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Sep-23-13
 | | al wazir: <Abdel Irada>: Chewy? No. Why would you think that? I heated it only long enough to melt the cheese. As it happens, I like chewy foods (beef jerky, the heel of a loaf of rye bread, taffy and caramels). |
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Sep-23-13
 | | OhioChessFan: My microwave has always been ACACACACACAC. I thought I was the only person who found such things interesting. |
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| Sep-23-13 | | Abdel Irada: I like chewy foods that are *supposed* to be chewy.
However, I was kidding about your quesadilla. I'm sure you performed your <AACCACACCC> in a matter of seconds, leaving your tortilla perfectly cooked and not in the least resembling a Goodyear product. ∞ |
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| Sep-23-13 | | Abdel Irada: Apparently <OCF>'s microwave is AC. ;-) Now, I suppose I'll have to go and test my own. I know the turntable rotates both ways, but I have not yet bothered to track the order (if any) in which it does so. ∞ |
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| Sep-23-13 | | Abdel Irada: .:.
Observation:
<al wazir>'s answers to his own "handedness" question alternate (LRLRL) while his microwave rotates at random. <OCF>'s handedness is apparently randomly distributed, while his microwave turntable rotates alternately (ACACA). Proposition:
<al wazir> and <OCF> should exchange microwaves to correct this obvious mismatch before the consequences have time to spread. ∞ |
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Sep-23-13
 | | Domdaniel: Ohio's alternating microwave makes sense. It's actually quite difficult to get a deterministic machine (like most microwaves that I've met) to behave 'randomly'. Unless you want to build in some kind of quantum decay device, which might not be good for the food. |
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Sep-23-13
 | | Sneaky: R/R/R/L/R
Comment: if you deal cards properly, you hold the deck in a "mechanics grip" with your non-dominant hand and pull cards off with your dominant hand. So the first two answers *should* be the same, if you deal cards in the most accepted fashion. |
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Sep-23-13
| | al wazir: <Sneaky: [T]he first two answers *should* be the same>. Nonsense. When I eat with fork and knife I hold the fork in my right hand and the knife in my right. I'm told that this is "backwards," as if there's a way I "should" do it, and I'm also told that I'm supposed to swap them back and forth (the "American style"). More nonsense. Any activity that involves the use of both hands, such as batting in baseball, exhibits a much less pronounced adherence to the individual's handedness than a one-handed activity such as writing. Thus we have examples of many baseball players who throw R and bat L. (Since most pitchers are right-handed and left-handed batters are slightly advantaged against them, there is a stronger motivation for right-handers to bat left than for left-handers to bat right.) |
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Sep-23-13
| | OhioChessFan: I am predominantly left handed. However, like many left handers, I tend to grab things with my right hand. Doorknobs, video game handles, etc. So dealing cards with my right hand is probably based on that. My left eye dominant dates from childhood when I had surgery as a toddler that left my left eye far stronger. |
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Sep-23-13
| | al wazir: I think I have the germ of an idea that should compete for next year's Ig Nobel prizes. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-e... |
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Sep-23-13
| | OhioChessFan: Per baseball, I throw L and bat R. I have no idea why. |
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Sep-23-13
| | al wazir: As I commented a while back, the Coriolis force, whose effectiveness is proportional to the radius of rotation, cannot be responsible for determining the direction of rotation in tornadoes. They begin as little whirlwinds, which are too localized. So, what does determine it? A few years ago someone proposed that the angular momentum introduced into the atmosphere by highway traffic is responsible. When one vehicle passes another going in the opposite direction, it imparts a "twist" to the atmosphere. This angular momentum is all of the same sign, because cars and trucks drive on the right side of the road everywhere in the U.S. Of course this angular momentum is quickly dissipated by air viscosity, but it is constantly being replenished. It's hard to imagine a way to check this hypothesis empirically. What would we do, switch all traffic to the left side of the road for six months or so? *That* experiment would be a surefire Ig Nobel prizewinner! But eventually someone did a calculation that showed convincingly that the amount of angular momentum created nationwide by traffic is far less than in a single tornado, and the theory died a natural death. |
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Sep-23-13
| | Domdaniel: <Ohio> I am also predominantly left-handed. (I like to believe that there's a correlation between left-handedness and intelligence, but I don't know where this idea originates).
