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What Common, Everyday Occurrence Do You Find Strange?

I believe, though check me on this one, that the primary force generating a take off is ground effect, which is not part of the Bernoulli equations. That said a plane on the ground is falling controllably, it's just that the ground is supplying the control!

Anything subject to gravity is falling towards the centre of mass. Your vector towards that centre of mass can vary according the degree of control you have over your fall. Don't look down your falling toward the centre of the earth (I assume you are on Earth of course :cool: )
 
It's angle of attack that provides lift (ask anyone who has flown paper darts - on second thoughts, don't).

The B. effect is just a refinement that adds a few per cent more lift - anyone got any figures?
 
Physics

The Wright Brothers would have been greatly amused to hear that it was angle of atack or ground effect. LOL No, it was the curvature of the wing's shape and flexing it, making it move and twist, that allowed them to lift off, thanks to Bernoulli's Principle.

What is going on here?
 
Going back to the clock issue, I just noticed something this morning that disturbed me...

I have three primary devices I use for teling time...my digital alarm clock next to my bed, my car's digital clock, and my analogue wrist watch.

I just noticed that my alarm clock is the slowest of the three and my car's clock is in between, so I occaisonally have to adjust the first two to make them the same as the wrist watch.

I'm afraid however, if I keep up this process, all three devices will be telling me its noon when it really is 9:00 am. Which device is right? the fastest? the slowest? or the in the 'tween??
 
rynner said:
It's angle of attack that provides lift (ask anyone who has flown paper darts - on second thoughts, don't).

The B. effect is just a refinement that adds a few per cent more lift - anyone got any figures?

A paper dart doesn't have wings designed to provide lift; they only work because they are paper. It's basically ballistics and parachutes rather than any real flight with those. If you could put a motor on one, it wouldn't work. It would go farther before it crashed, but only because it was going faster, you couldn't keep it up there for any worthwhile length of time. To lift something the size of an aircraft Bernoulli is a must. The thing is that Bernoulli's principle stops working at certain angles of attack; which is not pleasant at all.
Besides, all my paper darts just loop twice then stall on the third one and jab someone in the top of the head...
 
Ouch

Inverurie - You're lucky. Mine usually dive straight for eyes.
 
I am of course playing Devil's advocate in suggesting that Bernouilli is not the be-all and end-all of how wings lift, but I am only echoing a host of stuff to be found on the internet.

Here's a post from another MB:

"a wing held flat, IE no angle of attack, does create some lift, but far more lift is created by allowing from 2 to 6 degrees of attack, this would tend to suggest that the deflected air theory is more important, try carrying a sheet of plywood on a windy day, you`ll get plenty of lift, this argument has been going round the model aircraft magazines for AGES, most aircraft have the wing set at an "angle of incidence", that is, the leading edge is packed up relative to the angle of the tailplane (or the trailing edge down on a low wing aircraft) to provide an angle of attack, I experiemented with some simplified wings out of curiosity and a "diamond" shaped airfoil works (but has diabolical stall characteristics), some airobatic models have a symmetrical section, the "faster air over the top" theory wouldn`t seem to work there.

Mentor. "

More search results from Google

As people with more detailed knowledge than myself can't agree, I'll now withdraw from this debate!

BTW, what was this thread about? :p
 
Skipping back to the discussion about mobile phones and people talking to themselves... I have a confession to make.

I was in the supermarket earlier today choosing avocado pears - picking one up, giving it a furtive squeeze, putting it back if it didn't meet my exacting standards - when I noticed a woman looking at me a bit oddly.

Yep, you've guessed it. I was talking out loud to the avocados! (Oh, not quite ripe yet... etc) Thinking quickly, I glared at the poor woman as if she was the daft one and made a big show of apparently ending a non-existent mobile phone conversation (on, I should add, a non-existent phone). I think I got away with it :p

Jane.
 
