Seemingly trivial things that intrigue you
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I went into Decathlon yesterday for look around and maybe buy a jersey. I was really surprised at the much reduced display of bikes, mainly e bikes and the only road bikes being entry level ones. Have they sold all the Van Rysel ones already? Doesn't seem to reflect their sponsored team successes and new bike development!
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Store specific. Just as an example - https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/road-bike-rcr-pro-ultegra-di2-power-sensor-abysse-green/_/R-p-352869?mc=8872069
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
I must admit, even for conspiracy theorists, the idea that nurses should be put on trial for what they did in the pandemic, is off-the-scale batshit. I really don't know how you deal with this degree of disconnection from, well, anything.
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Batshit crazy.
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Neil Oliver has mutated into a total d1ckhead, which is why he got kicked out of his NTS chair role. Oh sorry, he 'stood down'.
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Genuinely don't know how you start to de-programme someone that far gone. I suppose Icke is another example...
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On a completely different note, why the 9, o, L and full-stop keys (only) have started to play up on my laptop keyboard... sometimes fine, sometimes responding to a bit of extra pressure, and then completely nada. Any hexperts out there with any ideas to troubleshoot? Have tried hoovering the keyboard a few times to remove toast crumbs...
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Pop the key off and clean it.
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I've done that in the past, but this is a bit odder, doing four in a line sporadically and to the same degree all at once ... was wondering if that pointed to something other than a rogue crumb, such as a common connection for the four keys that might be playing up.
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Ah, seems that those keys (and F8) are on the same circuit... found this comment:
"I have same issue with my DELL lattitute 3510. Keys F8,9,O,L and . Wasn't working. Opened the laptop. Disconnected the battery cable. Removed Keyboard Flex from terminal. Found that keyboard flex cable terminal were blackish, rubbed it a bit. Cleaned, and firmly refixed. It worked and all 5 non functioning keys are working now since last 1 month."
If I can't find a Youtube video on opening up my specific laptop, it'll probably have to be a trip to the repair shop I used for the processor fan.
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Update - took it to a local repairer with a good reputation (not the one I used previously)... he's cleaned the cable and contacts and it's slightly better. (He didn't charge me anything - cheering me up.) Bad news is that it would cost about £150 to replace the keyboard, and it's just not worth it, so I've ordered a bluetooth keyboard, and a new basic laptop: this one plus b/tooth keyboard will then go to France (my one down there is getting very long in the tooth), and then the new one will stay here, hopefully picking up the 150Mb/s wifi, which this one, for whatever reason, won't hold onto (several solutions tried).
At east these days with most stuff being in the cloud, setting up a new laptop with all you need is a doddle.
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Here’s a puzzle that has literally kept me awake at night trying to work out as I lie in bed over the past couple of nights and I was wondering if there’s anyone here with a mathematical mind that can help me solve it.
There is a pub game that is very localized to our area that we call “skittles”. Discs of wood (“cheeses”) are thrown at 9 “pins” placed in a diamond shape on a table – so, think 10 pin bowling but with 9 rather than ten pins.
A player throws three cheeses each time they have a go so, minimum score is zero (if all three cheeses miss) and maximum score is 27 (i.e. all 9 pins knocked down with every throw as three cheeses are always thrown - if the 9 pins are all knocked over with one or two cheeses, all nine are stood up again until three cheeses are thrown so it is possible to score 10, 11, 12 etc all the way up to 27)
I am trying to work out how many possible combinations there are after one cheese is thrown.
There is one way there can be 9 left standing (a miss), one way there can be none left standing (i.e. knock them all down with one throw). Then we can have 9 ways that 8 can be left standing (so, any one of the nine in each designated position being knocked over) and 9 ways in which there can be one left standing (i.e. one left on any of the 9 designated positions) – that’s 20 combinations so far for 9, 1, none or 8 (I think!).
There must be the same number of ways to leave 8 as there are to leave 1 (either one “up” or “down” in each of the positions) and it must follow that 7 and 2, 6 and 3, 5 and 4 have the same number of combinations. (it probably helps that I can visualise this!)
How many ways can there be of 9, 8, 7, 6 , 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0 standing and how many possible combinations are there from 0 to 9 in total?
Try as I might I cannot work out the “formula” for this.
It is truly trivial and does intrigue me.
Please show workings!
Wilier Izoard XP0 -
I think you want sum from k=0 to 9 of 9Ck
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isnt it just like flipping 9 coins, each pin can either be stood up or knocked down so 9 pins with 2 possible states:
2 ^9=512
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More elegant than mine, but the same answer.
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I don't think i have ever been described as elegant 😄
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Why do people hold phones in front of them screen up and on speaker. Then lean down to their hand to speak and hear?
I think there is space in the market for a handset that is shaped like this, to help guide people:
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So, 512?
@bigbean is the table you posted above, from the formula you posted above that?
@monkimark - that's a great way of approaching it!
If this is right (and we seem to have arrived at the same number through two different methods so it may well be), you've made me surprisingly happy!
Thanks.
Can anyone else suggest a formula that arrives at the same (or different!) figure?
Wilier Izoard XP0 -
Just feel like shouting at these people, but prevented by excessive Englishness.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
monkimark posted the elegant solution that could have been calculated lying in bed.
My post is based on the formula I posted. You could probably do this with pen and paper, but I did it in Excel.
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Protects against the 5G brain control waves.
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I think it's to keep the screen clear of face and ear grease. Phone screens are the most unhygienic of places. I wonder what cultures would grow if they swabbed an average screen? Its pretty bleugh!
Sometimes. Maybe. Possibly.
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Assuming you're using your own phone then it's all stuff you're already in contact with.
Agree with the above, it's very (trivially) annoying but I suspect it's yet another thing that means we're showing our ages!
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I thought it was to alert others what kind of person you are, like private plates spaced to read something else, A TW4T for example
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Thanks - I'm not so sure about me calculating it lying in bed! Although (as my maths is somewhat challenged by this, I'd be interested to know how you did it in Excel
Wilier Izoard XP0 -
It's usually combined with talking with your hand shielding your mouth which is also annoying. Did it originate in South East Asia? I'm pretty sure the first people I saw doing it were Chinese students.
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Thanks - I'm not so sure about me calculating it
Wilier Izoard XP0 -
In terms of calculating it in bed, it is just rolling through the size of SD cards or any other computing thing 2, 4, 8, 16...128, 256, 512.
See below for Excel. Two ways. I used FACT which calculates the factorial, but there is an inbuilt function as well (COMBIN). It's not the easiest one to find as CHOOSE is another unrelated function.
Also as a wholly unsolicited bit of advice for the under 30s learning Excel skills (so no one reading this), it's always better to be able to calculate things from first principles rather than using an inbuilt formula.
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Aaaargh, yes, a work colleague does this, and it's just weird. I think it must have been a bit of pandemic advice if one didn't have a facemask, but since I think the science is now pretty settled on covid not being carried in droplets, it's not going to make the slightest bit of difference.
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Thanks BB
Wilier Izoard XP0
