Random Thoughts

[jvcc]

I was wondering, why is it that when you remember something embarrassing you did you feel embarrassed or ashamed again? The magnitude of the emotion that one feels while mentally revisiting the incident isn't comparable, in my opinion, to what one feels when remembering an incident that was other than embarrassing. When I remember times when I was happy, I might feel nice but I don't relive that happiness in full force. Is this a fair assessment of human emotional experiences, and, if so, does anyone know why this might be?

[Skimba]

Yes. Nope.

[James]

I'm periodically tormented by particular past blunders and follies, and I really hate it. As for why we feel it more than happy memories, I have two immediate guesses. Perhaps it's because embarrassing events tend to be embarrassing because of something about yourself: you might have done something foolish, or or had something you feel sensitive about exposed. The source of the positive feeling in a happy event, on the other hand, has a higher chance to be external, and therefore no longer present. If this is true, it would mean that proud memories retain their impact a little better than other happy memories, as they relate more to you as a person, and therefore are more relevant in the present.

The other theory is that a carrot is not as effective a learning tool as a stick.

I think there was something about the brain chemistry of the latter in an episode of Philosophy Bites a few weeks ago. I don't remember precisely which, unfortunately. It may have been the episode onmoral luck.

[ntw3001]

So: Happy memories are caused by good events, which are like grapes, quickly and furiously devoured, losst down time's endless gullet (I am eating grapes), whereas embarrassing events are caused by one's own failures, constant and inescapable, a bitter reminder that one is too foolish and broken ever to be loved (I am eating grapes).

[jvcc]

I'm glad you were eating grapes, Enty. You can never remind us of it enough. I even want an embarrassing moment to coincide with my discovery of your eating grapes so that years from now I will be able to relive the event more fully. Alas, it is only a happy event, so in the future I will remember it in essence but not in entirety.

[ntw3001]

so you're saying I should keep eating grapes forever?

[EvilJekyll]

Enjoy the fleeting happiness that grapes give you, but beware all the embarrassment the stems will remind you of. Forever.

[jvcc]

Grapes THROUGH TIME.

[sum yun gai]

so you're saying I should keep eating grapes forever?

just stay away from the sour kind and you should be ok

[EvilJekyll]

rapes THROUGH TIME.

Iamaterribleperson.

[jvcc]

The worst kind of rape.

[loofah]

My guess is that it's very important to learn from one's failures in order to survive. Nice things are nice and all, but if you're starving because you made a mistake, you'd better fix your mistake right quick.

[jvcc]

That's not how we experience the remembrance of physical pain, though. If I burned my hand on a sparkler as a kid, hypothetically, remembering it doesn't make my hand burn again.

[chrismachine]

Yet when I think about when I cut my finger making sangria, it tingles sometimes. Also my nethers tend to retract like I jumped in the arctic ocean when I think of them getting maimed even though that hasn't yet happened. There are definitely endless connections in the mind/body dynamics.

[Zombie Protestor]

ARGH. A friend and I are having a physics discussion and I'm getting frustrated. This following a news report I read him about how the military will be testing a supersonic vehicle capable of traveling at 4500 mph.

Me: Of course they want to militarize it. They probably want to put a machine gun on it where the bullets travel forward at 2000 mph. It would shoot itself, but they don't care.
Him: Yeah, but if you put a rear-mounted gun on it, the bullet would go backward at 6500 mph!
Me: No, to an observer on the vehicle the bullet is traveling backward at 2000 mph. To a bystander on the ground, the bullet is traveling in the same direction as the vehicle, at about a rate of 2500 mph.
Him: No, if the vehicle were traveling, say, north and a rear-mounted gun, pointed south, were fired, it would hit the air travelling past the vehicle and get a push backward. It wouldn't be going north, it would be going south.
Me: Maybe a negligible one, but when the bullet leaves the gun it is traveling 4500 mph northward. All you're essentially doing by firing it is slowing its speed by 2000 mph.


So...physics time! Except I'm right. But discuss anyway.

[James]

You're right, although whether the front-mounted gun results in the vehicle shooting itself would depend on how rapidly air resistance would slow the bullet compared with the time it takes gravity to bring it below the vehicle. The idea that air would push the rear-mounted gun's bullets backwards sounds like nonsense to me. If there were any effect, I'd guess it would be a vortex in the vehicle's wake that would reduce drag on the bullet for a moment, but it's still starting from the vehicle's frame of reference. It sounds like your friend is making a similar error to the people who think that parachutes cause things to momentarily leap upwards immediately after opening.

