Laziness

I couldn't decide what to blog about, so enjoy this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obIGsb-IZMo&feature=related

Also, Q8: the maths prefects, named after the quaternion group Q8, as we have 8 members. God we're funny. Anyway, could the members who read this blog please tell me when we're doing what. I'm designing some poster ideas and if I can get anything solid, I'll post it on here tonight.

UPDATE: why I'm annoyed by D1.

Okay, so I'm sitting a Decision module, which is, y'know, fine. And there are some questions I'm doing, Misc. Ex. 1, question 8 especially, seems to involve almost exclusively labourious number crunching. So I did this, in C++...


#include <iostream>
#include <math.h>

using namespace std;

int main() {
double C = 0.5*sqrt(3);
double S = 3;
double T = 2*sqrt(3);
double D = 2*sqrt(3) - 3;

while (D > 0.01) {

C = sqrt((1+C)/2);
S = S/C;
T = S/C;
D = T-S;

cout << D << "\n";
}

if (D<0.01) {
cout << D;
cin.get();
return (0);
}
}


... which gives me the answers to some needless level of accuracy (8 d.p.) so that's that done.

Except now I'm not revising. And, as far as I'm aware, I'm not allowed a compiler in the exam. Which is obviously stupid. I should be.

Anyway, it's annoyed me, and is therefore worth blogging about.

Neutrino walks into a bar...

So, been speaking to Sean (of VVB fame), and he's told me to write a piece on our new angle measurement system we've been working on, the Revo.

For those of you unaware of the Revo, it's just a new way to think of and work with angles, which make a few things, like, y'know, the actual teaching of angles, a lot easier.

Let's begin.

So we call one full circle 1 revo (symbol banta, which is up on your left). It follows that half a circle is 1/2 revo, etc. and a degree is 1/360 revo.

Easy conversion to radians, as you just multiply by 2 pi, so instantly easier than degrees anyway.

And that's about it. You can do anything you can do in radians or degrees in them, as the rules are otherwise the same, it's just a scale factor on any angle measurements you do. Nice and simple.

EDIT: Since then, I've been told there's already a similar (identical) unit called the turn. Fuck.

Now, back to the regular blog:

Today (yesterday, as I'm writing it) is the 13th birthday of Google, so I thought I'd write about that for a bit.

Then I remembered search engines are boring. So here's a piece on a TV show.

For those of you unaware, House is awesome. Simply incredible. Shut up, it is. Whilst even it's most diehard of fans would have difficulty claiming that every episode was anything other than completely identical, that's not the point, you fool: the character development is the important thing in any long-running show, and House does character development like a chimp does shit-flinging. Like Nick Clegg does lying. I've got loads of these.

Anyway, following his crashing through a house at the end of the last series, it looks like our boy House has ended up in prison, and has taken it upon himself to give medical advice to the inmates whilst he's there. So far, all I've seen from the promo is him supplying drugs to a Nazi, and offering a snarky comment: all's good here. House does sarcasm like Monica Lewinsky did Bill Clinton (see? Tons of 'em). New series starts 3rd October. Be there. It's gonna be good.

And finally, in science news, some clever-dicks in Japan have designed a smartphone that can read radiation levels, in the wake of the earthquake and subsequent radiation worries. All very cool, I think you'll agree. The scientists have also proposed additional "jackets" that can be put on the phone so that it can detect "bad breath and body fat". This should totally go on Dragon's Den, if only so that I can confirm my theory that Theo Paphitis has slightly garlicy breath. He looks like he would, doesn't he? And with that small act of libel, I'm off to write some code.

And I'll end on a joke.

Barman says to a neutrino, "What are you doing in here?"
Neutrino walks into a bar.