It's an Implant

LOL - Oh no, a whole new category of insanity: INVISIBLE CELL PHONES

And it may not be as far off as all that, either, even including talking to one's avacados -- such as, "Are you fresh? Where were you grown and picked? Organic or not?" and so on.

To wit:


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Rense.com
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'TAGINT' - Tag Intelligence
Begins To Boom
From ELN/jrdreier
[email protected] From James Oberg
4-20-2

In Singapore, cars "talk" to the streets they drive on. In Tulsa, retailers test a system that lets products inform the store when they're bought. In home kitchens later this decade, frozen dinners might automatically give cooking instructions to microwaves.
 
The Internet revolution was about people connecting with people. The next revolution will be about things connecting with things. And it's taking shape in pockets around the globe. For the first time, big players such as Wal-Mart, Gillette, and Procter & Gamble are joining to give the technology serious momentum. In a twist, this next technological chapter won't emerge out of ever-more-powerful computers and faster Internet connections. This shift comes from the opposite direction.
 
It will ride on pieces of plastic the size of postage stamps, costing a nickel or less. Each tag will contain a computer chip, storing a small amount of data, and a minuscule antenna that lets the chip communicate with a network. In time, when billions of tags are out there and communicating, the technology will infiltrate business and everyday life to a greater extent than today's personal computers, cell phones or email. In decades to come, its impact might be as fundamental as the invention of the light bulb. Those tags will someday be on everything < egg cartons, eyeglasses, books, toys, trucks, money, and so on. All those items will be able to wirelessly connect to networks or the Internet, sending information to computers, home appliances or other electronic devices.
 
Grocery items will tell the store what needs to be restocked and which items are past their expiration dates. The groceries will check themselves out in a split second as you push a full cart past a reader. A wine lover could look on a computer screen and see what's in her wine cellar. Prescription drug bottles could work together to send you a warning if the combination of pills you're about to swallow would be toxic.
 
"Any single one of these (tags) is like a one-celled organism. They're just smart enough to say their own name." Like cells, their power will come from billions of them working together.
 
Auto-ID at MIT is the program backed by Wal-Mart and the other blue-chip companies, and is trying to create a standard, like Internet protocol, for the tags' communication. That would enable any tag to connect to any network, much as any PC can work on any network. The technology doesn't really have a handy name. The tags are known as radio frequency identification tags, or RFID. The Auto-ID center calls the core of its standard "ePC," which stands for Electronic Product Code.
 
RFID has been around awhile. During World War II, the military used a high-powered, bulky version of it to identify friendly aircraft. Starting in the 1970s, the federal government stuck RFID tags on nuclear materials to better track them. In the 1980s, commercial warehouses used it to locate loaded pallets.
 
These days RFID shows up in a few familiar places. The technology is in Exxon Mobil's Speedpass < a key fob that works like a credit card, wirelessly identifying you to a gas pump. On highways across the USA, wireless toll booth systems such as E-Z Pass work on RFID.
 
Singapore relies on the technology to control traffic. Its system, called Electronic Road Pricing, or ERP, charges different prices to drive on different roads at different times. Driving on one main artery between 0830-0900 costs $3 (in Singapore dollars < US $1.60) but is free 1400-1730. The pricing encourages drivers to stay off busy roads at busy times. Every car must have an RFID tag, which communicates with readers along every major road. The road readers identify each car and send information to a central computer, which adds up car owners' bills. Until now, the tags have been too expensive for anything but specialty applications like E-Z Pass and Singapore's ERP. One tag costs about $1 < hardly worth pasting to a $3 frozen dinner or even a $20 bottle of wine.
 
But a small, private California company called Alien Technology is pioneering mass-production methods that will radically reduce the cost. Later this year, Alien will take orders for 500 million tags at a time, selling each tag for just under 7 cents. One such 500 million-tag order would exceed all the RFID tags ever made. The Auto-ID center figures the tags must get down to 5 cents each. Tag prices won't drop to 5 cents until at least 2005. At 7 cents, major companies consider the technology promising. At 5 cents, it would start rolling out into business applications.
 
