Since I don't know the browsing habits of my fellow Beaglesonians I should point out some of the pitfalls and threats I've found on some of my favorite streaming sites.
- A lot of pop-up windows, usually for online games but there are frequent adult content sites. Annoying but easily closed.
- Bogus virus warning windows, purportedly from Microsoft, requesting you to fill out some information fields, but do not do this. These may be tough to close, requiring use of the Task Manager or in the worst case, rebooting the computer. A big pain the ass but I don't see these very frequently.
- Warnings about being redirected to a "deceptive site." I think they are supposedly from Google, but I don't remember. I've ignored these without any ill effects.
Since I run with scissors and play in traffic, these risks are acceptable to me but may not be something you want to deal with and I don't want to fill your heads with foolish notions. Forewarned is forearmed.
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Those wacky Saudis are at it again. Besides that mega-city that I mentioned, they recently gave citizenship to a robot. And earlier today they announced a big purge, either firing or arresting a whole bunch of billionaire princes, military bigwigs, government officials, and media network heads. The charges seem based mostly around corruption and money laundering. Some loose talk has it that it was done to prevent a coup in the Royal Family, and much is in flux. My best guess is that heads will roll.
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Friday, November 3, 2017
Pants on fire
Before Mr. Beagles uses the site I mentioned to catch up on The Good Place I want to remind him of the many pop-up windows that may appear and some external links may be shady. I don't want to assume that his virus protection is up to date; his browser may freeze. Good security is required and it may not be worth the risk for his system setup.
It should be noted that the program is now on hiatus and new episodes will not air until January, so he may be able to catch older episodes in reruns.
I like snappy patter. How did I do?
You did well, Uncle Ken. Eleanor and Michael are original characters, but so are the others. And Jason wasn't always Jason. It will make a lot more sense if you can watch the first season episodes.
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The ships the Chinese used were not your average junk (Ha, ha. I make joke). In the early 15th Century (Ming Dynasty) they sent out what was called the Treasure Fleet, a whole bunch of ships, some as large as 400 feet in length. The intent was to gain riches for the glory of the emperor and to establish trade with other nations. But they were having problems with the Mongols in the north and decided they didn't need the expense of the naval expeditions, so they cancelled them to focus on domestic issues. They also decided that they were self sufficient enough to let other traders come to them; why go looking for trade goods when the trade goods would come to them? Makes sense to me.
There has been speculation that the Chinese reached North America in 1421 but there is no real proof. They very well could have done it; their ships and navigation skills were good enough to do so.
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It looks like there is something about Crooked Hillary according to Donna Brazile, former head of the Democratic National Committee. HRC and her minions took control of all of the finances before she was the nominee, which was highly unethical. This story is still developing, but even the stalwart Elizabeth Warren is claiming that the primary was "rigged." No wonder that Bernie was grumpy.
And now it looks like the Attorney General, the honorable Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, has perjured himself, many times. Senator Al Franken, of SNL fame, sent Sessions an eight page letter that's a real ball buster. Lots and lots of tough questions asking for explanations, in writing, by next Friday. It's not nice to lie during your confirmation hearing or to lie in front of a Senate committee. I suspect the future of Mr. Sessions is in jeopardy, at least as far as his role in the Justice Department is concerned. The letter, a long but interesting read, can be found here: https://www.franken.senate.gov/files/letter/171102_SessionsLetter.pdf
I have to admit, Franken has a way with words and turns a nice phrase, something he no doubt picked up during his years as a comedy writer. He can stick the knife in without it being felt.
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(Why don't we discuss zero more often?)
There's nothing to talk about, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
It should be noted that the program is now on hiatus and new episodes will not air until January, so he may be able to catch older episodes in reruns.
I like snappy patter. How did I do?
You did well, Uncle Ken. Eleanor and Michael are original characters, but so are the others. And Jason wasn't always Jason. It will make a lot more sense if you can watch the first season episodes.
