HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: richg@hatch.socal.com (Rich Greenberg)
Subject: Re: Migratory habits of Mediterranean eels
Organization: Hatch Usenet and E-mail.  Playa del Rey, CA
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 04:47:20 GMT

In article <1992Sep5.180730.11787@cco.caltech.edu> carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Sep5.020032.8439@panix.com>, carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink) writes:
>>  Well, in the quote up above, I was wrong.  Lampreys DO migrate (and, more

>>  And it's fairly implausible that they migrate from the Gulf the 
>>the Great Lakes, since they could only have developed this behavior
>>pattern since the opening of the Erie Canal.  I think people are 
>>adding up lampreys' migratory patterns, and their infestation of the
>>Great Lakes, into a nonexistent single event.
>
>Please take the time to do at least a little research before posting bullshit
>like this.  The Saint Lawrence river has connected Lake Ontario and the
>Atlantic Ocean for quite a bit longer than the Erie Canal's been around.

True, but wouldn't the lampreys have a bit of a problem swimming UP
Niagara Falls?
-- 
                
Rich Greenberg - N6LRT - 310-649-0238 - richg@hatch.socal.com
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: juola@bruno.cs.colorado.edu (Patrick Juola)
Subject: Re: Explosions in space
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 00:46:45 GMT

In article <15SEP199217274418@rosie.uh.edu> st17y@rosie.uh.edu (Belding, Troy C.) writes:
>	Just recently I heard someone say that most SF movies set in 
>space are completely phony, as explosions would not be heard in space.
>My thought is that even though space is a vaccum, any exploding craft
>or station would create its own atmosphere, so that a shock wave would 
>be conducted to the hull of any reasonably nearby ship.  This wave would
>turn the whole hull of the ship into a giant soundboard, thereby creating
>horrendous noise.
>
>Any comments?

Yeah.  Unless "reasonably nearby" means within a few hundred meters, 
you're still in trouble.  Assume, for simplicity, that the ship that
explodes is a sphere of 100m diameter, pressurized at 1atm.  When the
ship explodes, its air is evenly distributed in an expanding sphere.
The shockwave propagates in accordance with the inverse square law, the
air density in accordance with the inverse cube.  So a ship 300m from
the original ship is in an "atmosphere" of only 1/27 atm, < 4% of normal
atmospheric pressure.  By Earth standards, that's a rather hard vacuum,
and certainly incapable of transmitting much noise.

And 300m is frighteningly close in space.  Even fighter planes don't
get that close to each other in combat, and lasers are much more accurate
than missiles.

Most space movies (2001 excepted) *are* completely phoney in their
treatment of explosions.

	- kitten
From: Geoff@equinox.gen.nz (Geoff Mccaughan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: The dangers in microwaved food...
Date: 15 Sep 92 21:41:02 +1200
Organization: Equinox Networks
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Brett Sealey (brett@cssc-syd.tansu.com.au) wrote:
>
>My understanding is that the resonant frequency of water molecules has
>little to do with the way a microwave works. A microwave is just a
>domestic radio frequency inductive heater which works by inducing eddy
>currents within the "target". These currents then heat the material via
>resistance.
>
>Supporting evidence to this claim includes:
> + Salty water heats faster than distilled water. (I claim that
>   this is because of the reduced resistance)
> + Substances which contain no water but are conductive will also
>   be heated.
> + Small objects such as ants, and small roaches have can survive
>   because they don't have large enough conductive loops in them to
>   pick up enough energy. This is because the wavelength is larger
>   than they are.
> + Highly conductive materials such as metals can pick up large
>   voltage differences. This leads to arcing.... (Fun!!!)
> + The wavelength of a vibrating water molecule would be extremely
>   short! This would be dangerous to have around the kitchen and
>   hard to generate.
> + The holes in the screen on the door have to be smaller
>   than the wavelength of the microwave to do their work. This
>   indicates a lower bound on the wavelength but in practice the
>   wavelength would have to be significantly larger than the holes.

