Category Archives: random

Fuzzy Microphone

Leave a reply

fuzzymicOne of my volunteer sidelines is producing the sound for the Houston Roller Derby.  It’s a lot of work, but usually only one day a month for about half the year.  I have the microphones coded with colors and try to give the same ones to the regular announcers just so I don’t have to think on that account.

So last month when I was unpacking the microphones from their monthly storage I came across this extra fuzzy one.  Those familiar with the derby announcers will likely be able to guess who it belonged to.

In My Brain

2 Replies

So, this was some debugging output that I was going through yesterday. My whole day was like that. And this particular one, pointed me toward one of my problems.

Rr2rrrrrrrrrBCDrr1w3wwww8wwwwwDww
"10-14" = Wr2rrrrrrr0rBCrrr1w3wwWw8wwwwwDww;
"15-19" = Wr2rrrrrrrrrBCDEr1wrwwWw8wwwwwDww;
"16-19" = Wr2rrrrrrrrrBCDrF1wrwwWw8wwwwwDww;
"8-12" = Wr2rrrrr8rrrrCDrr1w3wwWw8wwwwwDww;
"9-13" = Wr2rrrrrr9rrBrDrr1w3wwWw8wwwwwDww;
"9-14" = Wr2rrrrrr9rrBCrrr1w3wwWw8wwwwwDww;

Yes, this is what I do during the day.

Math Entertainer Answers No. 1

3 Replies

I recently proffered the first quiz from Mr. Heafford’s book.

As I suspected, it scared everyone away. Except for the mathematician that I know reads the blog. He offered up his answers. The 9 of the 20 he answered were all the same answers offered by the author.

Many of the numbers give more of a glimpse of how the world has changed in the last 50 years. Since calculators became widely used in the 60s and 70s, and then computers in the 80s, we rarely “handle” these numbers directly. Number of centimeters in an inch, sure, but the square root of 2? No.

Answers after the jump:

Continue reading →

The Math Entertainer No. 1: Quickies

2 Replies

I obtained a book a few years back from Crazy Mike’s Crazy Emporium, that was once located at what is now Sig’s Lagoon.

This 1959 book was written by Philip Heafford, Department of Education, University of Oxford: The Math Entertainer. His goal, from his introduction seems extremely optimistic. To entertain enjoyers of mathematics, but also to interest those who think they don’t like math.

(As a side note, this book was a gift to someone from Aunt Thelma and Uncle Nolen in 1974.)

The book contains 50 quizzes. And here, throwing copyright to the wind (that discussion for another day – and if the author would like me to remove this post, he need only ask), is the first quiz.

How many can you get? (feel free to post a reply) I got maybe half of them, maybe less.

Quiz No. 1: Quickies

Do these numbers ring a bell? For instance, the number 365 would mean only one thing to me, and that is the number of days a year. Ask someone to test you with this quiz. Six seconds for each question. How many can you get right in the time limit of two minutes for all the questions?

  1. 1,760
  2. 2,000
  3. 4,840
  4. 640
  5. 1.732
  6. 2.54
  7. 3.1416 . . .
  8. 366
  9. .3010
  10. 1492
  11. .4771
  12. .4971
  13. 1.6
  14. 1.414
  15. 1,728
  16. 3-4-5
  17. 6,080
  18. 62½
  19. 90
  20. 88

The answers, who got them, and my thoughts will follow (at some point).

Who is Bill Shirley?

9 Replies

Some people think that Shirley is an uncommon name. It’s not. You come across many more less common names when you’re going about your life. It’s more common than less (being in the 43rd percentile of last names in the US – it’s a bit more common in Texas)

Last time I checked the Houston phone book (which was admittedly a while ago), there were nearly thirty Shirleys and I didn’t know any of them.

Of course, William is a very common name (fifth most common in the 1990 US census).

Almost twenty years ago I met via the internet a guy named Shirley, and then his brother Will. They lived outside of London, were a few years younger than me, and were both in computer work for a living. I always hoped to visit them, but never did. I’ve lost track of them.

Bill Shirley (1921 – 1989) was an actor and singer and singing voice of Prince Philip in Sleeping Beauty (1959).

Continue reading →