Plimpton 322

Plimpton 322, the tiny dark star of Columbia University's Rare Book Library, is probably the world's best known piece of Mesopotamian mathematics. A clay tablet, about 5 inches long and 3.5 inches wide, with 4 columns and 15 rows of cuneiform hexadecimal numbers, it is usually dated 1900-1600 BC. Sir Christopher Zeeman lectured on it in San Antonio in 1995 AD, calls it ``the oldest preserved document on number theory," and gives a mathematical argument for its interpretation as a set of pythagorean triples...

link

i'm feeling lucky/search

Popcorn secrets

Popcorn kernels are nature's firecrackers, and as with any explosive device, sometimes you get a dud. In this modern era of microwave popcorn, in fact, sometimes you get a lot of duds - a mass of unpopped kernels rolling around the soggy bottom of the bag...

link

Sightseeing along the Nile

Food pyramid becomes 12 pyramids

I could never understand the logic of the food pyramid. Why is all the bad stuff up on top? Only because you're not supposed to eat much of it? Shouldn't candy and the deadlier fat variants be sepulchered far beneath the pyramid, accessible only to the intrepid explorer with the professionalism to know when and how much to partake of them? We'd all be a lot safer that way. Do I really have to lay that gigantic foundation of rice, cereals, and breads in order to enjoy an apple or tree of broccoli, just a single level up?

But my bathroom scale keeps creeping up, too. I had been thinking I should convert to food pyramidism. But now, just when I was going to make the first cautious enquiries, it's suddenly ballooned into 12 pyramids.

I can't even find a diagram for new the pyramids. Someone is going to need to draw a detailed map.

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[Added later: I love the name of this "Boston-based think tank that specializes in food issues," the Oldways Preservation Trust. They should put them on the pyramid committee.]

Favorite rides, or "Hello, I'm Grumpy"

It figures that my two favorite rides—Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion—celebrate rape, pillage, plunder and death.

link (outerlife.com)

Also—the excellent Mr Toad's Wild Ride, a reflection on insanity and the meaningless of life.

More: The happiest place on Earth

Billy Cottrell gets 8 years

LOS ANGELES—A graduate student was sentenced Monday to more than eight years in prison and ordered to pay millions of dollars in restitution for firebombing scores of sport utility vehicles.

William Jensen Cottrell, 24, was convicted in November of conspiracy to commit arson and seven counts of arson...

[link (news article); also this from the deep archives]