I'm so glad dockers are exempt from quarantine rules. The're quay workers, after all.
Personal Blogs
Somebody, I don’t recall who, said “The path of honour is often insane, but it is always honourable.”
I think that kind of makes sense.
Don't understand why piano tuners aren't available.They're key workers after all.
I've got a new job, working in a factory that makes drills. But it's really boring.
Found this scribbled on a napkin.
Interviewer. Chicken, can you tell us why you crossed the road?
Chicken. Cuz that’s what a road’s fer dang it. No sense in it elsewise.
in the final departure lounge
no-one
tries to
push past
we’re all sitting
quietly
“This is how Swifty & Co. have always operated“, said Tom firmly.
Emperor “angered” as critics slam official response to burning of Rome
“We have done an exceptional job” Nero insists
Here's my solution to the A4 Paper Puzzle I posted a couple of days back. As Jan Pinfield correctly said (well done Jan!) the outlined perimeter has length 4, which is rather neat.
Here's how we can convince ourselves of this. The explanation is not mathematically rigorous because I wanted to keep it reasonably short and intuitive. Filling in the details is not so very hard but it might obscure the main argument, which is a rather elegant one.
In the graphic below I have reproduced the original puzzle, in which the starting rectangle had dimensions 1 by square root 2, and the question was to find the length of the outlined perimeter. I've added three more diagrams to help explain the argument.
The explanation goes like this.
Diagram (1) shows the perimeter is a kite, with AC a mirror line about which it is symmetrical. So distance AEDC is half the length we are trying to find.
In diagram (2) the rectangle outlined in blue is a scaled-down copy of the 1 by square root 2 rectangle we began with, and because it has the same proportions DC must be square root 2 times as long as ED.
In diagram (3) ED is calculated as the difference between square root 2 and 1, and multiplying ED by square root 2 gives the length of DC as 2 - square root 2. Adding AD and DC as shown in the box gives 2, and the whole perimeter is twice this, so it is 4.
Cat: May I order a mouse?
Waiter: Of course Sir. Would you like to see the mouse list?
Cat: No, I’ll just have the house mouse please.
When Friedrich Nietzsche observed that there are no truths, only interpretations,
He may have had a point, but it was lost on his relations.
Many of whom said, his nibs
Always told fibs.
What kind of feathers do you find on a lock?
I found this neat puzzle in a YouTube video from the brilliant Matt Parker, who does maths standup, and has posted countless highly entertaining and instructive videos. I recommend them to anyone who enjoys recreational mathematics.
Here's the puzzle. We take a sheet of A4 paper, whose sides you can assume have lengths 1 and square root 2. We fold down the top left-hand corner, then fold down the top right-hand corner. What is the length of the red perimeter?
Thermopylae
Honour to those who in the life they lead
define and guard a Thermopylae.
Never betraying what is right,
consistent and just in all they do
but showing pity also, and compassion;
generous when they are rich, and when they are poor,
still generous in small ways,
still helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hating those who lie.
And even more honour is due to them
when they foresee (as many do foresee)
that in the end Ephialtis will make his appearance,
that the Medes will break through after all.
This poem is by Cavafy, one of the preeminent Greek poets of modern times. Thermopylae was the narrow pass where in 480 BCE Leonidas and his 500 Spartans held up the entire Persian invasion army long enough for the other Greeks to prepare their defence. Eventually they were outflanked when a local guide showed the Persians a mountain path that let them bypass the Spartan roadblock. Leonidas and the 500 famously refused to surrender and fought on to the last. When the Persian king Xerxes demanded they lay down their arms Leonidas is supposed to have answered “μολὼν λαβέ” - molon lave - “you come and get ‘em”.
There’s an interesting discussion of Cavafy and his work here
http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2013/11/reading-poems-of-cp-cavafy-in-greek.html
A needle, a tape measure and a thimble walk into a bar.
The bartender says, “Is this some kind of stitch-up?”
I don't know about real outlaws in the Old West, but the ones in films often wore a mask; typically a bananda, often fancy, that covered their mouth and nose. This was the badge that showed they were baddies. But could it really have prevented them being identified, the reason given for their wearing masks?
Probably, yes. I've just put on a surgical mask and tested my iPhone. It didn't recognise my face. Amazingly, the phone hadn't been confused in the least bit by my radical beard trim, done some weeks back, for reasons of hygiene. But this is different. My phone didn't know me any more. I could still tap in the passcode of course.
Not all Western outlaws wore bandanas; there was a second popular style: the black mask around the eyes, like Zorro or the Lone Ranger.
Whether Style 2 affects the iPhone facial
recognition or not I don't know yet. My prediction is the impact will be less than for Style 1. I've bought a Zorro mask online and will be able to
report further, sometime towards the end of next week.
It's occurd to me
That I love you just the whey you are.
I love the stars
But l love the birds more
From their being closer.
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