maeamian

[maeamian]

A bit of a riddle for you, not a devilishly tricky one, but an interesting one to consider. I think of it as Lal's Riddle, after the great Indian geophysicist Devendra Lal and I'll provide some details on him and the answer under the cut, but first the riddle itself:

Let us suppose you are provided with a strange length of candle wick, it's knotted and unevenly bunched, but you know, thanks to some engineers with a fetish for oddly specific machines, that it will take exactly one hour to burn if you light one end of it, but not evenly enough to be able to assert that any given length of it being burned can be matched up to any given length of time having passed.

Now say you are given two such wicks, irregular enough that the only property you can be sure they share is taking exactly one hour to burn if you light one end of them, thanks (again) to those engineers. You are then tasked with figuring out a way to use these two wicks to measure out forty five minutes. How do you do it?

The answer is that you start by lighting three of the four total ends of the two wicks you've been provided, when the two flames on the first one meet in the middle half an hour will have passed and there will be half an hour left on the second one, at that point you light the second end of the second wick and when those two flames meet, half of half an hour will have passed since the end of the first half hour for a total of three quarters of an hour.

The reason that I think of this as Lal's riddle is that Devendra Lal was one of my grandpa's closest acedemic collaborators and friends. He married young but never had kids and as a result took a fairly parental role in the lives of my grandpa's kids and then, when the time came, a grandparental role in the lives of his grandkids. Whenever we'd visit my grandparents we'd always at least have dinner with him once and he delighted in riddles and puzzles and seeing us get excited by new information, as any good scientist and grandparent would. One time when I was 12 or so, the actual age isn't important, he stopped us in the car as we were about to go into the house from dinner and demanded we answer this riddle first, which at the time I could not but he enjoyed giving us a chance to work it out before revealing the secret.

He passed a while ago, but whenever I think of him, and I try to from time to time since he had no descendants of his own to do it but loved us as if we were his, I think of this riddle in particular and I know it's a little silly, but I think it's an important part of who he was as a person that his acedemic achievements and wikipedia page couldn't cover. I think that attaching his name to this riddle is a worthy honor for him, so if it was an interesting little puzzle for you to solve something you can do for me is to think of it as Lal's riddle if you tell it to people in your life.

[maeamian]

Next time one of these half bit ghouls tries to argue they're making anyone safer ask them why their guys would kidnap firefighters off the fucking fire line.

These fucking monsters are on the side of fucking FIRES. Ruling blue states like conquered territory, it's utterly intolerable.

[maeamian]

[maeamian]

Look at this shit, there is fundamentally no word to describe this other than evil, there is no moral justification for this.

These fucking monsters are on the side of fucking FIRES. Ruling blue states like conquered territory, it's utterly intolerable.

[maeamian]

These fucking monsters are on the side of fucking FIRES. Ruling blue states like conquered territory, it's utterly intolerable.

[maeamian]

Got jury duty coming up? What better time than now to learn about the extremely cool and good things you can do on that jury if you get empaneled? (because learning about them after you've been empaneled is a crime)

[maeamian]

Wow!

[maeamian]

[maeamian]

Globus INK, Soviet spaceflight navigation computer

[maeamian]

if you ever feel like there's no good being done in the world you gotta remember that so many good deeds, charitable donations, acts of mutual aid, and otherwise kind actions go unremarked upon. so much love moves in whispers between individuals and is not broadcasted to an audience. lives can be saved in what appears to be silence.

[maeamian]

[maeamian]

tumblr is like yes we can and must talk about complex sensitive issues but if anyone insists on applying nuance to the discussion I will assume they are taking the opposite polarized stance to mine and now they're clearly my enemy

[maeamian]

if my dad made me wings out of wax and feathers in order to escape our prison home i wouldn’t die

[maeamian]

[maeamian]

Janet Elizabeth Aulisio

[maeamian]

[maeamian]

REMEMBER:

if you don't understand the post at a glance it's because op wrote it wrong and needs your help

if the post doesn't contain all the contextualising information you need to understand it, op is gaslighting you

if you haven't experienced the phenomenon the post describes, op is making it up for clout

if you haven't encountered the type of person the post describes, they're a strawman that doesn't exist

if the post doesn't address a topic you'd prefer to talk about, it's a distraction, missing the point, and talking over you

if the post makes a good point, it is your duty to contribute to human enlightenment by nitpicking it to be more correct

and most importantly:

every online conversation is a competition and you must win