(50-3)^2

I was at the AT&T store yesterday thinking I was going to get an iPhone (turns out I could order one and get it in a few weeks - no thanks - if the gratification isn't instant I don't want any part of it). There were a few kids in the store playing with the iPhones on display. I think they were about 10, but I think all kids are about 10 (if you ever listen to my childhood stories you'll realize that I think half my life occurred during that one year). One of them decided that the most interesting thing to do with the iPhone was to type math problems into its calculator and then see if the other kids could get the right answer. While I wanted to play with the iPhone (although I'm a bit ashamed that I would have been using it to watch TV) I liked that the kid was doing math and doing the problems in my head provided entertainment while I waited to be disappointed by the lack of iPhones.

At one point the kid asked his mom - what is 47 times 47 and she responded 10,000 clearly just brushing off the question. To her credit - she was at a cell phone store with her kids - I think if you make it through that without going on a murderous rampage you've done good (I think that counts even without the kids). But I was so tempted to tell the kid how to do the problem. (instead of doing 47*47 do (50-3)^2 which is then just three easy problems: 50*50, 2*50*3, and 3*3 then subtract and add) but I figured that would not have been appreciated. But don't you think that in the interest of teaching a kid math most normal social rules should be suspended?

I convinced myself that I wrote this as just an amusing story since I haven't posted in a bit and as a question about societal rules. But I'm afraid it is really just a way to release a pent up need to tell someone how to easily square 47, which really isn't that satisfying considering that many of you know as much or more math than I do.

Ohlone Backpacking

Friday afternoon I took off from work and headed out to the hills in the east bay with three others and didn't return home till Sunday night. We covered 19.4 miles with a total elevation gain/loss of 6,988/6,517 ft which peaked at 3,817 ft where there was a 360 degree view. We went from Sunol Regional Wilderness to Del Valle. I learned that uphill hurts the muscles and down hill hurts the knees and ankles and it all hurts the feet. It was an international crowd so there was cursing in several languages going on. Ok, I'll skip the rest of the complaining and get to the good part.

Well the best part was the lunch time naps. Although meeting people and seeing some great views was nice too. The area we were hiking was also a cattle grazing area so there were some groups of cows to watch (downside - cow crap everywhere - upside - I smelled so bad I didn't really notice the cow crap smell). And I got some pictures from the peak which had a log book that we signed. For the rest of the pictures go here.

Averages

I've heard that if you have a bunch of people guess how many jelly beans are in a bowl the average of everyone's guesses is much closer than almost everyone's individual guess. The comments on the last post are an interesting demonstration of this principal (although, it doesn't really count as evidence for a bunch of reasons).

I wasn't going to go through it all, but the people have asked so here it is. If you just look at regular readers, I think there are 7 regular readers (engaged readers plus parents and person who has news in the last three months I'm more jealous of than engagement). 4 of those 7 regular readers got engaged in the last three months.

But I was making a statistical comment about that particular post. By mentioning the engaged couples I imagine that I increased the odds that one of them would read it (and by calling her out all but by name in this post I think this even further increases the odds that her finance will encourage to read the post). At this point I think it is a bit better than 50-50 so let's give her a 75% chance and say there are 4.75 people who would have passed the criteria (I'm making a comment on expected value not on the value of the person). I think it is unlikely that the last couple member will read the post (and one of the comments confirms that).

There's one person who I would think reads this, but I really have no idea so since Bayes says with no info it is 50-50 we're up to 3.5 who don't meet the criteria. There's one person who occasional reads this blog, on the high side I'd guess there's a 25% chance of reading any given post so up to 3.75. Then there's 7 family members outside my immediate family who at least know about it and may have read it at some point, but I have a feeling they never or rarely read it at this point, so lets give each of them a 10% chance then we are up to 4.45. I've also had occurrences of random people reading my blog - although there's typically something specific that triggers it. Let's give a random person stopping by an expected value of 0.1 people then we are at 4.55

So we are at 4.75 out of 9.3 which is a 51% chance, but with a fairly wide margin of error. No, I didn't count myself - I guess I should have specified anyone who read it, but didn't write it (although I could claim it was implied by the use of second person).

