In honour of today (March 14) being Pi Day, a musical interpretation of Pi to 31 decimal places by Michael John Blake:
And if you think you can do better, head over to http://pi.highsign.de/ and make your own composition!
Pi, represented by the Greek letter π, is of course the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and is also the ratio of a circle’s area to the square of its radius. Ever so versatile, the number π is used in all kinds of maths. Geometry and trigonometry obviously, but also calculus, physics, statistical probability and even chaos theory.
Celebrated in song and poem, there was even a movie called Pi about a number theorist who tried to understand the entire world through numbers and ended up drilling a hole in his head (an impulse I’ve often shared during my career working with computers.)
(Click image for a larger version.)
So do something today in celebration of the wonder of π. For Aussies, a meat pie for lunch would be fitting. You could order a pizza (sometimes called a pie), set your desktop wallpaper to the image above, read up about Pi on wikipedia, try and memorise the digits of π (the world record is 42,195 digits), or just run around in a circle like we do most days.
One of our cats has a bib-like cloth attached to his collar these days to stop him catching birds. It is suppose to interfere with his stalking and so far it’s worked.
The other cats in the neighbourhood do point at him and laugh and call him a kitteh [sic], but he’s reaped his own reward as far as I’m concerned as he kept bringing birds home and hiding them in the house…
Anyway, just now a nice old man knocked on my door because he saw Kismet with this thing on his collar and was concerned it was something stuck in his collar and might be choking him.
I explained what it was and assured the man that if anybody was going to have the pleasure of throttling that bloody cat it would be me and not some inanimate piece of cloth.
I’ll never forget the time my brother-in-law was telling me about the movie, Like Water for Chocolate. In trying to sound worldly and hip, he enthused, “I love French films!”
If you’ve ever really used Google in anger, you’ve no doubt come across search hits in a foreign language, and been offered a link to read a translated version. Google Translate is a wonderful service, but they recently added even more awesome with the ability to translate Latin!
Now we can all sound like pretentious scholars. I’m hoping the next addition will be either Pig Latin or Tok Pisin.
If Pavlov used a Labrador I think his experiments are void.
Well the cats are still at it. Last night Michelle was dishing up dinner and turned her back for a second and one of the cats nipped up onto the bench and tried to take off with a chicken drumstick.
It turned out to be a bit too heavy and while trying to dodge various objects being thrown at him he dropped it onto the floor, where of course Toby instantly vacuumed it up. (Toby is actually very well behaved — we’ve left food out on the coffee table and he knows not to touch it — but once it hits the floor it’s his domain.)
For the non-dog owners out there, cooked chicken bones are generally not very good for dogs. They can splinter and cause problems, so when you see your dog gobble down a drumstick you react with some urgency.
I immediately stuck my hand down his throat to try and retrieve the drumstick — which has left me with a very nice imprint of one of his molars on the side of my finger and taught the children a few new expressions they’re not allowed to repeat.
Thus, with one hand covered in slimy dog spit, and the other holding on to his collar, I took the last action left to me and hoicked up on his collar so he couldn’t swallow. We danced that way for a little bit until he finally dropped the bone.
At this point all pets were encouraged into the laundry either by the scruff of their necks or pure inertia and locked away until after dinner.
It was actually quite nice to eat a meal without having furry eyes watching your every move for a change.
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read." —– Groucho Marx
We have a three year old Labrador named Tobius or “Toby” for short. He was supposedly the runt of the litter, but turned out to be a big black doofus with an attention span about as wide as the space between his eyeballs.
He is not especially good at playing fetch. He’ll be running along after the ball and something will divert his attention —– one sharp left later he’s off rolling in God knows what and you’re the one fetching the ball. About the only time he’s any good at fetch is if we play it in the house, up and down the hallway.
So of course, Toby swallowed a ball a few weeks ago. It was one of those small rubber super-balls that I’m continuously telling my daughter not to play with or the dog will eat it which, sure enough, is what happened. She was bouncing it up and down the hall, there was a flash of black and a scream of, “No Toby!” and the ball was breakfast.
The advice from the vet was to wait and see, and to check his poop for the next few days to see if the ball appears (a task that was delegated to my daughter for obvious reasons — that and because it was her fault he ate the ball in the first place). If it didn’t turn up in a few days or he showed signs of distress then call them back.
Luckily he threw up the ball sometime during the second night as we found it in the laundry the next morning. None of the animals have been inclined to play with it for some reason.
Coda
Being the first dog I’ve ever had, he has certainly been a learning experience for me. The general failure with the whole fetch thing for one. Toby has had surgery twice on his left eye to laser out a growth, so perhaps his vision isn’t all it could be and he has trouble tracking the ball. He’s certainly not always the most visually observant.
At the start of June I had my head shaved for a good cause. Shaggy hair and beard completely gone, run over twice with a straight razor, the whole nine yards. After which we went bowling —– but I digress. When we got home, with the excitement of everyone arriving and pats and such he just didn’t notice, but a while later, after I have been sitting at the computer for 20 minutes or so then got up and turned around he totally freaked. He jumped up and barked, “Who the hell are YOU?!” His nose and eyes were telling him two different things.
Fortunately he calmed down quickly once I gave him a cuddle and distracted him with a cat to chase.
One of our cats has a bib-like cloth attached to his collar these days to stop him catching birds. It is suppose to interfere with his stalking and so far it’s worked.
For the non-dog owners out there, cooked chicken bones are generally not very good for dogs. They can splinter and cause problems, so when you see your dog gobble down a drumstick you react with some urgency.
He is not especially good at playing fetch. He’ll be running along after the ball and something will divert his attention —– one sharp left later he’s off rolling in God knows what and you’re the one fetching the ball. About the only time he’s any good at fetch is if we play it in the house, up and down the hallway.
Sitewide Feed
Comments Feed
