Friday, March 14, 2008

Happy Pi Day


This is a day I've "celebrated" since college. Or more like acknowledged because I never really had a celebration on this day. Last year I teased on my blog that the real Pi Day happened in 1592 since Pi is 3.141592... But we don't have to be so technical. We'll just cut to the point that most people think of pi as mostly 3.14.

And while I'm at it, let me say Happy Birthday to Albert Einstein.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html - This is something I'll be watching in the next few days, probably after this weekend. I've already watched hour 3 chapter 4. I'm going to my sister's new apartment that's two hours away to install a Wireless router and card in her computer on Sunday, and tonight my mother, sister and I are going to play Scrabble or other games so I'll be spending the night at Mom's. I figure I might as well enjoy myself while I'm temporarily up out of the well. Saturday my husband and I are going about an hour away to look at an MG Midget that we have been thinking about buying. On the way there he's taking me to a restaurant that I've been wanting to eat at for a long time. I have a buy-one-meal-get-one-free coupon that I want to use. :) I need a car at the house while my husband is at work, just in case I need to go to doctors' appointments or make a trip to the store. It's a 34-year old car with only 36,000 miles on the engine. I find that hard to believe but my husband believes it. It's going for $3100. I hate risking money on a used car, because you never know when it's going to break down and waste your money. I've never owned a new car. When I was growing up, all the used cars I bought always had severe problems. But the past couple of years, with my husband's help, we've managed to drive fairly reliable used cars. We could go for a brand new Kia, which are fairly cheap cars, but we don't want to pay $111 a month for six years with me not having a job.
So I've got a lot going on this weekend that will help keep my head out of the darkness. I have wanted to deny the "Bipolar" label for a number of years now, because I associated it with psychopaths. An association that was completely inspired by two or more people that I've known who are Bipolar. But more and more I've come to accept it, but only because it means I have up days in between the down days. I love up days. :) I think today is an up day.

12 comments:

Unknown said...

Today is also Steak and BJ Day.

I'm sure Ras won't forget, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. ;o}

Sophia said...

Hehee! I think my mind is in the gutter or something because I can't think of any other thing you could possibly mean by BJ.

I'll go bang my head on the wall now. :)

Unknown said...

Nope, that's exactly what it means.

http://www.steakandbjday.com/

Anonymous said...

I prefer 2pi.

Sophia said...

Christi,

Then it's a good thing I didn't tell my husband about this until March 15! :)

Girls get their Valentine's Day, so I suppose it's only fair.

Sophia said...

Anonymous,

I found this:

http://www.fourthway.us/

Any relation?

Anonymous said...

>Anonymous,

>I found this:

>http://www.fourthway.us/

>Any relation?

I guess it depends on whether you're asking the question while
considering absolutes or relatives.

In a fuzzy universe, I represent
the un-fourthway extereme.

If 2pi is 6/28 what day is 3pi?

Modulo 2pi will take you clear
around the sun, just can't get
away from that rascal any day of
the year.

Sophia said...

Anonymous,

What's a fuzzy universe? I don't think we ever studied that in my math courses.

3pi would be... 9/42, which would be... 10/12 (mod 30)?

Goodness, my math skills are really rubbish now, if you want to know the truth.

Maybe I should give-up my search for a spiritual teacher and take-up a search for a math teacher who can reteach me math. Then I could finally have an excuse to spoil myself with that calculator I've dreamed about since college - the Texas Instruments Voyage 200. I'm sure by now they've got a newer model. It's sexy: http://education.ti.com/educationportal/sites/US/productDetail/us_v200.html

Anonymous said...

>Anonymous,

>What's a fuzzy universe? I don't
>think we ever studied that in my
>math courses.

Sorry to say your education is
lacking a crucial element, perhaps
more.

Please give "fuzzy logic" a google.

I hate the wikipedia entry which
needs a lot of work. A superficial
review yielded the following which
anyone with elementary mathematics
comprehension can appreciate:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Groups/AI/html/faqs/ai/fuzzy/part1/faq-doc-2.html

My introduction to fuzzy logic was
a single page serial depiction of
a log stood on end going through
various iterations of sculpting to
an end in which it looked like our
modern rendition of an ordinary
wooden chair.

The caption was, "when did it
become a chair?" Fuzzy logic is
used extensively these days to
solve engineering problems as
usualy the hardest problems are
part of a continuum.

>Maybe I should give-up my
>search for a spiritual teacher
>and take-up a search for a math
>teacher who can reteach me math.

Please use fuzzy logic to help
you determine where math ends and
spirituality begins. It isn't
very clear to me. :-)

In my youth I was required to
write a short essay on why a
rabbit is like a rock. I would
do well with that exercise today, but at age 13 I hadn't a clue.

Happily_anonymous

goatman said...

Neat little car, fun to drive and shift through those gears, and good with the gas as well.
Drawback is that most of the MG engines I've seen have two carbs which have to be occasionally played with to get a balance of fuel input to the engine. You may need to find an old guy to work on it once in awhile--hubby may do?

Sophia said...

Happily_anonymous,

I don't know if my education was lacking or if my memory is lacking. I'm more willing to blame it on memory. I often fret about all the skills I've lost and knowledge I've forgotten, just by not using them. My brain must have cleaned out the attic and got rid of all the items that were sitting idle and collecting dust. Well, the good news is, I can always make room for more. Sometimes relearning things can be just as exciting as learning them the first time. It's like discovering buried treasure! I really envy the people who have the wonderful ability to retain what they've learned.

The only logic-oriented class I took in college was Boolean Algebra, which was actually a class that was taught in the computer science department. There was a logic class taught by the philosophy department, but I never signed up for it. I didn't realize my interest in the subject until after graduation. My college friend, upon hearing of my late-blooming interest, gave me her logic textbook. It presently sits unread on a bookshelf in the other room. From my Boolean Algebra course, though, I have small flutterings of images from memory that relate to truth tables, and operations such as union, intersection, negation, etc.

I read the link you provided, and I really can't recall if I've learned about it in college. As a black-or-white-thinker, it's no wonder I didn't know at first what fuzzy logic was. I had to force myself to think in grey for a moment.

Thanks for educating me. :)

Sophia said...

Goatman,

As it turned out, we didn't get the MG Midget. A little over a week ago we bought a 1995 Jeep Cherokee. It has lots of new parts which really is what influenced us in the purchase. It has some mileage on it, though, and the engine makes a funny pinging noise which my husband thinks is a problem with a valve or piston or something. I don't know what a valve or piston are, so maybe I'm wrong about that, as I can't really remember. I noticed the sound when we went to look at it and I tried to talk my husband out of it, but he wanted it anyway. I hope the engine doesn't die soon. It has 200,000 miles on it. I don't know that it was my husband's smartest choice. But we only paid $2800 for it. I hate buying used cars because you never know what you're going to get. I've never owned a new car before but I don't want the payments.