-----
The ships the Chinese used were not your average junk (Ha, ha. I make joke). In the early 15th Century (Ming Dynasty) they sent out what was called the Treasure Fleet, a whole bunch of ships, some as large as 400 feet in length. The intent was to gain riches for the glory of the emperor and to establish trade with other nations. But they were having problems with the Mongols in the north and decided they didn't need the expense of the naval expeditions, so they cancelled them to focus on domestic issues. They also decided that they were self sufficient enough to let other traders come to them; why go looking for trade goods when the trade goods would come to them? Makes sense to me.
There has been speculation that the Chinese reached North America in 1421 but there is no real proof. They very well could have done it; their ships and navigation skills were good enough to do so.
-----
It looks like there is something about Crooked Hillary according to Donna Brazile, former head of the Democratic National Committee. HRC and her minions took control of all of the finances before she was the nominee, which was highly unethical. This story is still developing, but even the stalwart Elizabeth Warren is claiming that the primary was "rigged." No wonder that Bernie was grumpy.
And now it looks like the Attorney General, the honorable Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, has perjured himself, many times. Senator Al Franken, of SNL fame, sent Sessions an eight page letter that's a real ball buster. Lots and lots of tough questions asking for explanations, in writing, by next Friday. It's not nice to lie during your confirmation hearing or to lie in front of a Senate committee. I suspect the future of Mr. Sessions is in jeopardy, at least as far as his role in the Justice Department is concerned. The letter, a long but interesting read, can be found here: https://www.franken.senate.gov/files/letter/171102_SessionsLetter.pdf
I have to admit, Franken has a way with words and turns a nice phrase, something he no doubt picked up during his years as a comedy writer. He can stick the knife in without it being felt.
-----
(Why don't we discuss zero more often?)
There's nothing to talk about, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
Chun King for the Cheeto
All I knew about The Good Place was that it was about people who died and went to heaven only it turned out to be hell. Ted Danson, I thought was the devil until that last scene where he walks through a door and there is somebody much eviler who might be Old Nick or a higher demon at any rate. I couldn't place Janet and Derek at all, nor could I figure out what was going on between Jason and Tahini. I liked the idea of having a moral philosopher, so few sitcoms include a philosopher in their casts. I kind of liked the Eleanor character. I picked up the vibe that she might have been an original character along with Michael, and the others came later. It had snappy patter. I like snappy patter. How did I do?
Trump's whole tirade was of course stupid. The ideas was I guess that the rent-a-trucker would receive more brutal treatment there. But civil courts have done a better job of prosecuting these guys, and they know they will probably get killed at the end of their deeds so a grim future will not deter them. Guantanamo has been a black eye for the US for years, but anymore we look like such assholes that it's hardly noticeable.
The Chinese never wanted to conquer the world. They were the middle kingdom and the best and the brightest and they had no interest in dimming their light by dealing with big nosed foreigners.
I would have liked to have a discussion of Martin Luther especially since one of the Beaglestonians was educated in their system, though not much seems to have rubbed off on him. As I recall from Sunday School at Elsdon Methodist, we thought of him as a great man. Since then I have done a lot of reading on the Reformation and I am not sure that we prots were the good ones in that fight. The Catholic Church was corrupt and powerful, but if you played your cards right you could make a deal with them, sort of like the Mafia. The prots on the other hand were like the Taliban, if they didn't like you they would kill you no matter what because they had God on their side, standing right next to them, practically on their toes.
There was a good review of a biography of him in the New Yorker lately. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/how-martin-luther-changed-the-world I would love to participate in a discussion of the man and his religion in these ivied halls.
Yar, I don't think Cheeto is much of a gourmander of the foods of many nations. I would think just to do as the Romans he might pack a few cans of Chun King but wiki tells me that their days are over. And thank God. We used to have cans of that crap for supper every now and then and I grew up thinking I hated Chinese food until I ate at a Chinese restaurant. Of course that's not the food that the Chinese eat either.
Yar most of our fentanyl comes from China, but you know, they already have a wall. Because I didn't want to watch half a show from the murder channel and not see the culprits brought to justice, I tuned into NBC a half hour earlier and there was this show, Super Store, which was, well, moronical, the way I expect most tv is. It was in extremely bad taste, a lot of talk about penises, even a blurred out organ itself. Ugh. And they had some pharmacist character dispensing some kind of opioid as some kind of joke. It was appalling. I wonder if this is the sort of show that the Trumpists in the hinterands are watching.
