“Whatever blows your hair back.”
So what’s your favorite proof? Why? Do me a favor and plug it into this spreadsheet, and in a couple of days I’ll put it to a vote.
Complex Numbers and Calculus
If your computer can handle it, the things going on in this webpage are _amazing_: http://acko.net/blog/how-to-fold-a-julia-fractal/
— Daniel Schneider (@MathyMcMatherso) January 6, 2013
Astonishing work to put this webpage together.
More pizza?
From a review of a local pizza place:
Because of the easily laid out website, I could see that getting three 10-inch pizzas ($6 for plain cheese, $7 for pepperoni, and $9 for a house combo “Carcass” pie with sausage, bacon, pepperoni and meatballs) would result in more pizza and easier-to-handle packaging than adding ingredients at $2 a pop to an 18-inch family pie, for a net difference of $1.
More pizza? Including/not including crusts?
Deadly Nightshade
Our baby is teething and while I was at the pharmacy, I saw a homeopathic remedy for teething babies with the following ingredients:
Belladonna, aka Deadly Nightshade, has what percentage of alkaloids? 0.0000000000003% or 3 x 10^-13%
Or if we take 1g of “medicine” then there are 3 femtograms, or 3 x 10^-15 grams of belladonna alkaloids. How small is this number?
- Same amount as 6 million individual alkaloid compound molecules.
- Same volume as 1/10 of a grain of sand in an olympic size swimming pool.
- Same area as 1/6th the size of a credit card compared to the area of the United States.
- Same amount of money as $0.05 compared to the United States Federal Debt.
That’s crazy small.
Matchstick Puzzler: 16 – 90 Degree Angles
New puzzler from Cartalk:
How do you make 16 ninety-degree angles out of 4 matchsticks?
Bret Victor’s Learnable Programming
Bret Victor (Inventing on Principle) wrote an excellent essay on Learnable Programming. If you have any interest in how people learn computer programming best, or how people learn in general, then go read it. Now. Shoo. And you probably want to read it on a computer; there are several short videos to accompany the text.
This essay was an immune response, triggered by hearing too many times that Inventing on Principle was “about live coding”, and seeing too many attempts to “teach programming” by adorning a JavaScript editor with badges and mascots.
The gauntlet has been thrown down for the Khan Academy CS program. They just got served.
Batting Averages Puzzler
From the soon to be retiring Car Talk radio show, a fantastic new baseball puzzler.
RAY: As you might guess, I’m a baseball fan. And now that the season is in its waning days, I thought I’d use this baseball Puzzler I’ve been saving.
There are two rookie players, Bluto and Popeye, who started the season on opening day and made a wager as to which one would have the best batting average at the end of the season.
Well, the last day of the season arrives, and not much is going to change–especially considering that neither one of them is in the starting lineup.
Bluto says, “Hey, Popeye, what did you bat for the first half of the year?”Popeye answers, “I batted .250.”
And Bluto responds, “Well, I got you there. I batted .300. How about after the All-Star break?”
Proudly, Popeye pipes up, “I batted .375.”
Bluto says, “Pretty good, but I batted .400. Fork over the 20 bucks that we bet.”
The bat boy, Dougie, saunters over and says, “Don’t pay the 20 bucks, Popeye. I think you won.”
TOM: Why is someone who batted .375 not playing in the last game of the season? That’s what I want to know!
RAY: Good point. But the question is this: How could Popeye have won?
Shadow Art
Neat artwork at the Montclair Art Museum in NJ. How was this designed?
iPads save Jetfuel
From paritynews:
American Airlines has announced that it has received the permission from FAA to allow its pilots to carry and use iPads in the cockpit during “all phases of flight.”
According to the airlines, the tablet will enable pilots to store documentation in electronic form on the iPad which otherwise weighs 15.875 kg (35 pounds) when in printed form. Use of the digital documentation will enable the airlines to save as much as US $1.2 million of fuel each year.
$1.2 million? How much does it take to fly a pound of weight from here to there?
180 Days – Classroom Photoblog
So I’ve joined the ranks of the 180 day classroom photo-blog (ugh, hate that word) in hopes of keeping up on reflection in this very busy year. And here’s a Google Reader bundle of a whole bunch of 180 blogs compiled by Frank Noschese. Cheers.
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