Having asked about Stentor in an earlier post I thought I would I would share this picture from one of the links I was given.
An early version of the 'ghetto blaster' perhaps.
A few months ago I was interested in finding out was going to happen to the Market Hall after it closed, so I subscribed to the Lancaster Guardian online.
I keep meaning to unsubscribe but I have found some of the headlines cheer me up on off days.
Things like,
Six foot tall wooden giraffe stolen
and
Jug theft at antiques centre.
It's not as if Lancaster doesn't have enough murder, drugs busts, corruption and general mayhem to keep the paper in headlines, but it seems as if these have become so commonplace that they no longer capture the readers' interest. More shocking that a brutal mugging or murder is the theft of jugs and giraffes.
Oh tempura, Oh Morris!
It's 8:30 on Friday morning and my day off!
I woke early and listened to Melvyn, Lord Barg of Ubiquity, talking about Absolute Zero.
And very interesting it was. But the ending was unsatisfactory.
I can see why in our current universe we can never reach an Absolute Zero, because there will always be some heat, some motion somewhere leaking into the system. But when the universe ends and there is no motion at all isn't that Absolute Zero?
And what about the other way? Why no upper limit? Is the highest temperature bound to the speed of light, or does it go beyond that?
This is nose bleed stuff. Especially early in the morning.
Rather than get up I listened to another language lecture. This time on Internet English.
U can stp LOLing it was v funtresting ;)
Will the Internet kill the ' ?
EMT/Txt has a speed and informality unlike and form of communication except speech. So it is not surprising that it has the fluidity of speech and creates its own slang, jargon and argot.
How much will carry over into speech and more formal written English I don't know. But I'd put a small bet on the end of the apostrophe in can't, don't etc., as well as in possessive use,
But I'm too old to be able to pick up my winnings, so I'll spend the fiver on something else.
Before I finish I'll just refer back to Buffon's Needles.
This is about finding the number Pi by drooping needles between horizontal lines. (For more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffon's_needle
but have a box of tissues handy.)
I knew Buffon ( this link will cause no nasal distress) from his work in Natural History but nothing of his maths. The legend is that he threw bread sticks over his shoulder on to the tiled floor of a cafe or bakery to prove his theory.
This seems to be myth or publicity stunt.
Think how many loaves would have to be thrown. Think what the Baker would say.
Something along the lines of, 'Va te faire foutre Monsieur Buffon!' I would imagine.
Below is part of an interesting correspondence I have been having on the topic with a 'devoted reader'.
By the way, what do you call the apostrophes around 'devoted reader'?
And while we are back on apostrophes, should there be anone in BFFs? Should there be an S at all? Can BFF have a plural?
BFN, SYL:}
An early version of the 'ghetto blaster' perhaps.
A few months ago I was interested in finding out was going to happen to the Market Hall after it closed, so I subscribed to the Lancaster Guardian online.
I keep meaning to unsubscribe but I have found some of the headlines cheer me up on off days.
Things like,
Six foot tall wooden giraffe stolen
and
Jug theft at antiques centre.
It's not as if Lancaster doesn't have enough murder, drugs busts, corruption and general mayhem to keep the paper in headlines, but it seems as if these have become so commonplace that they no longer capture the readers' interest. More shocking that a brutal mugging or murder is the theft of jugs and giraffes.
Oh tempura, Oh Morris!
It's 8:30 on Friday morning and my day off!
I woke early and listened to Melvyn, Lord Barg of Ubiquity, talking about Absolute Zero.
And very interesting it was. But the ending was unsatisfactory.
I can see why in our current universe we can never reach an Absolute Zero, because there will always be some heat, some motion somewhere leaking into the system. But when the universe ends and there is no motion at all isn't that Absolute Zero?
And what about the other way? Why no upper limit? Is the highest temperature bound to the speed of light, or does it go beyond that?
This is nose bleed stuff. Especially early in the morning.
Rather than get up I listened to another language lecture. This time on Internet English.
U can stp LOLing it was v funtresting ;)
Will the Internet kill the ' ?
EMT/Txt has a speed and informality unlike and form of communication except speech. So it is not surprising that it has the fluidity of speech and creates its own slang, jargon and argot.
How much will carry over into speech and more formal written English I don't know. But I'd put a small bet on the end of the apostrophe in can't, don't etc., as well as in possessive use,
But I'm too old to be able to pick up my winnings, so I'll spend the fiver on something else.
Before I finish I'll just refer back to Buffon's Needles.
This is about finding the number Pi by drooping needles between horizontal lines. (For more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffon's_needle
but have a box of tissues handy.)
I knew Buffon ( this link will cause no nasal distress) from his work in Natural History but nothing of his maths. The legend is that he threw bread sticks over his shoulder on to the tiled floor of a cafe or bakery to prove his theory.
This seems to be myth or publicity stunt.
Think how many loaves would have to be thrown. Think what the Baker would say.
Something along the lines of, 'Va te faire foutre Monsieur Buffon!' I would imagine.
Below is part of an interesting correspondence I have been having on the topic with a 'devoted reader'.
By the way, what do you call the apostrophes around 'devoted reader'?
And while we are back on apostrophes, should there be anone in BFFs? Should there be an S at all? Can BFF have a plural?
BFN, SYL:}
The reference to Buffon’s Needles
Did you know that the astonishingly good approximation to pi that he got was probably done so by cheating?
The estimate of pi was obtained as a ratio of the number of times that the needle landed on a line to the number of throws (the estimate gives pi/4 or some other fraction I think). The very good estimate that he got was, say, m/n but the total n had to be chosen very carefully to give a good approximation. For example an estimate of pi/4 equal to a quarter of 22/7 would be 11/14. If you make 15 throws there is no chance of getting such a good estimate as 11/14. You have to do 14 (or some multiple of it). The good fractional ratio he used required a very specific large number of throws. And he must have been damned lucky to get thr right numerator. Or else he cheated, or selected a good stretch within a larger number of throws.
The inherent error in the estimate he could get is proportional to the square root of the number of throws so to get something like 1/1000 accuracy you would need something like a million throws – which is considerably more than he used.
He was, I think, a good self-publicist. He did a good job in demonstrating an interesting use of probabilistic sampling.
His method is essentially the basis of the Monte Carlo method of statistical modelling of complex phenomena. Modern computers can, of course, perform millions of calculations in a trice, nay a millitrice.
Did you know that the astonishingly good approximation to pi that he got was probably done so by cheating?
The estimate of pi was obtained as a ratio of the number of times that the needle landed on a line to the number of throws (the estimate gives pi/4 or some other fraction I think). The very good estimate that he got was, say, m/n but the total n had to be chosen very carefully to give a good approximation. For example an estimate of pi/4 equal to a quarter of 22/7 would be 11/14. If you make 15 throws there is no chance of getting such a good estimate as 11/14. You have to do 14 (or some multiple of it). The good fractional ratio he used required a very specific large number of throws. And he must have been damned lucky to get thr right numerator. Or else he cheated, or selected a good stretch within a larger number of throws.
The inherent error in the estimate he could get is proportional to the square root of the number of throws so to get something like 1/1000 accuracy you would need something like a million throws – which is considerably more than he used.
He was, I think, a good self-publicist. He did a good job in demonstrating an interesting use of probabilistic sampling.
His method is essentially the basis of the Monte Carlo method of statistical modelling of complex phenomena. Modern computers can, of course, perform millions of calculations in a trice, nay a millitrice.