Meanwhile friend mentioned back in the day watching Los Angeles-area pay-tv station Channel Z.
I said we only got up to Channel X, but if I combined that with what I *imagined* was on Channel Y that made Channel Z.
They were not amused.
@Austin_Dern channel z is the cross product of channel x and channel y
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@Felthry Yeah, that's the stronger joke. Thank you.
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@Austin_Dern i don't think i get the original joke
what're channel x, channel y, and channel z?
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@Austin_Dern ooh, you don't usually talk about x y and z for complex numbers like that, that's more commonly a b and c, i think
or in specific contexts it can be other things, like R, X, and Z when dealing with electrical impedances, or ω, σ, and s in the context of the Laplace transform
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@Felthry Oh, Channel Z was a pioneering cable-tv channel for the Los Angeles area in the 70s and 80s. Ran the first 'director's cuts' of movies and letterboxed presentation and such. Very influential in how pay-tv developed.
Channel X was just me making up a channel for a joke, the premise of which was our cable was limited enough it didn't go all the way up to Z. And then combining X with an imaginary Y was meant to suggest the way one can build a complex number as x + iy = z.