xkcd: Flinch

[Lynn McGuire]

xkcd: Flinch
https://xkcd.com/2539/

Oh yeah, I am with the ponytail engineer. Because we engineers have
trust issues.

Explained at:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2539:_Flinch

Lynn

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <smh3gr$c9d$1...@dont-email.me>,

Hal (EECS) had the same reaction. :)

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
Www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

[John W Kennedy]

On 11/10/21 1:45 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <smh3gr$c9d$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> xkcd: Flinch
>> https://xkcd.com/2539/
>>
>> Oh yeah, I am with the ponytail engineer. Because we engineers have
>> trust issues.
>>
>> Explained at:
>> https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2539:_Flinch
>
> Hal (EECS) had the same reaction. :)
>

As a computer programmer, I’d ensure that it was gaffed correctly, but
it ought to be a pretty easy thing to eyeball-check. As an actor, I’d
remember Stanislavski’s excellent chapter on relaxation.

--
John W. Kennedy
Algernon Burbage, Lord Roderick, Father Martin, Bishop Baldwin,
King Pellinore, Captain Bailey, Merlin -- A Kingdom for a Stage!

[J. Clarke]

On Wed, 10 Nov 2021 16:57:08 -0500, John W Kennedy
<john.w....@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 11/10/21 1:45 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <smh3gr$c9d$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> xkcd: Flinch
>>> https://xkcd.com/2539/
>>>
>>> Oh yeah, I am with the ponytail engineer. Because we engineers have
>>> trust issues.
>>>
>>> Explained at:
>>> https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2539:_Flinch
>>
>> Hal (EECS) had the same reaction. :)
>>
>As a computer programmer, I’d ensure that it was gaffed correctly, but
>it ought to be a pretty easy thing to eyeball-check. As an actor, I’d
>remember Stanislavski’s excellent chapter on relaxation.

As a mechanical engineer I would question a computer programmer's
ability to determine whether it was gaffed correctly. No offense
intended.

As an actor one might do well to remember what happened to Alec
Baldwin's cinematographer. "Trust but verify".

[John W Kennedy]

On 11/10/21 5:14 PM, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2021 16:57:08 -0500, John W Kennedy
> <john.w....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 11/10/21 1:45 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>> In article <smh3gr$c9d$1...@dont-email.me>,
>>> Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> xkcd: Flinch
>>>> https://xkcd.com/2539/
>>>>
>>>> Oh yeah, I am with the ponytail engineer. Because we engineers have
>>>> trust issues.
>>>>
>>>> Explained at:
>>>> https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2539:_Flinch
>>>
>>> Hal (EECS) had the same reaction. :)
>>>
>> As a computer programmer, I’d ensure that it was gaffed correctly, but
>> it ought to be a pretty easy thing to eyeball-check. As an actor, I’d
>> remember Stanislavski’s excellent chapter on relaxation.
>
> As a mechanical engineer I would question a computer programmer's
> ability to determine whether it was gaffed correctly. No offense
> intended.

Well, that depends on how it’s rigged, what it’s made of, how it’s
anchored.... But if I were the person rigging it, and had no evil
intent, I’d build it in a way that the construction could be easily
inspected—three I-beams, say, joined into a staple, well anchored in
concrete, and with no play whatever in the suspension mechanism.

> As an actor one might do well to remember what happened to Alec
> Baldwin's cinematographer. "Trust but verify".

Actually, I’m much more accustomed to using broadswords, where there’s
no such thing as blanks. (A four-foot iron bar swung at your head
doesn’t actually need an edge.) So you don’t get careless.

(Although, putting on my opera-singer’s hat, I’ve been killed by a
pistol that’s been thown to the floor by the young man eloping with my
daughter, to show that he means no harm—oops!) Of such things are
four-act vendettas made.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <M_-dnT5lq9ep3RH8...@giganews.com>,

John W Kennedy <john.w....@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 11/10/21 1:45 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <smh3gr$c9d$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> xkcd: Flinch
>>> https://xkcd.com/2539/
>>>
>>> Oh yeah, I am with the ponytail engineer. Because we engineers have
>>> trust issues.
>>>
>>> Explained at:
>>> https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2539:_Flinch
>>
>> Hal (EECS) had the same reaction. :)
>>
>As a computer programmer, I’d ensure that it was gaffed correctly, but
>it ought to be a pretty easy thing to eyeball-check. As an actor, I’d
>remember Stanislavski’s excellent chapter on relaxation.

