Easy Questions?

[pieces o nine]

One of my friends (a tenured university professor, FWIW) experienced a series of psychotic breaks requiring ... mmm ... "voluntary" committals for undetermined amounts of time after each episode.

I was quite horrified to visit her on one of her "healed" trips home to find her trying to cut a a tiny, roundish anti-psychotic pill in half with a large, sharp knife, in order to follow dosage instructions. Oh yeah, she did that every time, no big deal to her...

[Griffin NoName]

What's the Latin for Monseigneur ?

[Swatopluk]

Literally: dominus meus (=my lord/master)
The vocative form of this is mi domine
It's not actually a title (as doctor,professor etc.) but a form of address (like mister)

[beagle]

What's the Latin for Monseigneur ?

There you are, told you he'd know. If offering E the Monseigneur title doesn't do the trick you could consider offering him Droit de Seigneur instead.

[Griffin NoName]

That had occured to me. I have a simple mind.

Thanks Swato.

[beagle]

Well, if you can't keep these old traditions going in a monastery, where can you?

[Swatopluk]

That droit needs a lot of excercise. Better stay with pets that do not require it (unless you need a diet of course)

[Swatopluk]

I just encountered a math/geometry riddle I have not yet found the solution to:

A picture is to be hung on the wall (with the usual string method). For safety reasons there are two nails not just one.
But a malicious trickster draws the string in a way that the removal of any of the two nails will make the picture fall down.
How did he do it?

I only find solutions where the removal of one of the nails causes the effect but the removal of the other does not.

[beagle]

Hint:  van Kampen's theorem.

Bigger hint 



Next question. How many mathematicians does it take to f*** up hanging a picture?

[Swatopluk]

Thank you.
And the answer to your question is 'zero'.
It does not take a mathematician to f*** it up 

[beagle]

Can't take much credit I'm afraid. You would have waited a very very long time for me to have come up with the proof after 30 years gap from even elementary topology, but I could  remember the right mathematical hammer to use for these particular nails and Messieurs Google and Live Search took over from then.

[Griffin NoName]

I trust the author of the solution got the Mrs Joyful Prize for Raffia Work based on page 14 onwards

[beagle]

I'm sure there are prizes for a good knowledge of ropes and knots; probably not awarded by St Custard's School though.

[Griffin NoName]

This calls itself a Professional Series Flat Panel Workstation - which isn't what I'd call it personally given my brain confuses that with some odd version of Windows NT etc. LOL!

It is utterly totally the thing I need (for a different purpose) but it is just a few cms too wide for what I would need to sit it on, which is not a desk.

Having eliminated all similar products (and therefore "descriptions") by googling - riser, stand, monitor, printer, CRT, raiser, desk, shelf, free standing, plinth, bridge, platform, over, under, wood, acrylic, ergonomic +++++ etc etc - and not finding anything that remotely resembles it - at least in it's full glory, the easy question is:

What this looks like to me is a mini-coffee table. However, one would not want expect the world to call this a mini-coffee table as people would not think of having mini-coffee tables on top of their their desks (although I think it is a good idea).

So what is a proper name for it?

sorry, only vaguely science related

[Gloria The Camel]

Computer table/stand?


I was too lazy to read all 16 pages, but the first easy question made me want to ask: Why do things get smaller when they get further away?