As usual on Monday, you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please. As we approach the winter solstice (for Southern hemisphere readers), I’d be interested in seasonal reflections.
94 thoughts on “Monday message board”
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John Quiggin 
And I always thought pi was 22/7. Oh well – better get some 3.141592654… for dinner. Maybe g really is 10.
No, no, no. Don’t use 10, 9.8, 3 or any of those.
The answer to everything is actually contained in Chaitin’s Omega (I bet you thought I was going to say 42).
P.S., if you want to calculate pi approximations fast, a good simple iteration is given by pi(n+1) = pi(n)+sin(n, pi(n)) where pi(0)=3 (say), and sin(n, x) is a suitable approximation of sin(x). You don’t need to calculate many more terms of the expansion as n increases to triple the number of decimal places of accuracy on each iteration.
Observa’s comment re doggy doo has got me worried. Will the council provided plastic bags in the few areas that dogs are welcome be banned also. If we don’t get plastic bags from the supermarket what are the dogs to do. Learn to hang on.
I seriously don’t get the total ban. I am one of many proud owners of many green bags now. I can tolerate buying a few more but there will come a point where it is insane.
I suspect that this is a policy built around the habits and inclinations and behaviours of the inner city “village ” style folk again. To be denied bags when your shopping centre is some distance away and you are using public transport to get to it, or there is one large shop a week as your inflexible working conditions don’t allow the easy pop in to the Norwood shopping centre on the way home on a regular basis. So will Gran now be required to stagger home with her paper bags? if she forgets her green bags.
If you live in one of the city apartments that don’t even include kitchens then you are certainly not going to be bothered.
We have a very populist Premier with a penchant for distracting issues. I am pretty sure that we may now no longer leave the children alone with the family dog. I noticed also some of our greener citizens calling for a return to lining the kitchen bin with newspaper, so the garbage bag thing may not be so unlikley.
Don’t know and don’t care what the Irish do. We are so often told that policies can’t be just lifted across into another society. So what matters is how Australia’s suburbs are designed, and how the general population lives.
To the poor souls complaining about how hard life would be without plastic shopping bags, I can only say: what a bunch of pathetic f***ing sooks!
If there is any inconvenience associated with using backpacks, shoulder bags, Mum’s string bag, big sister’s old school bag, shopping jeeps or even one’s hands and pockets for smaller items, I’ve yet to notice it. And if there is such an inconvenience, could I suggest to anon, Observa, Ros, et al that it’s worth bearing cheerfully for the sake of all the organic hydrocarbons (a finite resource, with alternative uses we’re all familiar with) that won’t be diverted frivolously into producing polyethylene, all the energy from all sources which won’t be required to produce such items, and above all, all the marine life which won’t be condemned to slow and painful deaths from entanglement in or ingestment of these items.
I would respectfully suggest that none of you would knowingly and wilfully tie your cat in plastic bindings and leave it to starve, choke your dog by stuffing polyethylene into its throat, or cause a horse to swallow so much plastic that its digestive system shuts down and causes it to die miserably. I would also suggest that you would be prepared to endure some inconvenience to save any of these animals from such a fate. Why, then, are you so cavalier about a commercial practice which inflicts exactly this fate on wild animals, some of which (e.g. dolphins and whales) are even more capable of experiencing pain and anguish than dogs, cats and horses.
Let’s cut to the chase. Polyethylene shopping bags were invented by the chemical companies as a solution in search of a problem (like most environmentally destructive products and projects). I am just old enough to remember a time before people were issued with the things when shopping, and I can’t recall a single conversation involving my mother, my adult female relatives and their friends (this was in the days of male breadwinner families in the 1960s and 1970s), or a single caller to my mother’s favourite talkback radio shows, in which anyone complained about the burdens of using cloth bags or expressed a desire for a one-use disposable alternative.
What happened, historically, is that the things were foisted on an environmentally unaware population (by today’s standards). Since then we (or most of us, anyway) have recognised the problems with the silly things, and enlightened governments have acted to eliminate them. This is a progressive step which is overwhelmingly popular with most citizens, and is only opposed by: (a) a minority of shiftless sooks who have developed a shameful dependency on plastic bags; (b) the chemical companies who profit by hawking solutions in search of problems; and (c) the usual, ideologically motivated suspects (and I would not be surprised if the Shoppies union is among them – without ACTU support, I would add) who would rather have all their teeth pulled with rusty pliers and no anaesthetic, and stuffed up their arses, before admitting that environmentalists and environmental scientists could possibly be right about anything. Needless to say, all three constituencies feel obliged to concoct retrospective excuses for polyethylene shopping bags (e.g. “convenience”, contamination from “dirty bags”, reusability to pick up dog poo, purported OHS concerns) to shore up their intellectually bankrupt and morally retarded position.
