I like this one:
π = 3
For the error in this one and some other similar math errors go HERE.
Archive for the ‘Trivia’ Category
Spot the error π = 3
June 16, 2013Walking Eagles and carbon taxes
June 6, 2013This is a couple of years old though I only just came across it.
Seems very apt – not only for carbon taxes but also for Tony Blair.
Tony ‘Walking Eagle’ Blair
On a recent trip to the United States, Tony Blair, Ex. Prime Minister of the UK, addressed a major gathering of Native American Indians.
He spoke for almost an hour on his plans for a Carbon Trading Tax for the UK and Europe
At the conclusion of his speech, the crowd presented him with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name – Walking Eagle.
A very proud Tony then departed in his motorcade, waving to the crowds.
A news reporter later asked one of the Indians how they came to select the new name given to Tony Blair.
They explained that Walking Eagle is the name given to a bird so full of sh1t that it can no longer fly.
IK leaves IKEA
June 5, 2013Had to happen of course but he did bring a revolution to household furniture. For me personally IKEA furniture has provided a stable reference point for some 35 years in 5 countries as I have moved around the world and my children have grown up with the “installation” of familiar objects, with odd names from the IKEA flat-packs. IKEA is an acronym comprising the initials of Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd (the farm where he grew up) and Agunnaryd (his hometown in Småland, South Sweden.
Now IK is 87 and is handing over:
Ingvar Kamprad, creator of Swedish furniture retailer IKEA, is to take another step back from his company as the youngest of his three sons takes a key board role in a gradual handover of power.
Kamprad, 87, who founded the business in rural south Sweden 70 years ago, stepped down in 1986 as chief executive of IKEA, which has become the world’s biggest furniture group, famous for its flat packs and do-it-yourself assembly.
He will now leave the board of a key company within the business – Inter IKEA Group – and his youngest son Mathias will take over as its chairman.
“I see this as a good time for me to leave the board of Inter IKEA Group,” Kamprad said in a statement on Tuesday, referring to the company which owns the IKEA brand and which collects 3 percent of IKEA stores’ sales worldwide each year.
A glass half full…..
May 24, 2013Half our UK vacation is over but half is still to come.
Spring is late but the English countryside is lush and green.
Birmingham airport was rather inefficient but everybody was cheerily friendly.
Traffic was heavy but surprisingly non-aggressive.
It has not been very warm but the warmth of meeting old friends is palpable.
We have not seen much sunshine but we haven’t been drenched.
It is raining today but that allows me to write this post.
It is going to rain all day today but we will be in the British Museum.
Nothing is ever half-empty without also being half-full.
How “Retrospective Prediction” works
May 14, 2013I have posted earlier about Climate Science being reduced to “Retrospective Predictions”.
This is how it works:
I missed a flight today. I had predicted that I would arrive 30 minutes before check-in closed. But I was wrong. I arrived 37 minutes after check-in had closed. My prediction model was just not good enough.
My prediction model assumed a certain average velocity for my car, an empirically determined period for parking the car and getting to the check-in desk, an allowance of 15 minutes to stop for coffee along the way and an allowance of 10 minutes for inaccuracy of calculation. This gave me my starting time which – in the event – led to my being 37 minutes late for check-in.
I now applied “Retrospection” to my “Prediction”. Effectively this meant choosing which of my assumptions was wrong and where I would apply a “fudge factor”. I realised that I had not accounted for road works along the way. I therefore added in a period for “delays due to road-works” such that my total transit time was increased by precisely 67 minutes.
I then redid my calculation. Lo and Behold! My “Retrospective Prediction” was now spot on. It confirmed for me that I had been late for check-in.
(My addition of time for “delays due to road works” is a very simple but powerful factor and is given by the following equation:
delays due to road works (minutes) = 0.5 x number of days elapsed from 1st January to day of travel
In the present case, today being 14th of May it is the 134th day of the year and it is obvious that
delays due to road works = 0.5 x 134 = 67 minutes).
I am travelling tomorrow. So I shall be testing my new “Retrospective Prediction” in retrospect the day-after-tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will also try not to use the wrong departure time.
Merrie England
May 13, 2013We are travelling to England for a few days looking up old friends and visiting old haunts.
But it is May, and it is England and there shall be rain.
Shrewsbury, Birmingham, Coventry, Stratford, and around London are the main ports of call.
Meeting up with old friends is always great fun but meeting some for the first time since graduation in 1972 should be especially fascinating.
