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 Discussion on question by The_Animato…

Imported from a comment discussion on math.stackexchange.com/q...
badjohn
Dec 19, 2023 14:25
"exponentiation is commutative while addition and multiplication are not" - you have that the wrong way around. "addition and multiplication are commutative while exponentiation is not".
 

 Discussion on question by ChrisW: Lan…

Imported from a comment discussion on travel.stackexchange.com...
badjohn
Sep 20, 2023 04:22
@Crazydre My memory was German only at first but it might have been German and French.
badjohn
Sep 20, 2023 04:22
@Tor-EinarJarnbjo An SBB train. I am puzzled. I could be mistaken about the French and German but I fairly sure that there was no Italian.
badjohn
Sep 20, 2023 04:22
@Tor-EinarJarnbjo We took a train from Zurich to Geneva recently. German only at first but French was added before we entered a French speaking area. I don't recall whether German continued all the way to Geneva.
badjohn
Sep 20, 2023 04:22
@ChrisH-UK We were at the Shrewsbury Flower Show recently. Near but not in Wales. A singer sang some songs in Welsh.
 

 Discussion on question by Nick: Trave…

Imported from a comment discussion on travel.stackexchange.com...
badjohn
Aug 28, 2023 20:59
Trains mostly run on electricity which can be made by greener ways than burning stuff. Greenest option is to stay at home. Next is walk or cycle. Next best is probably the train.
 

 Discussion on answer by Crazydre: Usi…

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badjohn
Aug 7, 2023 11:25
@Crazydre I can imagine that, I was just mentioning that I have not encountered it personally.
badjohn
Aug 7, 2023 11:24
@Crazydre Yes, it took an effort of will to override the rule in these countries.
badjohn
Aug 7, 2023 11:21
@Crazydre I have spent a lot of time in Denmark and I have not encountered anyone going Samuel Johnson but I have felt slight negative body language when I asked but none when I just start in English. I use this same strategy in a few other countries but not all. In general, I feel that assuming a knowledge of English is rude so I only assume it in a few specific countries.

An amusing case occurred in Copenhagen airport, the check-in clerk asked "forstå du dansk?". I replied "nej". She looked a little surprised and switched to perfect English. I decided not to attempt to continue in D…
badjohn
Aug 7, 2023 10:18
On Danes, I have met both extremes. My Danish brother-in-law is so good at English that it is actually how good he is that is the main give-away: he lacks any regional trait. On the other hand, his mother, knows no English. Of course, she is old and also lives in a remote area. However, among the young, I gave up asking whether someone spoke English long ago as it seemed more likely to cause offence rather than be polite.
badjohn
Aug 7, 2023 10:18
@ChrisH-UK Maybe but I still find it unlikely that someone working in a major railway station which not recognize the name of a nearby major city even in the wrong language. For example, the French pronounce Paris rather differently to us but I would still expect most English would understand in context e.g. someone at a ticket desk in St Pancras.
badjohn
Aug 7, 2023 10:18
@WeatherVane I guess that we were both victims of deliberate non-understanding. I make no boasts of my French ability but, as I said to ChrisH, he understood all of my request except the destination. When I corrected the destination, I got the ticket that I wanted. I was still using French when I had corrected myself.
badjohn
Aug 7, 2023 10:18
@ChrisH-UK I am aware of that divide but the clerk was speaking French to previous customers so I did. I don't claim that my French is good but he understood the request, he just did not know the destination. Indeed, I had accidentally used the English name Antwerp which is close to the Flemish name Antwerpen. It is hard to believe that he did not really recognize this as referring to a major city in his own country less than 50km away.
badjohn
Aug 7, 2023 10:18
@WeatherVane I have also had odd French conversations in train stations. I tried to buy a train ticket from Brussels to Antwerp. The ticket seller claimed to not know the place. When I remembered that, in French, it is called Anvers, I got my ticket.
badjohn
Aug 7, 2023 10:18
One odd case was in a gite in France. I was attempting to speak to the owners in French. The wife could understand me but the husband could not so she was translating from my bad French to real French. He was not unpleasant in any way, he just struggled to understand me.
badjohn
Aug 7, 2023 10:18
The attitude in France may be reserved for native English speakers. My wife and I see very different attitudes. She finds people much willing to speak English than me. However, I am clearly a native speaker and she is not. So, with her, it is a neutral third language. However, even with me, it is occasional rather than universal. As Willeke says, it is changing fast and the number of people willing and able to speak English is rising fast.
 

