Answers.yahoo.com

About a month or two ago I found an interesting site on the Web, part of Yahoo! I happened on it when I read a story on the CNN web site saying how Stephen Hawking displayed a question on the site. The site is answers.yahoo.com , in which people submit questions and other surfers answer them. They can be of any number of subjects. I tried it out and found it a good place to answer other people's questions - sort of like a general purpose tutor.

There is a point system with Answers.yahoo.com . If you visit a site on a day, you get 1 point. If you ask a question, you lose 5 points. Apparently, you pay to have your questions answered with points. If you answer a question, you get 2 points. From what I gather, after some people answer a question, the originator can select a best answer. That person gets 10 points. If he just abandons the question after leaving it there, it goes to a vote, with the most votes getting "best answer". After you get a certain number of points, you can rate questions, answers, and selections as best answer. You can get email notifications of such things as an answer to your question or being selected best answer to a question.

There's a wide variety of types of questions. Some of these are deeply philosophical, such as "Does God exist?" Others are presumptive, such as "If Tel Aviv were bombed, who would George Bush get his orders from?" Some of them are hilarious or whimsical, such as "Do snakes sneeze?" Some questions occur over and over again, such as "What is 2 + 2?" I've been answering that "5", citing as my reference George Orwell's 1984.

The first question I asked was "When mathematicians refer to the square root of -1, which one do they mean?" Many answerers simply said "i", as this is used as a symbol for the square root of -1. The whole point was that there are two such square roots (i and -i) and it is hard to tell them apart because they have identical properties. I was surprised that an answerer named "mathematician" came up with a way of distinguishing these! He said take the polynomial ring R[X] modulo X² + 1, and take i to be the image of X in this quotient ring.

I asked "Is Jupiter a planet", hoping to get someone arguing that it was a dwarf star or something. Everyone said it was a planet, however. The "demoting" of Pluto to a "dwarf planet" generated a lot of questions, many of them from "Pluto" fans.

I found that many of these questioners use bad English spelling and grammar, to the point sometimes of changing the meaning of their questions. Some of them evidently have some other language as their primary language, and the resulting English constructions sound weird, and in some places the meaning has changed. Some even answer in Spanish. This is not allowed. There is a Spanish language version of Yahoo! they can go to. I answered one such question in Spanish and English, then later I found the question had been removed.

One effect of answers.yahoo.com is that it drew me away from blogging. I am uncertain of getting a response by blogging, but I do get it from answers.yahoo.com . However, I usually don't get a record on my hard drive of my Yahoo! answers.

Many of my answers have been in mathematics and astronomy, but not all, and in general I find it a good place to get answers from people even if they are facetious.

Double Counting

I ran into two instances of double counting in 24 hours. One is in mathematics, and the other pertains to a Toastmasters rating system.

The mathematical one involved this algorithm on numbers. Take the last digit and deduct it from the rest. For example, with the number 4257, take the 7 and subtract it from 425: 425 - 7 = 418. Repeat the process: 41 - 8 = 33; 3 - 3 = 0. The number is divisible by 11 if and only if you get zero at the end. Further, the digits you pull off along the way form the quotient: 387. Someone on Mathnerds wanted help in proving that this algorithm works. I suggested proving by mathematical induction. If the number is 10x + y (in our example, x = 425, y = 7, 10x+y = 4257), then the operation means subtracting y to obtain 10x, then subtracting y from the result (actually 10y since we chopped off a place): 10x - 10y = 10(x - y). By induction, x - y is divisible by 11 and the quotient is, say, the integer z. then 10x + y = 10(x-y) + 10y + y = 110z + 11y = 11(10z+y), so the number is divisible by 11 and the quotient has last digit y. The person who wanted help wanted to know why we subtract y twice. We do so because the first time represents taking the last digit off the number, and the second time represents subtracting the 10y. In fact, that is why 11 is involved: 11 consists of two 1s.

The Toastmasters instance involved discussion of the Distinguished Club Plan. A Toastmaster Club earns one point for each of the following: earning two Competent Toastmaster (CTM) awards, earning two more CTMs, earning an Advanced Toastmaster (ATM) award, earning another one, earning a leadership award, earning another one, getting four more members, getting four more members, getting at least 4/7 of the officers trained, and turning in required reports in on time. But - a Toastmaster club must be over 20 members or have increased by 5 members before it can even be considered for these awards. A Toastmaster in my club found our club had 3 new members in the year, but because of losses, we increased from 11 only to 13 members. We need 3 new members. If we get that, we earn the first membership requirement (four members) and earn two members towards the second four members. The other Toastmaster said that was double counting - first we count the members to qualify; then we count them towards membership points. I didn't think so. There are two separate requirements - the 20 or increase in 5 requirement and the membership points in the Distinguished Club Plan.

