Eunoia : Stu Savory's Blog - March 2017

Eunoia
Nav Tools --> Most recent Blog Comments are OFF, so send any via Email to :- Comments Policy Impressum Maths trivia Search this site RSS Feed About Eunoia, who is a grumpy, overeducated, facetious, multilingual ex-pat Scot, blatantly opinionated, old (1944-vintage), amateur cryptologist, computer consultant, atheist, flying instructor, bulldog-lover, Beetle-driver, textbook-writer, long-distance biker, geocacher and blogger living in the foothills south of the northern German plains. Not too shy to reveal his true name or even whereabouts, he blogs his opinions, and humour and rants irregularly. Stubbornly he clings to his beliefs, e.g. that Faith does not give answers, it only prevents you doing any goddamn questioning. You are as atheist as he is. When you understand why you don't believe in all the other gods, you will know why he does not believe in yours :-) Oh, and he also has a neat English Bulldog bitch 'Frieda'. And her big son 'Kosmo'. Some of my bikes My Crypto Pages My Maths Pages	Wednesday, March 29, 2017 Brexit begins Today, Theresa May, Prime Minister of GB, sent the letter to Brussels, triggering Article 50, starting the Brexit procedure for GB to leave the EU. It was delivered personally to Donald Tusk (current EU leader) on the second attempt, by the UK ambassador. Rumour has it that the first delivery attempt failed when a Brussels burocrat refused to accept the letter, the Brits having not put any stamps on the envelope ;-) German carnival float showing Theresa May's Brexit. Note the mistake : the pistol has sights, as if it could be aimed controllably ;-) The difference between Russian roulette and Brexit roulette : in Russian roulette one round is put in the revolver, the drum is spun and the trigger pulled. Brexit roulette is the same except it uses a pistol instead of a revolver :-( Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on March 29, 2017 permalink Comments Email Sunday, March 26, 2017 Abel prize for Yves Meyer :-) All you good folks who read this blog, being in the upper quartile of the intelligence scale, will know about the Nobel prizes. Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and owner of Bofors, started the Nobel prizes to ease his conscience. There are Nobel prizes for physics, chemistry, medicine etc., but there is no Nobel prize for mathematics. The equivalent prize for mathematics is named after the genial norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel. This award comes with 6 million Norwegian Crowns prize money (about 675,000 Euros). This year the Abel Prize goes to frenchman Yves Meyer, for his work on wavelets back in the 1980s. Wavelets are a generalisation of the Fourier Transform; instead of analysing a waveform by harmonic sine curves, Meyer used time-limited waveform "chunks". Wavelets find applications in data compression, medical imaging, and analysis of astronomical data inter alia. Congratulations, Yves. Comments (1) Doug (Canada) wrote " Heard the one about the constipated mathematician? He had to work it out with a pencil." Old, old, old : And still terrible :-( Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on March 26, 2017 permalink Comments Email Sunday, March 19, 2017 Merkel met Trump The end of the week saw Dr. Angela Merkel meet Mr. Trump in Washington DC. Trump appeared nervous, unsure of himself, and unfriendly. For example he refused to shake Mrs. Merkel's hand despite many requests to do so. Many saw this as an affront or at least impoliteness or his usual bad manners. However, I know his REAL reason! He suddenly realised that from the photographers' points of view, he was sitting on the right. This implied that if they shook (right) hands, his would be in the background, Merkel's in the foreground and his short stubby fingers would not be visible. So potential macho shame was the reason he refused the handshake! Well that's one conspiracy theory, anyway ;-) Meanwhile Mrs. Merkel is back in Germany and has summed up the meeting. Comments (2) Doug (Canada) wrote " He didn't know what to do with her. He couldn't f*k her or grab her by the pussy, and she's much, much smarter than he is so it left him nonplussed. Looks like he settled for just dropping he drawers for her as she seems to have an accurate estimate of his, er, finger size :)" Angela Merkel has a PhD in quantum chemistry. Trump misspelled "tap". Not exactly a meeting of the minds! --- Rick. G. Rosner. Hattie (Hawaii) opined " I think he had bad gas."* May I guess the bad gas? It was probably Dibutyl Telluride ;-) Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on March 19, 2017 permalink Comments Email Tuesday, March 14, 2017 PI Day, USA Stateside, people write the date with the month first, followed by the day of the month. In this notation, today is 3.14 and so is celebrated as PI day. PI is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of any convex curve of constant diameter; most people can only think of a circle, but any N-lobe Wankel rotor fits the criteria too. This photo shows yours truly at the PI-spiral wall in the Mathematikum museum in Giessen. The museum is just a short walk from the rail station. Back in my student days at City university (London,UK) I could recite the first 100 digits of PI from memory; sadly this useless ability has gone now :-( FWIW, if you write 3.14 and then look at it in a mirror, you get a visual approximation to PIE ;-) Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on March 14, 2017 permalink Comments Email Wednesday, March 8, 2017 International Women's Day Sometimes women get the credit they deserve, mostly not. Here's my list of a dozen in order of decreasing recognition. Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize. Ada Lovelace, world's first programmer. Walentina Tereschkowa, first female cosmonaut. Grace Hopper, mother of COBOL. Junko Tabei, 1st woman to climb Everest. Kaethe Paulus, inventor of the practical parachute and balloonist. Bessie Coleman, first black female pilot in the US. Josephine Cochrane, inventor of the first practical washing machine. Ida Pfeiffer, explorer (e.g. Borneo) Rosalind Franklin, first suggested life's molecule was a helix. Schakuntala Devi, extreme mental arithmetic prowess. Jackie Ronne, Antarctic explorer. How many do you recognise? Who else should be on the list, and where? Comments (1) Jenny (Ibiza) opines "Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette, should be in the top five." Okay. Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on March 8, 2017 permalink Comments Email Sunday, March 5, 2017 World Book Day The beginning of this month saw World Book Day which is intended to encourage children to read more books. So this was an excuse for me to read Terry Pratchett's A slip of the keyboard, a collection of his non-fiction which covers his career autobiographically from being the press-officer for a nuclear power plant to his support of assisted-dying after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Non-fiction? Yes, but in Pterry's own inimitable style, e.g. naming a village in Australia Worralorrasurfa or encouraging children to read fiction and believe it "It's better to ask Santa Claus for a pair of slippers than world peace. You might actually get it." So this was the funny book which I chose to read and enjoy (again) on World Book Day. Hardcover, 307pp, ISBN 978-0-385-53830-5. What did you read on World Book Day? And why? Comments (6) Cop Car (USA) wrote " Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast, 2nd Edition - David Archer (University of Chicag); John Wiley & Sons Inc - ISBN 978-0-470-94341-0 (paperback) The book was loaned to me by Nicholas Solomey, PhD University of Geneva, on World Book Day. It is taking me more than the one day for me to read. The book was a source for a First-Year Seminar that Solomey taught last semester at Wichita State University. Incoming Freshmen are assigned a Seminar, the subject of which is outside their fields of interest; thus, during Solomey's Seminar of last semester, only one student who was majoring in a science-related degree." Some books take only a few hours to read, others years! You know which one I mean ;-) Cop Car (USA) replied "The Road to Reality by (Sir) Roger Penrose." Yup ;-) Jenny (Ibiza) asked "So you read a book every day? 365 a year??" No, I read about 100 in a year. Like the rest of our village altogether :-( Hattie (Hawaii) wrote inter alia " Hi, Stu. As things go these days, the book you recommend sounds like a cheerful read, so I'll take a look at it..." You might prefer his fantasy (disc-world) books, they are funnier :-) John (UK) declared "I read John Niven's The Second Coming, which I'm sure you'd like too." Indeed. I read it in the german translation, which bears the title Gott Bewahre. ISBN 978-3-453-67633-6. 400pp. Bigly sarcastic! :-) Petra (A) asks "What are reading today?" A Non-Sense of Direction by Terence Kennedy, who travelled the world in a Citroen 2CV with homebuilt superstructure. ISBN 0-9517886-0-4. 208pp. Lent to me on friday by blogreader Volker (D). Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on March 5, 2017 permalink Comments Email	Recent Writings Brexit begins Abel prize for Yves Meyer Merkel met Trump PI Day, USA Internat. Women's Day World Book Day Racing in the USA ;-) Sigmund Jahn turned 80 Book Tip for Geeks :-) Making Murrika grate... I'm gutted, again :-( Too many !!!!!!!!!!!! I'm gutted :-) ..., One Cup Fake News Better Photos Cold Snaps Romani ite domum! Mr. Goldenballs F1 poor Loser Meal of the Year Term Limits? Nailed it! Blogroll Ain Bulldog Blog Badtux... Balloon Juice Cop Car Curmudgeonly... Earth-Bound Misfit Fail Blog Finding life hard? Hattie (Hawaii) Mockpaperscissors Mostly Cajun Not Always Right Observing Hermann Pergelator Rants from t'Rookery Yellowdog Grannie Archive 2017: Jan Feb Archive 2016: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2015: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2014: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec This blog is getting really unmanagable, so I've taken the first 12 years' archives offline. My blog, my random decision. Tough shit; YOLO. Link Disclaimer ENGLISH : I am not responsible for the contents or form of any external page to which this website links. I specifically do not adopt their content, nor do I make it mine. DEUTSCH : Für alle Seiten, die auf dieser Website verlinkt sind, möchte ich betonen, dass ich keinerlei Einfluss auf deren Gestaltung und Inhalte habe. Deshalb distanziere ich mich ausdrücklich von allen Inhalten aller gelinkten Seiten und mache mir ihren Inhalt nicht zu eigen. This Blog's Status is Blog Dewey Decimal Classification : 153 FWIW, 153 is a triangular number, meaning that you can arrange 153 items into an equilateral triangle (with 17 items on a side). It is also one of the six known truncated triangular numbers, because 1 and 15 are triangular numbers as well. It is a hexagonal number, meaning that you can distribute 153 points evenly at the corners and along the sides of a hexagon. It is the smallest 3-narcissistic number. This means it’s the sum of the cubes of its digits. It is the sum of the first five positive factorials. Yup, this is a 153-type blog. QED ;-) Books I have written

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