And whilst I’m in campaign mode, check these links:
http://www.cleanup.com.au/main.asp?RequestType=MediaReleaseIn&SubRequestType=Detail&MediaRelID=248
http://www.cleanup.com.au/attachments/PLASTIC%20BAGS%20-%20HOUSEHOLD%20VERSION.pdf
The polyethylene shopping bag, and its defenders, will be consigned to the landfill of history!
Norton,
I too remember the days before plastic shopping bags because I was working in a supermarket at the time the transition was made (I was in high-school). Before the plastic bags we didn’t use string bags or big green luminescent bags or carry the groceries in our pockets, cheeks or any other orifi. We used paper bags. The plastic bags were introduced because they were easier to carry (they had handles) and they didn’t tear as easily. If they were “invented by the chemical companies as a solution in search of a problem”, they sure as hell solved a real problem.
I was on the front-line. The supermarket I worked in was one of the old-fashioned kind where the “bag-boys” (ie me) carried your groceries to your car for you. I could carry a maximum of three paper bags at once and there was always a risk of tearing one as you put it in the customer’s boot. The plastic bags were a huge step forward.
Of course, that is far too benign an explanation for you and your paranoid, corporate-hating greenie cohorts. So please, carry on – don’t let me interrupt your baseless conspiracy theories.
The position, that many have suggested, with regards to moving things from the supermarket, is that bio-degradable bags are a real alternative.
Why cant I get one, then recycle it as a bin liner? If people want to bring those green bags ,good luck to them. I’ve tried chucking rubbish directly into the wheely bin and spent the the rest of the day picking up the crap after pickup.
The reason Joe2 is that the major retailers (large political donors) have factored into their sale price the cost of providing you with a plastic bag (bio or not). So if they do not have to provide the bags their bottom line is improved. Better still, if they can sell you one of the toxic green bags their bottom line is further enhanced.
n.b. Large political donors seem to get legislative decisions that help their bottom line. The only way they can be made to provide you with environmentally friendly bio- degradable bag is if they were made to by legislation- a highly unlikely scenario.
Bio-degradable bags made a brief appearance in Adelaide (at least) about 15 years ago. I remember, because my uni housemates and I hung a bunch of them on the tree in the backyard to see how long they took to degrade (as far as I recall, after a few months they had deteriorated a lot – the plastic was falling apart).
I think one problem was they needed UV to degrade and hence didn’t do much in the dark in a landfill, and perhaps the supermarkets didn’t pursue it because there wasn’t much political pressure for it at the time.
Apparently there are new organic based ones now. They are on par strength wise with plastic and break down in the soil within a reasonable time frame. I read about them being trialed overseas somewhere I just cant remember where.
“And if there is such an inconvenience, could I suggest to anon, Observa, Ros, et al that it’s worth bearing cheerfully for the sake of all the organic hydrocarbons (a finite resource, with alternative uses we’re all familiar with) that won’t be diverted frivolously into producing polyethylene, all the energy from all sources which won’t be required to produce such items, and above all, all the marine life which won’t be condemned to slow and painful deaths from entanglement in or ingestment of these items.”
Paul: Why pick on poly shopping bags? Simply because it is a diversionary political sop to feelgood quantity control freaks who have no idea whatsoever how to deal with our very real and growing environmental problems. What’s next? Ban garbags, gladwrap, sandwich bags, bin-liners, disposable nappies, Council doggy-do bags, the rolls of bags in supermarket fruit and veg/nuts/bulk foods areas, PET drink containers, etc, etc, etc.
Yes I can remember hitching a ride with the horse drawn baker’s cart and putting out the milk bottles and glass soft drink bottles and no disposable bags at the shops and Amscol ice cream that only came in cones and Arnotts biscuits out of large returnable tins, fish and chips in newspaper, etc, etc. So? Where should the crusading quantity controllers strike next? What will be their next ideological cab off the rank as they run around in ever decreasing circles, imposing their third way on us all? Pardon some of us for noting the demise of Communism recently and pondering that a return to State quantity controls is not exactly a great leap forward. As I said, I’ll be fascinated to read the legal definition of an outlawed shopping bag and the penalty for being caught in possession of said illegal object. I have visions of retailers offering poly shopping bags to customers under another name. Will the shopping bag police pinch people for putting their groceries or fruit and veg, etc in the doggy-do bags or bin liners they purchase at the checkouts with their groceries? This is headless chook stuff.
