jadero

That would have been awesome, but I suspect that it was just the arms and that it was powered in some way, hence "pendulum-like".

Gauges measured stress on the metacarpals during punches and slaps on padded-dumbbell targets created with a pendulum-like device.

I take "a pendulum-like device" to mean they suspended either the arms or the targets and swung them to a collision.

Gauges measured stress on the metacarpals during punches and slaps on padded-dumbbell targets created with a pendulum-like device.

I take "a pendulum-like device" to mean they suspended either the arms or the targets and swung them to a collision.

Oh that's not good. Obviously, I've chosen to allow js, but basic stuff should work without it.

Heh. I gave up trying to figure out voting a long time ago. I find it both fascinating and disturbing that there are people out there who see anything I write as worthy of a dowvote. :)

Anyone who hasn't followed that link needs to do so now! It's got human cadaver arms manipulated with fishing line and guitar tuning knobs. It's got a link to an article titled "Your Face: Punching Bag or Spandrel?"

You can't possibly find a better way to spend 10 minutes!

I try to figure out what it means from a combination of context and etymological guesswork, then check it a dictionary. If it's a person or region or concept I'm unfamiliar with that isn't covered directly or in notes, I hit the encyclopedia or atlas (well, Wikipedia and mapping software, these days.)

That's how my father taught me to deal with stuff I didn't understand when I was a kid and I've been doing that ever since. It interrupts the flow far less than having to set it aside for other demands on my time, so it's not that big a deal.

We always had good dictionaries and encyclopedias on hand. Now, of course, it's all online or downloadable.

One of the reasons I love eReaders is direct access to dictionary, translations, and Wikipedia.

Same with my dad. He said that the military liked red/green colour blindness for spotting camouflaged stuff.

Heh. I agree. My only experience with Xplornet was in trying to support people who had it. No internet is far preferable.

We bought a cabin at the lake with an eye to retirement. Dysfunctional workplaces led us to move there nearly 15 years early. We figured that if we were going to work anyway, we might as well do it in a restorative environment.

There is no cell service, landline service is noisy enough that my very nice modem is lucky to hit 20 kbps, and I knew too much about ExploreNet to tolerate their "service". I'm no fan of Musk or the concept of Starlink, but the price/performance is stellar (sorry) and it's nice to be able to get stuff done without having to drive in to the library, especially given that it's only open 15 hours a week.

I spent a decade without internet. I never did figure out how to get Chromecast to work. Even for plain screen casting it insisted on needing an internet connection. Most of my stuff at the time was YouTube rentals that allowed downloads, so I got the hardware that let me use HDMI to connect my phone to the TV.

"Semi truck" is not half a truck, but a truck designed to carry one half the weight of the cargo it is hauling. A semi trailer is one designed to have half of its load (by weight) carried by the tow vehicle. A standard trailer gets difficult and possibly dangerous to tow if the weight carried by the tow vehicle (hitch weight) strays too far outside the 8%-12% range.

And just to add to the confusion, Dodge popularized something called the "hemi engine"--an engine with a "hemi head", not half an engine. And "hemi head" refers not to "1/2 an engine head" but to the approximately hemispherical (1/2 sphere) shape of the combustion chambers cast/machined into the engine head.