Monday, February 28, 2011 by Dick.

Suppose you have seven shoes lined up in front of your rock. Anne gives you four of my shoes because she is tired of tripping over them. How far south is your rock?

World Math Day is tomorrow. Cool.

The Guinness record holding online international mathematics competition had 1,204,766 participants in 56,082 schools in 235 countries last year. The original World Math Day was held on the March 14 (Pi Day) but has moved to the first Wednesday in March except it is on Tuesday this year. No wonder math is so confusing.

Students from across the world have 48 hours to compete in 20 games in each of five levels. (Quick! How many games is that?) Students have only 60 seconds to complete each game. (Quick! How many minutes do half the games take?)

Those 1.2 million students correctly answered 479,732,613 questions in the 2010 challenge. That broke the record of 452,682,682 correct answers that 1.9 million students had posted in 2009.

I’m thinking you need to know math just to keep track of the answers. And the contestants. In fact, I’m thinking you need a computer. After all, World Math Day would not be possible without computers and the Internet to pair off more than a million competitors and track their results in real time.

The abacus, built by Egyptian mathematicians in 2000 BC, was in widespread use centuries before we even started writing numbers down, let alone before we started formally counting by tens. Merchants, traders and clerks in Africa, Asia, and around the world still use it.

Most people think the Abacus was the first arithmetic calculator. That would be wrong. The first arithmetic calculator was a pile of rocks.

Og have 11 rocks. Og give four rocks to Nug. Og have seven rocks left.

And so we learned very early to make change.

Time passed. Math needs multiplied. Edmund Gunter invented the slide rule around 1620 so engineers could figure out how much a church roof rafter would bend. The slide rule can be faster at multiplication and division, and often is faster for roots, logarithms and trigonometry than a calculator, but it doesn’t add or subtract very easily which makes it not nearly as useful as an abacus as tax time draws near. I was in the last class at Stevens Institute required to buy a slide rule.

Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical calculator about 20 years after Gunter made his slipstick but IBM waited until 1954 to demonstrate the first all-transistor model. Their first commercial unit, the IBM 608, cost about $80,000.

Scott Flansburg serves as the Ambassador for World Maths Day and is known as “the human calculator” because he can run the numbers faster than an electronic calculator can. Mr. Flansburg visited All Angels Academy students in Miami Springs a couple of weeks ago. He was there to energize students as they prepare for the contest. This is the second year students from the school will participate in this event.

That’s encouraging.

Kids need to be better at math than I am. After all, there are more numbers now.

I have an undergrad degree in math and science as well as one in mechanical engineering but in real life I combine pursuits like this — writing and photography — with consulting to other small businesses. I don’t engineer stuff every day but I do use math. Every day. I use it to calculate my change at Wally World faster than the cash register. I use it to determine how many network cables I need to set up a client’s new computer system. And the programmers I hire used it to make sure these words I type appear on my screen and, shortly, on yours. Every kid today will use more math in his or her lifetime than you or I have.

For the record, I still have my slide rule. I also have a solar powered Casio full scientific calculator, a lot smaller than their first all-electric “compact” calculator of 1957. My handheld cost $10.

Both my slide rule and my solar calculator require light to work. Mr. Flansburg can work in the dark.

Tomorrow is also Town Meeting Day in most of Vermont. Anne who is a Justice of the Peace (and election official) will be counting shoes (and noses) again. I hope she won’t be counting in the dark.

Posted in Society, Science (real), Big Thoughts, Random Access | 11 Comments »

Thursday, February 17, 2011 by Dick.

A fellow with a Macbook started to use my extension cord at the airport but found he brought the wrong charger. Oh, well. That’s probably why I have to travel with a “cables and chargers ditty” that takes up a quarter of my carry on and drives TSA scanners crazy.

Here’s the thing. I have three cell phones (yeah, yeah, two are out of service or about to be), an iPod, a PDA, two cameras, two laptops, and an electric razor. Really. Not one of them has the same plug at either end.

I don’t want a $39.95 “universal charger adapter” gizmo. I have a bunch of those. They work for some gadgets some of the time. I want to plug into one place with one cord with one end onnit.

Ya know, every alarm clock, desktop computer, electric tooth brush, monitor, refrigerator, table lamp, television, and bug zapper I own plugs into the same 120VAC receptacle.

There’s no reason all the 5-12VDC device makers can’t collude to do the same damn thing.

Posted in Big Thoughts, Dick's Dumps | 5 Comments »

Monday, January 17, 2011 by Dick.

It’s the media’s fault.

It’s the Tea Party’s fault.

It’s the Demorat’s fault.

I have spent the last week or so watching the news coverage and Innertoob noodlings that blamed pretty much everyone but the Man in the Moon for the Arizona shootings.

I’m tired of the Blame Game.

