Monthly Archives: May 2024

May 28, 2024

TV Tuesday 5/28/24

Bye-bye, TARDIS, bye-bye!

It’s TV Tuesday and time for another episode of channel surfing over what I’ve been watching on the TV machine. Speaking of which, I kind of miss channel surfing. It was fun seeing what else is on. (It’s how I stumbled on Little Big Town, now a favorite band.)

People with my (take your pick) interests, background, point of view, do not find most modern fare favorable. I’ve gone on about that plenty in the pages and years of this blog.

And that’s mostly what this post is, so caveat lector.

6 Comments | tags: Doctor Who, Grown-ish, Jack Reacher, Leverage (TV series), Netflix, Star Trek, three-body problem | posted in TV Tuesday

May 26, 2024

Stillness and Solitude

By Wyrd Smythe

In the Science Notes post published last Friday, I didn’t have room for the last article that caught my eye in recent issues of New Scientist. This article was, I thought, a bit different from the others and seemed to require its own post.

Firstly, it has a meaty heft and ties in with an old post of mine as well as some notes I have for a post I thought to call Stillness Redux (in reference back to that old post).

What’s ironic to me is how what the article offers as possible anodyne for modern life is very much the life I’ve lived since I began navigating my own course across life’s seas.

11 Comments | tags: Science Notes, silence, stillness | posted in Society, Sunday Sermons

May 24, 2024

Science Notes (5/24/24)

By Wyrd Smythe

It’s Friday, and I have Notes, but they’re all Science Notes, so while this post (and any others of similar ilk that may follow) is in the spirit of Friday Notes, it comes from a different direction. Science from right field, so to speak, rather than the usual oddities from left field.

These Notes were originally meant as reminders to mention some cool science things to friends over burgers and beers (or whatever). But rather than tasty morsels for the few, why not for the many? (Or at least for a few more.)

So today, Science Notes (and some reactions):

1 Comment | tags: AI, aircraft pilots, Black Labrador Retriever, burning iron, cosmology, dogs, Parker Solar Probe, positronic brain, Science Notes, toys | posted in Friday Notes, Science

May 22, 2024

Flipping the Glasses

By Wyrd Smythe

In the last post, I mentioned a simple logic puzzle that I’d stumbled over while wandering around the interweb. Start with four glasses, in a row, all upright. The goal is, through a series of moves, to turn them all upside down. On each move, you flip three of the four glasses — up if down or down if up.

The goal is to end up with all four glasses upside-down in the least number of moves possible. It’s not hard to find the solution by trial and error, but it turns out there’s an underlying trick that not only solves it but solves it regardless of the number of glasses (where each move flips N-1).

Bonus: these solutions even look pretty — or at least symmetrical.

11 Comments | tags: fun with numbers, logic games, logic puzzle | posted in From My Collection

May 17, 2024

Friday Notes (May 17, 2024)

By Wyrd Smythe

I’ve been a semi-surreal mood lately. From a combination of things. It’s an election year. Politics these days is bad enough, but the last few Presidential elections seem to have written a weird new normal. Now, one candidate is in a criminal trial and potentially could be jailed before the election.

I spent winter wondering if I’d have wasps in the house again come summer. I’ve found three so far. Still no clue how they get in. Looks like I need an exterminator. Another surreal bullet point: this past winter kinda… wasn’t. Oddly, I missed it.

The surreal aside, however, Friday Notes marches on.

4 Comments | tags: Assassination Classroom, big bang, Copernican Principle, faith, inflation, logic puzzle, universe | posted in Friday Notes

May 11, 2024

Caffeine Brain

By Wyrd Smythe

I don’t drink coffee. I never have. (Call me different and you’ll be right at least nine times out of ten.) In my whole life, I’ve consumed maybe two cups worth. That required multiple attempts — usually friends forcing it on me because “you’ll like this [flavor|variety|brand|style], I promise!”

They’ve all struck out. I just don’t care for the stuff, not even iced, not even extremely flavored and tarted up. In contrast, I’ve always liked iced tea, and therein lies my tale for the day. Because tea has plenty of caffeine, too.

And it gave me a double lesson about [1] why people drink coffee (one word: caffeine) and [B] the downside of drinking coffee (one word: caffeine).

5 Comments | tags: coffee, diet mountain dew, FTR, Good Earth, iced tea, soda pop, tea | posted in Basics, Life

May 7, 2024

The Magical Chocolate Bar

By Wyrd Smythe

Earlier this year, I posted about that math gag that seems to prove (very mathematically) that 2=0 (an alternate version “proves” 1=0 using the same trick: a covert division by zero, an operation whose undefined result breaks the chain of logic).

Today I’m posting about another somewhat common mathematical (or rather, geometrical) gag — one involving chocolate! In the form of a magical chocolate bar that lets us remove an infinite number of bite-sized pieces but somehow remains the same size. It seems impossible.

And of course, it is. In this post I reveal the magician’s trick!

22 Comments | tags: chocolate, fun with numbers, geometry, old tricks, triangle, tricks | posted in Math