Weaknesses and Strengths of public transportation in Paris

Having taken most forms of transportation, to a varying degree, I have compiled this list :
Bus
Greatest enemy(ies): Passengers, Stops, Traffic Jams, Strikes, Sundays, Baby Strollers.
Greatest advantage(s): Price, Speed outside of peak hours, Ability to multitask while taking it.
Car
Greatest enemy(ies): Traffic Jams, Price, Parking.
Greatest advantage(s): Speed, Trunk Space, Passanger Space, Access to places.
RER
Greatest enemy(ies): Strikes, Access to places, Off-peak hours, Crowds, Weekends and Nights.
Greatest advantage(s): Speed, Suburbia, Ability to multitask while taking it.
Metro
Greatest enemy(ies): Late night, Strikes, Crowds.
Greatest advantage(s): Access, Frequency, Speed.
Scooter
Greatest enemy(ies): Trunk space, Passsangers.
Greatest advantage(s): Traffic Jams, Parking, No need for a License under 50cc
Motorcycle
Greatest enemy(ies): Price, Trunk space, Passengers, Accidents.
Greatest advantage(s): Traffic Jams, Speed, Parking, Access.
Free Stealth Hover Tank:
Greatest enemy(ies): NONE it's an invisible tank that flies.
Greatest advantage(s): Everything

Superficial

Two or three days ago I decided to make a mental list of superficial goals that I was aiming for in life, yes sometimes it feels great to be shallow.



So here is part of my list.



1 House

2 Apartments

2 Cars

1 Motorcycle (my wife will not let me have this for good reasons)

2 Dogs

1 Backyard

1 Big-ass TV screen with entertainment system style sound

6 Suits

1 Six figure salary

1 MA

1 PhD

1 Garden



and also less superficially



2 Kids, but not right now.



Yeah i don't think I have any readers at the moment but if someone does stumble on this, please make your own reply list.

If you had the patience to read all this, thank you.

Physicists are bored

This is the conclusion I came to yesterday with the help of one of them.

It all started from the fact that this physicist (my father) did his PhD on the topic of Gluons, and for those who have no idea what Gluons are, they are in layman’s terms, subatomic particles. So, curious about Gluons and not being as bright as a Physicist, I looked them up on Wikipedia. I fell on a lot of mathematical equations that I somewhat understood partially, and at the bottom of the page links to other subatomic particles.

Believe it or not there is a hypothetical subatomic particle called a Glueball

So intrigued by the Glueball, I mentioned it to my father and my wife. My wife then tells me that it sounds somewhat like slang for a sexual favor.

Upon this realization I started to think about Quarks, other subatomic particles. Quarks are defined by flavors. These flavors being: Up, Down, Strange, Charmed, Top and Bottom (the last two are sometimes referred to as Truth and Beauty)

While I have looked up the explanation for these definitions today :

“The quark flavors were given their names for a number of reasons. The up and down quarks are named after the up and down components of isospin, which they carry.[43] Strange quarks were given their name because they were discovered to be components of the strange particles discovered in cosmic rays years before the quark model was proposed; these particles were deemed "strange" because they had unusually long lifetimes.[44] Glashow, who coproposed charm quark with Bjorken, is quoted as saying, "We called our construct the 'charmed quark', for we were fascinated and pleased by the symmetry it brought to the subnuclear world."[45] The names "top" and "bottom" were chosen because they are "logical partners for up and down quarks".[44] In the past, top and bottom quarks were sometimes referred to as "truth" and "beauty" respectively, but these names have mostly fallen out of use.[46]”

It still makes me chuckle to think of a conversation going something like this :

Man : Hey baby you down for a Gluon
Woman : No way! I don’t do that sort of stuff, I only do Bottom Quarks
Man : You’re gonna give me Glueballs.

Well, I’m sure you can imagine all the other conversations of this type. It makes for an interesting day.

Well having hypothetised these conversations, I can only imagine what physicists do ain their spare time.

If you had the patience to read all this, thank you.

Attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction

Perplexed by the fact that the fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the Nigerian terrorist is being indicted on a charge of "attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction", I went to check the definitions of WMDs by U.S. Penal code and here is what I found :

§ 2332a. Use of weapons of mass destruction.
(c) Definitions.— For purposes of this section—
(2) the term “weapon of mass destruction” means—
(A) any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title;
(B) any weapon that is designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxic or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors;
(C) any weapon involving a biological agent, toxin, or vector (as those terms are defined in section 178 of this title); or
(D) any weapon that is designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life.

Intrigued I looked up the definition of destructive device.

(4) The term “destructive device” means—
(A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas—
(i) bomb,
(ii) grenade,
(iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces,
(iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce,
(v) mine, or
(vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses;

I would have never thought the definition of something that is applied usually to nuclear bombs, can be applied to land mines, (well one thing is for sure by these definitions G.W.Bush was right about Iraq)

If you had the patience to read all this, thank you.