h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Free meal at some pizzeria* in Marseilles

That is to say, the offer is true Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and you must roll three dice and obtain "421" before paying.



What bugged me a little in this is: I heard that on a radio show, and the host stated that some guy had computed that you the odds for your getting a free meal are 1:36. He added that he didn't quite believe this result as he found it "too low". Nobody else among the guests and audience** could help him out. And he would personally gutfeelingly estimate the probability around one in a few thousands against

Should this (probability of getting 4,2,1 in a single throw of three dice) be standard mathematical numeracy? Or at least how to find out and get a coarse estimate of the result?

* Chez Picone
** In fairness to the audience, maybe those who knew just didn't speak up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8410946.stm

Oh dear...they caught the bloke who hit him...

That would never happen to a Canadian Prime Minister: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawinigan_Handshake

>> Not a new law, but one going back to 26th Brumaire year IX (17th November 1800)
and which has never been repealed for some reason. <<

Hey, Napoleon had a lot of good ideas.
A lot of them are still on the books.
Mind you, there weren't a lot of bicycles around in 1800.


~jwf~

That could be a later addition

I didn't get much sympathy for my cold weather story.

Here's a bit more detail:

'Edmonton has established a record it would probably rather forget.

The Alberta capital recorded the lowest temperature in North America overnight Saturday — and set a record as the lowest temperature on a Dec. 13 in the city's history — as the current deep freeze established records across the province.'

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2009/12/13/calgary-frigid-weather.html

Anybody else get to -46.1 *without windchill* last night? Did I get the lowest temperature just in North America or was it most of the world? It's summer in Antarctica, after all.

It's only about -30 so far tonight. I went for dinner with the extended family at my parent's this evening and the power went off for about four hours. It was one of the nicest family dinners we've had.

Nice bit about teh kitteh

I'm cewrtainl.y not going to judge anyone by their spelling or grammer.

Lest ye be judged?

Maybe it is not spelling/grammar but typing.. ? .. ... ....... ............................................ . . . .. ...

'The city of Berkeley mailed coat hangers to 20 members of Congress on Wednesday in protest of the anti-abortion amendment in the House version of the federal health care bill.'


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/09/BA181B1ODQ.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0ZfrowTPQ

>> I didn't get much sympathy for my cold weather story.
Anybody else get to -46.1 *without windchill* last night? <<



Well most folks have no idea what that would be like.
And I live downhill from you so I expect it'll reach here
in a day or two. Mind you the traffic and smokestacks between
there and here will have taken a bit of the edge off it by then,
but thanks for the warning!


~jwf~

Anhaga, -10°C is already terribly cold for me...
I can't even imagine what -40 would be like, apart from turning me into a block of ice!!

An odd thing is that if I hadn't read the news, I wouldn't have noticed that it was particularly cold.

another odd thing is that the forecast for Thursday is +2.

Indeed, "46" is the sort of temperature I usually associate with "+". Actually I don't think I can even imagine the difference between, say, -16 and -46. Bloody in both cases.

Amen to that, Toybox!

Macdonald [former Director of Public Prosecutions] said that Blair's fundamental flaw was his "sycophancy towards power" and that he could not resist the "glamour" he attracted in Washington.

"In this sense he was weak and, as we can see, he remains so," Macdonald went on.

"Since those sorry days we have frequently heard him repeating the self-regarding mantra that 'hand on heart, I only did what I thought was right'. But this is a narcissist's defence, and self-belief is no answer to misjudgment..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/dec/14/tony-blair-ken-macdonald-deceit

"A study conducted at the Calvary Mater Newcastle Hospital, north of Sydney, found that in the year to July, 91 emergency patients with violent, acute disturbances comparable to werewolves were admitted."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6806151/Full-moon-brings-out-inner-werewolf-scientists-say.html

here's story from my town that isn't about the weather.

'A Grade 3 teacher with a passion for kickboxing is one of 13 Edmontonians featured in a new calendar celebrating local Muslim women.

Noreen Bashir will be seen in the calendar wearing boxing gloves and a sports hijab at the gym where she works out almost everyday. . . .

The calendar is the brainchild of local photographer and filmmaker Shazia Javed. The women featured in the calendar were nominated by the local Muslim community and include medical students at the University of Alberta, a local youth worker and a pizzeria owner who raised triplets on her own. Some, but not all, wear head coverings.'

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2009/12/14/edmonton-muslim-women-calendar.html

As a contrast to the story about the calendar of Muslim women:

'Some people in Verona, Italy are up in arms about a nativity scene at their local courthouse in which Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are depicted as dark-skinned people. . . .

Verona has strong links to the Northern League party, a political entity allied with PM Silvio Burlusconi that is strongly anti-immigration — the League is in the midst of a two-month initiative, called White Christmas, in which they hope to "ferret out foreigners without proper permits in Coccaglio, a small League-led town east of Milan". They've also advocated for separate buses and trains for immigrants, banning new mosques, and getting rid of all Chinese and kebab restaurants in the towns where they have the most influence. '

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/14/dark-skinned-nativit.html

I don't understand at all (actually, I think I do): Why is it that white Europeans seem to be unable to make multiculturalism work and we (Canadians) seem to be able to make a go of getting along with each other?

The international news makes a lot of European countries appear to be on the brink of full-on ethnic warfare. I mean, it's not like we don't have a huge population of visible immigrant (and native) minorities, large, crowded and diverse cities, and a multitude of languages (the Northwest Territories have, if I remember correctly, 14 official languages, only two of them of European origin). Our Muslim population has been well established since the 19th century, is rapidly growing, and is pretty much the same percentage of total population as the Muslim population of the UK. Our constitution enshrines the existence of a multitude of 'nations' with in our larger nation and one of those nations is a part of our state while never having ratified our constitution and our Head of State is not even a citizen of our country! Our national government is required by our constitution to encourage and help to preserve the culture of every individual, native born or immigrant, and the country is a pretty bloody happy place with some really good restaurants.

Why doesn't it seem to work in Europe?


Sorry for the rant, but the Italian story is very upsetting to me, not least because I have fond memories of summertime in Italy a quarter century ago.