The Gaming Den

Because your teacher thinks it's better than not having a real world example that has all the information they want to teach on the website?

I am still suspicious that this company is giving the college money to direct us to this advertisement. I oppose that on general principle. Also, I'm having trouble deciphering the weasel ad-speak as to find out what the product actually DOES. Telling me that it "decreases dead zones" might be true, but it's not useful unless is says HOW.

Also, earlier in the unit it had the wrong formula to solve for volume of a cone. That also irks me.

Why don't you just ask?

Question for the doctors in the house:

I have really thick nasty stringy mucus. It is constantly clogging my nostrils and makes life suck for me. When I drink water or take a shower, the moisture makes the mucus flows into the back of my throat, making me want to vomit. What should I do about this?

Grek wrote:Question for the doctors in the house:

I have really thick nasty stringy mucus. It is constantly clogging my nostrils and makes life suck for me. When I drink water or take a shower, the moisture makes the mucus flows into the back of my throat, making me want to vomit. What should I do about this?

NOTE: I am not a doctor, not even a little bit.

That said...are you talking about having this condition all the time, or just recently?

If all the time, I cannot help you.

If this is a recent development, you may have a sinus infection...do your teeth hurt?

My teeth feel fine.

What color is the mucous? When you blow your nose, does that provide relief?
Have you tried over the counter expectorants or nasal sprays?
Does it get worse when you are exposed to certain things? Do you work in a bakery, paint shop, or farm?
Do you have other symptoms, such as flushed areas of skin, headache, itchy eyes, difficulty hearing in one or more ears, or a dry or productive cough?

-Username17

Ted the Flayer wrote:I am still suspicious that this company is giving the college money to direct us to this advertisement. I oppose that on general principle. Also, I'm having trouble deciphering the weasel ad-speak as to find out what the product actually DOES. Telling me that it "decreases dead zones" might be true, but it's not useful unless is says HOW.

Also, earlier in the unit it had the wrong formula to solve for volume of a cone. That also irks me.

Because in the real world, this is the sort of information you are going to get, and have to make decisions based on? Seriously, learning that early is a good thing.

If you're having trouble deciphering it, call their marketing department and ask. Be polite: you're asking for help. "I'm a student trying to understand your spec sheets" is likely to go over well, especially if you remember that they have no duty to help you. To get the most out of it, make sure you have a set of specific questions you need answered.

fectin wrote:

Ted the Flayer wrote:I am still suspicious that this company is giving the college money to direct us to this advertisement. I oppose that on general principle. Also, I'm having trouble deciphering the weasel ad-speak as to find out what the product actually DOES. Telling me that it "decreases dead zones" might be true, but it's not useful unless is says HOW.

Also, earlier in the unit it had the wrong formula to solve for volume of a cone. That also irks me.

Because in the real world, this is the sort of information you are going to get, and have to make decisions based on? Seriously, learning that early is a good thing.

If you're having trouble deciphering it, call their marketing department and ask. Be polite: you're asking for help. "I'm a student trying to understand your spec sheets" is likely to go over well, especially if you remember that they have no duty to help you. To get the most out of it, make sure you have a set of specific questions you need answered.

Actually, unless I ever get elected to a town council or head of public works or other government position or go into engineering, no. I will not have to use that information. This is not something that anyone except for the people at the very top do. Although if that is the case I'm flattered that the teacher thinks anyone in the class has that kind of potential, I'm not smart enough to become an engineer and I have way too many skeletons to go into politics.

Pfft. Those people have subordinates to do all their research and decisionmaking.

Really? I didn't realize that. Every job I had involved me shutting up and taking orders. I don't really know a lot about how the upper class lives due to lack of familiarity.

You've also got an odd expectation if you think town council or run of the mill management bureaucrat constitutes 'upper class.' Upper middle, maybe, generally after 20-30 years of being a useful bitch.

