10/06/2006 Entry: "lots of stuff"

Quick update first: I did my first oregon juggling show last weekend. Another fellow and I are starting a performance group. I unicycled down a huge trail with watefalls this weekend as well. Pictures to come eventually.

Now, the meat:

For the Linquists:
The Writer of Dilbert overcomes a stuttering related disability by rhyming. For those of you who don't stutter, the blocks he describes that prevented him from speaking entirely sound very similar to the blocks that prevent me from saying certain words. This shit has to be related. Annoyingly, no one knows why people stutter*, nor do they know what causes this guys disability. It's still an interesting read.

*(Technically they know what causes blocks, but not what causes the repetition that eventually causes the blocks.)

For you Physicists (and anyone else with have a brain:

I present to you a "brain teaser" that has me questioning the quality of education received by people at ISU. Several Aero-E's, Comp-E's, and general whatever E's got this shit wrong on Strangetalk. I don't understand how an engineer could get this wrong. I can, maybe, understand how an normal person would, but after it's explained to them they better slap their head and go "duh!" However, even with that happening people still argued the wrong answer. *sigh* I'll post the thread after you all try to answer the question. Don't worry, if you get it wrong I won't think you are stupid. It's ok to get it wrong... A long as you accept the correct answer that I give you later. Post your answers in the comments if you want to play along.

A plane is standing on runway that can move (some sort of conveyor belt.) The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyor moves in the opposite direction. This conveyor has a control system that instantly tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyor to be exactly the same (but in opposite direction).

The question is:

Will the plane take off or not? Will it accelerate and take off?

Please comment/answer.