Category: Smcquaid

The Question

Patrick says:
2005-07-19 23:20:45

I was sitting in a meeting at work today and I thought about bows and arrows.

From what I’ve seen in books, TV shows, and movies, Native Americans used bow and arrows. And so did Robin Hood and the Romans and stuff.

My question is, did these two cultures, separated by an ocean, invent bows and arrows independently of one another? Did other regions of the world use bows and arrows? Who were the first? And is one type of historical bow and arrow more effective than the rest?

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The Question

sander says:
2005-07-19 16:04:28

We all know lightning travels through the path of least resistance.

Let’s say we zoom in on the electricity that’s flowing downwards, and see what it does every 1 nanosecond (it travels about 1 foot in this time period). The flow of electrons gets to a point, and it has to find the path of least resistance to keep going. For simplicity, let’s say it has 1 of 3 options. How does it know which to choose? Clearly, it doesn’t have “senses” to figure this out. If you know your electricity, you know it doesn’t “probe” its different path options until it finds the best way to go. So, how does it know?

A semi-comparable system would be water flowing down a hill. If the water gets to a place where it must choose to go 1 of 3 ways, most of it will go down the steepest path. But some of it will still go down the other two.

Electricity is different. If +10V gets to an intersection, and has to choose between 1 of 3 equally resistive paths (let’s say 250 ohms for the heck of it), one going to +7V, one going to +5V, one going to ground, ALL of the current will go right to ground. Nothing will go down the other two paths. Voltage (potential) difference is just like “steepness” of a hill in this example.

So, how does it know?

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The Question

ben says:
2005-07-14 09:49:10

At work we have Corporate Information Security. One of their jobs is to monitor us. In fact, they are probably reading this now. My question is: What tools are available to the CIS community and what exactly do they tend to monitor?

Thanks Shaun!

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The Question
T$ – No not Terrance says:
2005-07-04 11:39:28

Dearest McQuaid,

Why won’t you kiss me in public any more?

I just wanted you to know that I still care….On a serious note however I was hoping to get a little smoother sound unit shaking my car (and hopefully you 2!) this summer, but I just don’t understand how amp ohm ratings and that of the installed speakers will interact. For example if my 4 ohm amp is hittin a cheap 6 ohm speaker I found online, will it sound correctly? I know one can change up their wiring method between, say, a left and right amp out through parallel and series wiring to either ‘jump’ or ‘drop’ the ohm-rating. How do I do this and ensure that I won’t blow any of my new equip.

Sweetly yours,

Todd Hetrick
(love the site)

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