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Learning mathematics by doing, and Monty Hall
The Monty Hall problem came up recently, and I just wanted to toss my hat into the "providing an explanation" ring. Actually, I want to abdicate that role. Instead of proving this by logic, let's just observe that the smug bastards who say "switching will win 2/3 of the time" are right by simulating 10,000 rounds of the actual game.
import ( Read more... ) -
B is for Biking
I went to the UO Club Sports open house in my capacity as the coordinator for the UO Juggling Club. While there, I also signed up to go on the occasional training ride with the UO Cycling Team (but not race - too crazy for me, thanks). I'd normally try to go with the Eugene G.E.A.R.S., but they meet at 9am, and the UO cyclists meet at 10-10:30 ( Read more... ) -
Terrorism
Every now and then, I get pissed off enough about the news to go on a ranty tear about it. Read this or not at your pleasure.
I feel like I'm living in some kind of imaginary dystopia that I will wake up from - this is Pottersville or Bifftown or something. Terrorism is not scary. Nuclear war is scary. Terrorism is only scary if you don't ( Read more... ) -
Tour D’Oh
Went on another week long bike trip - this time with canarasekal, j3h, and tralfazz on bikes, and with stevedarnley (BOB!) driving support in Francesca (Chiara's car). The route we took was a little over 300 miles on the map, but we ended up with 384 miles on our bikes and a 13.4 MPH average speed. For those of you playing along at home, that translates to 27+ hours on our bikes.
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Bureaucracy fight!
I have to enter my students' grades into Duckweb. I am finally done grading them. All the grades are stored on the departmental servers as I do not want to have a computer crash erase them. The deadline for grade submission is fast approaching. Unfortunately, when I try to connect to the computer containing my @cs email AND all the grades, I ( Read more... ) -
Fun fact about bike wheels
Bike wheels come in two main flavors for road bikes: 27 inches and 700c. I've been putting together my project bike and I bought a new rear wheel. I tried to put my 27 inch tire and tube on the back, and it was too big. So then I went to google and searched for 27 inches in millimeters and discovered that 27 inches = 685.8 millimeters, and thus ( Read more... ) -
Large groups of corporations working together are not always your friend.
So, let's say you own a projector.
Woohoo!
Now, let's say you want to hook up a DVD player to that projector.
Awesome! Like a movie theater!
But now you want your DVDs to look good like when you play them off of your computer.
SWEET!Unfortunately, at this point we are screwed. You see, because Hollywood is addicted to broken business ( Read more... ) -
World Cup
Well, now we know which team the ref is playing for...