It is interesting that two of these double countings came in the same day. What causes these? Apparently there is the underlying assumption in our society that you need to do something only once - we don't sign a million dollar contract twice, we don't try a man twice for the same crime (that is called "double jeopardy"), and we don’t get married twice. So they generalize to other concepts.. For example, a retiree with a job is said to be a "double dipper". In each case, you must look at the conditions. If the first trial never occurred, then to try the person again is not double jeopardy. If the contract is signed, that is enough to bind the two parties to the requirements of the contract. In our number example, the two subtractions mean two different things - taking a digit off the number, and subtracting a number. The two membership requirements are separate - one is an absolute condition for getting Distinguished Club rating, and the other is one of the points that the club can earn.

Still it is confusing and one needs to check the conditions to see if a certain case really is one of double counting.

Peace: You Can Get It on eBay

Yesterday (2006 May 14) after my Unitarian Universalist church service, someone came up to me and asked if I wanted to sign a petition to form a Department of Peace, a Cabinet-level position in the United States Government. I didn't sign it, as I believe it would create another bureaucratic agency, and further, it could later be merged with the Department of State or Defense; the latter would create Orwellian overtones. But I thought the idea was good of having the Government take the lead in maintaining peace in the world.

So today I Googled for "Department of Peace". I found a web site devoted to that department. But what struck me the most was an ad in the upper right corner. It said:

Department Of Peace
Whatever you're looking for
you can get it on eBay.
www.eBay.com

So the Department of Peace is available on eBay? Quick, does President Bush know about this? Instead of sending in soldiers to maintain peace in many foreign lands, he could purchase this Department for probably a low bid (who else is going to bid for it?) and use that instead. Peace. You can get it on eBay. Would be nice if it were true.

But then I tried other things in Google. I not only want world peace, I want an end to all war. So I tried Googling for "end to all war". I found that no, you can't get this on eBay:

To End All War at Amazon
Low prices on to end all war.
Qualified orders over $25 ship free
Amazon.com

No, you have to get it on Amazon instead, although you can get it for a low price. And what's this about a war going on at Amazon? Is a managerial shakeup at Amazon imminent? Is this what's going to end that war?

That's not all. I found you can get gamma ray bursts at Amazon. I mentioned this to my astronomy society tonight (2006 May 15). Some asked if it comes bottled.

I Googled "depleted uranium" and couldn't find anywhere to buy it. But when I Googled "enriched uranium", I found that it was available on eBay. That's scary. I hope this Ahmadinejad kook over in Iran gets absolutely nowhere near a mouse. Please, Google. Let's stick to selling Peace over eBay. In fact, let's sell Peace everywhere - it needs to be bought in mega quantities.

It makes me want to leave Richmond

Tonight, when I wanted to listen to the 6:00 pm local news on WWBT Channel 12 in Richmond, they were presenting the Kentucky Derby instead. So I went to Channel 8 instead. But then I wondered, when was this race going to take place? All the time I have a problem watching the local and national news on Sunday because sports events such as football and basketball continually bomb them out. But horse races have got to be one of the shortest sports events around. It only lasts a couple of minutes. So I decided to watch that instead. I had to wait a while before they started the race, but then they did, starting off 20 horses galloping to see which can reach the finish line first.

I watched as two horses known as Keyed Entry and Sinister Minister took the lead, with Keyed Entry first. After a couple of laps, all of a sudden they didn't talk about these two horses anymore. Instead they were talking about Brother Derek and then all at once Barbaro, as the horses rounded the final turn. Barbaro took a huge lead and won the race.

I then turned back to Channel 8. I heard the weather woman there describe the forecast for tomorrow - this nice warm weather we had is going to turn into cold and rainy on Monday. At least put that weather on Monday - not on the weekend. Channel 8 continued with sports. Did they talk about the exciting finish at the Kentucky Derby? No, they yapped about NASCAR. I instantly flipped the channel back to 12 for the wrap-up after the Derby. I wanted to find out how Sinister Minister finished, especially since my church just called a new minister. But I could not find that. After the wrap-up was finished, I turned to Channel 8 again for the news.