Ted the Flayer wrote:

fectin wrote:

Ted the Flayer wrote:I am still suspicious that this company is giving the college money to direct us to this advertisement. I oppose that on general principle. Also, I'm having trouble deciphering the weasel ad-speak as to find out what the product actually DOES. Telling me that it "decreases dead zones" might be true, but it's not useful unless is says HOW.

Also, earlier in the unit it had the wrong formula to solve for volume of a cone. That also irks me.

Because in the real world, this is the sort of information you are going to get, and have to make decisions based on? Seriously, learning that early is a good thing.

If you're having trouble deciphering it, call their marketing department and ask. Be polite: you're asking for help. "I'm a student trying to understand your spec sheets" is likely to go over well, especially if you remember that they have no duty to help you. To get the most out of it, make sure you have a set of specific questions you need answered.

Actually, unless I ever get elected to a town council or head of public works or other government position or go into engineering, no. I will not have to use that information. This is not something that anyone except for the people at the very top do. Although if that is the case I'm flattered that the teacher thinks anyone in the class has that kind of potential, I'm not smart enough to become an engineer and I have way too many skeletons to go into politics.

What did you think a technology course was going to teach you?

FrankTrollman wrote:What color is the mucous?

Pale yellow, sometimes brown. Rarely, there is some blood in it.

When you blow your nose, does that provide relief?

Partially. If I only blow my nose, then it only helps with the front of my nose. I have to do this gross back-of-the-throat sucking thing and then cough up the resulting mucous for real relief.

Have you tried over the counter expectorants or nasal sprays?

I have not tried nasal sprays, but I have tried cough syrup with an expectorant in it. That makes it easier to cough, but hasn't notably made there be less mucous in the first place.

Does it get worse when you are exposed to certain things?

As said before, it gets worse if I inhale steam/very humid air. It's also worse in the morning.

Do you work in a bakery, paint shop, or farm?

I do not.

Do you have other symptoms, such as flushed areas of skin, headache, itchy eyes, difficulty hearing in one or more ears, or a dry or productive cough?

No, yes, no, yes, no, yes. I have some headaches and a productive. I also have difficulty hearing out of my right ear, but that's due to a previous jaw injury and my hearing is no worse than it normally is.

So what's up with time measurement. I know this questions been asked in some form in the past. But I'm not interested between metric time or standard time. I'm just confused about how variable it is.

I mean.
1000 nanoseconds make a microsecond.
1000 microseconds make a millisecond.
1000 milliseconds make a second.
Now we come to the weird shit.
60 seconds to a minute.
60 minutes to an hour.
24 hours to a day.
We won't count the 14 days to a fortnight business.
28-31 days to a month.
12 months to a year.
Now we go back to something more standardized.
10 years to a decade.
10 decades to a century
10 centuries to a millenium
Then we jump to a 1000 millenia to an age
A vague 10s of million years to an epoch
and then it goes all funky.

I mean, the smallest measurements are all because of scientific measurement past the renaissance. But we have decades, centuries, and millenium that have existed before the renaissance.

We also have age and eon pre-enlightenment but it's a vague long period of time. But then it gets standardized.

Why the fuck is this shit so damned disorganized?

Because the ancient babylonians used base 60.

Scientific American has an article about 24 and 60.

The month and year I sort of get - a month is about the time the moon goes around earth, and 12 of them is how long it takes before the process starts again. I think the Egyptian calendar had 12 months of 30 days (three weeks of 10 days) with five days leftover for the Inundation.

And don't forget the aeon (one million millennia).

Basically, ancient Babylon tried to measure the length of the year in days. They came up with a figure of 360 days. Since this divided evenly into four seasons with 90 days each and three months of 30 days to the season, they went with that as their calender. Later on, it was realized that it was actually 364.25 days to the year. This lead to the Roman Emperor rearranging the calender so that 5 months out of the year (January, March, June, August, October and December) gained a day and one month (February) lost 2 days 75% of the time and 1 day 25% of the time.

