It’s still an interesting exercise to try to come up with the most intuitive explanation. One way to do it is to start by specifying a distance. Making the problem more concrete can sometimes get you away from the eye-glazing algebra, though of course then you need to go back and check that your solution generalizes.
A good distance to assign is 40 miles for the whole trip. You’ve gone 20 mph for the first half of the trip, which means that you traveled for an hour and traveled 20 miles. In order for your average speed to be 40 mph you need to travel the whole 40 miles in one hour. But you’ve already traveled for an hour! So—it’s too late! You’ve already failed.
Yes, that’s roughly how MBlume explained it (edited for concision and punctuation):
MBlume: I can help you! or could if there was an answer...
Alicorn: Good, I can delete the comment before it gets downvoted again! I half-suspected there was not, and that it depended on the distance of the journey, but wasn’t sure
MBlume: that is a silly thing for people to downvote. it doesn’t actually, but it is impossible. you have to cover the rest of the distance instantly to average 40mph
Alicorn: Oh, and they won’t let your car onto the transporter pad, gotcha
MBlume: nodnod
Alicorn: …why do you have to cover the distance instantly?
MBlume: (they are jerks.) because… let’s pretend the distance is 40 miles. in order to average 40 mph
Alicorn: you need to get there in an hour
MBlume: you would have to cover the whole distance in an hour, nodnod
Alicorn: ahhhh, now I see.
MBlume: but you drive half of that (20 miles) at 20 mph… nodnod
Alicorn: you took an hour to go 20 miles at—yes. that.
It felt like I was following, say for analogy, a discussion among filipinos who were switching back and forth between English and Tagalog. But re-reading it twice I started to get the flow and terms. E.g. “nodnod” was opaque initially.
There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.
Yes, that movie is a nice example of science fiction which deliberately makes up new words (so I presume) to give the viewer that fish out of water “it’s the future” feeling. Star Trek does something like that which I think is called technobabble, which is also deliberately incomprehensible with a sciency twist. I get much the same feeling when I watch certain popular shows from English- but not American-speaking places, where people combine unknown references, unknown words, and pronunciation which I have to struggle to unravel.
Happily, in all cases the simple act of patiently familiarizing myself by repeated viewing works well to bring me up to speed, though I personally have never gone as far as learning Klingon.
Yes, that movie is a nice example of science fiction which deliberately makes up new words (so I presume) to give the viewer that fish out of water “it’s the future” feeling.
If I remember correctly, it’s a blend of English, Russian, and Latin.
I guess it is rather bizarre. But most of the unusual conventions on IRC and other chat services are in order to make it more like a face to face conversation. They generally either allow you to narrate yourself from a third person perspective, or speed up common interactions that take much longer to type than they do in real life.
Although “nodnod” seems unusually nonsensical, since it takes longer to type than “yes”. I cannot say I have seen that used before.
I don’t doubt it. That’s why I said that I felt that I was getting old for the world. The unusual, out of place thing is me. I’m assuming that the chat log is typical.
It’s still an interesting exercise to try to come up with the most intuitive explanation. One way to do it is to start by specifying a distance. Making the problem more concrete can sometimes get you away from the eye-glazing algebra, though of course then you need to go back and check that your solution generalizes.
A good distance to assign is 40 miles for the whole trip. You’ve gone 20 mph for the first half of the trip, which means that you traveled for an hour and traveled 20 miles. In order for your average speed to be 40 mph you need to travel the whole 40 miles in one hour. But you’ve already traveled for an hour! So—it’s too late! You’ve already failed.
Yes, that’s roughly how MBlume explained it (edited for concision and punctuation):
If that’s an actual chat record, I’m getting old for this world. … okay, on a third read-through, I’m starting to comprehend the rhythm and lingo.
The original had more line breaks and less punctuation, but it’s real—what do you mean?
It felt like I was following, say for analogy, a discussion among filipinos who were switching back and forth between English and Tagalog. But re-reading it twice I started to get the flow and terms. E.g. “nodnod” was opaque initially.
Nowadays young people are all like
Yes, that movie is a nice example of science fiction which deliberately makes up new words (so I presume) to give the viewer that fish out of water “it’s the future” feeling. Star Trek does something like that which I think is called technobabble, which is also deliberately incomprehensible with a sciency twist. I get much the same feeling when I watch certain popular shows from English- but not American-speaking places, where people combine unknown references, unknown words, and pronunciation which I have to struggle to unravel.
Happily, in all cases the simple act of patiently familiarizing myself by repeated viewing works well to bring me up to speed, though I personally have never gone as far as learning Klingon.
If I remember correctly, it’s a blend of English, Russian, and Latin.
I guess it is rather bizarre. But most of the unusual conventions on IRC and other chat services are in order to make it more like a face to face conversation. They generally either allow you to narrate yourself from a third person perspective, or speed up common interactions that take much longer to type than they do in real life.
Although “nodnod” seems unusually nonsensical, since it takes longer to type than “yes”. I cannot say I have seen that used before.
I think it’s actually pretty close to normal English for a chat log.
I don’t doubt it. That’s why I said that I felt that I was getting old for the world. The unusual, out of place thing is me. I’m assuming that the chat log is typical.