 - Distilled water still heats up [it's a very good insulator].
 - Oils and fats heat even faster than salty water.

--
Geoff, Sysop Equinox (equinox.gen.nz) +64 (3) 3854406 [4 Lines]
                               Voice: +64 (3) 3852101
        "Hi. You have just entered the fourth dimension. Small isn't it?"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: jfreter@triton.unm.edu (The Myth)
Subject: Re: Explosions in space
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 92 02:17:02 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <15SEP199217274418@rosie.uh.edu> st17y@rosie.uh.edu (Belding, Troy C.) writes:
>	Just recently I heard someone say that most SF movies set in 
>space are completely phony, as explosions would not be heard in space.
>My thought is that even though space is a vaccum, any exploding craft
>or station would create its own atmosphere, so that a shock wave would 
>be conducted to the hull of any reasonably nearby ship.  This wave would
>turn the whole hull of the ship into a giant soundboard, thereby creating
>horrendous noise.
>
>Any comments?
>

Yes!
Space is not a perfect vacuum.  It does have a small matter density,
that gets larger as one gets closer to a star or planet.  A physics prof
who taught a class I took 5 years ago calculated that the maximum frequency
that could be transmitted in the average stellar system was on the order
of 5 Hz.  But the sound only travels at under 1 m/s.

So "sound waves" --really just compressive density waves-- can occur; but,
they would take hours or days to be felt by an attacking spacecraft.  At
the interface between the spaceship debris/vapor and the 'vacuum' of space,
there would be considerable sound reflection that would heat the remains if 
they were confined.
From: vhalkka@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Vesa Halkka)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Lightning and cars (was Re: Lightning and trees.)
Date: 12 Sep 92 22:22:04 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In <BuFH9u.5DC@acsu.buffalo.edu> v083pzgu@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (SOCRATES) writes:

>I've always wondered how surprised Mr. Faraday would have been had there been
>some kind of mismanufacture in the cab allowing some kind of intrinsic
>resistance to the material the cab was made from. Poof! There goes one Mr.
>Faraday up in smoke.

And a car is not a very good faraday cage even at tiny voltages..
radio works pretty well.... I wonder which kind of shock electric
fields will come from a lightning striking to a car or even 
nearby.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: robertc@sco.COM (Robert Chansky)
Subject: Re: Lightning and cars (was Re: Lightning and trees.)
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 22:07:00 GMT


In article <1992Aug25.122013.20879@infodev.cam.ac.uk> rf@cl.cam.ac.uk (Robin Fairbairns) writes:
>The only discernible (reported) damage was to
>the tyres.  (Or, as they say on the other side of the pond, tires:
>rationalisation of spelling does introduce the odd overloading of
>words... ;-)

Not to mention a species of pedantry so technologically advanced that it is
indistinguishable from poetry..
-- 

                                 . 
                     (.signature at 50 meters)
From: carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Migratory habits of Mediterranean eels
Date: 5 Sep 92 02:00:32 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In <z_mnp1-@lynx.unm.edu> jfreter@triton.unm.edu (The Myth) writes:

>In article <1992Sep2.224211.3640@panix.com> carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink) writes:
[...]
>>  Lampreys are non-migratory.  Also, they aren't eels - heck, they aren't even
>>FISH.

>I saw on PBS 2-1/2 weeks ago a documentary on the Lamprey.  They are fish
>and they do migrate from the Gulf of Mexico into various rivers and streams
>in New England.  A marine biologist from a Boston college (don't remember
>names, since I didn't know there was going to be a test) had said this, and
>the tapes did show lapreys in some rivers.

>Jerry
 
  Well, in the quote up above, I was wrong.  Lampreys DO migrate (and, more
embarassingly, I knew that and had forgotten it when I posted).  On the
other hand, they are NOT fish.  They lack certain distinguishing
characteristics of fishes, like scales and backbones.  They are members
of the phylum Chordata, to which we and fishes also belong, but they
are not vertebrates and are not fish.

