Recent Comments

1. 9 days ago on Baby Blues

   Hammie, two pieces of advice:

   1) You can get better angle control using the thin pieces instead of only the thick. You can also use the slanted roof pieces.

   2) IGNORE the “professional” Lego builders! Stagger the layers EVERYWHERE. This gets you strength instead of quick building. (This is where the Myth Busters went wrong with Lego.)

2. 19 days ago on Luann

   I think what we are seeing here is a difference between germanic and romance words.

   English is actually a real screwed up language. It started out as germanic. Then the Romans invaded. The the Norse invaded. Then the French invaded. Then it drifted a lot. So it winds up being a creole of a creole of a creole, and has many weird features. For instance, “cow” is germanic while “beef” is romance — most languages use the same word for the animal and its meat (like English does for “chicken” …. though “poultry”?).

   The fact that we changed the pronunciations after setting the spelling doesn’t help.

   The fact that the French invaders didn’t have three English letters and misread “Þe” (“the”) as “ye” doesn’t help.

   The fact that we lost the second person singular almost completely doesn’t help (thee, thou, thine, etc; and irregular verb forms). (I suspect French influence, but it could have gone the other way for all I know.)

   So, as people have pointed out, the -ist form relates to Italian (a romance language). The -er form appears to be on germanic words.

3. 19 days ago on Close to Home

   Not really. Sisyphus routinely loses the rock and has it roll back down. The “buddy” could just drop it without causing much damage. What Sisyphus could really use is help preventing the rock slipping, which would (presumably) end his curse.

4. 19 days ago on Close to Home

   Interesting identities.

   We see here Sisyphus visiting a portapotty with the “Pleiad” name. Wikipedia points “Pleiad” to “Pleiades”, and shows that Merope, the youngest of the Pleiades, bore Sisyphus several sons.

5. about 1 month ago on Adam@Home

   Do you suppose Clayton’s “work” will actually be published? I for one would like to read it!

6. about 1 month ago on Frank and Ernest

   And of course, his angles are all above 40 degrees….

7. about 1 month ago on Frank and Ernest

   more like 34.4499

   OK, more like 34.4499019879534898405289798263…

   But you are right: So what?

8. about 1 month ago on Frank and Ernest

   2 × √2 ÷ 5

   two square root of two over five.

   You forgot the eight-tenths.

   If he and your figure had been right, he would be isosceles right.

9. about 1 month ago on Frank and Ernest

   Slightly, yes. I measure him at 90.27 degrees.

   (Oh the problems with letting your art be digitized!)

10. about 1 month ago on Luann

    Minimal research (only the bracketed items). Just schoolwork and various reading over the years. :-)