What is the newest installment of 'Random Thoughts' on Physics Forums?

In summary, the conversation consists of various discussions about documentaries, the acquisition of National Geographic by Fox, a funny manual translation, cutting sandwiches, a question about the proof of the infinitude of primes, and a realization about the similarity between PF and PDG symbols. The conversation also touches on multitasking and the uniqueness of the number two as a prime number.
  • #5,321
Calling Godel: Task Viewer is telling me that...Task Viewer froze up??
 
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  • #5,322
WWGD said:
Sad thing is channels like nat geo, discovery, which intended to provide serious programs ended up jumping the shark because,it seems, people today only want entertainment and not having to do any serious thinking.
That's the European luxury of having public channels which are paid per general fees. The only disadvantage is that they are broadcast at weird times. (We do not call it socialism here, we call it public interest of education and culture. We believe that our administration has the duty to keep the population educated, at least in principle. A cop once told me that people have the right to be stupid.)
 
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  • #5,323
fresh_42 said:
That's the European luxury of having public channels which are paid per general fees. The only disadvantage is that they are broadcast at weird times. (We do not call it socialism here, we call it public interest of education and culture. We believe that our administration has the duty to keep the population educated, at least in principle. A cop once told me that people have the right to be stupid.)
Almost every country, AFAIK, has its own Public Television System, likely for that reason.
 
  • #5,324
I gave part of my rigatoni to my friend: mi pasta es su pasta.
 
  • #5,325
WWGD said:
I gave part of my rigatoni to my friend: mi pasta es su pasta.
You owe me a 3-mile-run in the Central Park now, but the pasta are delicious, thanks.
 
  • #5,326
fresh_42 said:
You owe me a 3-mile-run in the Central Park now, but the pasta are delicious, thanks.
I gave you and then I owe you? Nein kapisch.
 
  • #5,327
WWGD said:
I gave you and then I owe you? Nein kapisch.
I cooked it because of your joke. Now someone has to run off the calories again. Since it was your fault ...
 
  • #5,328
Time is often considered as a dimension on its own right. With all the confusing and disturbing quantum paradox-like experiments it just happened to me - how 'thick' is the 'present' actually? :woot:
 
  • #5,329
Attn Dr Floyd:
Didn't expect to hear' Dark side of the Moon' at the (walking past) yuppie coffee shop.
 
  • #5,330
Rive said:
Time is often considered as a dimension on its own right. With all the confusing and disturbing quantum paradox-like experiments it just happened to me - how 'thick' is the 'present' actually? :woot:
I have always been curious to work out the topology of space-time, but was always too busy ( i.e., too lazy) to work it out, or even to look it up.
 
  • #5,331
$7 for a 48h access and $72 for a download, only to see whether a paper from 1937 is the one everybody refers to when they say: "... proved 1937, that ..."

Ridiculous.
 
  • #5,332
fresh_42 said:
$7 for a 48h access and $72 for a download, only to see whether a paper from 1937 is the one everybody refers to when they say: "... proved 1937, that ..."

Ridiculous.
Doesn't your institution pay for access? Most "non-trivial" institutions get access.
 
  • #5,333
Yeah, those prices are ridiculous. Thank god our uni pays for mathscinet and whatnot.
 
  • #5,334
I get triggered every time I see an action denoted by ##\lambda . v##, what's wrong with ##\lambda\cdot v##? :( e.g multiplying vector with a scalar i.e ring action on an abelian group.
 
  • #5,335
nuuskur said:
I get triggered every time I see an action denoted by ##\lambda . v##, what's wrong with ##\lambda\cdot v##? :( e.g multiplying vector with a scalar i.e ring action on an abelian group.
Multiplication is usually associative, an operation doesn't have to be.
 
  • #5,336
@nuuskur : You're not the only lost one: After many times talking to the French Math guy I realized 'Lemons' is meant to be 'Elements'. And 'Roget' stands for ##\rho .(j)##
 
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  • #5,337
VMWare with Win 7 went on installing updates for more than 2 hours until I had the common sense of restarting it cold.
 
  • #5,338
WWGD said:
VMWare with Win 7 went on installing updates for more than 2 hours until I had the common sense of restarting it cold.
Just had a W10 update. 30 min. restart and 20 min. waiting until the background programs gave back enough CPU and memory to work with ...
 
  • #5,339
fresh_42 said:
Just had a W10 update. 30 min. restart and 20 min. waiting until the background programs gave back enough CPU and memory to work with ...
Aren't updates optional beyond Win 8 or so? Or should you really do them, maybe for security patches?
 
  • #5,340
WWGD said:
Aren't updates optional beyond Win 8 or so? Or should you really do them, maybe for security patches?
I guess you can avoid them, but then they will get on your nerves with permanent reminders, and if you don't pay attention during shutdowns, installation starts. With W10 even the small rest of transparency has gone. In W7 I could still decide what to update and what not. E.g. I don't need their Java version (forgot how they name their nonsense, something with framework IIRC.) Now it's only update now or postpone it. And postponing it forever sucks. If my early Linux experiences hadn't been so troublesome I would certainly use Linux. But I only know the early versions where you had to be a Linux expert before using it. I always only used it from time to time, so I never get used to it completely. And I fear that I will end up with a Windows emulation in order to get all my old programs running. So I keep watching how W10 trashes my HD with big installations and braking the performance. I see the day coming I reinstall my W7 copy.
 