Paul “Buster” Door, a now-retired North Puffin car dealer and Democratic party official, has spent the entire time railing at me about the “climate of hate and blame” that set Jared Loughner off on his path of disintegration. “Dupnik proved his case without lifting a finger,” he said about Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. “And now the Party of Hate and Violence has turned its lie machine loose on him.”

Hello?

Buster doesn’t think the lie machine will get much traction there in southern Arizona where the 75-year old “anti-Sheriff Joe” has been re-elected seven times since 1980.

“The lunatic right-wing conspiracy theorists created the atmosphere that drove Loughner to act,” he said. “Their Dupnik spin comes through loud and clear about how hard they’re working to ‘prove’ their conspiracy theory about Mr. Loughner’s actions.”

Right wing conspiracy theories? Hello?

The NY Times reported that Mr. Loughner’s comments were “strikingly similar in language and tone” to the voices of the Internet’s more paranoid, extremist, right-wing militia writers. The NY Times.

I did have to correct Buster a few other times on the facts in a conversation he started about the wonderfulness of the sheriff.

Arizona seems to be the national capitol for wack jobs. Sheriff Dupnik comes through loud and clear, alright. Last year he said out loud that he would refuse to enforce his state’s immigration law. This year, when he should have been investigating the shootings, he spent his time building the defense’s “debbil made me do it” case by telling everyone who would listen that it was all the fault of the right wing media.

I can understand why Buster want this guy for his sheriff. I don’t understand why anyone else would.

To set the record straight, over the past week even the MSM news admitted that if Mr. Loughner is political at all, he leans left. Funny thing about jumping to conclusions.

“Since we’re engaging in sophistry,” Buster said “Dupnik’s comment was simply that, should the bill become law, he wouldn’t enforce it.”

No sophistry. Dupnik said he wouldn’t enforce the law.

Period. Paragraph.

“Nice job trying to steer the discussion from the real point,” Buster said “and off into a total non issue.”

We do agree on that. It’s what leftwingnuts do.

See, every single MSM outlet including the NY Times jumped all over Mr. Loughner as driven by “that hateful national political rhetoric” that drove his murderous fantasies. And, in spite of what the ongoing investigation shows, Buster still want to blame “that hateful national [conservative] political rhetoric” for the murders instead of blaming Mr. Loughner.

A. Man. Killed. Six. People.

But Buster keeps pushing “that hateful national [conservative] political rhetoric.”

A. Man. Killed. Six. People.

But Bernie Sanders is fund raising to combat “that hateful national [conservative] political rhetoric.”

A. Man. Killed. Six. People. He killed 9-year-old Christina Green and Federal Judge John Roll and wounded 14 others, including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, his apparent target.

But all Buster can talk about is us hateful conservatives and our rhetoric.

It’s what leftwingnuts do when they can’t dispute the facts.

So Buster changed the subject.

“You saw that Sarah Palin got into it, right?” he asked. “She deliberately riled up her gun nuts with that reprehensible comment about the mainstream ‘journalists and pundits [who] manufactured a blood libel to incite hatred and violence against them.”

I know the stories that Jews used human blood and the particularly blood of innocent Christian children to bake the matzos of Passover. I didn’t remember the term “blood libel” nor did I associate it with the Jews when I did.

I’m a pretty fair country wordsmith and I use metaphor and allegory in most teaching and most of my editorial writing. “Blood libel” is not a word pairing I would have dreamt up so I have to believe Ms. Palin’s speech writers knew exactly what it meant.

Blood libel is, frankly, no worse than Mr. Obama calling Congressional Repuglicans “hostage takers” then offering to negotiate with them. Sends terrorists a great message that does. Blood libel is, frankly, no worse than calling a budget bill a “rape of the American people.” There wasn’t a woman in America untouched by that statement. Blood libel is, frankly, no worse than Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) saying “Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him” about then candidate and now Governor Rick Scott (R-FL).

Mr. Kanjorski issued a pretty explicit call to violence. And yet. And yet Buster and Jon Stewart ignored it. If Rep. Joe “you lie” Wilson had called for Nancy Pelosi to be put against a wall and shot, the Demorats and the MSM would have eaten his shorts.

This is a bad trend. Next thing you know, we’ll start equating our politicians to Catholic priests.

It’s what leftwingnuts do when they can’t dispute the facts.

This column started out spinning the giant Blame Game wheel. Let’s see where the ball landed.

It’s the media’s fault. Yeppers.

It’s the Tea Party’s fault. Sho ’nuff.

It’s the Demorat’s fault. Exactly.

That’s all true but the real truth is simple. It’s your fault.

You, dear reader, buy the newspapers. You, dear reader, tune to those television stations. You, dear reader, spread these exaggerations and untruths. And the media, the political parties, and your neighbors echo you.