We all know that the Chinese are great with math. One book I read lately claimed part of the reason was that their words for the digits were all similar, and I think they had a better s system of numbering after that. Why isn't it oneteen and twoteen instead of eleven and twelve? It seems like a small difference, but mathematical notation goes a long way towards making math understandable. I had a hell of a time writing about math lately without exponentiation and square root radicals and that awful X instead of the elegant dot on my keyboard. The Indian/Arabic numerals were a great step forward, and especially that zero, (Why don't we discuss zero more often?) but it still took us awhile to develop and standardize the operation signs. Did you ever look up how the Sumerians and Egyptians used to represent mathematical statements? Pitiful.
Trump's whole tirade was of course stupid. The ideas was I guess that the rent-a-trucker would receive more brutal treatment there. But civil courts have done a better job of prosecuting these guys, and they know they will probably get killed at the end of their deeds so a grim future will not deter them. Guantanamo has been a black eye for the US for years, but anymore we look like such assholes that it's hardly noticeable.
The Chinese never wanted to conquer the world. They were the middle kingdom and the best and the brightest and they had no interest in dimming their light by dealing with big nosed foreigners.
I would have liked to have a discussion of Martin Luther especially since one of the Beaglestonians was educated in their system, though not much seems to have rubbed off on him. As I recall from Sunday School at Elsdon Methodist, we thought of him as a great man. Since then I have done a lot of reading on the Reformation and I am not sure that we prots were the good ones in that fight. The Catholic Church was corrupt and powerful, but if you played your cards right you could make a deal with them, sort of like the Mafia. The prots on the other hand were like the Taliban, if they didn't like you they would kill you no matter what because they had God on their side, standing right next to them, practically on their toes.
There was a good review of a biography of him in the New Yorker lately. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/how-martin-luther-changed-the-world I would love to participate in a discussion of the man and his religion in these ivied halls.
Yar, I don't think Cheeto is much of a gourmander of the foods of many nations. I would think just to do as the Romans he might pack a few cans of Chun King but wiki tells me that their days are over. And thank God. We used to have cans of that crap for supper every now and then and I grew up thinking I hated Chinese food until I ate at a Chinese restaurant. Of course that's not the food that the Chinese eat either.
Yar most of our fentanyl comes from China, but you know, they already have a wall. Because I didn't want to watch half a show from the murder channel and not see the culprits brought to justice, I tuned into NBC a half hour earlier and there was this show, Super Store, which was, well, moronical, the way I expect most tv is. It was in extremely bad taste, a lot of talk about penises, even a blurred out organ itself. Ugh. And they had some pharmacist character dispensing some kind of opioid as some kind of joke. It was appalling. I wonder if this is the sort of show that the Trumpists in the hinterands are watching.
We all know that the Chinese are great with math. One book I read lately claimed part of the reason was that their words for the digits were all similar, and I think they had a better s system of numbering after that. Why isn't it oneteen and twoteen instead of eleven and twelve? It seems like a small difference, but mathematical notation goes a long way towards making math understandable. I had a hell of a time writing about math lately without exponentiation and square root radicals and that awful X instead of the elegant dot on my keyboard. The Indian/Arabic numerals were a great step forward, and especially that zero, (Why don't we discuss zero more often?) but it still took us awhile to develop and standardize the operation signs. Did you ever look up how the Sumerians and Egyptians used to represent mathematical statements? Pitiful.
Thursday, November 2, 2017
The Good Place
I can't imagine jumping into "The Good Place" at this late date and making any sense out of it. We missed a couple of episodes after the pilot last year and became totally lost. Lucky for us, they ran some re-runs and got us caught up. It's just a silly sitcom, but what makes it interesting is you never know what they're going to do next. I don't suppose seeing what they do next would be effective if you don't know what they have done before. I missed tonight's episode because "Young Sheldon" is running in the same time slot on CBS. That's the new spinoff from "The Big Bang Theory" and we don't want to miss that, having been loyal Big Bangers since the series started over a decade ago. This weekend, I plan to go to the site that Old Dog recommended and see if I can watch the rest of "The Good Place" episodes, starting with the one I missed tonight.