Blogging will necessarily be light and may be even lighter depending upon
- the goodness of the weather, and
- the level of the revelries
A scientist, a scholar, a researcher and an Engineer ..
May 12, 2013A scientist, a scholar, a researcher and an Engineer appeared at the Pearly Gates simultaneously. (Well not quite simultaneously but sufficiently after the previous batch of applicants for entry had been dealt with and close enough in time to be taken as the next batch for consideration of their entry applications).
Saint Peter (who was the Lean Gatekeeper with the task of ensuring that Heaven’s Quality Standards were not only maintained but were subject to Continuous Improvement) looked them over dubiously.
“We don’t have many of your kind here”, he said. “Your lot are all atheists or unbelievers or skeptics. And those few of you who do believe are never satisfied; always looking for something new, always climbing on the shoulders of people who have been here for eternity, always turning the heat up or down and generally making trouble in one way or another. Are you sure you wouldn’t be better off at the Other Place? They have Special Offers for New Entrants you know”.
But the scientist, the scholar, the researcher and the Engineer were quite sure and absolutely adamant. “Now see here”, said the Engineer, “it’s Heaven we chose on the After Life web-site and it’s Heaven which confirmed that space was available. Don’t you try and fob us off! We’re here to do the Entry Test, so get on with it. We may have Eternity but time is still of the essence. Your Process Cycle Time has considerable room for improvement. We can just as easily do the test for Paradise, you know.”
(For those who may be uninitiated, He had decided that some competition was needed to maintain Standards and Performance. Paradise and Heaven were therefore set up as competitors and every aeon or so Audited Performance Reports were filed. The better performer of the two received additional benefits in the form of an increased dosage of Ecstacy for all inhabitants).
Saint Peter was more than a little miffed at this since he took Cycle Time very seriously indeed. In fact he bench-marked his Cycle Time for Entry regularly against those for Paradise, Purgatory and the Other Place. In any event Cycle Time for Entry was one of his critical Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which he had to report on weekly to Him. At the last Divine Review he had been much quicker than Purgatory, just slightly ahead of Paradise but he had quite some distance to go to be as quick as the Other Place.
(Other KPIs that Saint Peter was judged on included
- Number granted entry who later left voluntarily (to Paradise)
- Number granted entry who were expelled for incompatibility (to Purgatory or the Other Place)
- Number enticed away from Paradise to enter Heaven
- Cost of supplying Ecstacy to maintain Bliss – the lower being the better
- Net Growth Rate – number of inhabitants/aeon
- EBIT – Ecstasy and Bliss before Inhabitant Tax
Of course Taxes are necessary even here for His Administration Costs were very worrying and His Overheads were always increasing).
“Very well then”, he almost snarled standing up to his full imposing height, “here’s your test. Only the winner shall enter. The losers automatically forfeit entry to Heaven and Paradise and will be transported to Purgatory where they may crave entry. Thereafter those who fail may apply to the Other Place. Failure to secure entry even there will lead to integration with the Universe and loss of Eternal Life. Are you all ready?”
The applicants nodded. They were sobered by the harsh countenance of the Gatekeeper and the realisation that failure carried some long-term consequences. Even the belligerent Engineer was cowed as he swallowed and nodded.
“There”, said Saint Peter, pointing with his beard, “a mere twenty Holy Stadia distant lies the Tree of Life. To that Tree is shackled the most desirable Companion for Eternity that any of you could possibly imagine. The first one of you to reach and kiss her/him shall enter with her/him through the Pearly Gates for Eternal Ecstasy and Bliss. He/She is a variable and morphs automatically to match the particular (or peculiar) desires of the winner”.
As they looked a small mushroom-like cloud imploded and gave way to a shimmering Tree of Life and, clearly visible, encased in shackles of light, they could each see the most beautiful, the most desirable, the most perfect Companion for Eternity they could possibly imagine.
“But there is an impediment” shouted Saint Peter and broke rudely into their rapturous contemplation each of their Ideal. “Every step you take towards him/her shall of necessity and by the curious Laws of Time and Motion in Heaven, necessarily be precisely half the length of the previous step. But the length of the step you begin with – within the bounds of your capability – can be any length you choose. You shall begin on my command”.
“Ready, Steady, GO!” boomed Saint Peter (because as is well known, all firearms including starting pistols violate the Eleventy-ninth Amendment of the Heavenly Constitution and are forbidden in Heaven).