Wow! Ian Kiernan is now Australia’s leading communist, sez Observa!
I’d add here, I also think a society that has evolved the economic incentives to produce about 6 billion poly shopping bags a year for landfill is also headless chook stuff.
Wow! Ian Kiernan is now Australia’s leading communist, sez Observa!
If it behaves like a Communist……..?
Well, I for one am glad to see that proper alternatives are being taught in our schools. After all, gravity is only a theory.
The Bible clearly tells us, in giving the measurements of Noah’s Ark, that pi is 3.000000 (in the late 19th Centruy the Indiana House of Representatives – a godfearing body – in fact so legislated). Those who claim to have measured otherwise are clearly part of the culture of death, intent on imposing their unproved theories on innocent children. Truly, Satan walks among us.
Speaking of Satan, I’m sure he’s behind the push to get us to buy those namby-pamby recyclable string shopping bags. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to discover that their barcode has the digits 666 in it.
So let’s not be command economy commos – let’s adopt the market-based approach of the liberalising Celtic Tiger and impose a levy on the things (an approach also supported by Bob Brown and the Australian Greens).
Anon. says Why do environmentalists always want to tell the rest of us how to live? I mean, I don’t see plastic bags blowing everywhere. I don’t see them clogging our waterways. Far as I can tell, plastic bags are pretty damn minor on the scale of human environmental impact. Yet the greenies are all excited about their “victory�, and the rest of us are forced to lug large green bags everywhere or transport our groceries home in our rectums.
I have a suggestion for all those greenies looking to minimize human impact on the environment: tackle a real issue….
(and similar comments from others)
Weeelllll…
You might want to look here.
(Quote)
Far out in the North Pacific Ocean is a patch of sea which is at the centre of a whirl of currents, like the foam in the eddy as the water runs out of your bath.
Except that this one is in the ocean, and its called the “Eastern Garbage Patch” at the heart of a current roil known as The North Pacific Gyre. There’s a million pieces of plastic per square mile.
“In Moore’s latest voyage to the garbage patch, he got a close-up view of what happens when life meets floating garbage. The Alguita’s crew found plastic trash bobbing in a thick line from horizon to horizon—everything from tiny particles to 5-inch-thick towing lines, Japanese traffic cones, and yellow quart bottles of American crankcase oil. “We followed the debris for more than a mile, and we never found the end of it,â€? Moore told U.S. News by satellite phone. The research team had stumbled across what oceanographers call a Langmuir cell, a wind-driven circulation pattern where two masses of water are pushed together, forcing some of the water to sink where they meet; anything that floats stays on the surface.
[EDIT]
… “I often struggle to find words that will communicate the vastness of the Pacific Ocean to people who have never been to sea. Day after day, Alguita was the only vehicle on a highway without landmarks, stretching from horizon to horizon. Yet as I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean, I was confronted, as far as the eye could see, with the sight of plastic.
Few seafarers ever cross the North Pacific subtropical gyre. Fishermen shun it because its waters lack the nutrients to support an abundant catch. Sailors dodge it because it lacks the wind to propel their sailboats.
It seemed unbelievable, but I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments. Months later, after I discussed what I had seen with the oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, perhaps the world’s leading expert on flotsam, he began referring to the area as the “eastern garbage patch.â€? But “patchâ€? doesn’t begin to convey the reality. Ebbesmeyer has estimated that the area, nearly covered with floating plastic debris, is roughly the size of Texas.”
…Mmmm, Amscol ice cream…
…Norwood… What is this, some kind of old Adelaidians reunion or something?
Hmm, if you go read about the “eastern garbage patch” you’ll see that a lot of it is attributable to illegal or accidental dumping of trash at sea – not to “runoff” from the land.
The “MARPOL” convention prevents such dumping, but is apparently not well enforced. My suggestion: enforce the convention.
So the connection with banning plastic shopping bags is?
[I know, I know, the banning of shopping bags is just the first step towards that marvelous utopia in which all human activity except that sanctioned by greenies is prohibited. I am so grateful for our recent “progress” on this front.]
Have the feeling that the company that has the perfect bio-degradable bag , only used inland and decomposes ,once covered, is about to make a fortune. Ethical investors seize the opportunity! Just make sure they are not running another business, in the congo, that is supplying body bags,trucks and airplanes to put down the natives.
No, DD, the Bible does not tell us that pi is 3. What it does, it gives measurements that indicate that certain specific circles had a circumference:diameter ratio of 3:1.
That may imply that pi is 3 – but only if you assume that this ratio id a constant for all circles – but more likely it merely indicates a failure of translation. Many expressions in the Bible are not precise, because of the metaphorical nature of the original language. You simply cannot assume that circle meant circle, rather than (say) round.
