has self-parody always been a thing?

Posted on Thursday, 2013 September 19 by Anton

The movie Taras Bulba (1962) opens with a narration. I thought: Have I heard that narrator before? Have I heard a parody of that narrator?

Yes and yes. It was Paul Frees, who also narrated Dudley Do-Right.

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i am but mad north-north-west

Posted on Thursday, 2013 September 19 by Anton

On average, my cats don’t ask for much attention; a head-rub suffices for half the day. For a few days recently, they were much more demanding. Perhaps it was the change in the weather; we’ve had a week or so of autumn, though Thursday was summery again.

Posted in Cascadia, pets, spambait | Leave a comment

degrees of treason

Posted on Thursday, 2013 September 19 by Anton

Peter Ludlow (linked from Reason):

The former United States ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, argued that Snowden “thinks he’s smarter and has a higher morality than the rest of us … that he can see clearer than other 299, 999, 999 of us, and therefore he can do what he wants. I say that is the worst form of treason.”

(I haven’t found a more direct source for Bolton’s remarks.) If Snowden had instead sold his info to a rival state, at least he’d be keeping it in the family, as it were, rather than giving it indiscriminately to people who have never taken a government paycheck nor come anywhere near Yale; and it wouldn’t be the great sin of acting on his own initiative.

Later: Rather than go public on his own, Snowden shoulda given the files to 299,999,999 other Americans and let them vote on whether or not to publish.

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cat mannerisms

Posted on Tuesday, 2013 September 17 by Anton

It bothers me that Rocky and Bramble, though not obviously neurotic, don’t share the joyful manner of their predecessor Pillow (2005–2010?), who gave the impression of expecting fun around every corner. What am I doing wrong?

It now occurs to me: at least part of the difference must be that, as Rocky and Bramble never go outside, I never see them trotting.

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it’s all connected

Posted on Saturday, 2013 August 31 by Anton

My old calculus book gives a formula for the curvature of a parametric arc in the plane — that is, an arc defined by two functions (x(t),y(t)) of one variable. For thirty years I didn’t think about the derivation of that formula. Just now it hit me (and I did the algebra to confirm) that, in terms of the complex plane (z=x+iy), the curvature formula is equivalent to

Im(z″/z′) / |z′|

This should improve my cubic approximations to transcendental curves.

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High Throw

Posted on Wednesday, 2013 August 14 by Anton

Read this first.

To throw for maximum distance (on an infinite plane in a vacuum), you aim at 45° elevation; in other words, split kinetic energy evenly between vertical and lateral velocity. (I dimly remember having proven that, but am not awake enough to do it again now.)
It follows that the kinetic energy of a perfect vertical throw is twice the vertical kinetic energy of a perfect distance throw.

The arc of the latter is a parabola, of course, and its height is easily found to be a quarter of its length. Double that, because with double the energy you get double the altitude; and the result is consistent with Munroe’s estimate.

What about air resistance? The vertical throw has a moment of zero speed, but the distance throw’s minimum speed is 1/√2 the maximum; so it seems to me that the vertical throw suffers less air resistance (not even considering the thinner air up there), and therefore the altitude estimate given above is low.

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a trinket becomes a toy

Posted on Thursday, 2013 August 08 by Anton

A new father asked:

Are you charmed or annoyed to learn that your 3d geometric object is making a great toy for [baby, 8 mo.]?

I replied:

I have cats, so I’m not a bit surprised!

On a related note, if I had any knowledge of Web programming I’d make something analogous to this.

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