Jump to content

What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?

Ultimate Steve

By Ultimate Steve
in The Lounge

 Share

Recommended Posts

JoeSchmuckatelli

JoeSchmuckatelli

Posted
Posted

Debating this offer:

Spoiler

Short notice, but a friend of mine has two tickets for the Super Bowl in Glendale, AZ at State Farm stadium Sunday Feb 12. They are box seats that he spent $5,700 a piece for which includes transportation to and from the stadium, open bar, and a pass to the winners locker room.

What he did not realize was last year when he purchased them that this is the same day as his wedding.

If you're interested, he is looking for someone to take his place. It’s at St. Paul’s Church on North Avenue at 3 pm. Her name is Ashley and she is 5’5 and about 110 pounds. She is a good cook and enjoys the outdoors.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
steve9728

steve9728

Posted
Posted

Finished my work for the day and got stuck in traffic on the way back to the hotel in a taxi because of the evening rush. Then I saw the J-20 are going to landing, and more than one. 

When I was as excited as my 5-year-old first time seeing a regular civilian airliner, the taxi driver: first time?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
LHACK4142

LHACK4142

Posted
Posted
On 2/12/2023 at 6:20 AM, steve9728 said:

Finished my work for the day and got stuck in traffic on the way back to the hotel in a taxi because of the evening rush. Then I saw the J-20 are going to landing, and more than one. 

When I was as excited as my 5-year-old first time seeing a regular civilian airliner, the taxi driver: first time?

Holy crap, that's so awesome!!

I remember a few years back, the Thunderbirds were flying around my house several times a week. Got treated to tight formation flying and awesome f-16 noises.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
AlamoVampire

AlamoVampire

Posted
Posted

I just recently relearned a fact that broke my mind. I am sure you all know of New York City and Manchester in the UK. I am also certain you at least know of JFK International Airport in NYC. As you know flights routinely fly between JFK and any number of airports in the UK. Typically you think: 747 or 767 or 777 or 787 or any of the wide body Airbus 300, 330, 340, 350 or 380 aircraft to make the flight. Well, let me break your mind. The SMALL A321 regularly makes the trip between JFK and Manchester. Most notably the airline Aer Lingus does it. I found out an ETOPS certified 737-800 can also make the flight!!!!!

160302132023

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ben J. Kerman

Ben J. Kerman

Posted
Posted
On 2/13/2023 at 5:05 PM, AlamoVampire said:

I just recently relearned a fact that broke my mind. I am sure you all know of New York City and Manchester in the UK. I am also certain you at least know of JFK International Airport in NYC. As you know flights routinely fly between JFK and any number of airports in the UK. Typically you think: 747 or 767 or 777 or 787 or any of the wide body Airbus 300, 330, 340, 350 or 380 aircraft to make the flight. Well, let me break your mind. The SMALL A321 regularly makes the trip between JFK and Manchester. Most notably the airline Aer Lingus does it. I found out an ETOPS certified 737-800 can also make the flight!!!!!

When I went planespotting at JFK (Kind of, I didn't see any ground operations but I found a spot on the approach where planes fly pretty low over your head), I was really surprised to see a TAP A321 coming from Lisbon. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Superfluous J

Superfluous J

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I always assumed that 'Turtles All the Way Down' was a DiscWorld reference. 

Mistaken. 

When wondering what lies beneath the disc and its four supporting elephants standing atop the World Turtle... It's nothing. 

 

(the Turtle swims through space!) 

Yeah it's a reference to flat-earth "common sense" failing. I doubt the story is strictly true, but here's what I found about it on Wikipedia.

Quote

The following anecdote is told of William James. [...] After a lecture on cosmology and the structure of the solar system, James was accosted by a little old lady.

"Your theory that the sun is the centre of the solar system, and the earth is a ball which rotates around it has a very convincing ring to it, Mr. James, but it's wrong. I've got a better theory," said the little old lady.

"And what is that, madam?" inquired James politely.

"That we live on a crust of earth which is on the back of a giant turtle."

Not wishing to demolish this absurd little theory by bringing to bear the masses of scientific evidence he had at his command, James decided to gently dissuade his opponent by making her see some of the inadequacies of her position.

"If your theory is correct, madam," he asked, "what does this turtle stand on?"

"You're a very clever man, Mr. James, and that's a very good question," replied the little old lady, "but I have an answer to it. And it's this: The first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, who stands directly under him."

"But what does this second turtle stand on?" persisted James patiently.

To this, the little old lady crowed triumphantly,

"It's no use, Mr. James—it's turtles all the way down."

