Uncategorized Archives - Page 63 of 1211

Calendar dates and multiplying to 24

Is that February 12 or December 2?

I love multiplying to 24. I’ll get back to that.

One of the fun quirks of the calendar that folks like to glom onto are interesting patterns. The last day of the last year is an example: 12/31/23. An outsized number of couples reportedly got married, with no excuse for not remembering their anniversary.

Of course, that doesn’t quite work unless your calendar is MM/DD/YY. If you use DD/MM/YY, like most civilised places, then 31/12/23 isn’t all that. Pi day works as 03/14, but not so much as 14/03.

At the beginning of each century, we had fun repeating numbers: 01/01/01, 02/02/02, all the way to 12/12/12, and the order does not matter. This means, though, that I’ll have to wait until 1 January 2101 for the next one, when I’ll be 147.

Meanwhile, I’m noting all the wonderful dates that multiply to 24. Since multiplication is communicative – changing the order of the factor does not change the product – it doesn’t matter which way you do your calendar.

01/24 or 24/01 is January 24, and the product equals 24

02/12 or 12/02. Is that February 12 or December 2? It doesn’t matter; it multiplies to 24. 03/08 and 08/03 are March 8 and August 3, which multiplies to 24. 04/06 and 06/04 are April 6 and June 4; multiply them and get 24.

That’s seven combinations. Is there any other year that generates more combinations? Does another year generate even as many? The years ending in 12 and 48 have six such dates each.

And if you’re a YY/MM/DD person, which a librarian will tell you is quite logical in file naming, you can divide.

Unrelated, 24 is the uniform number of my favorite baseball player ever, Willie Mays.

Note perfect

I hear numbers. It’s not unlike hearing music. You have whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes. You can add a dot and extend the value by 50%.

This article from the American Mathematical Society quotes Pythagoras: “There is geometry in the humming of the strings; there is music in the spacing of the spheres.”

AMS notes – no pun intended: ” Counting, rhythm, scales, intervals, patterns, symbols, harmonies, time signatures, overtones, tone, pitch. The notations of composers and sounds made by musicians are connected to mathematics.”

Documentary review: Kelce

New Heights

After I had read that Philadelphia Eagles and NFL All-Pro center Jason Kelce was contemplating retiring from (American) football after the 2023-2024 season, I watched the Amazon film Kelce. It has become the most-watched documentary on Prime Video.

“Jason Kelce started documenting what he thought was his final year in the NFL “(2022-2023). “Instead, the film intimately captures the most epic year in Jason and Travis’s life.”

The viewer gets a detailed view of Jason’s life. His wife, Kylie, tells about their online meeting and strange first date.

During the offseason, Jason notes how beat up his body was. When he was a young man, his body bounced back quickly. Still, as an old man of 35 or so, with numerous broken and bruised body parts, he wonders whether he can recover well enough to play the game at an elite level.

And he is being paid a lot of money, an estimated $14 million in his 12th season, more than any offensive lineman in the NFL. Jason and Kylie have two young daughters, and he wants to be physically able to play with them. Then Kylie discovers she’s pregnant with their third child, due about two weeks after the Super Bowl.

What will Jason do if he retires? Real estate, farming? He asks some retired Eagles brethren, some of whom thrived while others struggled to find something nearly as rewarding.

Then, the brothers were offered the opportunity to “host the popular New Heights podcast with high-profile sponsors.” Jason has also appeared in various commercials.

Really?

Travis said something his older brother thought was BS, that once you win the Super Bowl and then lose the big game, your desire to win it again becomes even greater. Jason and the Eagles won the February 2018 matchup with the New England Patriots, 41-33. Travis and his Kansas City Chiefs beat the 49ers 31-20 in February 2020 but, a year later, fell to the Tampa Bay Bucs 31-9.

The Eagles and the Chiefs met at the Super Bowl in February 2023. This matchup, brother versus brother, made their mom, Donna, an instant celebrity. The movie was more interesting than I expected, given that the outcome of that last game was well-known.

Shaken a soda can

Pepsi, Coke – it doesn’t really matter

This will be oblique for various reasons, not the least of which, oddly enough, is protecting another soda can.

If you’ve ever shaken or dropped a soda can, you know the contents can spill everywhere when you open it.

Well, I am a soda can. And I have been spilling all over the place all this past week.

The item that triggered this episode had its roots over six months ago when someone else’s can of soda was so pressurized that it was spewing all over the place and ended up creating a dangerous, potentially lethal situation.

I waited for that one to get its act together and acknowledge its irresponsible behavior. When the other soda indicated that it may have needed my help with something, I looked forward to creating conditions whereby the situation might have been remedied. Alas, it did not happen.

So when that soda offered a linguistic correction about a third party, my soda can spewed everywhere. It wasn’t about the third party – although they might have thought so – but the shaking that had occurred months earlier.

To be fair, that soda can, and this one is now seeking rapprochement.

And what it did was to point out a whole level of disequilibrium that had been going on in other areas. Last week, my soda can was shaken by the slightest tremor.

Someone once told me you can break up the bubbles in a dropped soda can by tapping on the top. In my experience, this works nine times out of ten. I need to figure out how to do the tapping. Or find someone else to help to do the tapping, which has historically been a royal pain in the tuchas.

Sunday Stealing: interrobang

Rob and Laura Petrie

This week’s Sunday Stealing doesn’t have a title. But it does feature the interrobang.

1. If you could have a remote control that could pause time, what would you do with it?

There are two contrasting responses to this question. I wish I had said X, didn’t say Y, or didn’t do Z. Those moments, some from years or decades ago, and at least one from the past week, I wish I could take back.

