johnpalmer: (Default)
[personal profile] johnpalmer
I'm still thinking of how a person with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome can fight back against the GOP, in hopes of making them sane again. Blogging is all I can think of. I'm not sure if I should try to blog elsewhere, or just say what I have to say here (or seeing if LongHairedWeirdo - my nom du blog - is available on LJ/DW). Any thoughts?

Interlude: At work, there are a collection of clever and cute bumper stickers. One bothered me for a long time... I finally figured it out recently, though.

It shows a picture of a brain, and a > (greater than) sign. On the right hand side, it had sigma (sum of) i = 1 to n, of (a picture of a bear)/n.

So:

brain picture > (sum from 1 to n) of (bearpicture)-sub-i, divided by n

Can you figure it out?

Hint: think cartoon

Date: 2016-12-07 11:56 pm (UTC)
onyxlynx: The words "Onyx" and "Lynx" with x superimposed (Default)
From: [personal profile] onyxlynx
Brain of very little bear?

Mind greater than the sum of its brewing?

(My head is not going anywhere useful right now.)

Date: 2016-12-10 11:38 pm (UTC)
onyxlynx: The words "Onyx" and "Lynx" with x superimposed (Default)
From: [personal profile] onyxlynx
Smarter than the average bear!

(It only took almost exactly three days. This is why I don't enter contests.)

Date: 2016-12-07 10:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com
I think I'd have to see the image to be able to figure it out, as my math education isn't great!

FWIW, my political action is starting with blogging, but it's more of a study session. I want to make sure I understand clearly any other action I take. So, that's what's going on with my Support and Defend series.

Date: 2016-12-07 10:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] johnpalmer.livejournal.com
I think the image actually made it harder - though that does depend on how one thinks.

Do you know what you call it when you take a group of n values, sum them, and divide by n?

That's what finally tipped me off.

Date: 2016-12-07 10:20 pm (UTC)
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
From: [personal profile] redbird
The only thing I can think of is some kind of reference to Winnie the Pooh and "a bear of little brain," but that doesn't seem to fit.

Date: 2016-12-07 10:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] johnpalmer.livejournal.com
For what it's worth, you have the right species.

Do you know what the sum of n values, divided by n, is called? e.g., 8 different values added together, and divided by 8?

Date: 2016-12-07 10:49 pm (UTC)
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
From: [personal profile] redbird
Oh. Right. I somehow missed the "divided by n" part there.

Date: 2016-12-07 10:28 pm (UTC)
redbird: a butterfly, wings folded, resembling the letter V (_support)
From: [personal profile] redbird
LongHairedWeirdo isn't currently in use on either LJ or DW. If I recall correctly, the maximum length for LJ usernames is 15 characters, in which case this wouldn't fit; Dreamwidth allows longer names (though I'm not sure offhand how long. (I just spent a couple of minutes poking through the FAQs, and couldn't find the length limit for LJ, just that if a name is too long, you'd get an error message.)

Date: 2016-12-08 08:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] acelightning.livejournal.com
Here is what constitutes a valid LJ username:
  • Maximum Length: 15 characters
  • Allowed Characters: a-z, 0-9, and _ (underscore).
  • Reserved: LiveJournal reserves certain prefixes, such as 'ex_', 'ext_', 'lj_', and 's_', for official or system use. These prefixes will produce an error of "Sorry, that is a reserved username."
  • Underscores:Usernames can no longer begin or end with an underscore, nor contain more than one underscore in a row.
Dreamwidth's rules for usernames are "25 or fewer characters with letters, numbers, and hyphens (-) only, with the first and last characters of the username being letters and numbers only."

Note that LJ restricts you to 15 characters, while Dreamwidth gives you 25; LJ specifies only lower-case letter, while Dreamwidth doesn't say anything, but I've never seen a Dreamwidth username that included any upper-case letters: and Dreamwidth only likes hyphens, while LJ only likes underscores.

Date: 2016-12-09 07:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] johnpalmer.livejournal.com
Dreamwidth allowed the full length name so I gave them my money first; I'll decide if I want to add LJ to the mix. At least I'll have a place where it's easy to *start* blogging.

Thank you; you and [livejournal.com profile] redbird helped me actually move forward.

Date: 2016-12-10 09:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] acelightning.livejournal.com
You're welcome! I'm always glad to provide useful information! (As it says in my LJ and DW user profiles, "I have a tendency to emit information and advice almost involuntarily, the way a cat sheds...")

Now I'll go look for the name(s) in both journals, and add you to my "friends" lists :-)

Date: 2016-12-09 07:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] johnpalmer.livejournal.com
LongHairedWeirdo is in use now with a paid account. I'll have to decide if I should dual post to "longhairdweirdo" (drop the e in 'haired') on LJ or not. I don't think it matters... you can comment in DW with an LJ account, IIRC.

Thank you; you helped ensure I'd actually *do* something.

Date: 2016-12-08 12:07 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] acelightning.livejournal.com
"Slightly smarter than the average bear," of course :-D

Date: 2016-12-08 12:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] johnpalmer.livejournal.com
Bingo! Though I always heard Yogi use just "smarter than the average bear" as his catchphrase.

One of the additional tricky bits was realizing that it was "Bear-sub-i" not "bear * i" which could be "imaginary bear" or could be 1 bear when i = 1, 2 bears when i =2, etc..

But I couldn't think of how a brain is greater than a sum and quotient of imaginary bears, or now a brain is greater than (n+1)/2 bears.

Date: 2016-12-08 08:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] acelightning.livejournal.com
Ironically, I am severely dyscalculic, and my knowledge of mathematics (and mathematical symbols) is woefully inadequate. I somehow intuited that the right-hand expression might mean "average". Hmm... "average of bears"... "brain greater than"... oh, right, "smarter than the average bear!" (I've never actually seen any Yogi Bear cartoons, but the expression has been part of American cultural awareness for a long time, which is why I got it sort of wrong anyway.)

Date: 2016-12-09 07:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] johnpalmer.livejournal.com
Yes - Yogi Bear was so long ago that I wasn't going to bet against "slightly smarter" as the initial form of the phrase :-).

Profile

johnpalmer: (Default)
johnpalmer

June 2025

S M T W T F S
1234567
89 1011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 10th, 2025 08:49 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios