Monday, August 6, 2007

Monopoly: which colors go with which streets?

A discussion of how board games might be more fun/easier to play if we actually played them by the rules led us to a discussion of Monopoly, a game famous for its "house rules." This evolved further into us plumbing our memories to identify which streets were represented by which colors.

We did okay with purple (Baltic and Mediterranean) and red (Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois) but light blue had us all stumped. Scroll down for a board layout with the colors and property names.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)


Lots of other interesting stuff there, too, but keep in mind that it is a Wiki.

Monday, July 23, 2007

What are some names for missiles?

So Bart wondered why Star Wars had all these pilots in TIE Fighters and X-Wings flying around shooting each other when today's modern military engagements are mostly ships and planes shooting missiles at each other from very far away.

I replied that the reason for pilots was because it made for better storytelling; anthropomorphized missiles felt kinda boring. Bart replied that giving missiles personalities (like Mr. Data) might be interesting. That led me to wonder what the missiles might call themselves and thus, I present to you:

http://www.worldmissiles.com/missilelist.php

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Does sound travel better in warm air or cold air?

It was cold in Erica's office. I came in and said hello, and she jokingly said that she couldn't hear be because of the Arctic cold in the room. That made me wonder if sound travels better in cold air than in warm air.

The answer: cold air.

Citations:
http://physics.uwstout.edu/deptpages/physqz/sndspeed.htm