I was wondering, just the other day, what ever became of Guantanamo. One of Obama's campaign promises was that he would close it down, and I think he really tried, but he couldn't get it past Congress. The biggest problem is what to do with the prisoners. They don't want to put them on trial, and they don't want to release them. I blame Bush II for the whole fiasco. This is not hind sight, I said so at the time. They should have been classified as either prisoners of war or common criminals. As criminals, they would had to have been tried long before this and, of course, they would have had the same rights as US criminal defendants. As prisoners of war, they could have been held until the war was over or exchanged for US prisoners that were being held by the bad guys. What would have been wrong with that? I seem to remember that Obama did exchange a few of them, but I don't know why he didn't exchange them all and be done with it.
I read a book once about how the Chinese were big on exploration and discovery long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred ninety two. The book turned out to be historical fiction, and I looked it up on Wiki to separate the historical part from the fictional part. While most historians doubt the author's claim that the Chinese made it to Western Europe and North America, they acknowledge that they did sail all up and down the Asian Pacific Coast, and possibly the African Coast as well. This is impressive, considering that their ships were all junks. If they could have replaced their fleet of junks with more reliable ships, who knows what they might have accomplished. You know what I think? I think they couldn't modernize their fleet because all the Chinese ship builders went bankrupt due to corporate mismanagement, and then squandered their government bailout money on executive bonuses. Like some famous guy once said, "Those who will not learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
I was wondering, just the other day, what ever became of Guantanamo. One of Obama's campaign promises was that he would close it down, and I think he really tried, but he couldn't get it past Congress. The biggest problem is what to do with the prisoners. They don't want to put them on trial, and they don't want to release them. I blame Bush II for the whole fiasco. This is not hind sight, I said so at the time. They should have been classified as either prisoners of war or common criminals. As criminals, they would had to have been tried long before this and, of course, they would have had the same rights as US criminal defendants. As prisoners of war, they could have been held until the war was over or exchanged for US prisoners that were being held by the bad guys. What would have been wrong with that? I seem to remember that Obama did exchange a few of them, but I don't know why he didn't exchange them all and be done with it.
I read a book once about how the Chinese were big on exploration and discovery long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred ninety two. The book turned out to be historical fiction, and I looked it up on Wiki to separate the historical part from the fictional part. While most historians doubt the author's claim that the Chinese made it to Western Europe and North America, they acknowledge that they did sail all up and down the Asian Pacific Coast, and possibly the African Coast as well. This is impressive, considering that their ships were all junks. If they could have replaced their fleet of junks with more reliable ships, who knows what they might have accomplished. You know what I think? I think they couldn't modernize their fleet because all the Chinese ship builders went bankrupt due to corporate mismanagement, and then squandered their government bailout money on executive bonuses. Like some famous guy once said, "Those who will not learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
Some of it's Greek to me
This guy Papadopoulos is something huh?
I looked him up on Wikipedia and it says that he lives in the Ravenswood neighborhood. A lot of neighborhoods are named by real estate developers and have nothing to do with the official City of Chicago community area designations, but there was a map of the Ravenswood neighborhood. And what do you know? I live in that neighborhood near the southern border, which is something I did not know before. But some folks call it the Lincoln Square neighborhood because it's part of the Lincoln Square community area which encompasses many other neighborhoods. They can call it what they want; if folks ask me where I live, I usually tell them the nearest main intersection and that's good enough. They know where it is.
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Except for some observations in Germany, there wasn't much in the media about the 500th Anniversary of Martin Luther doing his thing on the church door, effectively kicking off the Protestant Reformation. Time is starting to heal some old wounds; I saw some Lutheran guys getting cozy with Pope Francis, so maybe they'll all join hands and work something out within the next 500 years.
One article about Luther may be of interest to the Institute. Because of taxation he was an early proponent of using hops in the brewing of beer, which was uncommon at the time. Matter of fact, his wife, a former nun, started up her own brewery and produced a brew of high quality which made Martin a popular guy in that neck of Germany. He held many of his own seminars at a big table in his house, telling tales and drinking beer, which is not a bad way spend one's time. You can read about it here: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/31/561117731/
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Starting tomorrow the Commander in Chief begins his road trip to Asia and I wonder what he'll be doing for food. I can't see him chowing down on any of the local delicacies. There are plenty of McDonald's and KFC chicken places over there, so he might be fine even if it offends his hosts. I'd like to see Mueller drop a bombshell or two while he's over there, maybe have a few fresh subpoenas awaiting his return. Some of his staffers may decide to stay overseas and not come back.