You know, instead of doing the smart thing and rearranging the calender so that we have 12 months of 30 days each and a 4 to 5 day holiday time around Christmas that's outside the calender.

Grek wrote:This lead to the Roman Emperor rearranging the calender so that 5 months out of the year (January, March, June, August, October and December) gained a day and one month (February) lost 2 days 75% of the time and 1 day 25% of the time.

You know, instead of doing the smart thing and rearranging the calender so that we have 12 months of 30 days each and a 4 to 5 day holiday time around Christmas that's outside the calender.

I suspect you meant July, unless they changed it again later. But I assumed July, August and October got longer because they are so named for Julius Augustus and Octavius. January and March are named after gods (Janus and Mars), I thought, dunno about December's importance that got it a longer run. I don't place a lot of stock in this belief of mine since it was told to me when I was a kid and I never really thought about it afterward.

Having effectively a 13th month of 4-5 days would be kind of interesting but I don't follow how it becomes the obvious "smart" solution.

I think he meant that this would standardize the months but then by leaving the extra 4 days to be itself he then makes it non-standardized. So, I don't even see that as a solution.

erik wrote:I suspect you meant July, unless they changed it again later. But I assumed July, August and October got longer because they are so named for Julius Augustus and Octavius.

I do believe that October is named after the number eight. Just like September is seven, November is nine, and December is 10.

Cynic wrote:
Why the fuck is this shit so damned disorganized?

Because it doesn't matter. Reality doesn't need to be symmetrical or adhere to the dictates of numermancy or arbitrary OCD perfectionism.

It's like complaining that pi is 3.14 and not 3 or 4. Sure, it'd be neater, but neatness has no value other than pleasing people who have feelings about numbers.

I mean, weeks and months don't have value either. We could totally do dates with the day number and year number and exactly nothing is lost, but we've decided that giving days and parts of the year a brand name has some kind of emotional value above and beyond any practical concerns.

The world-wide adoption of the Gregorian calender says more about the penetration of European culture across the world and less about the utility of it as a timekeeping tool.

Maj wrote:

erik wrote:I suspect you meant July, unless they changed it again later. But I assumed July, August and October got longer because they are so named for Julius Augustus and Octavius.

I do believe that October is named after the number eight. Just like September is seven, November is nine, and December is 10.

Yep. September was month 7 in the Roman calender and December was month 10. This was changed in the switch to the Julian calender, because the Julian Calender is solar and the older Roman calenders were lunar and had become totally out of alignment with the solar year.

fectin wrote:

Ted the Flayer wrote:

fectin wrote:
Because in the real world, this is the sort of information you are going to get, and have to make decisions based on? Seriously, learning that early is a good thing.

If you're having trouble deciphering it, call their marketing department and ask. Be polite: you're asking for help. "I'm a student trying to understand your spec sheets" is likely to go over well, especially if you remember that they have no duty to help you. To get the most out of it, make sure you have a set of specific questions you need answered.

Actually, unless I ever get elected to a town council or head of public works or other government position or go into engineering, no. I will not have to use that information. This is not something that anyone except for the people at the very top do. Although if that is the case I'm flattered that the teacher thinks anyone in the class has that kind of potential, I'm not smart enough to become an engineer and I have way too many skeletons to go into politics.

What did you think a technology course was going to teach you?

Honestly, I didn't think I'd have to really do anything except kill time with busy-work. I had assumed that the course was there as a barrier to prevent people from entering the middle class, like 99% of all college is.

Ted the Flayer wrote:Honestly, I didn't think I'd have to really do anything except kill time with busy-work. I had assumed that the course was there as a barrier to prevent people from entering the middle class, like 99% of all college is.

If your plan for your education is "kill time with busy work," you should spend some serious time reconsidering.

College is not some magical golden ticket to a better life. If you don't have a plan for what you're studying, you're probably better off dropping out and saving your money.