  And it's fairly implausible that they migrate from the Gulf the 
the Great Lakes, since they could only have developed this behavior
pattern since the opening of the Erie Canal.  I think people are 
adding up lampreys' migratory patterns, and their infestation of the
Great Lakes, into a nonexistent single event.
 
-- 
==============================================================================
Carl Fink          carlf@panix.com, C.FINK4(GEnie), or CF427620I@LIUVAX.BITNET
  "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits"  -  Mark Twain
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science,alt.folklore.computers
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: That darn "Bug" story
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 23:34:28 GMT

In article <1992Sep13.195909.27527@udel.edu> jrogers@hercules.cis.udel.edu (James Rogers) writes:
> This has been discussed a number of times in Annals of the History of 
> Computing.  Most recently in V 14, #3 (1992) in a letter from John
> Eklund of the Nat. Museum of Am. History at the Smithsonian, which
> has the log book.

I knew I wasn't dreaming I saw it there!
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   "Have you hugged your wolf today?"
  'U`
From: bday@athena.cs.uga.edu (bday)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Boiling lobsters (was Re: Boiling frogs)
Date: 12 Sep 92 21:21:11 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

kistler@iowave.physics.uiowa.edu writes:
>> ...  do lobsters
>> prefer this method of death or do they prefer to be dropped into boiling
>> water....
>
>I suspect they "prefer" (as much as they are self-aware) not to be boiled
>at any speed.  Cold-blooded creatures still (appear to) possess the capacity
>to feel pain when the ambient temperature exceeds limits healthy for them.
>(They try to escape bad situations, etc.  I don't know if anyone's ever given
>them an EEG to see for sure if they're really in pain or just instinctively
>reacting to an unhealthy situation.)

What is the difference between "instinctively reacting to an unhealthy
situation" and reacting due to being "really in pain"?  Who is to say that
the pain we feel is not just the way we interpret the instinct-generated
stimulus to get out of an unhealthy situation?  

I mean, certainly the lobster doesnt feel that it's having an instinct,
it just feels _something_ that makes it want to get away!  It must be
uncomfortable, at least... I think that there is a very fine line, if
_any_ line, between what we talk about as physical feelings and instinct
generated stimuli.

So I guess what I'm saying is that, regardless of how the lobster 
interprets its stimulus, if the goal is to minimize discomfort to the
lobster, you should boil, or kill, it in such as way as to get it over
with the quickest.  But, really! _Lobsters!_  You might as well try to
avoid causing discomfort to a colony of bacteria!

+ Bea
From: ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: rice + beans = complete protein
Date: 8 Sep 92 03:43:58 GMT
	<c8922369.715883008@jupiter.newcastle.edu.au>
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.alt.folklore.science: 7-Sep-92 Re: rice + beans =
complete.. Leon James Garde@jupiter (1622)

> So, the body may be capable of producing protein from amino acid,
> but can it maintain a suitable production, and will that affect other
> bodily processes ?  I don't know. 
> What does the body need to make 'complete protein' ? just
> complementary amino acids ? or would the production of sufficient protein
> result in a defeciency elsewhere (eg vitamin or mineral requirements) ?

I'm not sure if this was made clear -- the body makes *all* its protein
from amino acids. It gets the amino acids, mostly, from breaking down
foreign proteins in food. (I don't think amino acids occur free in
natural foods.)

A protein molecule is lots of amino acid molecules chemically linked
together. When we say "rice contains these amino acids", we actually
mean that the proteins in rice contain those amino acids. Your cells
can't use rice protein (unless you want to turn into a rice plant :-),
so your metabolism disassembles it and reassembles it into people
protein of one sort or another.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
From: amconn01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: That darn "Bug" story
Date: 13 Sep 92 16:00:23 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville

In article <+Qs-w5@engin.umich.edu>, ingles@engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles) writes:
>  Okay, we've all heard it:
>  Long ago, when computers were still gymnasium-sized boxes and
> ran at 10 instructions a second, some scientists ran a trivial
> progam and got some gibberish for output.
>  After painstakingly checking the program and the computer, they
> found a small moth that had died amongst the internal workings,
> causing the error.
>  And that, my child, is why programming errors are called "bugs"
> today.
> 
>  So: Is this true? Really? Where and when did it happen?
> Or is it just an urban myth?
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ray Ingles                  || The above opinions are probably
>                             || not those of the University of
> ingles@caen.engin.umich.edu || Michigan. Yet.