Did you guys see about that Marine general who is in custody in Guantanamo Bay because of some legal shenanigans? It involves the trial of a guy who was responsible for the attack on the USS Cole about seventeen years ago. Those wheels of justice are turning awfully slow, but the trials of terrorists are breaking new legal ground and they might be making it up as they go along. But confining a general to quarters is something that hasn't ever been done before, maybe because he was working for the defense. The judge in the case, an Air Force colonel, is demanding that the civilian defense attorneys work the case against their will. There are sticky legal issues afoot, and new legal precedents may be set which may not bode well.
-----
The opioid crisis has been getting a lot of coverage, but I don't know anyone who has a problem; it's a non-issue in my reality but it is a major problem in many other areas. Some folks are blaming the medical profession and pharmaceutical companies, but I noticed a little article recently. Fentanyl is one of those drugs, and the Chinese are purportedly producing shitloads of the stuff and flooding the US with it. That's a topic Trump should bring up if spends any time making deals with the Chinese during his upcoming trip.
-----
Since Uncle Ken has shown great expertise in things numerical, I wonder what he thinks about the multiplication and division of Roman Numerals. I took a peek at a couple of YouTube videos but I can't get my head around it; certainly not as easy as the decimal system with Arabic (really Hindu) numbers. I still have to dig around and find out what the ancient Chinese used as a numbering system. They had some amazing technology back in the day and if they hadn't decided to turn inwards they could have conquered the world, if the reports of their navy are to be believed. Maybe all they're doing today is catching up and trying to return to the good old days, making the Middle Kingdom great again.
I looked him up on Wikipedia and it says that he lives in the Ravenswood neighborhood. A lot of neighborhoods are named by real estate developers and have nothing to do with the official City of Chicago community area designations, but there was a map of the Ravenswood neighborhood. And what do you know? I live in that neighborhood near the southern border, which is something I did not know before. But some folks call it the Lincoln Square neighborhood because it's part of the Lincoln Square community area which encompasses many other neighborhoods. They can call it what they want; if folks ask me where I live, I usually tell them the nearest main intersection and that's good enough. They know where it is.
-----
Except for some observations in Germany, there wasn't much in the media about the 500th Anniversary of Martin Luther doing his thing on the church door, effectively kicking off the Protestant Reformation. Time is starting to heal some old wounds; I saw some Lutheran guys getting cozy with Pope Francis, so maybe they'll all join hands and work something out within the next 500 years.
One article about Luther may be of interest to the Institute. Because of taxation he was an early proponent of using hops in the brewing of beer, which was uncommon at the time. Matter of fact, his wife, a former nun, started up her own brewery and produced a brew of high quality which made Martin a popular guy in that neck of Germany. He held many of his own seminars at a big table in his house, telling tales and drinking beer, which is not a bad way spend one's time. You can read about it here: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/31/561117731/
-----
Starting tomorrow the Commander in Chief begins his road trip to Asia and I wonder what he'll be doing for food. I can't see him chowing down on any of the local delicacies. There are plenty of McDonald's and KFC chicken places over there, so he might be fine even if it offends his hosts. I'd like to see Mueller drop a bombshell or two while he's over there, maybe have a few fresh subpoenas awaiting his return. Some of his staffers may decide to stay overseas and not come back.
Did you guys see about that Marine general who is in custody in Guantanamo Bay because of some legal shenanigans? It involves the trial of a guy who was responsible for the attack on the USS Cole about seventeen years ago. Those wheels of justice are turning awfully slow, but the trials of terrorists are breaking new legal ground and they might be making it up as they go along. But confining a general to quarters is something that hasn't ever been done before, maybe because he was working for the defense. The judge in the case, an Air Force colonel, is demanding that the civilian defense attorneys work the case against their will. There are sticky legal issues afoot, and new legal precedents may be set which may not bode well.