Like you, I use my right hand for some things -- I wonder, though, if this is some kind of intrinsic ambidextrous quality, or the result of society putting some pressure on us not to use the 'wrong' left hand. My grandmother was also a natural left-hander, but she was forced at school (in those less enlightened days) to switch to her right hand -- and as a result her adult handwriting was semi-legible at best.
I read an excellent book on handedness a few years back -- everything from physics to history to biology, culture, tradition ... can't recall the author right now ... but it wasn't Martin Gardner's 'Ambidextrous Universe'. An English author, I think. Title something like "Right Hand, Left Hand" ... |
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Sep-23-13
| | Domdaniel: The book is 'Right Hand, Left Hand' by Chris McManus. Recommended: http://www.righthandlefthand.com/ |
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Sep-23-13
| | OhioChessFan: I use scissors with my right hand, and couldn't hope to use my left. I shave with my left, and couldn't hope to use my right. I suspect I bat right handed because I saw other people doing so, though that doesn't explain the left handed throwing. IIRC, about 30 years ago, someone proposed that a way to test your dominant hand was to make a Vulcan Salute with each. The one with the larger gap was your dominant hand. http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/_... |
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Sep-23-13
| | Domdaniel: I use scissors with the *wrong* hand, and it hurts. |
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Sep-23-13
| | OhioChessFan: Let's see.....use a mouse with my right hand, hopeless with the left. Pick a phone up with the right hand and hold it to my left ear. Hold a coffee cup handle with the left hand, grasp the cup around the middle with my right. |
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Sep-23-13
| | al wazir: I can't make the Vulcan salute with either hand. My right-handedness is as strongly dominant as it could well be. But though I throw a baseball and most other objects right-handed, I can throw a frisbee fairly well with my left. I can also punt a football with either foot (and that was true was before I started playing soccer). It was just a matter of practice. I remember going to a soccer coaching clinic. One kid complained that she couldn't kick with her left foot. The clinician said with a sneer, "You use both of them when you *run*, don't you?" |
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Sep-23-13
| | Domdaniel: <ohio> -- <Pick a phone up with the right hand and hold it to my left ear. >
Aha, you're a bitextual. |
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Sep-23-13
| | Sneaky: <al wazir: <Sneaky: [T]he first two answers *should* be the same>. Nonsense.> OK, you are right. What I had in mind was this: if you are hired by a casino to deal poker, they make you take a class where they show you the "right" way to deal, and speak of "left handed dealers" and "right handed dealers". Of course, they don't care in the least if a lefty deals right-handed as long as they don't screw it up. <When I eat with fork and knife I hold the fork in my right hand and the knife in my right.> Knives and forks are a strange case. Usually things are different for left-handers (batting left handed, playing guitar left handed, etc.). But according to the excruciatingly strict etiquette that I was brought up with at the dinner table, there was only one "right way" to use utensils. Poor lefties simply have to suck it up and use their utensils in a way that must feel backwards to them! I think it goes without saying that the American method of using knives and forks is preposterously inefficient, even ignoring right and left handedness. (But isn't that what etiquette is all about: taking great pains for no particular reason?) |
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| Sep-23-13 | | PinnedPiece: Left-Right handedness.
Quick--is there any example in nature where the left arm or right arm is quite obviously the stronger of the two? Guess first,
Then answer:
http://labs.biodesign.asu.edu/rosen... I have always been absolutely fascinated by the asymmetry of these guys. Apparently the right-left handedness varies by subspecies.... http://www.fiddlercrab.info/
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| Sep-24-13 | | Abdel Irada: <Domdaniel: <ohio> -- <Pick a phone up with the right hand and hold it to my left ear. > Aha, you're a bitextual.> Be careful what you say. As a Christian, he may regard that as sinful. ∞ |
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| Sep-24-13 | | Abdel Irada: <When I eat with fork and knife I hold the fork in my right hand and the knife in my right.> You hold both knife and fork in the same hand? That must be interesting. ∞ |
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Sep-24-13
| | al wazir: Abdel Irada: You hold both knife and fork in the same hand?> And sometimes a spoon or two, just to display my manly dexterity. No. I meant fork in right, knife in left. |
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| Sep-24-13 | | Abdel Irada: <And sometimes a spoon or two, just to display my manly dexterity.> I suppose one *would* have to be pretty manly (or at least have unusually strong fingers), but perhaps one could learn to eat with a utensil strapped to each digit. ∞ |
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