The World According to dude

Whoa! 2 posts in the same week? Where else are you going to get this kind of action? But, you'll see why in a sec.

The reason is, is, some of (one of) my VR has finally kicked into gear and is PARTICIPATING, instead of LURKING.

In case you were too lethargic to precisely position the cursor over the comments button and click that mouse, here follow the comments the astute dude made. He was bemoaning The Way Things Are*:

His rants follow:

1. The death of playgrounds as we have known them.

My main beef here is that playground design and management has been wrested from the "old guard" who rightfully saw them as places for kids to have fun, but not without a certain element of danger. The "new guard," recreation do-gooders believe that sand isn't soft enough to fall into, you gotta have some kind of rubbery shit all over the place. They think that metal isn't an appropriate material for climbing structures, and that monkey bars, swings of all sorts, and see-saws oughta go. However, the unfortunate evolution of our playgrounds in which safety is emphasized over real learning misses the point: Playgrounds are a powerful metaphor: We shouldn't sugar-coat life for our kids, or someday, due to their lack of vigilance, they're gonna get smacked in the teeth by a see-saw. That should be enough to start the conversation -- don't make me get into my feelings about dodgeball and lawn darts -- also classic metaphors for development of much needed survival skills.

2. I was sitting listening to my daughter doing her calc homework, and we started talking about PI (3.141592654....etc.). It occurred to me that this is such an awkward number, having infinitely non-repeating decimal places, but, nevertheless, vital to our knowing some basic things about how our universe is constructed.
So (and here's my point), why shouldn't PI be a simple number, like "1" and then construct our math around it? In other words, adopt a math system in basePI. Perhaps something beautiful would be revealed? Whattaya think?
Faithfully,
dude

You read my response to the playground/Life's too Dangerous to Allow Fun bidniss. Now you get my response to the whole basepi idea.

dude! Who cares?

But, since you do, let's push things forward. Or some direction, anyways.

What about base1? Doesn't the binary system sorta, kina do this? On/off..... That's a very elegant concept. But it's not basepi. And what about all of the other concept numbers? Are they going to want their own system? Where will it end?!! And who's going to design this basepi system? Not me!

But let's take this whole base thingy to its logical starting point:

Canadians.


There's very little to fault our northerly cousins for up there in their huge little country. Except for this:

They're very......what? Never annoying, or rude, or disrespectful, or anything. They're so nice! But what do you expect? They're Canadian.

Let's see....what adjective can I find that describes how they are about their metric system? Slightly superior?

It'll have to do.

So. Metrics. Base 10. Very logical, very useful, easy to deal with. Slide that decimal willy-nilly, and you've calculated all kina shit, just like that. Try that with base twelve, eh?

OK, I agree! I'm a big supporter of the metric system. I've been using it my whole life. Centimeters, millimeters, kilometers, no problem. I think we should adopt metrics here in the US of A.

But they's a big problem with metrics. And I will illuminate it forthwith.

You know how Canadians think pizza is a frozen toaster waffle, ketchup, and brie melted over it in the microwave?

By the way, this is a shameful thing, seeing as how parts of Canada are within a few miles of New York. They should know better. But I digress.

Maybe this is why they get so uppity about metrics. You can easily cut a square waffle into tenths. If you study on it, you know how the waffle has the grid laid out on it? I wonder if there's 10x10 syrup detents? That would be something to look into, if I really gave a crap.

But try cutting a round pizza into tenths! There goes your fucking metric system, baby! Quarters, eighths, sixteenths. If you try hard, thirds, sixths, twelfths. You'd have to be a maniac to try to cut it into tenths.

They must run into this in Canada, too. They probably have pie in Canada. Like mooseberry and salmonberry pie. Pies are often round....

Maybe they make 'em in those square pyrex dishes up there.

*You must reference the movie "Babe" for a perspective on "The Way Things Are". This is a Must See movie.