  • #5,341
fresh_42 said:
I guess you can avoid them, but then they will get on your nerves with permanent reminders, and if you don't pay attention during shutdowns, installation starts. With W10 even the small rest of transparency has gone. In W7 I could still decide what to update and what not. E.g. I don't need their Java version (forgot how they name their nonsense, something with framework IIRC.) Now it's only update now or postpone it. And postponing it forever sucks. If my early Linux experiences hadn't been so troublesome I would certainly use Linux. But I only know the early versions where you had to be a Linux expert before using it. I always only used it from time to time, so I never get used to it completely. And I fear that I will end up with a Windows emulation in order to get all my old programs running. So I keep watching how W10 trashes my HD with big installations and braking the performance. I see the day coming I reinstall my W7 copy.
Careful if you use your Win7 for VMWare. I used a VM because I had Python 2 and 3 in the same machine and requests to the server end of either created conflict since it was not clear who was going to serve it.
 
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  • #5,342
fresh_42 said:
Just had a W10 update. 30 min. restart and 20 min. waiting until the background programs gave back enough CPU and memory to work with ...
Looks like I got hit by the same update yesterday. This morning when I tried to turn it on, it just sat there. I thought that maybe it turned itself back on after I left the room causing the battery to die. I guess when I get back home, I'll have to plug it in and let it think about restarting for an hour. :oldmad:
 
  • #5,343
Borg said:
Looks like I got hit by the same update yesterday. This morning when I tried to turn it on, it just sat there. I thought that maybe it turned itself back on after I left the room causing the battery to die. I guess when I get back home, I'll have to plug it in and let it think about restarting for an hour. :oldmad:
I don't know if my issue with win7 was caused by it being in the VM. Still, I doubt security patches are needed at this point since it is not likely it is still used by many. I respect MS updating it, just don't see a good reason to do so.
 
  • #5,344
I was referring to a Windows 10 update. Unfortunately, security patches are a necessary evil.
 
  • #5,345
Borg said:
I was referring to a Windows 10 update. Unfortunately, security patches are a necessary evil.
I understand, but I am surprised people are still trying to hack into older versions of Windows?
 
  • #5,346
Why? Those are the easiest ones to hack.
 
  • #5,347
Borg said:
Why? Those are the easiest ones to hack.
... and W7 was the last one you had a chance for a convenient customization. I still think that 2003 Server ed. was the best OS MS ever produced.
 
  • #5,348
Borg said:
Why? Those are the easiest ones to hack.
But less often used, i would think. I guess hackers would aim both ease and "market size".
 
  • #5,349
I turned off all the automatic updates on my Win10 machine. Much better that way :cool:
 
  • #5,350
Borg said:
Looks like I got hit by the same update yesterday. This morning when I tried to turn it on, it just sat there. I thought that maybe it turned itself back on after I left the room causing the battery to die. I guess when I get back home, I'll have to plug it in and let it think about restarting for an hour. :oldmad:
My wife started the computer and left it run for 3 hours and it never started. Looks like I'll have to perform a Safe Mode debug fest. yippee...
 
  • #5,351
Borg said:
My wife started the computer and left it run for 3 hours and it never started. Looks like I'll have to perform a Safe Mode debug fest. yippee...
I just cold restarted my win7 VM and it worked without needing safe mode. But maybe I was just lucky.
 
  • #5,352
Borg said:
My wife started the computer and left it run for 3 hours and it never started. Looks like I'll have to perform a Safe Mode debug fest. yippee...
I had a black screen, too, for several minutes. It said it recovered the personal settings. So maybe a reboot will do.
 
  • #5,353
It was well beyond needing a reboot yesterday. No matter how many times I restarted it, I would get the same starting screen with some spinning circles that would never end.

I spoke with both Dell and Microsoft customer service which didn't get me anywhere. After more than 4 hours of digging around in the F2 and F12 menus, I discovered that a switch to turn OS Recovery Mode on had somehow gotten turned off even though I had that screen up previously. By the time I had gotten back into that menu, I was resigned to having to re-install my OS in order to undo the 'patch'. Fortunately, I decided to dig around the many options and finally found (hidden several levels deep) an option to start the computer in Safe Mode. That was an old favorite of mine on previous versions so I definitely wanted to try it. I set it to restart in Safe Mode and when it did, I got a message that something went wrong with an update and it was un-installing it! A few minutes later, I had my login screen back without having to re-install my OS (and spend weeks re-installing programs). It *only* took 5 hours to recover my computer... :eek: o_O ?:)
 
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  • #5,354
Borg said:
It *only* took 5 hours to recover my computer... :eek: o_O ?:)
Ain't technology "wunnerful."
 
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  • #5,355
Bystander said:
Ain't technology "wunnerful."
So I've been told... :oldgrumpy:
 

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