Thursday, February 25, 2016

Wordplay - from the internet


Some new words to describe emotions. :) Enjoy!

Trumspringa

n. the temptation to step off your career track and become a shepherd in the mountains, following your flock between pastures with a sheepdog and a rifle, watching storms at dusk from the doorway of a small cabin, just the kind of hypnotic diversion that allows your thoughts to make a break for it and wander back to their cubicles in the city.

Semaphorism

n. a conversational hint that you have something personal to say on the subject but don’t go any further—an emphatic nod, a half-told anecdote, an enigmatic ‘I know the feeling'—which you place into conversations like those little flags that warn diggers of something buried underground: maybe a cable that secretly powers your house, maybe a fiberoptic link to some foreign country.

Lalalalia

n. the realization while talking to yourself that someone else is within earshot, which leads you to crossfade into mumbled singing, an auditory sleight of hand that distracts the audience from the exposed platform under your persona while you prepare to saw your confidence in half.

Swish Fulfillment

n. the feeling of delicate luck after casually tossing something across the room and hitting your target so crisply and perfectly that you feel no desire to even attempt another shot, which is a more compelling argument for the concept of monogamous love than anything sung to a guitar.

Flashover

n. the moment a conversation becomes real and alive, which occurs when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily grounding the static emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of friction with the world.

Funkenzwangsvorstellung

n. the instinctive trance of a campfire in the dark, spending hours roasting and watching as it settles and sinks into the ground like a heap of shipwrecks whose sailors raise their flickering sails trying to signal that the prevailing winds of your life are about to shift, that the edge of the Earth is real and looming just a few years ahead, and that your marshmallow is on fire.

Brain Teasers

Quick Brain Twisters for a Thursday Afternoon:
Easy Level:

1. How could a bunny fall out of a 20 story building and still be alive?

2. Its Easter! There is a basket with 6 Easter eggs. 6 bunnies take each one of the eggs. How can it be that one egg is left in the basket?

3. There was a reclusive bunny who never left home. He had weekly supplies of cookies delivered, but they never came inside. Then, one stormy winter night when an icy gale was blowing, the poor bunny had a migraine. He went upstairs, turned off off all the lights, and went to bed. Next morning, he had caused the deaths of over 100 people. How?

4. 5 pieces of coal, a carrot stem and a scarf are lying on a hill near a remote house. Nobody put them on the lawn, but there is a perfectly logical reason they are there. Why?

5. A police bunny saw a trucker bunny clearly going the wrong way down a one-way street, but did not give chase. Why?

Medium Level:

6. What are the next two letters in the following series and why?
W A T N T L I T F S _ _

7.  A women from New York married ten different men from that city, yet she did not break any laws. None of these men died, and she never divorced. How was this possible?

8. The following number is the only one of its kind: 8,549,176,320. Can you figure out what is so special about it?

9. If you wrote all the numbers from 300 to 400 on a piece of paper, how many times would you have written the number 3?

10. Two vertical 750 ft posts have 1000 ft rope stretched between their topmost points. The rope sags to within 250 ft from the ground. How far apart are the posts?

 Hard Level:

 A man wants to have a party in thirty-one days where he will be serving his 1000 barrels of wine. The only problem is that one of his enemies poisoned one of the barrels. The poison kills any man who drinks any of the wine in about 30 days, give or take a few hours. The man has 10 plants that are also killed by the poison in 30 days and can be used to test the wine. How can identify the single poisoned barrel of wine?

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Apples

Okay, so my post has next to nothing to do with Apples, except that's what the kitchen happens to be out of (we have plenty of oranges, but are also out of cookie making ingredients, namely sugar). The bunnies may or may not have anything to do with that. This post will actually be about updates, a few jumbled thoughts, and perhaps a math equation or two.

Here goes:
Well, things have settled down more or less after the bunnies took their little adventure with the transmorgifier. However, general mundane-yet-exciting things have busied up the past week or so. Work for both of my masters has been super busy, with new books and technology rolling in, and existing things to be mended and updated. It's a never ending cycle, or so I'm told. Who knows what actually happens at those work-based jobs of theirs? I spend my afternoons on a couch, or in the park, but mostly bunny-sitting. Anywho, excitement around here is that were busy collecting information on house-buying, which is moving slowly, but were looking forward to it all the same! paperwork, trips to the bank, balancing budgets, housework, have been the order of the day lately. My masters did pick up a coloring book from Costco which is really awesome by the way! Unfortunately for me, one of the coloring pages is of bunnies! And what my masters don't know is that even pictures of bunnies can cause trouble! But these bunnies have been really nice. They are a pair of Lop bunnies, and enjoy being colored immensely.

Back to the house. I'm a little concerned, to be honest. There are so many options, locations, things that can go wrong, in a way it could be the most important (well maybe not but at least the most expensive) decision we will make in the near future, and I pray that our decisions are guided by more than just our guesswork.

Jumping to spring! We had a great beginning to our spring with a fun-filled trip down south to visit family and friends. :) The weather is getting warmer (a little slowly) and the deep breath of spring before summer is a treat to experience and enjoy. I look forward to when it's warm enough to bring out the kayaks, and plan a few trips!