-----
The opioid crisis has been getting a lot of coverage, but I don't know anyone who has a problem; it's a non-issue in my reality but it is a major problem in many other areas. Some folks are blaming the medical profession and pharmaceutical companies, but I noticed a little article recently. Fentanyl is one of those drugs, and the Chinese are purportedly producing shitloads of the stuff and flooding the US with it. That's a topic Trump should bring up if spends any time making deals with the Chinese during his upcoming trip.
-----
Since Uncle Ken has shown great expertise in things numerical, I wonder what he thinks about the multiplication and division of Roman Numerals. I took a peek at a couple of YouTube videos but I can't get my head around it; certainly not as easy as the decimal system with Arabic (really Hindu) numbers. I still have to dig around and find out what the ancient Chinese used as a numbering system. They had some amazing technology back in the day and if they hadn't decided to turn inwards they could have conquered the world, if the reports of their navy are to be believed. Maybe all they're doing today is catching up and trying to return to the good old days, making the Middle Kingdom great again.
current events
Well I hope everybody is okay. My morning was upset yesterday by that rent a truck terrorist in New York. Instead of political snark, the news was all about him, and what is there to say really? Well Cheeto had plenty to say, it was all Chuck Schumer's fault. I guess Hilary was sunning herself, in the red hot caves of hell surely.
He went on to trash the justice department. Well he has been giving Sessions a pass of late, why not dump on him, and then when the vile press asked her about that Sarah said he never said that. CNN loves a shooting like lawyers love an ambulance but when they finally had enough of that story, they began showing the Trump and the Sarah clips back to back, and they went on and on about that, which okay this was a pretty egregious case of blatant lying, but, you know, it happens all the time.
And you know an odd thing about these one man terrorist incidents, they always require a press conference which doesn't reveal anything you haven't heard already, but gives the cops a chance to say how brave they are protecting us. See that's a thing, that's one of the things Trump's always bellying up about, how he wants to bully others to protect us.
But you know shit happens. Car wrecks, storms, winter, Las Vegas, happens all the time, always has. always has, always will. There is really nothing to do to stop it. I don't fault these guys for not protecting us, but taking advantage of an incident where they didn't protect us to tell us how they are going to protect us is too much.
A bit of a rant, but you guys didn't give me anything to chew on this morning,
Janet creates a big problem for Michael; Eleanor lets Chidi in on a secret; Jason puts Tahani in a difficult position.
This means nothing to me but I will be tuning in at 7:30 tonight to see if I can figure it out.
He went on to trash the justice department. Well he has been giving Sessions a pass of late, why not dump on him, and then when the vile press asked her about that Sarah said he never said that. CNN loves a shooting like lawyers love an ambulance but when they finally had enough of that story, they began showing the Trump and the Sarah clips back to back, and they went on and on about that, which okay this was a pretty egregious case of blatant lying, but, you know, it happens all the time.
And you know an odd thing about these one man terrorist incidents, they always require a press conference which doesn't reveal anything you haven't heard already, but gives the cops a chance to say how brave they are protecting us. See that's a thing, that's one of the things Trump's always bellying up about, how he wants to bully others to protect us.
But you know shit happens. Car wrecks, storms, winter, Las Vegas, happens all the time, always has. always has, always will. There is really nothing to do to stop it. I don't fault these guys for not protecting us, but taking advantage of an incident where they didn't protect us to tell us how they are going to protect us is too much.
A bit of a rant, but you guys didn't give me anything to chew on this morning,
Janet creates a big problem for Michael; Eleanor lets Chidi in on a secret; Jason puts Tahani in a difficult position.
This means nothing to me but I will be tuning in at 7:30 tonight to see if I can figure it out.
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Pi in the sky
Mathematics was a religion to the Pythogoreans. There is a story that the guy who discovered irrational numbers died at sea, punished by the gods, which leaves the impression that maybe the Pythagoreans, ahem, tampered with the ropes on his mainsail or whatever. Well, that's pure speculation on my part and the whole story is lost in the mists of time. Has a ring to it though, a little like Prometheus giving us fire.