On the other hand, many of those moments led to something else, much of which I’m very grateful for. On balance, I’m leaning towards Que Sera Sera.

2. What’s the silliest thing you believed as a child that you wish were true now?

I had a series of dreams as recently as a year or two ago that I could fly maybe 10 meters above the ground. I could get from place to place much faster. Silly isn’t how I would describe it, though.

3. If your life had a theme song that played every time you entered a room, what song would it be?

Roger Ramjet cartoon theme because when I was kid, some kids would sing it to me. I might as well lean into it.

4. If you were a vegetable, and someone accidentally ate you, what would you want them to say after the first bite?

“You taste terrible!”

Strawberry Letter 23

5. If you were a flavor of ice cream, which one would you be, and why?

Strawberry because I like strawberry ice cream. The local milk company Stewart’s doesn’t sell half gallons of strawberry ice cream alone; it only sells it as part of a Neapolitan package. There may be a vanilla and strawberry combo, and strawberry pints are available. So, I am countering against strawberry ice cream discrimination.

6. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever googled or searched for on the internet?

This is difficult because I search for many things that someone else might think are weird. As a librarian, I often looked for things I didn’t even understand; I found articles to explain the concept so I could fulfill the research request. There was a question in the 1990s with some sexual, albeit legal, component – I no longer recall the specifics – and one librarian was uncomfortable working on the query. I wasn’t bothered by it.

7. If your pet could suddenly talk, what do you think it would say to you first?

This presupposes my cats cannot talk. When breakfast is a few minutes late, Midnight caterwauls, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.”

8. If you were a character in a video game, what would be your special move?

The power to disappear, a function I sometimes wish I had IRL.

Genealogy

9. What’s the most bizarre item you’ve ever bought online?

Bizarre is not the word I would use. But I have purchased books for very small pieces of information. For instance, in mid-2023, I purchased the book African-Americans in the Wyoming Valley, 1778-1990 by Emerson and Moss because it had three brief references to Samuel J. Patterson, one of my great-great-grandfathers who fought in the American Civil War. Now I’m glad I did because the tome I purchased for $30 now goes for $200.

10. If you could replace the sound of one everyday activity with your own voice, which activity would you choose?

I don’t want to hear the sound of my own voice.

Question mark? Exclamation point!

11. If you were a punctuation mark, which one would you be, and how would you punctuate people’s sentences?

What you’ve been waiting for – the interrobang, (‽), which “is a blend of Latin interrogātiō (“examination, inquiry, interrogation, questioning”) +‎ bang (“exclamation mark, exclamation point”), coined in a 1962 article in the journal TYPEtalks by American advertising executive Martin K. Speckter (1915–1988), who invented the symbol.” It’s generally used in response to those WTH moments in life.

From here: “The interrobang is great for rhetorical questions. You know, those questions that are asked to make a point, and an answer is not needed or even required. ‘What business is it of yours‘– Statement, not a question – do not answer, back away!“

12. If you could have any celebrity be your personal assistant for a day, who would it be, and what tasks would you assign them?

I could use an assistant to type, clean, and cook. I understand Julia Roberts can cook. I’d love for her to tell me about how ML and Coretta Scott King paid the hospital bill for her birth.

Bob and Ray

13. What would be the worst “buy one, get one free” sale item ever?

A Komodo dragon.

14. If you could trade places with any fictional character from a book or movie, who would it be, and what would you do differently in their story?

As I’m disinclined to change the plot of my own life, I am equally not interested in doing that for a fictional character. Besides, with the multiverse, that alternate version probably exists anyway.

15. If you had to live inside a TV show for a month, which show would you pick, and why?

The Dick Van Dyke Show. I watched it religiously as a kid and wanted to be friends with young Ritchie because I thought his parents, Rob and Laura, were cool.

Music of the early 20th century

Ezekiel 37

This music of the early 20th century became another mixed CD, which I’ll probably complete next month.

Maple Leaf Rag – Paul Schoenfeld. Right away, a bit of fiction. I did not have a Scott Joplin recording, which does exist (!), in my CD collection, so I went with another. But I can’t find that on YouTube, so you must settle for the original!

Who’s Sorry Now – the Rhythmakers. This song receives a very different take by Connie Francis (#4 in 1958). The tune hit the charts by five different artists in 1923, but it does not appear to include the Billy Banks-led group. Classic Ersie two-step.

Bizet Has His Day – Les Brown (1941). This is based on Bizet’s Farandole from L’Arlésienne-Suite. I’m a sucker for popular songs swiping classical themes.

Run On For A Long Time – Bill Landford and the Landfordaires (1949). As I noted here, this recording was the foundation of Moby’s Run On.

Little Brown Jug – Glenn Miller (1939),. It’s Glenn Miller.

Hit That Jive, Jack – Nat King Cole. When I was aware of Nat Cole, he released songs like Ramblin’ Rose, People, and Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer, which were fine. But early Nat was great.

Which bone is connected to which?

Dry Bones – Delta Rhythm Boys. This song was inspired by Ezekiel 37 in the Hebrew scripture/Old Testament of the Bible. Here’s a version where the camera focuses on the parts of the singers’ bodies. I put this track on a Biblical sources Mixed CD. The CD I took the track from was the soundtrack to the movie Rain Man; I love the first half of that album.

Cow Cow Blues – Meade Lux Lewis (1951). It’s probably from an Atlantic Blues CD.

Rag Mop – the Ames Brothers (1950). This was a #1 song for two weeks. But I first heard a version of it on the Beany and Cecil cartoon show when I was a kid. I looked for a decent YouTube video but found a lot of remixes; here’s a snippet. You may know the song from the Muppet Show, as shown here.