Anyway, you cannot assume that they said – let alone implied – what you inferred. I do not think you can find any specific reference to the universal ratio of circumference to diameter of circles anywhere in the Bible.
DD, this bit:
(in the late 19th Centruy the Indiana House of Representatives – a godfearing body – in fact so legislated)
is wrong, too.
Did a state legislature once pass a law saying pi equals 3?
In the state Senate, the bill was referred to the Committee on Temperance. (One begins to suspect it was silly season in the Indiana legislature at the time.) It passed first reading, but that’s as far as it got. According to The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers, the bill “was held up before a second reading due to the intervention of C.A. Waldo, a professor of mathematics [at Purdue] who happened to be passing through.” Waldo, describing the experience later, wrote, “A member [of the legislature] then showed the writer [i.e., Waldo] a copy of the bill just passed and asked him if he would like an introduction to the learned doctor, its author. He declined the courtesy with thanks, remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know.”
The bill was postponed indefinitely and died a quiet death.
PML,
A circle is a circle – perfectly round. “A plane curve everywhere equidistant from a given fixed point, the center.”
In fact, if I have my mathematics correct, for any object that is 10 cubits across the minimum circumference will be 10 cubits times pi – 31.41592654(etc) cubits as any change from a perfect circle will result in a longer circumference – not shorter.
So even if it was merely round it would not be possible for it to have a smaller circumference (say 30 cubits).
BTW – in the unlikely event that anyone else is interested – the quote is from 1 Kings 7 v 23 (this is the KJV text):
“And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about”.
The text in question (1 Kings 7:23) says simply this:
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.
Big deal.
I would agree – not for the first time the Bible is wrong in detail, but then I could not see it working as well if He said “…took a line of thirty one and a bit (I am not going to give away the correct value at this point – it would take more than the life of the world to do it right) cubits to measure around…”
Loses some impact.
One significant figure for the height, diameter and circumference seems consistent. And doesn’t tell you what they thought the next figure was.
God is a supreme being
A supreme being knows the value of pi
God knows the correct value of pi
In this example ‘God’ didn’t know the value of pi
Therefore the christian bible ‘God’ isn’t God
Nice try, Benno.
Alternatively: pi was, indeed, equal exactly 3 at the time. Later the christian bible God (or one of them anyway: father, son or the holy spirit) made it irrational number as a punishment for the mankind’s transgressions and irrational behavior.
I wonder if Skanky Ho considers God an elitist. Arguably God is the ultimate elitist.
God is a supreme being
A supreme being is elite
God is elite
Therefore God is a left wing communist elitist marshmellow
Now that would make for good reading and for much better ABC programming.
abb1, there’s only one Christian God. No matter how you wish to interpret it, because if you interpret there as being three Christian Gods (or whatever other number you please), those are not, by definition the Christian Gods. (Though, of course, Christians could be wrong.)
I don’t know, Tristan, is Jesus a god? The god? Not a god at all? I’m not an expert and this is confusing for a layman.
Hey Tristian, how come you right such good comments yet your blog is clearly written by your insane alter ego?
abb1, in the Christian understanding, Jesus isn’t a god, Jesus is God. As there is only one god (so say Christians and other monotheists), then yes, Jesus is ‘the god’. God died on the cross for our salvation (if you accept the Gospels as fact). God continued to exist. God caused Mary to conceive a child, and Mary gave birth to God (God must’ve existed in a form capable of causing this action prior to his birth, obviously).
The Holy Spirit and the Father are also both God. Not a God; they’re part of the same being. Like, perhaps, the way Elizabeth II is Queen of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and her various other realms and territories, except the other way round (i.e. whereas Australia, New Zealand etc. are different entities united in a common bond to a single form, God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all the same entity split into different entities).
I’m not an expert either, just a non-(born-again-)Christian layman like many people. All I can do is regurgitate what I was taught in my Catholic primary school, and hope your imagination can take my assertions and mould them into something it can comprehend. Thus the example of the Queen is almost certainly not doctrine, but it might at least head you off in the right direction of understanding. OTOH, maybe I’ll earn myself a doctorate of the church for such a novel and comprehensible description.
Another option, which some Christian friends have used when I’ve discussed various other things with them, is that it’s best not to try to understand God. Omnipotence really can give you some incomprehensible capabilities.