Posted in Politics & News, Sociology, PC, Media, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 9 Comments »

Monday, August 30, 2010 by Dick.

The aesthetics police are alive and well in Vermont.

Vermontasaurus is (not really) held together with bubble gum and duct tape but nothing really is level or plumb. On the other hand, the Downing’s cross is straight, true, and well lighted. Really well lighted.

Vermontasaurus is a 25-foot-tall, 122-foot-long Americana folk art “dinosaur” that Brian Boland and a host of volunteers found in a scrap wood pile at the Post Mills airport in the town of Thetford, Vermont. The airport caters primarily to hot air balloons and gliders. The Town required a $272 permit for it. The state Natural Resources Board notified Mr. Boland he would need an Act 250 permit.

Richard and Joan Downing built a 24-foot cross outside their private chapel in Lyndon, Vermont. They light it during holy seasons. Lyndon’s development review board limited the number of days it can be lit. Officials now want the cross removed under Act 250 rules.

Blasphemy. Both cases.

Vermont’s Land Use and Development Act, Act 250 of 1970, created nine District Environmental Commissions to review large-scale development projects. The 10 criteria have changed little in 40 years; the reach of the environmental commissions has extended into everything from crosses to parades.

“It’s art, not edifice,” Brian Boland said. I agree.

Mr. Boland, a hot-air balloon designer and pilot, runs the 52-acre Post Mills airfield. He had a pile of broken wooden planks and other debris on the edge of his property. Volunteers spent nine days with splintered two-by-fours, half a bunk bed ladder, the rotted belly of a guitar, and one rule: no saws, no rulers and no materials other than what was in the scrap pile.

The result of random carpentry is a Shelburne Museum -sized slice of roadside American folk art that made the Smithsonian Magazine.

Lyndon’s Municipal Manager Dan Hill said that Act 250 decision came because the cross’ “aesthetics it did not meet the character of the neighborhood.”

Right. The Downings own about 800 acres of rolling Vermont land. They opened the chapel five years ago, in 2005, for their family of seven children and the 35 foster children. The chapel is open to the public. They added the cross two years later. Three other Dozule crosses have been built in Vermont.

The neighbors who apparently do not drive around looking at holiday lights in the neighborhood at Christmas, say the cross looks like a neon sign for a business.

“We just think that they’re infringing on our rights to practice our religion, and I think that they’ve gone a little too far in this case,” Mr. Downing told News Channel 5.

The state has not yet decided if a permit is required or, as Mr. Boland says he might have to dismantle Vermontasaurus entirely.

Lyndon expects a court ruling on the cross in November.

A man’s home apparently is no longer his castle in (liberal) Vermont where the neighbor and the state knows better than the landowner.

Here in Vermont, people believe the ultra-restrictive state land-use law can override the Constitution and that this is a good thing.

The Boland and Downing position is very simple. They have every right to do pretty much anything but spread bedbugs or shoot at their neighbors on their own land.

Posted in Sociology, Politics & News, PC, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 2 Comments »

Monday, July 19, 2010 by Dick.

When you find a button, push it.

I celebrated a birthday this year. While I still have my whole life in front of me, it no longer seems as infinite as it did forty years ago today. I’m thinking I should decide what I want to do when I grow up.

Or not.

Although I am indeed more than 50 and less than 100, this is the Internoodle™ and probably not a good place to publicize the actual day or month or year of one’s birth.

Writer, actor, and Shaq-twin in the cable ads Ben Stein spoke about the happiness that “comes to those who pursue careers that define their passions.” He delivered part of the commencement address he didn’t give at UVM on CBS Sunday Morning and I pulled a quote for an article about an early morning apartment house explosion last month. The resulting fire left one man in the hospital with severe burns and several families homeless. The other six residents of the four apartments, including Jimmy Branca’s family, escaped without injuries.

Despite the fire, despite playing the blues for a living, despite the fact that he says he is “one flat hat away from being an Amish guy,” Mr. Branca is a pretty happy fellow.

“What about the happy people,” Mr. Stein asked in his address. “What did they do?

“They made a decision to live.

“They decided to do what their hearts told them to do, to do what was in them to do. They took risks and they took chances, and they tried a lot of different things until they got to where they wanted to be.”

I’ve been working on my tan.

I rebuilt, extended, added an angled entry and reshingled the back porches here almost 30 years ago. The one-by tongue-and-groove lumber that sheathed the original porches could have been 100 years old then. Time and shingles that had developed some leaks have taken their toll. It is time for plywood. And shingles. And some redesign. The new porches will have a nice roof deck, a much better entry, and a garbin.

It gives me a certain amount of pleasure when Rufus, a guy two years younger than I, tells me, “You are out of your mind. After helping you with your porch roof in New Jersey, I swore I would NEVER do roofing again. I was… what?…. 25 years old?

