Jamie123
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Posts posted by Jamie123
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2 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:
Another thing about wombats is that the pouch faces backwards, so that it doesn't get filled with soil when the wombat is digging. It also must make it easier for the joey to get into after it is born.
Joey looking backwards out of pouch.
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Another thing about wombats is that the pouch faces backwards, so that it doesn't get filled with soil when the wombat is digging. It also must make it easier for the joey to get into after it is born.
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1 hour ago, askandanswer said:
The elderly couple don't look too alarmed by Mr Crocky!
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On 3/1/2024 at 8:07 PM, askandanswer said:
I remember being amazed the first time I saw a wombat run. Until then I had only seen them move at a very slow pace. For a moment I thought it was chasing me and I got a bit worried , but when I changed direction it ran straight past me.
Was this out in the wild, or was it in some kind of park? It must be wonderful to see these exotic animals living with nature. We do have wild deer and ponies here in the uk*, and I did once see a moose in Maine. I never saw a bear though. (Except in the zoo.)
Oh and I once saw a wild alligator when I was on a swamp tour from New Orleans. It wasn't as big as I'd expected though. The guide was making it jump out of the water by dangling a chicken leg over it on the end of a string. The lady sitting beside me in the boat told me he was being very stupid.
* We do of course have plenty of smaller wild animals like foxes, badgers, rabbits, weasels etc. Foxes are a nuisance. They get into your rubbish and scatter it all over your lawn.
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OK let's see that we can do. During the 90 seconds of the wombat's 25mph sprint it covers 25*1.5/60=15/24 mile. If the force impeding its progress is proportional to its speed then the energy it expends can be expressed 25*15/24 (bespoke unit system). Now if it travels at only 15mph, we can divide the "energy" by 15 to get 25/24=1 1/24 miles. So it just about beats Roger Bannister.
However this is a very simplistic model and I haven't taken account of the wombat's kinetic energy.
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3 hours ago, askandanswer said:
I remember being amazed the first time I saw a wombat run. Until then I had only seen them move at a very slow pace. For a moment I thought it was chasing me and I got a bit worried , but when I changed direction it ran straight past me.
I've been thinking all the way home. A very fast runner (like Roger Bannister) can run a four minute mile. Four minutes go into one hour 15 times, so that's 15 miles per hour. Quite a lot slower than a wombat.
Now if a wombat runs at 25mph, it covers a mile in 1/25 hours which is 60/25=12/5=2.4 minutes. However, it can only run at 25mph for about 90 seconds at a time, but could no doubt run for longer at a slower speed
So the question remains: can a wombat run a 4 minute mile? Let's ask ChatGPT...
Could a wombat run a 4 minute mile?No, it's highly unlikely. Wombats are not built for speed, as they have short legs and a stocky build, which is more suited for burrowing and digging rather than running long distances at high speeds.Are you sure? Wombats can run quite fast!
While wombats can reach speeds of up to 25 miles per hour (40 kilometers per hour) over short distances, they are not built for sustained speed or endurance. Running a 4-minute mile, which requires maintaining an average speed of 15 miles per hour (24 kilometers per hour) for four consecutive minutes, would be highly unlikely for a wombat due to their physiology and energy reserves.
I'm not convinced. What do you think?
(Another picture of a wombat)
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The collective noun for wombats is a "wisdom". So Hammerton Zoo has a wisdom of wombats.
Wombats can run 25mph, which is only slightly slower than a galloping horse.
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I just discovered that the only wombats in the UK are in Hammerton Zoo in Cambridgeshire. London Zoo is massive, and you'd think they'd have any animal you can think of, but no, they have no wombats. No wombats today. Or any other day.
I've half a mind to go to Hammerton just to see the wombats. I like wombats. Though an adult wombat can do you quite an injury if you annoy it (which apparently is not all that difficult). They are big and heavy and can run fast, and getting hit by one would not be pleasant at all. And the oddest thing about them is that they poo cubes. I remember reading that in Physics World a few years back
This is a good video about wombats:
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Many, many years ago a very good friend of mine had an abortion. She was a girl i used to hang out with a lot (not a girlfriend) and we used to watch movies together and eat pizza, and I'd go to her apartment to keep her company when she was feeling down. (And no I wasn't the father, in case you were wondering.) She didn't tell me about the abortion until afterwards, which in some ways was a good thing, because had I known I would have pulled out every stop to talk her out of it - including offering to pay for the child's upbringing myself. My own family would have then called me an idiot, but I know what I'd have told them: "All death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind" (which I've probably misquoted). As it was, all I could do was try to be supportive of her. Anything else would not have brought the baby back.
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I may not know much about bears, but one thing I have learned from the good people of Maine: you do not interfere with a mother bear's cubs, unless you want your bodily appendages seriously rearranged.
So what was Walt Disney thinking of with the bear scene from Pocahontas? John Smith is about to shoot the bear, but Pocahontas stops him and leads him into the bears' den. There she picks up one of the cubs and hands it to Smith. The cub playfully pulls Smith's helmet down over his eyes. Meanwhile mummy bear is standing peacefully by, not ripping anyone's arms and legs off.
The moral is, if you want to know what to do when you meet a bear, don't ask Mr Disney.
- zil2 and JohnsonJones
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Two hymns I always find myself singing - usually when I think I'm alone - are "He Who Would Valiant Be" and "Thine be the Glory" - until I remember that the tune for the latter was written by Handel in honour of the "Butcher of Cumberland" (who brutally massacred the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie - and a lot of other people too - in the Battle of Culloden, 1746) whereupon I either stop singing, or else replace the words with "being sick" noises. That is not a good moment to realise you are not alone after all!
