Re: A Problem To Solve :-)

On 4/4/24 18:37, Physfitfreak wrote:

  He enjoyed his meal tremendously, then stood up and walked outside in the Sun, and began going back to the compound. The damn meal tasted even better than the ones in Dallas.
 

Physfit didn't notice that the enragingly intense Sunlight was now soft and the beautiful sky even had several chunks of clouds in it. He passed the street and began walking towards the compound.
It took more than what it should have, so he took a good look around to see if he missed where he was to turn left. But it didn't look like anything like what he had seen around him from corners of his eyes while carefully walking toward Long John Silvers an hour or so ago. In fact nobody was around now. The store was still there, about 500 years away, but other than trees and knee-high grass on the ground he could see almost nothing else. Where was he? Had he stepped out of the back door of Long John Silvers by mistake?
He decided to make a turn left anyway, and continued walking until he reached a long stretch of several rows of trees. He kept going in the same approximate location hoping to get a glance at the compound. The ground underneath the trees were covered with thorny bushes that he had seen somewhere and couldn't readily remember.
"I think I have taken a few dumps at spots like this before," he told himself.
When he got out of the tree area, the sight was open and easy to see for a good distance, and there was a wide creek in front of him.
This was not Yemen. This was the creek not that far from where he lived in Dallas! He often took long walks along that creek (and on occasions had had to take a dump inside the hidden thorny woods area). He turned right and continued walking along the side of the creek until he reached a familiar spot from which he knew how to walk home.
40 minutes later he was at the door of his home, looking at the magic mountain about 400 yards away. He entered. "Ok, let's see what the date is," he thought to himself.
He checked the pendulum clock on the wall, time was 7:20 pm and yet it was not dark at all, so at the least 4 months had passed since seeing the magic mountain first. Back then even 4:30 pm was darker than this.
He sat down and kept thinking, "Ok, now, did I actually eat a couple of hours back in Long John Silvers or more time than that has passed since?"
He wasn't that hungry at all, so certainly nothing like 48 hours had passed.
At this point he noticed that the green tabby female cat had begun her licking of his exposed shoulder. This cat, when she began licking his skin, she wouldn't stop until her barbed tongue would lick through the three layers of skin, the flesh underneath it, and all the way down to the bone that was buried in there! So he knew he had to soon do something about it. But laziness and the extreme coziness he was feeling kept him from immediately doing something about it. 10 seconds later he rolled over and rescued himself from that cat's tongue and the habit she had with his exposed skin. He was in bed, and now wide awake.
And hungry as hell!
But first was first. He slowly got up (bed was still in the living room) and went to the window. Yes, the magic mountain was there.
     "If I remember everything as it is, it must now be my eating day, but Hell if I could be sure of that," he thought to himself.
But coffee was sure available to have, so he got his Beaumont Coffee, Classic Roast, the cheapest fucking coffee East and West of the Pecos, and brewed, this time, only about a cup full of fresh and strong coffee, cause he wanted to back that kick with half a caffeine pill as well. He sometimes did that, and the result was an even more vigorous start of the day. It worked every time.
White and green tabby cat was still on his lap when he finished his coffee, so he carefully got her off his lap not to hurt her feelings or be any disrespectful to her, and stood up.
Before he began to get busy with 200 chores in front of him, a savagely loud scream came out of the neighbor's house to his east. He often heard screams like that from that nuthouse cause the occupants of it were four first class cro-magnon dimwits. White Trash to the core, and all siblings of each other. Probably fucked each other too, who knew what they'd do inside their home.
So he didn't pay any attention to it other than cursing that savage woman yet one more time.
But another scream pierced out of their place and this time it had an unmistakable pleading pitch to it. Physfit got a bit alarmed and curious, took his cc and stepped outside to check if things were ok.
The neighbor had a little wooden backdoor porch and their door was open. None of the usual cars were parked, so everybody must've been out except that woman. He walked over and as he climbed the back porch he noticed the woman was sitting at the door frame with one foot 10 inches inside the deck flooring through a broken lumber.
"This happened again?..." Physfit said. "Yes the fucking place is falling apart and my brother doesn't do shit about it. I can't get my foot out and it's hurting like hell", she cried.
Physfit examined the edges of the broken lumber and decided that the best way is to push the thin lumber farther down to open more space. It wasn't that difficult, as the wood was weathered and thin and easily gave in. She slowly pulled her foot out, and thanks to her thick socks the wound didn't appear something that would require professional care. In fact she was already much better and the pain had somewhat subdued.
Neighbor:  "Each time we change the deck flooring it happens again. We've tried all sorts of sizes for wood but by next year they get enough water and ice and sun damage to get brittle again and cannot stand our weights."
All four living there were Neanderthal size cro-magnons, so Physfit could understand that.
Physfit:   "But this cannot be the right thickness and width for a deck lumber."
Neighbor:  "What do you mean?"
Physfit:   "Who fixes your deck flooring for you?"
Neighbor:  "That asshole brother of mine. Who else."
Physfit:   "Where do you get the material for it?"
Neighbor:  "We cut our pecan tree branches just about every year as you know. We've cut them in all sizes and my brother uses them to shave and make lumber with them. That's what we've been using so far."
Physfit:   "I can't be certain, but I'm kind of sure this lumber is too thin to be the strongest it can be."
Neighbor:  "Well tell that to my dumb brother not me. I have no clue how to do this stuff."
Physfit"   "I think I will. I can tell him how thick and how wide he should make them to get the strongest form out of them. Show me the trunks and branches that you got left."
The neighbor with the help of Physfit stood up and with a bit of exaggerated limp and maximum leaning against his body slowly walked to where they kept the tree trunks. She always wanted him to fuck her, and he never did that. Danger of possibly contracting VD aside, she wasn't as fuckworthy as she once had been either.
Physfit found that most of the cut wood left were more or less of the same diameter, and they had enough of them to do another deck flooring.
Physfit:   "I'll get in touch with your brother when he comes back to tell him what size he should cut the lumbers for best result."
Neighbor:  "Thanks... Do you want a beer or something?..."
You could of course read that as, "Do you want to fuck me right now before they come back?"
Physfit:   "No thanks, I've got to do a few calculations to figure the right size out :-))"
Neighbor:  "Oh, ok. I need to put a warning sign or someth'n on the back porch in case one of them decides to get in that way."
So the neighbor got help from Physfit to take her there, making sure she touched as much of her body as was possible, to his, almost managing to give Physfit ideas.
After that, Physfit said, "Cheers." and left and came home. Grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, and began thinking about how he could make a rectangular cross-sectioned lumber out of a log with a certain diameter, resulting in the maximum strength for the lumber.
An hour later, he had the answer.
If the diameter of the logs were 10 inches, what width and height of the rectangular cross-section did Physfit recommend to the neighbor's brother, to get the maximum strength? (not a trivial problem)
Hint for Code Monkey wannabes who do not have engineering or physics background: the maximum strength of the cut lumber will not correspond to the maximum area of the rectangular cross-section, which would obviously be a square, as any of us just by experience may know. The maximum strength would correspond to the maximum "section modulus" of the cross-section instead. Dig the rest for yourselves.