Benno, by the looks of things my blog isn’t written. At least I haven’t posted there all semester. And I’m inclined to believe that my sane alter ego is the one who writes these comments, the insane one is the normal, at large on the streets of Melbourne. In any case, I find my evidence in support of a cabal of cartographers that rule the world quite convincing. If I’m the only person who does, and so can use this knowledge to take over the world: well, all the better for me! (BTW, there’s only one i in my name. I’m a little picky about it.)
Oh also Benno, the people on this blog are so much more able to sustain an argument and hold and express opinions, even wrong ones, than I am, so I’m careful with what I say, because I don’t want to look like the loser I settle for appearing as in the rest of the world 🙂
(By wrong I meant disagreeing/differing. Don’t mean to cause anyone offence!)
I think the extra i must have been a freudian slip. Maybe I want to have sex with myself, or something. I don’t know, but I am sure that my resident type pscychologist PML will have something interesting to say like “You’re a twisted freak man, stay away from me.”, or something.
ANy way “I hate Gods, they live like dogs, some eat bananas and some eat frogs, some wear turbans some wear clogs, all the bloody same to me cos i hate Gods”
“And the local chip shop down the street is run by a bloody GreekHe’s open sixteen hours a day and seven days a weekAnd every cent that you spend there on a pie or on dumsimHelps to send back home to Greece for a bastard just like him!Oh, I never eat there meself ’cause I couldn’t touch Wog meatI usually eat at the Chinese caf’ that’s just across the street!”
“I was queueing down at the Registry, a-pickin’ up me doleIn front of me was a Yugoslav, in front of him a PoleBehind me was a Eyetalian, behind him was a TurkThose lazy migrant bastards do, they never bloody work”
I understand, but John Howard prefers that we air the dark side of human nature out for all to see.
SOrry to create more work for you JQ
AR, nothing in the original text says:-
– that object was perfectly round;
– that object was perfectly representative of all circles (in fact, pi only ever applies to the ideal circle, which does not exist);
– that object’s diameter was taken conveniently (so your considerations of its circumference aren’t to the point after all).
As it happens, the circle is the shape which minimises the circumference for a given area. That’s not quite the same as having a well defined circumference:diameter ratio, since you have to define how to measure the diameter first. As it happens, the circumference:diameter ratio of a regular hexagon is 3:1 if you define the diameter to be the diagonal.
But the mere fact that pi is only applicable for the ideal circle means that it cannot be implied by the measurements of any actual artefact, whether the Ark or a pillar of the temple or whatever. Think about it; you yourself are working with an ideal and not an actual thing. Plato, thous shoulds be with us at this hour, the blogosphere hath need of thee.
Tristan, thanks; fair enough.
In case some of our dimmer trolls are reading this thread, I’ll point out that Benno’s “I hate wogs” comment contains the lyrics of a satirical song by Eric Bogle. There’s a rather inaccurate transcription here
Yeah, I have a tape of Eric Bogle somewhere and I knew it wasn’t quite right. The internet when it does yield a lyric isn’t always accurate. I’d prefer to be wrong on something blameable rather than my own memory.
If there are any not so dim trolls reading this thread, then I suggest you go to somewhere far more entertaining like http://www.nationstates.net I had great fun there. I created nations with names similar to other player’s and used them for illicit activity. They became DOS nations which meant the the moderators deleted them on site, but because there are 100,000+ nations and the moderators have little time, they also deleted on site any nation with names similar to mine, which meant the legitimate nations. They also have a John Howard esque never admit that you’re wrong policy, which means that once deleted never to be returned. I destroyed a whole region that way and then it became vulnerable to several take over attempts. I won’t tell you the name of the region because that would just inflame the trolls.
‘The nation “magnificent_stooge” no longer exists.’ that was because Karma came back to bite me, so don’t worry the universe is still in balance.
Are there no limits to the cravenness of the Howard government’s management of relations with powerful nations?
Still licking its lips after servicing the Bush clique in its quixotic GWOT, the indefatigable rent boys of Canberra attempt to pleasure the governing clique of the PRC by deliberately misleading the unfortunate defector Chen Yonglin.
Mr Chen was to be inveigled into declining to lodge an application for political asylum. Apparently, the Government believed that they could quietly bury this injustice among the many others meted out by the Immigration Department.
Prudently, it seems, Mr Chen did apply for political asylum. Perhaps as a political officer for the PRC he knew something of the form of the Howard Government.
But in an act of tiny-minded pettifoggery reminiscent of Howard’s infamous declaration of exclusion zones, it is now argued that Mr Chen’s written application for political asylum was not a “formal” application under the Act.
What have we done to deserve this government? Those people doing it must stop it so that we can begin to restore our dignity as a nation.
I wonder if Schapelle Corby was a Liberal voter.