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On 2/19/2024 at 6:26 PM, Ironhold said:
OK.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/radio/music-stream?lang=eng
The church website is now set up so that you can choose either LDS Channel, an all-Choir channel, a talk channel, and a Spanish-language stream.
I swear, LDS Channel has five different versions of "A Poor Wayfaring Man Of Grief", each one as depressing as the others. 🥶
Is there something I'm missing as to why this song is so popular? Something I'm missing?
I quite like this hymn, but I've always thought the narrator was blowing his own trumpet a bit.
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On 2/13/2024 at 5:56 AM, Vort said:
Can bears climb trees? Let's find out!
I'm gonna say yes.
Come to think about it, bears must be able to climb trees, otherwise how would they get to the bees' nests?
Right now though I'm dealing with another issue: namely can hermaphrodites make themselves pregnant? It seems some species can, but its never been reported in humans. But does that mean it couldn't happen?
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1 hour ago, Ironhold said:
Also, Flintstones = Honeymooners, just like Jetsons = Dagwood & Blondie. Hanna-Barbera was *not* subtle about who and what they ripped off.
Very true. Also Top Cat = Sgt. Bilko (or The Phil Silvers Show to use its proper name.)
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"HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY"
- mirkwood, NeuroTypical and zil2
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On 2/18/2024 at 3:54 AM, Still_Small_Voice said:
The Berenstain Bears lived in a tree. Papa Bear was an idiot and Mama bear was the sensible one.
King of the Hill was one of the few television shows where the Dad was not idiot.
"Sensible mum, stupid dad" is a bit of a trope. There was The Flintstones, Berenstain Bears, the Simpsons right through to Family Guy. You're right - Hank and Peggy Hill were an exception - though some of Hank's friends were a bit on the stupid side. Especially Dale, who for all his subtle conspiracy theories, never saw what was obvious to everyone else (except for a while Peggy).
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47 minutes ago, Grunt said:
Most of the Soldiers I work with have a minimum 4 year degree and many of us have graduate degrees.
It says here
That only 7% of enlisted personnel have a bachelors degree. Are the people you're talking about mostly officers?
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I just remembered coming across this a few years back:
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It seems to me that if we're going to have a military, the first thing that military needs to do is to be able to fight a war. It would be nice also if women, gays, transsexuals, ethnic minorities, minority religions etc are proportionally represented amongst all ranks and trades, but surely the first thing we need is soldiers who can fight, sailors who can work a ship and airmen (airpeople?) who can operate aircraft. And we need planes that fly and ships that sail properly, and aren't always being laid up with "propellor problems". We have these two super-duper carriers, and they never seem to be out of dock.
OK the Prince of Wales has just set out for the NATO exercises, but a whole day late. What would happen if there was a war? "Oh dont attack us today, Mr Enemy, we're still mending the propellor on our big new boat! Come back tomorrow when we're ready!" A little more investment in the military is needed all round, and bit more emphasis on ships that work and enough sailors to man them. That's right - the Royal Navy is scrapping perfectly good warships because we can't recruit enough sailors to sail them. And a bit less emphasis on wokey-poky diversity officers who think the woker the navy is, the more likely it is to win wars!
Disclaimer: I have never been in the military and haven't really a clue - so don't take me too seriously.
- Just_A_Guy, zil2 and NeuroTypical
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On 2/10/2024 at 8:49 PM, Vort said:
Yes, I'm fully aware that AIs don't think. This is just the easiest way to express the idea.
Do we really know what "thinking" actually is? Or do we only think we know? 😆
There was a movie years ago about a computer that could "think". I forget what it was called, but Julie Christie was in it. (Nowhere in the movie was the term "think" actually defined, so that tas a bit unsatisfying. How can you know whether a machine can think unless you can define precisely what thinking actually is? In the novel of "2001 a Space Odyssey", Clarke used Turing's definition - but this never convinced me even when I first read the book at 14.) Anyway the computer somehow imprisons Julie Christie in her home and finds a way to impregnate her with its "child" - so it can make the transition to become a living being.
Perhaps the true concept of "thinking" implies the capacity of self determination, of an entity choosing its own goals for its own purposes, beyond what was intended by its programmers. Of course computers do unexpected things all the time (like making money from post office branches disappear) but that is usually the result of programmer error, not any independent agenda of the computer itself. Could "agency" (for want of a better word) ever arise in a system built upon logic gates? Or does there need to be something else?
I've just looked it up - the movie was called "Demon Seed".
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12 hours ago, mirkwood said:
One of those rare perfect albums.
I was 16. I remember well going into town on the bus to buy it, and the excitement when I first played it. Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, Limelight. I loved them all at the first hearing. Oddly though, all the memorable songs for me are on Side 1 - maybe I never quite "got" Side 2.
Of the early Rush albums, I like Caress of Steel best - particularly the Fountain of Lamneth. The words "Life is just a candle, and a dream must give it flame" give me a shiver. (The sentiment was echoed much later on "Hold Your Fire".) But I like all of them. I once tried to get my daughter to listen to Hemispheres when she was doing a school assignment on the cult of Dionysius- but you know what teenagers are like. Rush was "Dad stuff" and very uncool.
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2 hours ago, Vort said:
Can bears climb trees? Let's find out!
I'm gonna say yes.
OK all bears can climb. I've learned something else!
Wombats
in General Discussion
Posted
It is illegal to keep wombats as pets, but you can have a virtual one. This is mine. His name is Willie the Wombat.