Monthly Archives: September 2020

COVID-19 = Speeding

If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. An article in Jalopnik, “You Idiots Are Going To Kill People”, talks about the increase in traffic fatalities and speeding tickets during the pandemic. Because, sure, that’s just what we need right now — people driving like maniacs.

Theories range from it being due to there being less traffic, to thinking the cops might be avoiding contact due to the virus, to just general frustration and unrest in these strange times. (I do have a sense of social unraveling sometimes.)

I have to say, driving around I’ve seen it. Lots of speeders!

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Go Forth and Multiply

123 × 321 = 39,483

My interest in number multiplication goes back to exploring algorithms for generating Mandelbrot plots, which can require billions of multiplication operations on arbitrary precision numbers (numbers with lots and lots of digits).

Multiplying two numbers — calculating their product — is computationally intense because of the intermediate Cartesian product. Multiplying two 12-digit numbers creates a 24-digit result (12+12), but it also has an intermediate stage involving 144 (12×12) single digit multiplications.

Recently I learned an intriguing Japanese visual multiplication method.

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