The following events ensued:
- The scientist had too many parameters and too many degrees of freedom available. He could not be sure that what was, was. He felt compelled to consider the possibility that what was, was not. Could there be a finite resolution in time of an infinite series of distance? He theorised that his apparent Companion for Eternity might morph into a Serpent with an Apple. He considered which null hypothesis might best allow of being proven false to his eventual advantage. Who would be the peer reviewers when he was ready to publish? He decided to make some approximations and develop a mathematical model. We leave him lost in contemplation of his navel for he has no further part in this story.
- The scholar consulted the literature as scholars are wont to do. Of course, he had instantaneous – but temporary – access to all the Heavenly Databases of the Past. Since these began at the beginning of time with the Big Bang and encompassed everything in the known – and unknown – Universes, he had much information to be digested and synthesised to come to the most probable course of action. We must, alas, leave him still studying the early seconds after the Big Bang.
- The researcher was of a more practical bent. He set to measuring all the possible lengths of step he could take. It was obvious that he needed to establish the minimum length of step he could take – and small steps would become necessary – and clearly this could not be zero. Moreover he needed to then find the maximum length of step possible so he could then establish the governing max/min ratio of step. We have to leave him massaging his thighs for his maximum step experiment led to an involuntary and unexpected performance of the splits which entailed the stretching of his thigh muscles beyond what was comfortable.
- The Engineer leaped into his first step. “Four steps and I reckon I’ll be close enough to her do my will” he exclaimed as he set off.
We leave the Engineer carrying his Companion for Eternity across the threshold of the Pearly Gates singing “The Engineer’s Song”.
The moral of this story is: The Engineer is the one with the Capital E.
Looking for the Entwives – new Berkeley model predicts forests will march polewards because of global warming
May 7, 2013It is the Age of the Models.
Where physical experiments and real data are obsolete. Where experiments are virtual and data-sets are generated by Monte Carlo methods. Where a room with a computer is called a lab. Where outputs of one model become the inputs of another model – never to be sullied by real observations or data. Where the garbage in is never questioned and the garbage out takes the place of reality.
When you have a model who needs data!
This is a press release (marketing bumf) from Berkeley Labs to get publicity for a new paper: “Boreal carbon loss due to poleward shift in low-carbon ecosystems,” published on Nature Geoscience’s website on May 5, 2013.
And when the Ents start marching Saru-Mann is doomed! (apologies to JRR T).
…. New Berkeley Lab research offers a way to envision a warmer future. It maps how Earth’s myriad climates—and the ecosystems that depend on them—will move from one area to another as global temperatures rise.
The approach foresees big changes for one of the planet’s great carbon sponges. Boreal forests will likely shift north at a steady clip this century. Along the way, the vegetation will relinquish more trapped carbon than most current climate models predict.
Boreal ecosystems encircle the planet’s high latitudes, covering swaths of Canada, Europe, and Russia in coniferous trees and wetlands. This vegetation stores vast amounts of carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere where it can contribute to climate change.
Scientists use incredibly complex computer simulations called Earth system models to predict the interactions between climate change and ecosystems such as boreal forests. These models show that boreal habitat will expand poleward in the coming decades as regions to their north become warmer and wetter. This means that boreal ecosystems are expected to store even more carbon than they do today. ….
But the Berkeley Lab research tells a different story. The planet’s boreal forests won’t expand poleward. Instead, they’ll shift poleward. The difference lies in the prediction that as boreal ecosystems follow the warming climate northward, their southern boundaries will be overtaken by even warmer and drier climates better suited for grassland.
And that’s a key difference. Grassland stores a lot of carbon in its soil, but it accumulates at a much slower rate than is lost from diminishing forests.
“I found that the boreal ecosystems ringing the globe will be pushed north and replaced in their current location by what’s currently to their south. In some places, that will be forest, but in other places it will be grassland,” says Charles Koven, a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Earth Sciences Division who conducted the research.
“Most Earth system models don’t predict this, which means they overestimate the amount of carbon that high-latitude vegetation will store in the future,” he adds.
Treebeard the Ent
Wow! paraphrasing Dr. Koven — “All other models are crap. Mine is the real thing”.
Koven’s results come from a new way of tracking global warming’s impact on Earth’s mosaic of climates. The method is based on the premise that as temperatures rise, a location’s climate will be replaced by a similar but slightly warmer climate from a nearby area. The displaced climate will in turn shift to another nearby location with a slightly cooler climate. It’s as if climate change forces warmer climates to flow toward cooler areas, making everywhere warmer over time.
This approach can help determine where a given climate is going to in the future, and where a given climate will come from.
