2011/06/30 10:19
In English, the word for young human beings is kids informally and children formally.However, in a school context the expression used is almost always boys and girls. It's practically the only option when speaking to them, and it seems also to be the preferred lexical item when talking about them to parents. Even parents use them in sentences such as...
2011/06/23 18:47
Here's my family's rhubarb meringue pie recipe:250 g flour125 g butter65 g sugar1 pinch of salt3–4 eggs, separated200 g icing sugarsome rhubarb (enough to cover the base of the mould twice)Make a shortcrust pastry of flour, butter, sugar, salt and egg yolks and line a buttered mould with it.Cut the rhubarb into 3–4 cm long chunks and blanch them briefly.Make...
2011/06/30 23:38
π is often given an almost mythical status, so I found it very refreshing when I was made aware of the τ movement that argue that τ = 2π is a much more natural constant.
There are lots of good arguments in favour (do follow the link above), and I’m definitely a convert.
However, as Stewart Russell pointed out to me on Facebook, physicists already have other uses for τ, so perhaps a better symbol could be chosen.
I would propose the Georgian letter ტ (pronounced tari), which doesn’t seem to have any uses in maths or physics.
2011/06/27 23:52
The Universal Translator that is used in Star Trek, as well as its related inventions in other science fiction, is an insane idea if you think about it.Let's look at the various ways it can possibly work.Perhaps it's simply analysing spoken and written language and interpreting it. This is the most obvious way, but there are no ways to avoid delays during interpretations. For instance, the German sentence Ich kenne diesen kleinen Jungen means "I know this small boy", but...
2011/06/24 23:08
I read this in The Telegraph the other day:On the rare occasions I have done my supermarket shop via computer, the milk and meat that arrived were already on their sell-by date. I felt cheated. One of the many thrills of being in a supermarket is that you can surreptitiously shove aside the sausages the store displays at the front...
2011/06/18 23:50
There's an interesting article in The Herald describing how a charity is planning to build a thousand huts in Scotland.It's interesting, because despite Scotland's similarity to the Scandinavian countries, the hut culture is entirely different (or rather, it's non-existent): "In...
2011/06/12 23:20
Jeg blev for nylig opmærksom på, at man iflg. Retskrivningsordbogen skal skrive Aserbajdsjan og ikke *Aserbajdjan, som jeg havde forventet, altså med -dsj- og ikke -dj-.På aserbajdsjansk hedder landet Azərbaycan, hvilket udtales /azærbajdʒan/ – grafemet 'c' modsvarer altså fonemet /dʒ/,...
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