I don't know it; can you post a link?

Dorothy L. Sayers's _Busman's Honeymoon_, before it was a novel,
was a staged play. At its climax, Lord Peter has reconstructed a
booby-trap by means of which a murder has been committed,
whereupon the murderer (who has been outside) enters and triggers
the booby-trap, which does him no harm (the intended victim was
taller than he), but scares him into confessing. Sayers's notes
for the production instruct the stage manager *and the actor
playing the murderer* to personally inspect the device
immediately before the curtain rises on the scene.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <efgoog9l8hut4oe7b...@4ax.com>,

Oh, yes. Hal's education (as I indicated above) was in the
version of computer science taught by the College of Engineering,
as distinguished from the one taught by the College of Letters
and Sciences.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <392dnT3ubrCryhH8...@giganews.com>,

Cool! What was the name of the opera? (And, remembering
operatic conventions, am I to assume you sign bass?)

[John W Kennedy]

On 11/10/21 7:16 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> In article <M_-dnT5lq9ep3RH8...@giganews.com>,
> John W Kennedy <john.w....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 11/10/21 1:45 PM, Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>> In article <smh3gr$c9d$1...@dont-email.me>,
>>> Lynn McGuire <lynnmc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> xkcd: Flinch
>>>> https://xkcd.com/2539/
>>>>
>>>> Oh yeah, I am with the ponytail engineer. Because we engineers have
>>>> trust issues.
>>>>
>>>> Explained at:
>>>> https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2539:_Flinch
>>>
>>> Hal (EECS) had the same reaction. :)
>>>
>> As a computer programmer, I’d ensure that it was gaffed correctly, but
>> it ought to be a pretty easy thing to eyeball-check. As an actor, I’d
>> remember Stanislavski’s excellent chapter on relaxation.
>
> I don't know it; can you post a link?

Chapter 6, “Relaxation of Muscles”, in “An Actor Prepares”. The book
does not appear to be readily available on-line, though it’s in Apple
Books, and probably elsewhere.

>
> Dorothy L. Sayers's _Busman's Honeymoon_, before it was a novel,
> was a staged play. At its climax, Lord Peter has reconstructed a
> booby-trap by means of which a murder has been committed,
> whereupon the murderer (who has been outside) enters and triggers
> the booby-trap, which does him no harm (the intended victim was
> taller than he), but scares him into confessing. Sayers's notes
> for the production instruct the stage manager *and the actor
> playing the murderer* to personally inspect the device
> immediately before the curtain rises on the scene.
>

I know it well. But this is a different case. At Talboys, the trap is
prepared so that the victim is right under the point of suspension, so
that it will smash right into his head while the pendulum is moving at
maximum speed. In this imaginary case, the “victim" is standing at the
near end of the swing, where, asssuming that the suspension is reliable,
and that the “release” involves no pushing, we can know that, on the
return swing, the pendulum cannot return beyond its original release point.

[John W Kennedy]

"La forza del destino" by Verdi. It is probably due to that pistol stunt
that it has the same reputation in the opera world that the Scottish
play has among Shakespreans. (We once had to cancel a production because
our sets-and-costumes guy made a bonfire of all his “Forza” materials,
hoping thus to evade the curse. But it worked out OK; we substituted
“Countess Maritza”.)

And, yes, I am a bass. And I’ve never had a chance to do Boito’s
”Mafistofele”, dammit!

[Paul S Person]

On Thu, 11 Nov 2021 21:34:24 -0500, John W Kennedy

By an odd coincidence, I am listening to the overture to "La forza del
destino" by Verdi. This is from a two-LP set called "A Golden Treasury
of Concert Favorites".

>And, yes, I am a bass. And I’ve never had a chance to do Boito’s
>”Mafistofele”, dammit!
--

"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

[John W Kennedy]

Yes, “Forza”, though remaining in the standard repertory, is flawed—what
can you expect from a Russian commission based on an early-Romantic
Spanish play?—but the overture is one of Verdi’s most celebrated.

>> And, yes, I am a bass. And I’ve never had a chance to do Boito’s
>> ”Mafistofele”, dammit!

--