FV Midterm Q1 [8 points]
Two blocks of mass m1 and m2 slide along a horizontal surface.
An external force F applied to m1 from the left provides enough acceleration to keep m2 from sliding down the face of m1. The coefficient of kinetic friction between m1 and the horizontal surface is µk. The coefficient of static friction between m1 and m2 is µs, and µs > µk. What is the smallest value of F required to keep m2 from slipping?
Posted on Spoons Editorial June 5th, 2012 | Comments
This Website Sucks
Did anybody else notice how much this site went downhill?
False: This site cannot go downhill, it's already at the bottom.
Posted on Fredrickville.com April 23rd, 2012 | Comments [5]
Suicide Chickens And Lightsaber Wielding Octopi
Loosey Goosey the Enigmatic elf shot a deer one day. It turned out to be the Grandson of a god. This angered God mightily, so he did what would to any other individual who did something annoying. He destroyed the entire nation.
However, this was no ordinary elf. Loosey Goosey was secretly the overlord of the parallel dimension and suddenly, he reanimated himself like the time Neo rose back up from the dead through sheer willpower. Loosey was angry and somebody was going to pay, so he marched upstairs to the god's doorstep and dragged him by the ear to the crater that was once a nation and rubbed his nose in it and said "Bad god! Now, don't you do that again!"
The god never destroyed a nation in retribution again.
Posted on The Outhouse January 20th, 2012 | Comments [2]
Three Epigrams by Schopenhauer
Read closely and see that (3) can be concluded from (1) and (2) according to a consequentialist/utilitarian moral calculus.
(1) Good vs. Evil
I know of no greater absurdity than that propounded by most systems of philosophy in declaring evil to be negative in its character. Evil is just what is positive; it makes its own existence felt. Leibnitz is particularly concerned to defend this absurdity and he seeks to strengthen his position by using a palpable and paltry sophism*
(2)Pleasure vs. Pain
The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other.
(3) Antinatalism
If the act of procreation were neither the outcome of a desire nor accompanied by feelings of pleasure, but a matter to be decided on the basis of purely rational considerations, is it likely the human race would still exist? Would each of us not rather have felt so much pity for the coming generation as to prefer to spare it the burden of existence, or at least not wish to take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) excerpts from 'Studies in Pessimism'
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*(Translator's Note cf. Théod: s153) Leibnitz argued that evil is a negative quality- ie, the absence of good; and that its active and seemingly positive character is an incidental and not an essential part of its nature. Cold, he said, is only the absence of the power of heat, and the active power of expansion in freezing water is an incidental and not an essential part of the nature of cold. The fact is that the power of expansion in freezing water is really an increase of repulsion amongst its molecules; and Schopenhauer is quite right in calling the whole argument a sophism.
Posted on Spoons Editorial October 15th, 2011 | Comments [2]