To me the Kentucky Derby beats NASCAR any day. Why do Richmonders want to watch all these souped up cars sucking up the world's precious oil race around and crash into each other? To me, a horse beats a car any day. Not for everyday transportation, though, as the horse is slower and it does present the plop cleanup problem. But when we are attending leisure events, let's put the car behind us. Let's watch nature's animal creation, the horse, race in an event that takes only a twinkling of the eye to complete. I don't see why Richmond is so gung ho on NASCAR. It makes me want to pack up my bags, leave Richmond, and move to Louisville.

And these cars come either with no names or with mindless names, like X-3 and the like. Horse names have got to be one of the finest creations of humankind. I don't think I will ever see a sinister minister ever in a church (except possibly my church) but you will see one at the Derby. You key entries in a computer and also on a horse - Keyed Entry. Steppenwulfer is a medieval character, or a horse. And remember Funny Cide last year? I sure don't want to destroy the humor of a party or speech, except when it comes in a horse - then I will want to commit funnycide. And take a look at the other entries today - Showing Up, Bluegrass Cat (only a horse can be a cat, except a cat of course), Storm Treasure, Cause to Believe, Flashy Bull, and Point Determined. My point is determined. Horse races beat car races any day. The action is in Louisville, not in Richmond.

And then I listened to the news. But what if the news stories on ABC were horses? And they're off! Here comes Top Spy coming down the track. And now Fighting Addiction is coming up behind him. He's closing the gap, but wait! Here on the outside is Wigging Out, catching up to Fighting Addition as Fighting Addiction is overtaking Top Spy. He's catching up, he's catching up, and… It's Wigging Out by a hair. And so Wigging Out is the winner of the ABC News Derby for today. So bet on your horse. But bet for sure that horses beat cars any day.

To blog or not to blog

I found an interesting story on Slate. It is by Sarah Hepola who says she is taking down her blog. Since I have been blogging since 2002 and now have seven different blogs, this interested me. Why would she want to shut it down?

I found out from reading the article that it is because blogs tend to make thoughts come out in little dribbles. You blog something every week or every day. You don't have that much time in a day so you tend to come out in little pieces. Sarah said she would start on her novel and come up with five different blogs instead. I have that problem at times, as well. I tend to come up with these little thoughts, so I write up Toastmaster speeches (really these are spoken blogs) or blogs about it. I might write one on fireflies, another on the Defense of Marriage Act ("DUMBA"), still another on a possible hurricane or a skywatch and so forth. So I can't come up with anything substantial, like a novel, book on fireflies, or book on astronomy at skywatches. I'm not a firefly expert at all, for instance. And my blogs started to all get meshed with each other and hard to find or read through. That is why I made up seven blogs, one for each of my interests - religion, astronomy and nature, peak oil, mathematics, weather, my own opinions on things (usually political), and general subjects, which is what this blog, Blogtrek, is about.

So do I come up with substantial things? I used to. I wrote a 60-page thesis to obtain my doctorate at Northwestern in 1972. Right now I am writing a story. I started it last summer and am still writing it - it is now 41 pages long, entitled "The Moving Picture" about a picture of a nude couple that keeps turning up in the wrong place all the time. I would write a little bit at a time, and sometimes my writing drives the story in unforeseen ways; for example, a lovemaking scene all at once turns into one where the man calls another woman to talk about traffic jams. But I have kept at work on the story. I don't know if it is publishable - probably not, right now - but I have kept at it.

Maybe when I blog I feel like I have to have a finished product right away, and so I write something up quick, and it is short. The same with a Toastmaster speech. I usually come up with something on the spur of the moment, and it is only 5-7 minutes in length, the length of a standard Toastmaster speech. In any case I don't think that quitting blogging will help me to write a novel or finish "The Moving Picture".

What it is is that one can't complete a big project in a day so one spends all his time with little projects and so doesn't get anything notable done. I suppose the only way to handle this is to do the big project a little bit at a time. If it is cleaning the attic, sort a box a day. If it's building a house, build a few boards a day. If I want to write a novel, write a scene or a piece of a scene every day. That is what I am doing with "The Moving Picture". And it's the same way with establishing a business, writing a doctoral thesis, or anything big. Big things start from little ones. Has Sarah tried writing part of a novel in a blog every day? Maybe I could write a blognovel. I have been thinking of writing one about a boy's (and later man's) fascination with railroad tracks and trains.