Hmm, it seems I promised a math equation.

here's a quick tip about percents.
10 percent of 50$ is  5$.
50% of 10$ is           5$.

Hmm, that was interesting. Let's try this again:
25% of 70$ is 17.50
70% of 25$ is 17.50

Curious.
~sheepdog~

Friday, February 12, 2016

Friday Fun at Work

Hello Chaps! If you're anything like me, Fridays are very hard to ruin. Monday's are easy, just wake up, and already your filled with Monday morning dread (especially if your Garfield). However, Friday's are just the opposite. While you're busy daydreaming about your evening and weekend plans, here are a few ways to have fun while you are still at your desk:

1. Smile a lot. Tell people Happy Friday. It's like saying Merry Christmas, or Happy Easter! It just spreads the joy around. Or, allows the opportunity to ask someone what they may have planned for the weekend. 

2. Treat yourself. Go on, you deserve it! Bring a cup of cocoa into the office, or take yourself to starbucks before work. Already at work? Drive to the corner mart and pick up a candy bar or something. It doesn't have to be large, or expensive. It could be a box of tic tacs.

3. If you are in a place that allows music on your break, watch a youtube video, or find a few new songs you like to listen to. Here's a trick: you can download youtube songs to your computer so you can listen to the music without the interruption of adds and other videos.
http://www.listentoyoutube.com/

4. Find a comic or fun picture and print it out. Hang it up by your desk! Or, if you have a whiteboard, draw a silly face on it.

5. If you are feeling particularly generous, pick up something tasty for the staff lounge.

6. Take a piece of printer paper and make a paper airplane. It may seem kiddish, but that's what Fridays are all about! Here's a great site for folding: http://www.foldnfly.com 

7. Find  a website with fun lists, like "you know your from Oregon if" or other silly lists like "awesome office pranks".

8. Play a harmless prank on someone. :) Granted, it should be someone who appreciates humor!

9. Teach yourself to memorize numbers! My favorite sets are: Pi, Power's of 2, and the Fibonacci Sequence.

Pi: 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693... That should get you started
Power's of 2: 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048,4096,8192, 16384, 32768...
Fibonacci Sequence (also known as the bunny problem, where you add the previous 2 digits to get the next digit in the sequence): 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233,377,610,987,1597...

Or, make your own sequence! 

10. Throw sprinkles and confetti at everyone you see!! 

Enjoy your Friday!!
~Sheepdog~

Thursday, February 11, 2016

The Bunnies Got Hold of a Transmorgifier!

*whew* The transmorgifier has finally been decommissioned. *A bat and a smashed box lies in the corner* What a night, I can tell you! Looking back, I'm not sure this wasn't worse than the time the bunnies invited those furbys over for a late night game of parcheesi. What happened you ask? Well, all I have from last night is a headache, and some hastily written journal entries. Feel free to take a look:

2/11/2016 6:00pm
Good Morning Chaps! The bunnies have gotten a hold of a large cardboard box! I can't say what used to be in the cardboard box, it's a surprise don'tcha know. Anyways, those of you familiar with Calvin's work may recognize what a transmorgifier does. If you're not, well allow me to explain. A transmorgifier can turn anyone, or anything into something else. Calvin, for instance decided to turn himself into a tiger like Hobbes. They say imitation is flattery but... the transmorgifier seems to retain the original mass of the object. In this case, Calvin was turned into a very short, small tiger. So the good news for me is that the bunnies can only get into so much trouble if they cannot change their size. That said, I am skeptical of their getting this contraption to work. I hear Calvin is something of a genius, and the physics alone, not to mention the dubious science of alchemy seems to prove this isn't as easy as writing "transmorgifier" on the side of a cardboard box. ...or is it?

2/11/2016 6:23pm
Well, I stand corrected. I was ready to debate physics properties and equations all night, but while I was taking the bunnies through the finer parts of particle fission and available power sources, Blue Bunny hopped over to the box, wrote "transmorgifier" on the side and turned himself into a miniature sheepdog! ...I'm flattered....I think..?

2/11/2016 7:00pm
Their party seems to be harmless enough. They are playing a modified form of Parcheesi in the living room where each time someone has to go back a space, the other 2 bunnies get to pick an animal and transmorgify that player. Right now there is a frog, an owl and a white elephant (all miniature). I've lost track which bunny is which. They are munching away on cookies, which I might add used to be apples and broccoli. Apparently they've discovered they can convert other items in the house to fit their liking. I've opted out of their crazy game, but am watching with bemused interest.

2/11/2016 8:30pm
Things are beginning to get a little more interesting, and I might add, worrisome. They've converted most of the edible food in the house into cookies, turned the coffee table into a trampoline, and they've now converted back into bunnies (thank goodness). But I have a sneaking suspicion that they are no longer themselves. Blue Bunny for instance, is acting a lot like gray bunny, and I could have sworn that Brown Bunny is using phrases I've only ever heard Blue Bunny make. This could turn into a problem...

