A thread for stupid questions, and answers to them.

sinister agent · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 7046

Bees vomit honey. It is an expression of their disgust at human exploitation of the earth.

Dimrill · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 13:52

Yeah, as sinister said... They have a secondary "honey stomach" they use to carry the nectar back to the hive, once there they vomit it back up and the evaporation process concentrates the natural sugars. Or something.

Zardoz · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 14:06

Why are some cars referred to as 3 or 5 door? I've never seen anyone use the hatchback to get in or out of their cars.

Mr Russell · **Joined:** 6th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 12243

Clowns.

WTB · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 14497

Web-folk! My SnappyGamer newsletter is taking shape. However, I've been advised that 65 characters should be the maximum length of each line. How do I go about making my text wrap at 65 characters per line barring pressing ENTER at the end of every line? I've tried a table with a fixed width, but it goes all cocked-up on blogspot. (My newsletter is posted to blogspot, and then sent out via Feed Burner you see?). Also, how many pixels are there in 65 characters?

Help me BETEO you're my only hope.

Basically: I want to make blogspot posts wrap after 65 characters.

kalmar · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 14:19

jonarob wrote:

Help me BETEO you're my only hope.

Basically: I want to make blogspot posts wrap after 65 characters.

I have sort of the opposite problem. If I send an email + photo to my blogspot blog from my iphone, it gets a carriage return at the end of every line (of the iphone's screen). I can't see a way to fix this either on the iphone or in the blogspot settings.

Me-do. Please.

WTB · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 14497

Swap?

WTB · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 14497

Any suggestions then guys? A bit of HTML? Are tables the best way to do it?

Mr Russell · **Joined:** 6th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 12243

This sentence is 65 characters wide from the beginning to the end

That doesn't seem very wide to me.

Why not enclose the content in a div, and set the div to 33% wide? The rule of thirds is going to be better than some weird charcter limit.

kalmar · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 15:26

jonarob wrote:

Any suggestions then guys? A bit of HTML? Are tables the best way to do it?

A table would work with the width field set to a maximum size (in pixels), but as you note you'd have to set it experimentally and it won't be identical on all systems of course.

If you officially need to have no more than 65 characters on a line, I think the only way would be to type it out in a text editor with the right margin set to 65 and wrap on, then cut and paste that into the blog, carriage returns and all.

Hmm.

WTB · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 14497

I've managed with:

Code:

Seems to come out around 65 characters.

And Russ, 65 characters may seem small, yeah, but it's the tried and tested standard for email newsletters apparently!

For example, check out my FAQ:

http://snappygamer.blogspot.com/2008/03/about.html

Seems good to me! Lines aren't so long that they're scary and stuff, anyway.

Steve · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 17:19

Quote:

Yeah, as sinister said... They have a secondary "honey stomach" they use to carry the nectar back to the hive, once there they vomit it back up and the evaporation process concentrates the natural sugars. Or something.

I hope thats how quotes work. My god they dooo vomit honey ( I just looked it up). From one bee to another then they barf it into the hive. This is frankly disgusting.

Cras · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 49232

Honey is made from failed bees. Every evening the bees have a phone-in vote to decide which bees are the rubbishest. The queen then purees the failed bees into honey.

Dudley · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 8679

Zardoz wrote:

Why are some cars referred to as 3 or 5 door? I've never seen anyone use the hatchback to get in or out of their cars.

But you COULD. And it's a nice way of making them distinct from mostly saloon cars that don't have that facility.

Sheepeh · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 2320

You could climb in the sunroof, if you're a midget. Could a midget claim his car is 6 door?

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 25594

I have two quills. One is a simple cut quill, the other has a metal nib.

What is it that draws in up into the slit of the nib and stores it there when you dip the quill in the bottle of ink, and then what is it that makes it flow out in such a steady stream with no reservoir?

kalmar · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 20:27

Capillary action?

Dudley · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 8679

Sheepeh wrote:

You could climb in the sunroof, if you're a midget. Could a midget claim his car is 6 door?

Possibly but that wouldn't offer at a glance indication on body shape.

kalmar · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 20:54

Dudley wrote:

Sheepeh wrote:

You could climb in the sunroof, if you're a midget. Could a midget claim his car is 6 door?

Possibly but that wouldn't offer at a glance indication on body shape.

Thin and rectangular?

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 25594

kalmar wrote:

Capillary action?

I looked it up and it seems that you might well be right. However, I didn't understand a word of it so I am going with the popular alternative theory of 'magic'.

Curiosity · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 22:15

Dudley wrote:

Sheepeh wrote:

You could climb in the sunroof, if you're a midget. Could a midget claim his car is 6 door?

Possibly but that wouldn't offer at a glance indication on body shape.

Like a normal guy, but smaller?

Shewolf · **Posted:** Tue Apr 22, 2008 23:08

I've taken on the project of making myself a website.
I've coded very simple pages before to go with a big forum I used to run/make but this time I'm starting with a template and editing.
Basically I'm looking for some help/advice about editing the template. I've started but I'm encountering issues every two minutes and am starting to growl.
I understand if it's a bit much, but if anyone is bored and fancies a peek pm me. I'm begining to wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just start again rather than change all these images from the template bit by bit to fit...

Pod · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 2568

Mimi wrote:

kalmar wrote:

Capillary action?

I looked it up and it seems that you might well be right. However, I didn't understand a word of it so I am going with the popular alternative theory of 'magic'.

It's the same magic that keeps bits of lemonade in your straw, especially on those gravity defying bends...

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 25594

Pod wrote:

Mimi wrote:

kalmar wrote:

Capillary action?

I looked it up and it seems that you might well be right. However, I didn't understand a word of it so I am going with the popular alternative theory of 'magic'.

It's the same magic that keeps bits of lemonade in your straw, especially on those gravity defying bends...

This is my kind of language.

When I was a kid (and, you know, still now) I'd like to fill my straw with lemonade and then put my finger over the top and then drinkk by letting one strawful fall into my mouth at a time.

Thinking about it, seems not to be the most efficient way of having a drink.

Goddess Jasmine · **Posted:** Wed Apr 23, 2008 0:07

Mimi wrote:

Thinking about it, seems not to be the most efficient way of having a drink.

But it's fun!

Grim... · **Posted:** Wed Apr 23, 2008 2:01

jonarob wrote:

I've managed with:

Code:

Seems to come out around 65 characters.
And Russ, 65 characters may seem small, yeah, but it's the tried and tested standard for email newsletters apparently!
For example, check out my FAQ:
http://snappygamer.blogspot.com/2008/03/about.html
Seems good to me! Lines aren't so long that they're scary and stuff, anyway.

Dunno if this is any good to you now, but textareas have wrap functionality built in:
http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/forms/_ ... _WRAP.html
You want 'hard', obv.

CUS · **Posted:** Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:30

And you don't really need to use <tbody>

Goddess Jasmine · **Posted:** Thu Apr 24, 2008 0:22

Why if my printer in-tray runs out of paper does it tell me to check my colour ink cartridge because there is something wrong with it?

sinister agent · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 7046

Because all printers are designed to drive the human race gradually insane.

Goddess Jasmine · **Posted:** Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:38

sinister agent wrote:

Because all printers are designed to drive the human race gradually insane.

I think you might actually have something there...

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 25594

Printers are all evil.

I have taken to just getting Monkey to draw whatever is on my screen with paper and crayons.

I recommend getting a Monkey. (And some paper and crayons).

AceAceBaby · **Posted:** Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:53

My printer is great, though. :munkeh:

Curiosity · **Posted:** Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:54

Mimi wrote:

When I was a kid (and, you know, still now) I'd like to fill my straw with lemonade and then put my finger over the top and then drink by letting one strawful fall into my mouth at a time.

I still do this, and people look at me as if I'm weird!

MrChris · **Joined:** 1st Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 30498

Today's worrying question for me:

How does gravity actually work?

I know it's something to do with mass bending space-time, but that strikes me as just a convenient get-out on the part of the scientists so they don't actually have to explain how actually actually in the pbysical world massive Object A actually makes little Object B actually move towards it, except for muttering about gravitons under their beards.

ElephantBanjoGnome · **Joined:** 22nd Dec, 2010 **Posts:** 8175

I couldn't say for sure, but I think I read that gravity is caused by apples.

Seriously though, I think I recall reading or watching something a while ago about some kind of material they'd found in deep-bore mining where the effect of gravity on said material is slightly less than the effect on everything else.

I'll try and find a link, because it sounded pretty interesting. The thin inference at the time is that said material could possibly be used to make things lighter.

MrChris · **Joined:** 1st Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 30498

ComicalGnomes wrote:

I couldn't say for sure, but I think I read that gravity is caused by apples.

Seriously though, I think I recall reading or watching something a while ago about some kind of material they'd found in deep-bore mining where the effect of gravity on said material is slightly less than the effect on everything else.

I'll try and find a link, because it sounded pretty interesting. The thin inference at the time is that said material could possibly be used to make things lighter.

What are the odds that the first application would be in diet pills?

