I know a little about alot of things.. but... then again.. yeah I'm with you on the microwaves, cars,simple math.. oh geez everything! funny thing that I've run across is that most people I've met online and actually get along with are all in the same boat. overactive underachivers... over read and undereducated (or the reverse a few times)

and you really ought to order a gyro, they're damn yummy! (uh, not just because I work in a greek resturaunt... for real greeks!)

Kind of

When two waves of pressure occupy the same space, they combine additively. If you drop a small stone with a 1 inch wave, and then a large stone with a 2 foot wave, when the two of them occupy the same space, the wave will be 2'1" high. The same thing with sound frequencies in a space. When a large wave and a small wave occupy the same space, they combine additively.

The reason they don't all get mashed up is that our ears are very, very good at reversing the process. They can listen to an complex waveform and pick out the composing simple waves.

until they are damaged from long periods of listening to the sounds you enjoy the most at high volumes... then the background noise of everyday life can be a real bitch.

sm, perhaps and explanation of frequency versus amplitude would help here. Strictly speaking, two waves of equal frequency, each having an amplitued of 2'1", but one is from a pair of rocks like you described and the other from a single rock that makes that same wave would be indistinguishable from each other.

regarding the record player example, it's just like the speaker/microphone example. the physical movement of the needle in the wavy groove moves back and forth as it follows the sides of the groove on the record. As it swings left and right, it moves inside a coil of wire. This movement inside a coil of wire induces a current in the wire, which is then amplified, just like the other examples.

sm, perhaps and explanation of frequency versus amplitude would help here. Strictly speaking, two waves of equal frequency, each having an amplitude of 2'1", but one is from a pair of rocks like you described and the other from a single rock that makes that same wave would be indistinguishable from each other.

regarding the record player example, it's just like the speaker/microphone example. the physical movement of the needle in the wavy groove moves back and forth as it follows the sides of the groove on the record. As it swings left and right, it moves inside a coil of wire. This movement inside a coil of wire induces a current in the wire, which is then amplified, just like the other examples.

thought it was that important of point, didja/ ;)

See? You're assuming immediately that Ulysses means the Joyce novel, you ADULT you ;)

For me at that age, it was an exciting epic of the Trojan war, where guys ran around in really cool costumes, like Brad Pitt recently brought to our attention, and all this beautiful stuff was still buried in the sand out there somewhere and when I grew up I wanted to go discover it. I still remember vividly when Life Magazine released the first photos of the excavation of the (assumed) Tomb of Midas. But discussing it with anybody else was impossible, so I just read and read and read. When I wrote my Senior Thesis in High School it was about Cliff Dwellers of the American Southwest. I'll never forget the look on my teacher's face, she was considered one of the most refined and educated people in our town (and a bona fide Southern Belle) and all she could say was "I never even knew this existed. However did you get interested in THAT?" That's why I loved college. When you keep climbing up the educational ladder, all of a sudden people who have the same interests as you do show up, rising from the stew of "normal" people that you were all lost in before.

OK, but about the novel, I never knew how the name was correctly pronounced until I was 18. The book was gibberish, a total waste of the time it took to read it. Then last year there was an article in one of my magazines, I think it was Smithsonian, that Ulysses is a masterpiece of language containing puns and codes which would do the Kabbalah proud. But even so, I'm not interested in reading it again (got enough from Ulysses for Dummies on the web) :)

Ulysses is nothing compared to Finnegan's Wake. :)

Here are a few links that will help you understand VCRs, Tape players and such work. HowStuffWorks is a marvel!

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/vcr.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/tv.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cassette.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/video-format.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cd.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dvd.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/speaker.htm


That should get you started in the right direction.

Brian

Never really read either (I had Joyce's Ulysses out of the library once when I was in high school, paged through it a bit and decided it was uninteresting), but I did make a half hearted attempt at Gravity's Rainbow once. I haven't made that mistake again in a while though. But it still lurks there in the unread pile.

Just a thought, but maybe a separate thread for dispelling the darkness of ignorance would be appropriate?

You can find that on the Harry Potter forum :)

As for Ulysses the novel, I suppose you have to be drunk or Irish or both to get through it. Not because you will understand it better but rather because you won't CARE.

:dead3:

Thanks to all that have posted answers to the CD/tape thing.

I am now (yawn) going to take a week off to try and sort through this vast wealth of knowledge and really try to understand it. :thepain2:

You must appreciate this is as easy for me to understand as... the international statutes surrounding pharmacy law. It may take some time...

I am completely ingnorant about all sports. I couldn't tell you how many players are in a baseball game, basketball game, or football.

I have no idea what a linebacker is, or any of those other names they give themselves.

The only sports people I know are : Larry Bird, Kevin Mckale (sp?) (My uncle liked them when I was little), Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods (From TV commercials, I guess.)

I don't know how they make points or how many points they need to win.
I don't understand why a minute in sports is actually 3-10 minutes in real time, either.

I don't get any of it. If I am forced to sit in front of it, I space out and look at the guys' butts or wonder how much money they make, or I'll look at the fans and wonder why they are so excited and why they even care.

Then I'll get mad when people all start yelling at the TV, because it scares me. I'll just be sitting there calmly, deep in my own thoughts, and all of a sudden- "WAAAAAHHH, YEAAAAAH, NIIICE! WOOOH HOOO!". It makes me jump like I'm gonna have a heart attack. What the hell is the big deal?

By the way, I also don't get why everybody puts all these spaces in their posts, and I only do it because someone asked me to, and it's easy to do, so if it makes you happy, fine.