2/11/2016 10:45pm
I have escaped to the back room. Things are getting a little out of hand. They discovered they can turn themselves into fictional characters. We now have a Dragon on the chandelier, the Loch Ness Monster in the sink, and Zapdos on the fireplace (all still miniature) fighting a battle in the living room. I've told them not to overdo it but at this point I'm going to bed and hope they don't burn the house down.

2/11/2016 11:32pm
I'm hurriedly typing this under the bed. My master's are still MIA, so I'm left to "handle" the situation. All three bunnies have turned themselves into Raptors, which has also changed their personality. They are proceeding to tear up the place in search of food. By which I mean Meat. they've emptied the freezer, and are looking for more. Wait, I think I just heard them leave the house and begin searching the neighborhood. Now's my chance, maybe if I smash the box they'll turn back to normal...


2/12/2016 2:00am
The smashed box didn't seem to work. At least I'm still hearing screams from the neighbors. I've spent the last 3 hours trying to create a handheld version that I can go hunting with. Perhaps I can turn them into something passive like petunias....

2/12/2016 3:39am
I've got 2/3 petunias, I mean bunnies back to normal. I'll bet the last one is Blue Bunny... At least the other 2 have agreed to help...

2/12/2016 5:59am
All bunnies back to normal. No neighbors were harmed, although much of their larders are gone. It seems the raptor/bunnies were still mostly motivated by sugar, I doubt there is a cookie left on the entire block. They will have some large headaches come this morning. I'm going to bed for real this time. Good night all...

~Sheepdog~

Monday, February 8, 2016

P=NP



Let’s win $1,000,000!
Good Morning All! Today we shall endeavor to win $1m by solving a really tough mathematical problem. There are 7 so-called millennial problems, the solution of each of them merit’s a $1m prize.  I’ve picked the first on the list, a seemingly easy problem called P=NP. Right then chaps, let’s solve it!

P=NP
Problem = No Problem!
Wait, that’s not right… erm, P must be a variable, that’s it. And, the N must stand for Not. So… some number P is equal to some other number Not P?
P=NP……. 1=2? But how could 1=2? That’s already been disproven, hasn’t it? Okay, how about in Modular arithmetic, or Non-Euclidean Geometry? *Consults* Well, those branches of math have their own problems, let’s leave them alone. Okay, another approach, suppose were looking for something universal? That all problems which have no solutions actually have solutions??
Hmm, obviously were not getting anywhere. Let’s try looking this problem up:

*45 minutes pass* The office is a mess of crumpled papers, scribbled notes, and half the walls are covered in print-outs. Sheepdogs wilted to the floor, and the bunnys have poured cocoa on his furry head in efforts to revive him.

*Ahem* No thanks to the bunnies, we may finally have some answers. P=NP states that if a computational solution to a problem can be verified, there exists an algorithm to solve the problem. P represents the problem, where a solution may exist, and NP represents the verified solution.

Buy why call them P and NP, you ask? Trust me on this one, you don’t really want to know. P stands for “The existence of an algorithm for a task that runs in polynomial time. The general class of such questions is called class p, whereas NP is an answer that can be verified in polynomial time, and stands for nondeterministic polynomial time.” See? I told you that you didn’t want to know.

Suppose you ask, as I once did, what polynomial time is. Again, you don’t really want to know. An algorithm is said to be of polynomial time if its running time is upper bounded by a polynomial expression of the same type as the input for the algorithm. From here we get into multiple rabbit trails, including strong and weak polynomial time, super polynomial time, and exponential time. And from there the spiral continues down computational complexity theory.

Anyway, we just wanted to solve this and earn $1m, but how can we solve it if we don’t even understand the question???

Let’s break down all the technical jargon, and see if we can wrap our brains around this concept of P=NP without trying to traverse all of time and space to do it.

Suppose we went to Disneyland! And once we are there, we want to know where the teacups ride is. We walk up to the information desk, and there is a line of people about 10 people in front of us. We still don’t know where the teacups ride is, but we have a pretty good idea how long it will take to find the answer: namely 2 minutes per person times 10 people: or 20 minutes. This is what polynomial time is. It’s a way to determine how long it could take to find the answer.

The information desk here is the algorithm, or solution to our problem. He or she knows where everything is in the park. This is P.

But suppose we don’t go to information. Suppose we ask Mickey Mouse to point us in the direction of the teacups. Mickey doesn’t know where they are, but he knows it’s not in his section of the park. He just verified our guess that it was in a different section of the park. So Mickey is NP.

Now of course, we know in Disneyland, there is an information desk, or algorithm solution to our question. P=NP suggests there is always an information desk anytime there is a Mickey. Can we prove this? Well in any department store, or hotel there seems to be. But what about a Saturday Market of sorts? Any clerk or booth can tell us a piece of the puzzle, like where the broccoli stand is, but can they tell us where everything is? Most likely not. But then, suppose there exists a booth somewhere that is an information booth and we just haven’t found it yet…

In this last case, we don’t know for sure if there even is and information booth. And that is P=NP.

Quick! Go and solve it! And you could earn $1m!!!! Frankly, I may be better off to publish this paper under humor and take my $3 publishing fee. *hehe*

Sheepdog

References to all those big words I wrote: