Way way OT but someone might know

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 02:21:00 -0400, ". . .winston"
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 12:50:24 -0400, ". . .winston"
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 11:56:43 -0400, ". . .winston"
wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 09 Jun 2015 08:52:19 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Tue, 09 Jun 2015 11:07:26 -0400, Tim Slattery
wrote:

Ken Blake wrote:


Here are two mo

If you fly due south from the Detroit airport, what's the first
foreign country you fly over?

Canada, of course


Right, of course. That was the easy one.

I guess it's safe to assume that the "Detroit [Michigan] airport" hasn't
always been located where it is now, because currently it's not north of any
part of Canada that I can see. It's north of Cuba, though.



The airport in Detroit is north of Canada. The airport outside of the
Detroit city limits (Romulus, MI). is west of Canada.

Both are in the same county, only one in Detroit.

Sorry, Homey, that don't fly. The question referred to "the Detroit
airport", and that's the "Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport",
located southwest of the city center, between I-275, I-94, and I-75. Flying
due south of there doesn't take you into/across Canada.

Every city of significant size has multiple airports, but only one is
typically "the" airport. The others are usually executive airports,
typically restricted to private planes, charters, etc.


No directions needed, know exactly where each are.

Only one airport *in* Detroit, and it is north of Canada.

Good luck then. If you take a commercial flight to Detroit, you're going to
be quite lost if you think you're going to anything other than "the Detroit
airport". You might want to plan to take a taxi when you get there. ;-)


No, for a commercial flight one would arrive at one of two terminals.
Neither in Detroit but in Romulus, MI.

There is only one airport in Detroit (north of Canada)

The question Ken asked is time sensitive too.

In the past a commercial flight could/would have landed at Willow Run
(further west of Detroit) in Van Buren Township or the airport *in*
Detroit but not in Romulus.

The question did not specify any specific airport, it only specified if
one flies south from the 'Detroit' airport. There is only one Detroit
airport.

You're absolutely right, and it's [currently] in the suburb of Romulus. I
can't speak to where it might have been at some other point in time.

Ken's question might have been better phrased if he had omitted the word
airport and simply said, when flying due south from Detroit. Obviously, the
answer he was looking for was Canada, but just as obviously the Detroit
airport doesn't lie north of Canada. Still, it was a good exercise.

--

Char Jackson

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 09:23:06 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:


Ken's question might have been better phrased if he had omitted the word
airport and simply said, when flying due south from Detroit.



Yes, I agree.

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:04:31 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

I guess you don't travel much and probably haven't
noticed that most major airports aren't inside the city limits.


Well. that's perhaps true of *many* major airports. But there are lots
of counterexamples, such as New York City which has two major
airports, JFK and La Guardia, and both of them *are* within the city
limits.

Other examples: Amsterdam, Madrid, Lisbon, Philadelphia, Miami,
Boston, Denver, Chicago O'Hare, Chicago Midway, Heathrow, LAX, San
Diego, Nice, Buenos Aires Aeroparque. I *think* those are all within
city limits.

With a little more research I could find other example, but I'm too
lazy to keep looking.

Mark Lloyd wrote:


Which US state is the easternmost?

Alaska, because it extends across the 180th meridian (but *not* across
the International Date Line, which zig-zags around the tip of the
Aleutian islands). It's also the Northernmost and Westernmost.

--
Tim Slattery
tim at risingdove dot com

On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 19:42:31 +0000 (UTC), "Beauregard T. Shagnasty"
wrote:

Ken Blake wrote:

s I said, reread what I wrote. You've clearly misunderstood it.

One mile due south, one mile due east, one mile due north (your original
post) cannot be done in the neighborhood of the South Pole.

And that's my final word on the subject.

Which, of course, does not mean that you are correct. And in
fact, you are wrong.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

On 06/10/2015 07:19 PM, Doug Chadduck wrote:
On 6/9/2015 7:17 AM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 06/08/2015 10:10 AM, Char Jackson wrote:

[snip]

Those were some of his questions that have stuck with me. Good times.

one I remember:

If a doctor gives you a bottle of 3 pills then tells you to take one now
and then 1 each hour, how long do they last?

The answer the teacher wanted was 2 hours.

If you have to take a second pill after one hour and a third pill an
hour later it means that each pill only lasts for one hour. Would not
the answer then be 3 hours?

That was my answer. That teacher called it wrong.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human
welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature." [Harriet
Martineau]

On 06/11/2015 11:48 AM, Tim Slattery wrote:
Mark Lloyd wrote:


Which US state is the easternmost?

Alaska, because it extends across the 180th meridian (but *not* across
the International Date Line, which zig-zags around the tip of the
Aleutian islands). It's also the Northernmost and Westernmost.


Right.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human
welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature." [Harriet
Martineau]

On 06/10/2015 02:42 PM, Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:

s I said, reread what I wrote. You've clearly misunderstood it.

One mile due south, one mile due east, one mile due north (your original
post) cannot be done in the neighborhood of the South Pole.

And that's my final word on the subject.


The length (in miles) of "a line of latitude" varies, with maximum at
the equator and zero at the poles. At one point a little north of the
south pole, it is exactly one mile. Anywhere on that line, you could
walk one mile east (or west) and have walked all the way around the
Earth, ending where you started.

Some people are better at imagination that others, but I have no problem
imagining setting a ring down on a ball. The ball is Earth and the ring
has a CIRCUMFERENCE of 1 mile. It is placed on the Earth so that the
south pole is in its center. I now mark a spot 1 mile north of this ring
"start here".

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human
welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature." [Harriet
Martineau]

On 06/10/2015 02:47 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 14:33:10 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:



How about starting 1 mile north of the south pole?


Not possible. If you did that, after walking one mile south, you would
be at the south pole, and it's not possible to walk east from there.


Logically, you can. It's just turning around 360 degrees.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human
welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature." [Harriet
Martineau]

On 06/10/2015 09:16 PM, Doug Chadduck wrote:

[snip]

Hey, don't break the box! It makes a mess of people's minds.

Hah!

But so much fun when one can pull it off.

Grin

Maybe whoever made up that test was thinking of the common "fence post"
errors. The way I heard that was you're putting up a 100-foot fence with
a post every 10 feet. How many posts do you need?

The simple (and wrong) answer is 10. Get 10 and you'll have no post to
support the end of that last section.

I see a lot of those 1-off errors. For example, consider a 40-pound sack
of concrete. And somebody tells you a 80-pound sack holds 2 times more.
WRONG. 2 times more is 120 pounds (more is additional).

40-pound sack
2 times that is 80 pounds
2 times more is 40 pounds plus (2 times 40 pounds) = 120 pounds.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human
welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature." [Harriet
Martineau]

On 06/11/2015 12:54 AM, Char Jackson wrote:

[snip]

Take the first one at noon, the second one at 1PM, and the last one at 2PM.
The pills are all gone after two hours.

Or course you still have the effect of the last pill. That's a long way
from "all gone". If it was, you could have flushed that last pill with
the same effect.

As time references, they could be considered T0, T1, and T2.


and T3, when the last pill wears off.

BTW, 4 times, an hour apart, which define a period of 3 hours.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human
welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature." [Harriet
Martineau]

On 06/11/2015 09:23 AM, Char Jackson wrote:

[snip]

Ken's question might have been better phrased if he had omitted the word
airport and simply said, when flying due south from Detroit. Obviously, the
answer he was looking for was Canada, but just as obviously the Detroit
airport doesn't lie north of Canada. Still, it was a good exercise.


I remember a story that took place in Sudbury, Ontario. They found it
interesting that this is farther south than some parts of Washington State.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human
welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature." [Harriet
Martineau]

On 06/11/2015 11:51 AM, Stormin' Norman wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:48:45 -0400, Tim Slattery
wrote:

Mark Lloyd wrote:


Which US state is the easternmost?

Alaska, because it extends across the 180th meridian (but *not* across
the International Date Line, which zig-zags around the tip of the
Aleutian islands). It's also the Northernmost and Westernmost.


Yup......


There's another strange one I heard once. This takes 6 identical sticks
(perhaps you could imagine them). I'm thinking of toothpicks...

Take 3 of the sticks and arrange them as a triangle.

Take 2 of the sticks and add them to the previous arrangement to make 2
triangles (one side is shared).

Take the last stick and add it to the above to make 4 triangles. You are
not allowed to cut, bend, or stretch any stick.

The solution is easy but some people find it impossible.

There's also "if 1 and a half chickens lay 1 and a half eggs in 1 and a
half days, how many eggs will 9 chickens lay in 9 days?"


--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is my deliberate opinion that the one essential requisite of human
welfare in all ways is scientific knowledge of human nature." [Harriet
Martineau]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:48:45 -0400, Tim Slattery
wrote:

Mark Lloyd wrote:


Which US state is the easternmost?

Alaska, because it extends across the 180th meridian


Yes, that's the standard answer, but it's one that I disagree with. As
far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as easternmost (or
westernmost). There is a northernmost and a southernmost, because the
north and south poles mark the northernmost and southernmost points on
the earth. But there is no east pole or west pole and you can keep
going east or west forever.

Treating the 180th meridian as if it were a pole is completely
arbitrary and makes no sense to me.

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:21:31 -0500, Mark Lloyd
wrote:

On 06/10/2015 02:42 PM, Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:

s I said, reread what I wrote. You've clearly misunderstood it.

One mile due south, one mile due east, one mile due north (your original
post) cannot be done in the neighborhood of the South Pole.

And that's my final word on the subject.


The length (in miles) of "a line of latitude" varies, with maximum at
the equator and zero at the poles. At one point a little north of the
south pole, it is exactly one mile. Anywhere on that line, you could
walk one mile east (or west) and have walked all the way around the
Earth, ending where you started.

Some people are better at imagination that others, but I have no problem
imagining setting a ring down on a ball. The ball is Earth and the ring
has a CIRCUMFERENCE of 1 mile. It is placed on the Earth so that the
south pole is in its center. I now mark a spot 1 mile north of this ring
"start here".


Well put! Thanks.

And don't forget that it also works if the ring is half a mile in
diameter, 1.3 of a mile in diameter, 1.4 of a mile in diameter, and so
on. You simply have to walk around the ring 2, 3, 4, or so on times.
There are an infinite number of rings and an infinite number of point
one mile north of any point on any of the rings.