This is a really creamy problem, and it was one of  my favorites two decades ago! The Coffee Cooling Modeling Challenge explains it reasonably well for those who haven’t read about it in Martin Gardner’s collected puzzle book The 2nd Scientific American Book Of Mathematical Puzzles And Diversions (1961)!

To my knowledge, this puzzle was not republished in any other book of Martin Gardner, however I was a happy reader of it in a Romanian translation (Amuzamente matematice, Ed. Tehnică 1968; Alte amuzamente matematice, Ed. Tehnică 1970).
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Cam aşa cred că funcţionează băncile în România. Dacă ceva nu merge, nimeni nu ştie ce anume nu merge şi de ce se întâmplă asta. Dacă treaba merge, pesemne că e un miracol, dar băieţii ie mulţumiţi, aşa că nu se mai întreabă cum dracu’ de le iese cu plus. Eu de vreo săptămână m-am lămurit că a spune despre sistemul bancar din România că este o adunătură de pwle blenoragice înseamnă să jigneşti organul sexual bărbătesc, în orice stare ar fi el. Mi-a fost silă să stau să explic în mod public, dară acuma e musai, că în răstimp se mai întâmplă încă ceva din categoria “cei mai tâmpiţi căcaţi cu ochi sunt în România, şi lucrează pe la bănci”.
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Sunt prea bătrân ca să fiu mort după folk… sau poate e tocmai pe dos, că sunt suficient de boşorog ca să-mi aduc aminte ce e aia. În fine, după tot tam-tam-ul care a precedat lansarea albumului Zoiei Alecu (nu e primul, dar e mai bun), mă aşteptam să se găsească dracului, un CD, sau chiar nişte MP3-uri legale (d’alea de le cumperi dând un SMS), ori chiar o ripare ilegală, ceva!
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I was indeed wrong. Mea culpa about that. Trend Micro Internet Security 2009 is not much smarter than Norton Internet Security 2009. It’s still a stupid, cupid piece of bloatware…

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Today, nothing from what I’ve read via the RSS subscriptions, but only a few thoughts on a temptation: what I miss at times (except for when I miss GNOME, or maybe Nautilus) is either XFCE, or the elegant way it was themed and customized in Linux Mint XFCE CE edition. Now, the problem is that Linux Mint 6 XFCE CE was recently released, and I’ve downloaded it “just in case I’ll feel like trying it”, but it’s still XFCE 4.4.2, whereas…
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Obama says that they’ll make it, so that we’ll all survive. With the gloomy economy worldwide, we’re all in deep #2, which makes me feel that we’re all niggers.
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Is this the first time that Microsoft enforces its patents against Linux? Anyway, call me a hardcore communist or an anarchist, but I take it one of the best proofs that no patent should ever be granted, to no one, no matter it’s about software or a machinery. Patents of any kind are harmful to the progress of humankind, regardless of the “official” contrary opinion!
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O cronică la “Revolutionary Road” / “Nonconformiştii”.

Încă un film oscarizat: Note de cinema - miercuri cu Harvey Milk.

CPB ne laudă prezentarea câştigătorilor premiilor Oscar din acest an, făcută de NYT.

Nu ni se spune exact unde anume, dar cică în Bucureşti s-a deschis o “Paul – Pâtisseries et Viennoiseries”. Ni se dă un link în engleză, dar iată şi l’original. În lista de adrese mondiale, nu găsesc nimic în România. Nu-i nimic, aflăm din Metropedia: Calea Dorobanţi nr. 135, colţ cu Washington.
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After a decade of preferring Aldo Ciccolini’s recordings of Satie’s works from the ’60s, I “defected” for Anne Queffélec’s newer performing:
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I’m annoyed and exhausted. I can almost see me going back to Avira AntiVir Personal for the signature-based scan, plus something like ThreatFire for a behavior-based protection. Norton IS 2009 is pissing me off, no matter how lightweight it is—because it is so, unlike the previous version(s)! After all, this is a good thing, because it prevents me giving Symantec money for a license, being it discounted.

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Now, this is really a tough one! SJVN scribit: Red Hat returns to the Linux desktop. No kidding?! What is this, the shell game? (Slashdotters rant.)

In other news, they bothered to explain the software patent threat at LinuxExpo, as if it wasn’t clear enough that the system is broken!
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I personally don’t believe in the sincerity of Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, who was compared by some critics with Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski. I’d rather think of Gutiérrez as of a clumsy imitator of both of them. Boredom in the decrepit Havana and the seek for some kind of fame, that’s what make Guttierez write the Dirty Havana Trilogy (trad. rom. Trilogie murdară la Havana), Tropical Animal, The Insatiable Spiderman and the rest of his work (not entirely translated from Spanish). Anyway, here’s a nice video interview with him, on Havana-Cultura:
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Acum vreo şapte luni, mă crăcănam arătând cum translate.google.ro ne ajută să râdem de lucrurile serioase. Văzând eu nişte butoane şmechere pe un blog, am găsit şi ocazia de a mă mai căca pe mine de râs încă o dată! În fine, o căutare cu Google mi-a întors câteva pagini în româneşte, care din păcate erau traduceri automate.

Să purcedem cu începutul.

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I  once took some DHEA (for a second time in my life), after not having get its usefulness clarified by the Lazyweb. I couldn’t tell whether it was of any good or not. I’ve also tried some Rhodiola, with good results (or maybe the placebo effect has elevated my mood) an also some Hoodia, but the latter didn’t have a good enough effect on my appetite. I can say I missed the Rhodiola right after the bottles were empty, but Hoodia was not missed (if it was indeed Hoodia inside).

Now it’s time to ask the Dear Lazyweb for an opinion on some other supplements.
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That’s about two pieces of software I want to recommend you: one is a cross-platform GPL data organizer, and the second one is a commercial mind-mapping tool… that you can get for free!
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Busy day… let’s see what I’ve still read on Tuesday.
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Mă uitam ieri seară la Biz Bazar-ul lui Moise Guran, deşi orice emisiune în care este vorba de bani, profituri şi investiţii străine mă cam enervează. Iarăşi, nu-mi plac nici actualli, nici foştii bancheri, dar Bogdan Baltazar nu este prost, ţin minte că în mai multe ocazii a făcut afirmaţii dure şi foarte adevărate. Aşa că mi s-a făcut milă şi de el, şi de Adrian “Păcălici” Vasilescu, văzând cum se încoţopenea olteanul de Guran să le explice el lor cum se calculează datoria externă, ce este relevant şi ce nu! Dar nu asta era povestea.
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I just got aware that I almost always hate when a site is displaying the pictures with Lightbox or Lightbox 2. They’re more and more sites that can’t just let you click on the thumbnail to reach the picture alone (although in many cases right-click, open in new tab would work as expected), and this is annoying me. Why is that so, doc? Am I such an ineluctable Luddite?
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I must be aging or something. When I’m not in the right mood and I turn to some music, it’s for the most of the time one of the following artists:
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Monday is the day when not even the grass grows, not even in the season when it should. Oh boy. After some casual reading, I learned that I might be selfish, ignorant and presumably boorish, although I left that city more than 4 years ago…
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