Koven applied this approach to 21 climate models. He used simulations that depict a middle-of-the-road climate change scenario, meaning the range of warming by the end of this century is 1.0°C to 2.6°C above a 1986 to 2005 baseline. …..
….. In general, he found that climates move toward the poles and up mountain slopes. In parts of South America, warmer climates march westward up the Andes. In the southern latitudes, warmer climates head south.
An Entwife? (from http://www.myspace.com)
But the most dramatic changes occur in the higher latitudes. Here, boreal ecosystems will have to race poleward in order to keep up with their climates. They’ll also be encroached by warmer climates from the south. By the end of this century, a forest near Alberta, Canada will have to move 100 miles north in order to maintain its climate. And it will gain a climate that is now located 100 miles to the south.
Forests can’t adapt this quickly, however, meaning that in the short-term they’ll be stressed. And in the long-term they’ll be forced to move north and give up their southern regions to grassland.
Only one of the Earth system models shows this precipitous loss of carbon in southern boreal forests. Koven says that’s because most models don’t account for random events such as fire, drought, and insects that kill already-stressed trees. His “climate analogue” approach does account for these events because they’re implicit in the spatial distribution of ecosystems.
In addition, Earth system models predict carbon loss by placing vegetation at a given point, and then changing various climate properties above it.
“But this approach misses the fact that the whole forest might shift to a different place,” says Koven.
So it is climate model outputs as input to his model to give Dr. Koven his marching boreal forests. Garbage in and Garbage out. But not a word about the Entwives and where they are to be found.
Somehow I find JRR T is a lot more readable — and much more convincing.
Flying bullets: DHS uses four times as many bullets per person as the army
April 28, 2013On average, each of the approximately 70,000 Department of Homeland Security agents fires 4.3 bullets every day.
Army soldiers fire less than a bullet a day.
“It is entirely … inexplicable why the Department of Homeland Security needs so much ammunition,” Chaffetz, R-Utah, said at a hearing. …..
Chaffetz, who chairs one of the House oversight subcommittees holding the hearing Thursday, revealed that the department currently has more than 260 million rounds in stock. He said the department bought more than 103 million rounds in 2012 and used 116 million that same year — among roughly 70,000 agents.
Comparing that with the small-arms purchases procured by the U.S. Army, he said the DHS is churning through between 1,300 and 1,600 rounds per officer, while the U.S. Army goes through roughly 350 rounds per soldier. ….. “Their officers use what seems to be an exorbitant amount of ammunition,” he said. …..
Nick Nayak, chief procurement officer for the Department of Homeland Security, did not challenge Chaffetz’s numbers.
There are 2 possible story-lines. Either
- the DHS agents are poor marksmen and need 4 times as much practice as the soldiers, or
- DHS agents having practiced so much more are far better marksmen than the soldiers
3rd anniversary
April 16, 2013WordPress reminded me this morning that I started blogging 3 years ago.
My thanks to all those who do visit and to those who take the time and effort to comment.
Botticelli’s St. Augustine writing and revising in his cell
As blogs go I don’t suppose that the blog statistics are anything to write home about (1650 posts, about 500K views with typically between 400 and 800 views per day and a maximum of 5000 views in a day). I find I cannot predict which posts will get a high viewership but I also find that I don’t really worry too much about that. Sometimes I find that an old post suddenly gets a lot of interest and I usually don’t know why. I suspect it might be when a class somewhere gets an assignment which just happens to have been the subject of an old post. But blogging has changed my behaviour. It helps me to construct my thoughts and it has certainly changed my reading habits. It does- I think – help me to maintain a “discipline”. Perhaps it helps my perception of myself as a St. Augustine blogging in his cell!!
Writing this blog has become important to me as an extension of my personal space and as I wrote a month or two ago
- I write primarily for myself on any and all topics that interest me and this interest varies over time and with my reading.
- I write when time allows and my posts reduce when I am on assignment or if I am travelling abroad.
- My posts here increase in frequency when I get “stuck” with my other writing projects but I find that just writing a blog post can often “relieve” the “writer’s block”. (And that I think is because a blog post is not directed at anyone in particular but my other writing is).
- I have no commercial interests or consequences connected with this site. …….
……..
So this blog is just a place for letting off steam, for getting my thoughts in order, for keeping my writing flowing and generally for developing my own views in areas that are relatively new to me. It is merely an extension of my space in the world – for good or ill.
When posts are of sufficient interest to attract many (or even any) readers then that is just an added bonus.
The k2p blog 