significant digits or the life of pi

Sadly, we missed out on enshrining the day reserved on the calendar for the appreciation of Pi some how this year, but ought push out some belated returns, thanks to this investigation prompted by the never-forgetful Kottke.
While modern computing can deliver Π calculated out to some thirteen trillion decimal places, in search of patterns in the chaos, space agencies only have needed to use a value of the ration calculated out to about fifteen—fewer than the numbers one can count on this pencil if you magnify the image, to send out all our emissaries over billions of kilometers. One might wonder if rocketeers loose fidelity with that level of precision, but it turns out that rounding the value to fifteen decimal places, but if the distance Voyager I is from Earth is the radius of a circle with a circumference of over a hundred billion kilometers, yields a circle that’s only off by a few centimeters difference. The Universe is unimaginably vast and exceedingly small, yet scientist pronounce that to describe a circle that would envelop it all, we would only need about twenty-five more additional decimal places to calculate out a circumference of billions of light-years where there would be less than one hydrogen atom’s breadth between that pi and the pi out to the nth decimal. That’s amazing and I wonder what it means that we can push so far out with numbers to the point where it seems meaning and relevance fall away.

constitutional conventions or prairie home companion

A bit like the decision of Illinois to make its official language American, which requires I think a bit more than cursory curiosity to get to the bottom of it, the territory of Minnesota, when the US Congress through its enabling acts, invited voters to join the union in 1857, factious fighting in the corridors of power in Saint Paul kept resulting in a gridlock and the failure of the new government to produce a state constitution. Facing this impasse to accession against the will of all constituencies, two constitutions were drafted, one that the Republicans found acceptable and one palatable for the Democrats of the territorial government.
Aside from being transcribed on plain white paper and blue tinged stationary respectively and differences in grammar and syntax (neither party would relent to the other’s victory but the antagonism had no real substance to it), both of these documents upheld the letter of the law in essentially the same way and both documents were submitted to Washington, concluding the convention. Despite the fact there was no difference between Republican and Democrat editions and I think that Minnesota’s founders never intended the members of one political party to be subject to a different prevailing policy to those on the other side of the aisle, it does not seem like a very good precedence in any terms. I wonder if the oddity is still on the books, or if eventually, one or the other parties conceded. I realise that there are other versions of America’s national constitution out there—with transcription errata, like editions of the Bible with damning typos—but without a definitive copy, what would it mean to make amends?

morphology

A shrub called the Butcher’s Broom (Ruscus aculeatus oder Stechende Mäusedorn) has a very wide range spanning from Iran to the Meditteranean and a venerable history in traditional medicine, as the Presurfer informs.
Also called Kneeholm as it’s knee-high in the garden, one could be forgiven for overlooking this common and ornamental evergreen which seems less colourful than other holly bushes but it has an interesting adaptation that, like cactuses, called phylloclades that are essentially flattened stems that appear and function as leaves, and of all the trees that are in the wood, this holly bears its flowers and berries directly on the leaf. Part of the large asparagus family, its fresh shoots can be gathered and eaten the same way.

green fairy, ruby slippers

Nag on the Lake beckons to us to join her on the hunt for Italy’s answer to absinthe served up in a ruby red concoction called Tamango by a mysterious bar in Turin of the same name.
Just as one has to have reverence and respect for the Green Fairy, one also has to drink this signature cocktail very gingerly or face hallucinatory consequences. The travelogue is fraught with rather terrifying tales of patrons who failed to choose wisely. These poor souls could not straightaway click their heels together to go home. Cin cin!—but an abundance of caution is advised.

super nintendo chalmers

Though Ralph Wiggum may have had professional aspirations to be either a caterpillar or a principal when he grows up, some—nay, all—of the prodigy’s one-liners make are suitable and believable stump-speeches for a higher office. Dangerous Minds graces us with the collected quotations from one cartoon character put into the mouth of another.