Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Big Piece Of Pi, Thieves With Bad Taste, Hitler Youth, Etc
These stories caught my eye because one of them involves a semi-local kid... one involves an area local to where Wendy used to live... and one involves an area where I used to live...
- Yes, But Can He Bake A Pie?
A young local math wiz has done good:
Gaurav Raja can't really explain how he memorized and recited 10,980 digits of pi.
"I just can do it," Gaurav said Monday after breaking the North American and U.S. record, which stood at 10,625 for 27 years. "I don't think it's amazing, but it's like, yeah, I can do it!"
The achievement ranks Gaurav ninth in the world. The world record is 42,195.
It was the Salem High School junior's third attempt to break the record.
Gaurav, 15, has worked for the title since 2004.
I have to wonder how long it takes to recite pi out to 10,980 digits. I can't even imagine how long it would take me to recite 10,980 random digits. I don't know if I could do it without going into some kind of spasms. Of course, I've made no secret of my dysfunctional math phobia. I look at even the simplest sequence of numbers and I see this. - Maybe They're Bad Kids, Maybe Not.
A Northport New York high school has apologized after two students picked a Hitler quote for their photo captions in the year book:
Two high school seniors picked quotations from Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" to appear under their high school yearbook pictures, prompting school officials to apologize.
The quotes were picked by Christopher Koulermos and Philip Compton, both 18. Koulermos' read "Strength lies not in defense, but in attack." Compton chose "The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."
"It's our responsibility and we failed miserably," said Northport High School principal Irene McLaughlin. "The fact that the book went out in the form it did was a grave mistake on our part." ...
Compton's father, Steven, said that his son meant no harm in picking the quote. "I guess he didn't seriously consider the source; he was more interested in the quote," he said. "He's a child."
I'm inclined to believe that the kids really aren't young Nazis. I mean, sure, you don't want to go around quoting Hitler, you'll come off like a fascist. But the thing is, that one quote really is a good quote... and, ironically, I think that quote is a great explanation of how Hitler came into power in the first place. Hitler told big lies and Germany believed them. That quote works on more than one level. My gut reaction: Cut the kids some slack. - Stealing Is Wrong. Stealing Dumb Movies Is More Wronger.
I used to live in Beckley, West Virginia... and I saw some weird things happen there. And this bit isn't even the weirdest thing I personally know to have happened in Beckley:
Thieves swiped more than 270 copies of the 20th Century Fox flick (Cheaper By The Dozen 2) from Wal-Mart stores in Beckley, MacArthur, Summersville, Lewisburg and neighboring Virginia shortly after it was released on DVD in late May, along with 22 copies of "Hollowman 2" and several other random items, said State Police Trooper M.S. Efird.
Efird said the "Cheaper by the Dozen" DVDs alone were worth $6,000.
A man and woman were captured by video surveillance that showed the pair entering the Beckley store and getting a shopping cart and storage container. They were briefly joined by three other people. The man and woman then went to the electronics department, where the man stuffed the DVDs into the storage container, Efird said.
The man talked on a cell phone and then the pair escaped through a rear fire door and climbed into a van, Efird said.
By "neighboring Virginia," I'm sure they mean the local Wal-Mart that Wendy and I shop in almost every other day. It is, after all, a straight shot on the interstate to that Wal-Mart from Beckley and Lewisburg.
Why would anyone pick that particular movie to steal that many copies of? What was going on in their heads? "You know how we can get rich? Well, Cheaper By The Dozen 2 comes out on DVD soon, and there's gonna be such a huge clamor for that film. If only we could get hold of some hot copies and sell 'em on the black market..." I mean, WTF?? - Speaking of Bad Movies...
If you're so inclined, you can visit film geeks and read my review of a piece of garbage film called Room 6.
Permalink -- Posted by Darrell at 12:31 
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The story about the Cheaper By The Dozen 2 is one of them satire things from The Onion, right?
Oh wait, that was yesterday...
The only suitable punishment for stealing 6000 copies of that movie, along with the copies of Hollowman 2, is to have to watch every single one of them.
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Oh wait, that was yesterday...
The only suitable punishment for stealing 6000 copies of that movie, along with the copies of Hollowman 2, is to have to watch every single one of them.
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