Home for Random Thoughts

[Lord Jim]

At least it wasn't as bad as the time I squeezed hydrocortisone on to my tooth brush...



As one advances in years, these things happen...

[Long Run]

I know I've mentioned this before, but Joe Theismann (his real last name was pronounced "Theesman"; he changed the pronunciation when he was in college so it would rhyme with "Heisman") has really become a pain in my prostate....

"The word 'genius' isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein." -Joe Theisman

[Gob]

It was cumin for me.

Love cumin, not in coffee, with lots of milk!

That could be misread.

[Rick]

Saw a laser pointer at Wally World this afternoon, it was relabeled "Pet Exerciser"...

[Guinevere]

It was cumin for me.

Love cumin, not in coffee, with lots of milk!

That could be misread.

Yikes!

[MajGenl.Meade]

Cumin through the rye

[Gob]

Yikes!

Watch out that coffee's hot!

[oldr_n_wsr]

Saw a laser pointer at Wally World this afternoon, it was relabeled "Pet Exerciser"...

Just don't point it up in the sky when some aircraft is flying over.

I use the reflection on my watch crystal to drive Apollo nuts.

[Econoline]

i just paid a bill online and the confirmation number they gave me was 201303052249712876.

That's two hundred one quadrillion three hundred three trillion fifty-two billion two hundred forty-nine million seven hundred twelve thousand eight hundred seventy-six.

One hundred years ago, even fifty years ago, the number of people who had ever encountered a number this preposterously large was approximately zero. Hell, I was alive fifty years ago and at the time I don't think I could have imagined my ever having use for a number that size (even though I was a geeky teen-aged science fiction fan at the time and might have imagined myself piloting a starship in the far-distant futuristic year of 2013).

[Rick]

The 1st 8 numbers are the date you paid it...

[oldr_n_wsr]

The rest are probably an account number.
Gotta run, off to do some hacking.
Can I get your soc sec number to make it a little easier?

[Econoline]

Sure, it's 555-867-5309...oh, wait, no, that''s my phone number.

Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out. (Now, I'll be *REALLY* impressed when one of you wise guys can tell me which 2 of the 18 digits in 201303052249712876 I randomly switched before posting it....)

Actually, I when I was a teenager I did know a number with more than that many digits: specifically, it was 3.141592653589793238462643383...(I told you I was geeky!)...though technically that's not larger than 201303052249712876 because it's only a little more than 3.

But my actual point--which everyone here seems to have missed--was that just a couple of generations ago NOBODY, not even an astronomer, was likely to have actually had any real use for a number so astronomically large that it was in the hundreds of quadrillions. (And yes, I do know about scientific notation. But 2 X 10^17 (2 times 10 to the 17th power [no way to do exponents here, so far as I can tell]) is, and feels like, something fundamentally different from 201303052249712876.)

[Rick]

Hertzsprung 1st used the term Parsec in 1922.

1 Parsec = 3.08567758 × 10 [superscript]16[/superscript] meters

[dales]

I always wondered what that term meant when I heard it on Star Trek.

[Sean]

(Now, I'll be *REALLY* impressed when one of you wise guys can tell me which 2 of the 18 digits in 201303052249712876 I randomly switched before posting it....)

Easy peasy!

201303052249712876

It must be the two I've bolded... otherwise the date would be written arseways.

[Econoline]

Hertzsprung 1st used the term Parsec in 1922.

1 Parsec = 3.08567758 × 10 [superscript]16[/superscript] meters

I always just thought of a parsec as being roughly 3.26 light years. Why convert it to meters (or feet or miles, for that matter)?

ETA: According to Wikipedia, "Though it may have been used before, the term parsec was first mentioned in an astronomical publication in 1913. Astronomer Royal Frank Watson Dyson expressed his concern for the need of a name for that unit of distance. He proposed the name astron, but mentioned that Carl Charlier had suggested siriometer and Herbert Hall Turner had proposed parsec. It was Turner's proposal that stuck."

(Now, I'll be *REALLY* impressed when one of you wise guys can tell me which 2 of the 18 digits in 201303052249712876 I randomly switched before posting it....)

Easy peasy!

201303052249712876

It must be the two I've bolded... otherwise the date would be written arseways.

American companies often use time travel for their billing statements in an effort to trick us into paying bills a couple of months early. (But I'm onto their tricks, and send my payment off into the future, when I plan to have enough money in my checking account to cover it.)

[Sean]

Don't forget that Han Solo thought that a Parsec was a unit of time...

[Rick]

OK it's a big number, it's yer random thought after all...

[oldr_n_wsr]

6.02214×10^23

[MajGenl.Meade]

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