El donaldo: What a dumbass

During the election cycle, I argued with some folks about one topic in particular. All things being equal, setting aside the BS that was being hurled, I kept saying that el donaldo had no idea what being president was like.

And then there was Hillary, who had lived through an 8-year term with her husband occupying the Oval Office, and later served as senator and Secretary of State; she knew exactly what the job entailed - and voluntarily signed up to do it anyway.

The thing I argued was that she was prepared and he was not.

That says something about each of them. The job IS hard. Most presidents come away greyer and looking worn out.

So el donaldo goes into an interview and says some dumb things like "I thought this was going to be easy. It's harder than I thought!"

Really? Really? Shame on you, and anyone who thought you had a clue.

Trust data

#MakeAmericaSmartAgain. Archimedes. Displacement. Boats. And the eureka moment.

Archimedes was a fascinating Greek scientist, engineer, inventor, and more who lived in the 300 b.c.e. range.  He understood mathematics, conceptuslized physics, and followed the movement of the stars. He found a means to calculate the area and of unusual shapes and worked to derive a value for pi. 

But there's one story that stands out, an anecdotal account about how he invented a method for determining the volume of an object with an irregular shape. 

King Hiero II asked for a crown made of gold, but he suspected that silver had replaced much of the gold inside the crown - and that the crown maker was a thief! 

Archimedes was asked to determine if this was true, without damaging the crown.  The obvious thing to do would be to melt it down into a regularly shaped body in order to calculate its density. But that was impossible. 

Inspiration struck him, as the story goes, as he was taking a bath.  He noticed that the level of the water in the tub rose as he got in, and realized that this effect could be used to determine the volume of the crown. 

Excited, he stood from the tub and ran naked through the streets yelling "Eureka!" Or "I have found it!"

What had he found?

In his assignment from the king, he realized that the submerged crown would displace an amount of water equal to its own volume. 

By dividing the mass (it's weight) of the crown by the volume of water displaced (i.e. How far the water moved up the tub), he would have the density of the crown. 

The density would be lower if cheaper and less dense metals had been added to the gold (and higher if it was all gold). 

The test was conducted, and he proved that silver had indeed been mixed in.  The crown maker was trying to pull a fast one and legend says the king had him executed. 

Now whether this story is entirely true is anyone's guess. But there is certainly some substance to it: Archimedes did discover and write about displacement of water as it relates to density. And the principle is still in use today. 

And his eureka moment extended further still. The principle is the reason a boat can stay bouyant. 

Of course boats don't actually float! The reason has everything to do with displacement of water. But it can be hard to wrap your head around. So here's a simple explanation that succinctly sums it up. 

http://www.boatsafe.com/kids/021598kidsques.htm

Sent from my iPad

Walk a mile in someone's shoes...

I keep hearing the rhetoric. These guy should are bad. These guys are taking our jobs. These guys should be deported. These guys don't look like me, don't act like me, don't follow the same god as me.

But for those of you who think that way, have you ever met any of "them"?

When I watched SNL this weekend, the phrase from Michael Che stuck with me: "you don't know what kind of cakes I've seen."  Yeah pretty much.

Don't be so quick to judge.  Look tot the cake.

Clip starts at 2:03.

#illegitimate #NotOurPresident

Some new info about voting irregularities.

This info was requested by NAVO a group that focuses on free and fair elections.

#DumbAssQuoteOfTheWeek: Sean Spicer "Hitler didn't even sink to using chemical weapons."

Right.

Trump on golfing

In 2016' el donaldo said "I have the greatest stuff and you know what? I love golf. But if I were in the White House, I don't think I'd ever see Turnberry again. I don't think I'd ever see Doral again. I own Doral in Miami. I don't think I'd ever see many of the places I have. I don't think I'd ever see anything, I just want to stay in the White House and work my ass off and make great deals, right? Who's gonna leave?"

Well, as it turns out he wasn't lying. AFAIK he hasn't been to Doral or Turnberry. But he has gone to several of his other resorts, most notably Mar A Lago.

As for the rest - working his ass off and not leaving - well that's another story.

But I think most people miss a subtlety in this story. He's supposed to be a big Christian and the evangelicals and tv pastors prop him up. While he spends all this time golfing on weekends, we never hear about him attending any religious services.

Funny that.