Jokes on you. The guy with the bed is taking it OUT of the car
The optimism of that dude with the furniture piece, though…
It reminds me of a book by Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, and the sofa:
‘Try and make yourself comfortable on the sofa,’ invited Reg, fussing around hospitably. ‘I don’t know if you’ll manage it. It always feels to me as if it’s been stuffed with cabbage leaves and cutlery.’
He peered at Richard seriously. ‘Do you have a good sofa?’ he enquired.
‘Well, yes.’ Richard laughed. He was cheered by the silliness of the question.
‘Oh,’ said Reg solemnly. ‘Well, I wish you’d tell me where you got it. I have endless trouble with them, quite endless. Never found a comfortable one in all my life. How do you find yours?’ He encountered, with a slight air of surprise, a small silver tray he had left out with a decanter of port and three glasses.
‘Well, it’s odd you should ask that,’ said Richard. ‘I’ve never sat on it.’
‘Very wise,’ insisted Reg earnestly, ‘very, very wise.’ He went through a palaver similar to his previous one with his coat and hat.
‘Not that I wouldn’t like to,’ said Richard. ‘It’s just that it’s stuck halfway up a long flight of stairs which leads up into my flat. As far as I can make it out, the delivery men got it part way up the stairs, got it stuck, turned it around any way they could, couldn’t get it any further, and then found, curiously enough, that they couldn’t get it back down again. Now, that should be impossible.’
‘Odd,’ agreed Reg. ‘I’ve certainly never come across any irreversible mathematics involving sofas. Could be a new field. Have you spoken to any spatial geometricians?’
‘I did better than that. I called in a neighbour’s kid who used to be able to solve Rubik’s cube in seventeen seconds. He sat on a step and stared at it for over an hour before pronouncing it irrevocably stuck. Admittedly he’s a few years older now and has found out about girls, but it’s got me puzzled.’
‘Carry on talking, my dear fellow, I’m most interested, but let me know first if there’s anything I can get you. Port perhaps? Or brandy? The port I think is the better bet, laid down by the college in 1934, one of the finest vintages I think you’ll find, and on the other hand I don’t actually have any brandy. Or coffee? Some more wine perhaps? There’s an excellent Margaux I’ve been looking for an excuse to open, though it should of course be allowed to stand open for an hour or two, which is not to say that I couldn’t… no,’ he said hurriedly, ‘probably best not to go for the Margaux tonight.’
‘Tea is what I would really like,’ said Richard, ‘if you have some.’
Reg raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I have to drive home.’
‘Indeed. Then I shall be a moment or two in the kitchen. Please carry on, I shall still be able to hear you. Continue to tell me of your sofa, and do feel free in the meantime to sit on mine. Has it been stuck there for long?’
‘Oh, only about three weeks,’ said Richard, sitting down. ‘I could just saw it up and throw it away, but I can’t believe that there isn’t a logical answer. And it also made me think – it would be really useful to know before you buy a piece of furniture whether it’s actually going to fit up the stairs or around the corner. So I’ve modelled the problem in three dimensions on my computer – and so far it just says no way.’
‘It says what?’ called Reg, over the noise of filling the kettle.
‘That it can’t be done. I told it to compute the moves necessary to get the sofa out, and it said there aren’t any. I said “What?” and it said there aren’t any. I then asked it, and this is the really mysterious thing, to compute the moves necessary to get the sofa into its present position in the first place, and it said that it couldn’t have got there. Not without fundamental restructuring of the walls. So, either there’s something wrong with the fundamental structure of the matter in my walls or,’ he added with a sigh, ‘there’s something wrong with the program. Which would you guess?’
In other news, guys- I had the nearest of the misses last night.
It would have been a nasty, nasty accident.
To be fair I think what saved me are the reflexes honed and sharpened by flight simulators.
Both the Eurofighter Military one and the home ones, by a lesser measure.
Still, the adrenaline high lasted for nearly 30 minutes of near mouth foaming rage…
I might have shouted things I’m not too proud of- but the other person liked never heard them as they just went on like nothing happened.
Gods, I wish at least they shat their pantaloons.
But alas, I’m alive, the car is untouched and only my claxson is wore out a bit.
Head on a swivel guys- always.
Good to hear you are ok after that, strange that I find i am seeing near misses (not only with me ) a lot more frequently than i used to, are drivers of today far more impatient, or dont have the situational awareness they should, or possibly my own theory, is that they are giving driving licenses out free with boxes of cornflakes… maybe I am just getting old and cynical
I must admit I have the same feeling- a lot more near misses and quite some more accidents- small and big, sadly.
Every two or three days there’s at least one minor happening.
Luckily, so far, I counted myself out of this average.
Fingers crossed on wood.
No, sorry,I don’t believe that…
Yeah, me neither.
I think that’s a joke/hoax.
Well when I think about it, streaming video of that resolution to hundreds of headsets at the same time would require dozens of wireless access points, miles of cable and a small data center, which I don’t think most farmers would care for.
Although it would be an interesting way for a company like Cisco to show off their enterprise network gear - it would certainly go viral.
Or we could just let people have some fun!
Well, several media outlets have picked it up…
And it makes sense, especially if you’re trying to fool them into thinking it’s nicer weather than it actually is. In terms of emotional intelligence, in my experience cows seems to be on the same level as dogs, so this could definitely be a thing.
I still don’t but it…
Cows have a very peculiar vision- only a small FOV is binocular so, overall, I still am quite skeptical.
That said, humans did a lot of weirder stuff…
Yeah, it is sure possible but the shape of the device alone is weird.
Cows’ eyes are facing the sides more than human eyes do. There seem to be no screens on the sides.
…and then: what’s the cost?
Milk production in most countries has extremely low profits which is why farmers cut corners everywhere.
The cost for those devices must be immense. Much more than, say, some additional cows.
I am still sceptical.
From what I’ve been able to find out, it appears to be only a research study so far, so the grant or funding for the research program likely paid for the development and procurement of the custom VR units. Also, from the article, it appears it was mostly a color/ blending type thing that was simulated, to recreate colors and blends of colors that are closer to spring or summer. Which apparently made the cows happier.
I have a couple of friends here in the College of Ag, and we have an animal husbandry lab here. I’m kinda curious to see if there’s going to be any interest in duplicating this research, or expanding on it. At my last job, Federal Department of Ag had the floor below us, and we would chat with them in the elevator on a regular basis. From what I’ve gathered, things at Ag are… challenging these days. So there may not be a lot of research funds available.
Cool! Let us know!
Okay so the Matrix starts with dairy cows?
It’s called the Mooootrix, duh!
Obvisouly there’s Moooorpheus, the Moooone, Udderinity and [KOMEMIUTE HAS BEEN BANNED]
YES, another excuse for a bad joke ……. Why do cows have hooves instead of feet?
Because they lactose.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but cows, like many herbivores, have their eyes situated at the sides of their skulls. The can see forward but they also have vision out to the sides that is much greater than our lateral vision. (I think this is so they can better detect predators…i.e. spot carnivores who’s eyes are located at the front of their skull to provide binocular vision that allows them to determine the range to their target/prey.)
So how would VR goggles meant for binocular eyesight equipped omnivore humans, work for cows?
Whilst you are pondering these weighty issues, here is a video about a big cow.
Why did the cow go to church?
Because she heard there was a new pasture!