Arno Penzias < a Nobel prize-winning scientist, one-time head of Bell Labs and an investor in Alien Technology < has a favorite microcosmic scenario: You lose your eyeglasses. They've fallen under the family room couch. The tag on the eyeglasses connects with a reader in the family room < readers would be all around a house. The reader is also getting signals from everything else in the room. You sit at the computer and type in a search box: "Where are my eyeglasses?" The computer spits back: "Under the couch."
 
On a more practical level, the industry is watching a test in Tulsa. Several stores and manufacturers agreed to put tags throughout the supply chain, so the tags are on crates of products, in trucks, at loading docks, and all around warehouses. The companies involved are being kept secret, though two seem to be Wal-Mart and Pepsi-Cola. Industry watchers say the technology has been working better than expected. The Auto-ID Center figures that testing will go on until 2003, when the technology will start to flow into commercial uses. In 2005, it will start to be widely adopted by business. Early-adopter consumers could bring RFID into homes around that time.
 
A study by research firm Venture Development found that RFID will be a $1.4 billion industry in 2002, climbing to $2.6 billion in 2005. If so, it will still be only a speck in the overall technology sector.
 
You think you have problems Jane. Today I found myself discussing "You've been Framed" with one of my cats. And not the intelligent cat either, this was the one that doesn't understand english.
 
mejane said:
I was in the supermarket earlier today choosing avocado pears - picking one up, giving it a furtive squeeze, putting it back if it didn't meet my exacting standards - when I noticed a woman looking at me a bit oddly.

Yep, you've guessed it. I was talking out loud to the avocados! (Oh, not quite ripe yet... etc) Thinking quickly, I glared at the poor woman as if she was the daft one and made a big show of apparently ending a non-existent mobile phone conversation (on, I should add, a non-existent phone). I think I got away with it :p
Jane.

Fear not mejane, it's quite common in supermarkets to stand in front of displays, mumbling to yourself. most people do it, few people realise they are doing it & even less people will admit to doing it!!!!

It's somthing to do wit wanting a product, oil, tea, pasta etc. & being confronted with a whole display to chose from, totaly disorientating!!!!!!!
 
Just So They Don't Talk Back

Hm, given these latest posts about muttering to grocer's displays, and being overwhelmed by choices, maybe it's time to figure out the median age of the posters? lol
 
My view is that if someone takes offense to you talking to yourself you must be talking to the most intellegent person present! :)
 
I took an OU course in German a couple of years ago and used to do my weekend shopping on the way back from tutorials. So, not only did I mutter at the groceries, I used to do it in German . . .

Carole
 
Sitting in PizzaHut with my kids today, I decided that the way people eat is pretty strange. I could just see a reflection of myself in the window and noted the resemblance to a ruminating cow. Some people eat daintily, others like starving dingos, some cram as much as possible in their mouths.

And another thing that fascinated me, those salad bowls you get in PHut which you can fill to your liking. Why do so many people perform an amazing balancing act of food and cram an enormous amount into one small bowl - then, when you think they can't possibly get any more, they manage to perch a couple of tomatoes and some onion rings on top . . .

Carole
 
I'm always rather sparing when doing the whole self-service bit. I reckon people look at me and 'christ, does he really need that?'
Sigh.
 
Tag Intelligence? Now that's scary! Not only am I doomed to a life of talking to supermarket produce, soon the blasted things will talk back.

Imagine the conversation...

are you ripe? (squeeze)

Yes! but a bit bruised

oh, next then

please don't hurt me! My sell-by date is tomorrow, but I'll be perfect to eat tonight.

I forgot to buy the avocados by the way, which rather upset my plan of prawn & avocado salad for supper. But then, I didn't actually buy any prawns either :)

Being serious for a moment though, it wasn't the talking out loud thing that worried me so much as the need to try to hide this from a total stranger.

People are weird, eh?

Jane.
 