 Discussion on question by unforgettab…

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badjohn
Mar 3, 2023 10:48
Requesting a special meal just because it might be better is a gamble. There have been times when my special meal seemed better than the standard one but there have also been times when it was much poorer. In a few cases, where my request was lost or forgotten, I was given a choice from the business class menu. So, you might luck out or you might just get a bread roll and a banana. So, try it if you wish but request it advance not on the plane. If you demand a special meal on the plane then you might deprive someone else of a meal acceptable to them.
 

 Discussion on answer by Peter M: Fore…

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badjohn
Dec 2, 2022 22:54
@DmitryGrigoryev Same in the UK except that 0 points is good and 12 is bad. You get points for offences.
badjohn
Dec 2, 2022 22:54
@Anemoia In the UK, any moving offence gets you at least 3 points. 12 within 3 years leads to a ban.
badjohn
Dec 2, 2022 22:54
@Kevin Well, I wasn't claiming anything about the US. So, you could all pair up and drive each other's cars to avoid all such tickets.
badjohn
Dec 2, 2022 22:54
I can't answer for California but, here in the UK, failing to identify the driver is an offence itself. So, you might avoid one charge but be hit with another. Something like this is required otherwise we could just drive each others' cars and avoid all tickets.
 

 Discussion on answer by gerrit: Why d…

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badjohn
Nov 9, 2022 21:06
@Tor-EinarJarnbjo I am not claiming that it is never used today. Only that it was once the usual way to write Irish and that it was a bit more than just a font change. My parents were in school before the mid-20th century. It's just a little story that others may find interesting (or maybe not).
badjohn
Nov 9, 2022 21:06
@Tor-EinarJarnbjo My parents (born 1926/7) were schooled entirely in Irish. They could only speak English in English lessons when it was treated as a foreign language. At that time, only the traditional script was used. When the current script was introduced, my mother claimed that it was hard to read. It is not just a change of font. Lenition is now indicated by an h after the consonant but it used to be a dot over the consonant.
 

 Discussion on question by Anixx: Is t…

Imported from a comment discussion on math.stackexchange.com/q...
badjohn
Nov 6, 2022 23:10
I think that the intended meaning is that a pair of matrices (or quaternions) which are inverses of each other will commute i.e. $p p^{-1} = p^{-1} p$ not that if they are inverses of anything they will commute.
 

 Discussion on answer by davidbak: Wha…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...
badjohn
Aug 11, 2022 08:52
SQL also uses 0 to indicate success but the second most likely value "record not found but no other error" gets the arbitrary value of 100.
 

 Discussion on question by Franck Dern…

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badjohn
Jul 11, 2022 03:50
@FranckDernoncourt Yeah, aiding and abetting are similar but not identical. I thought that the reasoning was just to minimise loopholes.
badjohn
Jul 11, 2022 03:50
@FranckDernoncourt An interesting question. My guess would be very badly. I have not been for a long time but I remember the landing cards. One side said "Welcome to Singapore" and the other "Death to drug traffickers". An amusing contrast.
badjohn
Jul 11, 2022 03:50
@FranckDernoncourt I thought that you were puzzled at the redundant instructions for unknown items when you must only bring your own luggage. One rule only applies if you have already broken the other.
badjohn
Jul 11, 2022 03:50
Laws often contain redundant duplication. Think of the common phrases "aiding and abetting" and "assault and battery".
 