A book on the history of computers that I read about 5 or 6 years ago included
this story (sorry, I don't recall the title). I think the computer was one of
the early Mark series (II?). The story went that a moth got stuck in one of the
electromechanical relays. The book contained a purported photo of a moth taped
to a logbook page with a written notation about the error. I have also
heard Grace Hopper tell this story (she was working on this particular computer
when the "bug" was encountered).

However, none of the above may be true. Possibly the author was repeating a
story he had heard and the moth was added to the logbook at a later date.
Possibly Adm. Hopper misremembered (she was very old when she recounted the
tale.)

Connor/Castigat ridendo mores
From: daniel@polaris.async.vt.edu (Daniel Pawtowski)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: That darn "Bug" story
Date: 14 Sep 92 03:08:06 GMT
Organization: Escape from Blacksburg, VA

In article <gregn.716374510@coombs> gregn@coombs.anu.edu.au (Gregory Newton) writes:
>ingles@engin.umich.edu (Ray Ingles) writes:
>
>> And that, my child, is why programming errors are called "bugs"
>>today.
>
>>Ray Ingles                  || The above opinions are probably
>>                            || not those of the University of
>>ingles@caen.engin.umich.edu || Michigan. Yet.
>
>university of Sydney & and a very long time ago (obviously) ) but one of his
>favourite stories was how the machine he was working with was down for a week
>after a cockroach got into the works.


Well, this may not be a true "bug", but I've heard a story of an ancient
room-sized machine that had photosensitive capacitors.  The company that
built it didn't know because they ran their lights 24 hours a day.  
After shipping, the purchaser had errors develop every time a batch job
was left to run overnight.  Took forever to find the trouble.  After all-
the technicians had the lights on when trying to re-create the problem, so
it never occured.  Led to jokes about "the machine that was scared of the
dark".

dpawtows@vtssi.vt.edu
From: st17y@rosie.uh.edu (Belding, Troy C.)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Explosions in space
Date: 15 Sep 92 22:27:00 GMT
Organization: University of Houston
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41


	Just recently I heard someone say that most SF movies set in 
space are completely phony, as explosions would not be heard in space.
My thought is that even though space is a vaccum, any exploding craft
or station would create its own atmosphere, so that a shock wave would 
be conducted to the hull of any reasonably nearby ship.  This wave would
turn the whole hull of the ship into a giant soundboard, thereby creating
horrendous noise.

Any comments?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'll get a life when it is proven          Troy C. Belding
and substantiated to be better             ST17Y@JETSON.UH.EDU
than what I am currently                   HSSM@MENUDO.UH.EDU
experiencing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Thermodynamics (was Re: Sartre's 3 laws)
From: ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig)
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 03:21:37 GMT
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

justice@meltdown.chi.il.us (Jack Morrison) writes:
>     Actually, the way that I heard it (off a fortune on a Unix machine at my
>college) was:

>     The Laws Of Thermodynamics:
>   1) You can't get something for nothing.

Actually, it is: the energy change in a given system is equal to the amount
of work put in plus the amount of heat which crosses the system boundaries.

The formulation above is correct, but far from precise :-)

>   2) The best you can do is break even.

An exact formulation is: The change of entropy of a given system is 
equal to (for reversible processes) or greater than (irreversible) the
heat transferred to that system, divided by the absolute temperature.

An equivalent one is that you cannot build a cyclic machine which does
nothing but cool down its surroundings and lift a weight. Cyclic means
that, at the end of the lifting of the weight, the machine is in
exactly the same state as before.

Important here is the concept of reversibility, which I suppose you could
read out of that formulation you give here... the best you can do is
reversible, but it is not quite enough.

