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2006-10-23
Italian gift to Pope may renew Muslim ireUS envoy in Hong Kong for NKorea bank talksNATO troops kills 15 Taliban, 32 killed in factional fightingMirza Aslam Beg: Paks protecting Talib 'assets'Arab countries step up mediation for PAOne boy dead, two wounded in grenade blast in ChechnyaNATO troops kills 15 Taliban, 32 killed in factional fightingFrench police face 'permanent intifada'
Posted by:Fred

#17  So sorry, but 'midst all them spinning plates, I could swear I thought I read a story about Kevin Tillman, and it's gone now after a re-boot.

Just like to say that he would have taken the $3 Mill contract, unlike his bro. God bless.
Posted by: rhodesiafever   2006-10-23 15:14  

#16  As well it should do! It's through the application of esoteric scientific principles to the mundane that critical insights can be achieved. Robert Feynman spoke of achieving one such key insight while watching a juggler spinning plates on sticks.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-10-23 12:34  

#15  It's a topic that has inspired a great DEAL of ... um, scientific ... exploration, to be sure.
Posted by: lotp   2006-10-23 11:11  

#14  Yes, got the original earlier in life, but thought the AJP might have new data that I had not been able to ascertain during my empirical investigations.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-10-23 11:08  

#13  Another one of the chapters in the book that reprinted Siem's Stress Analysis is this poem by John Updike, which I rather like:

Cosmic Gall

NEUTRINOS, they are very small.
They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
To them, through which they simply pass,
Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
Or photons through a sheet of glass.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
Cold shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
And scorning barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me! Like tall
and painless guillotines, they fall
Down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
and pierce the lover and his lass
From underneath the bed-you call
It wonderful; I call it crass.
Posted by: lotp   2006-10-23 11:06  

#12  NS, you can see the original article with drawings, right?

Here's some of the review:

The joke ... is to use formal scientific language on incongruous subject matter. Engineer Siem approaches this task with considerable good humor ... "Figure 2 shows one of these cantilever beams [ed - a breast] (minus any aesthetical details) removed as a free body (and indeed, many such beams can be, in reality, removed as free bodies; e.g., certain artifacts). " and so forth.

The structure [ed - of the paper] is actually similar to that of most scientific papers .....


BTW, Siem was a well-known civil engineer responsible for some major bridges IIRC. Which makes the paper funny to those in the know.
Posted by: lotp   2006-10-23 11:02  

#11  lotp, link password protected for the intelligentia and revenue generation. Any relevant bits or diagrams you can post under fair use?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-10-23 10:45  

#10  Reference: A Stress Analysis of the Strapless Evening Gown, Charles Siem.

Orig. pub. Worm-Runners Digest, 1959 (?).

Reviewed in the American Journal of Physics, September 1969 -- Volume 37, Issue 9, pp. 944-945
Posted by: lotp   2006-10-23 10:09  

#9  Play ball!
Posted by: Mike   2006-10-23 10:04  

#8  Humor note, Greta what's holding the left one up? :)

I'm told by engineers that cantilevers can hold massive amounts of weight.
Posted by: mcsegeek1   2006-10-23 10:01  

#7  Humor note, Greta what's holding the left one up? :)
Posted by: Icerigger   2006-10-23 09:27  

#6  I've never seen a woman play vollyball wearing class A makeup and an evening dress.

OK. Now I'm officially turned on.

Posted by: mhw   2006-10-23 08:52  

#5  Del Monte.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-10-23 08:51  

#4  Wilson!
Posted by: Frank G   2006-10-23 07:54  

#3  ima game!
Posted by: RD   2006-10-23 04:50  

#2  Get in line Zenster!
Posted by: elbud   2006-10-23 04:07  

#1  If she's ready for a header, so am I!
Posted by: Zenster   2006-10-23 02:26  

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