And she remarks that she can keep it secret or make it open, or at least pretend these things. Why blog? One could write a book and get it published, or write a personal diary in a diary book or on the computer without putting it on the web. Maybe blogging revolves around this wondering if someone is going to see it, and if so, what is their reaction to it. It's that sense of the unknown seeing you and appreciating you that puts some of the zest in blogging. Perhaps this gets too much for some, perhaps for Sarah right now. But eventually I will wind up (and probably so will Sarah) blogging again.

Thus endeth my self-referential blogging on blogging.

When It's Out, He's Not Out

An interesting play occurred in a game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Los Angeles Angels on 2006 April 17 at Camden Yards. In the bottom of the second inning, Miguel Tejada hit a single to the shortstop area. Jay Gibbons flied out to the center fielder Darin Erstad. The next batter up was Javy Lopez. Lopez hit a long fly ball way out into center field, and Erstad reached up to try to pick up the ball.

Tejada and Lopez looked all over the place. They looked at and listened to the umpire's call, as to whether it was an out, a long in-the-ballpark hit, or a home run. They also looked at Erstad to see which it was. Erstad fell to the ground. Apparently Tejada heard the third base umpire say "out" and assumed the ball was caught. So he went back to first base. Apparently Lopez thought it was a home run and kept on running. He was called out for passing Tejada on the base paths. The umpires and scorers declared the play a single and an out. Apparently the ball just barely left the ballpark.

How did this happen? This is what Lopez said afterwards: "'Me and Tejada were looking at the umpire the whole time, wondering what kind of call he was going to make. We were wondering if the ball was out or (Erstad) got it in his glove. One umpire called an out, so obviously Tejada went back to first base. Then the other umpire said the ball was out. But by the time he made the call, I had already passed Tejada.''

Note what he says. He says "The ball went out." With all the screaming and commotion at a typical major league baseball game, the words may not all have been heard. Perhaps Lopez heard "out". That is evidently what happened, for Lopez said, "One umpire called an out." Tejada must have heard it that way, for he retreated to first base. On a fly out, runners must hold to their bases and if they don't get back to them in time before the ball or a tag does, they're out. Lopez must have heard differently. He said, "Then the other umpire said the ball was out." That immediately confronted Lopez with a contradiction. If the ball is out of the ball park, it is a home run, and there can be no outs with an ordinary home run. He assumed the ball was out of the ballpark and kept on running. Thereby he passed Tejada and was called out for passing another runner. Why didn't he see Tejada? Well maybe he was concentrating on Erstad and what the umpires were saying.

The whole problem arose because the word "out" was ambiguous. One meaning of "out" says the item was not in the set or the scene of discussion. For example, "The young man was out of the house.", meaning that he was somewhere else other than in the house. That's the meaning in "the ball is out", meaning out of the ballpark. The other meaning is the baseball meaning, which says that a player or the base he is heading to has been tagged and therefore he must leave the base paths and a point called an "out" is recorded; three of these end an inning. That is what Tejada thought the umpire meant when he said "out".

I think this one was the umpires' fault. I think Lopez should have been credited with a home run. This is because I believe that umpires should never say the word "out" unless they mean a baseball out. They should never say the ball is out of the fair playing area, or out of the ballpark, or out of anything. They should not even say "Power is out." Who knows? Maybe there is a player named "Power" or "Powell" (remember Boog) on one of the teams. If there is a power outage, they should say that the ballpark has no power. They should also say that balls are foul, or that they have left the ballpark. Anything except saying they are out. For if they do, they could be creating an out that should not have been an out at all.

Manic March

Much of Alice in Wonderland is weird, including the Tea-Party. Alice was told there was a hatter and a March hare in the area, both mad. Later she met them both and found the experience to be the craziest party she had ever been to. But why did Lewis Carroll select such characters? Why a mad hatter? That one is easy enough. Hats in those days were partially composed of mercury, and exposure to this element causes jitters and other mental ailments. And the March Hare? I hear it is because hares go into rutting season in March. That's why they get so active and mad in March.

I think it is the same for human beings. This is one of the most active, half-crazed Marches I have been through. I knew it was a long march - it's 31 days long. Whoever marches first into it does it on March 1, and by March 4 everyone is marching forth. Literally.

