Author Topic: EP275: Schrödinger’s Cat Lady  (Read 32465 times)

Max e^{i pi}

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Reply #75 on: December 20, 2012, 06:20:07 PM
sure thing, if you like. I have been writing short messages because I stood on my keyboard and i've had to type out my comments into the onscreen keyboard with my mouse. the strain is tremendous.
 
Let this be a lesson to us all: always take off your shoes before trying to type with your toes.

Cogito ergo surf - I think therefore I network

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luka datas

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Reply #76 on: December 21, 2012, 12:59:26 PM
sure thing, if you like. I have been writing short messages because I stood on my keyboard and i've had to type out my comments into the onscreen keyboard with my mouse. the strain is tremendous.
 
Let this be a lesson to us all: always take off your shoes before trying to type with your toes.

good one ya evil swine



chromeratt

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Reply #77 on: January 31, 2019, 02:35:19 AM
Here's a testiment to the stickiness of this story in the brain.  Also spoilers for the Season 4 finale of Gotham.

It's the opening scene of the episode and Selina is on a hospital gurney after being shot.  The recording is paused because someone (me) had to get up between episodes. 

So, my wife quips "We don't know she's going to live or die.  She's Schrödinger’s Catwoman!" (Have I mentioned that I love my wife's sense of humor?). After we all laugh, my daughter says she was just telling a friend about this story, "Schrödinger’s Cat Lady".  (Have I mentioned I love that my kids enjoy some of the same things in fiction that I do?)

After we explain the story to my wife, I told them about the Schrödinger reference in Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency. Somehow when I'd first heard this story I didn't make the connection.   

Quote
Oh, that. Well, some researchers were once conducting such an experiment, but when they opened up the box, the cat was neither alive nor dead but was in fact completely missing, and they called me in to investigate. I was able to deduce that nothing very dramatic had happened. The cat had merely got fed up with being repeatedly locked up in a box and occasionally gassed and had taken the first opportunity to hoof it through the window. It was for me the work of a moment to set a saucer of milk by the window and call "Bernice" in an enticing voice -the cat's name was Bernice, you understand

Dirk is my favorite character that Douglas Adams created, so making the connection, no matter how tenuous,  between these two stories made me smile a bit.  I thought I'd share in hopes of making someone else chuckle.