Gemini* and Gopher

• Personal/Opinions

  • Deadly depths

    A moment of silence. A moment to hear my own thoughts.

    I am standing on a frozen lake. In front of me is a flat, white expanse. Beneath me is twenty centimeters of ice, and beneath that, many meters of icy water. My mind tells me that I am safe, that even a truck could drive on ice this thick. However, I do not feel safe, and that is why I do not stray far from the pier. The lake speaks. It suddenly growls at me and hoots with laughter as it senses that I retreat, frightened. I did not expect any sounds, especially not ones that resemble the sound of breaking ice combined with thunder, the roar of a waterfall, and giant air bubbles rolling in the depths. After a while, I realize that these sounds occur regardless of whether I am standing on the ice or not. However, I am relieved to set my feet back on solid ground.

• Politics and World Events

  • visiting the us

    Have I mentioned I hate visiting the US? I feel dirty. I get sick. The amount of hostility you face entering the country is extreme, and they all seem ignorant of it.

• Science

  • Slide Rules: Ratios, Square Scales, Power

    This got me wondering what would be the simplest way to do this using a slide rule. Ratio problems are simple, but we have the square function as well to deal with. My first though was to look for an A scale. My Pickett N-16-ES does not have one. The next slide rule I pulled out, the POST VERSALOG, does not have an A scale, but it does have R₁ and R₂ scales. The idea is similar to an A scale, except instead of having two normal log scales squeezed into one scale, you have half of one normal log scale taking up the full length of R₁, and the other half on R₂.