My church had several activities on March 4, including a dining-out party and a potluck at the church. Toastmasters clubs hold their club and area contests, starting a whirlwind of activities for them. Astronomers go out into the boondooks all night long on their Messier marathons - tonight's the best night for it, but that gibbous moon will hinder the marathon this year. Everyone else schedules activities all over the place. The people at my church are running around like banshees. It's bird migrating season, and all sorts of unusual birds appear. Salamanders come out to mate. Tulips and crocuses come out with their lips and cusses. It indeed seems like the whole world is going mad. It has caused me to call this month "Manic March".

This is unusual for me this year, for March to me has been a month of misfortunes. My father died in March 1999, and I caught a bad sinus infection with fevers throughout March 1993. Actually this March is more normal. A long hard (well, this winter has not exactly been the hardest with the warm temperatures) winter is over, and now spring is springing out all over. It reminds me of the Lydia Adams Davis song, "Spring always takes you by surprise".

Detour Which Way?

In sorting out my photographs recently, I happened on a picture I took in late October of some year in the 1980s, near my home. I took it because of the lack of direction it gives. The sign on the left says turn right, and the sign on the right says turn left. So which do I do? And doesn't it remind you of many situations in real life, when someone tells you one thing, and another says the opposite? Take for example, Michael Lynch and Kenneth Deffeyes, who tell you completely different things about whether we are going to run out of cheap oil in a few years. An example is when I went to a conference last July, and the first thing I was greeted with were people saying that the first thing I needed to do was to go to the waiver table to sign waivers for the nature trips I had signed up for. So I did that. Then I went to the registration table, and they told me that I needed to have gone to that table first before going to waivers, contradicting the people at the entrance.

The entire thing reminds me of a poem I wrote recently, called "Where's the Way?". And if any time you are stopped by police for going down a wrong road in a construction project, just show them this picture.

Wonderland vs Oz

I notice that my religious group is having an adult religious education offering entitled "The Zen of Oz". This got me interested. There sure is a lot of religion, especially Zen, in The Wizard of Oz. The yellow brick road is the road of life. The goal you are pursuing is the Emerald City. You think that there is someone who will guide you, such as that humbug Wizard of Oz, but you find out that he is only someone rather like you. And the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion are aspects of yourself.

There is another story around of a voyage of a girl to a far land and back, namely Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (and Through the Looking Glass). This was one of my favorite stories when I was growing up, even though I was a boy instead of a girl. Like Oz's Dorothy, Alice finds herself in a weird land where things are just not the same as back home. So what are the similarities between Oz and Wonderland?

One can pair up characters. Some of these are Dorothy with Alice, The Wicked Witch of the West with the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen, The Good Witch of the North with the White Queen, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion with the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse, and the Mighty Wizard with the King of Hearts. In both stories, Dorothy and Alice try to find their way in their far-off land, and both eventually make it back to where they came from, in the form of waking up from a dream.

The main difference, I see, is a matter of direction. Alice doesn't know where to go. She asks the Cheshire Cat, and the Cat throws the question back at her, saying if she doesn't know where to go, any route is OK. She wanders around trying to find out where to go, and winds up stumbling into one nonsensical scene after another - the Mad Tea Party, the Croquet Game where the Queen of Hearts is all the time threatening the players with beheading, the lobster quadrille, the turtle's woeful stories of his education, and finally, the ridiculous parody of a court proceeding which ends with the Queen ordering Alice's head off. Just at this moment, Alice uses her powers to fend off the entire card deck.

Dorothy definitely knows where she is going. She wants to go home, and she knows that Oz will bring her back home, and there is a yellow brick road leading her to Oz, and a good witch is helping her along the way. She meets characters who share her feelings about what she wants, and she proceeds to her goal, including defeating the evil elements of her kingdom. At the very end, not Oz, nor the Munchkins, or even the Good Witch show Dorothy the way back home. Dorothy herself does it by knowing she never left it to begin with.

The characters and scenes reflect this as well. The Evil Witch has a definite goal in mind, to destroy Dorothy. The Queen of Hearts does not have much of a goal in mind; she goes flailing around shouting "Off with his head" to everyone. The Lion wants to go to Oz to get courage; the Mad Hatter sits around all day aimlessly in a place where time never changes. Oz has good and evil characters; Alice in Wonderland only has silly characters. Dorothy's goal was to go back home to Kansas; Alice simply wanted to make sense of what was happening around her.

So that's how I see the difference between the two. So what is the real world like? Some in power would have us be in Oz, with evil and good witches out there. But I suspect much of it is like Wonderland instead.