But, what do you do if you're reading a book? They don't have double spaces between each new thought. Neither do business letters or other standard formats for writing. They have indented paragraphs, but they don't separate different ideas within the paragraph.
My post about sports should technically be all in one paragraph, at least if I remember correctly from school.

You don't ;)

Well, this IS the ignorance thread, so I'm doing a good job.

Hell, that's easy. If it makes more money for the drug company and cost you more for drugs, then that's the law. :)

Running electricity through a coil produces magnetism which moves a piece of metal.

A solenoid produces mechanical force (movement) and a switch does not. ;)

Ok smartass, tell him how a starter on an engine works...

You turn the key, something magical happens, and the car goes when you push the long skinny pedal, the one next to the brake.

We really don't need to know much more than that, although I am heartened by this quest for knowledge.

I think that is what's confusing him. Of the zillion uses for a solenoid, the starter solenoid on a car is the one that replicates a switch.
OK, the starter needs lots of amperage so the cable(wire) from the battery to the starter is huge and kept as short a possible to minimize resistance losses. Therefore the switch is down between the battery and starter and you can't reach it, in fact you'd have to get out and open the hood then reach way down in the grimey bits to flip the switch.
More gooder to park your butt behind the wheel and let the solenoid flip the switch for you. Yeah, the solenoid is electrically operated but that's a little bitty wire that can be as long as you want. OK? :confused:

I am ignorant of many things.

My first job was as an electrician, though I knew nothing of circuits and wiring. Since then, I have spent years as a professional programmer, yet there is much programming jargon I don't understand... like a musician who can't read music. Now I'm a professional graphics designer, and I know little about Photoshop (I mostly use Paint Shop Pro).

For years, I thought that the word "nonplussed" meant "to be indifferent; unimpressed." Also, I sometimes catch myself saying "irregardless," though it's not a real word; despite my efforts it hasn't been banished from my vocabulary.

Like others, I am ignorant of sports, but that is a voluntary ignorance... I'm sure I could learn if I had even the vaguest desire to do so.

No doubt there are many more things of which I am ignorant of my ignorance. For instance, how to word the previous sentence in a way that isn't awkward.

Dave Matthews Band, Wolf.

this user obviously has an inverted obsession with Dave Matthews. I suspect that he wants to sleep with him. but that's just my opinion.

Not only did I not know this, but it has driven me fucking insane for most of my adult life. I find myself in the shower, wanting to somehow mutilate and kill the shower curtain (no kidding, I think I've actually punched it). Something about the wet plastic sticking to my wet body sends me into a less than sane fit of rage. Then I get even more pissed because I realize I'm angry with an inanimate object and, until now, had no clue where the god damn wind was coming from!!!! So, in summation thanks for the explanation - at least now I can get pissed at the pressure instead!

UT knows this one - he explained this to me one day over lunch - and I actually understood it! ask 'im - he'll 'splain it to ya real good!

One thing I'm totally ignorant of is reading music. I was completely impressed by my 7 year old son who brought home music sheets and starting playing a song on his trumpet - He was mastering(?) something that I had no experience with. It was inspiring and humbling...

I thought it was the heat from the shower rising that caused the low pressure, but no matter. Get a curtain, or curtain liner, with magnets at the bottom. ;)

As an adult, you are free to revise your surroundings according to any rules you see fit. Shower without a curtain and just buy a second floor mat to soak up the excess water. Nobody says you have to put up with some dumb curtain that you hate so much you punch it.

Holy shit! I thought that too. Up until I read your post. Then I went and looked it up. At least I never used it in conversation.

Thank you. I learned something today.

Dude! I'm not alone! So this must be what it feels like when doves cry.

I looked up nonplussed in the oxford english dictionary, and they actually have the contrary meaning (meaning not flustered, not excited) listed as a new non-standard colloquial usage in America.

So is it correct? Not technically, but the usage has some basis.

Electricity is simply smoke trapped in a wire. Sure it runs the toaster and stuff but if anything goes wrong you can tell because the smoke escapes.

The stuff on cassette, VHS tapes is magnetically encoded onto the tape.

Double date?

Buy an organic sheep or goat.

CW,

The laser interprets the information by turning it into "1"'s and "0"'s. But what the hell happens then I don't know either. I think we have to go about a dozen messages up the thread to find out.

I didn't know this thread would be so much fun

I guess every thread turns to sex sooner or later. ;)

I shower with no curtain everyday here in the jungle. The whole bathroom is tilled and water goes everywhere. Well actually the water goes everywhere because of the poor quality wormanship in leveling the tub surround but that's a diffrent thread.

For clean freaks. Its also a snip to clean up the centipedes and ants.

I've been avoiding this and the stock market thread for ages. I'm scared I might have to learn something. My brain's just not ready. I'll come back in a couple of weeks after a couple of joints to even out my breathing.

I understand much in the way of mechanical devices. However...

Steering and suspension and alignment are all out of my league. I don't even know how they do it in the shops.

There are considerable gaps in my understanding of how radio works. I have even built an extremely simple crystal radio, and I still don't understand how the little machine can pull the music out of the air and pipe it into my head.

There are a ton of things I don't understand the why of even if I understand the how of. Fancy wrapping paper, headed straight to the trashcan. :scratches head:

The Wankel Rotary Engine? I've owned them, and seen all the cutaway drawings, and I still don't completely follow it. Only three moving parts. Elegant, supremely elegant.

more later...

I'm a fair programmer, I still don't understand:
Continuations
Closures
or why people think Best Practices are a good idea.

Reading Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide will give you a good start on continuations and closures. The Ruby language has both.

Best Practices, at least the way we use them, are just rules of thumb. They are a formalized equivalent of "Hey, you know what works for me?".