Pi Day - Semi-Live Blogging

[best_ken_ever]

9:26a Happy Pi Day everyone, and happy 27+1th (that's 129th) birthday to Albert Einstein!

9:43a This morning, I woke up at 7am to try to find some place where I could buy pies to bring into work, so I started searching on GoogleMaps and calling places. I called a few baker's dozens worth of bakery shops and grocery stores near my apartment in

Comments

[speckled_llama]

map-related stuffs:

no need to install goog.sky everywhere:

http://www.google.com/sky/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX9MeF2Au9c

[best_ken_ever]

No need to tell me this, I've already got these and use them occasionally. (:

In fact, we tried to use Google Sky to solve that Mystery Hunt puzzle with the galactic distances, but failed due inexactness and laziness.

[zandperl]

FWIW, Google Sky isn't actually a planetarium program, and therefore has some serious flaws compared to actual planetarium programs. For example, a real planetarium program lets you track the movements of objects for multiple centuries in the past and future, and Google Sky doesn't do that. It's a shame. I've had stellarium.org recommended to me in its place; it has a pretty steep learning curve, but it does everything.

I worked on that problem, but we missed the point that you had to scale up distances by a thousand or whatever it was, so everything was at the distance of the Moon, give or take. Frustrated me b/c I knew I should've been able to solve it. I need to look at the solution to see what the actual distances were and see if I can get it now.

[speckled_llama]

I mean, you don't need to download google earth to have sky- its can now be used online.

[amyneff]

Happy Pi Day! Somebody invited me to the "event" on facebook and I totally thought of you.

What kinds of pie?

[best_ken_ever]

I haven't decided yet. I will when I get there, I guess.

[zandperl]

Is 2357 prime as well? 555 clearly isn't.

[best_ken_ever]

2, 3, 5, 7, and 2357 are all prime. 555 is included because you shouldn't actually try to call the number. Instead call my number. Heehee. (:

Sadly, 5,552,357 isn't prime either. But it's a cute shirt.

[jennekirby]

I was sad about that last bit. I'd totally forgotten about the shirt!

[l0stmyrel1g10n]

you can make key lime pies really quickly and easily, if you buy a pie crust. graham cracker crumb crusts are good. 1/3 cup key lime juice, one 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk, 3 egg yolks, mix it together and pour in the crust, bake for 10 minutes, let it cool for 15 minutes, refrigerate.

[jennekirby]

I am absolutely certain that this has to have made the rounds among the people I know by now, but because today was the first time I've seen it:

http://www.vvc.edu/ph/TonerS/mathpi/mathpimovie.swf

(It's a movie with sound, so perhaps an after-work pursuit.)

Phil insists that there need to be more verses, about further history of mathematics.

[best_ken_ever]

Oh, that. Yeah, I think it's kinda subpar, compared to what it could be. I'm an elitist or something (:

Thanks, though!