An Island Unto One's Self

When I eat out, the others can look to their own plates. I care not what others may notice, think, or telegraph with their disapproving looks when in public, not even when eating in public. Why anyone would is beyond me.

mejane - Yes, exactly! And just think, even as all this is happening, the network demographers and marketing research folks are taking note of the exchanges, analysing them, and coming up with wonderful new conversational gambits for the veggies to try on us.

The world will never seem as small as when brussels sprouts encourage or dare us to eat them, and shame us when we don't.

Hency my self-absorbed and somewhat surly attitude when in public, which will soon be the only place one can be. Privacy? Quaint notion, that.
 
I don't think I usually mutter to myself in supermarkets but
I may revise my opinion on the day they force me to review
the CCTV footage to explain the way a bottle of brandy adhered to
the lining of my jacket . . .

No, I mutter to myself on the street. Not just any street - it has
to appear quite empty for me to begin muttering. Then something
forces me to stop and my eyes meet those of a person sitting
silently and suspiciously behind the wheel of a parked car.

Annoying that. But they are stranger than me! Maybe. :rolleyes:
 
Rynner's getting a bit confused I think! I'm flattered, but I believe Beakboo deserves an apology :) (nice new bird btw - just noticed).

Jane.
 
Doh!

Never mind, I love everybody! Hallo trees, hallo sky!
 
Hey Rynner, can I have the recipe for that 'magic potion' you're drinking?
 
Magic Elixres R Us

That good a mood has to be attributable to the black label, or maybe the reserve stock.

Or getting lucky might do it. (Does anyone get THAT lucky?)
 
Looks like this thread is starting to die.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. :)

Btw, I find the fact that if I'm typing something up, I'll type "r" when I see a "4" and vice versa. Selective dyslexia I suppose.
 
No potion, actually, I was just quoting something.

Damned if I can remember what it was now!
 
Wind, A Primer

A common, everyday thing people do that annoys me is sneezing without covering their faces. This goes for coughing, too. Ever had someone talking to you cough as they spoke, right on you, without covering their faces, and often without breaking their stride, and with no apology? Have they not been taught basic manners?

This goes, too, for people who will breathe on me. Come peering over my shoulder to see what nefarious gallimaufry I'm up to, and breathe all over me. Makes my OCD kick in and instantly I feel contaminated.

I also dislike the breezes people kick up when they rush past, but that's entirely a mental disorder on my part. Isn't it?
 
I tried Googling on 'Hallo Trees', and found several pages in Dutch and one in Italian (Sally and Ginoide, any comments?), but the rest referred to Monty Python's Life of Brian:

Brian: Shhh!
Eremite: Hava Nagila! Hava Nagila! Hava Nar... mhpfh... Oh, I'm alive! I'm alive! Hallo birds! Hallo trees! I'm alive! I'm ali... mphgrph...

As a Python fan, that may well be my source, or possibly Python were parodying something else - I have a vision of a schoolboy mocking the attitude of a classmate, for some reason.

( Google search )
 
rynner said:
I tried Googling on 'Hallo Trees', and found several pages in Dutch and one in Italian (Sally and Ginoide, any comments?), but the rest referred to Monty Python's Life of Brian:

Brian: Shhh!
Eremite: Hava Nagila! Hava Nagila! Hava Nar... mhpfh... Oh, I'm alive! I'm alive! Hallo birds! Hallo trees! I'm alive! I'm ali... mphgrph...

As a Python fan, that may well be my source, or possibly Python were parodying something else - I have a vision of a schoolboy mocking the attitude of a classmate, for some reason.

Yes - it's Nigel Molesworth in "Down with Skool" mocking Basil Fotherington-Thomas: "Hullo clouds! Hullo sky! he sa." (sic)

Fotherington-Thomas, you may remember, was the recipient of the Mrs Joyful Prize for raffia-work.

There are at least two other Molesworth books - Back in the Jug Agane, and Whizz for Atomms (caused a bit of a Fortean lexilink when RAF Molesworth was chosen to host US nukes in the 80's).
 
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