“You are totally out of your f-ing mind. I wish you luck. Seriously.”

And I’m doing it by myself. At my age.

I can almost guarantee I won’t do this again but I enjoy planning a job and really like seeing the physical results. Improving my tan in the process is a nice side benefit.

Happiness ain’t overrated.

After our concert last night, I helped the Fire Department Auxiliary take down their folding tent. We didn’t know how it worked until I found a big button hidden in a plastic bracket on each leg.

“Push the button,” I said.

We each did and the canopy collapsed magically into its carry bag.

I have pursued my own passions but I wonder if I’ve pursued them enough.

Over the years, I have built fine furniture, milked a cow barehanded, raced at Watkins Glen, designed and built a 30′ boat in my barn, taught college, founded a health center, hosted a television program, invented machinery, touched lion cubs and sharks, learned how to make stained glass windows, had dinner at the Tavern On The Green, published more than a half-million words in newspapers, shaved my head, sold and donated photographs, lived on an island, and made two great friends, one via the Interwhatsit™ although she lives thousands of miles away. Recently, thanks to this blog and the same Intertoob™, I’ve convinced all of my rug chewing right handed friends — including the bikers — that I am the devil spawn of Leo Trotsky and all of my loony left handed friends — including the Far Green true believers — that I am the consummate mouthpiece of Genghis Khan. Lots of buttons pushed.

It is time to find some more buttons. I don’t know yet if I’ll write the Great American novel. I don’t particularly want to learn to belly dance but I wouldn’t mind learning to juggle. I want not to worry about bills and taxes and appointments but I may sell my business. I do know I will work to keep my two friends.

You can’t leap over a canyon in two small jumps. And when you find a button, push it.

Posted in Birthday, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 2 Comments »

Monday, July 12, 2010 by Dick.

My friend Rufus is not paranoid. “Besides,” he said, “Even paranoiacs can have enemies.”

Rufus has stated that a Korean torpedo may have taken out Deepwater Horizon, that the ObamaNation tried to destroy the entire banking and insurance industry in order to nationalize health care, and that the ObamaNation did deliberately crash the entire economy in order to steal General Motors from its owners.

I don’t believe the latter theory.

“Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel said in an interview quoted in the NYTimes. “They are opportunities to do big things.”

I do believe the ObamaNation took advantage of the crashed economy to steal General Motors from its owners simply because they could.

Conspiracy theorists espouse clandestine liberal plans against the common citizens, extravagant murder plots, and other schemes that explain major political and historical events.

Some conspiracy theories have been advanced by government insiders themselves including the Vast International Communist Conspiracy (McCarthy’s right wing accusations of disloyalty, subversion, and treason during the Second Red Scare) and the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (Hillary Clinton’s left wing defense of Bill during the Lewinsky scandal when she called Monica’s claims the “latest in a long, organized, collaborative series of charges by Clinton’s political enemies.”)

We now know all of those charges were false, and yet …

Rufus makes a good argument linking North Korea’s torpedo attack on a South Korean warship to a possible torpedo attack on Trans Ocean’s Korean ties (Hyundai built the Deepwater Horizon).

Rufus and I both made a good argument showing that when governments drive insurers out of the business, only the government is left to supply the need. Whoda thunk a Chicago pol could understand supply and demand?

And there are plenty of examples of government overstepping its bounds. The City of St. Albans here told a local store owner he couldn’t paint his building yellow. President Barack Obama ordered General Motors boss Rick Wagoner to resign (and that was a year before he ordered Carl-Henric Svanberg to suspend BP’s dividends).

“Look at that Vermont man charged with downloading child porn,” Rufus said. 23 year old Michael Liberty pleaded not guilty to three charges in Burlington last week. Police say they found several images of child pornography on his computer after tracking his downloads; Liberty said he had deleted any child porn he had accidentally downloaded.

“Did you ever wonder how the cops found Liberty?” Rufus asked. “NSA does keyword searches on every U.S. phone call, and Comcast examines every byte that goes over its Internet system to decide whether to throttle its customer usage.

“What’s to keep Comcast from looking at the content you download?” From there, he thinks, it is a short step to slowing competitor’s content or tattling to the very regulators who will approve the NBC deal.

Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company on its way to world domination, is buying control of NBC Universal for $13 billion.

“Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence,” Napoleon Bonaparte warned us.

Supermarket ID cards. ISPs seeing our mail. Local governments telling us what to paint. The nation’s highest official telling us what to think.

Whether malice on the part of the Washington ruling class or incompetence on the part of the voters, we Americans have given up our strong, independent, problem-solving ways in favor of temporary … comfort.

And it doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to notice that.

Posted in Politics & News, Big Thoughts, Random Access | 3 Comments »