the type, just re-inking and printing several pages, the time saveings are even more.

[GolemsVoice]

First off you have loading the type. Beleave it or not a profesional type setter could load type faster than most touch typists (about 100 wpm). The plate would then be passed to someone else to load in to the press and ink. At the same time someone would load the paper on to the plate. The press would do two pages at once. You would then crank the press in and out, remove the paper. Whilst all of this was being done the next type tray would be set and inked. Asumeing that you have a few sets of type to speed things up and don't care about cleaning the type before putting it away for speed I would say you could probably manage one page every three mins, so 25 hours.

Good thing I asked, that's FAST.

[Story Time]

You might want to look into that a bit more.

Okay, point accepted. But the technicality is so minor...

Hm. I'll try not to be bummed. Not over the thread, just in general.

[Yora]

You might want to look into that a bit more.

Depends on how you look at it. While the moon is tidally locked to the earth so the same side always faces earth, the moon does revolve around the earth. If you take earth as a fixed point, the moon does one rotation with every revolution. (Which is one per month, as compared to earths 28 per lunar month.)

[Story Time]

Razark is right, though. From the perspective of space, the moon does turn as it orbits the Earth. This can be thought of as spin. From the perspective of the moon, stars would rise and set over the horizon. The big disconnect between perspectives is whether the moon turns under its own power or not.

For a little experiment, grab two tennis balls. Mark one with a small piece of tape. That'll be the moon. Now spin the unmarked tennis ball like the Earth ( counter-clock-wise ) and simulate the moon rotating around the earth while keeping the tape pointed to the Earth.

...what a neat Universe we live in.

[Yora]

Just remember that you're standing on a planet...

[Ravens_cry]

Little kids will put anything in their mouths, including stuff that isn't food. People who think escargot is disgusting will happily pay premium prices for clams and oysters. People who would never eat fried crickets will happily suck on the head of a crawfish before ripping the legs off to get at the tail meat. Some people will happily eat venison but not understand how a horse could be considered edible. Lobster and shrimp used to be cheap "poor people food" that no one would eat unless they were starving, but now they are expensive delicacies. Learning what is "disgusting" is a result of culture, not instinct.

It's both. Acclimatization to locally available edibles is an instinct, but it is what creates the cultural differences.
Small children also put lots of things in their mouth because there is a lot of nerve endings in there, just look at a sensory homunculus.

[Pheehelm]

My dad always likes to ask -- who was hungry enough to eat the first lobster?

[Ravens_cry]

My dad always likes to ask -- who was hungry enough to eat the first lobster?

Well, it would probably be fairly late in human development, once we started migrating to areas that even had lobster.
Still, while a lobster may pinch quite badly, at least it can't gore you like a gazelle.

[Anarion]

My dad always likes to ask -- who was hungry enough to eat the first lobster?

Whoever caught it
Honestly though, if you try frying stuff, most animals are fairly edible and I suspect that whoever got the lobster was pleasantly surprised when cooking lead to such tender flesh. I'm sure our ancestors were very adventurous.

Here's a question. Why is a California King bed shorter but wider than a regular king bed?

[Grinner]

Here's a question. Why is a California King bed shorter but wider than a regular king bed?

Judging from the picture, I'd say it's the opposite: taller and less wide. (thinner?)

[dragonsamurai77]

Why do microwaves have a popcorn button, if the bag always says not to use the popcorn button?

[thubby]

what musical instrument would the personification of death play?

[Eldan]

Pterry answered that one already

Spoiler

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[Elemental]

I'm going to guess that death plays the violin. Or maybe the harp.
Or perhaps the piano...
I suppose it depends on what he feels like at the time.


Wait... I can so see it now... Death plays Jazz Alto Flute.

[Rain Dragon]

I can for some strange reason see Death playing a bit of tuba...

But I've always wondered why quite a few tea drinkers like their tea, and can taste if you're even a little wrong even if they don't say anything. A lot I've met even stick to the same brand and will only vary the types of tea a little bit.

Why is it so easy to taste just that little bit more sugar than one likes for a lot of people and why is varying the type of tea not really done?

Just an afterthought about space perhaps risking being off-topic! :-

Spoiler

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Also, not really a strange question, but why is there so much space in space? Nobody really knows; there's even a theory that the universe started off with both matter and anti-matter which is why there's such little left. Why isn't the universe just a massive nebula and how did the most basic elements become so much more?

--EDIT-- @Factotum - I spoiled it because it's a pretty commonly asked question and not really weird at all. Most people have wondered such a thing for millennia after all.

[factotum]

Dunno why you spoilered that...it is, however, one of the fundamental questions they're always trying to answer in astrophysics: why is the universe not symmetrical? As for where basic elements came from, once you've managed to introduce the initial asymmetry in the soup left after the Big Bang, it all happens from there; matter clumps together and keeps doing so until it's big and dense enough to form stars. All heavier elements than hydrogen and helium are created in stars, and it's been long enough since the beginning of the universe that these elements have become plentiful enough to form planets and the like.

[Ravens_cry]

Well, even nebula, as spectacular as they may look from a dstance, are more rarefied than the hardest vacuum that can be produced on Earth.
Still, it is a big question, bigger even than the Fermi paradox, for which I have an answer I don't like but is becoming frighteningly plausible nonetheless.

[Elemental]

Enlighten us as to your answer to the Fermi Paradox.
You've piqued my curiosity.
Of course, you can refuse to answer if you so desire.

[Ravens_cry]

Enlighten us as to your answer to the Fermi Paradox.
You've piqued my curiosity.

We're all trapped on the rock balls that spawned us, forced to gaze out to stars we will never hold, to vistas uncharted, to mountains unclimbed, to seas never swam.
It is true we have sent robotic emissaries to some of the other worlds that huddle around a spark in darkness and even in a moment of strange boldness touched foot on the nearest island out, but we will never spread beyond these shoals, never truly flying nor truly plumbing the depths of the endless measure of infinity.
If there are other species, other minds, they are as trapped as we at the bottom of a deep well, climbing up a little ways perhaps, though all too likely not, but no further, at best to die when their sun gutters into eternal night and likely much sooner.
I weep for our species, for all species, if this be true.

[Grinner]

@Ravens_cry: That was poetic. Thank you.

[Elemental]

Sounds like the universe to me.
Except for the part about being trapped here until our doom. I believe the human race will eventually move somewhere else. If not to other stars, other planets at least.

[Ravens_cry]

Sounds like the universe to me.
Except for the part about being trapped here until our doom. I believe the human race will eventually move somewhere else. If not to other stars, other planets at least.

I hope so, I really do.
@Scotchland
What can I say, I feel passionate about this.

[Elemental]

I hope so, I really do.
@Scotchland
What can I say, I feel passionate about this.

Well, I'm just going to be the first to claim control over Ganymede. It's the place in the outer solar system with the least deadly environment. It may be cold and airless, but at least we won't be bombarded by deadly radiation much.