That’s the first one I thought of.
My father claimed that when he went to Sydney University (1940-2 I believe) there was a student there who was supported by a rich uncle as long as he studied; he was on his 3rd or 4th degree by that time.
““Measure zero times, cut zero times.” --carpenter who has achieved enlightenment and realized the wood is fine where it is”
The upper-right of the graph is pretty bare; isn’t there anything you’d want to measure a lot AND cut a lot?
Hair?
Well played!
Also movies.
Salami.
Penises.
Judging by the guy that lives down the street from me… grass.
So, today, I was talking with my mom about the classic “Time”. I told her that it started with a couple playing in the sand on a beach, but that there were clues in the stars visible that it took place about ten thousand years in the future. Her first reaction? “Why, over that timescale, even the oceans would be different!”
She has some really amazing intuition, sometimes.
n.m.××××
But in what way was she thinking the oceans would be different? Sure the shape of the oceans would have changed due to continental drift, but that’s not apparent to someone on a beach. Unless it’s massively more polluted, I’m not sure any change in the ocean would be obvious in such a scene.
The fastest moving areas of the current plates move ~50 feet per century. In 10,000 years they ought to have moved about a mile. So no huge discernable changes when viewed from the air or from space. Measurable changes, sure. But not visually obvious ones.
To me, the big change in the oceans in 10,000 years will be a different sea level. And what that implies for where the shoreline is found.
I’m not sure what the timeline is for the production of sandy beaches, but I suspect a world with e.g. 100m higher seas everywhere will have a lot more shoreline of mud & swamp & cliff, and rather little sand. Over time that will change as sand forms and moves onto the new shorelines. But IMO that’ll take a lot longer than 10K years to have much effect. And if sea level is still rising at an appreciable rate, sand accretion won’t be keeping up, much less gaining on the rise.
Funnily enough, 10000 years is about the timeline for the disappearance of Doggerland, which connected the UK to Europe.
It won’t take long for the higher-energy coasts to turn sandy. Because much of the sand is usually already there, as a component of the soil in the now-inundated land - it’s more a matter of carrying off the clay and silt. No need to wait for new sand to form.
“The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine or Home Improvement or DIY”
Reminds me of a home-decor tip I once read in the New York Times: “No one who didn’t get a perfect score on their SATs should attempt to make the patterns line up on a pair of curtains.”
I had an interesting “life imitates xkcd art” moment yesterday.
My snail mail contained a solicitation for a pre-approved Discover card. How nice. Despite me being on the “Don’t send me unsolicited CC offers” opt-out site, I get one from them every ~3 weeks. Which get trashed unopened; I need a Discover card like I need a hole in my head.
For whatever random reason this time I opened it up to see the deal on offer. Standard credit card come-on yakkity yak. At the bottom was "Apply now! Scan this QR code: [QR code]. And then the kicker.
You can also apply by hitting a website or calling a toll free number. And then entering your secret password printed on the form. Which was in the form of “correct horse battery staple”. That is, four ordinary English vocabulary words. Mine was three nouns and an adjective.
Now that I know that anyone finding one of those solicitations can open credit in my name using the info pre-printed on the form, I’ll run them through my shredder, not just dump them in the trash.
But it was fun to see “correct horse battery staple” in the wild.
Anybody else recall ever seeing that used IRL?