The Sumerians and the Egyptians knew arithmetic, well they knew as much as they needed to know to do what they wanted to do which was mainly to divide land up into equal pieces and to build the pyramids and ziggurats which didn't require all that much precision. They sort of knew about pi, in that they knew there was some ratio between the diameter and circumference of a circle, and they knew it was three and some change and they used various fractions like 25/8 to get a number close enough for their purposes.
At this point I was ready to bring up the story of the state legislature that passed a bill changing the value of pi to three, but the stern visage of The Scourge troubled my sight, so I did a little internet research and learned that that story is attributed to a variety of states and is false. There was some confusing bill in Indiana in 1897 which proposed a variety of values for pi, but it never became law, and seems also lost in mist of time.
The mathematicians who believe numbers are real are called Platonists after that philosopher who believed that we all lived in dark caves and that all we could see was an approximation of the real world, which existed somewhere. I should bone up on my Plato but it just seems so daunting, better to just give my approximations and get this post done without looking up things forever. Anyway Plato was still popular in the time of the early Christians and a lot of his philosophy was brought into Christianity.
And doesn't it seem a little miraculous that there could be some guy sitting on a pier in Greece selling a bucket of fifty sardines at say a quarter apiece, and this guy doesn't know any math, all he knows is to get a quarter for each sardine and afterwards to count the quarters, and you don't know this guy or where the pier is but you know he will have fifty quarters if he sells them all. Spooky action at a distance? The proof of divine power? I will leave it to the reader to decide.
This guy Papadopoulos is something huh? A local boy, I believe he lives just a couple miles from the Ten Catt. Imagine what a movie that will make, walking through Trumpworld with a wire. Who will play Trump? I recommend Jack Nicholson. Not that this will necessarily lead to anything, 80 percent of Trumpists don't mind him selling us down the river to the Russkies. The daunting vision of Trump shirtless on horseback troubles my sight.
I see there is a movie about, well not my favorite, but certainly the most interesting president, LBJ. Woody Harrelson seems a good choice. Haven't seen any reviews yet, but I get the impression it will concentrate on the good, civil rights, LBJ, and not the bad, Vietnam, LBJ.
The Sumerians and the Egyptians knew arithmetic, well they knew as much as they needed to know to do what they wanted to do which was mainly to divide land up into equal pieces and to build the pyramids and ziggurats which didn't require all that much precision. They sort of knew about pi, in that they knew there was some ratio between the diameter and circumference of a circle, and they knew it was three and some change and they used various fractions like 25/8 to get a number close enough for their purposes.
At this point I was ready to bring up the story of the state legislature that passed a bill changing the value of pi to three, but the stern visage of The Scourge troubled my sight, so I did a little internet research and learned that that story is attributed to a variety of states and is false. There was some confusing bill in Indiana in 1897 which proposed a variety of values for pi, but it never became law, and seems also lost in mist of time.
The mathematicians who believe numbers are real are called Platonists after that philosopher who believed that we all lived in dark caves and that all we could see was an approximation of the real world, which existed somewhere. I should bone up on my Plato but it just seems so daunting, better to just give my approximations and get this post done without looking up things forever. Anyway Plato was still popular in the time of the early Christians and a lot of his philosophy was brought into Christianity.
And doesn't it seem a little miraculous that there could be some guy sitting on a pier in Greece selling a bucket of fifty sardines at say a quarter apiece, and this guy doesn't know any math, all he knows is to get a quarter for each sardine and afterwards to count the quarters, and you don't know this guy or where the pier is but you know he will have fifty quarters if he sells them all. Spooky action at a distance? The proof of divine power? I will leave it to the reader to decide.
This guy Papadopoulos is something huh? A local boy, I believe he lives just a couple miles from the Ten Catt. Imagine what a movie that will make, walking through Trumpworld with a wire. Who will play Trump? I recommend Jack Nicholson. Not that this will necessarily lead to anything, 80 percent of Trumpists don't mind him selling us down the river to the Russkies. The daunting vision of Trump shirtless on horseback troubles my sight.
I see there is a movie about, well not my favorite, but certainly the most interesting president, LBJ. Woody Harrelson seems a good choice. Haven't seen any reviews yet, but I get the impression it will concentrate on the good, civil rights, LBJ, and not the bad, Vietnam, LBJ.
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