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
LHACK4142

LHACK4142

Posted
Posted

I spent all day working on my team's First Tech Challenge robot for an upcoming competition, and fighting the tyrannical Laws of Murphy.

As the de facto lead programmer on our team, I've worked my butt off this season to get our code as far as it got. Our team is a rookie team, so none of us have any experience with FTC. I personally had never coded in Java, and of course had no familiarity with any of the libraries or SDKs used in FTC. Despite this, we managed to create not only functional, but unique and innovative code that's actually better than what a lot of other teams have.

There's an award you can get at competitions for good programming. For this, you need to fill out a form, and you can also submit a video. The form is very basic, and you can't convey or show much in it. However, you can do all sorts of cool editing, writing, etc. for the video, and I think (???) that it probably counts towards the award significantly. We submitted the form, but guess what we forgor to film before the deadline?

I'm kinda disappointed, but it's definitely not anyone's fault. We're busy, it's our first real competition, we've got a crapton of stuff to do, and we're all way too busy. Murphy's law, ya know?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
AlamoVampire

AlamoVampire

Posted
Posted

Ok, im in a drive thru rn getting dinner and the most absolutely trippy thing just happened. So i was sitting a ways back in the line 7-8 cars out from ordering, i have my window down because its 72 degrees. So, im just chillin and listening to the music being pumped out by the burger place and suddenly I smell this (still do off and on as i wait to pay) freakishly sweet scent. No clue what it is but it started triggering memories from late september to early october 2010 when i still had a girlfriend. Specifically it triggered 2 memories of 2 dates she and I went on when I was up in her city visiting. The specifics of those memories are not important, but, the sensation they caused is. See, to be blunt ive not had the best of luck over the last 12 years or so since she dumped me, and the last few months…well were/are a pure dumpster fire of the universe using me as a punching bag. But, the instant that freaky sweet scent triggered the memories it triggered this oddly hopeful sensation, an odd hope that maybe the winds or perhaps my stars (points to you if you know where/what im referencing on changing my stars) are changing and things may start going right? Do I dare hope? Every instinct and every fiber in me says im going to get burned by that hope.. :( 

193902192023

Link to comment
Share on other sites
LHACK4142

LHACK4142

Posted
Posted

FTC (First Robotics Challenge, a robotics competition) Inter-league Competition. Today was one hell of a day- the culmination of like 5 months or something of hard work.

We got sixth place out of twenty, and ended up not advancing to the next level. We're all pretty disappointed, but I personally feel like we honestly did really well. I mean, we're a fricken massive team (30 members, the usual is like 5), and we're ALL ROOKIES. Our team is very, very open to everybody regardless of how enthusiastic they are about robotics, or how skilled they are. This is of course great because we recruit lots of new people to FTC and create a really fun environment, but it's also bad because, well, we have a massive crowd of extremely chaotic kids who don't know anything, mess around 90% of the time, and may not be particularly dedicated. Contrast that to some other elite teams (who we had to go up against), that basically only recruit the best and most commited students, and I think what we accomplished is pretty damn decent.

At the beginning of the day, we all gathered up, got our robot inspected, and went for our interview. The way FTC works is that you can advance to the next round of competitions  through both the actual performance of your robot and awards given for best robot design. This is so that students learn to write about their robot, get good at interviewing, and also in case some team gets horrendously bad luck or something. Anyhow, the interview went OK, and we gave the judges our portfolio to read over. Next were the actual matches. We did pretty well, winning four out of five matches. We also had to do a frantic fix in the middle of the competition because our programs would actually give us penalties. After the matches, we were in sixth place, and qualified for the semifinals (which happened today also). As luck would have it, we were up against the number one team in the semifinals. They of course vaporised us. Now our only hope was to win with awards. The chance of doing this was pretty slim, given that our portfolio and presentation were made very last-minute. We didn't win enough awards to advance, but we got a few cool ones, most notably (for me, the head programmer, at least) 3rd place for the programming award.

So yeah. Overall I think this season was a triumph, if not quite a HUGE SUCCESS, and I'm tired.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
AlamoVampire

AlamoVampire

Posted
Posted (edited)
5 hours ago, DDE said:

...Just make sure your car isn't leaking coolant.

Its not. Back in June I was in an accident with the car, got it back in September and it had a coolant leak not once but twice and the smell of coolant, especially hot coolant (at least in my experience) is different than the scent I was picking up at the burger place.  The scent I was smelling was almost floral but not quite. The coolant my car uses smells sweet but not nearly as sweet as what ever it was last night. But I appreciate the concern :) 

062402202023

062502202023

Edited by AlamoVampire
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...