On 2/18/2018 1:12 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 20:04:13 +0100, Emanuel Berg
wrote:

This reminds me of a story when I went to
Computer School (CS). A couple of hundred
meters from the school building was an
industrial pit, and down there one could see
flames every hour of the day - it was part of
the commune's system for disposing of garbage.
Anyway one time me and a group of students,
12 in total, went to see the professor who had
walked to this place. When we arrived, he
asked, "what is it that you want to hear from
my mouth, that you cannot hear just as well
from your own?" To this, all students started
to talk at once so not a single word was heard.
The professor then said, "you are too many
heads for one body", and pushed 11 students
into the flames.

This burning pit?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2179622/The-Door-Hell-Giant-hole-Karakum-Desert-40-YEARS.html

The story is absurd and hardly likely. First, such burn pits are a
health hazard:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/04/09/thousands-iraq-afghan-war-vets-sickened-after-working-at-burn-pits.html
https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/burnpits/index.asp
The worst place to build an incinerator is at the bottom of a pit.
While it's easy enough to toss the garbage into the pit, it's rather
difficult to keep the incinerated waste from filling up the pit,
requiring another pit to be dug. If there were a fire burning 24x7 in
the pit, the amount of garbage that it could incinerate would be
rather small. Also, tossing any quantity of garbage into such a pit,
would probably extinguish the fire from oxygen exclusion, or from
rapid cooling from all the water that is found in typical garbage. It
also doesn't burn hot enough to break down toxic substances. There
are much better designs for waste incinerators available.

The immolation of 11 student is also unlikely. If a single professor
was pitted against a mob of 11 angry students, I would place my bets
on the students winning the pushing and shoving match. More likely,
if such an event actually occurred, it would the professor who would
end up in the pit. Even the ancient Romans figured out that
decimation (1 in 10) was possible, but any larger percentage would
result in open revolt. 11 out of 12 is highly unlikely.

Unfortunately, I experienced a very similar parable in college. The
college hired a somewhat famous Nobel prize winner for some reason.
Unfortunately, he was very old and quite senile. He also failed to
appreciate any form of criticism. After several student, including
me, dared to suggest that he was wrong, he simply assigned a failing
grade to the entire class and left. After some meetings with the
administration, which eventually included an attorney, we were allowed
to take the class again from another instructor, and the failing grade
was vaporized from our records. This demonstrated that it was
possible to climb out of the burning pit of



Yaweh's burning pit research lab:

http://www.businessinsider.com/coal-...ce-1962-2015-7

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971