…for Rudolf:
A Jersey Evening Post journalist is making a late bid to reach the top of the charts this Christmas by dressing as a reindeer and urging the nation to “hug a Muslim”.
In the video, Lewis, who has no previous musical experience, sings: “Turn to the person next to you now and give them a hug. Muslim, Hindu, Christian or Jew
I’m sure that Bush and Rove will get the blame for this any minute now.
For some 20 million years, the baiji, also called the white-flag dolphin, frequented the Yangtze
What kind of person would pay someone to shove wasabi up their nose? I’d have trouble getting to sleep if I had to look forward to that in the morning.
Now that I’ve been named Time’s Person of the Year, I expect my readership to go up considerably.
John Kerry is appropriately (and uncharacteristically) humble about it, of course.
Today’s Woot offering is pretty funny:
If the scientist is going to use a home entertainment projector for the head, which one would we prefer him to use?
Woot feels the answer might be the InFocus IN72 Home Entertainment Projector. First of all, just look at it. This thing has awesome robot head written all over it. Not since HAL has there been such a perfect anthropomorphic design, allowing you to choose between:
a) breaking the ranks of soldiers by causing them to flee before your electronic snarl as you march on your state capitol or the state capitol of others.
b) breaking the ranks of soldiers by inviting them to stop and enjoy high quality movies or television in your new living room theater.
Also, the thing has sold out already, and it’s not even 10 AM on the east coast.
Phil Bowermaster is wondering if there’s something dodgy about the math here.
No, this is in fact a standard technique for determining the sum of an infinite series, which is in fact what 0.999… is (it could be expressed as the sum, from n=0 to infinity, of the expression 9 times 10 to the minus n). Perhaps, as one commenter notes, it’s the word “precisely” that’s hanging people up, but certainly that number is equal to one, whatever modifier you want to put on it or leave off.
[Update in the afternoon]
I’m not sure I follow the commenter’s objection. He claims that no matter what you start out with as “a” you get a=1. I don’t see that.
Try it with two, as suggested.
a = 2
10a = 20
10a – a = 20 – 2
9a = 18
Ergo, a = 2.
In fact, do it with 1.999…
a=1.999…
10a = 19.999…
9a = 18
a = 2
As I said, it’s a standard technique for expressing repitends as whole numbers or fractions.
Phil Bowermaster is wondering if there’s something dodgy about the math here.
No, this is in fact a standard technique for determining the sum of an infinite series, which is in fact what 0.999… is (it could be expressed as the sum, from n=0 to infinity, of the expression 9 times 10 to the minus n). Perhaps, as one commenter notes, it’s the word “precisely” that’s hanging people up, but certainly that number is equal to one, whatever modifier you want to put on it or leave off.
[Update in the afternoon]
I’m not sure I follow the commenter’s objection. He claims that no matter what you start out with as “a” you get a=1. I don’t see that.
Try it with two, as suggested.
a = 2
10a = 20
10a – a = 20 – 2
9a = 18
Ergo, a = 2.
In fact, do it with 1.999…
a=1.999…
10a = 19.999…
9a = 18
a = 2
As I said, it’s a standard technique for expressing repitends as whole numbers or fractions.
Phil Bowermaster is wondering if there’s something dodgy about the math here.
No, this is in fact a standard technique for determining the sum of an infinite series, which is in fact what 0.999… is (it could be expressed as the sum, from n=0 to infinity, of the expression 9 times 10 to the minus n). Perhaps, as one commenter notes, it’s the word “precisely” that’s hanging people up, but certainly that number is equal to one, whatever modifier you want to put on it or leave off.
[Update in the afternoon]
I’m not sure I follow the commenter’s objection. He claims that no matter what you start out with as “a” you get a=1. I don’t see that.
Try it with two, as suggested.
a = 2
10a = 20
10a – a = 20 – 2
9a = 18
Ergo, a = 2.
In fact, do it with 1.999…
a=1.999…
10a = 19.999…
9a = 18
a = 2
As I said, it’s a standard technique for expressing repitends as whole numbers or fractions.
The leftist/Arabist myth that Israel and the plight of the “Palestinians” is the cause of all ills in the Middle East is a lie and a nonsense, and stories and editorials pointing it out aren’t new. What is new is that even Time magazine seems to have figured it out:
Yes, it was a great disturbance in the Arab world in the 1940s when a Jewish state was born through a U.N. vote and a war that made refugees of many Palestinians. Then the 1967 war left Israel in control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and thus the Palestinians who lived there. But the pan-Arabism that once made the Palestinian cause the region’s cause is long dead, and the Arab countries have their own worries aplenty. In a decade of reporting in the region, I found it rarely took more than the arching of an eyebrow to get the most candid of Arab thinkers to acknowledge that the tears shed for the Palestinians today outside the West Bank and Gaza are of the crocodile variety. Palestinians know this best of all.
To promote the canard that the troubles of the Arab world are rooted in the Palestinians’ misfortune does great harm. It encourages the Arabs to continue to avoid addressing their colossal societal and political ills by hiding behind their Great Excuse: it’s all Israel’s fault. Certainly, Israel has at times been an obnoxious neighbor, but God help the Arab leaders, propagandists and apologists if a day ever comes when the Arab-Israeli mess is unraveled. One wonders how they would then explain why in Egypt 4 of every 10 people are illiterate; Saudi Arabian Shi’ites (not to mention women) are second-class citizens; 11% of Syrians live below subsistence level; and Jordan’s King can unilaterally dissolve Parliament, as he did in 2001. Or why no Middle Eastern government but Israel’s and to some extent Lebanon’s tolerates freedom of assembly or speech, or democratic institutions like a robust press or civic organizations with independence and clout–let alone unfettered competitive elections.
I haven’t had the time to read through this whole thing (we’re moving foliage into the house and decorating it, to the annual consternation of the cat), but I think it’s worth a read. The Singularity continues to approach, and by definition, we are not prepared.