Even if there were anything to his air boost theory, it would only be a boost from the craft's perspective, meaning the bullet would be travelling north slightly slower than 2500 mph. From the ground perspective, the air is stationary and can therefore provide nothing but drag, i.e. bringing the bullet closer to 0 mph relative to the ground observer. In which case, even if drag would completely stop the bullet (which it wouldn't, as evidenced by bullets' ability to travel at such speed in the first place), it would only appear to be travelling away from the vehicle at the vehicle's own speed: 4500 mph.

If you want to talk about high-speeds from a frame of reference, how about sitting in one of those thing while being shot at by another travelling in the opposite direction?

Disclaimer: I'm definitely not a physicist or anything of the sort.

[EsBe]

Not sure if you were just joshing your friend re: putting machineguns on it, but the ultimate goal is to have a munitionless missile that can hit a single target several hundred miles away in a few minutes. (but not be an ICBM because that'll start WW3)

[Zombie Protestor]

I summarized a lot. I read about how the current vehicle platform cannot be weaponized and he commented that some General somewhere is going to take that as a challenge and insist on putting a gun on it. I countered that any front mounted gun would just make it shoot itself, and looked up bullet velocity for a .30-06 just to confirm. The speed came out to be around 1,980 mph when converting from feet/second but I rounded to 2,000. And yeah, James got my reasoning on it, that it would just hit 4500 mph winds and peter out enough that the vehicle would catch up to it.

[PonderThis]

... it would just hit 4500 mph winds and peter out enough that the vehicle would catch up to it.

Which is why you want to put killer lasers on it. Amirite?

[jvcc]

So, did anyone else watch that program that was on a while ago about the female orgasm, hosted by Maggie Gyllenhaal? They spent quite a bit of time discussing women having purely psychological orgasms (without touching themselves at all). Is that something that men can do? Outside of a wet dream, I mean. Is that a common thing for women, too? Just wondering.

[Zombie Protestor]

Not to give TMI, and if you think you might be getting TMI here, skip.

I personally have never even had a wet dream, and most definitely cannot psychologically have an orgasm. I can...um...leak? is the best word to use here if I've been aroused for a long time, but nothing close to actual emissions. In fact, I generally require a lot of stimuli (beyond the obvious physical) for anything to happen to completion. Nothing excessive, I just am not very capable of going on pure imagination.

Also, Maggie Gyllenhaal talking about orgasms sounds like a very interesting show.

... it would just hit 4500 mph winds and peter out enough that the vehicle would catch up to it.

Which is why you want to put killer lasers on it. Amirite?

And paint the vehicle to look like a shark.

[EsBe]

If I were watching a program about orgasms, I'm afraid the name of the host would be the last possible thing I'd remember. Soooooo... maybe I did see it! :shrug:

[jvcc]

Not to give TMI, and if you think you might be getting TMI here, skip.

Well, we're all adults here, right? That might not actually be true. But anyway, hopefully also not sharing TMI, I brought this up because I experienced the thing I mentioned, which is cool, and now I want to learn about it. Discuss with others, etc. All my best friends in real life are men, so I can't always get a diversity of opinion on issues such as this. Nothing overly personal need be said.

If I were watching a program about orgasms, I'm afraid the name of the host would be the last possible thing I'd remember. Soooooo... maybe I did see it! :shrug:

I've looked it up and it was an episode called "Why Is Sex Fun?" on the Discovery Channel documentary series Curiosity.

[EsBe]

The hell?... A show on Discovery not about ghosts, loggers, truckers, swamps, swamp ghost log truckers, or sharks? AND it has orgasms? Count me the heck in.

[James]

If I were watching a program about orgasms, I'm afraid the name of the host would be the last possible thing I'd remember. Soooooo... maybe I did see it! :shrug:

The reason you'd remember who hosted it is that she's a famous actress.

Not to give TMI, and if you think you might be getting TMI here, skip.

Well, we're all adults here, right?

"TMI" doesn't strike me as an "adults only" warning so much as an "I didn't want to know that" warning. If he were concerned about younger readers, I would expect a "NSFW", even though that actually refers to workplace-appropriateness.