That sounds super interesting, so if you are able to dig it out that would be much appreciated by me.

ElephantBanjoGnome · **Joined:** 22nd Dec, 2010 **Posts:** 8175

A cursory search of the web and wikipedia has turned up nothing. While being pretty bloody confident I didn't dream it, I can't seem to find any reference to it.

The anti-gravity article implies such a substance can't exist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-gravity so perhaps I'm just mental. Perhaps it's been covered up.

kalmar · **Posted:** Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:17

http://www.briandunning.com/videos/gunsight.shtml

Quote:

Of course this video is real! Just because it could have been faked- that doesn’t mean that it was faked. Again, if you look at the Wikipedia entry for Cavorite, you’ll see that (in its crystalline state) it contains excess zero point energy, with respect to the background vacuum field. (This excess accreted over a period of several thousand years) Unfortunately, there’s not enough of this stuff left to truly compete with oil reserves, and most of the natural supply is locked up in clathrate hydrates.

Anyway, cavorite only appears to be defying the first law of thermodynamics. If you leave it long enough, it will slowly sink back down to the ground. The zero-point energy is leeched into the background vacuum field. If you could sum the total energy from both the vaccuum and cavorite contributions you would see that energy is always strictly conserved.

I expect the BA is going to explain the recent discovery that Iapetus (a moon of Saturn) contains sizable quantities of cavorite. This caused much excitement amongst NASA engineers, who are hoping to leverage the properties of this unique mineral to power a sustainable robotic probe.

I’ve got a PhD in physics, so trust me on this ok.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2005 ... vity-mine/

swizpig · **Joined:** 10th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 10

Mr Chris wrote:

ComicalGnomes wrote:

I couldn't say for sure, but I think I read that gravity is caused by apples.

Seriously though, I think I recall reading or watching something a while ago about some kind of material they'd found in deep-bore mining where the effect of gravity on said material is slightly less than the effect on everything else.

I'll try and find a link, because it sounded pretty interesting. The thin inference at the time is that said material could possibly be used to make things lighter.

What are the odds that the first application would be in diet pills?

That sounds super interesting, so if you are able to dig it out that would be much appreciated by me.

I do remember reading something, about 8 years ago, about spinning superconductors shielding gravity (presumably the same as the "Tajmar et al (2006 & 2007)" bit from the wikipedia). Boeing were apparently interested as a way to reduce fuel consumption in their planes.

ElephantBanjoGnome · **Joined:** 22nd Dec, 2010 **Posts:** 8175

Sweet, I'm not crazy. Thanks, internet people.

Steve · **Posted:** Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:58

On the gravity thing, I heard a while ago that scientists have proved that gravity is a wave which travels just under the speed of light. They found this out by looking at it's effects. Exactly what speed did they expect to measure? It just doesn't quite hang with me that if you took the Sun out of our Solar System that the Earth would still orbit as if were there for 8 and a half minutes.

Maybe Lave is the man for this.

AceAceBaby · **Posted:** Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:31

Why not? If you turn off the tap, some water still needs to swirl down the plughole after.

Steve · **Posted:** Thu Apr 24, 2008 13:50

Gravity is a strange old thing. I believe when NASA calculate where planets and that are going to be in space they use Newtonian theories which state that gravity has an immediate effect. When they tried to factor in the speed of light with gravity everthing was all out of whack. I am willing to be proved wrong here. I just seem to remember reading this somewhere.

Curiosity · **Posted:** Thu Apr 24, 2008 13:56

It's all to do with the transperambulation of pseudo-cosmic antimatter.

Goddess Jasmine · **Posted:** Fri Apr 25, 2008 14:08

IS £215 + VAT £252.63 (for car repairs).

My brain is bleugh.

Sheepeh · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 2320

Correctamundo, GJ.

Goddess Jasmine · **Posted:** Fri Apr 25, 2008 14:15

Thank you

Grim... · **Posted:** Fri Apr 25, 2008 14:21

Goddess Jasmine wrote:

IS £215 + VAT £252.63 (for car repairs).

Okay... New brake cali's and disks, a couple of bulbs, new cam belt and a new tyre.
Am I right?

kalmar · **Posted:** Fri Apr 25, 2008 14:27

I guess MAP sensor and fitting.

Sheepeh · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 2320

As GJ is female, I vote for one indicator light bulb including fitting, and a quick wipe with a rag.

Be Excellent To Each Other

A thread for stupid questions, and answers to them.
Starting off with...

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Be Excellent To Each Other

A thread for stupid questions, and answers to them. Starting off with...

Who is online

A thread for stupid questions, and answers to them.
Starting off with...