On Thursday, December 15, 2016 at 10:09:24 AM UTC, T i m wrote:
On Wed, 14 Dec 2016 22:48:43 -0800 (PST), harry
wrote:

snip

I wonder how Robin Hood was so accurate just using bits if random twig for arrows?

There are often people (ignoring fictional ones of course) who seem to
have skills / abilities that sometimes defy logic or even science
(given that even when the science / theory behind it are known, others
still can't do it etc).

If 'found', these people often become world / Olympic champions and
stay at the top for many years.

These are the sort of people you could nearly put in any car on the
starting line and they will get on the podium if not win.

I love it when some bad workman blames their tools and someone who
knows what they are doing takes it off them and does what was assumed
to be the impossible. ;-) [1]

Cheers, T i m

[1] I race RC Lasers [ http://www.rclaser.org.uk/ ] and on one fun
sail a lady was always coming last. She suggested it was her boat so
for the next race I offered to swap my boat with hers. She still came
last and I managed to get her boat into the top three g. That said,
her boat *was* harder work than mine (not as well set-up) but the
experiment did allow her to see there was nothing major wrong with it.
;-)

The one-off 1970 Questor Grand Prix was a mixed race for Formula 1 and Formula 5000 cars. Legendary (and curmudgeonly) Indycar racer AJ Foyt was struggling at the back of the field so, while Foyt was elsewhere, his team boss asked Jackie Stewart to go out for a few laps. Stewart set a middle-grid time and breezily suggested to the team that the car was OK, maybe it was the driver that was the problem. Foyt got to hear about it and came looking for Jackie...