 Discussion on question by badjohn: To…

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badjohn
Oct 7, 2021 15:40
@ChrisH-UK Whether in France or the UK, I would not consider driving it on a motorway or 70mph dual carriageway whether or not it was allowed. It we rented out of Paris, we would carefully plan a route based on the range and type of roads. Similarly, if we bought one in the UK, we would plan. The obvious way to the next town from home is a 70mph dual carriageway but a 40mph route is also available.
badjohn
Oct 7, 2021 15:40
I have dropped the question about the wife as it was distracting from the main question.
badjohn
Oct 7, 2021 15:40
@ChrisH-UK The difference is that it is not technically a car, it is a quadricycle. In France, you can drive it at 14 with no licence. In the UK, the expectation is that you could drive it unaccompanied as a learner.
badjohn
Oct 7, 2021 15:40
@Uciebila No, quite the opposite . The wife question is "optional extra". The main question is that in the title: is it easy for a tourist to rent one?
badjohn
Oct 7, 2021 15:40
@ChrisH-UK Yes, trips would need to be carefully planned due to the range and speed. This is part of the idea, to see how workable it is as a vehicle.
 

 Discussion on question by Christina M…

Imported from a comment discussion on physics.stackexchange.co...
badjohn
Jun 20, 2021 19:00
Are you expecting it to be a solid or a gas?
 

 Discussion on question by AvaTaylor: …

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...
badjohn
Mar 24, 2021 15:35
The most familiar name for me is dumb terminal though in the days that I used them, they were just terminals since there were no clever ones to distinguish them from. Just as we did not say "landline phones" before there were "mobile phones" to contrast them with.
 

 Discussion on answer by Andrew Steane…

Imported from a comment discussion on physics.stackexchange.co...
badjohn
Sep 26, 2020 14:32
Sorry, I missed that but it would be a weird universe if the number of dimensions was nearly but not quite $4$.
badjohn
Sep 26, 2020 14:32
@VladSamoilov But your answer was an integer. Is that just an approximation?
badjohn
Sep 26, 2020 14:32
@VladSamoilov How many dimensions does spacetime have?
badjohn
Sep 26, 2020 14:32
@user253751 How about the power in Newton's law of gravity? Another example is the $2$ in the formula for kinetic energy or Einstein's famous equation. Are these approximations?
badjohn
Sep 26, 2020 14:32
How about the number of dimensions? Are there any theories that posit a non-integral number of dimensions? Yes, there are fractals but these are a mathematical construct with just approximate realisations (e.g. coastlines).
 

 Discussion on question by Sidarth: Do…

Imported from a comment discussion on physics.stackexchange.co...
badjohn
Sep 13, 2020 18:20
You might work in polar coordinates. Try to calculate the volume of a sphere by integration.
 

 Discussion on answer by badjohn: Addi…

Imported from a comment discussion on math.stackexchange.com/q...
badjohn
Jul 7, 2020 15:43
Even in a semiring, an additive identity has to be unique.
badjohn
Jul 7, 2020 15:43
In that case, you haven't said how $\Omega$ behaves with addition.
badjohn
Jul 7, 2020 15:43
Well you can in a semiring but not in a full ring.
badjohn
Jul 7, 2020 15:43
Do you mean with the usual operations or my non-standard ones?
badjohn
Jul 7, 2020 15:43
And the natural numbers with zero are a semiring that is not a full ring but zero has both of the usual properties. To get an exceptional, you need to create something J usual.
badjohn
Jul 7, 2020 15:43
Obviously not always possible. Any full ring is also a semiring but in a full ring the additive identity must also annihilate the ring.
badjohn
Jul 7, 2020 15:43
You could but all I was trying to do was create a semiring in the two typical properties did not apply to the same element.
badjohn
Jul 7, 2020 15:43
I hope that it is better now. I was strangely blind to my own silly mistake.