3 months

If you are reading this then there is a greater than 50% chance that you got engaged in the last three months.

Kinda crazy - doesn't pass the betting test - but still pretty crazy.

And so many Jewish Sunday School teachers worked so hard to prevent all three couples from getting together.

Narnia and Harry Potter

The last post in a round about way reminded me about something. A few weeks ago I watched the two Narnia movies. While I remember nothing about the books from when I read them as a kid, except the title, I have to imagine there was a lot of story that was left out which may somewhat counter the point I'm about to make, but I don't think too much.

Spoiler alert on Narnia - although if you know the lion is Jesus then none of it should be much of a surprise.

Anyway, after watching Narnia I totally get what those Christians who were protesting Harry Potter were talking about (the ones complaining about how he solves problems by working with his friends - I already got the ones complaining about witchcraft). I totally disagree (with both types), but I get it now. The stories had reasonably similar build ups and magical worlds. In both the kids discover the world and build up their skills. In Harry Potter they use that knowledge and skills to deal with their enemies, but in Narnia it seems like they do a whole lot of stuff that doesn't get them anywhere or gets people killed and then end up just hoping the lion will show up and save their butts (and then act like they accomplished something). Now I see the general direction the protesters would have preferred - before I didn't really get what the alternative was. Hm, perhaps my own views colored the descriptions a bit.

Nothing that insightful or new, but the contrast really sunk in for me so I thought I'd share.

Oh and how true of a self sacrifice is it if you know you'll come back to life? And why wouldn't you tell people that you'll come back to life - does he just like making little girls cry (hm, guess I should specify I'm talking about the lion, not Jesus)? Maybe this is where the book fills in some of the details.

BTW this is post #300. If you've made it through all 300 of my ramblings you should get a prize or something (you don't, but you should).

Egyptian Magic

I was wandering around the used book store in downtown mountain view and notice this book called Egyptian Magic and noticed that it is only $6 and said wow - I gotta get that.

I wouldn't really recommend the book since it goes through a lot of detail without as much overview and context as I'd want, although I think it assumes that the reader knows more about ancient egypt than mummies and pyramids.

What is interesting is seeing where a lot of what we now consider magic comes from. They were very into the power of words - both written and spoken and into items like amulets - I guess claiming that Harry Potter got its ideas from Lord of the Rings is missing the mark by about 6,000 years. They also invented horoscopes - you'd think every few thousands years people would come up with something new...

Their magic was very interleaved with their religion. There was a whole lot of effort that went into preparing the dead - although I guess a lot of people now go through all sorts of stuff to get into Heaven.

It is also interesting because it provides a lot of background for Judaism since it is basically what Jews were turning away from and informs a lot of how exodus played out. One thing I didn't realize is it is not that they thought statues were gods, but rather that they could put part of gods in statues and then use those gods' powers. Also interesting is that all of the gods were actually different aspects of one main god - Ra, the sun god - so actually a bit more monotheist than it would seem. Exodus makes more sense because all the stuff Moses did was very similar to Egyptian magic - the torah just claims he did it better - hence the Egyptians just being impressed how powerful Moses's god was. I always had the feeling that they should be impressed that he had a god doing magic acts at all, but apparently that was run of the mill in Egypt at the time. One example of the similarity to Egyptian magic is the Egyptians have an even older story about a magician parting a river in a similar manner.

Fire

If you ever find yourself thinking - gee I wonder just how surrounded by fire David is right now, but don't want to bother communicating with him - then you're in luck just go here. Yes fires are more common in Southern California and typically later in the year. Yes, this year's northern California fires started shortly after I moved to the area. I hope my showers aren't actually so long that they caused the state wide drought leading to the early fire season.

After After Life Take 2

Remember my post about the after after life?

Ok, now go watch the interview at the end of the Colbert Report from June 19.

Yeah, fine, not that similar, but he is explaining that the after life has two parts!