ndaad

-Philippians 2:14 quote: "Do everything without complaining or arguing."-

Well, due to having roughly 4 hours of sleep last night, I don't recall any dreams. Although I did have the interesting dream this week of being in Zambia watching France host the Olympics. And actually doing an excellent job of it. Even though: since when was Zambia a colony of France?

Anyway, yes. I had 4 hours of sleep last night, which for me is unusual. It was one of those, oh, here's a bunch of friends and also a lot more very vague / completely unknown acquaintances / friends of friends and let's gather in a large amorphous group and talk for a while. A very LONG while. A long while during which the giddiness threshold was significantly lowered, as was the general content of the conversation.

On the other hand, the levels of fun steadily increased. Which is pretty amazing considering that by the end we were kind of jumping over walls and twiddling with our phones en masse and drawing lambdas (λ) to see who could draw the nicest-looking one.

Oh dear, I nearly forgot the glow sticks. Those were subjected to steady cap removal and replacement, due to the satisfying popping sound associated with the maneuver.

Reality check. Late fur.

jjjj mq jj

-Indignant quote: "I didn't hear that." (referring to someone who told him that he shouldn't smoke)-

Well, I had a dream last night involving anxiety about my Venus' Flytraps, which are currently being cared for by someone else. Other dreams this week involve one about playing a computer game that for some inscrutable reason was controlled from inside a shower, and another one about working through a physics problem in college, needing a friend to explain it to me, and realizing I'd have to pull out the quadratic formula.

I know there are probably many better tutorials out there on how to operate a slide rule, but I feel like showing off the beautiful slide rule I have... so I will write my own.

How to Do Simple Multiplication on a Slide Rule

1. Get a slide rule. This one's mine, given to me by a slightly older relative.


2. Look for the number "1" near the left end of the "C" scale (here it's at the bottom of the middle rule) and the corresponding "1" on the "D" scale (which is probably right underneath C... if it's not, you may want to pull out and flip over the middle rule until it is) -- in this case I was too lazy to line them up nicely for the picture, but it doesn't really matter at this point. Occasionally, if the numbers you're multiplying are larger, you'll use the 1 on the other end of the C scale, but for now, we'll assume that the 1 on the left of the C scale is your index.


3. Line up the index with the number on the D scale that you want to multiply by. Here, I lined it up with 2.


4. Now, look back up at the C scale to find the other number you want to multiply. I picked 2 again. Take the big clear plastic thing and line up the red hairline with 2 on the C scale. As you can see, if you now look at the D scale right on the hairline, it shows 4, which is 2x2.


4. Suppose you want to multiply the number you got (4) with something else. Easy; just move the index so it lines up with the hairline. You can see that now everything on the C scale is multiplied by 4 on the D scale; for instance 1.5x4=6 (or 15x4=60). Do remember, by the way, that on slide rules, you MUST be careful to keep track of where your decimal point is; this is especially important when using the index on the right side of the rule. This is why it's always essential to do a test calculation by hand as well to make sure that your answer is a reasonable magnitude of 10.


Slide rules generally have many other functions as well, such as logarithms and trig functions, but I still find multiplication to be the most surprising and "magical"... that you can just line up the numbers and it all comes out just like that.

Incidentally, if you want to MAKE a simple slide rule, measure the length of rule you want to make, subtract a small buffer space on each end, and call it R. Then, the spacing on the slide rule of each number (n) is given by R*log(n) for both the C and D rules. Again, remember to include buffer space before the left index and after the right index, and remember that the more decimal ticks you include in between the numbers, the more precise the instrument will be. Line these rules up, smack on a hairline -- folded-up scotch tape with a pen line down the middle works -- and you have a slide rule that can do multiplication and division.

Oh, division? You do that by finding the thing you want to divide (the dividend) on the D rule, then lining it up with the divisor (the thing you're dividing it by) on the C rule. Your index will be pointing at the quotient... remember to check both the left and right indexes because sometimes the division will go off one side.

Reality check. If you suddenly feel an urgent need to buy a pocket protector, you may be taking this a bit far.

jftqa

-Random quote: "Delta b over delta t"-

I'm sort of sick today, so my dream last night actually involved some sort of enormous matrix of... nose discharge. Not sure how much of that was just feeling it all over my face (which was disgusting).

So yes, I'm sick -- behold my short attempt at a post. The advantage is that about half the people I meet every day are sick too, so everything goes at a nice, slow pace and I don't have to worry about breathing on them. We can just talk as much as we want, not caring how many germs we spew onto each other.

Related fun fact: unless someone has sneezed or coughed into their hand, it's very unlikely that you'll get what they have by shaking their hand. Germs don't cross the skin barrier very well at all.

Reality check. Which is probably why we have skin to begin with.

ndq

-Mystcommunity quote: "Um... depends on what you're asking. Everyone will be called by their screen names, as if it was their real name. If the screen name affects how they act, it will change things (like, for some reason, I like Riven more now then before I took the name Gehn, lord of ages). Avatars... I don't know."-

I don't remember my dream from last night, although I did have a couple interesting dreams throughout the week. To sum them up in snatches: a giant, unpredictable crayfish becomes part of my party, I check dollar-store items for... some quality... by marking them, a very old cat is curled up underneath the table, and I travel by bus to some sort of mission control room, getting into my pajamas since I don't have a jumpsuit. Oh, and apparently water works just fine if you drink about 3/4 of a bottle right before conking out.

So, I went to my first SCA fencing practice this week. It was every bit as fun as I expected, and more. The main instruction comes from a bear of a man named Tristan (modern day name unknown), who acts and talks pretty much exactly how you would expect a warrior-trainer from a fantasy novel to be (outside of a few little housekeeping comments like legal waivers that are more century-specific). It is so, so funny. The society requires that new fighters (like me) fight experienced ones for at least the first 6 months, so that we can gain discipline and not learn any bad habits. And also, not kill our opponent by using too much force with not enough knowledge.

You see, the great thing about SCA fencing is that the weapons are real -- what I mean by that is, they're tipped to a point that will run you through, even with armor. Now, the tip is bent back and taped, but if the weapon comes untaped or breaks, you MUST call a hold to fighting. Holds are also called whenever a random group of embarrassed-looking people happens to wander through the fighting. I have to wonder what they're thinking as they file quickly through this crowd of medievally-garbed fighters who are temporarily all holding their swords down and still.

Yes, we get to fence at every practice. The old hands kindly fight at about a tenth of their full potential to give me time to learn the moves properly -- basically the thrust, the advance, the retreat, and 4 parries suited to different attacks. I am so uncoordinated during drills, but I think I do a little better when all that matters is a reflex based on the drills -- I'm kind of short compared to most of the other people (except for one or two woman fighters), so I do have an advantage when it comes to fast attacks and changes of direction. Probably my angle of attack is different too.

Reality check. I'm kind of interested in how long it will take me to dream about fencing.