

Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic? - chrisconley
http://magnitudes.wordpress.com/2008/04/05/is-hell-exothermic-or-endothermic/

======
eru
Richard Davisson (of Manhattan Project fame): "There are no physicists in the
hottest parts of Hell, because the existence of a 'hottest part' implies a
temperature difference, and any marginally competent physicist would
immediately use this to run a heat engine and make some other part of Hell
comfortably cool. This is obviously impossible."

~~~
hugh
Since the local temperature maxima and minima are the only places _without_ a
temperature gradient, it seems logical that the physicists would _have_ to be
confined to the hottest parts.

Well, that or the coolest parts. But I suspect the hottest parts, as an
additional punishment for trying to game the system.

~~~
eru
I like your reply more than the quote I stole.

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pmsaue0
An uncle of mine received a letter from his local police department with a
speeding ticket and an enclosed picture of his car speeding through a
photo/radar monitored area.

Maddened, he wrote out his check payment, took a picture of it, and mailed
them the picture.

I few days later he received another letter from the police department
containing a picture of handcuffs.

Nice correspondence, I think.

~~~
timcederman
People who spread urban legends as fact deserve to find out firsthand if hell
is exothermic or endothermic.

~~~
boredguy8
<http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/handcuff.asp>

~~~
pmsaue0
that lying uncle!

~~~
boredguy8
My point was that this isn't an urban legend, though my parent post is still
being upvoted. /boggle

~~~
timcederman
It becomes an urban legend if everyone claims it happened to someone they
know, regardless of whether the original event occurred or not.

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boredguy8
What the _EFF_ is this doing on the front page? I usually (until this point, I
think _always_ ) moderate my desire to post 'wtf?' comments.

But seriously, this is a story that's been around for ages and has -zero- to
do with HN. This is "news for nerds" content, not "hacker news". Can we get
some divine intervention here?

~~~
PieSquared
_"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. "_

~Hacker News Guidelines.

Seriously, calm down. It might be old, but I still found it interesting to
reread. Don't like it, don't read it.

~~~
boredguy8
This does not gratify one's intellectual curiosity _within the context of
hacker's news_. You forget that this place is explicitly designed to _avoid_
the denigration that happened at other sites.

By your logic, anything that's upvoted would 'count', though that's been
explicitly verboten.

Compare and contrast -this- post with the recent post about car detailing.
Neither are "about" hacking. But in one, an individual's using all the tools
available to do something sublime. In the other, we have a long-circulated
e-mail about non-productive slacking. Gee.

------
dkokelley
A similar story that I heard, though it didn't turn out as well:

A student was taking an exam for his class, and had finished most of the exam,
minus the extra credit problem at the end. Because this student didn't know
the answer to the question, he got creative. He drew a picture of a man
holding a gun to someone (maybe it was a puppy or something cute, I'd have to
see the exam again) with the text "Give me the credit, or the (cute animal)
dies!"

When he got the paper back, he noticed the teacher's grade to the extra credit
problem: 0, with the text "I don't negotiate with terrorists."

I've seen a picture of the exam before on my friends ipod, but I don't
remember if he found it online or if it happened to someone he knew. Anyways,
it's a funny story that this article reminded me of.

~~~
mynameishere
[http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/wp-
content/uploads/2007/0...](http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/wp-
content/uploads/2007/07/national-lampoon-cover.jpg)

------
jacobscott
This argument fails in the final stage:

“that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you” and take into
account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations
with her, then Option 2 cannot be true

The quoted statement does not imply that the Theresa will sleep with Tim once
there is a cold night in hell, simply that this is a prerequisite for their
carnal relations, so option two is still possible. The quote would need to
read "once there's a cold night in hell, I'll sleep with you" for the analysis
to hold up, but I can't imagine any woman actually saying that.

------
Ravenlock
Classic. Never get tired of this one. :)

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pavelludiq
I remember answering my chemistry exam questions in Python. If you care about
your grades, don't write code to solve all your problems, some of them require
sarcasm.

------
chrisconley
an oldie but a goodie

~~~
tdoggette
READ: Something that everyone has seen before and provides nothing new.

~~~
PieSquared
REREAD: Something everyone has seen before and provides nothing new, but is
still pleasant to reread.

Please, paraphrase people correctly :P

