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Whgen engaged on a task, I like to mark my progress in fractions, and was musing yesterday about how frustrating for such a purpose are even numbers divisible only by 1, themselves, 2, and half of themselves. Such numbers (the one that raised my ire yesterday happened to be 26) deserve a special epithet, since as Dr. Bill never misses an opportunity to insist, there should be a single word for every phenomenon possible. So, is there a word for such wannabe primes?
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear sjm: I'm way past my prime, perhaps that is why I cannot recall having insisted
that there be one word for everything.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A number that has only two prime factors? I dunno, simple composite? emanuela? Bean? No, I'm not suggesting those last two as terms and you know it!!!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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well, I'm too lazy(and too math-challenged) to go through all of these: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y2E814BA3the couple of pages I looked at made my eyes gaze over... good luck. we'll be waiting...
formerly known as etaoin...
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addict
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addict
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ICBBLIU, but I imagine encryption gurus would have a word for them.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I don't recall ever learning one, sjm. You don't like saying (or writing), for ex., three twenty-sixths? That doesn't particularly bother me. If it's a real oddity like that, I just call it a thirteenth or whatever's suitable. In this particular instance I'd tell myself, "I'm over a thirteenth done".
I find it MUCH easier to get through unpleasant things if there is a specific end time I can count down to: five more weeks in the cast--only four now; six more days and this horrible test will be over, for better or for worse; that kind of thing. It really unnerved me, not being able to count down to the end of labor!
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I find it MUCH easier to get through unpleasant things if there is a specific end time I can count down to.... It really unnerved me, not being able to count down to the end of labor!
I've often thought this: that human beings could probably stand almost anything, as long as they knew the time limit on it. That's why torture is so effective, I suppose: you don't know when it will end (apart from when you give up your information, possibly). If you knew someone was going to pull out one of your fingernails, and only one, you might well be able to stand it (in a good cause, of course). If you just didn't know if your torturer was going to stop at one (or however many, up to eight fingernails, two thumbnails, and twenty toenails), it would be that much harder to bear. If you knew you would only have the water droplet plopping onto your forehead for an hour, you might be able to stand it. It's the not knowing that's the worst....
Mind you, I've been in some pretty damned difficult poses, and even knowing when they would end didn't help me to endure them, so perhaps I'm just talking a load of [throat-clearing-noise] here...!
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Carpal Tunnel
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and twenty toenails
do you wear sandals?
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Feb 2002
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do you wear sandals? whoops, thanks čta! Um....It's past my bedtime. Yep. That's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it. There's a great song by the Cdn group The Tragically Hip, called Boots or Hearts: Fingers and toes, fingers and toes Forty things we share Forty-one if you include The fact that we don't care You'd think I'd remember that would mean a total of 20 digits per person. Duh. (Do toes get called digits? or only fingers?)
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