BTW, the second law does not mean that the earth is in any way doomed
as long as we have both sunlight and a heatsink (space).

>   3) You can only break even at absolute zero.

Hmpf, no. The entropy for a perfect crystal at zero Kelvin is actually
zero J/(kg K), but you can't get there in the first place, and once
you are there, things are pretty boring, anyway :-)
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz, ib09@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: elambert@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Eber Lambert)
Subject: Re: Lightning and cars (was Re: Lightning and trees.)
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 00:00:27 GMT

valdis@vttcf.cc.vt.edu (Valdis Kletnieks) writes:

>In article <1992Sep12.222204.2437@klaava.Helsinki.FI> vhalkka@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Vesa Halkka) writes:
>>And a car is not a very good faraday cage even at tiny voltages..
>>radio works pretty well.... I wonder which kind of shock electric
>>fields will come from a lightning striking to a car or even 
>>nearby.

>Well, I suppose the fact that most cars have external antennas
>doesn't enter into it?

.... Hmmmm Anyone care to comment on the electrical conductivity of
shatter proof glass. You remember glass... the insulator...
 

>Anecdotal evidence supporting the idea that a car *is* a good
>Faraday cage:  We had a lighning strike in our parking lot a
>few weeks ago.  The strike went into the sidewalk 3 inches
>(5cm for you Metric types) from the front bumper of a car.
>No damage done to car at all - although the strike shattered
>out a hole in the concrete about 8 inches wide and 2 inches
>deep.

...How does this support the idea of a car as a faraday cage? 
It does refute the car as lightning rod arguement nicely.
Cool anedote though.

el
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
From: gujn@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Jeremy Nelson)
Subject: Re: The Other 95% of the Brain
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 09:15:23 GMT



>>I think this could be where the legend comes from.  There are a few examples
>>of people that have gotten along with only 20% of there brain functioning.

>A question remains in my mind.  If the idea that we only use a small
>percentage of our brain comes from this sort of idea (damage, etc.)--
>how much of the brain's capacity do we use in our lifetime?  That is,
>when will our brain be so packed with stuff that it can't hold any more?

>That was always my interpretation of the 5% figure --  that we could
>never learn or think enough to approach the limits of the capabilities
>of our brain.

Yes, I agree.

However the myth sprung up, there is little question it is a myth.
(Think of the absurdity of an evolutionary process which would allow
the creation of 20x excess 'expensive' real estate' => )

However everyone must have said to themselves, 'I could do that if I
_really_ wanted too.'  And the presence of extraordinary feats of
memory, mathematics... you name it.  The brain can do amazing things
if you want to train it.  (Another common example would be the
presence of really good programmers, who can remeber the hardware and
software architecture of a machine, with no aparent strain, which in
any modern computer system must be quite a feat in an objective sense.)

So perhaps the 'fact' is not quite as absurd as it may appera.  The brain
CAN do amazing things if trained to, we just never train it. Mind you
this still doesn't mean we only use 5% of our brain.
 
-- 
Jem.  Jeremy Nelson.  gujn@uniwa.uwa.edu.au       :\  =>  :) 
I fear two things: 
That I am not one of the most interesting people in the world... and that I am.
From: v083pzgu@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (SOCRATES)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Lightning and cars (was Re: Lightning and trees.)
Date: 11 Sep 92 19:10:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <92246.122030ICJPS@ASUACAD.BITNET>, ICJPS@ASUACAD.BITNET writes...
>The distinction is INSIDE the cab.  The "Faraday Cage" effect will protect
>anyone inside the cab...all points have equal potential.  Just don't reach
>outside.....


I've always wondered how surprised Mr. Faraday would have been had there been
some kind of mismanufacture in the cab allowing some kind of intrinsic
resistance to the material the cab was made from. Poof! There goes one Mr.
Faraday up in smoke.

                                  "...now there goes a man with balls."
                                    -I forgot from whom I heard the quote



Dan C. Teodor
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.science